Disco Inferno 7 - “Light and Shadows”

[00:00:00] Hello Open Pike Night listeners, new and old, welcome back to Open Pike Night. We are releasing for one week only our Patreon exclusive Section 31 coverage because it is the 31st, so we are right there in line with every other Star Trek podcast.

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[00:00:44] Next up we are going to be talking about Discovery Season 2 Episode 8. That is the one where Pike sees his future. So, if you want to call in and lend your voice, we love our callers. We want to hear all kinds of people talk about how they felt seeing Christopher Pike hold that time crystal. But for now, let's go ahead and listen to our coverage, Patreon exclusive, of Section 31.

[00:01:09] Is this thing on? Hello? Hello?

[00:01:39] Welcome to Open Pike Night, the Strange New Worlds podcast where your personal logs are the prime directive. We are here with Episode 7 of our Disco Inferno coverage of Star Trek Discovery Season 2, Light and Shadow.

[00:01:55] This is a very, very short episode of Discovery, so we're going to try and at least double the runtime of that show with our meeting tonight. Maybe even triple it. Who knows? And who are we? Well, I'm Producer John and I'm here with my co-hosts, the head member of the Ash Tyler Fan Club, Jesse Bailey. In honor of Spock, I will be speaking backwards for the rest of this episode. Og you, you're at.

[00:02:25] And the man who would try and call himself from 8 Minutes in the Future because that is what David Lynch would do. A host of Green Chirt and New East Direct through TNG, Cameron Harrison. Just for the duration of this episode, please refer to me as Time Cameron. Time Cameron. All right. Excellent. Excellent. Well, this episode was 39 minutes, a little bit more than 33 minutes, which is a great episode of Battlestar Galactica.

[00:02:49] And we are here joined by our good friend and fan, Steve Sincera, who hosts the Battlestage Theatrica. So previously on Battlestage Theatrica. Sincera, Steve, welcome to Open Pike Night. By the time this episode airs, the first episode should be on the internet. So in a sense, this is also a time travel episode. Ah, exciting. I remember being back there when you were first announcing the idea, I think over on Green Chirt when you guested.

[00:03:20] Yeah. Yeah. I was trying to figure out what exactly our gimmick would be for the longest time. And it finally hit me and just like what to do with it. It's going to be quite a journey. We've already finished season one just because my co-host and I have such a hard time getting our scheduling together. Smart. I want it all in the bag. I want that I'm learning how to edit and stay tuned. Well, if you're listening to this right now, you should be tuned in. I don't know why you're waiting. Yeah.

[00:03:47] We've heard of podcasts that batch record before and we always think that sounds like such a great idea. But it's not super easy for us to do. Yeah. So consider us very jealous. Now. So what's the gimmick? What's the gimmick? Well, it's Battle Stage Theatrica. And my co-host and I, my co-host who like you Cameron is a green shirt to Battlestar Galactica has not seen any of it. And instead of just reviewing the episodes, we act out a few scenes from each episode.

[00:04:18] I am now hooked. Because if you take the sci-fi out of Battlestar Galactica, it's really just a pretty epic stage drama. It really is. Are most of the scenes you reenact just Battlestar and Caprica 6 and all the imaginary conversations they have? Now, that would be a lot of fun. And that would be much more fun if my wife was ever a co-host. And I'm sure one day we'll get around to that. But alas, no. We haven't done much Battlestar.

[00:04:47] As you might have guessed, I kind of slide into being Colonel Tai most of the time. Because it's fun. So here's how I know Steve is a new podcaster. He's still pretty sure that eventually he'll be able to get his wife on an episode. His wife on the podcast, yeah. He probably thinks she's going to listen regularly. Yeah. She's going to download all the episodes. But hey, I can get her on this one right now. It's okay. It's okay. Getting wives on other podcasts isn't the problem. Yeah, it's easy.

[00:05:16] It's not an indictment. But I do have a small quibble here. Now, you mentioned that Cameron is a green shirt. And I got to be honest, that's really not that true anymore. So Cameron, welcome to the Open Pike Night Trivy Ambush. Question one. Okay. Where did Starfleet... These get harder as they go. Where did Starfleet make their stand against the Borg in Best of Both Worlds Part 1?

[00:05:46] Wolf 67432. You got it. You nailed that. 359. 359, right? Yes, it's Cameron. I got it. Wolf 8675. 359. It took me like a season and a half to remember three goddamn numbers that I got there. Okay. Question number two of three. Ooh. What is the name of the ship captained by Morgan Bateson played by Kelsey Grammer in the episode Cause and Effect? Oh, I almost called it Conundrum. I got the title of the episode wrong.

[00:06:16] Um. God. I mean, I could have told you who played him. I knew that name. Does he get any yes or no questions? I can get... I will give you one hint. And the one hint is the word Montana. The USS Butte? What? Did you get... Pick me. Pick me. Pick me. Pick me. Thousands of Star Trek fans just cried out. I call a... I want to call a friend. I want to call a friend. All right, Steve. Give it to him. The Bozeman. Thank you. Bozeman! Yeah, right. Okay.

[00:06:46] That's right. I should have known that. And the final and hardest question. You should go there, Cameron, from the call-in that I didn't get to air because it was a pitch to the producers, which I won't do again. I promise. Well, that and there's like a whole episode of Lower Decks where they go to like First Contact theme park in Bozeman, Montana. But anyways, this one may actually be easier for you, Cameron, because it's more recent, but it's actually the most specific one I've got yet.

[00:07:10] So, according to the Season 7 episode interface, what is Jordy's mom's first name? Oh, God. Stella? Ooh, that's actually pretty close. That's pretty close, man. I'm not going to give you the points, but it is Silva. Yeah. Silva? Yes. Silva. Silva La Forge. I wouldn't have known that either, Cameron. I've seen the show a couple times. I'll take getting the first and last letters correct.

[00:07:39] This has been the Open Pike Night Trivia Ambush. Oh, I have a bonus question. You have a bonus question? Yeah. Yeah. I just fucked it up because the Bozeman is the answer. Goddamn. Cause and effect. Yeah, right? Exactly. Gotcha. Now, it was good. That was good. I, I'm just, it was, I, as you have been talking, you know, in our group chat this week about finishing the next generation.

[00:08:09] I, I've just been filled with joy. Like you've, you've almost seen it all. You're going to be doing movies. You're going to be moving on to new Star Treks. And I'm just happy to have you aboard the Star Trek fandom train. No, it's not a starship. It's a train. It's a train. Uh, like emergence. The. Yeah. Like an emergence. Yeah. Almost penultimate episode. Yeah. What's, what's the second to last? Uh, parapenultimate, pluripenultimate. There is a word. There's free penultimate. Yeah. Anti penult, I think anti penultimate.

[00:08:39] Anti penultimate. Which mainly is, yeah. Yeah. Anti penultimate. I think you're right. Wouldn't that be the second episode of the season? No, that would be. Second to last. No, no. Third to last. If the penultimate is the second to last, then the anti penultimate would be the second. Third to last. Anti, A-N-T-E. Oh. Anti meridian. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like anti pasta. Yes. No. No, anti. It's not right. No, wait. If you mix pasta and anti pasta, you get a warp core reaction. That's going to say.

[00:09:08] No, you get the thing from emergence. Oh, right, right, right. And you get a pile of straws, yeah. And they looked upon the mountain. By the time people are hearing this, I will have watched All Good Things. Hell yeah. That just blows my mind. So you're just a regular shirt now. I'm just a shirt. This is a shirt. A red one. But, of course, we're not here to talk about TNG. We're here to talk about Discovery Season 2, Episode 7, Light and Shadows. Because, Steve, you specifically requested this episode for your guest spot. Can you tell us why?

[00:09:36] Well, I was going to save it for the end, but I... Oh, no, no. It's fine. He asked the question right now. I requested this episode because I made a mistake. You thought it was the next episode, didn't you, Steve? I thought it was the next episode. But I was thinking that the next episode was the first time we see Spock. So I did... I had it somewhat right, but I did think we were going to tell us four with this one.

[00:10:06] And so I... I gotta say, that's very funny because the next episode is called If Memory Serves, which clearly it does not. Well, as I mentioned in some of my call-ins that I do watch this season kind of like one long movie. Yeah. When I revisited. So I was like, I forgot where the break was. I mean, we'll get to it eventually, but every time I watch Such Sweet Sorrow, I'm like, man, we got like 20 minutes to wrap this whole thing up. I remember a whole lot more happening. And then it's like, to be continued. Oh, right, right.

[00:10:36] There's a whole... Right, right. I was going to say, you watched the season out of order. And I was like, yeah, there's actually probably an order that would make more sense than the actual order for this. Oh, that'd be interesting at the end of the season to have Cameron pick the order he would have put the episodes in. But we do get a Mutara shout out at the start of this episode, which our friend Engineer Mark brought up in the Discord.

[00:11:00] And it's kind of a nice little moment here that kind of makes Spock's first lifetime a full circle engagement, right? Maybe he was hiding in the Mutara Nebula as a safe haven more than once in his life. Nice foreshadowing. As we just mentioned, we're not done with TOS locations yet this season. So I liked just hearing the word Mutara. That was good for my heart. Mutara Nebula is where they hide in Wrath of Khan.

[00:11:28] So when was the last time you guys heard of tachyons being this dense? I think it's easily the highest tachyon density I've ever heard of. Freaking amazing. In Watchmen, maybe? I don't know. Right. I love how scandalized Saru was of the use of the word freaking. I know. I think they were more surprised that she wasn't swearing. I think that was the joke, maybe. And she says Frick, too. Very outside of the current zeitgeist. Because I believe, wasn't Frick from The Office? Or is that 30 Rock?

[00:11:58] No, Frick is from Utah. Well, yeah. In the 80s. They've got Frick and soaking and that's it. Yeah, exactly. Pretty much, yeah. I've heard of this and I don't want to talk about it. No, we're not going to because this, I swear, is a Star Trek podcast. Now, you guys know me. I like any time that somebody gets to Big Dog Ash Tyler. And when it's Pike doing it, it just warms my heart. Tyler should always be shut down.

