SNW S4E8 - "Orders of Magnitude"

[00:00:08] Is this thing on? Hello, hello. Welcome to Open Pike Night, the Strange New Worlds podcast where your personal calls are the prime direction. Even if you abuse the Starfleet unlimited PTO to visit another ship time to make those calls, we're glad to have you here to discuss with us today Episode 8, Season 4, Orders of Magnitude. I'm your host, John T. Boulds.

[00:00:45] And joining me, of course, are my co-hosts. First up, the man whose father just wasn't cut out to be a podcaster, Cameron Harrison. It's true. I mean, he's a bass player. Like, I have a lot of respect for bass players, but nobody's gonna say, hey, put that guy on the mic and have him talk about this TV show, right? Love you, Dad, in case you're still listening.

[00:01:07] And the man who, when he heard the name of this episode was Orders of Magnitude said, well, let me guess, his order is Pop Pop Cameron Harrison. God damn it. What is that a reference to? I got that one. I got that one. Oh, it's community. That's magnitude. Yep. The scene when he dies in whatever that thing was. Pop. Pop. I'm sorry. Starburns is just always my favorite. So he eclipses any other side character.

[00:01:37] I just, I, I just love the running joke of Pop Pop and everybody loving this stupidest thing. I, uh, I do love any like running gag of like the dumbest thing being everyone's favorite thing. And then like the audience avatar main character is like, what is happening? Like a little Sebastian in parks and recreation. Yes. A hundred percent that I'm like, this is gold. Or even from community, you got ham girl.

[00:02:06] Anyway, thank you for a community podcast. It's a very, it's a very serious episode that we're about to talk about. We just, it is, we just need to get the levity out of the way. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, we are here to talk about, we, we called it in the, uh, in the preview. We said that looks like important Joe. No, no, no. It looks like Joe freaking Morton coming on Star Trek, strange new worlds. And here he was in all his glory. So yeah. You guys excited? I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited.

[00:02:34] Well, we, our callers were excited. They came out in droves. We'll see how many we can get through tonight. I am going to start with Grayson. Grayson. This episode's been done before. On TNG, you will find it. O'Brien's old boss thinks the war is still on. And Picard has to save some Cardassians.

[00:03:00] Crimson tide only set in space while Pike and crew go caving. It's good. Of course, don't get me wrong, but it could have used some singing. All right. Where would we have put the musical number in this episode?

[00:03:27] Oh, I mean, I think it would have had to have been Uhura trying to teach Asha some like hiking steps as they walk through the caves, right? Yep. Absolutely. And Pike's like, shush, shush, shush. It looks like an ambush. It would also be really funny if Asha was like very into human pop from the 20 or 21st century. She's a big K-pop Demon Hunters fan. Yep. That's the one thing she likes about us.

[00:03:51] And I appreciate Grayson's subtlety, such as it is, that yes, this episode has been done before, but that doesn't make it bad. And Star Trek, I mean, forever has done episodes that have been done before. TNG specifically, they did a TOS episode almost immediately in the start of their run. And so I'm always here specifically for this story.

[00:04:16] I don't know if that's because I haven't seen the movie that it references, but I did have a ton of fun with it. And I was absolutely drawing O'Brien parallels. And wasn't that the guy from Lost that was his old captain? No, no. That was Bob Gunton. That was the Riker. Yeah. Riker's old captain. That was the Shawshank Redemption warden who was O'Brien's captain. That's right. Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. Grayson, that was amazing, by the way. That was fantastic. Amazing call.

[00:04:45] I don't even know why we're going to continue jabbering. We don't have anything creative like that to do or say. Jeez. Everyone go listen to Grayson. I was going to say, Grayson, you should get your own podcast. Everyone go listen to Grayson's podcast, The Crime Detective. Yep. It's very good. There's not much singing, but it's still very good. I love our collars, man. And I mean, yeah, like I will say, I do personally think this is my favorite Strange New Worlds episode so far of the entire series, not just the season.

[00:05:15] Like, I will, I'll just say it up front. I think this is the linchpin. I think this is the turning point into the finale, the final run of Strange New Worlds. I think this is tying up some past issues and opening up some future issues and starting what hopefully is like an eight episode craziness into the end of the series. All right. I'm really interested. Because this, I like this episode a lot.

[00:05:43] For me, it does not top Terrarium. And there's kind of some structural things in it that are part of the reason that I'm not ready to say this is the best of the season or the series. Mm-hmm. So I'll be interested to talk with you about those, John. I have a feeling some of our callers will bring those things up. Oh, yeah, they do. So I'll wait and hear from them. But yeah, I mean, I think this is a really good episode. It is so classically Treppin'.

[00:06:08] Like, this, I think, is the kind of episode that a lot of folks have been waiting for from season four, where they're like, just give me a Star Trek story. And this is that, 100%. And I really had a lot of fun with it. It's a really good episode. I just finished watching it again, just to make sure that, yep, the stuff that I saw that I might have an issue with is still there. But I still did have an absolute blast with this episode.

[00:06:32] Honestly, you have Kirk stun La'an and give the justification of, you stabbed me. That's a great line. That's good. That's good. That's just good. Also, fair. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I'm not, it's not that I'm on the fence about this one because I, I agree. It's, it's an objectively good episode, a very solid episode, but I was left wanting and that could very much be an expectations thing. I have bought fully into the big swings of the season.

[00:07:00] And so an episode that is just Star Trek. I, I didn't know what to do with, you know, in the last few episodes, we've had main characters get cut in half, make out with a puppet, uh, break down and cry over an imaginary daughter and make me cry over that too. So I, I kept waiting for that moment. And this episode didn't give it to me, but I don't think it's the episode's fault. And I do think it will just get better, uh, as I can kind of take it on its own. Yeah. That was fair.

[00:07:29] Uh, let's go ahead and hear from Lucy. Lieutenant Lucy reporting. Got mixed feelings about this one. Looks terrific throughout, was gripping and tense. Uh, Joe Morton was fantastic. Once I'd got over the fact that JT Kirk doesn't spend nearly enough time on the Farragut. I still enjoyed the Kirk brother interactions a lot. Uh, I loved the, um, phase of fire interactions and battles and back and forth between Kirk and Laham.

[00:07:56] I really appreciate the fact that we have a compelling, uh, plot line that explains why Mabenga is demoted to, as chief medical officer, and why Kirk, JT, owes him a debt of gratitude. I particularly loved the kick-ass, uh, Uhura and the fact that not only was she following her training as instructed by Pike, but that it was actually Pike who promotes her to lieutenant, which I think is respectful of Strange New World's crew.

[00:08:23] My reservations lie in, I don't think throughout our crew were behaving true to character. And whether they would all have been quite so hero-worshipy, I'm doubtful of. My other concern and my biggest concern is that I think a lot hinges on a plot thread that Sam Kirk, uh, George Kirk would never have spoken to his sons about what happened. And I felt that was just a bit too loose a thread and it really bugged me.

[00:08:51] So in some ways I felt like Chronitons was actually a more ambitious, um, piece, but obviously this was really well realized. So yeah, mixed feelings. So this whole George Kirk thing is really interesting. Let's get into that because that is what a lot of people have issues with. This is the most we've ever learned about him ever. Like this, this is more information than we got in the Kelvin timeline.

[00:09:16] And of course, much more information than we ever got about him in the TOS timeline. Because of the Kelvin timeline, I thought George Kirk was a big character kind of spoken about a lot. Turns out I was wrong on that assumption. Not pretty sure that's his only on-screen appearance ever. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But this is, the thing that I like about this is that it is fleshing that character out because it's not that we need to necessarily see him. Although I'm never going to tell you don't make more movies with Chris Hemsworth as a Kirk.

[00:09:46] Like I'm just not going to say that. But I, I'm glad that we didn't need to have him on screen. There didn't need to be a flashback that we, you know, we don't have to actually get to know that character on screen. Getting to know him through his sons, I think is cool. And I like that we are getting that. I think I do agree with Lucy though, that it's like, this guy wants his kids in Starfleet, right?

[00:10:12] He, he's proud of Jim and we know he's proud of Sam, but he never said like, hey, by the way, here's a thing you should know. And like, even, even if he were to like obfuscate by saying like, all I'm going to say is like, everybody who's in the chair is still a person and that means they are fallible. So just watch yourself when you're around people who are swinging the command C around in your face. Yeah. That's a good point.

[00:10:43] Yeah. We have some other callers who bring up George Kirk because honestly, I think most people's issues aren't that so much as just pure numbers. But I kind of, I don't know. It is the one part of the episode that I'm like, is this really how this story needs to be told?

[00:11:05] I feel like the first time we heard about George Kirk should have been when Jim found the tablet on the table and saw that like, or, or, or when Sam brought up, like it was just brought up too early. Like there was no, there was no revelation there to like, oh, you know, yes, he was, he was in command. It's like, I, I kind of feel like he was brought up so early that I'm like, okay, well, something is going to come up about the dad.

[00:11:34] I'm like, is George Kirk actually important to solving this issue right now? Not really. Well, and I think he ends up working against Jim a little bit. Cause it's like, man, you're making a great case for why this guy shouldn't be in command. And then you're like, oh, so you were mean to my dad. Yeah. There's a moment where everyone on the bridge is like, yeah, yeah. Wait a second.

[00:12:03] When do we start talking about Jim's data here? Yeah, exactly. I mean, we don't see that moment, but I will not defend that in the background. Okay. You're really on hint, like undoing your argument here. So, I mean, I, I like, and just like that. I mean, I, this episode has layers for sure. And I, I like that you can kind of pick it apart and be like, well, this was right, but that was wrong. But is it, or was it? And I, I, it was interesting when Kirk was doing that and it was like, oh, both of these

[00:12:32] guys have familial conflicts of interest here. Like, and that makes it interesting. I think the whole episode is supposed to be like, is Rieger right? Or is Kirk right? Like who, who would I be in that situation? As Sharon asked us in her interview. And, and so I think that, that adds to being able to kind of like, you know, it puts them on the same playing field. Of course, Rieger's conflict of interest is causing him to kill 5,000 people who may or may not be innocent. And Kirk's conflict of interest is making him disobey orders.

[00:13:00] Like, so I think, you know, you can make a case there, but yeah, it might have been better if we had left the subplot out. One of my problems with this episode is, is all that backstory. Everything that happened on the constitution. I don't understand it. I don't know what happened. I don't know what the situation was. I think it's weird that George Kirk was like, I'm a war hero. Oh no. My captain wants to take credit.

[00:13:26] Well, I better tow the line for morale and not tell my kids and not leave Starfleet, even though I'm never allowed to have shore leave. And thanks Admiral, even though I'm keeping your secret, apparently you're going to keep punishing me like that. That's a weird reaction. You'd think you'd be sucking up to me to keep your secret, but okay. Yeah. A lot of that. And it's just, it's, it's a lot of telling us and not showing us. There's a lot of telling. And I'm going to talk about some of that more with this episode. And I understand. Yes.

[00:13:55] And I understand like we are dealing with budgets. I think there's a reason the last four episodes have all been on a starship. I think we know that season four had a smaller budget than season three. But no, Cameron, I really respect the work you did editing the podcast all those years. We put all those years back in the day when you were editing the podcast, you're such a hero for doing that there. I had to say that. I just had to say that for no reason. Yeah. Damn it.

[00:14:21] I, now I want to be clear here that I don't necessarily, like, I don't think that's out of character for Kirk to do that, to be on the bridge and say like, hey, actually my father was a hero and you're this. Like, I think it fits the kind of person that Kirk is. Oh, right. I just, and I, and I, my guess is that it was included for the ambiguity that you talked about Cameron where it's like, okay, they both have personal motivations here. What they're working toward is different, but I think it does serve the plot to have

[00:14:51] them both not be infallible in, in what they're trying to do. Yeah. One final note on George Kirk is it sounds like maybe we're going to see him at some point in the future. I mean, I hadn't really thought of it until this episode. I'm like, wow, they're talking about George Kirk a lot. Oh wait, he's still alive. He's not dead. We could see this character. Uh, and again, like, I think if we were to somehow flashback, if they had the budget to give us flashbacks to the constitution and we could see George in the moment, that

[00:15:19] might've made me buy the whole towing the line more. But I think we're going to see him maybe in season five. And we know that the showrunners had said they had invited, they had extended an invitation to William Shatner to appear and was declined. Do we think William Shatner was originally going to play George Kirk? The question is, would he have a mustache? That's what I need to know. Jeffrey Combs. Jeffrey Combs. You'd have half a mustache. Jeffrey Combs. Oh. There is also the...

