In this episode of Trek In Time, we're gonna talk about a metaphor that can't stop hitting you right in the face. That's right. We're talking about Private Little War from Star Trek, the Original Series. Originally aired on February 2nd, 1968. We did it, Matt. We made it to 1968. Yeah, episode number 45 in shooting order, 48 in broadcast order, and 19th of the second season. And at this point I counted up a bunch of episodes from season two. We have crossed the halfway point. We are a couple past the midway point of the season, so we should probably fairly soon be staying in 1968, so that'll be exciting. It's nice to see the calendar move. Welcome everybody to Trek in Time where we're watching every episode of Star Trek in chronological start date order. We're also taking a look at the things that were going on at the time of original broadcast. So talking about the original series, we're talking about the sixties, and who are we? I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci-fi. I write some stuff for kids. And with me as always, is my brother Matt. He is that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. So between the two of us, we like to talk about the tech, we like to talk about the writing, we like to talk about the Star Trekking. Matt, how are you today? Doing well. I got, I gotta bring up Sean, Andor, have you been watching? Haven't started season two yet. I'm finishing season one. Yeah. With my son and can't wait for season two. And because Sean, just the first episode, first like 10 minutes of the first episode, there's a sequence that is amazing like abs, like talk about starting the season with a bang. The first like 10, 15 minutes are just like kiss. Look forward to it. It was worth the wait for this season of Andor. Sounds good to me. So we always like to share our thoughts about your thoughts about our thoughts. By diving into the mailbag and seeing what you've had to say about our most recent episode. Matt, what did you find for us this week? And keeping in mind, we had a couple of weeks that were without viewer comments because we had to double up on recordings. Record ahead. Yeah, so maybe you've gone back a little bit further than usual. Well, one of them, which is from Journey to Babel, journey to Babel. I think it was Babel, but yeah. Yeah. Babel. Babel, uh, from Rice Charles. This episode is really the beginning of Trek Cannon. Not just Vulcans, but really this is where we learn about the Federation. If Gene Roddenberry is Star Trek's dad, DC Fontana is its mother. A hundred percent. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. You and I kind of touched on this. I think DC Fontana is more, I'm becoming to realize, I think DC Fontana has more fingerprints on what I consider Star Trek. Yeah. Than Roddenberry. Roddenberry came up with a general concept, but DC Fontana put life into it. And that's what I find the most fascinating. In the Federation this episode, building that out, showing it to us for the first time. It's really, really cool. It's really awesome stuff. Yeah, it really, it kind of hearkens back to the simplicity of Roddenberry's original pitch was Wagon Train to the Stars. Yeah. Okay. I can get that, but is that Star Trek? No, not really. And I agree with you, DC Fontana came in and she was just like, oh, it needs to have a heart. Yep. She helped create the heart. Another comment from night of the living Fred, who's been commenting a lot and watching a lot, so thank you, Fred. He wrote Really like this episode off topic aside, I was watching out old Outer Limits episodes a couple of days ago, and imagine who pops up but Scotty playing a hard-boiled 1950s, sixties cop with no accent. And then guess who shows up? The guy who as the leader of the space eloi, who feed Vol, the computer dressed as a rock dinosaur thing. And in the same scene, the leader of the space hippies in season three, Skip homelier something. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Might have that name wrong. So all three of these guys in the same Outer Limits episode in 1963. Mm-hmm. I love that he said it was just weird. The, the episode was a riff of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with space hippie leader guy being the one who turned with the aid of what in 1963 was called, consciousnesses expanding drugs. Hmm hmm. Now that I think of, this might be a riff on Tim Leary's Harvard work with LSD. Wow. Yeah. I thought that was great. I wanna find this episode and watch it now. Well, if I remember it correctly, yeah. They would've been part of the same studio that would've been using similar actors. Studio players at that point, were, were the norm. So it was like you would've seen the same actors in all these different shows. Shatner famously was on Twilight Zone, I believe Nemoy was also in a Twilight Zone. Yes, he was. Um, they used a guest star on shows prior to getting their own. Route 66 had both Shatner and DeForrest Kelly as guest stars. So this is, this is the norm. But yeah, absolutely wild to think of like all those character actors at that point all showing up in the same, in the same outer limits is kind of cool. And then to get into today's episode, Sean, wrong answers only very good. Guess who Our friend Mark Loveless, who he gave me a cheat sheet in this, it's actually two comments, but his, his wrong answers only to plot line of private little war. The Enterprise is in trouble. Wow. Things are going so bad in engineering, and Scotty is running around like crazy trying to fix things. They're in danger of being pulled into a dying sun. Life support is failing, all kinds of problems. Scotty traces the source to some weird form of radiation, and