In this episode of Trek In Time, we're talking about single cell reproduction. That's right everybody. It's immunity syndrome from Star Trek the original series originally broadcast on December 15th, 1967, episode number 48, shooting order, 47 in broadcast order, and the 18th of the second season. Welcome everybody to Trek in Time where we're watching every episode of Star Trek in chronological stardate order and we're taking a look at the world at the time of original broadcast, which means we're talking about That's right Matt. We did it again. We crossed into 1968. Who are we? I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci-fi, some stuff for kids and with me as always is my brother Matt. He's that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell. Which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives. Matt, how are you today? I'm doing well. There's something I do have to call out. Sean, I just watched this weekend, came out on Hulu, I think it was a new Predator movie that's animated, and I don't know if you ever saw the movie Prey that came out a couple years ago. I did, yes. I'm a huge fan of Dan Trachtenberg, who directed it. I, I actually was watching him. He used to be on a show called The Totally Rad Show eons ago. Um, and it's so cool to see him go from just a random podcaster to a major film director, but this animated movie is phenomenal. Hmm. It is. It's called Predators Killer of Killers, I think its what it's called. And it is almost like a little anthology. So it tells three stories, kind of like how Prey was the Indian time period. Yeah. It does a little bit of that where it's going through history, three anthology things, but then there's a story that kind of ties them all together and it is some of the best action. It is. It's incredible. It's gory as all get out. It's very violent, has some really cool sci-fi concepts. It's building on the predator universe in a really fun way. And I am super excited for the next live action Predator movie, which he's making that's coming out in the fall. Um, I think it's called, uh, I can't remember what it's called, but it's, it's coming out this like September or something like that. It looks like it's gonna also be really good. So I'm, I'm very excited for that movie, but check it out. Very cool. Hulu. I saw the, I saw that that animated film pop up on my suggested watch feed and had no idea what it was, but it did look compelling, so it's interesting to know that you enjoyed it. Yeah. Yeah. So I will definitely check that out. On now to our discussion about this week's episode. Before we get into that though, we always like to dip into the mailbag and see what you've had to say about previous episodes that we've shared. So Matt, what did you find for us this week? On last week's episode, we talked about obsession, and we had feedback from PaleGhost69 who wrote James T incompetence Kirk strikes again, let's destroy a sentient being that's obviously intelligent and old. Why? Because we were dumb and had consequences for it. If this was the next generation, they would've captured the cloud creature and learned to communicate with it at least on a basic or in instinctual level, understanding it before sending it on its way. Having learned from it and how to protect ourselves from it. Glad they learned from their mistakes. I agree with this. Like it's interesting to see how like the storytelling differs from the sixties version to Right the, what was that nineties version of Star Trek? Mm-hmm. Very different mindsets in how you would approach a topic like this, but yeah, I would argue they actually did that. I think I, I would argue that they actually did that episode with the crystalline entity. It was exactly, it was exactly that. So the crystalline entity shows up. They know that something has wiped out all the life on one world where they found Data and then they later find the entity is out there again and do manage to communicate with it. But one individual who's kind of lost her mind in grief becomes a murderer as a result, and is clearly depicted at the end of the episode as the villain of the story. So it's doing exactly what you both have just suggested. But not James T Incompetence Kirk. Anyway, we have one from FRBR Radio. The story about the Farragut sounded like a better episode than this one o Ouch. Which in defense of the episode, there was also, uh, TY, I don't know how to say it. tyshekka Maybe, uh, he wrote Gamesters isn't my favorite. I don't think it's that bad. That was, that was the best endorsement of this episode we had on the, the comments. Okay. So somebody's in the pro column on Gamesters. Well, or the neutral column. That's true. Yeah. A third column has made an emergence. Yeah. Then of course we have Mark Loveless coming in with wrong answers only for the plot of immunity syndrome. Sulu is on a lot of meds, mainly for what the lower deck folk call space allergies, and he decides to focus on supplements to try to wean himself off of so many meds, Bones and Nurse Chapel call this overreliance and supplements and the arrogance that comes with it, immunity syndrome. Sulu manages to talk both Uhura and Chekov into doing it with him, but one of the side effects of their supplements is excessive gas. It gets so bad that one day on the bridge, Kirk calls Spock over and starts going on and on loudly and sarcastically about how there must be a malfunction in life support and may maybe they should put the ship on yellow alert until the obvious toxic eye watering cloud of decaying