[00:15:50] Everybody's like, man, they got their looks from their mom, huh? All right. It does also beg the question about Kirk's mom. Like, why are we not hearing anything about Winona Kirk ever? Like, why is that happening? Wow, Jesse. Way to pull out the Winona Kirk. I could have named her. I think that might be a problem. Let's go ahead and hear from Michelle. Hey, open pike night. Overall, I think this was a phenomenal episode of Star Trek. I was on the edge of my seat. The A and B plot points were very compelling to me.

[00:16:20] The acting was fantastic as usual. The humor worked. It just felt like a very well-rounded episode of Trek. However, there were cracks. I do think that Mbenga had just caused to remove the Admiral much sooner in the episode. And I did not like how Jim Kirk spiked the Admiral's drink and then Mbenga took the fall. However, it does lead to my Crusher connection of the week, which is that Dr. Beverly Crusher only ever used her CMO powers to remove the Captain from command once in all of TNG.

[00:16:49] And that was in the season one episode, Lonely Among Us. Also, when did Star Trek start taking HIPAA laws seriously? What I loved most about this episode was the moral quandary. Because we know Trek often reflects our world and times. And I think our world has gotten way too comfortable and casual with collateral damage. So I loved seeing Jim Kirk fight for those 5,000 plus lives on that planet, even though the warbird killed 5 million. Because in the words of Picard,

[00:17:18] how many lives does it take for a thing to be wrong? And how we react to adversity or to anything at all shows who we are. So who is Starfleet? Starfleet is supposed to be the one thinking outside the box, working together, finding other options. That did not happen here on the Bridge of the Enterprise, where the Admiral had television, nor afterwards when Starfleet did not take this threat seriously enough. And this apparently led to what would become the episode Balance of Terror.

[00:17:46] So I don't think Jim Kirk has blood on his hands. I think it's the perpetrators, along with Starfleet not protecting its civilians. But I love when Trek brings up these moral quandaries. And I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the episode, Live Long and Prosper. And I think we have to talk about, like, one of my favorite parts of that speech that Picard gives in Insurrection is the way he says, a million. I'm like, yeah, you pronounce every letter in that word. That's so good. That's great diction.

[00:18:15] But I agree with you, Michelle. I think that this is, like I said before, this is classic Star Trek. This is the moral quandary episode. And I'm glad that you brought up the thinking outside the box, because we've had characters level that accusation at each other before in Star Trek. Like, okay, well, if you don't see an alternative, then that is because you have a lack of imagination. Like, there are always alternatives, especially when you're on a starship and you have the best people around you.

[00:18:45] So I think that's absolutely a pertinent point to make. And I agree with you completely on Mbenga. Like, dude, you have justifiable cause here. Like, this bad moral is so clearly acting at least outside of the norms of command before he threatens to, like, shoot Kirk in the face. Right? You can tell. Can you give examples?

[00:19:10] He is pissy and being, like, personal with, like, his little, I think you should know that, Kirk. And I think, and he's saying this kind of stuff in front of everybody. Like, you should know that this is what we do. And this is called military deterrence. It's like, okay, you're being a little bit heavy handed with your, like, talking down to your first officer. I'm going to disagree. But already, there is a hint that he is not operating purely on the mission.

[00:19:39] He's got some kind of personal thing going on. It's not immediately clear what it is, but I think it's enough to warrant a look. And then Mbenga, like, with his history of war, I think would understand, like, okay, he's too close to this. Like, I've been too close to things before as the coolest doctor in all of Star Trek. And I know that it's not always easy to make those choices.

[00:20:06] I can prevent him from making a choice that I think he will regret in the future. So, and we'll get to the rest of it, too, because the cordrazine, I don't think, was needed at all. So, what do you got, John? And they hide this very well. This is what I like, is Rieger is highly respected, war hero, celebrated, you know, goes down in the history books, admiral for a reason.

[00:20:34] And then Mbenga tells us the other possible reason, which is just to get him off the bridge of the ship. Rieger failed upwards. Rieger was a, was, and that is why I will disagree. Like, he is bluster. That is what Rieger is. He is not a good military commander. He never has been. He's a good military. He's a good diplomat. He's good at getting his name where it needs to be at the right time for promotion.

[00:21:00] And, but his superiors recognize that he is a fuck up and a bad leader. And so, he has been like, I have worked for several people who are like, yeah, you're a manager because you were bad at every other job there is to do here. Right. And you think you earned it. Hmm. And he thinks he earned it. And yes, the revenge, like the, the, the death of his family absolutely exacerbates all of that.

[00:21:26] But he also knows that he threw George Kirk under the bus all those years ago. And he's taking out his own feeling, his own, like, like subconscious guilt. And, and like, he's being cruel to Kirk because he was cruel to a Kirk already. And that's what he thinks he has to do. Absolutely. So I, and, but Embenka knows all that. Embenka is the one who knows that he got, he failed promoted upwards. And so I think that's why Embenka wouldn't do anything.

[00:21:54] He's like, no, it's just who he is. This is normal. But we have also, but we have also seen instances where an admiral or somebody shows up and says, hey, we have to do this thing right now in secret. Can't kill anybody. But, and that, and that gets more than one other character to be like, that seems weird. Right. But in this episode, it's kind of only Kirk who's like, oh, let's do this.

[00:22:20] I'm going to say they sent the four characters who I would pick to do that first down to the planet. I think that that's not unfair. But it is the kind of thing that I think should raise more than one flag on an entire ship. Well, I mean, as you say, they do it all the time. Like, I don't, I don't know. I've seen a lot of people be like, clearly he was, you know, off the wall beforehand. And I'm like, no, he wasn't.

[00:22:46] Like no one on that ship had any reason to, to call foul on him. He's in every right. He's following every letter of the law. I mean, you could talk about morals and values, of course, but he doesn't do anything that would make a doctor be like being pissy does not get you thrown off. But it gets you chair. And if you're an admiral, you can be pissy to every person you want. But I think it gets you watched with scrutiny. But Mbenga also already knows his family got killed on that planet. So Mbenga's already factored in that.

[00:23:14] I think, I don't think Mbenga waited too long. Well. And so the other interesting thing is, I mean, because I agree with your general point, John. I think it's interesting how you read the line because I assumed they got him off the bridge because he was too aggressive. Oh, okay. Because he was too combat oriented. Just, he would punch first and ask questions later. What's kind of the, I mean, you're, there's no evidence one way or the other. Your, your read could be right. And that's an interesting aspect to it.

[00:23:43] But I, I felt like he was too aggressive. So they took him off the bridge for that. I mean, he does seem to know what he's doing. It sounds like he did figure out how to trace this ship. It does sound like he's, he had figured out the, using a non-propelled torpedo as an asteroid or whatnot. Like he does seem to have some tricks up his sleeve. The one thing that lends credit to yours is again, why I'm a little confused about the backstory is it sounds like the constitution got damaged.

[00:24:10] He suffered a brain injury, but it sounds like before he suffered the brain injury, he had had a plan to withdraw. And every, and Kirk was like, George Kirk was like, oh no, that will fail. We need to act now. So maybe he wasn't too aggressive like that. I was like this, the character you guys are building up of this guy. He would be the one saying, no, we need to fight. And George Kirk should have been like, no, we need to focus on. I think it is meant because he kind of implies like, I think he says directly to Jim.

[00:24:40] Combat was not your father's strong suit. And I think that's him like projecting, like, here's my chance to show that combat is something I can do because this one thing that I've known for that is entirely combat oriented. I know to be a false. And was not my plan. So now I'm going to. My plan was to get more ships to fight more ships, which was not a, is also not a bad tactical. But he got defined by one moment. Eight years ago.

[00:25:10] Oh, that's interesting. He's attempting to live up to it. Okay. Uh, yes. Yeah. Do any of the other colors bring up the timeline? Yeah. We'll wait on the timeline. Okay. We'll wait on the timeline. But that is, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about that because then his original plan was again to sacrifice innocent lives to defeat the enemy. So that is consistent. He was going to sacrifice the medical. And I want to be really clear, John. I don't think Mbenga waited too long.

[00:25:35] I just think Rieger would have been pushed to this, to the moment where he does finally get relieved. I think he would have been pushed to that even without the cordrazine. Yeah. Well, we'll get to the cordrazine later. But, but before that scene, I don't think Rieger does anything that Starfleet would ever say like, yes, that's unacceptable. He should have been removed. I didn't. I, yeah. He is in every letter of the law. I didn't say he should have been removed earlier. Give one example.

[00:26:06] I'm sure there were red flags, but what was, what should him being of just like stood next to him and stared at him the entire episode? I think it's fair for him to be on the bridge whenever he wants, especially if McCoy is any indication. Hey, you mean McCoy in that scant? Yeah, baby. That was a hell of a uniform. He's got, got like a half scant on Scotty. Scotty. Yeah. Scotty. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's go ahead and hear from Mark.

[00:26:32] I open Pike night engineer Mark here on a remote assignment that will eventually become a permanent one. And we're talking about orders of magnitude, a great episode, along with the whole season of really great episodes in their own ways. Very thought provoking. And well, Admiral Rieger. My question simply is, how did he get this far? It was pretty obvious to me, at least the first moment that there was something really off about this guy. And boy, do we see how off he really is.

[00:27:02] Why did nobody else get in the way of him except Kirk? That's a really big question. Yeah. He's a war hero. Yeah. He's great in that way. But just being watching him on the screen, it's like, yeah, no, nobody should have been letting him get away with anything. That's all I got for this time. Live long and prosper. See, Mark agrees with me. See, I think that's when I was watching it again, like especially this last time I watched it, I was like.

[00:27:29] I feel like we come into this episode knowing he's going to be a bad role, like from the preview. We're like, oh, hey, it's Miles Dyson. He's probably going to be a bad role. And watching any Star Trek show, you see anyone else sit in the captain's chair. You're like, OK, you're going to be a bad guy. Like there's there's little things that as we as an audience get ticked off to. But watching it this last time, I was like, he's pretty charming through the whole first half. Like I remember kind of like thinking he was being stern when he first walked on.

[00:27:56] But the second time I was like, no, he's smiling as he's talking to him. He's like, yeah, I know everybody. It's cool. Come on, let's go. I love his conversation with Kirk where he's like, hey, you overstepped out there. But it's cool. We're good. I love that moment. I mean, to me, that's making the balanced admiral that I think could have risen all this way. I think you're I think you're right. His charm goes a long way. But for me, that's like he's he's telling Kirk the opposite of what we have seen other first officers be told.

[00:28:24] Like, hey, your job is to bring up alternatives. I want to hear the different options. And he's like, don't do that. Right. Like I was like, right. And that would make a terrible TV captain. But if we're trying to imagine Star Trek as a real world, we're following those captains who like to hear their number ones, give them alternate advice and like to have a little back and forth on the bridge. Most captains are probably like my number one is here to just deliver my orders. That's what most people probably do.

[00:28:53] If we're going to just talk bad rules and templates for bad rules, Rieger is a mix of Bob Gunton, Terry O'Quinn. And he isn't an admiral, but he's a mix of Jellicoe. And that was his Jellicoe moment. And Jellicoe is a good captain. I think again, I'm going to go back to he has lived with this lie for so long that he has to maintain the mythology of Rieger.

[00:29:18] And having a Kirk on the ship is the thorn in his personal side of it puts the light of that mythology. I think he liked having Kirk at first because he didn't have to choose Kirk. He could have chosen Spock. He should have chosen Spock. I think there was something. It sounds like he had. Yeah, he could have. He would have gotten away with it without these pesky Kirks.

[00:29:47] Yeah, because yeah, he could have sent Kirk off to his quarters or something. But I think there was something. I mean, he had clearly read Kirk's file. And I think he was like, this is going to be the Kirk I always wanted. Because it sounds I bet I'm sure he did like Kirk. I'm sure he was happy with Kirk as his first officer until he stole his glory. And so now it's like he's. And I agree with that. And I want to say, like, in case it's coming across that I did not like the character of Rieger. That is not the case. I love this character.

[00:30:14] I think he's really, really well written because he is so complex. You could see anything justified by the kind of life he led. Like to John's point, you know, he's been living this lie and he has to maintain the mythology of who he is. And I think you're right that he did want. He liked Kirk at the start because he was like, OK, even if nobody knows, here's my chance to really help a young Kirk in a way that I think will be meaningful for his career.

[00:30:43] Like, you know, he might run up against my command style, but like I can work with that. I can really help him. I think I can impart some wisdom here. So I think Rieger is a very, very good character. And I think it's our first instance of a bad myrrh in Strange New Worlds, which I do really like. Like, for the most part, our admirals have been, you know, April. Yeah. We love admirals. Well, it's like, it's been April 90% of the time. And then we love April.