with Spock's help, they finally find the source. What is it? It's coming from a toilet stall that was recently installed for a new crew member, Ensign Zgwgzgrg. He wrote, good luck, pronouncing that Matt, and then later he put a comment on how to pronounce it right, who has somewhat of odd genitalia. It seems that Zgwgzgrg took their first equivalent. To took their first equivalent to the human poop, and the poop is the source. As a temporary fix, the poop is beamed out in the direction of the of the dying sun. Fortunately, this excremental process only happens once every couple of months so they can plan on depositing the waste into the nearest sun on their journey. Zgwgzgrg is embarrassed, lowers its five eyes and shame over the whole incident, but everything works out. Mm. Layers upon layers. Thank you, Mark. I'm still confused as to what that has to do with Little War. It doesn't matter. I mean, private, I get, but yes. Yes, I get that. But thank you for that, Mark. Always enjoyable. And thank you everybody for your comments. That noise you hear, those lights you see no, you're not currently entering mind, expanding drugs. As were dealt with in the Outer Limits, you are experiencing the Reed Alert, which means it's time for Matt to tickle tackle, not tickle, the wikipedia description. Take it away. Matt. Captain Kirk must decide how to save a primitive people from the technological interference of the Klingons. Upon landing on the planet with a humanoid population, Kirk finds that half the population led by his old friend Tyree is still primitive, while the other half has firearms. Spock is shot and is beamed back to the ship to recover. Kirk and McCoy began an investigation, and Kirk is poisoned by a wild beast. With the Enterprise unavailable to help, Tyree's wife, Nona heals Kirk, but she also attempts to control both Kirk and Tyree. After recovering, Kirk takes Nona away from the camp but is attacked by her. She steals his phaser and runs to the enemy camp, but is killed in the ambush. Tyree argues to use weapons to fight to protect his people. Kirk asks Mr. Scott to make firearms for the primitive people to maintain a balance of power between the two camps. This is season number two, episode number 19, directed by Mark Daniels, story by Jud Crucis, teleplay by Gene Roddenberry originally aired on February 2nd, 1968. We have, of course, the usual crew. We even get Majel Barrett as Christine Chapel in this one. And among guest appearances, Nancy Kovack as Nona, Michael Witney as Tyree, Ned Romera, Arthur Bernard, Booker Bradshaw, Janos Prohaska, Paul Baxley, Gary Pillar, Eddie Pasky, William Blackburn, and Roger Holloway as a combination of either Enterprise crew members for the last three or as locals on the planet for the previous names. One thing stood out to me, Matt, as I was watching this one, and it's been a recurring theme for me over the past few weeks. Where is Sulu? Where is Sulu? Yeah, Sulu is missing. Where is Sulu? I wish there was an episode named. Where is Sulu? So, oh my. For people who are wondering, oh my. Where George Takei has been. Well, at this time, during season two, the introduction of Chekhov was in part to capture an audience that would be attracted to the Monkees. So hence, Chekhov shows up wearing a bad wig, looking like he's trying to cosplay as a Beatle or a monkey, namely Davey Jones, and Sulu is on hand, and then Sulu is gone for a while, and we end up with a gentleman sitting behind the comm that is rarely named, if anything, and he doesn't speak much at all, but where is Sulu? Well, George Takei at that point was shooting a movie with John Wayne, the Green Berets. And Chekhov was in part, meant to be his replacement so that you would have somebody at the comm in order to be able to interact with Kirk, Spock and the rest of the, the command crew. When George Takei came back. I think this is a classic case of, oh, the, the aspirations to have a regular role on a program. Oh, the, the lure of Hollywood in fame, George Takei came back from having shot the movie and was forced to not only share a dressing room, but also a script with Walter Koenig, they had to share a dressing room and a script and, oh, come on. George Takei admitted years later when he wrote his memoirs. Uh, he was threatened by Walter Koenig at first, but because, probably because of the close quarters. They ended up becoming friends, which I think is lovely. Mm-hmm. But also in part because both of them recognized that the comradery that was on screen between the two of them when they were on screen together was obvious that they had chemistry together as a pair. I think that that's also lovely. So it's a little bit of a mini version of the Kirk and Spock. You end up with these two guys on screen together and whenever they interact, and we've noted this when, when Chekhov first joined the crew, we had conversations in those episodes several weeks ago, months ago now, uh, where we were noting that the two of them really seemed to like, get into non, non plot related conversations that seemed really sort of strangely cute. Yes. And it was like, this is weird that the two of them are just kinda like, Hey, I'm really sleepy. Like, like what? Like what is this? Like I can barely keep my eyes open. Like why is this part of this show? And it's partly because the comradery that was being built between them was already being planted. And I was happy to read that George Decay's response initially being, I'm a little bit threatened by this guy. He could take my job. But when he came back, the two of them, actually became friends. On now to our look at the world at the time, original broadcast, February 2nd, 