[00:12:25] And the chair outranks the badge is a really nice line. I love the way that their dynamic is played. Even though it gets a little more balanced in this episode, I still feel like Pike has the upper hair. I mean, upper hand. He does have the upper hair. Yeah. Speaking of the badges, I love how they have a sound effect when they whoosh through the air. Sort of like how knives in horror movies, like, shing! And they just move through the air. And I'm like, what are they shinging against? What is this badge, like, rattling against that?

[00:12:55] It makes so much noise when they toss it to each other. I was going to bring that up. It sounded like a piece of eight that someone threw it to Captain Barbossa. Or to, no, who was Xiaoyuan Fat. And he caught it and it whistled. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Pike tossed it back. And that's when the pirate council was assembled. Cameron, if you... Remember... Go ahead, John.

[00:13:17] Ash's badge is a communicator, so it's like it's still got that hearing aid problem where it squeals when you take it off the shirt and get the hearing aid squeals on them. So, yeah. And Cam, if you think that the comm badges are absurd now, wait till you get to Star Trek Picard Season 2. I am so excited. Speaking of things Cameron loves, we get Cameron's favorite Starship location, the Turbo Shaft. Oh, God, I know. Are you excited to be here?

[00:13:46] Do we have a sound cue for that yet? Maybe like the vomiting scene from Team America, World Police, or... I think we have this. Inconceivable! I'll take it. There we go. Why? I noticed, Jesse, I noticed. I could feel you watching it as I saw it on my screen. That was impressive. You don't like the Discovery, like, Monsters, Inc. Exactly. That's a good way to describe it. Yeah.

[00:14:16] Well, well said. What I do like is Vulcan when it is not purely a desert. Oh, my God. It is a gorgeous planet. Between this and the Strange New Worlds pilot, Vulcan has never looked better. I hope we spend more time on Vulcan and Strange New Worlds going forward. Please, can we do, like, a whole episode on Vulcan? And just, like, a travel episode, like a Rick Steves travel guide of Vulcan? If you want to do, like, niche genre, Strange New Worlds, do that.

[00:14:44] I would absolutely be here. Vulcan started out as best as Rock. There's nothing... I mean, I passed by that almost every other day. I remember Vulcan looked really good at the beginning of Star Trek 09, too. Oh, absolutely. I remember what it looked like at the end. I think it was fine. It was probably fine. But a thing I did notice is that if you look at Michael's future home at the end of Discovery Season 5, it actually looks a lot like Sarek and Amanda's home in this episode.

[00:15:11] Surrounded by the red leaf trees, like, lots of natural coloring and warm wood. I mean, I know that it's a post-scarcity society, but that house is expensive. Yes. I'm just going to toss my notebook away, because Jesse is really hitting every... Yeah, that's one point that I was making, and then the whooshing command in the communication bed. He is flying through, because literally half my notes are about the opening monologue, or captain's log, I suppose, as it is.

[00:15:41] Please, don't let me step on your toes. Cameron hates. I mean... I just don't know why I bothered to make notes like this. It was a complete waste of my time for that. Thankfully, I was... Just practice, you know, stretch your neck muscles so you can nod a lot. No. Michael. Michael. Just stick to the thrilling heroics. Stop trying to write the most flowery kind of like memoir ever. What? What? There are three mysteries. My mom taught me mysteries come in three. Oh, yeah, Michael.

[00:16:11] My mom taught me celebrity deaths come in three. Okay? So, stop rubbing it in. I will say, I really do like having said that. I like using the captain's log in lieu of the previously on. That works nice. Like, yeah. Like, captain's logs. Let's sum up where we're at and let us know that way. That feels natural. There is only one good previously on. Oh, gosh. And it's coming up. It's the next episode. That's where everything starts to change for me this season.

[00:16:40] Yes. I'll jump out of that when I talked about the mistake that I made about wanting to do that episode instead. When I saw this episode for the first time, or sorry, when I saw the next episode for the first time, I had not seen the cage. So, I was like, me neither. What? What happened? Did I click the wrong dot? Damn it, Paramount? What are you doing? 100% see it. Sorry. I think you can go back and check my tweets because I was like, all right, watch the next episode of Discovery.

[00:17:09] And then, like, five minutes later, I was like, you know what? I think I'm going to watch the cage for the first time. And that's what I did. I paused it. I went and I saw the cage. I had seen the menagerie, I think. Because I've seen all of TOS. But I was like, I did not recognize what they were doing. And I barely recognized Jeffrey Hunter because he's in the menagerie, but he's not really. And I'm like, oh, this is... Is it him? I thought it was another actor. I think it was a different actor. Sitting in the chair is another actor. But they are watching... They are sitting there.

[00:17:38] They are a bunch of dudes sitting around watching Star Trek. So, yeah. Star Trek does best, man. Well, and that's what I was going to say, John, is the best Star Trek makes you want to watch other Star Trek. And I love that about the next episode. But this episode made me think of Star Trek 2009 because baby Spock is somehow the cutest Star Trek baby in every timeline. Like, until we get baby Tilly, I'm going to stand firm on that.

[00:18:09] Well, we actually have a lot of callers tonight. We should probably hear from our first one of those, too. Since she did the homework assignment so very early, let's hear from Abby first tonight. Hey, hey, Open Pike. It's Abby Summer from the First Flight Podcast here to talk to you about light and shadows. So, again, this is my favorite version of Amanda. She is fierce and protective. And I love her takedown of Sarek. They are truly equals. And that is really nice to see in this episode.

[00:18:38] And I also love how incredibly excited Tilly is about science and new knowledge and how she puts time in front of everything. It's adorable. And it's genuine. Like, science is cool. And I love the relationship that she and Stamets have built up to, that he trusts her to beam him in and out of time. Like, it's nice. And I really like the look into Pike and his almost guilt about missing the Klingon War.

[00:19:06] I really appreciated that they didn't forget about that and they added it back in. So, I like this episode. Can't wait to hear what you think. And I hope you and yours are well. Well, two big things to agree on, Abby. I absolutely love Amanda. Mama Bear Amanda is my favorite Amanda. And Try Again Husband is the most, like, badass yet completely effective line. I love the way that she delivers it. She knows the power she has.

[00:19:36] She knows how to wield it. And boy, does she swing it around. I really, really like that you brought that up. Good God. Are you going to stop me from talking about Amanda? Nope, go for it. It's going to be hard to do it. You've got the floor. Oh, don't give me that when it comes to Amanda. I won't stop. Well, then let me talk about Tilly. I love Tilly in this episode. The time stuff, of course, is hilarious. The freaking, the freak, it's all good.

[00:20:02] What I really love is when Ash and Pike get lost. And it's a rare time. The Star Trek crew is used to being like, oh, we've got a 1% chance of survival going into that nebula. Let's do it. They've got like the stoicism of broccoli facing certain death every time. But when you see Tilly talking to Saru and going, they're going to die. Like just the panic on her face, the contained panic on her face is immaculate.

[00:20:29] And it just raises the stakes and tension in ways that Trek usually doesn't do. And I loved it. Loved it. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't just a throwaway line. It wasn't just a. She believed. Yeah. They were dead. This is the last time she's seeing either of those two guys. Yeah. Yeah. How often do you lose your captain in a time rift? Well, if it's time rift over and over and over again. Yeah. Once per season, I would say. Yeah.

[00:20:56] That's how often we lose a captain in a time rift. But how often does Tilly lost a captain in a time rift? Fair. Yeah. I mean, even for Tilly, you could argue it's at least twice, but. Would have been nice if, if, you know, Frazier had come out of that time rift on the, you know, USS Bozeman. Yeah. You do that one. Yeah. But I do agree with Abby as well, that the insight into the Mr. and Mrs. Amanda marriage is very good to get here.

[00:21:26] It seems like Vulcan marriage is pretty intense, right? Like the arguments are, are very brutal. Um, kind of like the Vulcan ADR on Amanda was brutal. Like when she says talk Mar, I'm like, that is not what she just said. You really didn't have one other shot of her giving that line. Okay. All right. I'll let it go.

[00:21:53] I thought she was ordering from a Mexican seafood place at first, but I guess, I guess that's Vulcan meditating. Well, and I was like, I guess it's going to talk a little more longer to get to Spock. Right. But no, it's not Cameron. You called it episode seven. I bow down, sir. Well, I will tell you how I figured it out. I'm going to get screenwriter nerdy here for a second because, uh, you know, we've all heard of the three X structure.

[00:22:21] You can break that down further into there's a five X structure. You can break it down even more. And my buddy was telling me, that's my screenwriting friend who I've worked on Frank and Zed with. He was telling me like, yes, the midpoint, it's all about the midpoint. Watch a movie. The whatever you're there to watch the promise of the premise will occur at the midpoint. I was like, yeah, fuck off. And then I started doing it. I started paying attention. Jurassic Park dinosaurs get out exactly halfway through mid aliens, space Marines meet the aliens exactly halfway through.

[00:22:49] Like it's usually like a 10 minute, but like the big movies, the good movies exactly halfway through is when what you're there to see happens and it feels late. You think that's late in your head, but when you watch it, you're like, oh no, I get it. I was taking a guess that if this season is all about finally meeting the new Spock, they were going to do it exactly halfway through. And I didn't check your runtime. Is it halfway through this episode? Was it how long? No, it's like it's in the first third. It's a 39. It's a 39 minute episode.

[00:23:19] I think it's right at like 12 every 13 minutes in this episode, something like it is a three segment episode. It is a linchpin. I mean, like this episode is definitely the, where the hinge swings from the first part of the season into the second part. And it's like, yeah, it could be seen as filler, but very important episode. Mm-hmm. And I think this or very soon is the point where if you on your first watch of Discovery

[00:23:48] season two did not watch every short trek, you might start going, wait, who is this person? Yeah. Oh, who do we meet here from? And that will keep happening. No, I just, I think some of the short treks are set like right around this episode and then they end up mattering four or five episodes from now. And you're like, I don't know who that is. Yeah. I know some of those coming up. Yeah. We actually meet Spock in the short trek. That's true. That's true. He was introduced. Well, he reveals Spock. I'm pretty sure he was introduced in the short trek.

[00:24:18] The short trek, I think it came out, it looks like it took place around the same time as when he. The one with him and number one in the elevator. Yeah. But that's his first day on the Enterprise. Oh, you're right. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that came out after, I think. Okay. But you're right that chronologically. I wasn't sure. I remember seeing that before. I remember I was introduced to him through that. And I was like, oh, hey, look, that's the new Spock. Cool. And then he showed up with the beers.

