[Music] Haleym Freakens is open and welcome aboard Trex and Tangerines.

I'm your co-host Brian.

And I'm your co-host Jack.

I'm a Star Trek movie who checks off on Tangerines.

And I'm your Star Trek expert who is here to get the Tangerines back on track.

Each episode we watch and talk about a different Star Trek episode.

And this week we watched Star Trek, the original series season 1, episode 10, the Carbo-Mite maneuver.

Close enough.

I always put to it.

Carbo-Mite.

Carbo-Mite, but...

Hmm, I'll get it.

Thanks everyone for jumping back on board for another week.

Another episode we appreciate you being here.

Carbo-Mite.

And that's going to be the phrase of the day, a little housekeeping and show announcements before we get too far into things.

If you're listening to this, when it comes out in just a few short days, this Friday, the 26th is the first episode where we dive into the animated series of Star Trek, the animated version of the original series.

That'll be available over at our Patreon at patreon.com/trexintangents, available to all crew members.

Hopefully you consider signing up and checking it out.

We really appreciate it.

As long as we get to say, "Corbo-Mite more often." We're just going to run that bit into the ground.

Well, no seriously.

Is the animated series like this one was real people and then the next one is going to be animated or is it a whole new storyline?

So it's a completely new storyline, different stories, different episodes, same characters, but it's like the 80s cartoon version of Beetlejuice or the Ghostbusters.

It was a way for them to try to target a new audience.

It was all created after the original series stopped airing, but we're just going to dive into it as a little bonus.

That sounds really good.

And as always, we appreciate everyone who continues to like, subscribe, comment, leaving feedback, leaving reviews for the show, but especially sharing the show with other friends that might find us interesting.

That is of course the best way that we can continue to grow as a podcast is share it with a friend.

They might not even know they like Star Trek, since I mean, I'm only watching 10 episodes of her.

And the jury's still out whether you like it or not.

- But we're also of course open to any feedback to the podcast.

We do this to entertain.

And if we're not entertaining our audience, there's no point in doing it.

So we're open to all constructive criticism.

We're happy to listen.

We want the show to be not just Jackie and my show, but our show.

Everyone show.

If you listen, if you participate, that's ideal for growth.

But don't be mean because I cry.

Yes, if you don't want to leave feedback in any comment section, half of our audience knows us and just sends me messages.

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Feel free to reach out to the show that way as well.

But of course, as always, our social media will be listed in the episode description.

But enough with housekeeping.

Why don't we jump into the episode by revisiting last week's turbo lift.

That's where we gave Jackie the title of this week's episode and Jackie without any other information gave her prediction or let's face it best guess as to what the plot of the episode would be.

And I have it here in front of me and I quote, I've heard that word before and it was fake.

That was the last episode when he was tricking people.

Is this going to be a trick maneuver or does it actually happen?

Maybe he means a new maneuver like a pit maneuver like the cops Jackie?

How close do you think your ramblings were to this week's episodes plot?

It was still a trick.

I do not like this Corbomite maneuver at all.

But I got it right.

Yeah, no, I'm not going to give you this one.

I think in last week's episode when you gave your turbo lift tease, I was thinking in reference to that's was last week's episode.

I was like, no, that carbomite.

I had to go back and look it up.

I was like, no, carbomite isn't mentioned in last week's episode.

It's only mentioned in one other episode other than this and that's later on in Star Trek.

So that's so weird because I swear I heard it before.

I think what you might have been referring to was the Kobayashi maneuver or the Janeway maneuver.

I have no idea.

All of which are completely different.

Those are specific ways to maneuver a ship to counteract enemy fire at the oversimplification, but carbomite.

No, I don't think it's mentioned anywhere else.

I made it up.

Maybe it was dream.

Maybe, but since you seem to think you got it right this week with your turbo lift tease and you think you've heard carbomite before, what did you think of this week's episode?

I actually liked it.

I enjoyed the interaction between the crew.

They were acting take talking to each other more than going out on some random icy or windy planet.

And searching for something, this was all more inside the ship.

And then we learned about the surprise, quote, quote, but the downfall of that is because I noticed all the bad makeup.

Like, yeah, what?

You know how like we talked about how the earlier episodes they were just kind of getting their groove?

Is this part of that section?

Because no, you have a lot of bad makeup outfits going on.

This would have been something that would have been filmed after production started.

This would not be a pilot episode.

I didn't notice the bad makeup personally.

This is why I saw Spock's ears a different color than his space.

That also very well could just be the fact that this is 1966 television.

And oh, and it was remastered.

I could give that.

Yeah, I stayed that in my John Wayne chose.

Definitely could just be we are viewing it in a resolution that it was not originally meant to be seen in.

As of course you mentioned, this is a bottle episode.

This takes place all on the Enterprise one set.

Even the final scenes on the alien ship are just redressed sets of the Enterprise.

So I also really liked this episode.

It has a lot more moments that someone might call filler where there's a lot of them staring at the effects on the view screen looking at the cube looking at the alien ship.

And there's a lot of pauses where not a lot is going on to advance the plot, but it's not really filler because it's creating this atmosphere for the episode.

Yes.

Because they're under there forced to be like they're under a time limit and they are trying to figure out what to do.

So it's like natural human actions and then we have Spock going this is stupid.

I figured out a different way of doing something.

That's not logical.

Right.

And it leads to an episode that is driven more on atmosphere and overall themes to the episode as a pose to let's try to cram in as much dialogue and as much facts and as much plot points as we can.

I don't mind those episodes every once in a while.

There's certainly episodes that benefit from that style, but it was just kind of nice is a nice little palette cleanser to say we're only going to introduce four or five different major plot points and we're going to rely on a lot more special effects those shots to build an atmosphere and a theme for the episode.

And we learn more about each character.

I mean, especially my girl Janice, I mean, she's kind of funny.

I love her.

Oh, Yomin Janice Rand, I don't have any spoilers for it.