[00:31:13] Yeah. Yeah. Pasalk. There's Pasalk. I don't know if he's an admiral, but even he gets kind of like a redeeming moment where he's like, you know what? You stood up to me. This is my Vulcan accent. You stood up to me. Standard Vulcan accent there. By way of South Park Colorado. Yeah, but, you know, you know. To John's point, though, I hadn't thought of that, but I do like that, too. Like, he's living the lie of that moment.

[00:31:38] And he gets, you know, he gets pushed on it, not pushed on it, but he gets asked a couple times this episode. Like, hey, that thing you did, I really like that. Like, Erica even is kind of like, hey, can you walk us through it? And I love how, you know, he deflects, but just like, thank you. Very kind. Thank you. But I'm not going to go further. But I'm not going to say I'm not going to go further. I'm just going to move on. And I did like that. Yeah. And like, yeah, he's very good. And I really like that we got some history on Erica. Because, you know, we've heard before, like, yeah, she was in the war. She did all this stuff.

[00:32:05] And he's like, here's some specific things you did, like fancy flying. And you saved all these lives and stuff. I was like, yeah, this is good. We need this. Dude, we did get a write-in from Steve this time. He said, A, I can't believe these actors managed to get through a soap opera episode without cracking up every second. But B, as a veteran with several incompetent commanding officers, not all, but several, I find myself relating to Kirk much more than I ever have before.

[00:32:30] This episode proves that if Sam can be saved from his impending canonical doom, fans would watch a show about the Kirk brothers and their shenanigans. So, absolutely. Yes. I love the Kirk brothers section. Why did we not get the Edward Norton Brad Pitt punch in the, you know, ah, you hit me and you gave me a purple bruise. My favorite, my favorite part two is like, Sam Kirk is terrible at this. Yeah, you see? You look right. With the eyes, see? No.

[00:33:00] I wonder if it's too dumb to do that. You notice the. And then that part, yeah, it's like, I want credit for doing it, even though the plan relies on you believing he did it. But it's really good. It's so good. I will say, I did have a complaint. Jim says, don't tempt me with a good time. You're supposed to say, don't threaten me with a good time. Like, what is that? Like, I don't know. Maybe they didn't. I think I've heard tips. That doesn't mean I like it. It's threatened. Yeah, no.

[00:33:27] I mean, my only problem is like, isn't that usually like sexually related? I don't know if I want to hear Jim saying that to Sam, but it's Jim. Get on A-O-Tree, Cam. It's the future. That kind of thing can happen. But yeah, I do agree because I know we've all been kind of saying like, great. They're brothers. Can we please see that? Like. Yeah. And we get the full range in this episode. And that's amazing. I don't entirely buy Sam's turn on his dad by the end.

[00:33:55] I mean, despite some of my other issues with the dad backstory, it's like you spent a lifetime harboring this grudge and like actually reading the heading on this declassified memo turns you all around. I don't know. I think it would take a little longer. Well, I think he can be mad that his dad wasn't in contact with them more and still feel bad that he kind of, you know, has had lies told about him for most of his career. Like. Sure. I think I read that as true to life. Let's go ahead and hear from Mags. Okay. Hi, Mags here.

[00:34:25] Mags here. I didn't like the episode. I really wanted to, but there was way too much Kirk and it just didn't make sense. That thing with the cotrazine just felt out of character. As always, not enough Pike. Although I did love the away team's way of escaping from the Andorians and well done, Uhura. I just feel like they're rushing towards setting things up for Kirk now and that's not the show.

[00:34:53] Anyway, signing off. Bye. Bye. I was a little bummed that once he was back on board, Pike wasn't a little more defensive of his crew. Um, I think it is fair, like from a writing perspective to be like, he was literally not there.

[00:35:13] Like he, he can't say actually, you know, so it's like, I think he, we got to see some of Pike's good diplomacy in this episode of him being like, he's like, Hey, arrest him. He's like, you know what? I'm not going to tell you no, but I am going to say this is really complicated. Let's wait till we get to Starfleet because they have been in the dark the whole time. He's talking to an acting Admiral. That's a pretty. Right. And that's what I mean.

[00:35:38] Like he did it in a way that's not going to set the Admiral off again or demand additional arrests. Like in the space dead context, the amount of times I've walked upstairs to like two kids screaming and like, he did this. She did this. Well, I'm overreacting. Like I was in a cave. I wasn't here. Well, I was in a cave. And also what the hell? What are you doing on my ship? How did you get here?

[00:36:04] The opening, the opening log is, is like as close as they've got to trying to justify it of him being like, yeah, I got stuff to do, but I'm just going to stop off over here. Like what is going on in the Farragut that they just don't need their first officer there at all times? Like, it's got that musky like grandma's face. Those new nacelles ever since he ditched the old ones and blew them up. You know, I was like, yeah, it's just not fun.

[00:36:31] Well, it's like, is the captain there the kind of captain that's like, I don't actually care if we have a first officer. It's fine. Yeah, we don't. Well, you see how often Jim stands up to people. The captain is probably like, you know what? Yeah, you haven't. We got another mission where I might have to give you command. And last time I did that, you killed more people than you tried to save in this episode. So, yeah. Okay. I want to bring that up because I, you know, I hadn't really bumped on why is Kirk doing this, but no other crew member.

[00:37:00] But a lot of other people had brought it up and I was like, that's a good point. Like, why wouldn't La'an or Erica stand up? And again, I mean, I do feel like Rieger's not doing anything by the letter wrong at all. So if these people follow orders, that's fine. But why is Kirk the one? And I think one is because he's in the number one position. So he kind of feels that responsibility. Like, hey, it's not their job. It's my job. If something needs to be said.

[00:37:25] But also, as a lot of people pointed out, and as the previously on, which I didn't watch, reminds us, the 7,000, he allowed to die in the Slotted of the Hated Stone Tale. Which again, I don't think he needs to feel bad about it at all. He immediately tried to save them as soon as like they were floating. And that was before he knew they were human. Like, he was literally self-defense at that moment. But that aside, we won't relitigate that.

[00:37:51] I do wish they had brought that up in the episode and not just the previous Leon. I feel like the previous Leon was doing a lot of heavy lifting here. And I think like one little kind of back and forth with them being a – because I know they kind of – they mentioned him taking, you know, command and that it didn't go great. But I think a little – I needed a little more – Like a trying to balance my ledger kind of line. Yeah. I think they're relying heavily on the previous Leons all season long.

[00:38:21] Like to the point of like, okay, well, I guess I know what this episode is kind of about now. Each time. Yeah. That's why I skip them. This season has been egregious on the previous Leons. Like, I don't – I kind of wish we didn't have these guys. Like, we discover these episodes as they air, not prime me to let me know what's going to happen in this one.

[00:38:43] Well, and to Cameron's point, like, I know that the serialization here comes from character arcs, but that justifies giving them dialogue about it. Like, you could have Jim say something about, like, look, I feel like I'm 7,000 lives in debt right now. Like – and that would work. Because then if you didn't happen to watch that one episode from last year, you know?

[00:39:07] Like, I'm fully respective of the constraints that the people who make the show have. I just – I do tend to wonder out loud, like, is there not a way around this particular thing? Um, and I'm sure – you know, if – with all of the studio tinkering that we have heard about this season, like, I'm sure the previously on is not something that they have any control over. You know, the studio says, yeah, you need to put a previously on.

[00:39:37] Like, I don't know. Because there's a lot of shows I watch that don't have that, and I'm okay. Like, I still understand the show that I'm watching. Um, old Star Trek didn't really ever have that. So, it's – Yeah. Well, old Star Trek never really needed that. Well, by the time you get deep into DS9, you're going to be like – And there are. DS9 uses a previous show a lot more than – Right. But usually – usually it was just with two-parters or nine-parters. But, yeah.

[00:40:07] Well, and it's the kind of thing that you end up being – Is there a nine-parter? You end up being grateful for because it's like, there's a lot happening here. Like, it's kind of the same reason I was grateful for them in Discovery. Because I'm like, you guys have 14 plot lines in 14 episodes. Like, I'm appreciative that you're going to refresh me on what some of these are. But I do – because the quarter zine was brought up, I mean, that's my thing. Like, you don't need it. That's your thing.

[00:40:33] Like, have Kirk know how to needle this guy, which he does, and push him to his breaking point. There doesn't need to be a drug involved with this. And I think it's probably meant to be like, here's the thing that finally cracks the facade John was talking about, right? But it's like, I don't think you need it.

[00:40:53] I think it would be a better story if Kirk was just so sure about this that he pushed and pushed and pushed to the point where he made Rieger threaten his life in front of the crew. Like, I think that would have – Kind of like – That would have worked. Kind of like a diehard, like, no one can piss off a guy like that except John. Kind of moment. It would have worked for me. Like, I didn't need there to be a quarter zine dosing.

[00:41:21] And I'll say, the first time I watched it, I didn't even catch the quarter zine dosing. I had to look for it the second time. It's like, oh, okay. And he, like, leans over and actually touches the coffee cup. Then he takes the coffee cup away. Then he drinks from it. Then that shot ends on the coffee cup. They weren't as subtle about it as I thought they were. But I completely missed it the first time. You can even see the canister in his hand. I mean, it does prove to us that, you know, there is some hope that during World War III,

[00:41:51] all copies of Prometheus will have been destroyed so that we don't get the scene of David just sticking his finger in the dude's coffee to infect him. Or whiskey. It was like – Oh, yeah. Yeah. The second time I watched it, I'm like, oh, yeah. Okay. This is very, very obvious that that's what's happening right there because we keep showing the coffee cup. But Rieger's just like, sure. I'll drink from a coffee cup that you – I'll drink from this. I don't know, man. So, that's my only problem with the cordyzine, which is, you know, the thing with a lot of

[00:42:21] very plotty things. Like, I'm looking at you, Harry Potter. But, like, this was your plan A. You were relying on a lot of, like, things going just right. So, you're in the medical lab trying to find this guy's medical files and go, hey, I'm going to grab this vial of cordyzine. And on the off chance that my attempt in the engineering thing with the codes and the phasers doesn't go well. Maybe they'll drag me into him where I'll be able to be near a coffee cup and drug it and he will drink from it. And then I can needle up. It's a lot of ifs.

[00:42:51] But also, maybe, you know, it's Kirk. He adapts and he improvises. And I'm going to get to my defense of the cordyzine, but that's part of it. Like, Rieger says, like, you have to adapt and improvise. And that's what Kirk is known for. So, maybe he had, like, six other redundancies on him. I'm just going to do as many plans as I can and hope it works. Yeah. Yeah. I love the phasers. I love Kirk was like, I'm going to go down there. I'll figure this out. This is no problem. Oh, holy shit. How many buttons does this? What the? This was a bad idea.

[00:43:21] And then he just loves it. I love that part. I think that is Kirk 100%. And I think you do need the cordyzine. I think without the cordyzine, Rieger becomes a much less formidable foe. If you can just a few good men him into yelling, you can't handle the truth. Like, he becomes a much less intimidating foil for Kirk. I think we've seen that all the time. And I like that we see Kirk try. He brings it up. He's like, you're here for a personal mission. And Rieger's like, I got this, boy.

[00:43:51] Oh, you're talking about my family dying. Yes, that did happen. But now I'm going to explain why it's fine. I'm still in control. And now Kirk needs something else. He needs to be more proactive. Kirk is not Picard. He is not known for talking God beings out of sparing Wesley's life. He is a man of action. He has to do. And he does this. And I think it's a lot more interesting. I think it's a lot more interesting with the cordyzine. And for the plot that's going to happen, we need Mbenga to...

[00:44:20] We need something for Mbenga to take the part. Well, okay. A couple things. First of all, in the cordyzine scene, the next... Mbenga is there. And he says he should have been brought to sickbay. And he says, bring him to the bridge. I want him to watch me kill these 5,000 people. Like, that... Okay, maybe that's enough for you to be relieved from command. Like... I don't think he says in those words. I want him to see what needs to be done. And it's like... Yes.

[00:44:48] I want this dishonored guy to see what it means to be captain. I don't think there's... That... That... Jesse, are you saying that is enough to relieve an admiral from command? Saying that? To get to the point where you're like, he needs to watch these people die? If you're... That's not what he said. Mbenga... Okay, but that is the gist of what he is saying. Like, if you're Mbenga... And you already have your doubts about this guy, you can have Mbenga say, this is enough for me. I'm going to relieve him of duty.

[00:45:17] Now... Now your way... It's not just Mbenga. Now your way out of Mbenga having to have had, you know, something to do with this drugging incident is, you can have a court martial where somebody says, hey, Mbenga, that wasn't enough. That was not enough cause for you to remove him from command. And Mbenga goes, all right, then I'll accept whatever the punishment is. But... So what is your problem with Mbenga? I don't...

