OPN - Disco Inferno 4 - "An Obol for Charon"

[00:00:08] Is this thing on? Hello? Hello? Welcome to Open Pike Night, the Strange New Worlds Podcast where your personal logs are the prime directive. I'm your host, John T. Boulds, here tonight with Disco Inferno Episode 4, where we'll be discussing Discovery Season 2 Episode 4 and Obol for Charon. Charon, Charon, Charon, Charon, how do we all pronounce it? Well, I just got it all out there for everybody.

[00:00:48] Is it Charon? Is it Charon or Charon? Which is it? And I'm joined here today by my co-host, the man who really wanted to pick Raspberry Beret or When Doves Cry by Prince but couldn't because Jet Reno mentioned them in the episode, Jesse Bailey.

[00:01:05] It's true. And lest anybody think I'm not dedicated to this, I am currently missing both a Steelers divisional game and the Latin America International Championships for the Pokemon VGC competition. So I'm fully focused, but I want you guys to know, sometimes we make sacrifices for this podcast.

[00:01:28] And the man who was furious that he couldn't pick a space oddity by David Bowie for this episode. That was what Tilly's saying, right? Have you ever been more angry at Tilly, Cam? Have you? Cameron Harrison?

[00:01:39] Just when I thought Tilly couldn't get any cooler, I'm reminded that she's a David Bowie fan. Although, I mean, space oddity, little on the nose.

[00:01:45] Yeah, I mean, but it is Discovery. Remember, we're talking about possibly the most on the nose Star Trek series there is.

[00:01:53] Not a track from Heathen, Tilly, not something from Blackstar. Come on, Blackstar, his swan song. Come on, Tilly.

[00:02:00] I don't know what Cameron is talking about.

[00:02:03] We are here, as I said before, to discuss season two, episode four of Star Trek Discovery.

[00:02:10] An opal for Cam? Who's it for? Oh, sorry, he's eating. Jesse, who's it for?

[00:02:15] I say Charon, but that's because in StarCraft, I'm pretty sure there's a planet called Charon.

[00:02:22] Oh, maybe it's Char. I think there is, yeah.

[00:02:23] I believe it's Charmander is actually how it's pronounced.

[00:02:26] Oh, correct. Thank you.

[00:02:28] K-Ron? K-Ron needs to build more pylons? I can't remember.

[00:02:32] Yeah.

[00:02:33] Did anyone look up? What's this name come from?

[00:02:35] Okay, so I was gonna say, yes, the obol is the form of money that you would put in a dead person's mouth

[00:02:43] so that they could pay, I believe Charon is the ferryman?

[00:02:47] Yeah, the ferryman, that's it, yeah.

[00:02:48] To ferry you across the River Styx, if I'm not mistaken?

[00:02:51] Yeah, and if you cross the River Styx without the ferryman's permission,

[00:02:56] then Cerberus eats you, I think, and doesn't let you into the gates of Hades?

[00:03:00] I can't remember.

[00:03:01] Sounds accurate to me.

[00:03:03] So, who's Sharon in this one? Is Sharon...

[00:03:08] Yeah, I'm like, I think I've got the obol, right?

[00:03:13] Like, the sphere gives them its library of data.

[00:03:18] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:18] But I don't know who Charon would be in the metaphor.

[00:03:22] Mm-hmm.

[00:03:23] Yeah.

[00:03:24] I don't know.

[00:03:25] Yeah, I'm not sure this one holds up to very much scrutiny.

[00:03:29] Maybe it's death itself.

[00:03:31] Yeah.

[00:03:32] Perhaps.

[00:03:33] There we go.

[00:03:34] There we go.

[00:03:34] There is a lot of death talk in this one.

[00:03:36] There is a whole lot of death talk in this episode.

[00:03:38] But that's not where we start in this episode.

[00:03:42] Mm-mm.

[00:03:43] We start with a 90 second last time on.

[00:03:47] Yes.

[00:03:48] And, like, I, you know, I gotta assume that most folks need all 90 of those seconds

[00:03:54] because it's been, what, two weeks, maybe three weeks since we watched Disco Together?

[00:03:59] And you guys, I was actually grateful that this last time on was so long.

[00:04:04] But it does really bring to the forefront how much they're doing plot-wise in this season

[00:04:11] of Discovery.

[00:04:12] It's like, last time on Discovery and then lists six plot lines.

[00:04:17] Yeah.

[00:04:17] And, like, it's a lot.

[00:04:18] But not the one we just spent all last episode on.

[00:04:21] Right.

[00:04:22] Not a single talk of Klingons to Section 31.

[00:04:24] Yep.

[00:04:24] The drip, drip, drip of information this season is so mind-boggling.

[00:04:30] It is.

[00:04:31] And there is one other thing about the start of this episode that I just, I simply do not

[00:04:37] approve of.

[00:04:39] We're on the transporter pad.

[00:04:41] We finally get to meet Una.

[00:04:43] Yeah.

[00:04:44] After Pike says, energize, one of the transporter officers says, teleporter incoming.

[00:04:51] Yeah.

[00:04:52] Teleporter.

[00:04:53] And I was upset.

[00:04:54] It was set.

[00:04:55] Yeah, it was Mr. Pre-Geordie LaForge Visor guy says, teleporter.

[00:05:00] Did not like that.

[00:05:01] Ooh.

[00:05:01] Hmm.

[00:05:02] Hmm.

[00:05:02] That's impressive they let that one slip by and haven't corrected it yet.

[00:05:07] It's the easiest fix in the world.

[00:05:09] It's half a line of ADR, you remaster the file.

[00:05:14] But I'm sure Cameron felt vindicated because I know he's spent years calling them teleporters

[00:05:21] until a nitpicky Trekkie got after him.

[00:05:24] It's really hard because I end every green shirt episode with the sound of a transporter

[00:05:27] and it took me like three seasons before I would, because I would Google the file name

[00:05:32] to pull it into my track and I would transporter every time, or teleporter.

[00:05:36] I'm like, where's the teleporter file?

[00:05:37] Oh, right.

[00:05:37] Transport.

[00:05:38] Okay.

[00:05:40] Three seasons.

[00:05:42] But I know that you guys, along with me, do stand a cheeseburger queen.

[00:05:48] So I'm so happy to see Una's lunch order.

[00:05:51] Like, I just ate and I'm still hungry thinking about her lunch order.

[00:05:55] Hell yeah.

[00:05:56] What's Pike giving her crap for?

[00:05:58] It's a little too spicy.

[00:05:59] I'm with Pike.

[00:06:00] Oh, you gotta have some spice in your burgers, man.

[00:06:03] Come on.

[00:06:04] It's habanero sauce.

[00:06:06] She determines the level of spice.

[00:06:07] It gives it a whole thing.

[00:06:09] She is Illyrian.

[00:06:10] Maybe that's the only way she can actually taste the flavor.

[00:06:13] Her genetics won't allow that in.

[00:06:15] Yeah, I buy that.

[00:06:17] Yeah.

[00:06:17] Yeah.

[00:06:17] Yeah.

[00:06:18] I was kind of like, when it is fun watching this and being like, huh, they didn't carry

[00:06:22] that through.

[00:06:22] That's interesting.

[00:06:23] I would have liked to see more of Una's bold eating habits in the strange new world.

[00:06:28] Sort of like Brad Pitt in Ocean's Eleven.

[00:06:31] Yeah.

[00:06:32] Yeah.

[00:06:32] Una made a hard turn into the dessert world.

[00:06:34] And that was-

[00:06:35] Oh, yeah.

[00:06:36] That was interesting.

[00:06:37] Well, I guess and the breakfast world.

[00:06:38] But I really love that the pad she slides across the table to Pike is a straight up TOS

[00:06:43] like clipboard style ginormous pad.

[00:06:47] It's not a little handheld TNG thing.

[00:06:50] Now, why does she look so different?

[00:06:53] Is it just the hairstyle?

[00:06:54] It's gotta be.

[00:06:56] And she's wearing that-

[00:06:57] It's so funny how it can change her face so much.

[00:06:59] The older-

[00:07:00] The high neck uniform really does.

[00:07:03] It is striking how much different that makes our main character some strange new worlds look.

[00:07:09] Yeah.

[00:07:09] Yeah.

[00:07:10] And they moved it to the disco uniforms.

[00:07:13] I noticed in this episode, like, now the disco uniforms have that high asymmetrical collar,

[00:07:19] but in the disco blue color.

[00:07:22] And it's like, I mean, I understand where the people complaining about the uniforms in Discovery

[00:07:28] are coming from.

[00:07:28] Oh my God.

[00:07:29] Like, it's not consistent.

[00:07:31] It defeats the word uniform.

[00:07:33] But I like that disco tends to go more asymmetrical with their designs.

[00:07:39] And that carries through all the seasons, right?

[00:07:40] Even in season five, we've got like the asymmetrical waist M or whatever it is.

[00:07:47] And they've got stripe on one side, but not the other side.

[00:07:51] So I think that it ends up being a consistent design language.

[00:07:55] It's just weird.

[00:07:57] And it's not bad.

[00:07:58] It's just weird.

[00:08:00] Yeah.

[00:08:01] And I mean, it's like the information she brings to be like, okay, yeah, it looks like Spock

[00:08:07] might have killed a few people and they've classified him level one.

[00:08:10] And it's like, man, level one out of something I've never heard of before.

[00:08:15] Holy crap.

[00:08:17] But I do appreciate that they went level one instead of like level nine.

[00:08:22] Right.

[00:08:22] Because if it's nine, you're like, well, how many is it out of?