We'll get there when we get there.

Yes, I just love her except her ponytail was crooked.

Yes, we'll hold that against her.

But with all that being said, why don't we just jump into it?

Why don't you walk us through the episode, Jackie?

Alrighty.

So when it starts, we don't see Kirk at all.

Spock is in the main seat, like giving command.

And I might wear his skirt.

So we'll figure it out.

And then we also have our, so you know how we first met Zulu in the plants with the plants, but now he's like in the, on the bridge all the time, does he ever have plants again?

No, I think early, your referencing so early into Star Trek, I'm not going to say that Zulu was meant to be a botanist.

Okay, I'm like a feeler, like testing it out.

Yeah, they hadn't really finalized what each character's role was going to be.

Like throughout the episodes, they continue to have the department heads come together to have these briefings and these meetings with Kirk and different faces.

And they eventually flesh out a lot of these episodes, a lot of these roles start to come together.

Mr.

Spock is the second in command.

He's also the head science officer.

Zulu has his own specialty, but we also will see in this episode that he is fully compliant and has the ability to be the navigator and input control into the ship and input instructions into the ship on steering and speed because Mr.

Bailey doesn't do it.

Everyone's got their own little roles and this early into Star Trek, everyone's still kind of feeling that out.

Yeah, like the cost training I brought up earlier.

Yes.

Label, Zulu and the new Senator Bailey, Lieutenant Bailey, he's another new face and he is a navigator and he reminds me of me at times because he questions, like legitimate questions and he reacts with emotion.

So we see through the screen and front of them is this giant cube that I kind of called like a rubrics cube because it's that shape and the numerous colors.

Yeah, or it could be a screen saver from Windows 98.

Yeah, that too.

I just didn't remember that, but yes, and didn't have the little tiny squares to move around, but I digress.

He is kind of concerned like why is it in front of us and the spark is like just go around it and he tries to go around it but yet the cube gets back in front of them and you can see that he's scared is probably the wrong word, but he's at least heightened emotions.

He being done, sorry, Lieutenant Bailey and spark is like calm down, you're fine.

And then the unit Bailey is like, oh, I'm sorry, but I have like an original land and spark of course retorts.

I looked into having that removed.

So I mean, do you learn more about their interactions?

And this is a good example of what I think I enjoy most about Spock and his character is the times that he says something like you should get your adrenal gland removed.

It's humor.

It's extremely dry humor and Spock is legitimately not trying to be funny, but he unintentionally is, which later translates when we get into the next generation data has this down to a core as well.

And data is one of my favorite characters in TNG.

But is data like Spock?

I have no idea.

The Android who has no emotions.

Yeah, he's pretty similar to Spock.

Okay, we'll go with that.

We'll get there.

All right.

So the obviously can't go around the cube because it keeps blocking them and they're like, well, where is Kirk?

We should probably let them know what that was specifically Spock calls for red alert before we get our opening credits.

Yes, because he was in charge, but then again, that's the way that since I have no idea what's happening without leaning throughout the hierarchy, this if he's in charge at that moment, he can do whatever he wants without running it by Kirk within a certain set of parameters, I would say yes.

Obviously, if something were quote unquote going down, they've encountered this mysterious cube.

Yes.

And while it's not letting them maneuver around it and it obviously could pose a danger, could Spock order that they just blast it with the phasors and blow it out of the sky?

Sure, he could.

He's in charge.

They'd be consequences later.

That's why he summons the captain.

Now reverse it.

If the cube went on a ramming speed and it was an eminent danger of destroying the enterprise and Spock ordered the phasors to be fired, no one would question that.

Oh, that makes sense.

But I did forget to mention that possibly Lieutenant Bailey's emotions are a bit on edge because they've been doing the star mapping where no one has been before for three days already.

And he seems to be bored of it.

He's bored.

They're in an area of space.

As you said, no one has been before.

So this is completely unknown.

One could argue they're cut off from any help to address any problems they run into.

It's probably extremely boring until they encounter this cube, at which point now it's incredibly scary.

High risk.

So Spock calls for the red alert and it's blinking around, but then I mentioned where is Kurt?

Now we pop over to Stig Bay where he's doing like, he's laying on his back doing like bicycle, like that bicycle exercise, but he's pushing down on pads, but on the wall.

Pettles.

Yep, that's my word.

Yes, pedals and McCoy is like, keep going, keep going.

And but he notices the red alert going.

He being Dr McCoy.

Yes, thank you.

But he doesn't do anything about it.

He's like, keep going, Kirk.

Yeah, have a few more seconds.

And then he notates on his like the life monitor, how, how Kirk is doing.

And then finally when Kirk is done, Kirk notices that the red alert deeper timer light has been going off.

And he's like, why didn't you tell me?

And then McCoy is like, if I spoke or talked about any blinking lights or noises in here, I'd be talking to myself.

And ironically, he is talking to himself because Kirk has already out the room.

Yeah, kind of interesting that McCoy would choose not to share the red alert.

Little interesting that the red alert doesn't have the same audio cue in Stig Bay as it would the rest of the ship because as soon as Kirk leaves Stig Bay, you can hear the audible alarm that accompanies the red alert.

Maybe it's so that if there are actually injured people in Stig Bay, it doesn't further disturb them.

Maybe that's a good explanation.

But still interesting that McCoy would probably violate some kind of procedure or directive by not immediately alerting Captain Kirk to the red alert.

Because he has no idea what's going on.

True, but I also feel that he thinks since he only has a few seconds left, he's just going to have Kirk continue.

He hasn't, it's been implied that Kirk is never around to do those tests.

So he's like, he's already on the on the table.

He only has a few seconds.

Leigh it left.

Everything's good.

I'll tell him about the alert in five seconds.

Yeah, that yes.

And I think that's true about your note, audible tone because they need to be calm in Stig Bay.

No more like mental English.

Sure.