eggs is off the bridge. Spock says, per sensor readings, he's to detected an outbreak of immunity syndrome to which everyone on the bridge except an embarrassed Sulu, Chekov and Uhura start laughing. A return under Kirk's orders to normal space allergy meds fixes the problem. Well, that description, while inaccurate to the episode, could be incorporated slightly into this episode, is a explanation of why Sulu doesn't actually appear. Yeah. Yep. So here we go. This is of course, the sounds you hear, the lights you see flashing. It means it's the Reed alert. It's time for Matt to tackle the Wikipedia description of immunity syndrome. Take it away, Matt. The crew of the enterprise encounters an energy draining space creature on their way to Starfleet Command base six. The Enterprise receives orders to check on Starship Intrepid in Gamma seven solar system. It's kind of sentence like. That's sentence adjacent. They find a black space covering the path to the system with no stars visible through it. Upon crossing into the space, the Enterprise begins to lose energy and is pulled towards a single celled organism that is massive in size. After losing two probes to investigate the organism and failing in an attempt to pull away. Kirk chooses Spock to take the Shuttlecraft into the organism membrane, investigate it and find a way to destroy it. Spock finds that the organism is about to reproduce and has a nucleus that can be attacked with a full charge of anti-man, anti-matter energy. Kirk manages to send a probe with the help of Scotty equipped with a timed bomb of anti-man, anti-matter energy, and the Enterprise begins, oh my God, the sentence is not stopping. Mm-hmm. And the Enterprise begins to drift outta the membrane, tugging the shuttle shuttle craft. Finally, the organism is destroyed and the galaxy is saved. Yeah, that was a rough one. That was, whew. Immunity Syndrome, episode number 18 of Season two, directed by Joseph Pevney, written by Robert Sabaroff, and we have amongst the regular crew everybody, but George Takei. George Takei. This, the filming again crossed over into George Takei's filming of Green Berets, so he was not in this episode, but we have everybody else on hand and we also have guest appearances by John Winston as Lieutenant Kyle. Or Cowl, we'll get to that later. Frank DaVinci is Lieutenant Brent, Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie, William Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley and Robert Johnson as the voice of Starfleet command. Now hold on a second. Matt Eddie Paskey is Lieutenant Leslie. Hmm hmm. Didn't he die last week? Yes he did. Yes he did, but he's feeling much better. And what was the world like at the time of original broadcast? This was from January 19th, 1968. We've got some returns, Matt. We saw some of these at a previous episode, which had broadcast in early January. So here we go around again with Hello. Goodbye by the Beatles. Take it away, Matt. Great as always, and at the movies yet again for most of January and a good part of February, yes, people are lining up to watch Valley of the Dolls. Don't make me synopsize this again, I'm as tired of talking about this movie as I am about Gone With the Wind. Let's just say that it's almost interchangeable with Gone With the Wind from a certain perspective. If you just replace the South with barbiturates. And in television we've been taking a look at TV shows, apples to apples, Nielsen ratings to Nielsen ratings to figure out what other shows were doing in comparison to Star Trek. But this week took a different tack. Guess what tack that was Matt. Too late. What is it, Sean? Oh, okay. I decided to look at this season's episodes. Focusing mainly on the episodes that we've already watched and comparing viewership amongst some of those episodes and found a very interesting pattern emerge. Lowest rated episodes of this season includes possibly Wolf in the fold at the bottom. The reason I say possibly is Nielsen ratings. I could not find any Nielsen ratings for this episode listed. It was the week of Christmas, so I wonder if for that reason they just didn't compile anything. We talked when we talked about Wolf in the fold. This is the episode where Scotty is accused of murder at a variety of strip clubs. Mm-hmm. Just saying that as you saying that synopsis makes me laugh. Yeah. We talked at the time that it felt like a somewhat strange episode and that it may have been dropped at Christmas instead of being a horror episode around Halloween by design. Maybe they didn't have a lot of confidence in it, so I'm including it here in the possibly lowest episodes, lowest rated episodes of the season. But above that, we have episodes like Metamorphosis, Amock time, journey to Babel and Mirror Mirror. Among these, Amock time, Mirror, Mirror two of my favorite from the season. Journey to Babel, we talked about how critical that episode was as far as constructing Vulcan ness and what it meant to depict Vulcans. Amock time as well does the same thing. I find it fascinating. These are the lowest rated episodes of the season, among the highest Gamesters of Triskellion Oh boy, and Bread and Circuses, the highest rated episode of the season. That makes me sad Sean makes me so sad. It's above a 12. The, the average for the season is about a 11.6 for season one. For season two, it's a 10.8. So it outperformed, bread and circuses outperformed all other episodes for season two and was not, neither of those episodes were ones that I would've considered like these were the ones at the