1968. What was the world like when this episode aired? Well, Matt, I'm sure you're wondering what you're gonna sing today. I want you to close your eyes. No comment. Comment. I want you, comment you to close your eyes. Okay. Closed my eyes Sean. I'm gonna say a song title and I want you to tell me what. What it reminds you of. Okay? Okay. Okay. All right. Judy in disguise with glasses, I have no idea Sean. Does it remind you of the cadence of that? Does it remind you of anything? Lucy in the sky with diamonds? As a matter of fact, John Fred? Yes. That John Fred of John Fred and his Playboy band. Oh boy. Misheard Lucy in the sky with diamonds as Lucy in the sky with glasses, and then would go on. Let's not talk about why. Let's not talk about how, because okay. Those are questions Sean does not have answers to. He would go on later with the aforementioned his Playboy band. Go on to write Judy in disguise with glasses. Believe it or not, Matt, I read this and I was like, I've never heard this song before. So I looked it up, I found it. It's on YouTube. I listened to it. I have heard this song before. If you listen to it, I have a feeling you've heard it before. It probably was a song that was on the radio when we were kids. Occasionally when our parents would be listening to like the oldies station that we'd be playing stuff from the fifties, sixties, and seventies. This was in there. Mm-hmm. So I did know about it. As soon as I heard the opening lines, I was like, oh, I do know this song. Right. It does not sound, I wondered if it was going to be a completely satirical riff on Lucy in the sky with diamonds. It is not. Yeah. So we'll demonstrate that now by Matt singing the first few bars. Matt, take it away. Great, great. Here is my warning to all of us. We are going to include in the show notes a link too, Judy in disguised with glasses by John Fred and his Playboy band. Matt, you'll find the link in the notes there. Yeah. Yep, yep. My warning to all of you is this. If you listen to the song, it'll never leave your head. It will make you want to go lay down in traffic. I could not get the song out of my head, but here's the nefarious part. Uhhuh My brain replaced the words of the song with Lucy in the sky with diamonds. So I was singing an actual good song by The Beatles to the tune of a bad song by John Fred and his Playboy, Playboy band. I will leave you all with this final note. Normally, we don't talk about the song of the week this long, so I hope you've all been enjoying this. But this is the final note I will leave with you about this song. A little tidbit from Wikipedia. The other members of the Playboy band did not like the unusual, slow, abrupt ending with Fred and toning the final line, I guess I'll just take your glasses. Oh my God. And in the movies. What were people lining up to see? Well, we've talked about this song before because we had a episode recently, which the broadcast order was really wild, that a much earlier production was thrown into 1968. So we've talked about this movie before. Valley of the Dolls. This is the 1967 American drama. Directed by Mark Robeson, based on a Jacqueline Suzanne novel of 66, starring Barbara Parkins, Patty Duke, and Sharon Tate, As three young women who become friends, as they struggle to forge careers in the entertainment industry and become addicted to barbiturates. Yes, it's the feel good movie of the year. It was the number one film this week and on television we have been trying to talk about other television shows using Nielsen ratings. Taking a look at Star Trek's season two, roughly 11 in the Nielsen's, comparing it to other programs, and as we've talked about before, a lot of the shows from season one of Star Trek, which we talked about previously, are also the top shows of season two. So I've been diving deeper and deeper and deeper and looking for a little bit more esoterica to find things to talk about. And this week I thought I'd talk about one of the lowest rated sci-fi programs on the air at this time? Yes, it's a show I am aware of. I knew about, in fact, I think I may have seen episodes when I was a kid in reruns on Channel 11 WPIX out of New York City. I'm talking about Yep. We, we did. Sean, yes. I remember seeing this as a kid. Land of the Giants set in 1983, the far future of 1983. I love that. That it was set in the future of 1983, because if my memory is correct, I would've been watching this when I was probably 10. Yes. In 1981. Yes. So at that time, I love the idea that I would've been watching in 1981, a show set in the far future of 1983. The series concerns the passengers aboard the spin drift, which is lost during a suborbital space flight from Los Angeles to London and lands on a duplicate earth where everything is 12 times normal size, aside from the size of the people who the earthlings refer to, I love Wikipedia's descriptions. Wikipedia's descriptions are absolutely terrible. The earthlings refer to the humanoids on this planet as giants. That's how it's written in quotes, giants. So the giants are indistinguishable from earthlings. Culturally their society resembles the United States in the sixties with a police force, private hospitals, prisons, a state governor, radio and television services. A zoo, jazz clubs, and even a racetrack. Thank you Wikipedia. They speak English. Even a racetrack. Sean, they even have a racetrack. Wow. They speak English, have a combination of alien and earth-like names, drive American style cars, attend vaudeville style theaters and play chess. But they are dominated by an authoritarian government, which tolerates full, which tolerates full freedoms within a capitalist system, refusing to tolerate any effort to affect political change, even with repeated dissident activity. I don't know why it would be so low rated. Yeah. Anyway, it was a poorly received and poorly rated program while it was on the air, but it would go on to be syndicated for at least a few years. Long enough for Matt and Sean as wee children, to be able to see a few episodes. I do remember seeing giant couple artificial hands being used to grab actors and pulled 'em off camera. I remember it felt like it was largely a co, an excuse to be able to have old Western motifs, if I remember correctly. Like I don't remember that the humans were on the planet, but a lot of the storylines around the giants were like, they were like. Ranchers in some cases. 