[00:08:25] Is it out of 25?

[00:08:26] But level one, it's like, well, whatever, however many levels there are, that's the top

[00:08:30] one.

[00:08:30] So that's the top one.

[00:08:31] Unless it's the bottom one.

[00:08:33] I mean, yeah.

[00:08:34] Right.

[00:08:35] It's some sort of one.

[00:08:36] Yeah, exactly.

[00:08:37] I don't know how warp signatures work, guys.

[00:08:41] Because so she gives him, she found the warp signature for his shuttle and they start following

[00:08:48] it.

[00:08:48] And then they get stuck by the obol for Sharon.

[00:08:52] Yep.

[00:08:53] And then they're minutes away from losing it.

[00:08:56] But like, it had already been days old by the time they started following it.

[00:08:59] Right.

[00:08:59] Like, I don't understand.

[00:09:01] So the ionization.

[00:09:02] And they're one years away at all times.

[00:09:04] The ionization of the particles in the wake of the shuttle is an effect that wears off.

[00:09:09] They deteriorate and then you can no longer track them.

[00:09:12] Is my guess.

[00:09:13] And so they just happened to start like 45 minutes before they were going to start dissipating.

[00:09:20] Well, of course.

[00:09:20] I mean, you got to have TV drama, right?

[00:09:23] That is not even the biggest coincidence in this episode.

[00:09:29] It's true.

[00:09:30] Well, before we get off of the Strange New Worlds kind of the Enterprise talk, I say, we, they

[00:09:37] do mention an engineer.

[00:09:38] It's not someone we've ever heard from again, is it?

[00:09:41] Nope.

[00:09:41] No.

[00:09:41] We've never heard his name mentioned.

[00:09:43] Louvier, I think.

[00:09:43] Yeah.

[00:09:45] But they do give a little Scotty kind of foreshadowing reference.

[00:09:50] Yeah.

[00:09:50] That was fun.

[00:09:51] And it's a fun way to do it because they make Pike be wrong about it.

[00:09:55] He's like, no one will ever love the Enterprise like that chief engineer.

[00:09:59] It's like, that's an interesting road to choose.

[00:10:03] But I like that they, you know, kind of hint that like basically every engineer that ends

[00:10:09] up here is going to love this ship.

[00:10:11] So just relax.

[00:10:12] Well, but where's he go?

[00:10:13] Like as soon as they take off the holograms, he's like, fuck it.

[00:10:16] I'm out of here.

[00:10:17] No holograms.

[00:10:18] I'm off this ship.

[00:10:19] That's how much I love this ship.

[00:10:20] Spoiler alert.

[00:10:21] He probably dies at the end of this season.

[00:10:23] Oh shit.

[00:10:24] You're right.

[00:10:25] Oh yeah.

[00:10:26] Yeah.

[00:10:28] Poor Louvier.

[00:10:29] Poor guy.

[00:10:29] Poor guy.

[00:10:29] And you know, you know, what's funny is that we get the name of the Enterprise's chief

[00:10:34] engineer who we never see.

[00:10:36] And then they mentioned the disco chief engineer, not by name.

[00:10:40] And we never see.

[00:10:42] Ever.

[00:10:43] What?

[00:10:43] Like not once.

[00:10:44] Right.

[00:10:44] In five seasons.

[00:10:45] They just.

[00:10:46] I don't remember if Stamets gets promoted to chief, but it's like, he's specifically as

[00:10:52] a spore drive guy.

[00:10:53] Right.

[00:10:53] Like he's not there.

[00:10:55] He's a scientist.

[00:10:56] To run everything.

[00:10:56] Yeah.

[00:10:57] So it's.

[00:10:57] I.

[00:10:58] Yeah.

[00:10:58] That's poor engineer.

[00:11:00] Like everything gets taken away from him and handed to the scientists.

[00:11:03] Yeah.

[00:11:03] Yeah.

[00:11:04] So like Cam said, then we race off and, you know, get stuck by the sphere.

[00:11:09] And I was like, oh, I've.

[00:11:10] Like I said, it's been a lot of.

[00:11:12] Oh yeah.

[00:11:13] For me while I watched this.

[00:11:14] Cause it has been years since I watched season two of discovery.

[00:11:18] And I honestly, I think I had conflated the red angel and the sphere together.

[00:11:24] And I forgot that this all happened in one episode.

[00:11:29] And that one episode, it really, it's interesting, especially after, like you said, Cam, all the

[00:11:34] stuff they set up last time, like no section 31, no Klingon drama.

[00:11:39] We are right back on discovery, chasing a mystery, like massive whiplash swing.

[00:11:45] Yeah.

[00:11:46] Well, you know, and the previous two episodes were very episodic, but within the larger

[00:11:52] serialized story of the season.

[00:11:55] And then all of a sudden, yeah, here, like there's some talk about what they're trying

[00:11:58] to do, but then there's this whole other kind of episodic thing they have to deal with

[00:12:02] that ends up having a huge effect on everything.

[00:12:05] I mean, this episode is probably the single most pivotal episode to discovery going forward

[00:12:10] between Saru and this fucking sphere, which gets name dropped well into season five.

[00:12:16] Yeah, because it becomes Zora on the ship eventually, which is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:12:23] Just personality.

[00:12:24] But I do love the design of the sphere.

[00:12:27] It manages to be kind of distinct enough from a Borg sphere, especially in a season where

[00:12:34] like every single hint feels like this is definitely going to be the Borg set up.

[00:12:40] And again, spoiler alert, it is not, but it really, I really like just the idea of it.

[00:12:48] It's a hundred thousand years old.

[00:12:50] It's seen all this stuff.

[00:12:51] It's collected all this data.

[00:12:52] Like I kind of hope there's some memory beta, like series of books about the sphere because

[00:12:58] I want to know more about it.

[00:13:00] It's, it's a cool idea.

[00:13:02] Yeah, it is.

[00:13:03] Okay.

[00:13:03] This sphere, I mean, just jumping to it right now.

[00:13:07] Yeah, that's fine.

[00:13:08] That up.

[00:13:09] Star Trek loves their cultures, which are dying and really want to tell everyone else about

[00:13:16] their story through, you could say problematic invasive means.

[00:13:22] Yeah.

[00:13:23] You will hear about our history.

[00:13:26] You will find out about our history.

[00:13:28] The end of this episode is like an explosive inner light, basically.

[00:13:33] It's the outer light.

[00:13:34] Yeah.

[00:13:38] But yeah, like three times arguably in TNG, like people's lives have been put in danger

[00:13:44] of their mental health, seriously strained.

[00:13:48] Just, just so a species can continue their story.

[00:13:51] Later on again in disco definitely happens in deep space nine in like one of their weirdest

[00:13:58] episodes that dramatis persona episode where everybody's like, there's somebody else, but I don't know

[00:14:04] why.

[00:14:05] There's also an episode that rightfully could be, Cam has been seen yet, that rightfully

[00:14:10] could be called the inner dark for DS9.

[00:14:13] So yeah.

[00:14:14] Mm.

[00:14:15] Yep.

[00:14:15] I feel like that's just the subtitle for DS9.

[00:14:18] Pretty much.

[00:14:19] Yeah.

[00:14:19] Fair.

[00:14:19] And they totally tease us with like some of this sphere's knowledge, right?

[00:14:23] Like there was a war between a quaternary star system and some other empire.

[00:14:28] And I'm like, dude, this thing probably knows about like even the doomsday machine from the

[00:14:34] TOS episode doomsday machine.

[00:14:37] I need more sphere information.

[00:14:40] Yeah.

[00:14:40] But you know.

[00:14:41] Yeah.

[00:14:42] It is the Forrest Gump of the galaxy.

[00:14:44] So, you know, it's been there.

[00:14:46] It's been there at all the big events.

[00:14:47] Those aliens were warring.

[00:14:52] I was going to say this universal translator scene, it's maybe a little bit gimmicky, right?

[00:14:58] But it's impressive nonetheless.

[00:15:00] These actors are all actually speaking different languages.

[00:15:03] And I'm just going to throw this out there.

[00:15:07] The computer in French is hot.

[00:15:13] I mean, they deliver really well.

[00:15:16] They keep it as one of those frenetic disco bridge shots where it's like, oh yeah, cameras

[00:15:21] whipping all around and everybody's speaking all these different language computers speaking

[00:15:24] different languages.

[00:15:25] Saru is just talking shit to everybody after.

[00:15:30] I mean, well, I guess it makes sense that he's salty because he just drank what half a

[00:15:34] cup of salt in the previous scene.

[00:15:37] He knows he's dying at this point.

[00:15:39] Yeah.

[00:15:39] Yeah.

[00:15:39] I presume it's between the two scenes when he figured it out.

[00:15:42] Yeah.

[00:15:43] He had like real 830 AM all hands work meeting energy for that scene.

[00:15:48] Just like, did any of you do the work?

[00:15:51] Okay.

[00:15:51] All right.

[00:15:52] Whatever.

[00:15:53] There.

[00:15:54] I'm going back to bed.

[00:15:55] But you're right.

[00:15:56] Two things about that scene.

[00:15:57] One, I had forgotten it was coming.

[00:15:59] And I remember during the first meeting, I was like, why this weird, clunky, awkward Linus

[00:16:05] exchange about the universal translator?

[00:16:07] Oh, because we're setting it up in case someone doesn't know.

[00:16:10] Okay.

[00:16:10] Okay.

[00:16:10] That's fine.

[00:16:11] Yeah.

[00:16:11] Yeah.