So, Kirk, as I mentioned, Kirk is gone.

He is getting cleaned up because you can't go to the can't go to the bridge.

All sweaty and nasty.

Well, specifically, he gets to the turbo lift.

He calls to the bridge to get an update.

Finds out the exact circumstances that they're not an immediate danger, but they don't know anything.

So he makes the decision.

I've got enough time to go take a shower and change.

This is also the first time I've seen in the turbo lift instead of like the buttons.

It's like a twist.

Like twist, then tells the computer to take them to the bridge or to his quarters and off he goes and he can also talk to Spock or whoever's on the bridge via like a monitor.

Yeah, it was interesting.

A calm system.

Yeah.

After changing Kirk finally gets to the bridge where all the other department heads have arrived and they're all discussing this cube at the front of them.

How big it is, how wide it is, why is it just in the way?

Like why can't we why can't we go around it?

Why is it not responding to them?

Yeah, it's not responding to hailing frequencies.

They can scan what size it is, but they can't figure out what it's made out of.

Scotty makes a comment that he doesn't know what's propelling it.

That's just a big old cube.

Just a big screen saver on their view screen.

That'd be kind of a funny episode if there's actually nothing at all in space.

It's just no one wiggled the mouse.

And so they're just seeing the screen saver kick on on the view screen.

That could have been the idea to make this episode.

I think this was before computers and before screen savers were an actual thing.

This inspired this screen saver then.

There we go.

Star Trek bringing us more technology than we realize.

While they're all discussing Lieutenant Bailey again brings up how he's not scared of anything.

He's just trying to let everyone know his thoughts.

And he also thinks since they have all the phasors, why can't they just blow it up?

Yeah.

Again, a very very telling moment where Lieutenant Bailey is having a very visceral emotional reaction to the situation, which comes into play later in the episode.

And then of course Kirk being a good leader.

He just kind of looked at him and says, I'll keep that in mind, Mr.

Bailey.

And then you know, when this becomes a democracy, I thought that was kind of an extra jab in there.

Yeah, it's Kirk's way of speaking to the crew and verbally disciplining the crew without making it seem like he's being harsh or angry, but definitely reminding them that they are not in charge.

And then we have like this hard jump.

And it's 18 hours later.

The department heads are in the conference room.

We have star maps, we have readings.

They're trying to figure out what this cube is.

They're also trying to figure out we get a little bit of a filler with a captain's log, but they do mention that there's no local planetary source that they can determine that the cube would have been launched from.

They're trying to figure out who sent this cube to try to figure out its purpose.

They and Spock's ideas are either one a space buoy or and then he like gives like a smirk fly paper.

And then of course they make it Kirk makes a joke about how they probably shouldn't be sticking around then.

Right.

Not as fun humor from Kirk is we get from Spock.

I'm more of a fan of Spock sense of humor.

Well Kirk was right on the nose because why a paper you know kind of has flies sticking to it.

I think the joke loses some of its meaning if you have to explain it to the audience.

I got excited.

And then of course after that Spock mentions if they're just gonna stay put, it just would be like a signal that they are just weak.

So Kirk begins to dole out command and action.

And just as he was calling on Bailey, he decides to on his own, Bailey decides on his own, that he'll just have the the phaser gun crew summoned.

And then again Kirk has to put him in his place that no wait for me to tell you what to do.

And as navigator you Mr.

Bailey, you need to plot a spiral course away from the cube.

Yeah.

It's kind of a evasive maneuver pattern because just trying to move around it didn't work.

So maybe something more complex like a spiral pattern to kind of roll out of its path will confuse it and break them free.

So all proceed to the bridge so they can execute this fancy turn.

And Kirk then tells Sulu that wall this is happening to begin at a quarter speed and then move to a half speed, which I didn't understand to be honest, assuming kind of increasing in speed.

Yeah.

So pretend full impulse engines is 60 miles an hour.

And Kirk orders half speed.

He's ordering 30 miles an hour to be the current speed.

That makes sense because he also says impulse later.

Okay, I see.

I have to learn these things.

So while they're trying to do these commands, there's this super loud, shrill beep and it's just going faster and faster.

And the cube starts to spin faster and faster.

The cube is obviously ramping up its reactions to the enterprise.

Which then makes radiation start pouring out.

And we don't really learn from what?

No.

Any point we don't learn why the cube starts to generate or bathe the enterprise in this increased level of radiation.

And I mean, Spock is super, super concerned about the radiation.

Well, he's concerned because it's a level and a type of radiation that is fatal to life, to the humans, to the crew on board.

So yeah, it's a little concerning.

They're about to be exposed to a nuclear reactor.

And while all of this is happening, Lieutenant Bailey again is starting to freak out.

He was like, they're gaining on us.

They're gaining on us.

And Kirk is like calm down.

Just keep following my instructions, which is a good example of what I mentioned at the very top of this episode is this is an episode that is built on and is driven by these atmosphere theme building scenes.

There's a long period of time that we're truncating into just a couple moments of explanation, but it's a longer period of time in the episode where the ship is trying to escape, the noise is growing, the cube is rotating faster.

Everyone's emotions are getting a little more ramped up, a little more ramped up.

You can really start to feel as a viewer the stress that the crew is being put under because they're expressing that in their acting.

Exactly.

And even trying to back up the enterprise, the cube is right on top of them.

Matching speed.

I think they go to warp.

It matches their warp speed.

And then finally Kirk does call for the phasors to be engaged.

And let's just see if we can blow the cube up.

Yes.

A risky maneuver.

They're at warp.

This object is generating radiation from an unknown source.

Fun fact, sometimes when you blow up something generating radiation, it spews more radiation in a greater area.

And it's really close to the ship.

This entire time, it's not just keeping pace with the enterprise.

It's advancing on the enterprise and getting closer and closer.

So a risky move by Kirk.

But again, not a lot of options left.

They blow it up.