[00:24:48] To me, it wasn't just chronological. That was the first time I met him. Being at first times, though. Okay, yeah. Hey, Abby, that was my first time being on the other end of one of these call-ins. That was fun. Oh, I love Amanda, too. And I will talk about that all day. She reminds me very much of my own wife in many ways, especially try again, husband. I imagine if I had shown her this scene specifically, I feel like that would be a norm in our daily conversation.

[00:25:18] Would it be better or worse if she picked that up in common usage, her wife? Oh, it would be totally fine because I'm not Sarek. You wouldn't hear it that often. Gotcha, gotcha. My favorite Amanda line was she goes at one point when her and Michael are watching Sarek just stare into space oddly. She's like, I can see the logic in that. And just the pure venom in her voice when she says that otherwise very innocuous line. It's so good. It's just buried there.

[00:25:47] Oh, I could see the logic in that. Well, she's been on Vulcan all the time. But she knows how to twist that logic knife. She absolutely knows what will work on the people around her, and she does it. And I think that's one thing I really love about her is that a lot of Star Trek female characters are stripped of agency. Usually that's because it was written in the 80s or 90s, and that's just kind of how it was.

[00:26:14] But Amanda is the queen of agency, and that sticks all the way through every appearance we get from her. And I'm so glad because she nails this role. And Abby, talking about how Tilly loves science reminds me of how we love science. And if you haven't heard our Star Trek pod crawl episode in support of science education, go back one in the feed and check it out. We had a lot of fun.

[00:26:40] And we are very excited because it would appear that the pod crawl has brought new callers to the open Pike Night stage. Here is Vernon. This is world famous Star Trek comic book artist Vernon Smith saying, I love this episode of Strange New Worlds. I thought it had some great character development. You got the first appearance, like kind of talking of Ethan Peck as Spock, which is amazing.

[00:27:09] You get some good character development with Pike and Ash and how they kind of go from enemies to sort of less enemies. You get some good development with Spock, I mean with Amanda and Sarek. And seeing Sarek like really in his own Vulcan way show his love for his family and his son, which was really cool.

[00:27:32] You get dialogue from Arium, Reese, Awosikin, and Detmer, which that's always cool. And it was, yeah, a good way to move the story along through the season. And the crazy futuristic probe, who knows where that came from. So I guess if I have a question, what was you guys' favorite character development from this episode? Toodles.

[00:28:01] All right, Vernon, thank you for calling in. Welcome to the Open Pike Night stage. I believe Vernon found us from the Star Trek pod crawl as well. And man, I'll start first. I really like Stamets' reaction to everything of this because this is not cocky Stamets talking down to Tilly. This is Stamets being like, oh shit, I really am the only person who gets this. And he's like, look, I get that it's confusing. Seriously, trust me, I can do this.

[00:28:30] I know it sounds crazy what I'm going to do, but we don't have time to argue and I don't have time to be a dick about it. Let's get to the transporter room. I very much enjoyed that he wasn't an asshole about it. And he has that beautiful moment. Trust me. Trust the math. Trust yourself. I have goosebumps. That's an all-timer engineering Star Trek line. I absolutely love it.

[00:28:54] And to answer your other question, Vernon, the probe clearly went forward in time or possibly back in time to the Matrix future. Yes. Circa 2199, according to Morpheus. I'm not even a little upset about that. I don't care. I'm happy. Like we've said, if you're going to steal, steal from the best. Let's talk about a movie that delivers on the promise of its premise halfway through, Cameron, right? There you go. Absolutely. Yeah, I remember when they started talking about the time rift in this episode.

[00:29:24] I was like, oh, that's right. This is the Mecha Hentai episode. Ah, now I remember. Why is everything hentai with you? Every single week, you're just like, here's the hentai. Give me a tentacle, baby. I definitely loved Saru's growth here. Seeing him be captain, he's very good at captaining. I don't know if we've had many moments of him in the captain's chair before this. We've not posed for Harai. Yeah, that's for sure. So yeah, I thought that was great.

[00:29:53] But I think my choice is going to go for Georgiou because the scene between her and Michael in the hallway in the 60 seconds when the cameras are off is so good. I just love what they do with her character there. It's just the right amount of humanity for her in that moment. I think I said earlier in the season, I completely forgot how antagonistic her and Michael were because I've seen the later seasons more recently.

[00:30:19] And all I remember about before is that Michael insisting she come back to the prime universe with her. So I was like, yeah, wasn't Michael like more trying to redeem her? But yeah, I like this resistance from Michael. And I'm very excited to see their relationship grow for the rest of the season. And yeah, I just thought she played that scene really, really well. Well, two things that are really impressive about it is that it's incredibly balanced tonally.

[00:30:46] Like, it's a frantic moment, but they also get a little bit of comedy in there where she's like, okay, you have to listen to this plan. But it also illustrates how smart Michael is because before Georgiou even finishes her sentence, Michael is throwing a punch. And she puts on her resting mutiny face for the rest of her escape, which she brought with her from season one. And there's a moment in here where Georgiou offhandedly has this throwaway line about her mother.

[00:31:14] And then Michael directly asks her, did you kill your mother? And Georgiou says, it's a little fuzzy. And it's like, this is the kind of thing that I'm impressed that Section 31, the movie, remembered to incorporate into its story. It's a very cool little piece there. And yeah, I do. I mean, the whole moment is great.

[00:31:38] And, you know, I noticed that you can tell these Section 31 doctors are morally gray because they wear black uniforms under their medical whites. They're actually dressed in gray. Like, okay, it's a little heavy handed, but it's all right. I don't know. I think Vernon, for me, it has to be Pike because, I mean, let's be real. Pike could take Tyler in a fistfight. He could take Tyler and Voke in a fistfight.

[00:32:07] And I was honestly hoping that moment where he asks Tyler, you know, do you have any experience behind a stick? I was hoping Tyler would say two, actually. But I'm okay with him not dropping that joke in there because it probably would have ruined the moment. But I do love the scene between them. You're right. They kind of become closer to frenemies. But it actually also illustrates, I promise I'll stop talking about Section 31 after this.

[00:32:34] It kind of illustrates a problem I had with Section 31, the movie, where Pike is resistant to just even the idea of Section 31 this entire time. And it takes him connecting with somebody on a personal level to go like, okay, maybe you're not evil, but I still don't agree with your morals. And we kind of were missing that in Section 31, the movie. It was just like, nope, it's fun. Don't worry about it. So I love that moment with Pike and Tyler, even though it's hard for me to like things with Tyler.

[00:33:06] I like the moment with Tyler when he gets hit or something and there's a little bit of Klingon that comes out. I thought that was a nice kind of throwaway detail that threw in. Yeah. Trauma surfaces that personality for him, it seems. There's a scene when they're walking the Enterprise. Sorry, just for me. Like Pike's like, yeah, no, I hear you on the double whatever. He's like, look, you murdered one of my people. I hear you on the war. I don't care about the war, but you murdered one of my people.

[00:33:34] And Tyler literally goes, yeah, sorry. Sorry. Come on. Can we get over it already? It's just this attitude. I murdered him. He came back. Like everyone's overpying in. He came back. I planned that the whole time. Only for a little while. Yeah. Tyler essentially goes, come on, man. It's Star Trek. Yeah. I wish at the end when there's like, you should probably get that looked at. And Tyler's like, oh, in Quotinus, they wouldn't even patch this up.

[00:34:03] He's like, I wish he'd paused for a second and been like, but it really hurts. So yeah, I'm like, this really is painful. I'm going to go see Pollard. Again, he's playing both sides of the Vogue fence here. He's not going to go see Culvert. Not until next episode. Oh, or Pike should have been like, yeah, I'm guessing neither would Culver. Yeah. I think my favorite growth was Sarek.

[00:34:28] And most of the time we've seen him in Discovery thus far, he's been very Vulcan, to use that as a descriptor. But as of course we've all just watched The Search for Spock where he abandons logic in focus or where his son is concerned. And that's where they take on the Katra ceremony.

[00:34:52] And I think when we hear him say, like, I'm turning over Spock to the authorities because that's how I know how to love. Like, I don't know how to love otherwise. I can't lose my other daughter either when she can't sacrifice her career and go back to, you know, Starfleet prison over this because I can't bear that either. He's saying it. Can't lose both my children on the same day. Exactly. He's saying it with a Vulcan monotone. Oh, he gets a quiver in there. Yeah.

[00:35:21] That's a really fine moment of acting. If you put a Snapchat filter of humanity on that, he would be in tears. That's true. Yeah. What I found fascinating about that is I thought that was a very good argument from him. Like, look, their motives may not be the same as our motives, but they want to help him as equally as we do. So, you know, let's put him there. Good rational reasoning turned out to be completely wrong. Very curious how that plays out the rest of the season, if at all.

[00:35:51] Because if I'm Amanda, Sarek is getting kicked to the curb after that. You convinced me to send him to the guy who wanted to fucking Swiss cheese his brain? No. Like, I'm hoping they address this later on because this was not a good idea, Sarek. Yeah. I wonder if he had a feeling about Giorgio. He's not psychic, but I wonder if he knew. Long term, it turned out okay. Well, and you could argue that he trusts Michael.

[00:36:21] So he's like, you know, you go with because it will help your career and I trust you to make sure everything's okay. But you're right, Cameron. Like, after this, there's absolutely a scene where Amanda goes, okay, husband, no more trying again. No more parental decisions for you at all. Ever, actually. Ever. Thank you. Ever again. And by the way, you have three children. That just stomps out. That you know of. Well, he'd lost that child on another day already.

[00:36:48] I was worried that Cameron was going to say that he was on the side of Section 31, though, because in our last episode for Disco, he said he was on the side of the Ba'ul. I'm like, what is happening? Why is Cameron evil? If they look like Ewoks, everyone would have a completely different take on that episode. That's all I'm saying. People eventually realized the Ewoks were eating stormtroopers, too. So I don't know about that. And everyone's fine with that. See, that's my point. Case closed. I mean, I'm sure they're tasty in some, you know, anything on a rotisserie, you can't tell what it is.

[00:37:19] I need a quick sidebar here, fellas. Please. I did ask Jesse if, you know, when you guys announced you're doing the Search for Spock thing, like, hey, do you guys need a guest? And you went with someone else. Good call. Good call. Especially since the podcast before that had Walter freaking Koenig. Like, I don't know how I would have followed that. But Robin Curtis was your guest, and she was talking about something. What? What was she talking about? Oh, you haven't seen the unification?