[00:16:11] And then I just wonder, you know, we've talked about why their mouths move the way they would

[00:16:19] be speaking those languages.

[00:16:20] I just wonder how the scene would work if it was all like badly dubbed.

[00:16:23] Like it should have been, you would think, but I think that also could have worked.

[00:16:28] I think it would have been really funny, but I understand from like a director's perspective

[00:16:33] where they might think, well, that will undercut the seriousness of this problem.

[00:16:38] Yeah.

[00:16:39] It's a pretty funny scene though.

[00:16:40] Yeah.

[00:16:41] Cause you have like Detmer when she's like pointing to her own mouth, like, am I speaking

[00:16:45] Arabic?

[00:16:45] Like this was, it was funny in itself.

[00:16:49] It could have gone the full bad dub route.

[00:16:52] I, I definitely agree with that take.

[00:16:54] Hmm.

[00:16:55] I could have been, I do like, they also included, they kept, you know, kept Pike as Pike and

[00:16:59] he immediately does a biblical reference as soon as Saru walks in and welcome to the tower

[00:17:03] of Babel.

[00:17:03] Like, yeah, good for them.

[00:17:05] You know, this is who this guy is.

[00:17:07] He grew up this way and he makes these kind of old reference references.

[00:17:11] But I mean, this is an episode full of old references anyway.

[00:17:14] Yeah.

[00:17:15] And, and they do later go back to his origins as a horseman when he says, don't spare the

[00:17:22] horses.

[00:17:22] Right.

[00:17:23] Which don't spare the horses.

[00:17:24] Like Pike, that doesn't sound like you.

[00:17:26] You love horses.

[00:17:27] And that's what I'm saying.

[00:17:29] Like, it's a little bit problematic.

[00:17:30] Right.

[00:17:31] Cause it's like, it means that he knows that it hurts the horses.

[00:17:35] Like, it's, it's all right.

[00:17:36] Like he's a cowboy.

[00:17:37] We get it.

[00:17:38] Riding a steel horse.

[00:17:39] Oh crap.

[00:17:40] No, no.

[00:17:40] It's not my song selection.

[00:17:41] Okay.

[00:17:44] I think I used that one last time.

[00:17:46] Didn't I?

[00:17:46] You did.

[00:17:47] Yeah.

[00:17:48] Yeah.

[00:17:48] In season five.

[00:17:49] Yep.

[00:17:49] Yeah.

[00:17:50] Definitely go sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com slash open pike for $2 to hear all of our season

[00:17:57] five discovery bonus coverage.

[00:17:59] I promise you'll like it.

[00:18:01] All right.

[00:18:02] So we have blob may in.

[00:18:05] Yep.

[00:18:06] She's got some serious Horta vibes.

[00:18:08] If I'm being honest here.

[00:18:10] Like, yeah, I can see that, but it's, it's updated.

[00:18:13] It's a good visual.

[00:18:13] Cool.

[00:18:14] I think Tilly is the only person in history whose hair looks better after an electric shock.

[00:18:23] That was a pretty fun little shot.

[00:18:25] Yeah.

[00:18:25] Like the, the, uh, the whole, all right, well, we'll just string a huge neon tube together

[00:18:31] and let jet Reno hold the discharge end to, to get the, uh, charge off the deck and just

[00:18:36] everybody gets blasted.

[00:18:37] Like, okay.

[00:18:38] They're just, they're just having fun doing wacky science in this room for the whole episode

[00:18:42] and just being snarky with each other.

[00:18:45] Like it's a good offset to the, to the Michael Saru dynamic.

[00:18:48] Yeah.

[00:18:48] We get our light, light story and our dark story.

[00:18:51] Well, and somebody in this staff is clearly a Ghostbusters fan, right?

[00:18:55] Like this is the second or third very Ghostbusters scene that we've had this season.

[00:19:00] I was going to say we were robbed by Tig Notaro not being in the Ghostbusters reboot

[00:19:04] from a few years ago.

[00:19:05] She would have been right in and this episode proves it.

[00:19:08] I don't think there's anything you could put her in that she wouldn't be great in.

[00:19:12] Honestly, she's amazing.

[00:19:15] I'll say it out.

[00:19:15] She's the best part of this episode.

[00:19:17] I mean, the subplot's the best subplot.

[00:19:19] I might be able to agree with that.

[00:19:22] We'll see.

[00:19:22] We'll see.

[00:19:23] We'll see.

[00:19:23] We'll see.

[00:19:25] I'll just say I remember this episode and I've been waiting to talk about it.

[00:19:28] Well, and yeah, I think this is probably a lot of people's favorite episode from this

[00:19:33] season.

[00:19:33] Like this episode has a lot of love and I mean, there's a lot of stuff that happens in

[00:19:38] this season, but it also, this is, this is like our first full episode we get with

[00:19:45] her right after since our introduction.

[00:19:47] Yeah.

[00:19:48] Like this is, this was every, you know, it's, it's hard to separate what we know about

[00:19:52] her from the next few seasons to be like, okay, no, this would have been the second time

[00:19:57] we got to really spend any time with her.

[00:19:58] And yeah, she's just fun and, you know, firing shots back at Stamets as quick as he's firing

[00:20:04] them at her and just ready to drill into somebody's brain.

[00:20:10] Well, and there is a thing here where I'm kind of wondering, like this show is, is serialized.

[00:20:17] This season is a little more episodic, but the show's identity is a serialized show,

[00:20:21] right?

[00:20:23] Mm-hmm.

[00:20:23] But they still, when Jet Reno comes into engineering, they still have her restack.

[00:20:28] Oh, I'm from that asteroid that you landed on and now I'm here.

[00:20:32] I came with you.

[00:20:33] It's like, that was two episodes ago.

[00:20:36] Is the reason they're doing that because there are 14 plot lines happening?

[00:20:41] So many plot lines.

[00:20:43] Yeah.

[00:20:44] They got to assume nobody's watching an episode of Discovery, right?

[00:20:47] Like you're, you're going to watch the season if you're invested, but what do you think is

[00:20:52] the A plot of this episode?

[00:20:54] I want to say the Saru, like, I think the Saru ganglia dying thing is just a little bit

[00:21:02] more of an A plot than the sphere data.

[00:21:04] Obviously they're, you know, very, very intertwined and, and I think that's supposed to be the

[00:21:11] A plot, but it's hard to tell, man.

[00:21:14] It's hard to tell.

[00:21:15] There's, yeah, the scales are very evenly balanced.

[00:21:18] Yeah.

[00:21:18] I think you could argue that the sphere storyline is part of what makes Saru's the A plot because

[00:21:28] it is so supportive of that plot.

[00:21:30] Like it's a parallel experience, right?

[00:21:35] Like it's going through a death process the way he's going through a death process.

[00:21:38] He's the one that figures it out.

[00:21:39] It's another statement that empathy is our greatest weapon in Starfleet.

[00:21:43] Like there's, it's really difficult to separate those two plots, right?

[00:21:50] Because they, they are so tightly wound.

[00:21:53] And I feel like Stamets saying like, this has nothing to do with the mycelial network is

[00:21:59] them saying, this is the other plot.

[00:22:02] Those are their own thing.

[00:22:04] This is its own thing.

[00:22:05] Don't worry.

[00:22:07] Yeah.

[00:22:09] And like we, we talked about before with the, um, episode two, how it's like, oh, you know,

[00:22:15] Pike handing off the power cell and getting the camera for the red angel.

[00:22:19] Like it really felt like it was, you know, his central front and center.

[00:22:22] This is definitely right back to Michael front and center.

[00:22:25] And like, like you said, like this, this episode establishes the Michael through dynamic that

[00:22:30] we see for the rest of this entire series.

[00:22:34] Like it, it really locks it in here.

[00:22:37] And I think they do a pretty good job because I mean, we know that Michael and Saru started

[00:22:44] out not necessarily as enemies, but they had a much more antagonistic relationship.

[00:22:49] Right.

[00:22:50] So to have Michael have a scene where she realizes this is one of her few long-term relationships

[00:22:58] anymore, I think is a good way to go about it rather than just, you know, have her being

[00:23:04] like, oh, come on, Saru, you're my best friend.

[00:23:06] I can help you.

[00:23:07] It's like, she gets to that at the end of this process when he's like, hey, can you kill

[00:23:12] me?

[00:23:12] And she's much more supportive than Riker ever was in this situation.

[00:23:15] I just got to say.

[00:23:18] Speaking of being very supportive of your friends, uh, we do have some calls today.

[00:23:23] We have a call here from somebody we haven't heard from for a little while.

[00:23:26] Let's, uh, let's see what he's got to say.

[00:23:29] So there I was enjoying a much needed social media cleanse.

[00:23:33] When I learned through the waves of space and time that my favorite podcast is revisiting

[00:23:40] my favorite season of Star Trek discovery.

[00:23:42] Woo.

[00:23:43] Thus the end of my social media cleanse.

[00:23:47] What's up guys.

[00:23:47] It's Sincera.

[00:23:49] And I'm, I'm excited to go on this journey with you.

[00:23:51] It's my favorite season though.

[00:23:53] This time upon this new revisitation, I can't get producer John's words out of my ears and

[00:24:04] my brain and my imagination at Anson Mount head looks too big for his body because now every

[00:24:14] time I pass through a mirror, that's all I see is my own giant head over my own body because

[00:24:21] I haven't been going to the gym like I should be during the social media cleanse.