So after the cube is blown up, we would return back from the show's natural commercial break.

And we hear Kirk's captain's log data entry.

And he just talks about the cube has been destroyed.

The ship has not been damaged a lot.

He says it ships damage minor.

But now he needs to know what to do.

That that decision is major versus the little damage.

Do we keep going forward?

Or do we just turn around and get the heck out of dodge?

And so we after that, we've been or still back on the bridge and Kirk and Spock are discussing this very thing.

Like, what is, what should we do?

And Spock is like, well, we see new other planets around.

If we go forward, won't we encounter another one of these?

And Kirk reminds us and Spock that the mission of the enterprise is to find and interact with other species and to learn and also share our own cultural information.

So we go and forward.

And so Kirk also asks Spock, I mean, when going forward, do you think if we encounter the persons or person or the in civilization, that's what I was going.

Are they going to be as smart as us?

Are they going to be as intelligent?

Are they going to be mean and Spock just answers with yes.

And yes, because I mean, anyone that can be out here in space and travel around it, obviously has the intelligence to be able to do the actual feet.

Right.

I think it's also funny because Spock asks why to Kirk?

Why are you asking me questions when you already know the answers?

And Kirk replies, I mean, it's for my emotional security.

Yeah.

I mean, see, learn so much about everybody's relationship in this time of worries them, the scary part.

So then it's been decided.

Kirk tells Lieutenant Bailey to set course to go forward and Bailey is staring off into space, literally.

So we see Sulu plug it in himself.

He's annoyed, but he just like plots the course by leaning over and doing it.

And entering the commands into Lieutenant Bailey's station.

Yeah, because they're sitting next to each other at this one like table for lack of better term.

And then he tells Sulu to go at warp one, which I'm assuming is the speed, correct?

Yes.

So Kirk, he turns to leave, but before he fully leaves, he turns around and tells navigation and engineering who is Lieutenant Bailey and Sulu that they were sluggish on what they were doing and following commands.

So during this period, they should probably be running drills and practicing what they're doing supposed to be doing.

Right.

The entire department was slow in Kirk's eyes in response to the cube.

Probably the departments were fine.

And probably Sulu was fine.

This all probably comes down to Lieutenant Bailey and not reacting to orders kind of freaking out, staring off into space.

Sulu's had to reach over and correct things on his console several times, kind of that moment where one person screws up so everyone has to be punished, kind of moment, but we don't want to embarrass someone and harm the whole morale of the team.

Absolutely not.

We need to, we need to ridicule Bailey.

He's not fit for this position.

That's my opinion.

I would have fired him.

Well, this is the first time I've ever seen him.

So I missed my other guy from last episode.

So Kirk leaves.

He is joined on the called a turbo lift.

Thank you.

I was going to say elevator and I knew it was wrong.

Those who are listening to the audio version of the podcast, the only version that we produce, I will probably cut out a good five second moment there where Jackie struggles to remember.

Turbo lift.

So Kirk is joined on the turbo lift by McCoy and they pop up.

They're going up to the quarters.

They're going down to the quarters because the bridge is at the top of the ship.

I'm not going to let that one get away with it.

I think I need to draw like a depiction of the ship and where everything is so I can have it with me.

Yes, you want blueprints so you can reference it every time because I'm always going to say the wrong direction.

Yes.

Anytime they go away from the bridge, they have to go down.

The bridge is on the top floor.

That makes sense.

The look of a piphany on Jackie's face.

Well, they can see everything out the window, but so they're going down to the quarters and it's not a window.

It's a view screen.

It's not a window.

A computer screen.

Anyway, where are we in this whole thing?

Let's get back on track.

Look who's going away.

So McCoy and Kirk are on the...

Here we go.

Here we go.

I'm not going to step in.

What are they on, Jackie?

The turbo lift.

Boom.

It's literally called a turbo lift T's because it's an elevator pitch.

We've done this dance before.

So they're going down to the quarters again.

Yes.

And they're discussing how maybe Lieutenant Bailey was promoted a bit early.

You seem a bit naive in his position.

Are they looking at a window and they're having this conversation?

No, but on the bridge, you know, the window.

No.

So we're going down and they're discussing just, you know, what happened?

And we're in their quarters.

Finally.

And again, they're still going on.

But in the background, though, we hear Bailey and Sulu doing the drills.

Yeah, it's mostly Bailey that's...

We hear over the comms in this background.

But yeah, we do hear the background.

Bailey sounds a little stressed out.

If you pay attention to these background communications, it definitely sounds like someone who is not prepared to be in this position.

I mean, McQuay even brings that, you know, brings light to that.

Does that voice sound like he's secure in what he's doing to Kurt?

So they still to chat.

And he's like, maybe he reminds you of someone you know, maybe say 11 years ago when you started this, you know, it's a little jab at Kurt.

And then we're like interrupted.

And my gal Janis, like super fast walks in with lunch.

Again, no knocks.

No, it just door opens and she's in and she's like, here's your lunch.

You have an eaten to Kurt.

And I swear that their placemats and napkins are like scarves.

So she like, flip, brings one scarf out, puts it on the desk, puts his lunch down, which is a bed of like romaine lettuce.

Kind of.

I also just want to point out the way she's serving him.

She's not just bringing him his lunch.

This is a full blown like waiter, waiter service.

She's laying out all of the utensils.

Does she tuck a napkin into his shirt?

Does she put it in his lap?

She puts it in his lap.

Just weird.

Yeah, it's a little, little, little weird.

It's also going to be a little weird later on some of her interactions.

This is definitely not a moment for the character that I enjoy.

Maybe she's in on the gag of what finished the thought.

But you're right.

She's not like how she was in the previous episodes as being, you know, take charge girl.

So when she puts down all the food, then she brings up how McCoy changes his food card, which I guess is like orders on the menu I'm assuming.

And that's why he's getting a plate of lettuce, no dressing, no nothing.