[00:37:48] I first heard about it this morning while I was listening to you guys on the way to work. What happened? Oh, wow. So there's a company, I believe they're called Otoy, O-T-O-Y. Yes, O-T-O-Y. Who has been working with... Fransically Googling. They've been working with Rottenberry Productions to create these little, let's call them canon-adjacent shorts up to this point.

[00:38:13] Where they actually had a moment where Kirk gets to see Spock at the end of his life, and he sees all these people before that. It's implied that Gary Mitchell is involved with one of the coolest shots I've ever seen in anything Star Trek. He's floating in front of a star and just staring at it. You see Yor, the time soldier from, I think, next season in Discovery, maybe the season after. Oh, yeah.

[00:38:42] So it implies that there's some timeline stuff going on, and some things have been done for good reasons. It's basically, it's after Kirk dies in generations. Yeah. They're like, okay, so how do we try to make this death make sense? So it's basically him going into the afterlife, seeing these people, and then reuniting with Spock at the very end. And it's all done through some makeup and actoring and some AI CGI. And most of it looks really pretty good.

[00:39:11] So there's no dialogue either. It's like a 10 minute, right? There's no dialogue? Very little. I think there's like three words spoken. Little if any, yeah. But the Michael Giacchino score is amazing. Robin was 100% right about that. And I think there's a whole series of those. I gleaned that Robin Curtis is there as, oh my gosh. Savick. Savick, thank you. Thank you. I've been saying Sarek so much. She's there as Savick. And then is Sam Witwer playing the baby that they possibly need?

[00:39:41] Sam Witwer plays Kirk. Oh, okay. She mentioned Sam Witwer. And right as you guys were talking about all the five actors that were playing Spock in one movie, I'm like, wait, what? When was Sam Witwer in Star Trek? He would have been a baby. I even hit the 30 seconds back button like twice trying to figure out what the hell you guys are talking about. I'm like, this is something that you've all seen that I haven't seen. Was this in the Section 31 movie for some reason?

[00:40:08] And I was frantically grabbing this time crystal that Jesse gave me trying to get it to work. And it just won't. It did. I do have an issue with the title for it because it's unification. It's a stardate that has a very specific meaning. Yeah. And obviously, there's so many episodes called unification. So everyone just calls it unification because no one remembers the numbers. That's more confusing than Wolf 359. But so everyone calls it unification. But then there's all these unification episodes.

[00:40:35] It's like if they I think it would have gotten a lot more more people would have seen it if they come up with a better title. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm going to go find that something that something that was more easily Googleable. Yes. But yes, to your point though, Steve, I knew as soon as a certain segment of the sci-fi audience heard that Sam Witwer was involved, they'd be like, well, I'll watch that. I don't care what it is. And it's an interesting little piece of crossover between the Star Wars and Star Trek universe. I can see him being Kirk.

[00:41:05] He's got that swagger about him. He did a pretty good job. He's a very good voice actor. So if you're saying there's no dialogue, then interesting choice. I'd like to see where that goes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Check it out. We'll look for your review online. Okay. Yeah. And let's go ahead and hear from another caller. Here is Mark. Hey, OpenPike tonight. It's Engineer Mark. And today it's Disco Light and Shadows. And for a refreshing change, only two real plot lines running.

[00:41:35] Yeah. Pike knows the feeling. He isn't taking any of Tyler's tell me or I resign crap. And it's a time anomaly. Till he thinks anything with time in front of it is cool. Hmm. Timey-wimey. Time distortions. Oh, Stamets is immune. Then he must be a time lord. Yeah, bow ties are cool too. And with my Indy hat on, just got to wonder when Wilderness Spock got a look at one of those crystal skulls.

[00:42:04] He is sure talking it up just like my old pal Ox. And they give him the Leland. Give me a minute to get the gloves on and I'll deal with that one. So, for today's music pick, Time in the Bottle by Croce. It's both a four and anti-pick in You've Got Burnham going to spend time with her brother Spock. Then you've got Tyler and Pike stuck in time. At that point, every day was lasting forever. Well, that's all from the engineering duck. Live long and prosper.

[00:42:33] Was Mark making a reference to Indiana Jones 4? 4, yes. The crystal skull. I don't get it. Yeah. He was acting crazy like... No, no, Cameron. I get it. I'm just disregarding the movie. I'm sorry. I got it. I understand. That took me a second to understand who he was talking about. I was like, Indiana Jones never acts like that. Oh, right, right, right. Engineer Mark has great sound quality down there in that Jeffrey's tube. I'm impressed. No echoes at all. That was very good. It's the sweet spot. It's where Nella Darren plays her music.

[00:43:03] Oh, right, right. I mean, we can all agree Nella Darren was the best Picard love interest, right? Ooh, that's bait. It is bait. It is bait. Yeah. That's my version of Team Ba'ul. I refer to the A plot and B plot as the Time Jinx and the Spock Jinx. And as far as Stamets goes, the Time Lord, they gave him about as much explanation for why he was able to do stuff as they give time travel in Doctor Who.

[00:43:33] I didn't love that part of this episode. So I had a little bit of a Mandela effect with this. I was like, oh, yeah, it's the Mecha Hentai. Oh, okay. Pike and Tyler are going to go into that shuttle and they're going to mend their fences. And I was surprised how quickly Stamets showed up there. I wanted a little more from Pike and Tyler in the shuttle. They only mend their fences because one saves the other one and then that one saves the first one and it's over. I think they could have done a little more dialogue with them, a little more hashing it out through dialogue.

[00:44:02] I mean, they were there for weeks, so why not? And then Stamets shows up. And I thought for a moment, I thought they were doing this great kind of connection of the two plots. You had the dyslexia over on the Spock plot with the Spock Jinx and having the jumbled up letters and words and numbers. And then over here with the Time Jinx, you got jumbled up time. You got a blender full of time. And so I was really hoping they were going to do something with that. Like Stamets was going to go in there and he was going to explain how he can connect the time.

[00:44:31] But it's all just like, oh no, I've got the DNA. Send me over there. Beam me in. Okay, I'm beamed in. Now I'm going to push some buttons. Okay, now we can't beam out for some reason, even though you could beam me into the rift. And now that we're on the edge of the rift, you can't beam me out. And now suddenly you can beam me out. It was a lot of hand wavy. That's all I'm saying, guys. I'm sorry. Very hand wavy. Remember, they locked onto the third vapor trail and it was only there for another minute before it got sucked into the thing. So once he was there and that minute was over, they had no more lock on him. Ah, so then.

[00:44:59] Should they have walked onto his communicator? Maybe. I don't know. Now, what's brilliant about that is that Pike is actually executing a tiny little culvert starburst maneuver by venting the plasma and then igniting it. Like, it's the same trick. And he used to be a test pilot, so it's possible that he was part of Nova Squadron. Like, it all fits into the Star Trek timeline. Yeah. But you're right, Cameron.

[00:45:28] Like, it's interesting that the entire sci-fi aspect of that part felt more hand wavy than, like, the Spock dyslexia thing where it's like they give you more information on that than they do on this very complicated time thing.

[00:45:44] But I do have to ask, don't you think catching a grain of sand in a hurricane using a pair of tweezers might be better than trying to hit a bullet with a smaller bullet whilst wearing a blindfold and riding a horse? Like, I'm open to discussion because I can't tell which line is better, but, I mean, it's the same line, right? It's just delivered in kind of two different ways. I think I prefer the hurricane grain of sand personally.

[00:46:13] Clearly, what that goes to show, though, is that the characters we grew up with are, you know, like in Those Old Scientists, they're fans of these predecessors because, you know, that might have been something that someone quoted Stametson. In one of his books before, well, before spoilers, that Scotty may have read somewhere. Or, um, and Riker is clearly a fan of Pike and reading about things that he's done.

[00:46:42] Or, or they're just, they're a fan of the same guy who did the, that particular maneuver. Except what I do remember about the end of the season is that everything we watch gets completely, uh, redacted and covered up. So, no books about this. Except, in the first season of Strange New World, Pike tells, like, nine different people a bunch of classified information. Like, I made the joke three years ago. It's like, no, it's classified. Anyway, here's what happened. Yeah. Like.

[00:47:11] Well, and also, you know, Stametson's a shuttle named after him, so his works are still published. You know. Right. Yeah. Somewhere online, he probably quoted that. Yeah, that, that informational quarantine only goes up to a certain point, clearly. Are we thinking, are we thinking that his, uh, ability to live outside the, like, the flow of time is also redacted? That should be all right. I'm thinking, it's, it's just the Red Angel stuff that got redacted. No, I'm pretty sure they redacted the spore drive, too. Oh, you're right. Yeah, I think so.

[00:47:39] So, anything, anything to do with his, because that doesn't show up ever again. So, anything to do with that is also part of the redaction. But. Yeah. I mean, a fun, a fun quote. You know, that's, that's probably on the wall at, uh, Starfleet Academy. Like, do, like, go, go out there and catch that grate of sand in a hurricane with a pair of tweezers. I am Stamets. Yeah. Unknown. But I do like. I'll tell you, yeah, unknown works. But I do like that Reese gets something to do in this episode. And he helps out.

[00:48:07] Do you guys think that he was given a peanut butter cup as a reward? That joke is free. Right there. Let's hear from our next caller. No, no, no, no. Come on, come on, come on. That took me longer than I should have to get it, so. Do you want to do another new caller? New writer? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I believe this is our, uh, our, uh, listener Melanie's friend. Hi, OpenPikeNight. My spoken English is horrible, so I think I will stick to writing right now.

[00:48:37] Maybe by the end of Discovery Season 2, I'll be brave enough to record a message. I'm excited. We fully support you. My thoughts on Episode 7. First of all, I really love that episode, although it had a lot of Tyler in it. Yes, thank you. I don't like that character at all. Don't ask me why. But Pike's reaction to him? He didn't like him either. That scene on the bridge, followed by the turbo lift scene, is played so well by both of them, Anson and Shehzad. They play off each other great in this episode.