[00:24:24] So that's the inspiration that is coming along with this revisit of Star Trek season,

[00:24:30] discovery season two is that I'm going back to the damn gym and I'm going to start drinking

[00:24:34] some more protein shakes and I'm going to look like Anson Mount when he did the start of Star

[00:24:37] Trek discovery by the time season three premieres.

[00:24:41] So I hope you know that you've inspired greatness in all of us.

[00:24:45] And I look forward to revisiting the rest of the podcast with you guys.

[00:24:50] I don't even know what episode is a point of light.

[00:24:53] I forget.

[00:24:53] I actually do forget what's next.

[00:24:54] They'll kind of blend together, but I will catch up and I will actually have something

[00:24:58] to talk about that episode when I'm done watching live long and prosper.

[00:25:07] All right.

[00:25:08] So a couple of things here.

[00:25:10] First of all, I fully understand you on the social media cleanse.

[00:25:13] If you follow us on Twitter, you may have noticed that our presence there has, let's say,

[00:25:20] decreased.

[00:25:21] We are fully on board on Blue Sky.

[00:25:24] You can follow us on Blue Sky.

[00:25:26] It's the same handle, openpike.bsky.social.

[00:25:29] However the handles there work.

[00:25:30] Just look for openpike.

[00:25:33] So I totally get it.

[00:25:35] And that kind of a social media cleanse can be incredibly healing.

[00:25:39] And I'm sorry that we drug you back into those toxic waters.

[00:25:45] But you guys, is he saying he's going to find a way to make his head smaller?

[00:25:49] I think he's going to make his body bigger with our new program, PodFit from OpenPike Night.

[00:25:55] No, we're not doing that.

[00:25:56] Go to openpike.burn.com.

[00:26:03] Yeah, I guess we'd release fitness tapes.

[00:26:05] I don't know.

[00:26:05] We'd have to come up with a way to make it fun and gimmicky and, you know, also effective.

[00:26:10] Because I think that's what people want out of their workouts.

[00:26:13] So I'm going to leave that up to anyone but me.

[00:26:18] But honestly, Sincera, as a person who has gone through life with a very large head,

[00:26:23] I totally get where you're coming from.

[00:26:26] You know, it's made a lot of decisions for me.

[00:26:29] Like, I got to get a haircut where I can wear it up so that it, you know,

[00:26:33] distracts from the size of my forehead.

[00:26:34] I wear the aviators because they make the rest of my face look smaller.

[00:26:38] I totally get where you're coming from, man.

[00:26:40] I never thought about wearing bigger glasses to make my head look smaller.

[00:26:43] I go the other way.

[00:26:44] But I will say, Steve, Sincera, our buddy, did catch up,

[00:26:49] and he actually did call in specifically for this episode.

[00:26:51] So let's do a back-to-back call here from Sincera.

[00:26:55] What's up, guys?

[00:26:57] It's Steve from the Battlestage Theatrica podcast coming soon.

[00:27:00] I'm really – I just finished watching episode four of season two of Discovery,

[00:27:05] and it's a great reminder of all the things that I love about this season.

[00:27:09] We're introduced to the Sphere.

[00:27:10] We're introduced to Una.

[00:27:12] We're reminded – at least this time, not so much.

[00:27:15] But when I first came back into Discovery season two, I had waited a long time.

[00:27:19] I think season three was already out, and I had actually forgotten all about the Kelpien physiology

[00:27:25] and what was going on with Cerus.

[00:27:26] That was nice to be reminded of that.

[00:27:28] And then, of course, it's really great to see him overcome that

[00:27:31] and where he's going to go for the rest of his journey.

[00:27:33] A lot of things in this episode have a continuing theme throughout the rest of the series

[00:27:38] and other series on Trek.

[00:27:40] We're close on Spock's trail, who shows up in another series.

[00:27:44] The Sphere data, I don't even think it's resolved until the season five finale of Discovery.

[00:27:48] So really, this new take on serialized Trek is a great change of pace,

[00:27:55] and I'm really enjoying revisiting it.

[00:27:57] I'm also really enjoying recording my podcast, Battle Stage Theatrica,

[00:28:01] where I take my friend Chester, who's never seen the show,

[00:28:04] and we go through it episode by episode.

[00:28:05] We're having a great time.

[00:28:07] Stay tuned.

[00:28:08] January 2025.

[00:28:10] Live long and prosper.

[00:28:12] And so say we all.

[00:28:13] So say we all.

[00:28:15] So say we all.

[00:28:16] I'm going to have to watch that show for my first time,

[00:28:19] right along with your podcast.

[00:28:21] I bet it's going to be a great fracking podcast.

[00:28:24] Well, this brings up a great part of Open Pike Night, in my opinion.

[00:28:29] If you are a caller and you have a podcast or something you want to promote, do it.

[00:28:34] That's part of why we're here.

[00:28:35] We want to help get ears into your world as you help bring ears into ours.

[00:28:40] So I am very excited for Battle Stage Theatrica coming 2025.

[00:28:46] Because, again, I've never seen the show, and I've heard nothing but good things about it.

[00:28:50] So I'm very excited for that.

[00:28:52] But yes.

[00:28:53] We should do a bonus Patreon episode on Razor.

[00:28:56] Yeah.

[00:28:57] God, Razor's so good.

[00:28:58] I want Jesse's reaction to Razor.

[00:29:00] Yes.

[00:29:00] We will do that, but we have other patron-based obligations to get to first.

[00:29:06] Okay?

[00:29:07] We really do.

[00:29:07] We really do.

[00:29:08] And we'd like to thank all of our patrons, like Steve, who support the show, for sure.

[00:29:13] I promise you Lower Decks is coming.

[00:29:16] Just been a very busy month for all three of us.

[00:29:19] So please sit tight and bear with us.

[00:29:23] So, yeah.

[00:29:24] We are, like we've talked about, and like Steve mentioned, we are definitely just heavy into the serialization now.

[00:29:30] If we weren't before, I mean, obviously we were.

[00:29:33] But man, this episode is just like, these are all continuing storylines for one, if not more episodes, seasons, or series.

[00:29:44] And it just frustrates me so much.

[00:29:47] I feel like, for me, it feels like there's a lot of what I call purple herrings.

[00:29:54] Like, the signposting for what is important is very confusing.

[00:29:59] For instance, like, right now, I don't think this blob, this info dump that they got from the orb is important.

[00:30:06] Of course, it ends up becoming incredibly important.

[00:30:09] And that's fine, but there's just so many things like that.

[00:30:11] And things that don't seem important that become important.

[00:30:13] Things that seem important that aren't important.

[00:30:15] And it's really hard to keep track of.

[00:30:18] And not a fun mystery sort of way, but for me, it was, I remember it being very frustrating.

[00:30:23] And again, maybe if I watch them more back-to-back, I'm hoping it'll be less so, but we'll see.

[00:30:30] There is a lot.

[00:30:32] There is a lot.

[00:30:34] There's no two ways around it.

[00:30:35] And they have so many pieces.

[00:30:38] And I will always point to the finale of season two, where basically everything that happens in the season leading up to that episode ends up mattering.

[00:30:50] It's just that by the time you get there, some of that stuff you don't remember.

[00:30:55] And some of that stuff was covered in a short trek.

[00:30:58] And some of it is very hand-wavy with like, yep, a thing happened.

[00:31:04] And that led to a bunch of change.

[00:31:06] And here's the result of all that change in a span of 10 weeks.

[00:31:12] And I understand it's not 10 weeks in-universe.

[00:31:15] But the point is that they pack so much into this.

[00:31:19] And you can see it in the opening credits, right?

[00:31:22] It's like story by these four people, teleplay by these four people, written by these two people.

[00:31:27] So I get it.

[00:31:30] I get where you're coming from, Cam.

[00:31:31] I do remember the last three episodes.

[00:31:34] I enjoyed it much more.

[00:31:36] But yeah, it's a bit of a journey for sure.

[00:31:38] A hundred percent.

[00:31:39] And I'm glad that Sincera brought up the Kelpien physiology.

[00:31:43] Because I believe this actually was covered in a novel that released between seasons one and two of Discovery.

[00:31:51] I haven't read it.

[00:31:52] But everything that Saru talks about has been established outside of the TV show at this point.

[00:31:59] And from what I can gather, Vahari probably feels a lot like COVID.

[00:32:05] Like, I am dying, but I am most certainly not dead.

[00:32:10] Like, that's how I felt a couple times I had COVID.

[00:32:13] I was in bed going, this could be it.

[00:32:15] Like, mostly because my will to live is being drained.

[00:32:19] Like, I do not want to do anything at all.

[00:32:23] I'm going to stay in bed for six days straight.

[00:32:25] And let's talk about Vahari for a second.

[00:32:27] I really wanted to talk about the representation of Vahari.

[00:32:31] Because I'm like, okay, so they had to fully make him up.

[00:32:35] And then make up his makeup to look like his makeup was sick.

[00:32:40] So poor Doug Jones had to probably go through more.

[00:32:42] And they, like, had to keep beads of sweat going on his makeup.

[00:32:46] And give him pale makeup.

[00:32:48] Or he kept changing colors a little bit.

[00:32:50] Or they just stopped dabbing him down when he would get really sweaty and just let it go.

[00:32:55] Like, maybe that's how he normally looked on screen, right?

[00:32:58] Right.

[00:32:59] But I don't know.

[00:33:01] Like, his prosthetics really kind of have, like, this uncooked chicken aesthetic going on.

[00:33:10] That I kind of forgot about that.

[00:33:14] But then when I saw it again, I was like, Saru's kind of gross.

[00:33:19] Very gross.

[00:33:20] No, I want to talk about Vahari more than a second.