'cause a lot of the, like I just remember a lot of stuff had to do with like, why are they on a farm and, uh, uhhuh anyway. Anyway, so that's a little peek into the window of the bad of 19 67, 19 68. And finally, here we go. Matt, when I said at the beginning of the program, we were gonna be talking about a metaphor that can't stop hitting you about the head and shoulders. Yeah. This is what we were talking about. This is what our metaphor is about. Folks, this day, we've shared newspapers with all of you, our regular viewers and listeners throughout the entirety of this program. Rarely have we landed on a newspaper that was literally iconic. This issue of the New York Times from February 2nd, 1968 is literally an iconic, famous front page. On the left, we see the president asking for a pay price, curb and rise in tax. Johnson is trying to fight inflation at this time, and he's looking for ways to stave off inflation. At this point, questions still remain. Will he run for another term? Right next to that? Beneath the headline that says, president asks, pay price, curbs, and rise in tax is a picture of Guess Who? Richard Nixon, who is at this time announcing his presidency run in the form of a letter to New Hampshire voters. So he's on his way to New Hampshire in order to begin stumping for the presidency. Then yes, far right column. One of the most famous photographs that's ever been taken under the headline, Street clashes go on in Vietnam. Foe still holds parts of cities. Johnson pledges never to yield. A photograph of a person accused of being a Viet Kong, being executed on the street by Brigadier General Nguyen Ngue Loan. This photograph is one of the most, most famous photographs out of the Vietnam War, A starkly, jarring photograph beneath that photo. Enemy toll soars, offensive is running out of steam, says Westmoreland. Westmoreland was the general, the US general in charge of the US effort in the war. I don't know how well you know war history Matt? Do you have any clue about what offensive Westmoreland is talking about? Not offhand, no. I think once I say it out loud, you will be familiar with it. I, I'll probably know it. Late January. Just a few days before this, the North Vietnamese launched, what will be go at this point? It's not called that yet because it doesn't refer to that in the newspaper at all, but eventually it would go on to be called the Ted Offensive. Uh, the Ted Offensive. Yep. Yes. This is an escalation by North Vietnam with a massive unexpected launching of attacks into the South, including Hanoi. It would mark a change in tone in the war. The Ted Offensive. This is again from Wikipedia. The Ted Offensive was a major escalation in one of the largest military campaigns of the Vietnam War. The Viet Kong and North Vietnamese people's army of Vietnam launched surprise attacks on January 30th, 1968, against the forces of the South Vietnamese army of the Republic of Vietnam and the United States Armed Forces. It was a campaign of surprise attacks against military and civilian command and control centers throughout South Vietnam. It was named the Ted Offensive after a Lunar New Year Festival, which was around that time, and it's, it was not successful. It resulted in massive casualties on the part of the North Vietnamese, but the numbers were constantly shifting because they literally couldn't tell how many people they were fighting, how many people they had killed. It was utter chaos, it would become a turning point in the war, mainly because it was so jarring to the American public. It began to turn the public more fully against supporting the war. Hard not to see why when the New York Times has a photograph of an execution on the front page, it is not, I am not overstating things to say. The timing of this episode that we are gonna talk about with this day of headlines was probably a jarring coincidence to everybody involved with the production of the show because this episode is, feels so clearly crafted to be about questions of when you have a group of people, who have greater technology and greater advanced ability to inflict damage upon another. What is the moral responsibility of that group when it comes to those with less access to that technology? A metaphor for Vietnam, a metaphor for the ongoing Cold War politics of the era, but the timing of this, must have struck everybody right in the face at the time of, Matt and I have talked about it before, the best science fiction is talking about it, the era in which it was made. It is using the future as a distancer to be able to talk about the now. And as I was watching this, I was struck by the timeliness of this story for 1968. The day they're talking about the Ted Offensive, the day that Nixon is announcing his presidential run. The day that Johnson is saying, I'm never gonna yield, but I'm also trying to fight the guns and butter issue here at home in the form of inflation. All these pieces moving at the same time. This