[00:49:06] Both characters are so annoyed by each other's behavior. I love that sentence by Pike. Chair outranks the badge. So perfectly delivered by Anson. My favorite sentence in this episode. Spock! Finally! There he is! That scene in the sanctuary? So intense. That family is urgently in need of therapy. There are so many past wounds and hurt feelings to work through.

[00:49:30] And seriously, how can anyone believe that Section 31 had Spock's best interests in mind and had any motivation to heal him? Shouldn't Sarek know better in his position? Tilly and Saru. That mentor-student relationship is just sweet. I like that Saru is back to his former, calmer self and in complete control of the ship and the rescue. And by the way, he keeps mentoring Tilly. That look in the beginning when Tilly runs in cussing and Anson's reaction as well.

[00:49:58] It is so sweet when he repeats her words in the end. Shows again how good of a person and captain he is. And he definitely has a soft spot for Tilly. But who doesn't? Oh, and one last question. For this whole episode, Discovery is near Kaminar and they flee at the end from the time tsunami. What happened to the planet? Wouldn't that be hit by it? What are your thoughts on it? P.S. It is so hard to keep this short. Live long and prosper and have a good day.

[00:50:28] I am so glad that you wrote in with those specific questions because they were being discussed in our Discord as well. And it does make me wonder, like, is this probably, I don't know what kind of answer this is, but it feels to me like a semi-plausible Star Trek style answer, which is clearly the radiation in the planet's rings protected it from the tachyons, right? Is that too easy?

[00:51:22] I'll buy it. And Michi, I hope I'm pronouncing that right, also brought up the sanctuary that Spock and his family are in. What is that? Because there's like these really cool masks of other Vulcans on the wall that are backlit. Is this maybe like a family tomb or is it really just a place for meditation? If so, they need to go clean their damn gravestones off. The dust that Spock is writing in is thick. What?

[00:51:52] He's carving it into the wall. He was carving into like soft stone, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So he was permanently damaging his family's heirlooms. It's going to create dust, yeah. Don't let Spock go to Southern Utah. He'll be marking up all this. I mean, just speaking of that scene, that is one of the moments. Like the opening with the three mysteries, which I, let's put a pin in. I want to get back to three mysteries.

[00:52:18] But it just felt like, so Sarah comes in and he's like, oh, hey, you're harboring a fugitive under my name. What the hell, wife? And he turns around and he's like, I will tell you what. I read my son, Alice in fucking Wonderland because he was dyslexic. And I was like, what, what is it? Where is this? What are we talking about? How did this come up? I'm not following this conversation at all. Well, I believe Alice in Wonderland was referenced in his first vlog that we hear. Yeah.

[00:52:48] No, I mean, it was set up. I'm just not sure what her thought process was here, except we need to somehow get the exposition out that Spock is dyslexic and we're going to do it in the most flowery, pretentious way, but it's still just flat exposition. And we all know what it is. This was Star Trek, the stage play. Yes. Like this scene was perfect. Absolutely. Star Trek, the stage play. It really was. Yeah. I mean, there's some good stuff there that we've talked about, but that exchange, I was just like, what are we talking about guys? Hmm.

[00:53:18] I personally love that exchange because it would make total sense to me that the Vulcans, not that they couldn't cure a human condition like dyslexia, they just wouldn't. Like, no, like our doctors are above this. Like you go take your half human child and then go somewhere else. Yeah. And I, this is what she's thinking about at that moment though. It's probably pent up. But, you know, she's probably got, who does she have to vent to? Well, he comes in like, I know how to fix our son. And she goes, I had to read him Alice in Wonderland.

[00:53:47] I mean, to Cameron's point, it's a little bit clumsy. Like the steps are not necessarily, it kind of feels like falling down. Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's, it's about a lot of confusing things, but it's pretty straightforwardly written. Now she said, I had to read him House of Leaves. That would make more sense. There you go. Alice in Wonderland isn't that hard to read. Yeah. She just emphasizes Alice in Wonderland so much. I'm like, okay, you taught him to read. That's what you're saying. Okay. What about, oh, the places you'll go. I mean, you know, what else did you read? Michelle Silverstein. Come on.

[00:54:16] The writer, the writer of the episode must've just been a fan. Oh yeah. Very much. Yeah. I'm glad she didn't read him green eggs and ham because that would be very confusing. I want to hear crazy Spock muttering that to himself in the game. Yeah. Sam I am. Sam I am. None of the backward talking. Not with a fox. Not with a fox. Actually, I want to hear Dr. Seuss. Fox and socks with toxin clocks. Eating glue with the blue Magoo. I kind of want to make that edit now. So do I.

[00:54:47] Okay. That's all I had to get. Sorry. We de-railed you completely there, Steve. What were you saying? I'm trying to find a way to recite Dr. Seuss backwards, but I feel like I would just start talking like a normal person. Right. Yeah. Let's just move on. I had to rehearse for like five minutes by myself today to say, here we go backwards at the start of this episode. Oh, that's what you said. So trust me, it's probably not worth the effort.

[00:55:13] Well, speaking of somebody else rehearsing, we do have one last new caller to, uh, we got a few calls, but one last new caller. He'll hear is, uh, I believe his name is Saul. Message begins. Open Pike night. This is Colonel Tai, XO of the battle stage theatrical. The Cylons are now using time travel in order to frack with us. And no one told me I need a drink. It was already hard enough when they could assembly jump in right on top of us out of nowhere.

[00:55:43] Oh, well flush me out the airlock. Mr. Gator has just told me this is the wrong show. I don't know how I got here. Maybe it's time to quit drinking. Carry on messages. I feel like I recognize that voice, but I can't place it. You guys are getting, you guys are getting some great, great crossovers from other sci-fi. Wow. Now I understand how John knew that, uh, Steve likes to play Tai. I was like, what do you mean?

[00:56:13] You know Steve pretty well if you know he likes that character. Okay. What? Also, also, yeah. That was Colonel Tai. Welcome to open Pike night. Uh, I gotta tell you, there's some other stuff that nobody has told you, but you know, you'll get to that. Don't worry. I believe that was, uh, that was season two Colonel Tai. Based on, based on the, uh, the sounds of the thing. Wait, is this why Steve is wearing a tight red dress with a plunging neckline? I was wondering, but I didn't want to say anything. I just put that together. Okay.

[00:56:43] Come on, Jesse. All of this has happened before. All right. All of it's going to happen again. All I know about that show is that there's a guy named Tai and that there's a woman in a tight red dress. Like that's the extent of my knowledge. Well, and that there are aliens slash robots. There's no aliens. They're robots. They're robots. Yeah. It's in space. Are they all aliens? Kind of. Yeah. I'm going to keep, I'm going to keep, I'm going to keep doing those characters until you guys tell me to stop. So I know a great, uh, watch along podcast.

[00:57:12] You'll be able to listen to when you start it, Jesse. Yeah. I, I, I don't really, I'm not really into podcasts, but I guess I could give it a shot. You're not into watching things either. Yeah. No, that's true. Anybody who's ever tried to get me to watch something I've never seen knows that that is true. Well, we have to make a podcast about it in order to get you to do it. I can't make a diehard podcast. I could probably try and make a diehard podcast, but I'm not going to, because there'll be, well, then again, I'm sure I could, I'm sure I could squeeze that into, you know, a couple hundred hours, but I'm not, I don't want to, but you know,

[00:57:42] we'll do a Christmas special at some point. I, I'm not against watching it. I just, you know, I want to save it. Let's save it. Uh, well, we do have a few more callers. Let's go ahead and hear from Katie. Hey, it's Katie. So right off the bat, I just, I have to say that I'm not a huge fan of the editing in this episode. There's so much going on. It's all very intense. We're spending a lot of time in our feelings and the editing is on a psychedelic trip. Not my favorite.

[00:58:12] On the other hand, this is the episode of the protective parents and I am living for it. Pike is over here, enabling Michael to find Spock. He's a wall between Tyler and the rest of his crew. And he's making sure that Tilly knows he doesn't mind her eccentricities by repeating back to her, all those things that she's, uh, insecure or getting in trouble about. Amanda is a wall between Spock and the rest of the world. It doesn't matter who is coming for him.

[00:58:40] She's willing to stand between him and them. You've got Sarek, who, I mean, his everything is summed up in that line. I am not prepared to lose both our children on the same day. Which breaks me. But I love it so much. It's so sweet. He loves them so much. And then you've got Georgiou over here, who, she's making sure that Michael can get Spock out because she knows how much it's going to hurt Michael if anything happens to him.

[00:59:10] And yeah, I know she's got ulterior motives, but two things can be true. I've also just really been appreciating that Discovery has made an effort to contrast Sarek as Michael's father with Sarek as Spock's father. It's not that Sarek's a bad father or that he doesn't love his kids, just that he and Spock don't click. And it sucks, but it happens. One last thing. What is it with everyone having private conversations very publicly all over the ship?

[00:59:40] There are rooms. Go in one. You do not need to have this conversation in the hallway. Anyways, that's me. Okay, thanks. Bye. What ulterior motives could Georgiou possibly have? This is the first I'm hearing about it. I thought she was pretty strict. She's 90% ulterior motives. I actually like that because I like how she kind of finds an ulterior motive for her to have because I think she is doing it for Michael because she knows Michael and because

[01:00:07] she's trying to like regain this relationship with the Michael she lost in her universe. And she's like, yeah, and it'll help me out in the ranks if this guy gets embarrassed. Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. She also is using her knowledge of what happened to Michael to advance her power hold. Sure. Yeah. And she, I think it actually fits really well with her character because as we now know, that line that she says about her mom, like, eh, it's fuzzy. That is absolutely a coping mechanism to deal with guilt.

[01:00:36] So it really does show you the layers that we have to the Georgiou character. And I mean, you guys, we've been calling Pike daddy for three years before we even got to this episode. So I think it's a really good point that you bring up, Katie. He really is a protective parent and he just views the entire crew as his children. Like he's mad at Tyler for killing Culber and he wasn't even there when that happened. So it's like, he's really taking that role on.

[01:01:04] You know, like I've said before, he's not the dad. He's not the stepdad. He's the dad that stepped up. And also Amanda is the mom that stepped up. And I like to think that this is the episode where Henry and Akiva look back and we're like, you know, maybe, maybe we should have Amanda be the Spock parent who shows up on Strange New World. Yeah. Cause Mia Kirshner is bringing it. And, you know, obviously in several ways as for those of us men of a certain age,

[01:01:32] but like, yeah, she is fantastic in this episode. Like, yeah, that I can see this being where they were really like, yes, we want to see more of this character and get more development because it has been the Sarag and Spock show for 50 plus years now by that point. So yeah, it's, it's just good to see. Pretty sure. We only have Spock's mom in, uh, uh, voyage home. Correct. And then, and TOS. In 2009. In 2009.