And McCoy tells Kirk, well, you were up a couple pounds and then Janice like flitters away.

That's when her ponytail was crooked.

So she was annoyed, obviously, about her ponytail.

I kid, I kid.

Okay, they continue to chat, but then they're interrupted by someone from the bridge saying that they are getting giant something on the sensors.

But this is not a drill.

So, you know, please come back and tell us what to do kind of sort of.

So no lettuce lunch for Kirk.

So they all go back up to the bridge.

Hey, they go back up to the bridge.

I wrote that down.

I literally just checked her note.

She did write it down from our conversation earlier.

And Spock reports that this object is large.

It is in the way.

And finally, as we get closer, we see, I kind of called it a honeycomb at first, but as it was more like magnetized, magnified on the screen, has imagined all these umbrellas opened and then umbrellas opened on top of that to fill in all the gaps.

It was, it's actually really beautiful.

And even Spock agreed with me because he said it was fascinating.

Yes, yes.

And it's huge.

It's, it's ginormous.

It fills the view screen, not the window.

And when we get some exterior shots to show both this alien's fearship and the enterprise, the enterprise is absolutely dwarfed by the size of the sphere.

And Bailey is so afraid you can see it on his face because when just like you said, how big it was, he's like, that's magnified that much.

We haven't even been able to see what it looks like.

Right.

And as the sphere is approaching the enterprise, it locks on to the enterprise using a tractor beam.

Unlike the cube, this means the ship isn't really going to be able to try to escape or try to maneuver around it.

It is being held in place by the sphere.

What is the tractor beam?

Literally it is science fiction, Babel for technology where one object, usually a spaceship, projects some kind of gravitational force in the form of a beam to hold something in place or if the beam is powerful enough to overcome the mass of the object it is holding can physically move the object any way that you want it to.

Oh, okay.

That makes complete sense now.

Kirk tries hailing the ship so they can communicate, but it does not talk back to him.

Not in a traditional sense, but we do hear Bailey report to Kirk that he's getting some kind of communication over his navigation beam.

Why the ship decides to communicate over the navigation beam?

I have no idea.

It's not explained.

I don't even know in future contact and conversations.

Do they eventually slip over to the normal frequencies for communication?

Is it always on the navigation beam?

Never explained.

Because eventually they do talk to this thing with whatever frequency your hurrah is using.

Yeah.

So it's like back and forth, tic-tac-toe kind of thing.

So a weird little throw away in the episode they never really explain, but as they realize that the message is coming through from this giant sphere, Kirk has it played over the PA system for the bridge so they all can hear it.

This is when we're introduced to Baylock who is the commander head and chief all kinds of awards of that spear-like thing.

And he is basically telling the enterprise that they are hostile.

They blew up their his own buoy.

Like, why would you do that if you're not not hostile?

And he explains that the cube was a buoy and its purpose was to warn ships about trespassing into space of Baylock's people and Kirk tries to respond by saying and argue against this by saying that they're not hostile.

They didn't understand blah blah blah blah blah.

Yeah.

Like if you're just going to have a cube out there, shouldn't it have like a sign or some kind of thing saying this is just a buoy, please don't eat me or attack me?

Right.

Something that's something that's a little less subtle than what they encountered.

This is also where Baylock is scanning the ship for all of its information.

He doesn't want to talk to anybody.

And there is a humongous amount of turbulence, which I know is not turbulence, but the ship is basically shaking and making all kinds of noise, throwing people all around.

We see all the crew in the hallway being thrown from one side to the other.

Great acting.

But it's just like crazy.

And then Kirk is like, we need to keep talking to them.

And he asks orders, lieutenant Bailey to put a recorder marker down so that it could be recorded and future people can hear this basically to be launched back towards Starfleet so that if the enterprise is destroyed in this moment, Starfleet will at least have a record up until this point.

That makes so much sense.

Okay.

But Baylock didn't like that.

And he destroyed it.

Baylock and Bailey.

That's just dawning on me.

Baylock been telling them you're not listening to me.

You are out of bounds.

You only have 10 minutes before I destroy you.

Any grants that 10 minutes by commenting to say that Baylock's people, the crew of this giant sphere ship, recognize that the crew of the enterprise probably have some deity or some religion.

And so the 10 minutes is being granted as a grace period for them to come to peace with their God before they die.

That was very nice of him.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Nice is what we're going to describe that as.

But well, that is happening.

Spock is like, I'm going to see who we're talking to because I'm curious.

So he's trying to find like a visual.

And well, he's doing that McCoy and Scotty enter the bridge.

And McCoy tells Kirk, everybody heard that we only have 10 minutes to live.

So you might want to calm your people down.

And Kirk gets on the enter to enter.

So he tells everybody this, everything's going to be okay.

He specifically sites that Baylock and his people must be intelligent creatures because they have this superior technology.

And to rely on the fact that they are intelligent because intelligence will prevail and allow everything to resolve in a peaceful manner.

Kirk tells Baylock, you know, sorry, we're just going to turn around.

Go out the way we came.

We didn't mean to startle you.

Hope you have a better day as they try to leave.

They find out that the engines are dead so they cannot go anywhere.

But curiosity still, Spock is able to find a visual of who this Baylock is.

The image that he was able to get.

We have kind of what our brains assume an alien looks like.

He is blue.

He has weird eyes, like a triangular head and just creepy and odd looking.

Baylock turns, Baylock tells them, I'm glad you're curiosity was satisfied.

But you only have eight minutes left.

So might want to start seeing your prayers.

So as they count, it's counting down.

And Bayley is starting to freak out and losing his mind.

So to just calm him down, Kirk has the yellow hammock and say, you are relieved.

You can go back to your quarters and he has McCoy escort him there.

We come back from a commercial break and was only four and a half minutes left.

Kirk and Spock and are talking, you know, what they can do.

Spock pretty sure chest is his favorite game because he brings it up and talks about when you're out of maneuvers.