[00:33:23] Because this is what I remember.

[00:33:24] And I'm curious, like, what people might have thought at the time.

[00:33:28] Because, of course, I watched a little bit later.

[00:33:30] And I was pretty sure Saru was in season three.

[00:33:33] So I was like, so I knew from the beginning he wasn't going to die.

[00:33:36] But I feel like even if I was watching this at the time, I would have been like, well, he's not fucking dying.

[00:33:41] Like, he's a main character.

[00:33:42] They're not.

[00:33:42] I just.

[00:33:44] The whole thing is that you're serialized, Discovery.

[00:33:46] And you introduce this plot point in this episode.

[00:33:49] You have him start with a cold at the beginning of this episode.

[00:33:52] And then end with, like, the most dramatic moment between him and Michael.

[00:33:57] And she's about to take his life.

[00:33:59] Like, you did not put the work to get me from point A to point B in this one episode.

[00:34:03] With everything else going on.

[00:34:05] Like, maybe if they had focused on it.

[00:34:07] But I think if they had introduced the cold in, like, the second episode.

[00:34:10] And then introduced the concept of Vahari in the third.

[00:34:12] And then kind of built it up.

[00:34:14] So you were thinking, like, oh, maybe at the midpoint of this season is Saru's going to die.

[00:34:19] Like, put the work in it.

[00:34:20] You asked your actors to put the work into it.

[00:34:22] And they put one hell of an effort into it.

[00:34:25] They sold it.

[00:34:26] And I could tell what they were trying to do.

[00:34:28] They were trying to play it like he was going to die.

[00:34:30] They have all the crew stand up.

[00:34:32] And they don't salute him.

[00:34:33] But basically salute him as he walks off to die.

[00:34:35] Like, they played it.

[00:34:37] They thought they were tricking us.

[00:34:39] But I just.

[00:34:40] Audiences are too savvy.

[00:34:41] We know you're not going to kill off a major character in one episode when you mention it.

[00:34:46] And that just.

[00:34:47] For me, it just sucks all the tension and trauma out of this episode.

[00:34:51] I could see that.

[00:34:52] And I think for me, it was like almost a reminder of how they set Saru up in the first season.

[00:35:00] Because like, like that first maybe scene or two with him.

[00:35:04] He's like, my species is only job is to sense the coming of death.

[00:35:09] Right.

[00:35:09] And I feel death coming now.

[00:35:11] So it's like, oh, in case you didn't watch the first season or you heard negative things about it.

[00:35:17] And this is where you're picking up.

[00:35:18] Here's like a quick reminder to that.

[00:35:21] But I agree with you that it feels like a very truncated timeline.

[00:35:25] But I will point.

[00:35:27] I will point, Cameron, to all of TNG.

[00:35:31] Where every other week somebody's air quotes life is on the line.

[00:35:36] And Discovery is trying to do better.

[00:35:40] Do better, Discovery.

[00:35:42] I think it's doing differently.

[00:35:43] My point being like, we are, we're at the mercy of single episode arcs for characters a lot in Star Trek and in TV in general.

[00:35:56] It's not 1993 anymore.

[00:35:58] Yeah.

[00:35:58] It's not.

[00:35:58] Or a post-floss situation.

[00:36:00] I mean, Ponfar was one episode, right?

[00:36:01] I mean, one of the most famous episodes about Spock's Ponfar.

[00:36:05] But he wasn't going to die at the end of it.

[00:36:07] But we know.

[00:36:08] I can definitely see where you're coming from, Cam.

[00:36:09] But we know that Akiva Goldsman is involved in this season and that he is a huge TOS fan.

[00:36:15] So there are classic Star Trek tropes woven throughout all of this.

[00:36:20] I'm not disagreeing with you that it felt truncated, especially when you consider the serialization.

[00:36:24] I'm just saying here's why I give more leeway to things like that.

[00:36:29] Yeah.

[00:36:29] Especially when it feels like a B-plot.

[00:36:31] Like, I agree emotionally it's the A-plot, but like, it's just treated like a B-plot the whole time.

[00:36:37] You're like, this isn't how Saru dies.

[00:36:39] Right.

[00:36:40] Yeah.

[00:36:40] But to your point of TOS references, I do love Tilly and Blob May's little Kirk Spock moment with the hands on the glass.

[00:36:49] Yes.

[00:36:50] That was...

[00:36:50] And she gets very afraid of it instead of being, like, deeply emotional about it.

[00:36:55] Right.

[00:36:55] Which is funny.

[00:36:56] So this is the birth of Action Saru.

[00:36:59] Like, that's what is happening in this episode.

[00:37:01] Yep.

[00:37:02] And I really enjoyed the way that they did that.

[00:37:05] I wish he would have worn a shirt.

[00:37:08] Did you guys notice that the Kelpian knife has little ganglia-shaped cutouts on the blade?

[00:37:13] Like...

[00:37:14] Oh, no.

[00:37:14] Jeez.

[00:37:15] So, like, that's what it's made for?

[00:37:16] Yeah.

[00:37:17] Like, that's kind of morbid, and I don't think they would do that, but...

[00:37:21] I am looking forward to getting to that episode.

[00:37:23] Oh, yeah.

[00:37:23] My thoughts on that one.

[00:37:24] Yeah.

[00:37:24] Well, and it makes sense because he says specifically, our species submits, right?

[00:37:29] So it's like, sure, they'd build submission into even their ceremonial suicide pruning knives.

[00:37:35] Well, yeah.

[00:37:35] I mean, he says that, like, that pruning is, like, the keystone to their whole culture.

[00:37:40] And, I mean, even Lower Decks even dealt with a species like that, right?

[00:37:44] Like, the most conquered planet.

[00:37:46] I'm thinking of something else.

[00:37:48] They're, like, don't they deal with some species that has been...

[00:37:51] Oh, it sounds familiar.

[00:37:51] I think they go to a planet where one of the Jeffrey Combs computers is, like, the latest in a long line of conquerors.

[00:37:59] Right, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:59] Or something, right?

[00:38:00] Yeah, he's conquered.

[00:38:01] Yeah, like, they're very Kelpian-ish there, so it's an idea that gets carried on at least somewhere else in Trek.

[00:38:08] But, you know, Doug Jones, he sells it.

[00:38:10] He sells, like, you know, this is what we do, and I'm dying.

[00:38:13] It's like, this is the episode he's got to do it in.

[00:38:15] I'll give him credit.

[00:38:16] He sells the hell out of it the whole time.

[00:38:18] Because I do remember the first time watching it being like, oh, okay, he's linked to the orb, and so when they get rid of the orb, then his evolution will rescind.

[00:38:29] He'll get better.

[00:38:31] And then that didn't happen.

[00:38:32] I was just like, wait, so what?

[00:38:34] Because he's not dying.

[00:38:35] What's going on?

[00:38:37] Because it's about challenging assumptions that you believe to be true.

[00:38:42] Linus' cold gets more serialization before this than Saru's death illness.

[00:38:48] Linus is one of the most important characters in all of Discovery.

[00:38:51] I'm just going to come out and say that.

[00:38:53] But, yeah, it's more of a thematic thing, I think, than a physical occurrence.

[00:38:58] But, again, I don't disagree with you.

[00:39:00] It's muddy in a lot of ways.

[00:39:04] Muddy is a good way to describe a lot of these mid-episodes.

[00:39:08] Middle, I don't mean mid.

[00:39:10] I know a lot of people love this episode.

[00:39:11] It's fine.

[00:39:12] Okay, so, Cameron, I've got to assume this is your favorite Star Trek scene ever with Tilly.

[00:39:19] Like, this is blood control to Commander Stamets.

[00:39:25] You've really screwed us up.

[00:39:29] And we really think you totally kind of suck.

[00:39:35] But, yeah, you combine David Bowie with about to drill into your friend's head pie style.

[00:39:41] I am 100% on board.

[00:39:44] Yes, right.

[00:39:45] See, it's funny because I know, like, I did not like the way this whole subplot resolved.

[00:39:51] I was like, oh, that's right.

[00:39:52] We still got to go goofy at the end of this episode.

[00:39:57] I mean, yes, I very much love that scene.

[00:39:59] I love the establishing of the connection between May and Tilly and May speaking through Tilly's body.

[00:40:05] I think that was done incredibly well.

[00:40:06] And then I think it just gets goofy as hell right at the end of that.

[00:40:09] The part I was rolling my eyes at is where, like, Tilly's talking about, you know, how she didn't feel she was a good enough friend.

[00:40:16] It just started getting back into the trauma porn.

[00:40:19] We're like, Jesus Christ, Saru is dying over on the other subplot.

[00:40:22] Can we just not right now, guys?

[00:40:24] It was elementary school, Tilly.

[00:40:26] I think you can give yourself a break.

[00:40:28] Yeah.

[00:40:28] Yeah.

[00:40:29] I'm sure that it was meant to be a parallel development, right?

[00:40:33] Sure.

[00:40:34] Michael realizes she probably hasn't been a good enough friend.

[00:40:36] Tilly feels like she hasn't been a good enough friend.

[00:40:38] But to your point about, like, the kind of muddiness of it, like, they separate and save and then lose Tilly again, like, three or four times in the last three episodes.

[00:40:52] Like, they figured out what's wrong.

[00:40:53] So they fix it.

[00:40:54] Oh, it's back to being a problem.

[00:40:55] Oh, they fixed it again.

[00:40:56] Oh, it's back to being a problem.

[00:40:58] Like, I...

[00:41:00] You're not wrong.

[00:41:00] I don't know if that's a thematic thing.