[01:02:01] Well, yeah, but I mean, in 2009. Oh, sorry. And no, Amanda, Amanda is in TOS. There's an episode, I cannot remember what it's called, but it's about like an ambassador being moved somewhere on the Enterprise and there's like a murder mystery and it's mostly played for laughs, but like also Sarek needs a transfusion and Spock's like, you know, if I have time, I will get to that, but there's other stuff going on. And so you're right, you know, their relationship has been fraught for 50 years and absolutely

[01:02:31] no disrespect to the James Franey acts, but I think you're right. It was the correct decision to bring Amanda into strange new worlds. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Speaking of men of a specific age, certain age, and, uh, just going back to George one more time, I think they have a great fight scene. I think that fight scene is well choreographed and has a lot of energy. Love that moment. How, uh, how, uh, Michael starts it off. And I am of a certain age where I am both progressive and basic enough to just really

[01:02:59] enjoy two bad-ass babes going at it in a well choreographed fight. I was wondering how you're going to circle around with that. I'm like, where, where are we going? Yes. Enjoy that. And I, it's a kind of basic to be like, yeah, women fighting is cool, but, uh, you know, Hey, I come from, from the time of, uh, you know, Ripley and Vasquez and everything. So yeah. Okay. So Michelle, yo, uh, crouching tiger or was she? No, she was James Bond. She was both. Okay. And James Bond. Yeah. Yeah. Now. Yeah. And lots of super cop. Oh yeah.

[01:03:29] That's right. Just as old school as Jackie Chan with her doing her own stunts. Hell yeah. I was going to say, I'm, I'm really appreciating having, um, Anson Mount's Captain Pike being the face of positive masculinity, which you guys have brought up on, on several occasions. He's a great role model for, you know, men, men of a certain age and young men, if young men are watching the show, but at the same time, please let me a Kirshner grace the screen as often as she damn well pleases because never stop. Yeah.

[01:03:58] Because the male gaze is still, you know, it can be a polite gaze. Still open. Um, you know, gazing respectfully. That's what I like to call it. Um, so Katie was talking about the editing and I've, I've kind of just been over on my own little roller coaster over here. Cause I was like, Oh, she's talking about like when Michael goes home and she's like, we're doing the flashbacks. And then she's like hearing Amanda's voice twice. And it was kind of pretentious. And yeah, that editing was weird.

[01:04:24] I guess they were trying to do it to kind of tie it in with the time travel episode. And I was like, or a plot. And I was like, okay, maybe that actually does work. Like she's kind of mentally traveling through time. I'm just going back to her childhood home and like being pulled between two different time areas. Well, over here on this plot, we've got two different times. Maybe that's not bad. Nope. That's pretty forced. That was a pretty forced thing for them to do. I don't know about that. Uh, and then speaking of the time jinx, you know, there's this great moment. There's the moment where like Pike looks back and he sees himself shoot Ash.

[01:04:54] And like, I know that like, okay, I'm sure something was attacking Ash or, you know, that's not going to be what we think it is, but still it's a really good hook. It's a really good mystery hook. These two guys are going to be stuck on the shuttle trying to get out of this problem. And the whole time Pike's going to be like, why am I going to have to shoot this guy? What's going on? Great little hook. Never used for tension the whole scene. And then like, so we get to it again, really quick, a lot quicker than I thought we would. But I, I, I just, it wasn't bad. Like the time travel stuff was fine.

[01:05:22] I just, I feel like they set it up with so much potential to be so much more and they just kind of ended it on fine. The only tension was Jesse sitting there hoping that Ash Tyler was going to take a phaser blast in the face. And that's right. I'm like, here's where he goes out. I'm ready for this. But fortunately for you, Cameron, there's no more time travel for the rest of this season. So don't worry about it. This is the last you'll have to deal with it. I don't have a problem with time travel. I, I, I mostly liked this episode. I mostly liked it.

[01:05:52] Well, I very much, mostly like all of our colors. In fact, I like all of our colors. We've got a couple more. Let's hear from Melanie. Hi guys. Here's Melanie. My quick thoughts on light and shadow. Tilly is freaking amazing. Pike and Tyler are at each other's throats again. Time distortion, always interesting. Finally, there's Spock and we see Talos 4. So I liked the episode because of the scene in the shuttle, because we finally see Spock, probably. Why is Spock sick? Was he sick and the angel chose him because of that?

[01:06:21] Or is he sick because of the angel? That is interesting question. We don't have the answer to it yet. I like Michael's conversation with Pike. Bags are already packed and he knows he has to let her leave. Because we need to find him first. She's right. And so she goes to Vulcan. Also Tilly is back with a wonderful exchange. And Pike looks at her so adoringly. But then there's Ash and Pike's retort the chair or drinks the badge. Yes. We know he is a former test pilot. And yes, he goes on the shuttle with Ash. And yes, they talk about the war Pike was left out of.

[01:06:51] This guild will hunt him until Katrina explains to him why. And maybe even longer. And yes, they talk after. And seem to be more friendly towards each other. In the meantime, we are in Vulcan and Amanda has hidden Spock. He seems well nuts. And Michael wants to bring him to Leland for better treatment or no. The dyslexia thing. I am not so sure about that. What do you think about it? But damn. It's always the same what happens here on the Section 31 ship. Leland happens. Torture happens.

[01:07:19] But in the end, Michael gets them out. And he wants her to go to Talos 4. I actually like that a lot. So those are my thoughts. Take care and live long and prosper. All right. Two things Melanie has brought up. Thank you for your call. I have to say, Leland, I don't know if it's the actor they cast or the way that he plays it. If it's the way he plays it, it's actually probably a positive thing. But the guy can't even pretend to be genuinely concerned about somebody else. He's so arch.

[01:07:49] You can see right through him. At no point should Michael be like, all right, okay. Michael should be refusing to leave that room at all. In my opinion. I don't like Leland. And I think he's too arch. I think that's the only word for it. I believe the words you're looking for are smug fuck. Yeah. He's definitely a smug fuck. I was actually just about to say, like, I really like how Leland played that scene. I completely believed him. I thought he kind of came off as charming.

[01:08:19] I was like, yep, he's got Spock's best interest. If I was watching this for the first time, I'd be like, oh, okay. This guy's a good dude. Dude, I bought it. Maybe I'm too trusting. I don't think you should be a spy, Cameron. Don't. No. I think Leland just didn't care if she believed him or not. He put it out there. He tried. He's like, yeah, I've got this best interest at heart. And then if she said something like, no, like what? You're totally lying through your teeth. You'd be like, all right, it's done.

[01:08:49] But guess what? I outrank you. Yeah. And I'm right there with you. But to Cameron's point, I think the actor played it well. Because I think you're not supposed to trust him. Or you're supposed to go, can I trust him? Like Cameron was doing. So he did play it very well. And this may be colored by what I know of the rest of the season. So that's totally possible. Jesse, you said a black badge. Why wouldn't you trust him? It's also nice that they don't pull that out too long.

[01:09:17] The next scene, Giorgio is pulling Michael over and being like, don't trust this fuck. Yeah. So I did think that was really well. A lot like with the dyslexia thing. Like they brought it up. And as soon as most audiences hear dyslexia, they're going to be like, oh, read the numbers backwards. So I was glad that they had Michael figured out pretty quick. And that wasn't like a big, long mystery for the whole episode. That would have felt a little forced. Agreed. Yeah. And Melanie also brought up Talos 4. I'm so excited for next week, Steve. Again, sorry, my bad. I'll call it. It's fine.

[01:09:47] But I do have a very small complaint here, which is that when Michael figures out these coordinates and the computer goes, oh, this is definitely Talos 4. Michael goes, great. Set a course. Let's go. I wish that the computer had said, warning, Talos 4 is under Federation quarantine. And Michael said, override. Like, come on. It's a small thing, but I'm a Trekkie.

[01:10:15] The small things matter to us. Well, she's not still in her shuttle, is she? She's in the Section 31 shuttle. So I think a Section 31 shuttle can just go where it wants. I guess that works well enough for me. But it would have been a cool moment. It would have been a nice, dramatic storytelling moment, especially since a lot of people like me at the time watching it would not have made the connection. Exactly. Yeah. And I think that's my biggest thing is like, if you're going to pull on this very important,

[01:10:44] I mean, the first important piece of Star Trek canon lay a little bit more groundwork for the folks that are new to this. Like, I love that we're going. I love the episode that's coming up. It's just like, I just want one little line there. That's all I'm asking. Michael is the audience in this case because she doesn't, I don't think she knows that Talos 4 exists. Maybe. Right. Right. So she'd be learning that it's under quarantine just like we, the audience, would. Yeah. It'd be a moment. It should have been there.

[01:11:14] It'd be a moment of mystery for her. And if there's anything Michael Burnham lacks, it's moments of mystery. Right? Yeah. Yeah. She doesn't know how bad Pike was missing Zach when he got to Talos 4, you know? We all remember Zach, right? Zach, Zach. It's High Lord Zacharias, John. Come on. That's right. That's right. All right. Well, let's hear from our last caller for the night. Here is Platty. Hey, open Pike night.

[01:11:40] This is Platty M3 calling in with my hits, shits, and giggles for Disco's Light and Shadows. All right. First hits. Um, I love a lot of the Pike-Tyler stuff. Right at the beginning, he tells him, you know what? Chair outranks the badge. Um, I love also later when they're walking through the corridors and Tyler is talking about Voke and says, sorry, there's no way to get rid of him. And Pike just retorts, yeah, I know the feeling. Also love all of Tilly's non-curses around violations of causality.