It's checkmate.

Basically, Spock saying that he doesn't have any solutions for Kirk.

How to get out of this.

So while McCoy enters, well, they're discussing that and he blames, basically he blames all of this wild activity on Bayley's part as him not being ready to be in the position that he is in.

And then he's just kind of put aside because Kirk is all, we're going to do not chest, but poker.

So Kirk then through the frequency speaks to Ballac and says, you probably don't want to blow us up because although it's not documented in any of our memories that you just scanned, if you blew us up, we have this special thing called Corbomite that will blow up your ship too.

So we have a really bad idea.

Yes, to put it in layman's terms.

Corbomite is the space version of I'm rubber your glue.

And more technical terms, Kirk is trying to explain that all of Starfleet ships are built with this material called Corbomite, incorporated into the ship's design.

And the feature of Corbomite is he explains it as any negative action against the ship.

So let's pretend phasers or weapons.

The Corbomite prevents that from destroying the ship and reflects the energy from the weapon back onto the attacker and magnifies it thereby destroying the attacker.

And there's no reaction whatsoever from Bayley.

It's just empty.

So we get this really dramatic countdown through the rest of Baylox deadline eating up time for the episode.

But again, appreciative as a viewer because it builds up on this tension.

When Sulu reaches 30 seconds left, Lieutenant Bayley walks back onto the bridge and requests that he can return to his posts where Kirk allows him to do it.

You know, so they all can be there together.

He's calm down also.

And Sulu continues the count.

When the timer finally hit zero, they all just wait.

What's gonna happen?

This is also funny because at this point, even Spock goes, this poker game is interesting because of course we don't know what's happening.

We're waiting for Alex move.

Right.

As the seconds stretch out after the timer reaches zero with nothing happening, they start to think and assume that their bluff is work.

Alex says that they will delay the destruction of the enterprise if they prove that this Corbomite exists.

And Kirk takes this time, makes them wait and says denied.

Then out of nowhere, Jan is just pops in all happy with a tray of coffee and it's warm by the way.

And when they ask her to put the powers on and she just like, nope, I just use my hand phaser and made it warm.

Again, we referenced it earlier, but this is another just awkward moment for this character where she's been regulated to a position of purely an assistant.

And yes, a yeoman is supposed to be an assistant at administrative assistant and do these menial tasks, but serving dinner in this way, popping onto the bridge with coffee literally in a moment where 30, 45 seconds earlier, they all thought they were going to be dead.

So Jan is chose to spend the last 10 minutes of her life making coffee just awkward.

So they're drinking their coffee while they see from the main giant sphere, a tiny little ship comes out and it's questionable.

Bellic says that that is his ship and that he will escort them to another location to see about their future.

So while specifically he says they're going to get towed to a nearby planet where Baylock and the crew of this little shuttle ship will maroon the crew of the enterprise and then I guess take the enterprise away to be destroyed later, it's basically their new plan to rid themselves of this dangerous threat of the enterprise since they can't just blow it up because as we've now figured out, the bluff of the Corbomite has worked and Baylock and his people think that they can't actually destroy the enterprise because they want to live too.

Correct.

God it.

So Baylock uses his own tractor beam to tow the enterprise himself and then we get a fancy commercial break.

We come back and we have another log that well they haven't resisted him yet but the crew is hoping that since this is tiny ship is towing the large enterprise that the engines will over be like they would overheat and be unable to be used.

Yeah and that this little smaller ship that's towing the enterprise will run out of power.

It won't be able to maintain the tractor beam that's towing the enterprise.

Banking on this idea that this is a very improvised and last minute plan thrown together by Baylock and his people and so the enterprise and Kirk are just plain possum, lane and weight looking for their opening.

They realized that as they're going if the enterprise is falling farther and farther behind the tiny ship and so this is when Kirk takes his shot and orders them to start the engines.

So as the two ships are fighting to you know the enterprise is trying to get away from the tiny ship the tiny ship is trying to keep the enterprise.

Finally they do get separated but Scotty pops up onto the bridge everybody can come onto the bridge it seems and says our engines are are done they're damaged so we're just gonna be broken but if all that damage is to the enterprise what about the tiny ship?

Speaking of finally Yorra finally talks to Yorra because she gets a very weak SOS signal in her frequency and it is Baylock calling for help.

Kirk is like what if he already contacted the mothership they don't know but if she can barely hear it Yorra then probably the mothership didn't hear it so being the nice humans that they are they decide that they're going to help Baylock and his crew I mean even though he's they've he almost killed them they're nice and they're going to try to help them in return.

So Scotty says meet you at the transport room and bring someone with you so Kirk decides that he will bring McCoy because he might need to have medical assistance and he chooses Bayley and I think he chooses Bayley to kind of like build him up because he's been through pretty bad day.

Definitely Kirk would not have chosen Bayley if Bayley hadn't had that humbling moment at the end of the countdown where he returned to his station so yes this is Kirk giving Bayley an opportunity to redeem himself and live up to his position.

And Spock does try to stop them and Kirk has to be realistic and it's like if this is a trap I need you to be here because your second name command.

So Kirk McCoy and Lieutenant Bayley go down to the transport room and Scotty and another crew member that crew member is wearing like a robe they Scotty tells them to bend over there's not a lot of space over there which was weird.

So they are all like crashing down getting ready to transport beam over to the other ship and off they go.

When they arrive to Bayley ship they're confused because it's very quiet and small and when they turn a corner they see the image that they've been seeing on the screens whole time that alien looking thing but as they near it they realize it's like a puppet and they're intrigued from there we hear a voice from another room and they perk McCoy and Bayley follow the voice and they see a very small person with the biggest eyebrows ever.

Yes they meet the real Baylock and by tiny were he's physically small about the size of a six or seven year old.

There you go yeah and he's just chilling on the couch with pillows and he's like welcome to my ship.