episode really struck a chord with me from that perspective, even though on a literal storytelling perspective, I thought this episode was horribly lacking. Mm-hmm. And so I found myself in a Wow. Do I not like the content of this episode, but the point of this episode couldn't be clearer. How did you feel as you watched this episode about it? Are we jumping straight into the episode? Jumping straight in from there. That's my, that's my launching off point. I felt like I was getting punched in the face with the message and I couldn't quite get a read if it was anti-war. Mm-hmm. Anti-colonialism? It was clear that it was making a statement about the Vietnam War that was unmistakable and it was also clear about, it was making a statement about proxy wars. The war is actually between the Klingons and the Federation, and yet this poor planet is caught in the middle and being abused and misused about this. And it wasn't completely clear to me which side of the issue it was actually coming down on because in one regard, it was making a statement that felt anti-war, and it felt like we're making the best of a bad situation. And this is how we have to solve it. And this is us doing our good thing with what Kirk did of like, we have to give them weapons. And my first reaction was really? That, that that's how you solve this. 'cause it, it almost feels like it's a little bit a Cold War pro Cold War a, a pro, yeah. Proxy war. Anti-war, but pro proxy, proxy war. It was, it was, it was, it was kind of weird. Lean heavily on onto mutually assured destruction as the solution. Correct. Yeah. Yes. And it was acting like, like mutually assured destruction is the answer. And I was kind of like, am I watching war games? War games had a clearer message to me than this did. It was a little muddled, but at the same time, it was very clear that they were trying to make some kind of statement on the Vietnam War. But I was having trouble deciphering exactly what they wanted me to walk away with. Yeah. Does that make sense? I, well, not only does it make sense, that's where I was left to, and I feel like that was, because again, this was made in 1968, this was made while all of this, Vietnam, the headlines were new and I don't think that they had an answer in the writer's room. I don't think that they knew. How they, like, they asked the question in, in bits of what I thought were actually very strong writing. Kirk saying, this is what I have to do. McCoy saying, no, it's not what you have to do. And then Kirk saying, well, what would you suggest I do in an alternative? And McCoy saying, I don't know. Yeah. And the episode ends on such a wildly weird note. Yes it does. Yep. We're gonna send them a bunch of weapons. This is the beginning of this. This is the end of their idyllic setting and the back and forth of the moral, where the moral high ground lies doesn't feel like there's a resolution. It feels so strangely, almost improvised in the form of, well, we don't wanna do this to these people, but somebody else is doing something else to them through this other group. So we gotta do something, don't we? But that's, that's the part that drove me a little nuts. Yeah. Which was, it ends almost like it's trying to be a Twilight Zone episode ending. It does feel like it's, I what I mean, has the exact same thing has Right. And it was like, is that the right ending to have here? Because it, with the one thing that I was having trouble with was when McCoy said, I don't know, it's like you never once in the episode even confronted the Klingons. Yeah. Not once. There was no knock it off. There was none of that. And it was like, the only answer is to play shenanigans just like they're playing shenanigans. And it was like, no, that's how you escalate things. And that's how the Cold War becomes even colder. And things get weirder. And the excuse of, well, they're doing it so we have to do it too, to stop them from doing, you know, to kind of cut them off. And it's like, well call them on it. Call 'em on it, make it public. Say, we know what you're doing. Stop. They made a point, it was weird of saying like, oh, they're breaking the treaty, which I interpret as the Organian Treaty. Yet again, a reference back to the old treaty. And it, and it hints at the idea that the Organian treaty didn't include any kind of, don't monkey around with other cultures and populations that are in contested space. Yep. Which it was just like, really, like your treaty wouldn't have covered that as a possibility. And let's turn our conversation. I mean, I'm happy to return to these, the dilemmas of the moral high ground and all the back and forth toward the end of our conversation. But for right now, let's shift quickly into the, the silliness of the plot. Like I just wanna visit like the plot as a story, which I, as I mentioned before, there are some nice moments in writing here trapped inside a plot that is just absolutely, it's a morality play. That is the point. It is intended to be. It's Adam and Eve. That's all they're doing here. It's, it is, it is. It's a morality play. Eve tricks the man and makes the man do bad things, and it's like, oh, come on. She tricked him into having the apple. It was like, it was, it was heavy handed. And my, my entire, my response in my notes, I wrote, uh, taking any of this as in any way a story gives it too much credit. There is no story. It is. It is a bunch of moments that happen and it is, but within those moments, there are moments that I genuinely did enjoy. I enjoyed that Kirk, in going back to the planet says, I doctor, I need you to go with me if, if Spock is in safe hands here, I need you to go back with me because I need