[00:45:44] I just don't think that we needed Rieger to be drugged to get to the point where Mbenga can say, you're clearly psychologically damaged here. Like... Well, it sounds like you're saying Mbenga should have just said it from the get-go. No. I didn't... I just... I told John, I didn't say he did it too late. I just think that we didn't need... Well, you know, but you're just... Now you're saying he should have done it in the ready room. I think he had an opportunity to do it in the ready room. Because last time he confronted somebody who pretended to be a war hero, he murdered him

[00:46:13] in sickbay. And maybe he's like, hmm, maybe I shouldn't get into this argument again. I might end up murdering somebody else on shit. But my point being, that's within, what, like three minutes of when he finally actually does it? So it's not like... It's not like it would have been... Between then and then, a lot of things happen. More than just being like, I'm going to make you watch what a commander does. That is not... I'm going to agree with Cam on that one.

[00:46:42] Now holding a gun to Kirk's head, that is enough. Yes. Which I think, to the cordyazine point, we could have gotten to without the cordyazine. Because this guy... You could have, but it's less interesting. I don't think it is. I think it's more interesting. And to the point... Here's what you mentioned about Kirk not being known for talking God beings out of stuff. This guy is known for talking computers out of existing. Because they're like, here's my directive. And he's like, oh, well, logically, shouldn't it be this? And shouldn't it be that? And that...

[00:47:11] Oh, shit. And it puts me at a spot... It puts me at a spot where I'm like, I would have loved to see Spock jump in here. And say like, hey, logically, and knowing humans as we do, there is no way you can keep yourself separated from this emotionally. It would have been a cool Kirk and Spock moment instead of the like, hey, Spock, we're totally going to be in a show together later moment that we got. Which is like, oh, yeah, don't worry.

[00:47:40] Someday you'll have a captain and this, that, and the other thing. I just feel like... I don't have the exact answer. I'm not a screenwriter. I'm just telling you for me emotionally watching through it. I didn't need the cordrazine. And I feel like Rieger would have got to that point anyway. And then Mbenga could have still done what he did. For me, watching it emotionally, I didn't know about the cordrazine the first time. And in that scene, I was like, I don't buy this at all. Why? After two minutes of talking to the Kirk, this guy is spilling lifelong secrets, or at least last eight year secrets. I don't buy it at all.

[00:48:10] So at least the cordrazine gave me something. So... But you're not alone. Other people said the same thing, Jesse. So, you know, everyone's got their, you know, their limit. I was good. And here from Trev. Hey, it's Trev beaming in from the Failure to Franchise podcast to offer my thoughts on the latest episode of Star Trek Year One. Strange New Worlds. Sorry. So anyways, as I sat down to watch the latest Season 4 episode, I wondered, what's the genre of the week going to be this time? Rom-com? Silent movie? Kung-fu flick? Imagine my pleasant surprise when I found the genre they chose to explore was Star Trek.

[00:48:39] I do think it's funny that just a few weeks ago, the New Trek movie writers made news by saying their potential film would be inspired by stuff like Training Day and Crimson Tide. And it set off the usual gang of New Trek haters and critics with cries of, why can't they just make Star Trek? And then here we get an episode that clearly is Crimson Tide, and it was the most pure Trek the show has felt in a long time. Look, I've mixed positive feelings about this one.

[00:48:59] I think it's an overall well-executed classic sort of Trek battle episode, but I also had a lot of story issues that I know from the Discord conversations some of my fellow callers will probably address, such as the arguably unnecessary drugging element that might have hurt the episode's message, or the lack of feeling at the end of the Ohura-Asha storyline due to that being ignored most of the season. But of course, the biggest issue was the story once again being more unneeded Kirk origin fill-in. Now, don't get me wrong, this was probably Wesley's best performance as Kirk yet,

[00:49:24] but it still feels like, with so few episodes left, we don't need year one back to our pilots taking away from the show and crew we love. Though it does beg an interesting question. Do you think we'd all feel differently about Kirk and his usage on the series if they had just said he was going to be a character and an element from the very beginning, instead of feeling like a surprise late season one guest star that just never went away? Perhaps. And I know where the show is heading, but here's hoping they remember that season five should more importantly be the end of Pike's story, not the continued start of Kirk's. Yeah, that's interesting.

[00:49:53] I would, that's a great question, Trev, and I would argue that maybe people would be more okay with it. We do need to remember that these episodes were written for the most part, I mean, they were all conceived and for the most part filmed, not knowing if they're going to have a season five. They were kind of made like, these might be the last few episodes and we kind of want to set up the next chapter, if not. So that's probably why this episode exists as it is.

[00:50:18] And then to kind of, to that whole point of the Kirk show and what Jesse was saying, like there is part of me, I get like the dramatic story of one man against the whole ship. And it is, I had a lot of fun watching Kirk like evade Laon and evade security. Like that's one of the, my favorite parts of this episode is just watching him go rogue in the ship. But I also kind of wanted him like one by one to convince the crew and for all of them to work together to like achieve something.

[00:50:46] And I think that would have made it feel a bit more strange new worlds. Maybe. Um, I mean, I buy, I, I, some people have problems with spot going along with everything. I mean, to me, this is a classic needs of the few. We weigh the needs of the many situation. I think maybe a newly found logical Spock might go along with this, but which is, I think there was a part of me that. So at the end or towards the end, when he says, give me those codes.

[00:51:16] And he says, no, sir. And he says, I think you're bluffing lawn fire. There was a part of my heart that was like, now Laon stands up and turns around and says, no, sir. And then he says, Ortegas, you take control of tactical fire this. And she stands up and turns around and says, no, sir. Like I'm getting goosebumps from that just here talking about it. Cause I kind of, I just, I wanted that moment of the unity, right?

[00:51:44] Where it's like, okay, Kirk is a good commanding officer because he is able to get his point across without again, the cordrazine. And I just, I was so sure I was going to get that, that when I didn't, that might contribute to some of my feelings about this being like, I think we should have gone the Kirk route of this rather than the drugs route of this.

[00:52:05] And I, I still maintain that rigor being under the amount of pressure that he is under and a lot of the self-imposed like pressure that he's decided to be under. I still think he could have cracked without it. I think it would have been acceptable, but this does also raise the question. Like, okay, shouldn't Kirk have like really strict rules around cordrazine by the time of TOS because he's now seen this.

[00:52:31] And then McCoy is able to just like accidentally dose himself an elephant level amount of this drug. Like, like this should create rules, man. Well, I'll be very curious to watch. It was an operation Armageddon or when Sam dies. Yeah. Yeah. The one. No, no, no. The one where that's general order. Armageddon. Oh, right. A taste of Armageddon.

[00:53:01] Hold on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll have to watch that after the season. That's a taste of Armageddon. I had to flip for it. All right. Let's go ahead and hear from Starship. Hello, open pike night. Objectively, I know this is a really strong episode. This is a classic Star Trek plot. I know a lot of people are going to love it. And I understand. I got some issues.

[00:53:28] One, Mbenga should have stepped in voluntarily way before he did because he knew the entire backstory. He knew this was wrong and he just didn't say anything. Secondly, Kirk, go home. I mean, the planet had 5,000 people on it. Kirk killed 7,000 people last season. And he only cared when he found out they were humans.

[00:53:57] Just, this was a good episode for him. The writing was good for him. I just do not connect with Paul Wesley's Kirk. I just don't. And I feel like they pushed him hard enough to where if I was going to, I would have by now. And finally, the Asha stuff was completely underdeveloped all season. If this is the solution, she and Ahura only interacted once in episode one. And then she's only been in two other episodes. One of them was just one scene.

[00:54:27] This was just a big nothing burger. So, yeah, I know people are going to love it and I get it. It's kind of a miss for me, honestly. Yeah, I mean, the whole Asha thing is interesting. I'll admit, even in that subplot, again, I like the whole story. And then at the end, I was like, I feel like I'm missing something. I don't know what. And maybe it's that. I mean, in defense of not having Asha a bunch in this season, it's Ahura's story, not Asha.

[00:54:55] So we only needed her there enough to get Ahura through her story of trying to find herself as an adult now. But I was wondering, and there's no way to do it, but watching it, I was like, I love how much Ahura goes through. And we haven't talked much about the cave storyline and we will, I'm sure. Yes, it deserves it so much. But I love how much she goes through and physically, mentally, emotionally. And then for Asha to be like, kind of impressed. Thanks. I'm out.

[00:55:24] And I just, I wonder if that moment would have hit better if she had, it hadn't been separated by the whole Rieger storyline. And then them kind of, you know, the resolution at the end and they're in sickbay. If there had been a way for Ahura to be standing over her bruised and bloody and dirty. And for that to be the moment where Asha goes, that was badass. I'm not coming back to that ship. And I think that would have hit harder. And I don't know how story-wise they would have done it.

[00:55:53] I know she's like near death and like, you've got to get her to recover. And you want to save the emotional beat for the end. I get all that. But I do feel like maybe those two scenes were too far apart for it to hit as hard as they could have. Well, I think I'm in agreement with you, Cameron, that like we don't necessarily need a bunch more from Asha throughout the season because it is an Ahura story. And I'll tell you the emotional beat that worked on me was her promotion.

[00:56:17] I like did the little, the tiny little yay clap and was like kind of welling up because it was like, I think one of the previous callers mentioned like, glad that we got that in this and got to respect the strange new worlds part of that story. It doesn't have to be a promotion that Kirk gives her later on. And it's Pike who recognizes that in her. I really liked that.

[00:56:41] But to the Mbenga point, okay, maybe he doesn't relieve Rieger of duty earlier. Maybe he sends a communicator Starfleet command when everybody else is told not to. Maybe he's the one that says, well, I've got my own little console down here in the med bay. And I think that Starfleet command needs to know about this. And then right before Rieger goes to fire, you get a hail from April who's like, hey, this is not authorized even a little bit. We thought you were still on Starbase 12.

[00:57:10] What is going on right here? And then you have still the whole thing like, well, Mbenga still broke the rules. He defied an order. You can do the court martial, whatever you have to do. My point being, I feel like there were other ways to get to this point that would have just felt less. I don't know what the word is for it. The drug is is to something right. And it works against Kirk's argument. Like if you don't. It makes it more interesting. It makes it more like, is Kirk right for doing that?

[00:57:39] It's making us so then the question becomes like, do you do something wrong if your goals are right? If it's to save 5000 people, are you willing to go that extra step and not just argue your case, but do what is it necessary? Like, again, I still think Rieger would have cracked. But now, like if you're looking at it from like the administrative standpoint, right there, like, I don't know, man, like maybe he was fine. And it's because you drugged him. And it's like. But I don't want that story. I want the story of Kirk.

[00:58:08] Kirk, that's the story. But that's what I'm saying. For me, the story of Kirk pushing him till he cracks is much more interesting than, well, I gave him a drug. Like, I'm not saying it's the wrong story to tell. I'm saying I think I would have enjoyed that version of the story more without the. Is it the version of the story or is it the entirely in the gray area ending?

[00:58:30] The, well, only time will tell who was right in this kind of ending, because that's that is not an ending that Star Trek fans like is only time will tell. I mean, that was they did. They did that in TNG with the freaking conspiracy thing. It's like, well, time told us. Nope. So far. So far. So far. I don't know. Don't bring us home now. I'm generally okay with it.

[00:58:57] Like, I know when Mbenga killed Dakra, there were a lot of people that were like, why did they leave this ambiguous as far as like, what does Pike know and what did Christine see? And I'm like, I don't care. I think that's the right way to do that. Who knows what, when. I mean. Right. So I'm, I'm generally fine with that aspect of it. I just, I don't know. It's like Kirk. I don't know. It's, it's, it's almost like a childish thing on my part to be like, well, Kirk was playing dirty and he didn't need to.

[00:59:27] Like, I don't know. I love that. I love that. I love it. But so two, two points. I mean, one, you know, you talked about like, oh, and then Admiral April comes back and says, hey, you can't do that. Admiral Rieger. But again, I like it. People keep thinking Rieger is doing something wrong. He's not doing anything wrong. He has every right to be doing this morally. Morally. That's the question of the episode. But by Starfleet standards, he has every right to be doing everything he's doing.

[00:59:56] That's why people are following orders. And I, I, the first look, I'm, I'm being disingenuous a little bit because the first time I watched this, I was like, what the, the butcher of Jagal really just stand by and let this happen. What is it like? This is a banga. This is a banga. I think it would just kill this guy. And then I, and then I was like, this is a banga. Yeah. He does not like the animal inside of him.