Yes it's very obvious that the voice of Baylock is being dubbed over by a voice actor it's not the on-screen child actor playing it that's giving the lines but for cheesy 1960s sci-fi passable.

Yeah it was it was interesting and so we learn that Baylock is bored he's all by himself and he uses earth culture as an example that the puppet and he are like Mr.

Hyde and Dr.

Jekyll but he is lonely and would like you know companion you know someone to talk with.

Yeah he explains also that this was all a ruse again he's by himself there is no people Baylock is the only person that controls the entire sphere ship and in reality he does it all from this small shuttle and Baylock shares that he survives by creating these elaborate bluffs himself against anyone he encounters the warning buoy the giant sphere the mannequin the threats of violence all are to present this superiority image to try to scare people away to leave him alone instead of revealing the truth that he is a tiny little man baby who might have some superior technology obviously but probably not as much as everyone else.

And Baylock again admits that he's very bored and lonely but he loves to learn about other cultures and you know if anybody wanted to stay and have a chit chat he wouldn't be a blot he wouldn't be he wouldn't say no to it so Bayley takes that opportunity to offer him staying after you know Kirk because like you can do it so Bayley is like I'll be happy to stay and have a little chat with you and the episode closes with Baylock taking the three enterprise crew members on like a tour and they're all like looking up and down in the back in the backyard not the backyard in the hallway and then it ends.

Yeah the episode just kind of right winds down and wraps up and fades to credits as Baylock is giving this tour he makes the final comment to Captain Kirk that they're both alike because they're both very proud of their ships it's a very quick resolution to this episode but that's that's where we roll credits.

So Jackie what did you think about season one episode 10 the Corbomite?

Overall I really liked it I I'm I love the music it's fantastic and each different thing that happened the music changed and different instruments for showcase but that's how my brain works I I think I'd watch it again and see more specific parts of what you picked out but I wish that had more to the ending all of these episodes of it we've been watching it's like action action action action action things happening and then we're done it's like I want to I want to have more in there with like but with like his little sip or you know why does he have I don't know I just did more I think at the end.

Yeah as I mentioned just a few seconds ago it's a very quick wrap up to the entire episode I didn't go back and look and see but it's a very short short little chunk of the episode where they beam over we get a brief conversation with Baylock again it's an episode that doesn't have a lot of filler when it comes to dialogue it's very much short on dialogue and a lot of scenes of just building this tension so it would have been nice if we had maybe shifted some of it but overall for a bottle episode of everything taking place on the enterprise they really do find a way to make it not just about some intercrew argument or some other plot point it draws us out of the enterprise with the encounter with these two alien spacecrafts so I really enjoyed it.

I do have a question I noticed that when they were going in the chance porter room Kirk and Bailey were given like a sash built thing and Kirk has his out and Bailey talked his up what are those because I've never seen them before I don't know if we ever see him again it's oh I I had it in my notes we didn't talk about it in the moment it's almost like a utility I'll just describe it as a utility belt okay and that's what I'm going to go off of it's a utility belt where they clip some things this still is an earlier episode it's not a pilot episode it's not being done pre-production or pre-airing of the first episode it's being filmed after the show is underway they still are trying to find some of their roots again we didn't mention Ahura is wearing the wrong color uniform he's wearing gold instead of red so it's still very early where they're trying to figure some things out don't know that we ever see the cloth utility belts ever again but I do have some triple tidbits or fun facts for the episode first aired November 10th 1966 this is the first use of sparks phrase of fascinating in response to scene the overwhelming size of the sphere of bailout ship the line originated and was done at the suggestion of the episodes director Joseph Sargent the original script included Leonard Nimoy reacting to the sphere in a more fearful way to line up with the rest of the crew but director Joseph Sargent instead suggested react with a more intellectual curiosity logical logical phrase again helping form spark is a character which again is awesome they still don't mention starfleet at this point in the show I think I refer to starfleet a couple times simply for ease of reference starfleet is ultimately what the governing body is that the enterprise falls under but in the episode in the moment it's still defined as the united earth space probe agency again this gets retconned and this gets changed as star Trek progresses the original sphere ship was made from ping pong balls glued to a plaster of parish shell it doesn't come across in the episode that we watched or that you can currently view on paramount because again we're watching the remastered series where they make changes but just for jackies benefit I'm gonna show comparison shots here so I'm just pointing out to jackie this is the original sphere that would have aired in 1966 and this is the remastered version that we watched it's pretty close it's fairly close but you can see in the original version ping pong balls yes more like molecules and science instead of yeah those umbrellas that I would jackie reference them as being umbrellas because in the remastered version they're they're not smooth they have detail to them they're reflective they resemble more like a disco ball instead of a ping pong ball so creative amazing the child actor who played child baylock was Clint Howard everyone knows Clint Howard I'm showing jackies and pictures of Clint Howard and some other roles here jackies kind of nodding along like he has the same teeth he does have the same teeth that's very distinctive and as Ibrowder just as bushy yes but he's a character actor that's appeared in many many things a polo 13 was one of him he was in the grinch stole Christmas the gym carry live action version but it's always so sad when we know the actors like their face and all these different things and we don't get to know who they are but that's neat he grew up and now make it all the money yeah his dad was an actor Clint Howard played several roles in Star Trek throughout the years will encounter him over and over again okay but when he played the character baylock he was presented an option where he could either shave his head or he could wear a bald cap and he chose to wear the bald cap because he as a kid he's six he didn't want to be teased by his classmates for having a shaved head oh poor little guy ironically enough he ended up bald going bald as an adult and as a bald man myself I sympathize with him he again he being Clint Howard later auditioned to be Luke Skywalker in star wars a new hope but George Lucas recognized him as baylock from this episode of Star Trek and he apparently got too embarrassed and he blew the audition according to him finally my last fun fact about Clint Howard is he also shares a birthday with George to Kai who is Sulu my last triple tidbit for the episode the voice of scary baylock not child baylock but the scary baylock when he's intimidating the enterprise is none other than Ted Kennedy who played rock in what are little girls made of also known as lurch from the original Adam's family since you bring up the the star fleet can you tell me though what the first federation is so it wasn't mentioned in the episode the first federation was the fictitious civilization that baylock claims his people are from okay the first federation doesn't exist in reality because again it's just baylock oh so he like poofed up his name to be more scary correct okay thank you those have been your triple fun facts I love learning about this and this is the part of the episode where we share our episode ranking this is where we pretend the episode is a member of our crew of a fictitious starship and we assign the episode of rank a higher rank for the episode not only means we were more entertained by the episode when we watched it but we also consider the episode to be a more important member of the crew of our starship the opposite is also true a lower rank means we weren't entertained by it and we consider the episode to be disposable or less important to the crew of our ship our ranking very quickly from bottom to the top for this season is ensign lieutenant junior grade lieutenant lieutenant commander commander captain and admiral we post all of our rankings to our patreon on wednesday the day after the episode airs at patreon.com/treksandt tangents for anyone to view because this is an audio podcast and sometimes visuals are hard last week Jackie rated dagger of the mind as a commander this is the first out of five commanders that she can have on her starship or five ranking she can assign this season that would be an eight or nine out of ten Jackie what rank would you assign to this episode as it joins your crew of the USS galactic glitter B we would be happy to have it join our lieutenant commander spot lieutenant commander which is going to be the fourth out of ten slots that can be assigned to lieutenant commander joining such ranks as muds women Jackie why would you give it this rank i have it in this drink at the moment just because I really really like learning more about the crew members but I can't make it higher I wanted to but I can't make it higher with them having janis do such terrible like lower than secretary work and even though it's remastered I couldn't get over but I can see spock's ears you know like there's just tiny things and I wanted to be give it higher but those two things bothered me a lot well and that's a measurement of the metric we rank it based on how entertained we were when we watched it not after we've watched it spent a week coming up with show notes and then talking about it for a couple hours so with that looking to my crew for the season I'm going to assign the rank for this episode on the USS cosmic shark I'm gonna go out on a limb and I'm gonna give it this the rank of captain that's gonna be the only slot for captain so it's the only episode of rank that high it surpasses commander my commander ranks were getting kind of full I gave it this rank because I personally really enjoyed this type of an episode I mentioned it several times it was an episode that didn't try to cram in a bunch of facts and dialogue it was an episode that took advantage of special effects and circumstances to build the tension up for the episode if you eliminate all of those scenes where we're just staring at a spinning cube or we're just staring at the awesome size of this sphere made out of ping pong balls compared to the enterprise this 50 minute episode would probably be reduced down to about 30 minutes so it's a lot of time spent building up the tension using these scenes and techniques which I really enjoyed no that makes complete sense and your crew looks more balanced in mind that's for sure my crew certainly has higher ranks toward the top your crew is a lot of inmates running the asylum because I'm crazy so as a reminder we can promote or demote episodes as we need to I probably will end up demoting this away from captain at some point but right now it's going to be the highest ranking member of the crew I don't have an admiral I know the rest of the episodes for the season so I have an admiral in mind but we haven't gotten yet.