somebody I can trust as well as I can trust Spock for advice. I liked that moment. Mm-hmm. It was a nice way of saying like, McCoy, you're not a third wheel. You're the critical third leg to the table that keeps me standing. So it's like that, that nice moment. I liked, uh, Chapell's role in this with Spock, me too, and showing her her moments of very quiet concern, her fear, her taking of his hand. And we haven't talked about it in the original series yet, but here we go. M'Benga. Yeah, baby, M'Benga's here. I was just like, when I saw that actor, I was just like, it's Dr. M'Benga. He's in this episode. I love it. And, and I loved it. Of course, different accent because not the same. Who cares? Actor, who cares? Hand wavy, hand, wavy hand wavy. The moment that Kirk is just like, what's going on here? Why aren't you taking care of Spock? And McCoy is like, he interned in a Vulcan hospital, he's the right man to be doing this job, and he's a top surgeon. He knows exactly what he's he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing. It's just like, yeah, we haven't seen him in the show before, but trust us, it's Dr. M'Benga. I wanted to cut to a screen that was just like a black screen with flashing letters that just said M'Benga M'Benga M'Benga. And then from that point on, there is a kind of like. Again, Strange New Worlds doing such a great job of looking at the original series and seeing the tiniest of cracks and saying, oh, we could, we could open that up and look at all this fertile stuff we find inside. M'Benga teases, Nurse Chapel. Yep. Multiple times. He talks to her in a way that speaks of familiarity and friendship and history. And he teases her about, and I'm sure he's aware of our presence. He knows what we're saying. He may not be conscious of the details, but he's probably even aware that you took his hand. Yes. And then he leaves the room and it's whoop, whoop. And she does her whole, like it's a way of sending a message to the patient like. That relationship they showed. Yes. It was so great. Yeah, I, I, I was basically doing a little dance of joy at that scene and just like, again, here's, here's the new shows, making the older shows even better. I just, I just love it. Yeah. And the inclusion of the threat to Spock, the use of his wound. We've seen it before, like, yeah. There. It's not new to say like, oh, there's a moment where Spock gets injured, and therefore Kirk has to lean more heavily on McCoy, and then they have a moment. But in this one, the injury to Spock is somehow more, it informs his character a little bit more because they dive into it a little bit deeper about what does it mean for a Vulcan to heal? What is it like? Previously we've seen Spock do things like he gets the, the alien latched to his back, that starts to take over his nervous system and he has to will himself to be able to get out of the bed and try and perform as normal. But in this case, we get this, oh yeah, he's going to go near death. He's gonna look like he's dying because his entire system is shutting down in order to send what healing energy he needs to the vital organs. Then we get a really weird sequence of like, you gotta help me wake up. You gotta start hitting me. Yeah. Which I, which is on the surface of, it's silly, but is also kind of a neat moment because Chapel is smacking him and then Scotty comes running in. It's kind of a sideshow circus moment where everybody's kind of running around. It's almost like, have you ever seen the video where it's like, uh, track how many times these people pass the ball? The ball is being thrown, and then a person in a bear costume comes out and dances in the middle and then leaves. And at the end it says, did you see the bear? And because the, it's a psychological test where it's demonstrating you're trying to watch the ball and because you're watching the ball, you don't notice the bear. And. I felt like this scene felt a little bit like that. She's smacking him. Scotty comes in, what are you doing woman? Grabs her and then M'Benga comes in and he starts smacking Spock, and then she's screaming, get off of me at Scotty. I've gotta save him. And it's absolute lunacy and it's a demonstration. Again, it goes back to this like parts of this feel absolutely improvised in weird ways, but I, I liked everything that happened aboard the ship, more or less. It was just like, yeah, everything aboard the ship is like kind of character driven, kind of like revealing of each other, including at the end where you get Spock and Scotty are standing at the command chair and Scotty's just smiling at Spock. Like, yeah, we're having a great time. And then Kirk is like, can you make me a bunch of Flintlocks? He is like, what? Yeah. Like all of that stuff, like I felt like. Those moments were the moments for me in this episode. I was just like, this is what I'll, I'll take with me. These are the parts that I'll take with me. I tend to be more forgiving when there's good character development in the A plots or B plots. Yeah. Of the plot in general. And that's me for this one as well. It's like the B plot was silly. It was a little goofy. It was a little hamfisted, but it was, it was of the era. Yeah. And so like even watching it today, it's like it still worked. It still was charming. It still built the character, the character relationships. I don't know if you picked up on this though, Sean. There's something that I see, a trend I don't like with Bones. They make him one of the worst away mission people ever. Mm-hmm. And they've done this to 'em before. Where something gets screwed up on the away mission 'cause somebody wasn't paying attention to what he was doing and it was poor