[01:12:09] What a funny little quirk for that one. All right. The shits. I gotta just say something. Freaking amazing is a line that Saru can't stand. I mean, he just disobeyed direct orders in the last episode and forced his entire species to go through nuclear puberty. But freaking amazing is where he draws the line in the sand. Really? Come on, Saru. Lighten up. And damn it. Oh, I hate it, Dan, when Tyler was right about Pike. Because, yeah, he told Pike that he was taking risks and doing dangerous missions because

[01:12:38] his guilt over missing the Klingon war. Damn it. He was right. Also, Kaminar, it's gone to shit. Time tsunami? How does that just, like, blow up in outer space right above the planet, causing Disco to have to warp away? And, you know, oh, nothing happens to the planet. Yeah, right. Kaminar's goner. All right, giggles. I love the line where the Emperor says it's a blur about killing her mom. Well, didn't we just have a movie that totally unblurred that? This is Platy M3, signing off.

[01:13:04] Again, it's the radiation in the planet's rings, Platy. It protects the planet from the time tsunami. No, that is never said, but yes, it works well enough. I'm theorizing that the Biul were potty mouths, and that's why the Kelpians tried to hunt them to extinction. Oh, yeah. The watchful eyes were just spewing swear words all day long. And it's... Get the fuck back to work.

[01:13:33] It's really interesting to me that Platy brought up nuclear puberty, because that's the name of the band that plays the song that I picked for this episode. That's a crazy coincidence. Nice. Maybe the time rift tsunami hasn't hit it yet. Ooh. Yeah, you don't know how tachyons work, Platy. Yeah. I mean... No, it's a fair question. I'm glad somebody has. Maybe it went back in time, and it hit it one of the... Maybe that was what caused the cataclysm, where all the... They all had to leave the planet, like Jesse said. I was going to say the tsunami... Maybe the time wave went backwards.

[01:14:03] The tsunami went back in time and started the Matrix. Yeah. Or the surfing craze. Now, I was kind of saving this. I was hoping Platy would either put this in his shits or hits column. It didn't appear in either, so I'm going to ask you guys. It's time. We made it this far. We haven't discussed it yet. Spock's beard. This is a pro-beard podcast, Cameron, so... Yeah. I've... Zero problems?

[01:14:32] I have no problem with it, and the reason I have no problem with it is because... I think it's at the end of the season, a character calls it out in a way that's like... If you like the beard, you're happy. If you don't like the beard, you're even happier. So, like, they know... I think it's in an episode or two. Michael calls it out, right? As soon as he's back to normal. Is the beard working? I don't think he gets... I don't think he gets rid of the beard until close to the end of the season. Oh, he shaves it close to the end. We guessed about... Oh, okay, you're right. It's the end.

[01:15:01] I was going to say, let's have another Spock guessing game where we guess which episode he shaves it. This is my problem with the beard. He looks great in it. It's fine. We know Vulcans can grow beards. It's fine. That part's great. We are bringing back what we've established, what I believe is the most iconic TV character of all time. We've rebooted him successfully in the Kelvinverse movies once, but still, like, this is a big deal. This is in the TV shows. This is a little more.

[01:15:27] This is in universe with TOS, with the Leonard Nimoy Spock, where we are replacing Leonard Nimoy. Because of the story, we're introducing him in a manner that is very unspock-like. Like, the idea here is supposed to be like, this is Spock? Spock would never act like this. This is, he's acting very unspock-like. That's supposed to be the drama intention of what's happening here. Why would you do everything to make this new actor seem as unspock-like as possible?

[01:15:55] Why would you, you would want him, if I was in the creative room, I would be like, no, we want him to look as much like Spock as possible so the audience will go, oh, this is Spock and he's acting weird. Because right now when I watch it, I'm just like, who's this guy acting weird? It doesn't feel like Spock to me. It's not the actor. He's got a beard, he doesn't look anything like him. Are you saying it's a beard on a hat? Because they're already having him be different in his acting and then they give you the visual cue as well? Yes. Either give us a scene with Spock looking like Spock, acting like Spock, like Steve

[01:16:25] watched it in, and maybe I watched it in too. I might have watched the short Trek beforehand too, I'm not sure. But either do that or just at least have him look as Spock-like as you can in this scene and then have him grow the beard later. I don't know. That's fine. I will just say, Cameron, Star Trek and even Discovery specifically has a history of using beards to indicate emotional trauma and unmoored from what they know. I mean, Pike gets the beard. I mean, Tyler has the beard. It's true.

[01:16:55] When Riker's dressed, his beard gets messed up. No, I mean, it's shorthand for that. It just feels like a choice that they made. And maybe they were thinking like, we need to ease people into Ethan Packer's Spock. I don't know. I would have gone in a different way, that's all. But it is Discovery, so they were really trying to turn everything on its ear. And also, you know, I don't have a beard right now, but like, I, you know, as a beard haver and, you know, Jesse and Steve can agree, we know what beard jealousy sounds like, Cam. Yeah.

[01:17:26] You're protesting an awful lot of it. Yeah, we can see right through you. I'm working through some stuff over here, guys, okay? Yeah. Yeah. Beards give you the power to see when somebody's just jealous. Well, and it's established that growing a beard is the first thing you do when you leave Starfleet, right? Because, of course, the disco bones McCoy. McCoy too, McCoy in the motion picture. That's, he's out of Starfleet. He's like, I'm growing the beard. I don't care. I'm opening my shirt. I don't care. Like, that's, it's a visual language.

[01:17:53] I wonder how many forms did Riker have to sign and go through Starfleet to be able to grow a beard in Starfleet. Okay, but let's be real. The beard that he grew, Starfleet was like, yeah, that's a standard issue beard. It's fine. Like, it's not like taking over his face the way that Ash Tyler, Disco Bones, and Emo Spock's beards are. That's true. Yeah. I remember taking care of a, when I was in the service, I took, I was a corpsman. And I took care of a British Marine that came over to do a joint operation with us. And they're allowed to grow their beards to a certain thing.

[01:18:22] I'm like, and I'm in there with my, my commanding officer as we're like discussing things like, hey, this is what we're going to do. And I'm looking at him like, we can do that. Like, come on, man. We could all look like this, but no, we all have to be clean shaven because that's the standard and, and something to do with, uh, with, with, with the gas mess, not getting a proper seal. Like, come on, we can get the proper seal if we really tried. I, yeah. Apparently these Brits have figured out the technology. Seriously.

[01:18:50] Me, I mean, it, I, I can get the seal because underneath this majestic beard, there is no chin. So it just simply, the gas mess just simply like claps onto my face and there's nothing to, there's nothing to stop it. So. John and I have the opposite situation where we're like 40% chin and the beard is really there to help. See, the beard is actually the pushup bra for the men. And that's what's happening with like, Ethan, Ethan Peck is already incredibly handsome. As my wife reminds me on a constant basis, but then you add the, uh, yeah, the pushup

[01:19:18] bra to his face and it's just, you know, she has to leave the room or ask me to leave the room. In fact, there's a, we were re when I was rewatching it, she mentioned to me, she doesn't watch things with me. She's on in the room and then she'll kind of chime in or she'll pay attention for a moment. And she's looking at Ethan Peck on the screen and he goes, Oh yeah, he's really good in bed. And I just had to kind of stop. I'm not, I'm not a jealous man, but she said it with such confidence and I just, and I had

[01:19:47] to actually pause it and ask, please elaborate. And apparently she'd, uh, listened to an interview from his days on, uh, 10 things I hate about you, the TV show where he, he dated his co-star and she recently in a podcast mentioned that Ethan Peck is really good in bed. And, but my wife was so sure. And I'm like, you know what? I'm not even mad. If, if you were, if you were sure on your own, on your own volition, if you had experienced that for yourself, I wouldn't even be mad because that means that I'm like one degree

[01:20:17] of separation from having sex with Spock. I was going to say, yeah. Yeah. Well, now we know our first question for him when he comes on. And that's two degrees of separation from sex with Gregory Peck. So, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, exactly, exactly. I'm sure Ethan would love to answer that question from us, Cameron. Yes. Immediately. Ethan? Ethan. Oh, there, oh, something must've happened with this connection. He dropped out. Huh? Why? Yeah. Weird. As soon as he hears this, he's going to have you guys taken off the air. I'm sorry.

[01:20:49] Or, or put more on the air. Like you guys will be, you know, even, even more. It'll be played on set. Yeah. Ethan Peck, just calling it, calling us. I was like, you are done professionally. It's like, just keep talking to us, man. Like, yeah. Okay, great. If this is how we go out, this is how we go out. Yeah. Well, I guess we'll try and be a little professional and go with our song picks tonight. We do at the end of every episode.

[01:21:17] Everybody chooses a song that we feel best represents the episode. And, uh, yeah, we have reached that point. So, Jesse, you usually go last. Or, we don't get your, we don't get your hard rock pick first. So, let's go ahead and hear from you first tonight. This week, my song pick is heavy in more ways than one. Uh, if you have recently experienced loss in your life, maybe skip ahead like 40 seconds.

[01:21:44] Uh, but my pick this week is a song called Oblivion by a band called Mastodon. And it's from the album Crack the Sky, which is dedicated to drummer and vocalist Brand Daler's sister named Sky, who passed when she was 14 years old. And he has said in interviews that the moment of being told you lost someone dear to you is enough to crack the sky.

[01:22:12] It has lyrics about being lost, stars falling, brightness of the eyes fading away, feelings of failure, feeling adrift. It is honestly one of the more personal and heartfelt metal songs I've ever heard in my life. And I feel it really manages to illustrate just how important the bond between siblings can be as it is in this episode.

[01:22:36] And those themes, uh, as well as the imagery in the album title, the cracked open sky really feel to me like a perfect mirror for what's happening in this episode. Uh, definitely recommend you check out Oblivion by Mastodon. Not familiar with it, but sounds reasonable. I like it. I'm familiar with Mastodon. Yeah. I don't know if I know the song. No good choice. As the resident theater kid, I chose Time Warp from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ah, nice. That was on my short list.

[01:23:05] Because it's Captain Pike on the left. And dumb Ash to the right. Ah! Beam Stamets to your ship. And then put your knees in tight. I tried. I really tried to get the lyrics in there. I've been called the bar by you guys before, and I feel like I failed. But, uh, yeah. It's just that song makes no sense. Just like time travel. And that, I feel like you could overlay that song with the actual, with a part of the episode.

[01:23:34] And make it work. Especially when we see, what? We see two times where they're having, like, images right in front of them. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You could put that song over that. And Tilly would be like, oh, yeah. That's what I'm listening to while I'm watching that happen right in front of me. Steve, you just made my job so much easier because I was torn between two songs and one of them was Time Warp. Yes. It's a song about both time travel and losing your mind. So, it worked that way.