Are you cheating?

It's not cheating if you've watched the episodes already as part of my role in this podcast.

Again as a reminder we'll post a visual representation of our graphics showing our rankings up to this episode on our patreon at patreon.com/treksintangents we will post these on Wednesday the day after the episode airs and it's available for anyone to view we'll be back next week to check through another episode but first before we go we'll have Jackie give a turbo lift tease or elevator pitch that's why we call it an elevator or turbo lift they do the same thing Jackie will give the elevator pitch to next week's episode where I will give her the title and without any other information or knowledge Jackie will try to guess the plot of the episode the next two episodes are a two-parter we talked about maybe condensing them down into one single episode but we're going to keep them separate we'll make some adjustments but we're going to keep these next two episodes as separate episodes of the podcast and not cheat and condense it down to one Jackie next week's episode is entitled the"Minasery Part One" Well I know what a "Minasery" is and that involves a lot of animals but that would be kind of scary in space but I mean that's where I guess we're gonna stay a lot of something's going on on the ship and we'll check in next week and see if Jackie's overly vague guess as she hedges her bets once again this week is close to being accurate if you want more show information you can find and directly support our podcast at patreon on patreon.com/treks and tangents again this Friday the 26th the day after Christmas for those who celebrate we will be releasing our first episode where we dive into the Star Trek original series animated episodes little fun little bonus for our patreon crew members again you can join at patreon.com/treks and tangents to become a crew member and get that episode when it goes live we plan on releasing one of those episodes on the animated series once a month on the fourth Friday and we've got some other things planned for our patreon members so stay tuned you can also follow us on x at treks_ tangents or also on instagram and blue sky at treks and tangents.

Jackie working people find you and what are you up to?

You could find me on instagram as jibumjibboam I have tons of things on there my music dog training dressing for your size fashion you name it I got it and I have also been having the best time on what not where I have a store on there and it is called glitter bo bunny boutique but you can find me under glitter bo underscore bunnies and that's that and you can watch me stream a variety of video games over at twitch.tv/pyritepoundtown I don't have a fixed schedule because I have a day job but I'm trying to be more consistent I'm also trying to be more consistent with a friend to the show Rebecca and do some streaming on sundays so you can check Rebecca out streaming with me as well little little stream with friends on a sunday on youtube I post video games and other random content on my main channel pirate poundtown I have a secondary channel coin collecting and hobby content at pirate treasure hunting and I post socially on blue sky at pirate poundtown finally you can find me on instagram under pineapple cannibal because I am proudly banned as pirate on instagram links to all social media mentioned can be found in the episode description thank you everyone for tuning into this episode we hope you had fun like we did and we will see you all next week it's Corbemite not carbonite and it's a view screen not a window and transmission