old Bones. And it's like, how, come on, come on. Somebody who's the lead doctor on a, you know, ship would not be screwing up this, this badly. And like with this one, with him doing like the, the warming the rocks and not like making sure that he was in the clear to do all this. It was like. Dude, how are you going to explain that there's glowing hot rocks in a room when they come in here. It's like you would just build a fire. It's like, what? What? What are you, what are you doing? It's like, just get some kindle and then use your phaser to light it, but it's like, how would you explain this away? You wouldn't, so you wouldn't do it. It's this. There was this, the idiocy of some of the stuff they have Bones do. Kind of gives them away, like the tricorder sound like they're hiding and it's like, mm-hmm. What were you doing with the tricorder dude? You're hiding. It's like, you're not gonna go to suddenly do's, like, like, how's my heart rate going? It's like, what, what was he do? What was he doing? Oh, they explained that in the episode. Oh, come on Sean. He explains that. No, they did. They explained that. No, I, I agree. I kirk him to make a recording. I'm saying he leaves it on. I understand. It's, it's, but you wanna hear my defense every time. Every time it's him though. Every time it's him. Can you just spread it around? Make it Scotty in one episode, make it Spock in a different one. But every time Bones is involved in this stuff, they make it Bones doing this stuff. But do you wanna know my defense of that? What they hold onto that? That's a part of his character. It is. It is always. Then you wouldn't wanna take him on away missions 'cause he screws up so much. He's Bones. You gotta take Bones. Oh, come on. He, in Star Trek four is the one who convinces Scotty that they should give transparent, aluminums, chemical makeup. Yeah. To the guy in the factory. How do we know he is not the one who invented it? He's the one when they go to the hospital. A woman who is there getting dialysis, which is perfectly fine in 20th century medicine, and his response is, this is the dark ages. They might as well be using leeches. I'm gonna give you a pill that's gonna grow you a new kidney. He is the one, like he consistently does things that he's breaking the prime directive left and right. Yeah. Because ultimately he's like, I don't really care. I think that that is just a part of his character and Okay. I think its origin is probably in moments like this where they're like, yeah, he's a little sloppy. He's not as careful as everybody else. You end up sending Spock into places where he's not supposed to belong. Spock goes out and finds a hat to cover up his ears most of the time, he is just like, yeah, like we're gonna do what I have to do in order to cover up that I'm an alien. McCoy is much more inclined to say like, we've got the technology to do these things. Why aren't we doing it? Yeah, so I, I feel like it is actually partially character when you see that I am not defending any of the stuff on the planet though. Like I felt like most of what was going on on the planet was either punched to the face. Morality play in the form of like, we live this idyllic life. Oh, she's the snake in the grass. She's, it's nefarious. Yeah. They're all blonde and therefore idyllic. They're all dark haired and therefore not to be trusted. She's probably a witch. Um, yeah. Like she's using drugs. Women am I right? It was like the, the whole whole aspect of it. She's using drugs to keep him placated. Yeah. Her husband is placated because she rubs the drugs. Which, which I will be honest. Part of that I was like, I was like, well that's kind of an interesting concept, but like it's not the focus of the show. Like I would've been more interested in an episode where it was, why are portions of this society willing to go along with such bad decision making. Oh, it turns out that the other part of the society is drugging them. Like that to me would've been like, oh, that's a challenging topic. Not they're using drugs to escape reality, but they're without knowing it under the spell of a thing, like the biggest, like headachey. Are you kidding me of all of this? Do you wanna know? Do you want to guess at what for me was the biggest headachey? Are you joking? All this episode, do you wanna guess what it was? Was it just a scene? No, it's like an overall, like all these things are happening, but dot, dot, do headache. I don't know. What was it? What is the goal? Yeah. Yep. Good call. Klingons are showing up on this planet. They're giving over time, more and more sophisticated levels of technology. We brought you the Flintlocks to one side side. Now we're bringing you better Flintlocks for Yeah, yeah. We're bringing you we're, we're dishing this out piecemeal. Okay. Why are you dishing it out piecemeal? If you're eventually gonna get them to phasers, just give 'em phasers. And ultimately why, like, what are you doing? Yep. These are primitive people and you're just. The lack. If there's on the, if there's a resource on the planet that you want, they could just come and take it. They could just take it. I like it it is absolutely, the entire setup is entirely for the morality play. That's what makes it a morality play. There is no greater, there's no greater goal. It is. We're gonna talk about this topic. So the Klingons are here and they're doing this terrible thing, and we have to now do a terrible thing in response. Yeah. It is literally a construction to create the white man's burden. And that to me was just like, that is disgusting. Like the entire thing about the setup being like, but this is our burden of finding these primitive peoples