[01:00:20] And he takes protocol and chain of command and Starfleet ideals and regulations and uses that as armor to keep the animal inside. And I, and, and so the second time I watched it, I viewed it through that lens and it made a lot more sense. Like we know, and banga doesn't like the butcher of Jagal and he does whatever he can to keep it inside. And, and he, he is a by the books guy. So do you think, I mean, we even saw that in a case of cheers girl. He was the one who's like, we don't need to be here.

[01:00:47] Do you think this then follows on from his development in the last episode where he's like, I'm kind of starting to feel the distance. Yeah. He sees two very different paths ahead of and behind him. And we know he's been very split lately. So that was a, that was a joke about. That's really mean, John. That's really mean. Still healing really well. Beautiful. We all know what a banga brings to the table. Okay. I had to get mine in too.

[01:01:20] You guys don't have a leg to stand up. It just takes a lot of guts for him to do it. Oh, shit. All right. So good. That's good. But that having been said, what do we think? Should there be like a coffee cup that says cordrazine on it or something? Like, we'll have to figure that out. All right. Let's go to hear from Platy. Hey there, open pike night. It's Platy M3 calling in with my hits, shits, and giggles about the badmoral trek cave cliche mashup episode. All right. Hits.

[01:01:50] Loved La'An shooting the badmoral. I loved Kirk shooting La'An pointing out she did in fact stab him. I loved Uhura shooting the crystals in the cave and killing that Andorian dude with the same crystals he stabbed her semi kind of barely knew you work acquaintance with. That more than made up for everybody else being sidelined in there. I'm sure Mel will disagree, but I was okay with Peek not being the star. Hey, Kirk brothers, Kirk brothers, Kirk brothers. Woohoo. Scotty's scant was awesome.

[01:02:18] The cinematography of that final confrontation on the bridge was perfect. All the shaky camera work gave credence to the whole unhinged badmoral stuff. And finally, the line about terror that would be on Kirk's head. Amazing. Shits. Am I the only one confused by the Klingon war timeline? Christine and Ortega served and they don't seem generationally older than James and Sam Kirk. The Kirk brothers made it seem like though dad was missing their childhood because of this badmoral. But like, when was this war happening? Five years? 20 years? I couldn't wrap my head around it.

[01:02:47] And the whole Asha subplot totally undercooked. She had like what? Three scenes with a horror the whole time? Last little bit. Giggles. Did you see Kirk's face when he got out of that phaser place? He was burnt to shit. But somehow between getting dragged from the conference room to bridge, they healed all that. Didn't give him a shirt, but you know, oh well. At least they healed his face. All right. Platium three signing off. I think it's very justified that Kirk's shirt looks like it was laid across a grill because he does not know how to eat hot dogs.

[01:03:14] I thought that was just poetic justice for hot dogs personally. Yeah. I was going to say they called the doctor the seamstress. So Michelle also sent in a call for us discussing that timeline. It is eight years. It is eight years since the start of the Klingon war to the date of this episode. And I don't know. And in that call, she also like challenged the whole concept of George Kirk versus their mom and asked if anyone could just name Evelyn.

[01:03:44] Apparently. It's Winona. You're going to get so good job, Jesse. Oh, Winona. Where did you call it with Evelyn? Where did you call Evelyn from? It's not like a mom name. I don't know. It is a mom name. It's a grandma name. But yeah. I don't know the timeline or I don't know the history. Is that is the discovery Klingon war? Is that like the did they ever say that was the first Klingon war? I kind of got the sense that like there's a Klingon wars have kind of been off and on. I think that was the big thing. That was the Federation Klingon war in it. Okay.

[01:04:14] Because like the one that the Kittimur occurred, chords ended. Is that the one? Is this the one? Well, no, because they're over because they're over now. Yeah. The war is over now in this time. Right. In the Stranger Worlds timeline. The problem with looking at it from the Klingon side is like, which war? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you pass us off, we kill you. It's like, what's a war? This is just our constant state of being. But yeah, I mean, it is a fair point because it's like Kirk is a first officer.

[01:04:44] He's probably been in Starfleet for more than eight years. Right. So like, why is it? Why did we not talk about his time in the Klingon war? And why does that not seem to play into this sort of a thing? Um, Sam's got two kids. Yeah. And they're old enough to like call and talk to him ostensibly. Right. I just, I mean, it is one of those like, you either notice it and fixate on it or you go, it's fine.

[01:05:14] I'm, I'm much more generally in the latter school of like, it's fine. Yeah. Maybe he, maybe George was with Dr. Yeah. And we just didn't get that. Ah. That could be a, ah. I did though on the, on the planet. I did, or the moon, the cave. Um. Yeah. Yeah. Let's get to the cave. I like that we got Hammer mentioned, even if not necessarily by name. Mm-hmm. I like that these Andorians fit with the Andorians we've seen. We know from Enterprise that Andorians hate Vulcans.

[01:05:44] Of course he would pick out a shot to mess with. Like. True. That was not like, she's the, the least threatening. That was, I do not like Vulcans. Here's what I'm going to do about it. Sort of a thing. And yeah, watching Uhura be the one to get to save the day. I mean. Man. Always, always good to see. And it's, and she got to be a badass about it. Like, it wasn't like, here's the sound trick. Okay. Now everyone's incapacitated. Let me save everyone. It was like, no, now you pick up a gun and you whoop ass and you have a fist fight.

[01:06:14] Like. Yeah. Struggling. The struggling sounds. I was like, I'm glad they gave her this. Like normally, you know, especially back in the day, you would only see the men. On the bridge doing these kinds of fights and they were much less convincing. So it's like, I'm, I'm really glad that we got these, these moments for Uhura. And I think absolutely promotion. Well, earned. Yeah. Yeah. And it wasn't just like, she grabs the phaser and pinpoints each one and shoots him. Yeah. It was a down and dirty fight.

[01:06:42] And like, it was a communication specialist in a fist fight. And I love that aspect of it. I did. I did feel a little like if we're going to go that far, cause I was kind of wondering like, okay, like why wasn't this? This a moment equal to and being getting cut in half or, you know, all these other moments from the other episodes. I do kind of, I wish she had like choked one out. I wish it had gotten a little, a little, like, and like, yeah, she stands up and looks at her hands and like a real, what did I do moment? Cause I was watching again and it's like, oh no.

[01:07:12] Then she just stands up and grabs the gun and shoots him. I think it could have been maybe a little more. They did that way. I think. But like, I'm not going to let perfect be the enemy of good here. Yeah. And I think they tried to do some of that work by having her look around at all of the faces of the Endorians that she shot. Like they went for the, the emotional beat. Um, and you know, maybe it's, maybe it's just down to like how many Starfleet officers are we going to have brutally murder people? And then maybe that's it. Maybe that's it.

[01:07:42] Who am I thinking? I'll stick it. Like, oh, sure. Omega. Omega. He does it with a knife. I want to see her jaw. But does it like hundreds of times? Yeah. But she also gets to kill Curry Graham, which that man dies so, so often in TV. I don't know if you guys recognize him. I don't know. He was great though. I love the character. Yeah. I recognize him as soon as he came out of the screen. I'm like, oh sweet. He's a, he's a modern, that guy, guy, but like Jack Bauer killed him.

[01:08:09] I remember he like, he dies in a show that ran for 10 episodes called over there about the Iraq war, super propaganda show, but he has a great episode in it. Also Zach from saved by the bell is in an episode, a couple of episodes. I think it's good to talk about him because he did a really good job. And in an episode where Joe Morton is your guest star, like it's going to be easy to not talk about any of the other characters. So I'm, I'm glad that we brought him up. He did a really good job. Mm-hmm.

[01:08:37] Uh, I also love like sassy Uhura before that, when she's like talking to him, she's just, she's giving him some lip and some attitude and I love it. I love imagining that hammer taught her this sonic trick that she uses against these Andorians. Uh, it's all really good. Just kind of a weird moment when I think it's Una says like, why are you doing this? Andoria is part of like the federation. Like Una, that doesn't mean every Andorian isn't a pirate. Like there's human pirates out there. Like, what are you talking about?

[01:09:06] A government, uh, affiliation is not the general populace. We're missing a scene of Uhura being like, don't you realize you're voting against your own self-interest? Yeah. Uhura, that happens. Or yeah, Una, that happens. Yeah. That happens a lot. I also, I mean, it's a dumb thing, but like just the classic ambush trope of the ambushers not pulling the ambush until your heroes have realized it's an ambush.

[01:09:36] Like you have them just jump out and point your guns out. Don't wait for them to figure it out and start to run away. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I do like how they're like, quick, go this way. And how quickly they're like, oh no, we're surrounded. We're entirely surrounded. Just, just stop. I will say, but there's a lot of great, like just, uh, back and forth between the cave scenes and the Rieger story. Cause you got like the two villains, you get captains willing to sacrifice people for Starfleet ideals. You get Uhura looking for revenge, her own Rieger revenge.

[01:10:05] And then when I had mentioned all those in the interviews, but when I kind of caught on this last watch through is, uh, the, the captain is talking at one point about like why he left Starfleet or something. He's like, yeah, you know, Starfleet, they talk about their ideals, but, but they betray him all the time. And it's almost like he's talking to Rieger at that moment. And I thought, I thought that was a really cool. And one thing there, he says like, well, and you do it because you're afraid of death. And then Uhura's come back is like, I'm doing this to save a friend. And it's like, yeah, that's what he just said.

[01:10:35] Like, yeah, he just said that. Yeah. Like you're just telling him he's correct. Proved his point. Cause at first I was like, these two plots feel really disconnected and it's because we need these people to not be on the ship, but they're more connected on a second watch than you think, because it is like you, all the stuff you had mentioned cam. And there's like this, like, okay, well using Sutterfuge to do the right thing, even if that's going to be really difficult and you have to personally take that on.

[01:11:04] And some of that creativity we were talking about, like, okay, here's Uhura going like, I'll be creative. I'll just be like, okay, you know what? I don't want this one person to die. So I'm going to help you. And then I'll use that as my way out of this force field, which why did the force field need to be shaped like crystals? Is it because they're in a room full of crystals? I'm okay with it. It's fine. I just, I was very confused. Cause like it would, it would make an opaque thing and then the opaque thing would go away. And I was like, is the force field still there? Why is there? And then she shot the control.

[01:11:33] Like we've seen that that control is just, you put your hand on it and the thing opens. Like, I don't know that you needed to shoot. And that's what it is. It's a rule of cool. So much cooler. But yeah, I point being on the second watch, I was like, oh, these are actually more connected story-wise than I thought they were the first time. But of course, to the point of like, well, we need these people in the cave and off the ship. Like the, the term routine SOS. I was like, is an SOS ever routine?

[01:12:01] Like routine is like delivering settlers food and mapping a star system. Like why you're sending the captain and the number one and the communications officer and a cadet on an SOS mission. Okay. We need these people off the, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's classic Star Trek. It is. It's classic. Like we, we need a lineup here. We need a lineup here. It does make you wonder though. Cause the breaker we hear specifically is like, you're not. As the captain, you're not supposed to be on away missions.

[01:12:30] How many times does this have to happen before Starfleet's like, you know what? Let's change the regulations. Cause it's a lot. I mean, the regular thing is just cause he had read the history books and it's like, Kirk was always getting laid. I'm going on the away mission. I think it would be better if I went. True. Yeah. Let's hear from Zoe. Open Pike night. This is the USS Senua. Zoe Richardson, Captain Command and also host of Backlick Cinema, the podcast.

[01:13:00] This was a very exciting and packed episode. It had the legendary Joe Morton. It reminded me of Crimson Tide. It talks about the ethics of using WMDs. Maybe not give all that power to one person. It also suggests a kind of cronyism that's going on in the upper echelons of Starfleet. Like, why would you bother to promote an officer that might eventually become a bad murderer? But there you have it. That's Starfleet.

[01:13:29] Finally, there's a pet peeve that I have of that some officers in Starfleet do where they promote their officers and personnel in private ceremonies instead of doing it in public, like in front of the crew, like on the USS Senua. What I do is that I promote my officers and service members in front of the whole crew to celebrate them in front of the whole crew. The leadership principle that I go by is to praise in public and punish in private.