[00:41:03] Like, oh, sometimes it's hard to let go, right?

[00:41:04] Or, like, this other character.

[00:41:07] I guess now that I'm talking about it, it could be Mei attempting to do the same thing that Saru is doing, which is to sort of not weaponize his empathy, but to really stick to using empathy as your main form of communication and understanding.

[00:41:22] Because she's trying to say, like, look, you hurt us, and we don't like that, but we're not attacking you.

[00:41:31] I'm just here to tell you to please stop hurting us.

[00:41:35] And it's thematically similar to what's going on with Saru and the sphere here.

[00:41:40] Mm-hmm.

[00:41:41] Yeah.

[00:41:41] Which is also like, well, you may not be intending to hurt us, but you are hurting us.

[00:41:45] Right.

[00:41:46] There.

[00:41:47] Which is, you know, the same thing we were doing.

[00:41:49] Yeah, I wonder if part of it is, because, I mean, I do...

[00:41:52] I can look at this episode on paper and be like, well, I get it.

[00:41:55] It's like, yes, Saru's...

[00:41:57] Saru has a virus.

[00:41:58] The ship has a virus.

[00:41:59] I get what you're doing.

[00:42:00] I see the parallels.

[00:42:01] I see how you're combining things.

[00:42:02] I think the unifying theme here is everyone is dealing with something that they think is malicious that turns out to not be so.

[00:42:10] Which will come into play with my song choice.

[00:42:12] I think that's the unifying, you know, concept of this episode.

[00:42:15] But yeah, I think they're probably like, oh, well, we have the Tilly-May subplot, and we need to tie it into this.

[00:42:21] So that means we're maybe going to have to redo some of the plot points we did last episode with the saving and her getting succumbed again and then losing her.

[00:42:30] Yeah.

[00:42:31] Yeah.

[00:42:32] And poor Tilly's hair.

[00:42:34] I mean, in this episode, it goes from pulled tight to frizzed out to gooped down in the span of 40 minutes.

[00:42:43] It's like the shower that she took after this week of filming must have been two hours long.

[00:42:51] I think it's called an everything shower.

[00:42:54] But yeah, I mean, the respect that I have for the actors on this show just goes up every time I watch it because it's like you guys went through hell and you managed to deliver very, very good performances all the way through.

[00:43:08] I mean, like even think about the scene in Saru's room.

[00:43:12] Like that room has got to reek, right?

[00:43:16] And the humidity and just like, okay, now go in there and emote.

[00:43:21] Like it's impressive in a lot of ways.

[00:43:25] You're not wrong again.

[00:43:26] Not nearly as impressive as our callers.

[00:43:28] So let's hear from another one of those.

[00:43:30] Here is Abby.

[00:43:31] Hey, hey, Open Pike.

[00:43:33] It's Abby Summer from the First Flight Podcast.

[00:43:34] Here to talk about Discovery Season 2 Episode 4 and Oh, Wolf or Karen.

[00:43:39] Oh my goodness, this is peak Season 2 Discovery.

[00:43:42] I love both plots.

[00:43:44] The one that always fills my heart is Saru and Michael.

[00:43:48] Their friendship and the truthfulness to it and the evolution of it and how they realize that they are truly family,

[00:43:55] which means that you love deeply, you hurt deeply, you forgive, you're connected.

[00:44:00] That makes me cheer up every single time.

[00:44:02] And I absolutely adore Saru and this episode shows why.

[00:44:08] I could not love him and just don't want to love him more.

[00:44:12] So this one always stands out as a favorite to me.

[00:44:15] Plus, I really love all of the stuff with Reno and Tilly and Samus.

[00:44:20] Like their banter is high quality and that is such an interesting way to look at the mycelial network.

[00:44:26] And what a cliffhanger.

[00:44:27] So this one is fantastic.

[00:44:30] I realized I didn't talk anything about Una, but I'm sure you've got that covered.

[00:44:34] So yeah, hope this finds you well and we'll talk soon.

[00:44:37] Abby may be one of the most impressive callers we have because I think as we mentioned last week,

[00:44:42] she has already sent calls for the entire season.

[00:44:45] The entire season.

[00:44:47] Yeah.

[00:44:47] She has done so much more work on our own podcast than we have so far this season.

[00:44:53] I'm deeply grateful for you, Abby.

[00:44:56] And I'm glad to be flying through the blue skies with you now.

[00:45:00] And I'm really glad that you brought up the Saru-Michael relationship because,

[00:45:06] as we were mentioning before,

[00:45:08] it really gets solidified here into something that matters in a long-term way

[00:45:13] and not just Michael accepting,

[00:45:15] all right, this guy's always going to be here.

[00:45:17] And it really leads specifically to our first moment,

[00:45:22] maybe our second moment of Captain Pike just giving in and trusting a crew member's gut feeling,

[00:45:28] right?

[00:45:29] Which is something that we are going to see play out with his character for the rest of this season

[00:45:34] and even in the future.

[00:45:36] Because Ohura shows up and she's like,

[00:45:38] hey, I think there's invisible aliens that we're killing.

[00:45:40] Stop doing that.

[00:45:41] And he goes, you got it.

[00:45:42] Quit pumping gas.

[00:45:43] Quit pumping gas.

[00:45:44] Yeah.

[00:45:44] We're done.

[00:45:45] We're taking the pump out of the car.

[00:45:47] That is a very similar theme.

[00:45:47] Yeah.

[00:45:48] So it's.

[00:45:48] And then we're going to drive away and blow up the gas station.

[00:45:51] I hope they're immune to regular space explosions.

[00:45:57] Because the subspace thing has stopped.

[00:45:59] Yeah.

[00:45:59] I,

[00:46:00] I'm really glad that we get to see that established for Pike more than once.

[00:46:04] It's not something that we're just told,

[00:46:07] you know,

[00:46:08] Oh,

[00:46:08] he has this characteristic because that happens a lot in serialized TV when you need to just move things forward.

[00:46:16] And I have,

[00:46:17] I arguably could feel that way about some of what they do with Saru in this episode where he's like,

[00:46:23] Oh,

[00:46:23] my species is deeply empathetic.

[00:46:25] And it's like,

[00:46:26] well,

[00:46:26] I thought you guys were just very afraid.

[00:46:28] Like,

[00:46:29] but I can,

[00:46:30] I could see where one comes out of the other,

[00:46:32] but it's like,

[00:46:33] it's not something that we've necessarily seen from Saru in the series up to this point.

[00:46:39] We've just seen that he's really there to do his job and be a consummate officer.

[00:46:43] And he can tell when somebody is about to die.

[00:46:46] Yeah.

[00:46:47] Uh,

[00:46:47] well,

[00:46:48] speaking of,

[00:46:48] uh,

[00:46:48] almost killing invisible aliens,

[00:46:50] uh,

[00:46:51] I told John earlier,

[00:46:52] I'd written the note,

[00:46:53] Oh,

[00:46:53] their species,

[00:46:54] such and such in my notebook.

[00:46:55] And I was like,

[00:46:56] what the hell did that mean?

[00:46:57] Cameron?

[00:46:57] What are you talking about?

[00:46:58] I remembered it's that when,

[00:47:00] uh,

[00:47:00] may is talking about the mycelial network and them accidentally wreaking havoc across them.

[00:47:06] Uh,

[00:47:06] I had made the connection.

[00:47:07] Oh shit.

[00:47:08] Their species,

[00:47:09] such and such.

[00:47:09] I forget their name from season four.

[00:47:11] Like the Federation is that species in this instance.

[00:47:15] And I,

[00:47:15] Oh,

[00:47:16] okay.

[00:47:16] That's an interesting.

[00:47:16] So I was trying to remember if they had ever made that connection in season four when they were like,

[00:47:21] Oh,

[00:47:21] you know what?

[00:47:22] This was actually us before we were these guys.

[00:47:25] I thought Cameron was trying to nail down eight,

[00:47:27] four,

[00:47:28] seven,

[00:47:28] two.

[00:47:28] And I was like,

[00:47:29] I don't think he's seen Voyager.

[00:47:31] Oh,

[00:47:32] no,

[00:47:32] you're right.

[00:47:32] He's talking about the warp speed limit species.

[00:47:35] It's apparently Star Trek does this a lot too.

[00:47:38] Yeah.

[00:47:38] This is definitely a thing too.

[00:47:40] Species.

[00:47:41] 10.

[00:47:41] What is the 10 C?

[00:47:42] 10 C.

[00:47:43] That's right.

[00:47:43] Okay.

[00:47:44] It's the just in this.

[00:47:46] Oh,

[00:47:47] in this instances.

[00:47:49] And we are the,

[00:47:49] or Stamets is the terrorizer of them.

[00:47:52] Yes.

[00:47:55] And Stamets,

[00:47:56] the terrorizer.

[00:47:57] I forgot.

[00:47:57] Well,

[00:47:58] while this episode was going on,

[00:47:59] I was like,

[00:48:00] I know where this story goes and how they find who they find.

[00:48:05] I'm like,

[00:48:05] how do they get in there?

[00:48:06] I'm like,

[00:48:07] Oh yeah,

[00:48:07] here we go.

[00:48:08] The final shot from inside the goop.

[00:48:11] I'm like,

[00:48:11] that's how we get in the goop.

[00:48:12] Okay.

[00:48:13] I knew there was goop.

[00:48:14] They had to crawl through at some point.

[00:48:17] Um,

[00:48:18] you know,

[00:48:19] that the Yelp page for that goop lob is like worst portal ever.