[01:24:01] Also, I think the fourth line is I've got to keep control. So, I'm liking to think that it's being sung by Leland for the thing. And I was going to hold it. I think I decided to go with the other one anyway. I might bring back Time Warp for the last episode. We'll see if I can make it fit then. But very good choice. No, my real pick was from Radiohead, Everything in its Right Place. Ooh.

[01:24:27] That just seems to really work for the dyslexia stuff going on and losing your mind and the tone. And, yeah, Radiohead at its best. Very, very good for this. I did also want to bring up, while speaking about the dyslexia, you know, since I've watched this for the first time, I've discovered and had my son officially diagnosed with dyslexia. And watching the scenes, talking about Spock with it, and just the way they talked about it, the casualness, like,

[01:24:56] it did hit me in a very different way. And it was kind of emotional being like, the most iconic TV character of all time does have this condition, and it's fine, and he's worked through it, but now he's regressing a little bit, and that happens, and we know he'll get through it again. And thank you, Star Trek, for doing that. Being able to tell a dyslexic kid, hey, there are heroes out there with this condition, too, is nice. Hell, yeah. I forget. My history, my memory of TOS was a little hazy.

[01:25:26] Do we hear about that again in the series? Or is this... Not in TOS, but it does come up in Among the Lotus Eaters in Strange New Worlds Season 2, when Spock is on the bridge, and they start losing their memory to the radiation. He can't read the pad anymore. And it's a very, very subtle moment, but it is absolutely a callback to this revelation that we have from Spock. So it's something they wrote for this, and he's overcome it by the time we get to the Kirk era. Yeah, this was the first time.

[01:25:54] I was trying to think if they had an episode about it at some point. That's what I've heard. That's what I've read, yeah. John, if you would be so bold. For a second, I was flirting with the idea of making the joke and using Cyndi Lauper's time after time. But I will just state here on this podcast, a form of public record, when I die, if anybody plays that song at my funeral, I will haunt the fuck out of you. I do not want that song played at my funeral.

[01:26:22] I am done hearing that song at funerals, even my own. I went with actually something right in Cam's, the neighborhood of Cam's choice. Just something more moody, something more, you know, just a little bit heavy. Because it's like, yeah, this is, there's a lot going on in this episode for a 39-minute episode. And Michael is talking about her future. We know how this season ends. So I'm going to go with Angel by Massive Attack.

[01:26:50] And, you know, just the fact, you know, you are my angel. It's like, yeah, that, like, true in a very, very deep way by the time this season ends and how it builds and builds and builds. It's like, this is where, and I love that song, this is where this season really starts to put the rubber to the road. And, like, I feel like, like, we're about to take off here. And this is why season two is one of my favorites is where we're about to go. So, yeah, we're going to go with Angel by Massive Attack.

[01:27:20] Nice. This episode got a great playlist. Right? I can't wait for you guys to put all these together at the end. You know, like, what's that's like? They just go in for a soundtrack and we can all just make a playlist on our respective iPads. I know, I like that. It'll be good fun. Yeah. Any final thoughts before we warp out of here at top speed to tell us for? I realize that between Stamets and Tilly, they could do the whole cruise taxes in, like, nine minutes flat. So, it's a new year. Don't forget to do your taxes, folks.

[01:27:50] I know that's why you come to open Pike Night is for tax reminders. Tax reminders. Yeah. The service we provide free of charge. Yeah. My last note, it's not important, but I did say I was going to put a pin in it. But, you know, again, we get this pretentious first couple comments. Mysteries come in threes. What are the three mysteries in this episode? What do we think? Okay. So, Spock's deal. Spock's numbers. The time rift. Why? Well, I think the probe.

[01:28:19] And I think they could have hit this mystery harder. Like, why did the probe come back? Why did the probe change? Because I just watching it, you're kind of like, oh, it just, you know, spent time in the future and it evolved. But, no, we're going to find out that it had a very specific purpose to come back. Well, and they do kind of telegraph it. They have Miriam with the three red dots. And those are never anything but evil. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Okay. And then I think maybe just the third one being the overarching Red Angel mystery.

[01:28:46] I think the third one is the Leland reveal, which did feel a little, that felt a little like, oh, God. Okay. Now we've got another mystery. Leland did something to Michael's parents. We're going back to that? Yeah, that's going to open the door to a couple of things this season. So, yeah. Does it turn out to be that important, the fact that he had something to do with her parents' death? Obviously, Leland becomes more, I know. I mean, it does, I don't know that it matters. It's a stepping stone. We'll find out. We'll find out for sure. I forget the details. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:29:15] Of personal issue to it. But I don't know that it's like integral to the actual plot, so to speak. Yeah. Yeah. But on that note, Cameron, the shuttle comes back and there's what is very clearly a space squid on the shuttle. And Saru goes, what is that? It's like, dude, that's clearly a time squid. Why do you have to ask what that is? It's like, you can see it right there. It's a time squid.

[01:29:45] Come on. Time squid. Come on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm surprised Tilly didn't say it. She put times in front of everybody. Just everybody stops. Like, Detmer just gives them like a scowl and just a dirty look. Like, duh. She's pointing. Like, pointing and looking at him. Like, time squid, man. They all said, if the entire bridge crew said time squid at one point, I would have left myself silly. And it would not have been out of place.

[01:30:12] They really missed a couple of opportunities for great jokes in this episode. Well, Discovery is known for like one joke per episode. That's the drama show. Like, if this was Strange New Worlds, the entire bridge crew would have gone and said time squid. Oh, they would have said time squid. Yeah. Bring us home, John. We have had a fantastic time with our guest tonight, Steve. Thank you once again for joining us. If folks want to hear your upcoming show, where can they go to? Anywhere you can find your podcast.

[01:30:41] We're going to be putting it out on, I think it's Spotify for Makers. My co-host Chester is the one who he has his own other podcast called History Loves Company. And so he's going to be in charge of publishing. I'll be doing the social media. But you can find me on Blue Sky now. I've taken the plunge and followed you guys because Twitter is a hellscape. I'm still there. There's one thing that I continue that I need to keep following, and that helps me with my finances.

[01:31:07] But other than that, and then you can find me on my Etsy page, which is etsy.com slash shop slash Sin Sarah Carpentry, which is actually being rebranded into 9 and 3 quarters woodworking because I had a little fun earlier this year. What? Yeah. Wow. Yeah, so I'm... The index finger? Yeah, it's my left hand. But yeah, I got 9 and 3 quarters of them left.

[01:31:30] But the, you know, good things came out of it because now I'm, you know, I spent some time out of the woodshop healing, and I started to paint again. Nice. And I started this other little project where I take t-shirts, and I take the old t-shirts, and I put them on the canvas. That's cool. You can find me there on, that's tupcycle with underscores on Instagram. And then I'm also, I also make pins. Cameron, why don't you show them some pins?

[01:32:01] The ones you just showed them, but... Yeah. There's no video, but... Oh, right. Also, Jesse and John pins. There you go. My most popular one right there is the Yin Yang Millennium Falcon. Sorry, star yin, star yang for copyright purposes. Yeah. But yeah, but you can find all my pins and my art on my Etsy page and Instagram. And yes, by the time you hear this, battle stage theatrica should be ringing in your ears. Cannot wait. Unlike this show, it is depressing. It is a depressing sidebar show.

[01:32:31] But we try and make it fun. And just like Cameron, my friend Chester hasn't seen any of it, and I'm guiding him through it. And we were theater majors together when it was airing, and so that's what we kind of cycled back to. Hey, let's, you know, instead of just talking about something, let's perform it. But I'm taking notes on his reactions, and then we, right after watching it, we get into the show. So, and then I think that's a better take than just me rattling off what I think about the show.

[01:33:00] Because also watching it with him, especially with his, he's a history buff, and so he finds connections to, you know, there's Roman god references, there's Greek god references, there's all kinds of, all this has happened before, all this has happened again. And watching it with him is like, honestly, I'm like watching the show for the first time. Jesse? We had some fantastic callers, and welcome to our new callers on OpenPike. How can listeners lend their voices to the OpenPike Night stage?

[01:33:27] The easiest way to do that is to just go to openpike.com. You'll see a little tab on the bottom of the screen that says send your message or record your voice, something along those lines. And of course, you can also write in if you would prefer not to speak into the microphone. But we are always happy to have new speakers here on the stage with us.

[01:33:45] You can also find links to our wonderfully bespoke merchandise for Strange New Worlds there, as well as our Patreon, where you can go to become a supporter, much like our friend Steve has done. And we thank you all for listening to OpenPike Night. Even if you are not supporting financially, your ears are enough for us. And Cameron, like you said, it's a momentous time. You are just finishing up with Star Trek The Next Generation over on the green shirt and newbies Trek The Next Generation.

[01:34:15] So now that you've finished that up, tell us why Deep Space Nine is the best Star Trek ever. Because I'm only on season two of Deep Space Nine and it's already the best Star Trek ever. And people are saying this isn't even the good part of Deep Space Nine. Apparently it gets better. Apparently seasons one and two were the bad seasons. So I can't wait till I get to the good seasons. But yeah, if you're listening to this on drop day, tune into Green Shirt in two days. You'll hear our episode on all good things.

[01:34:41] Finally tearing that green shirt off me and being a true TNG devotee. It's been a long ride. Check out that episode and then go back and listen to all 177 episodes. And yeah, and we'll still be going with the DS9 Minute. And I will let you know my feelings on Generations when I watch it again since it first aired in theaters. And I was like, who are these crew? I don't even know. Where's Kirk? Oh, there's Kirk. Wait, yeah, Kirk's in it. Yeah. Anyway, it was a long time ago.

[01:35:11] I'm going to have a new take on it now. You kind of just described the plot of Generations. Where's Kirk? Oh, there's Kirk. You're right. Done. Anyways, Green Shirt, a newbie's check wherever you get your pods. Fantastic. Well, it has been a long night. And the Open Pike Night crew has to go scrub all this writing off the wall. Somebody's just been carving everything in here. And it looks like they're phone numbers, but they can't connect to anything. I don't know. Maybe we're dialing them wrong for some reason. But be sure to clean up after yourselves. Be sure to tip your servers.

[01:35:40] You can go anywhere you want, but you can't stay here. So say we all.