[01:13:59] Otherwise, this was a fantastic episode. I loved every minute of it. And I like the tension that it brought. It's a great show. I'm pretty sure that it'll silence the haters at least for a little while. That's all I have for now. Richardson out. There's a punishing private joke here somewhere, but I'm going to leave that one there. It's a great point, though. Like, and you do kind of you kind of see Rieger abide by that at the start, at least like

[01:14:27] when he wants to dress Kirk down, he takes him to the ready room. He's like, oh, hey, also, by the way, don't do that in front of the crew. I disagree with what he says, but he at least does it in private so that it's not like he's publicly trying to undermine Kirk in front of the rest of the crew. Yeah. Well, and even in private, he's not scorning him. He's just like, hey, pro tip. Which again, I don't agree with. Sure. No, I also disagree with, but like at least, you know. But I and then I just I do love watching the scenes after we're like Kirk immediately disregards that advice. Yeah.

[01:14:57] Oh, yeah. And you just see him being like, what the heck? Does this guy listen to me at all? Spock. What? What is the logical? Well, to be fair, his next order is shoot a torpedo at that. That's 100 percent. Yes. OK, I'm also like I am a little bit like so. The cloaked ship can't detect them, but they can detect the cloaked ship. How far away are they? A little bit of like the whole geography of stuff. I was like, what is happening here?

[01:15:27] Anyone else bump on that? No. Yeah. I mean, they were close. They were in the system and in Star Trek all the time, you're like, oh, we can detect a ship coming in from warp. But apparently this cloaked ship couldn't detect the Enterprise who was in system following them. So if this is the same ship as the ship from Bounds of Terror, which we now know it to be. Which we know it is. And we need to just talk about that. We know that they can't do all of the same stuff. They can do while they're uncloaked that they can while they're cloaked. So that could be enough.

[01:15:58] But that's kind of where I'm getting to is like, if that hasn't been established here, then I think your question is fair. Like, well, why can't they do this? And like there there is a lot going on there. Again, that's one of the things that I was like. I guess it's more Star Trek stuff. I mean, I'm not that's one of the things I was like, that's that's fine. Okay. Now, Zoe brings some stuff up here about one person, the unitary executive having all of

[01:16:25] this power just because he's an admiral and he's sitting in the seat. But the ship takes at least two people to self-destruct. But to glass a planet doesn't take like, let the record show all officers are in agreement. There's no like public discussion, you know, like there are certain things that I think probably should be more of a yes, we have talked this over more than one executive agrees. This is the right plan.

[01:16:55] But yeah, but then that would just be Crimson Tide. I mean, that's literally the exact plot of Crimson Tide as Denzel doesn't want to fire. Well, it also it fire as far as I know from a story perspective, it also takes away some of the weight of command, right? Like you want these decisions to be Kirk's or Pike's or Rieger's whoever is sitting in the chair. You want them to have that from a dramatic. And especially like with TOS, it was like, this is the Wild West. You're a Marshall.

[01:17:23] You have a lot of leeway in what, how you choose to enforce regulations and laws that we've established kind of a thing. So I get it. But this is, and I mean, this isn't the first time that we've had a Starfleet captain decide, oh, then I'll just make this place uninhabitable. What are you going to do about it? And I cannot wait for you to see some more of that camera. Well, yeah, two points.

[01:17:50] I mean, I would have loved like during the middle of like this heated, like those 5,000 people might not even be part of this. They could be innocent. And then like a nerd, the nerdiest scientists just rush on the bridge and be like, well, I don't care about that. But there's a species of frog down there that doesn't live on it because it's an ecological disaster. Like even if they are. Yes. Even if they are Romulan sympathizers down there, like it's a whole planet with a whole ecosystem that doesn't exist anywhere else.

[01:18:18] So one thing I bumped on the first time until we talked with Alan and I learned General Order 24 is a thing was I swear in TNG, they implied like the power of a starship to destroy a planet is rare and newsworthy. Like I felt like there's an episode where an alien ship blew up a planet and they were like, they could do that? What sort of ship has this power? And so the whole time I was like, the Enterprise can destroy a planet? What?

[01:18:45] But apparently that is a thing that can happen as, you know, confirmed in TOS. So maybe I'm just misremembering. Yeah, I think that's kind of always been understood. That seems like a lot. I don't know. Like what are they using to burn out a planet? Antimatter. Yeah. These are not big ships compared to planets. Like that's a lot of fucking fire. They run out of torpedoes and like a skirmish with a Klingon bird of prey and, you know, the phasers do mild damage to the surface of a ship.

[01:19:14] Ships have shields. What are they doing to blow up a planet? And polarize hole plating and all this stuff. And like, I mean, I think part of the math would be like, oh, planets just got cities on it. Like if your phasers can go through the atmosphere, then you can do a lot of damage. But they, I mean, they are, they are, they are leveling the entire planet. That's General Order 24. It's not, we're targeting a few cities. Which even that, I feel like a phaser would need to like crisscross all of them. Well, and it, I mean, obviously it's not, um, cut and dry, right?

[01:19:43] Like I think the, I think it's probably more couched in the metaphor of you're flying in something that has stronger than nuclear power to go back to the submarine of it all. Right. Like this, this is an antimatter reaction. Antimatter is going to cause a lot of problems. So like, I, I don't know that I bumped on it just because I think it's been kind of, it has been in Star Trek before where it's like, if we wanted to, we could do this. Yeah.

[01:20:11] And I, I mean, I remember him saying something about that and, uh, operation annihilate, but, uh, I, it just, I'm just now thinking about, I'm like, what is, what, what actually are they using? Because we have not seen weapons nearly on that level used in any battle. And if they do have weapons of that level, why haven't we seen a captain be like, pull out the general order 24 bomb and send that over. Well, and the other thing is like, if there are, if this is a whole planet with 5,000 people on it, like, I mean, they're probably, you know, yeah, well, they're probably in one place. Right.

[01:20:42] Which unfortunately, probably bolsters Rieger's argument of like, this is obviously their home base. It's like, well, if there's only 5,000 people here and they're all in one spot. Kind of sounds like a military base to me, but. Or they're settlers or scientists, but they're, they need to destroy the, to level the whole planet because they don't know where they're. He's just firing to destroy the ship. But that's, that's what I'm saying. Like, I think to John's point from earlier, there is enough Gray's area here to make you ask the questions and to make the discussion happen.

[01:21:11] Because it's like, I think one thing I really liked is like Kirk vocally says, like, we know nothing about this planet. Right. Yeah. And the, the other thing I really loved was Scotty saying like, Hey, this is a, yes, right. Like he's not going to just own a planet on a, on the off chance. I think that scene does a lot of heavy lifting about why the crew will that. And it gives Kirk because Kirk doesn't reply to that. He just looks Scotty up and down and then walks away.

[01:21:41] And it's like, this is Kirk making note. Like this is the kind of person I want on my crew. I want somebody on my crew who will ask questions like this. Who's not just going to assume that because of an order was given that it was well thought out or morally right. And you know, this, that, and the other thing. It's like a tiny little moment where it's like, these are good moments. Like we don't have to have Spock or we don't have to have Kirk say, don't worry, Spock someday. There'll be a captain that you can mess with.

[01:22:09] Like you can just have moments like this where Scotty's like, Hey, I have a moral question. And Kirk be like, that's the right question to ask. And now I got to go do this hard thing real quick. Also. Thanks for giving me the idea to bluff about phasers from the guy who's working on the phasers right now. But yeah, that, but yeah, I'm glad Scotty questioned it. Like, I'm glad there was actually one other person who maybe wasn't in the admiral's face, but it was like, Hey, we're not really about to do this. Right. Right. Yeah. Cause I could say that goes a long way. Yeah.

[01:22:39] I could see, I mean, this does also have the air of, um, of a drill. Like it's like, Hey, Oh look, Admiral conveniently shows up five minutes. Okay. The, the opening eight minutes of this is like, all right, we're going in for an hour. And then like, all right, we're ready to go to war. 52 minutes of that hour remaining. Like, damn, they were busy. They, the people got to that ready room fast for that briefing.

[01:23:07] So, but, but yeah, I, I could see where, where like people not on the bridge might be like, all right, uh, let's do this. But it's like, I'm really about to mass. The other thing here is that not only is Rieger saying like, we're not going to tell Starfleet about this. There's no communication. Nothing is happening. He also says alpha shift around the clock until further notice. I don't want anyone knowing any of the details of what we're about to do.

[01:23:33] I only want to rely on the people that are physically in the room right now, which is, I just took that as he wants the best, which is, I'm sure the argument he would make, but from the, like, is this guy trustworthy perspective? I think it's one more tick in your, like, oh, that's a little outside of protocol. I assume. Cause I didn't write the book. I mean, I, yeah, I think an animal can say who he wants around for, for the next couple hours.

[01:23:59] Uh, but I mean, yeah, I, I get, I get people being like, I, you know, I want Erica. I want La'on. I want Spock to like stand up and do the right thing. I get that, but also like, it's just so dramatically compelling to watch them change over the course of the episode. And like, every time Kurt comes on the bridge, he like gives them a little bit more. Like he might not be getting Rieger to crack, but he's getting them and Erica, especially they like use her as the audience barometers. Like she starts full gung ho and then she starts looking around and she starts looking back.

[01:24:29] Then she starts questioning. Like, I do love the way they kind of, uh, progress all that. I was going to hear from Izzy. Hi, open bank. It's Izzy calling it episode 408. Um, this is a really good episode. Like Loki, I think it might be the best in the, in the whole season. We'll see how and nine and 10 go, but like, this was good. Um, the plot was really strong. It was very classic Star Trek, which I love.

[01:24:59] Um, I can't get behind La'on and Kirk though. Like this constant relationship drama is making me feel like we're still in the soap opera. Also, I was really, I had just gotten behind La'on and Spock. So it's going to take me a while to get out of that mindset. Um, yeah. Yeah. Also, La'on wearing the watch. I get it from a plot standpoint.

[01:25:26] But whenever like people, I don't know, like La'on wears a watch or Dr. Chivers wears a floor length gown. It just makes me think of Tuvok and that little like ex-bajoran, sorry, not ex-bajoran, ex-maquis bajoran teenager they had on Voyager and how he like made him stop wearing his religious earring. I know these are two different times, but it just makes me think of that. Um, nice watch though. Yeah.

[01:25:57] Uh, also Slay for Ahura. That was, that was very great. That made me smile. That was like my favorite part of the episode. Um, her game promoted and I heard like getting shot and stuff. Um, but yeah, talk to you next week. I mean, her game shot was pretty cool too. She was, she took it like a pro. Yeah. Badass. I do like that the shot that they showed, it was a lighter shot. Then she was like, she was killing those Andorians and he, he just got done shot her for some reason. It was a smaller.

[01:26:24] It looked like he aimed for the shoulder so he could do his little like villainous monologue. Yeah. And then that backfired. That's a very Curry Graham thing. I mean, yeah, I wouldn't expect. No less from a character he plays. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The watch, that was kind of like another Kirk had killed 7,000 people before thing where I'm like, I, I, now that I know what it is, I like its inclusion. The first time I watched it, I was like, why is she wearing a watch? Is this going to have something to do with the Admiral? What is going on? Well, Jesse needed to remind me that it's from tomorrow's cube. I liked.

[01:26:54] That wasn't even in the previous Leon. I did like the inclusion because it's like, I can't necessarily tell what it is. Like, I can't tell is this Leon saying. Cause like we, she, she's saying like, oh, I shouldn't, I should have gone to the cave. I don't want to be here while Kirk is here. Like, I don't want to deal with this. Right. But she puts the watch on anyway. So is that her way of like reminding herself? Like, Hey, I had that experience. I don't need to relive it.

[01:27:22] I don't need to try and chase an alternate timeline past. I can just move forward. Or is it something else? Is it to remind her that like, go easy on Kirk? Like, I don't know what the actual meaning is. I don't know if she knows what other than we know she has this connection with Kirk. So I'm, I did like it and I like that it was ambiguous. Um, that really worked for me. Yeah. The entirety of relationships, romantic relationships on this show.

[01:27:52] I don't think you could really describe in any way other than messy. Right. Like, which God to the, to the point of relationships is fair. Like they can be messy. It's just that there are a lot of things that were asked to keep track of and remember. And, you know, assume is part of a storyline, even if we're not explicitly told that. So I, I don't disagree with you on that. It is nice to see a healthy relationship sometimes though.

[01:28:20] Like for more than five minutes of one episode before it's like, oh, we're kind of on the rocks now. All right. We're broken up. That's why I loved like the few moments we got of like Spock and Lawn just like being a happy couple. Yeah. Give me that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So this was perhaps Izzy's favorite episode of the season. John, why is this your favorite Strange New Worlds episode yet? It just grabbed me, man. Like I, I think the, I think the weight of, again, like I said, this is a turning point

[01:28:50] I feel in the series and I hope that it's, I know we're going to obviously see more of Jim Kirk. I'm fine with Jim Kirk being on the show. So, um, it, he had to be there at some point. They're not just going to hand it over in the last episode and be like, oh, by the way, here's the new captain. Nothing. But, um, it, it just feels like it feels to me like it is, it is a point where maybe while

[01:29:18] they were writing or while they were producing it, they realized, okay, we are heading toward the end of the show. Now we do have some more episodes. We're going to set some stuff up where this is Kirk redeeming himself in a way for, uh, the Salat Bidetis tale in his mind and in the, in the eyes of Spock and Scotty and, you know, people who he was contentious with before. Now he has shown like the lengths he's willing to go to as a leader.