and befriending them is like now we have to take care of them. And it's really like, woo. Hard to swallow. The storytelling on this one is as we've been hitting on multiple times, highly problematic, but I'm, I was still enjoying the episode, which is the weird part there. There was a scene, and I don't know if I had a minor stroke and just miss something, but the part where Bones is being an idiot with his tri-quarter and goes, woo, and they get caught and they have to have that fight and they open the door and there's people outside the door and the next scene, they beat 'em up, but they don't even. They didn't show us. Oh, they did? Maybe you did have minor stroke. Did they? Yeah. They, they, it's a very awkwardly constructed commercial break. Yes, because that's, I'm about, it was like a commercial break that comes back room. They open the door, everybody's standing at the door. Oh no, we're frozen. Fade the black. Come back up almost instantly. Jump 'em. Knock 'em out. Yeah. And it was like, it was so, it was, it was. It was such a poorly constructed. Well, we need tension for a commercial break, so we'll have something happen and then we'll quickly wipe it away. I just realized what happened, Sean. I just realized what happened. It was my viewing experience because at that moment cat step in front of your projector. So I was wa I, yes, I was watching the episode and that went to the commercial break and then the cat did something. I was like, don't do that. And then got off and I was, and then I sat back down and then it was the next scene where like, they're out of that situation. It was like, yeah. Wait, what happened? I thought they came back to the commercial break. I didn't realize I had like blacked out. I kid, not like 15 seconds. They punch them out in, it's literally like eight seconds. Okay. That's why I missed it. There you go. They stand there, they come back from the break and Kirk immediately launches at one guy and McCoy grabs a metal bar and hits the other guy. They both drop like rocks and then both Kirk and McCoy look around like, okay, we can run now. And then they just run. So it is, is literally, I thought they were just yada yada. Ying your cat distracted you. Yeah. That is very funny. So, before we end our conversation, Matt, is there anything about this episode that you felt we haven't talked about that you wanted to bring up? No. We, we hit on all the, the main things I was hoping we were gonna touch on, but I, I, I don't know how, the one thing I would say is like, if you were gonna give this a scale of one to 10, what would you give it? I'd probably give it a five. Like it wasn't a bad episode, it wasn't a great episode. There were still things I took away from it that I really enjoyed, but I thought the message was muddled and that there was, like you mentioned, the white man's burden aspect of the storytelling that was just like, ugh. Yeah. So there was some, some aspects that were really not well done, but the good stuff was good. So it's like, I feel like it was kind of like a balance for me. Yeah. I think it's, I, I don't disagree with that. And I think I give it that same thing because I give the stuff on the planet a three and I give the stuff on the ship a seven. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's kind of, so it's like it, there, there were enough things here, like I didn't mind watching it, even though in the moments that we've talked about, I was like, it kind of fell into a, a zone with, um, where my partner and I tend to watch murder mystery shows at night. And we've been watching Murder She Wrote, and my partner's really like, these are just bad. Like, these are not good. And I'm like, but I'm enjoying it. She's like, why? And I'm like, it's kept me entertained. Yes. And I don't mind watching it and riffing off of it, of saying things like, oh, right. They just find that car. Like in the moment it's like, oh, this is goofy, but I'm still entertained. And that's how this episode made me feel. Yeah, I was watching it and I was entertained. Even though at all these moments, I was just like, why can't they show one good woman in this episode? Yes. Why can't, why are, why is everybody the same colored hair? Like, was there value in that? Oh, why are they wearing such weird leather outfits instead of something simpler, like, why are you making them look like indigenous people? Mm-hmm. Like all of this. And yet I sat there and I was just like, yeah, M'Benga, yeah. Chapel. Yeah, yeah. Slap him, slap Spock. You know? Are you not entertained? Why? I can list, yeah. I was entertained. So yeah, I give it a, I give it a middling. A middling grade as well, and didn't hate it. Found some stuff that I actually enjoyed. So yeah. Have at it. So next time we are gonna be watching Gamesters of Triskelion. Please jump into the comments, let us know. Wrong answers only. What's this episode gonna be about? While you're down there, leave a comment about this episode. What did you think about the episode we just discussed? Was there anything that we didn't bring up that you thought we should have? Please drop it in the comments. We love reading what you have to say and commenting, liking, subscribing, sharing with your friends, all very easy ways for you to support the program. And of course, if you'd like to support us more directly and become an ensign, you can go to Trek and Time Show, click become a supporter button there. And you are able to throw some coins at our heads and automatically get subscribed to our spinoff show Out of Time in which we talk about things that don't fit within the confines of this program. 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