[00:48:29] It,

[00:48:30] like I said,

[00:48:31] this whole,

[00:48:32] Oh,

[00:48:33] let's do a little drug trip video,

[00:48:35] more humor at the end.

[00:48:38] And then,

[00:48:38] you know,

[00:48:39] leave such a cliffhanger.

[00:48:40] I just,

[00:48:41] it's so goofy to me.

[00:48:42] It's every time I'm like,

[00:48:44] did we need to actually have their heads get all blobby?

[00:48:47] Like the auras are one thing.

[00:48:49] Sure.

[00:48:49] But you're like making their eyes all day.

[00:48:51] Like,

[00:48:51] Oh,

[00:48:51] we're tripping balls.

[00:48:54] I must've been writing notes during that shit.

[00:48:56] Cause I remember liking,

[00:48:57] I really liked the Stamets Reno interplay during it.

[00:49:00] And I was probably writing that in my notebook and missed the,

[00:49:03] the warpy eyeballs.

[00:49:04] Yeah.

[00:49:05] I'm on the other side completely.

[00:49:06] John,

[00:49:06] I would take six minutes of Reno and Stamets on a trip.

[00:49:09] I don't care.

[00:49:11] Like it,

[00:49:12] it,

[00:49:12] yes,

[00:49:13] it is goofy,

[00:49:13] but that totally works for me.

[00:49:15] I love a goofy movie,

[00:49:17] for example.

[00:49:18] So I,

[00:49:19] I have no problems with it.

[00:49:21] If they had been like looking through and then he gave them the,

[00:49:24] the cure to,

[00:49:25] to get,

[00:49:26] to stop being high.

[00:49:27] And then like the thing closed up,

[00:49:29] it's like,

[00:49:29] Oh no,

[00:49:29] we gotta be high to go in there.

[00:49:31] Like at least like,

[00:49:32] okay,

[00:49:32] I'll take that.

[00:49:33] But I don't know.

[00:49:34] It just happened.

[00:49:35] And then it's like,

[00:49:36] Oh no,

[00:49:36] the mushrooms are in the air.

[00:49:38] Quick,

[00:49:38] take the antidote.

[00:49:39] And now we got a,

[00:49:39] we got a goop portal.

[00:49:40] We got to go hunt for Tilly.

[00:49:42] And,

[00:49:43] and as scientists,

[00:49:44] you would think they would catch onto that slightly quicker because they just had a whole conversation about how Tilly is being flooded with psilocybin.

[00:49:54] And like,

[00:49:55] yeah,

[00:49:55] then you get this poof of spores in your face.

[00:49:58] Like their next thought should be,

[00:50:00] I wonder if that's a contaminant.

[00:50:03] Not like,

[00:50:04] Oh,

[00:50:04] it's probably fine.

[00:50:05] Just keep doing stuff.

[00:50:06] Yeah.

[00:50:07] I hope you chose a power line song for your song.

[00:50:10] I couldn't make it fit.

[00:50:12] Oh,

[00:50:13] dang.

[00:50:14] Actually,

[00:50:14] you know what?

[00:50:15] No,

[00:50:15] I have one picked out now.

[00:50:16] I'll change it and I'll make it fit.

[00:50:18] Let me go grab the lyrics.

[00:50:21] Uh,

[00:50:21] well,

[00:50:21] we do have one more caller here.

[00:50:22] Let's hear from our good friend,

[00:50:24] Melanie.

[00:50:24] Hi guys, here's Melanie. What I like about this episode is that we see Una, and she has a different hairstyle here.

[00:50:32] I prefer her hair from Sven Schirrotho, it looks more natural.

[00:50:35] But I love her conversation with Pike and her eating the burger with the habanero sauce.

[00:50:40] I really think Pike misses her.

[00:50:42] My favorite part of the episode is when the languages are mixed up and Pike speaks German.

[00:50:47] I always love it when English-speaking people speak German.

[00:50:50] I remember Robert Piccaro saying that he was cast as a German scientist in Young Sheldon because he speaks a fluent German.

[00:50:57] But he has quite an accent as well and doesn't think he is fluent himself.

[00:51:00] But he is fluent enough for US television.

[00:51:03] And I'm so sorry to say this, but I admit I didn't really understand Anson at first.

[00:51:08] His German sounds so harsh.

[00:51:10] Anyway, I'm still working on my English, so what can I say?

[00:51:14] I do love this scene.

[00:51:15] And then we have Saru to the rescue.

[00:51:17] And he is suffering, thinking he is about to die.

[00:51:19] I'm so sorry for Saru.

[00:51:21] And what else do we learn?

[00:51:23] I admit that as a dedicated fan of Anson Mount and loving the character of Christopher Pike,

[00:51:28] I do keep a close watch about any news I get about my favorite captain.

[00:51:31] And here we learn that he is afraid of spiders.

[00:51:34] I also admit that with every watching and subsequent discussion about Disco,

[00:51:39] I love our three mad scientists more and more.

[00:51:42] The Cessna's battle between them is hilarious.

[00:51:45] Reno, Stamets and Tilly, just awesome to watch.

[00:51:47] So take care, live long, prosper, and tschüss, bis bald.

[00:51:53] How many Star Trek podcasts give you that, huh?

[00:51:56] Right.

[00:51:56] Real, true insight into the foreign language situation on Discovery.

[00:52:02] And I gotta say...

[00:52:03] I love the saying, fluent enough for American television.

[00:52:07] I was gonna say...

[00:52:07] I don't know how I'm gonna use it, but I'm taking that.

[00:52:09] That is the lowest bar in history.

[00:52:12] Yeah, exactly.

[00:52:14] Like, that's an insult I wanna hurl at somebody who's like,

[00:52:17] what you just said was fluent enough for American television, I guess, you know?

[00:52:21] Do you even understand this project?

[00:52:22] Yeah, I totally fluent.

[00:52:23] I guess your mother would have, man.

[00:52:26] But I gotta agree, I think Pike being afraid of spiders,

[00:52:30] possibly the most humanizing trait that he has.

[00:52:32] Like, here's a super confident, very good-looking, incredibly hard-working Starfleet officer,

[00:52:37] and even he's afraid of spiders.

[00:52:39] And, you know, with good reason.

[00:52:41] Those things are messed up.

[00:52:43] They just...

[00:52:43] Finally, I can relate with Christopher Pike.

[00:52:45] Yeah, they're so bad.

[00:52:46] I do not like them.

[00:52:47] There's...

[00:52:48] We have...

[00:52:48] I think I sent you guys a photo maybe last year or the year prior of a spider we found

[00:52:52] at work, and it was like...

[00:52:53] I'm talking, like, sand dollar-sized spider, right?

[00:52:57] Mm-mm.

[00:52:58] Just not okay.

[00:53:00] Like, it's unnatural to me.

[00:53:03] I cannot get over it.

[00:53:04] And I work with some folks who are like,

[00:53:07] well, you know, let's just put him outside.

[00:53:09] We don't want to kill him.

[00:53:10] And I'm like, okay, sure, you can do that.

[00:53:13] But this is the reason I keep a gun in my car.

[00:53:16] That's not true.

[00:53:18] I don't own a gun.

[00:53:19] But if I did, that would be why.

[00:53:21] That would be a perfectly acceptable reason.

[00:53:23] Yeah.

[00:53:24] Spider gun.

[00:53:27] Oh.

[00:53:30] I've wanted to go into a gun store now and be like, what do you got for a good spider

[00:53:34] repellent?

[00:53:35] What do you recommend for a brown recluse?

[00:53:40] Is this armor-piercing?

[00:53:43] Do I need a permit for this?

[00:53:47] But I also agree.

[00:53:49] The dynamic between Tilly, Stamets, and Reno...

[00:53:53] Like, I would watch a special of them.

[00:53:56] You know, like, if they had their whole own episode, I would love that.

[00:54:00] I think they've got an incredible balance there.

[00:54:03] You've got, like, just whimsical, fun, I-want-to-help Tilly.

[00:54:07] You've got, no, I'm the most competent person here, and I'm going to let everybody know that.

[00:54:11] And then you've got, I'm the most competent person here, but I don't care.

[00:54:15] Like, this is just my job.

[00:54:16] And, like, that scene where she offers the gum to Stamets after Reno asks for it, and he just looks at her and then keeps talking.

[00:54:25] And she goes, no?

[00:54:25] Okay, all right.

[00:54:26] Yeah, the look he gives her is fantastic.

[00:54:29] It's so real.

[00:54:30] Like, it feels like a workplace dynamic.

[00:54:32] And I'm 100% there with you, Melanie.

[00:54:35] And I absolutely love it.

[00:54:37] Although, she just pulled that gum from, like, the console, right?

[00:54:41] Like, it was just sitting on the console or under the console.

[00:54:43] Yeah, that's her emergency gum.

[00:54:44] You never just see gum sitting on a shelf in Star Trek.

[00:54:47] Like, where did that come from?

[00:54:49] Well, that's her console, man.

[00:54:51] Like, you can put some stuff on your desk at work.

[00:54:55] Yeah.

[00:54:56] Yeah.

[00:54:56] I wish you'd just see, like, old coffee mugs full of Tic Tacs on a console in Star Trek.

[00:55:02] It sets up a fun punchline where she chews it for a minute, you know, gives Stamets shit,

[00:55:07] and then pulls the gum out of her mouth to patch something with bubble gum on the Discovery.

[00:55:11] Like, okay, that was a good...

[00:55:12] It's like, why would she have gum?

[00:55:14] Oh, because it's funny.

[00:55:15] That's why.