[01:29:45] So this is the start of Kirk as a leader leader to the people. He is going to be the leader too. And I think that's a very important thing to see. Yes. Obviously there are production issues, the production deals, like trying to get year one going like that. Obviously there is some backdoor pilotness to this, but for me it works. And I think Joe Morton works. I think his performance works. I think it is fun. It is a Star Trek episode.

[01:30:13] It's a very classic, you know, TNG, like bad morals. Like it brings in a lot of elements of what people really do celebrate about Star Trek. And so I think it fits that mold. I, I, you know, it, I don't know. It just grabbed me the entire time. I mean, I mean, the first thing you mentioned sounds like just like narrative thrust towards TOS. Do you like that? I do. I do. I like that. There's, I mean, there's been a lot of wheel spinning.

[01:30:41] I would say last episode is a fantastic and very important episode. Not really important in the larger, it's important for some of the characters, but as far as the universe that we expect to be living in, it's not, it's not an important episode. It's important. So why do you feel, so why do you feel this top, like it's a lot to eat its own tail, which I feel does a lot of the same. I mean, that's, I think would probably be my second.

[01:31:07] I, I think because, um, I, to me, I see this as part two of that episode is, is like this, that is the doubt, the Kirk doubting himself and the crew that he's going to be the leader of questioning that. But then starting to say like, oh no, he can, he is capable of something. And this is the culmination of that. I just like a culmination. I like, I like to see people succeed. I love Salad of the Days of Tale.

[01:31:34] It might over time end up being my favorite, but it's just below this one. I think this one also has more of the moral quandary to it. Like this one is more, you know, is it okay to trade to, to Rieger's point? Like this is math nobody should have to do. And we love Star Trek stories that do that to us. Right. Because to your point, Cameron, in the last one, it's like, he didn't really have a choice. It was shoot or get shot. Right.

[01:32:01] It wasn't a moral quandary of like, oh, do we sacrifice this other crew to save our people? And then after he finds out. They didn't have a choice to just disable the ship. It was destroyed. And then after he finds out they're humans, he's like, oh, I feel really bad now. And it's like, yeah, that's, that's understandable. But the moral quandary wasn't really there. It was a much more immediate situation. This is asking you questions. And I think as evidenced by our discussion and all the points the callers have brought

[01:32:29] up, there's a lot more to chew on here than there was in Salat. Not taking anything away from Salat, but like this has more to talk about than that episode did, I think. And it adds a layer for Kirk where he's like, hey man, I've been in a, in a spot where I was sure I was right. And my crew had to like knock me back down to earth and explain like, no, you got to think about more than just that you got to do this, you got to do this.

[01:32:54] And so for him to choose, all right, I am the one conducting the mutiny train this time that adds some weight to it. Yeah. It shows that he's like, he questioned himself and he's like, no, I'm even though I questioned myself like that, that tells me that he did question himself in this, but it's like, nope, I'm, I know, you know, he is a leader of conviction and I like Kirk brother time too. Yeah.

[01:33:22] I mean, I also, I noticed there's, I love the moment where Kirk gets promoted, not promoted, but you know, assigned to first officer on the enterprise and one, the musical cue is amazing because it's like almost the TOS theme, but not quite there yet, but we're getting closer. And then he just has a smile where you're like, oh, you want the enterprise. You want this ship. You're not going to be okay with the ferry yet. That's why every time you have 25 minutes to spare, you're like, oh, just pop on over to the enterprise and hang out.

[01:33:53] Hey. I will say it. You dress for the job you want. You walk on the ship. You walk on the ship. You just be in the space you want to be in. Oh, speaking of space you want to be in, Sam Kirk's space in the science lab cluttered as hell. Oh yeah. Loved it when they're having the first conversation. He's like, yeah, the book was better. Like his whole, the whole table he's working on. I'm like, oh, and it's a return to form for strange worlds. Christine right back to having nothing to do, even though there's a medical emergency. So harsh.

[01:34:22] My favorite Christine moment is if you're watching the last scene between Mbenga and Kirk and Kirk comes in and it's like, why the heck are you taking the fall for me? You can see through the frosted glass. Also the privacy effect when Mbenga has the glass turned across. Amazing. Amazing. That turned out to be Sharon Lewis's idea when she found out that glass can go back and forth. Like, well, let's see it, do it in the shot. But through that glass, you can see Christine kind of, she's walking up to clean something and then she very visibly stops there on the other side of the glass and just hangs out

[01:34:51] in each drop so she can come in and like have her conversation at the end. Yeah. There are five endings. This is, this is a, uh, part of the King ass episode when it comes to the endings of this episode. But I think much like, again, not a perfect episode, much like in return of the King. You need a lot of those endings. Like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Absolutely. Yes. Finally, we're back on the same page, Jesse. I do. I do think I would have liked if they had the conversation with Uhura and Una and Pike

[01:35:21] solo. And then Pike says, uh, now come with me. We've got to do something and walks out and it's the promotion ceremony. And everybody's there. Because it is weird. Exactly. Exactly. Everybody's there already assembled waiting for her. So it's, it's weird that it's just in his quarters. I understand that it's supposed to offset the lot, the feeling of failure with the shop, but yeah, if he had, okay, here's, here's my pie in the sky fix.

[01:35:53] We see Uhura in her quarters. She's not sure how she feels. Pike comes over the intercom and says, Ensign Uhura report to the captain's quarters. Wear your formal attire. It becomes a parallel to her being pranked in the first season. Right? Oh yeah. No, now we're bringing you in here because I'm going to promote you in front of the whole crew. And they're all gathered in here for a meal that I have just finished cooking. We're going to promote you. We're going to sit down. We're going to eat.

[01:36:22] Like, I mean, again, I'm not a screenwriter. I'm not here to say that that scene is better. I, I'm just, I'm wishing for things now. I guess if I were to defend it, cause he does say it's a field promotion and that's why it's private. Yeah. Battlefield promotion. Ceremony. And I mean, obviously they weren't on the battlefield anymore. He could have waited, but I get as Pike now being more in touch with his feelings than he was. I mean, this is his daughter. Saw that she. Right.

[01:36:51] And then saw that she needed something in that moment. And then like, it couldn't wait for a week's preparation. Like he needed to give her that. Oh, so it is. Repetism. She is his daughter. Yeah. But the best good point with it being a battlefield promotion, that is a different kind of promotion. So. And it is him recognizing her need. I think that's a good point. Yeah. And I like it's him and Una. Yeah. Like they were both there. They witnessed everything. Yeah. I was like, you know, that was, yeah.

[01:37:18] Like all the, all the documentation you need to earn somebody promotion. I was like, well, you have three very reliable witnesses just watching you kick ass in this. It might also, it might also be a case of like, they couldn't say maybe they're keeping some stuff on the deal because maybe she did go off book a little bit. I don't think Pike knew about her plan. Oh no. A hundred. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. She went off book. Like she, she solved it, but she solved it solo. That was, that was her plan.

[01:37:45] We can't actually tell Starfleet why we're giving you this promotion. We just has to be a battlefield. Yeah. Hey, good job, kid. You killed a lot of people. Like, I just love that. Yeah. Yeah. I would have loved that conversation. It's like, so what are you going to do? Okay. I'm going to set up a transmitter. This will be real loud. I'm going to murder them all. By yourself. All right. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What happens between the transmitter and the murder? Maybe we should have none. That's it. Isn't she like much stronger than you are? But I'm the communications person. Hammer top me.

[01:38:15] So you're saying it takes more than one person to approve a promotion, but not more than one person to glass a planet? Yeah. That's, that's Starfleet for you. Okay. Cam, you're talking about, you wish, you wish you saw her and choked. I wish she had just like slowly reached up and grabbed an antenna and just, ah, yeah. Done the ramp. Oh, shit. He just wobbles over there while the phaser down the antenna. Buckwheats. I don't think that's what a buckwheat.

[01:38:46] And Dorian Briggs. Or she like picked up the phaser right after that alarm thing went off and was like, listen to this. Yeah. Oh, we have like eight more calls. We're going to have to throw them into college. Two more. All right. Let's see. So we do have a lot more calls, but we're pushing two hours as it is. We're going to refer to the wheel of fate for these last couple calls.

[01:39:12] Thank you all so much for giving us this abundance of things to talk about. And we apologize that we can't get to all of you. I know Steve has said before, like, I'll take a three hour open Pike night episode, but man, do you know how much work that is on our end? Yeah. Also, I'm very much looking forward to this episode, John has planned where we listen back, try to guess what episode it's from, and then we get to talk about stuff from months ago. All right. Let's see here.

[01:39:43] So we're going to go with Val. I'm literally rolling dice. Hey, open Pike night. This is Val. In this episode, there really were two story contrasts that one that worked for me really well and one that didn't. I always kind of have looked at Strange New Worlds as ultimately her story, not Pike's. We get to see her as a cadet questioning if Starfleet was the place for her. We've seen her move to an ensign, grow in confidence, and now promoted to Lieutenant Junior grade.

[01:40:10] So it was interesting to have the contrast with her cadet, Asha, questioning her own place in Starfleet and eventually leaving. And I felt like those two contrasts made both of the stories better. On the other side of contrast, what didn't work for me was that between James Kirk and Admiral Rieger. I mean, I do stand by the side of believing there was an argument for Rieger's actions. We've seen masses of people killed before on the show. I could point to our season premiere as an example.

[01:40:36] And I certainly understand Kirk's argument and the apprehension of others for just killing a group of 5,000 people we don't really know that much about. It was a good contrast. But in my opinion, that interesting contrast was distracted by both the drugging plotline and even the whole George Kirk plotline. I don't think we needed either of it. Instead, it could have been a story about pushing a crew past their comfort point and a story about someone going to extremes in their actions for maybe somewhat self-guided reasons and not because of a larger picture.

[01:41:05] This still remains an episode that I ultimately really loved, but I have some apprehensions about as well. I think I agree on... I mean, obviously, I agree on the drug point. With the personal reasons, though, I think that makes a good contrast because it puts Kirk and Rieger on kind of similar playing fields, right? Like, you'd know... I mean, we know Rieger is doing this for personal reasons.

[01:41:35] But now we have to ask ourselves, is Kirk doing it for personal reasons? And he's using this moral question as a way to kind of paper over some of that. And to Cameron's point, is it okay to do the wrong thing for the right reason, right? You're now asking this of both of these characters instead of just the bad moral that we as the audience are set up to be like, well, of course we want to agree with Kirk, who's not really part of this crew, but it's part of our crew, right?

[01:42:02] Like, I think it does offer a good contrast there. But I hear you. Like, I know enough Kirk to be like, he could just get there. Like, he doesn't need the personal reason and he doesn't need the drug. He is adept enough at reading people and being charismatic to win people to his side and get people to agree with him. I could understand the argument of like, well, this is a younger Kirk.

[01:42:31] He's still learning those skills, that kind of a thing. But I think ultimately I landed in the same spot where I did. I really do like this episode. And part of it is what John said too, which is like, this is a Star Trek episode. This is a 1992. I love this crew. I don't care what the story is about. I just want to see them do the good things. And this satisfies those needs for me.

[01:42:57] Part of why I love this so much might be that I did not expect Uhura's actions. I did not expect, like, I'm like, this was an utter surprise to me. And it was a, such a happy surprise. It's like, thank you. Thank you for, and again, I will say it's like some people are probably going to be like, oh, it's just giving Uhura something. Because she just sat there for 30 years, you know, answering calls. It's like, yeah. And she was an officer. So. And we all love her. We all love her. Remember her. Yeah, exactly.

[01:43:25] And now we want to give her stuff to have done. Yeah. Now we know what she talks about at drinking nights. Did I tell you about the time I took out an entire group of pirates? Single-handed. I mean, I'm glad to hear Val say, like, you know, there's value to talking about this trolley problem, right? Like, there is an argument to be made for Rieger's case. Because I feel a lot of people come to these, in TV shows, a lot of times, again, you're just like, he's the bad rule, he's Kirk, Kirk's right, bad rule, bad.

[01:43:52] And, of course, you don't sacrifice 5,000 people who you don't know who they're on. And, you know, you don't know that. Like, five million people died. Another five million might die the day after this episode. It might be Sam Kirk's family. We don't know that. The characters don't know that. They don't know Joe Morton's a bad rule. Like, they don't know Kirk's going to grow up to be this amazing captain who always does the right thing and saves the universe time after time.

[01:44:18] So, you know, it's interesting that we didn't hear from more people saying, like, I don't know what I would do in that situation. Because I don't know what I would do in that situation. Five million people. And probably these 5,000 are bad. You are reacting far stronger than anybody on that crew did to knowing about the justify. I'm sorry. I've been drinking my coffee. So, no. Anyway, yeah. So, like, and I think that brings in the whole balance of terror part of this, which is, did you guys pick up on this was a balance of terror?

[01:44:48] Yeah, because it's the same setup. Like, here's a. Because it's the same ship. Right, but that's how I got to this being the same ship is, like, it's the exact same setup. They show the Romulan, like, star empire on the map. And he's like, oh, yeah, it's a ship that can just disappear. And it totally did this terrible thing. And it's like. And it leaks radiation. Yeah, that's. Okay, so it's Romulan. That's the balance of terror. Okay. Maybe I hadn't watched it. Did they do the leak radiation, too? Okay. I'm. No.

[01:45:17] I was surprised people picked it up when Alan told us. I was like, whoa, I didn't make that connection at all. No, Alan, no one's going to make that connection. What are you talking about? And then immediately in our discord, people were like, yeah, we know it's balance of terror. I was like, okay, well, maybe that's just me then. But that's interesting. I think, A, that does say Kirk was wrong in that, like, more people are going to die because of this. He does. Like, other people do die because the ship got away and it did not get captured before it killed more people.

[01:45:44] It probably also means those 5,000 people were innocent because I do not buy that the Romulans had, like, a secret base of 5,000 Romulans this far on the other side of the neutral zone. Well, and I think more than being right and wrong, it's about the question and the argument, right? Like, because you can't... Oh, yeah. 100%. There's no way, even on the long arc of history to say, like, oh, yeah, it was justified to

[01:46:10] kill that group of people because this happened and this would have happened after it. Like, it is just... It is the question, is the meat itself, right? Like... But you have to have the imagination to think of those possible consequences to have... Right, and I think that's what the episode grapples with. And I think that's why it matters to Kirk when Rieger tells him, okay, well, whatever happens next is on you. Like, you can see that that affects him. And I think it does...

[01:46:38] I mean, maybe it retroactively adds a little to Kirk being so dogged in his pursuit of this ship in Balance of Terror, you know? And it's like... And we have seen what happens if you don't go after the ship in Balance of Terror. That's even worse, right? Oh, man. Matthew McFadgen killed 5 million people in this episode. I know. He was such a nice guy. I know. I've been thinking about that. But, yeah, I think... And I was wondering, like, how would you make it more... How... If you wanted to make people like me know it was Balance of Terror, like, how would you do that?

[01:47:07] I guess you'd have to cut to Matthew McFadgen, like, snickering as he flew away or something. I don't know. Just cackling evilly as they go to... Like... I think the only... You may have been able to tie in a line of dialogue of, like... Also, like, some of our outposts recently have been running into some kind of problem. Because, like, that's how it starts with that ship is they're only hitting outposts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's also, like... So they killed 5 million people five years ago, and now they're just, like, knocking

[01:47:37] out these little outposts. No. Like, what? No, that just happened. Yeah. Well, but I mean... At the time of Balance of Terror. Like, what is the ship doing for the next five years? Yeah. They seem to have something pretty impressive on their hands already. Well, and it does also, I think, add to kind of the shakiness of rigor to be like... And I'm glad that they had the rest of the crew kind of congratulate him on figuring it out.

[01:48:01] Because otherwise, it's very conspiracy-brained to be like, I think I found the one ship where there's only one way to detect it. And I'm the only person that knows how to find this trail and where it was last and all this stuff. For them to kind of offer up, like, oh, that is a good point. That is how you would track something like that. I think kind of helps couch that. Because otherwise, it's like, this guy's insane. Well, I mean, maybe this is chalked up to my lack of TOS lore again.

[01:48:29] But, like, I did bump a little on, like, as a new type of cloaking, it's untraceable. Well, isn't that what a cloaking device is for? And then it makes the Klingons look like they're playing peekaboo. I'm not going to do my Scottish accent. And I'm like, I didn't realize that Klingon cloaking was so janky. It seems to cause the Federation a lot of problems. Like, how is it better than what's already really, really good? There's this tachyon trails, isn't it? Cloak. Like, how detectable cloaking is is as big a question as how does the holodeck work.

[01:48:59] I mean, for whatever episode you're in is how can you understand. And smart of them to say, like, something was like, oh, they're going to land an invisible ship there. Maybe those people don't know they're there. And he's like, come on, man. If it flew through the atmosphere, they're going to see a big giant, like, displacement of clouds and fire. There's going to be a trash can laying in a park. And that trash can's just going to go flat. They better keep an eye on their whales down there. That's all I'm saying. Remember where we parked. All right.

[01:49:28] Let's get one more call in. Roll the dice says Abby. Hey, hey, open pike. Abby Summer from the First Flight Podcast. This episode was fantastic. Fantastic. Classic Trek, classic badmoral, classic ethical dilemma. Love it. Going to let you guys talk about all that stuff because what I want to talk about in this one is the Kirk brothers and the Kirk family in general. This was a piece of lore that I didn't realize that I wanted and needed.

[01:49:53] But now that I have it, I am so grateful because what an interesting way to look at this family. And I could not love Sam Kirk more. Like, Dan Jeanette, I knew his work before Strange New Worlds, but now he's risen even more in my estimation. And I am so even more deeply devastated that he's going to have Death by Snot Pancake coming up because I love the interactions that he and Jim have had. We know they're adversarial. We know they're competitive.

[01:50:21] We know they snip at each other like brothers, but they come together like brothers too. And it's kind of one of those things like, yeah, I might poke at you and I might harass you, but if somebody else starts to do it, that's my brother. And this episode really showcased that relationship in a beautiful way. And I really like it. And I think that we have another notch on the, this show is really about Mbenga in here too. So interesting to think about. Lots of fun in this one.

[01:50:50] I think it's going to be a lot of people's favorites for the season. Can't wait to hear everybody else's thoughts. Hope you and yours are well. I did love the scene where he, Sam is telling James like, I'm not going to help you. And then two seconds later, he's like, all right, I want plausible deniability. I want this to be this way. And this is how it's going to go down. Like the quickness with which he turns is super believable because they are, they're brothers.

[01:51:19] I want, I want plausible deniability. Like when we were kids, like, what were these two pulling off? Also, you know, it wasn't just a, all right, you know, you know, Jim just gives him a bop in the eye. I was like, all right, ready? One, two. Wham. You know? Yeah. You said you'd go on three. If I went on three, you would flinch. Yeah. It's, it's, I mean, it is like, it's kind of my one lament is that we don't get more of this.

[01:51:49] Like I kind of assumed, like, I really liked the trick in the first episode. Like, all right, don't worry. Lieutenant Kirk's almost here. And then you find out it's Sam. You're like, oh, that's great. Like that's Sam. And then you're like, oh, Kirk is also in like 40% of this show. So I was kind of hoping it would be mostly interactions between the two brothers. And I think to this season's credit, this has been where we get most of it. Like having them together in episode two, having them together here, like they are,

[01:52:17] they are doing a lot of really good work with it. And it does, I mean, it does make you care because like before, like whatever you find out in the span of four minutes in operation annihilate that not only does Kirk have a brother, but also he's dead. And it's like, okay, did it need to be Kirk's brother? Like, couldn't it just be literally anyone? Well, you found out he had a brother. You found out he had a brother in what are little girls made of, but I think that's the title I've said, but, but yeah. Yeah.

[01:52:45] Like it, it, I don't think it needed to be Sam Kirk in operation annihilate. Like, I mean, I don't know. It had to be, you had to make it personal. I don't think you do. Like there's a whole planet full of people down there, Cameron. That's reason enough to save it. And you've got a, you've got this kid now rolling, roaming around on the ship. Who's never addressed again. Like if there were a Kirk who lost his parents to Starfleet, do you think that Kirk would maybe end up in Starfleet and be worth telling stories about? Maybe.

[01:53:15] The Enterprise D didn't start the Orton closet. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Good, good stuff. I love just, I mean, perhaps as my final note appropriately, I love Rieger's last moment on the ship. He's talking to everyone. I love his little, you know, the blood and the terror will be on your hands. He like, he really wedges himself in between the table and Kirk too, for that line. It's nice. And he got, he steps back and he looks at everyone.

[01:53:41] And of course, Pike's like, look, I can't, you know, I can't give you my usual pike-ness because you're an admiral, but I'm not, I'm not backing you up. Everyone's turned against them. And Rieger just gives this little hand wave. Like I am done with this. Like I am. Obviously I'm not getting anywhere with these guys. These goody two shoes, boy scouts on the ship. He's like, I'm headed out. He's like, I'm going to try the Farragut next. That should be fine. Yeah. Apparently I just got promoted. So yeah. Yeah. And I will say, Abby, I'm a double admiral now.

[01:54:09] And I will say, Abby, I know you didn't bring up the costumes this week. So I have to be the one to say the admiral costumes are straight out of Mass Effect, which of course are straight love letters to Star Trek uniform. So I love the admiral stripes on the shoulders. Like it is, I really, really liked Rieger's uniform. It has the flap that you can kind of see the evolution of the Wrath of Khan uniform showing up a little bit before it gets here.

[01:54:38] And it just, the colors and everything, the cleanness of the lines, it was gorgeous. And this episode is really, really good. I really liked this episode for the most part. It's weird because like every scene is so good. Every scene of this episode is so good. Like I keep thinking about them. I didn't bump it all. I don't know if it's the sum of its parts, but again, a lot of that might have just been expectations of John being like, Cam, that's the best episode ever.

[01:55:06] And like me being like, I'm really loving all these genre swings and big things they're doing. And I, and again, every time I've watched it, I've enjoyed it more. And I, I predict in a couple of years, a lot of my like little nitpicks, this, this episode will be gone. Good. All right. I did want to point out real quick, just some stuff we learned from the interviews. If you haven't listened, I, I did like human vanic. She doesn't do anything. She doesn't do anything, but she's fun.

[01:55:35] Apparently she was supposed to be human Rand, but they had to change it. And Alan was a little kind of like, yeah, we just had to change it. Pretty sure Rand is going to show up next season. So keep your eyes out for that. Um, and then, uh, yeah, Joe Morton was amazing. We probably didn't talk enough about Joe Morton this episode, but that's because amazing is sums it up. Tune into our interview with Joe Morton. I'm not sure when it's dropping because we're recording it tomorrow of recording.

[01:56:01] We're recording it yesterday from when you're listening to this, but anyway, it'll be out probably that in the next day or two. So keep an eye out for that. Also really cool that we got to see him play a character kind of doing the opposite of what he did in Terminator 2, where it's like, oh, I realize I've been wrong. Let me help write that wrong. It's like, no, I'm going to double and then triple down and have to be forcibly removed from this location. Like, I mean, the guy, obviously to say he has range is an understatement and something everybody already knows.

[01:56:30] But like, yeah, absolute get for the series to have Joe Morton here for an episode. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. It was great to see him and I was excited about it from the trailer. So it was, like I said, this is a fantastic episode. My favorite so far. And I'm excited to see what comes next week. I'm excited to see what comes the next two weeks. I will have eight episodes of Strange New Worlds ever left. And that's crazy to think about.

[01:56:57] But I think, I mean, you know, not to toot our horn or anything, but like, it's really cool to have this kind of running commentary on how people feel about the show as it's happening. Talk to the creators as their show is being absorbed by the audience. Like, I think it's really cool that we get to do this. And I'm really excited to be able to look back on this in the future. They're like, remember that time we made like the Strange New Worlds podcast? Like, hell yeah.

[01:57:25] I mean, not to throw shade at anyone, obviously. I just, I think it's really cool that we get to do this. And I'm very grateful for all of the callers and listeners that help us do this. If you'd like to become one of those callers, you can go to openpike.com and record your message right there on the website. Or if you prefer to use your own software to edit and re-edit your call before you send it in, you can send an MP3 to openpike at gmail.com. Yep. And it's been a long night.

[01:57:54] And I just poured the OpenPike Night hosts all a shot of something. One of them is pure cordrazine. So we're going to have to hit those. So be sure to clean up after yourselves. Be sure to tip your servers. You can go anywhere you want, but you can't stay here. Killers! Murderers!