[00:55:16] And it does work.

[00:55:17] Cameron, are you saying only captains should be allowed to have personal effects?

[00:55:21] Because we know captains have a lot of personal effects.

[00:55:24] Yeah, but not just sitting.

[00:55:25] Like, they don't have a bowl of Chex Mix on their captain's chair arm.

[00:55:30] They're all meticulously displayed on glass shelves that never seem to fall or break when the ship gets shaken like three times an episode.

[00:55:38] Okay, that specifically is what inertial dampeners are for.

[00:55:42] Come on.

[00:55:42] Which never seem to work.

[00:55:44] Well, you know that they did the hell out of their job in this episode because they get yanked out of warp and nobody dies.

[00:55:52] No.

[00:55:52] Like, that should be...

[00:55:55] Nobody is pulped to a mist immediately.

[00:55:56] Seriously.

[00:55:57] There should be people on every wall if that happens.

[00:56:00] But those inertial dampeners really, really do their job.

[00:56:02] It should look like the inside of the event horizon there.

[00:56:04] Like, just, you know.

[00:56:07] God.

[00:56:09] I really gotta hand this to Sonequa Martin-Green.

[00:56:12] Like, I know people give Michael Burnham a lot of shit for crying on this show, and Michael Burnham cries a lot on this show.

[00:56:20] But, damn, did she break my heart while she was there with Saru, like, preparing to help him end his life.

[00:56:27] Like, yeah.

[00:56:28] This...

[00:56:30] She is a fantastic actor.

[00:56:32] Like, yeah.

[00:56:33] Absolutely.

[00:56:34] I'm personally very excited to check out the new movie, My Dead Friend Zoe, starring Sonequa Martin-Green and Morgan Freeman.

[00:56:41] And our previous guest, Mr. Tom Tran.

[00:56:45] Go check it out as soon as it's available.

[00:56:47] January, I think?

[00:56:49] Sounds accurate.

[00:56:50] And our future guest, Ed Harris.

[00:56:51] I'm just throwing that out there, you know.

[00:56:53] Just putting it out into the world.

[00:56:55] That's right.

[00:56:56] We'll see if it materializes.

[00:56:57] Ed, we know you listen.

[00:56:58] Just hit us up.

[00:57:00] Follow the links in the show notes, man.

[00:57:01] We'll find a way to squeeze you in.

[00:57:03] I'd be pretty starstruck if Ed Harris came on our show.

[00:57:06] I think that one might break my icy shell when it comes to talking to famous people.

[00:57:10] Ed fucking Harris here, man.

[00:57:15] Well, you guys got any other notes?

[00:57:16] Or shall we get to the musical part of this episode that had three 80s, what, 70s and 80s song references in it?

[00:57:26] Mm-hmm.

[00:57:27] Yeah, I'm ready.

[00:57:28] All right.

[00:57:30] Jesse, you want to start us off?

[00:57:31] I will, but real quickly, and this is sort of a note, but it is musical.

[00:57:36] I saw a commercial on Paramount Plus for an NFL game with a cover of Blue Monday by New Order as the hype music.

[00:57:46] It was very weird, and it gave me a lot of conflicting feelings.

[00:57:51] I was like, what is 2024?

[00:57:55] Why is this happening?

[00:57:57] Anyways, I did have a song picked out, and it was much heavier than the song that Cameron rightly directed me to.

[00:58:04] Of course, the only pick that I could make for this episode is Eye to Eye by Powerline from a Goofy Movie.

[00:58:13] Because it has lyrics like, we set the world in motion by reaching out for each other's hand.

[00:58:22] Maybe we'll discover what we should have known all along, one way or another, together's where we both belong.

[00:58:29] And then just a banger chorus.

[00:58:31] If we listen to each other's heart, we'll find we're never too far apart.

[00:58:35] And maybe love is the reason why, for the first time ever, we're seeing it eye to eye.

[00:58:40] Cameron, you nailed it.

[00:58:42] I'm taking all the credit.

[00:58:43] This is a perfect pick.

[00:58:45] Eye to Eye by Powerline.

[00:58:47] That is a great pick.

[00:58:48] I was just happy I had remembered the name of the band from a Goofy Movie.

[00:58:53] I legitimately have Powerline boxers.

[00:58:56] So, I got you covered there.

[00:58:58] That's impressive.

[00:58:59] Nice, nice.

[00:59:01] Oh, very good, very good.

[00:59:03] Well, I'm glad I was even a small part of that pick.

[00:59:05] Yeah, I mean, in this episode with a David Bowie song sung on screen, I felt like this was my chance to bring back a David Bowie song.

[00:59:13] And he has multiple spider songs.

[00:59:16] There's a lot of spider talk in this episode.

[00:59:18] And Spiders from Mars didn't quite work because no one is really a Ziggy Stardust character in this episode.

[00:59:25] But David Bowie does have a great song called Glass Spider, which I really wanted to make work.

[00:59:30] And it's artsy enough.

[00:59:32] I could have, like, BS'd my way through an explanation.

[00:59:35] You've never done that.

[00:59:37] It would have been BS.

[00:59:38] And I think I found a much better song choice.

[00:59:41] I'm going to go back to The Beatles.

[00:59:45] Another insectoid.

[00:59:47] Creepy crawly.

[00:59:48] With Let It Be.

[00:59:50] When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary come to me speaking words of wisdom.

[00:59:55] Lots of words of wisdom spoken in this episode.

[00:59:57] And a lot of people worrying about things.

[01:00:00] Again, everyone is just, oh, the worst is happening.

[01:00:02] This blob is evil.

[01:00:04] This sphere is evil.

[01:00:07] This ganglia evolution that Saru's people go through is evil.

[01:00:11] But in the end, they all learn that they just got to chill out, let it be, and everything will be all right.

[01:00:17] And so I'm going with The Beatles this week.

[01:00:20] I like it.

[01:00:21] Wow.

[01:00:22] And that's, yeah, like Saru's main philosophy.

[01:00:25] Like, dude, just let it be.

[01:00:27] Submit.

[01:00:27] I mean, that's what he comes up and tells Spike.

[01:00:29] He's like, dude, it'll be fine.

[01:00:30] Just stop.

[01:00:31] We're fine.

[01:00:32] Give it to the orb, and the orb takes care of everything.

[01:00:36] Yep.

[01:00:37] You know, that's funny because I just made a joke about people referencing really old songs on this,

[01:00:44] and I'm going to have to go with a pretty old song myself.

[01:00:46] So Jesse will have picked the most modern song with a song from what?

[01:00:51] 1994?

[01:00:53] Oh, yeah.

[01:00:53] 94 with the Goofy movies.

[01:00:54] So I am going to have to go with Suspicious Minds by Elvis.

[01:01:03] And, you know, we got May.

[01:01:05] We got an old friend, Tilly Nose, stopping by to say hello, and Stam is looking at her with suspicious eyes.

[01:01:10] We got Pike staring at the sphere with suspicious eyes with lyrics like, you know,

[01:01:14] Oh, let our love survive.

[01:01:16] I'll dry the tears from your eyes.

[01:01:18] Let's don't let a good thing die with Saru.

[01:01:21] I mean, it is.

[01:01:25] I think it's a great pick for this.

[01:01:27] I think it's, you know, a song about love, but it's also a song about not trusting, but learning to have to trust and knowing that those like you can't be suspicious and have the love you want at the same time.

[01:01:39] And, um, yeah, so I'm going with Elvis Presley, Suspicious Minds.

[01:01:44] Don't be suspicious.

[01:01:45] Don't be suspicious.

[01:01:47] Don't be suspicious.

[01:01:48] I couldn't help myself.

[01:01:49] Did Elvis just enter the building?

[01:01:51] I looked it up and Goofy movie came out in 1995.

[01:01:55] So I was off by a year.

[01:01:57] Really?

[01:01:57] Wow.

[01:01:58] Star Trek connection.

[01:02:00] Wallace Shawn, the Grand Nagus himself plays.

[01:02:03] Oh, yeah.

[01:02:04] Mejure in that movie.

[01:02:05] That's right.

[01:02:06] That's right.

[01:02:07] There you go.

[01:02:07] It all comes back together.

[01:02:09] Yes.

[01:02:10] That was a very fun discussion of episode four and obel for Sharon, Karen, Caron.

[01:02:17] Charon.

[01:02:18] Chiron.

[01:02:19] Charon.

[01:02:19] Charon.

[01:02:21] But we're all good on Cerberus, right?

[01:02:23] Nobody's like a Kerberus person here.

[01:02:25] No.

[01:02:26] Yeah.

[01:02:26] I, you know, I've heard that supposedly that that C is supposed to be a K and that Caesar is actually closer to the word Kaiser.

[01:02:34] Kaiser.

[01:02:35] Yeah.

[01:02:35] I'm not going to order a Kaiser salad, so I can't do it.

[01:02:39] Obviously, Jesse hasn't played Fallout New Bigs, so.

[01:02:42] True.

[01:02:43] Yeah.

[01:02:48] Just the grit on your face.

[01:02:50] That's great.

[01:02:52] Well, thank you for joining us here on Open Pike Night.

[01:02:55] It's been a long night, but the Open Pike Night crew just got an award from a critic saying that we were fluent enough for American television.

[01:03:04] And we have to go frame that and clear the spiders out of our storeroom.

[01:03:08] So be sure to clean up after yourselves.

[01:03:10] Be sure to tip your servers.

[01:03:12] You can go anywhere you want, but you can't stay here.

[01:03:15] And one of the places you should go is bluesky at openpike.bsky.social.