time. And I find that interesting because it kind of paints a picture of the core audience. The lowest rated episodes were getting around a seven. It paints a picture to me, that tells me there was a core audience that was creating a viewership of about 7 million households. Well, with the ones that were more watered down, just sci-fi adventure, able to pull in more mainstream viewers like Bread and Circuses. But it's that core audience that needed time to build, and that wouldn't happen until it was in syndication and then you had the animated series and then the movie started and then you get around to next generation. I find that interesting that that core audience well was there for the ones that we consider the best and the ones that were the weakest actually drew in more of a general public. That's kind of, I, I wanna say it as a YouTube content creator. I noticed this myself. The videos I put out where like they'll put out a video that gets. A million views. 2 million views. But most of those people are like fly by night. They come in, they watch that episode and I'll never see them again. Right. But then if I put out an episode that's a little more niche and it gets like by comparison, no views, maybe it gets a hundred thousand views, 200,000 views, but that audience is like hyper engaged and you look at like, how many comments and likes and engagement that smaller episode gets compared to the larger episode, it's night and day. Hmm. So it's like, it doesn't surprise me that Star Trek at the time had a very, had a smaller, incredibly dedicated audience. Where the bigger episodes, the flashier ones, the flash in the pan, the very forgettable episodes are the ones that got the higher ratings. It doesn't surprise me too much. And in the news on this day, January 19th, 1968, we see it's as opposed to a couple of the newspaper front pages we've talked about over the past couple of weeks. This seems like a quiet week, simply because it's not a Pulitzer surprise winning photograph on the front page, or a headline about a news story that had to do with, oh yeah, something called the Ted Offensive. Um. This one's a slightly quieter week in the form of changes to how the stock exchange would use the day. It was beginning to close at 2:00 PM and I thought it was interesting. The reason they were gonna close earlier was because of the amount of paperwork that obviously would go away as computers would start taking over for a lot of that. There was also discussion about a President Johnson job plan. There was the ongoing expanding investigation into corruption in New York City in the form of a federal operation looking for payoff schemes in the water industry, in the water, uh, municipal supply chain. And there was also a number of articles here about attempts to, first of all bring peace, but also bombs to North Vietnam as the Vietnam War continued to expand. On now to our discussion about this episode. Matt, I think I invited you to kick us off last week. So why don't I start the conversation around this one. This one struck me. I'm like, just gonna give my like big picture response to it and then invite you to to respond in kind. This one struck me as a very strong and well rendered bottle episode, which made me think in line with some of the other episodes we talked about that got less viewers than the more broad appeal of Bread and circuses. Uh, it doesn't surprise me that this one got some of the lower ratings as well, kind of bouncing along toward the bottom half of the viewership because this one really feels very, very Trek to me and I found myself thinking, well, it doesn't plug into the era in quite the same way as where some of the other ones are clearly Cold War metaphors. I think this one, it felt a little bit like science versus science. There seemed to be this overriding theme of, depending on how you slice this, various personalities aboard the ship, had very different takes on what to do and why to do it. Mainly Spock and Bones, but also to a slightly lesser degree, Scotty. Because there comes the engineering scientific mind when you bring Scotty into it, and all three of them are looking at the same thing and seeing vastly different problems and potential solutions to what's going on. And I thought it's really kind of meta science fiction at this stage when the show is letting scientists debate scientists on which science is the best one to be applied here. You have Scotty coming at it from a physics perspective and saying, what's happening here shouldn't be working. This isn't, up is down. None of this should be happening. You have Spock going in and saying, I have the most pure science approach to this. I therefore should be the one to be examining this. And you have McCoy saying this is about something we've never experienced before. The potential here for discovery are untold. And I really liked the fact that it was this kind of meta-scientific debate as opposed to there being, I mean, one of the commenters in for the previous episode said they found this sentient cloud and then they set out to kill it. And this one, they remove that by demonstrating, I think, in a number of easy to understand symbolic ways. This is not a sentient life form. This is not a massive brain. This is which they've experienced in the past where they had the neural network that was made up of miniature cells that were covering vast areas of the galaxy. This is a giant single celled organism that is effectively acting in the galaxy the way an amoeba would in a Petri dish. It is looking for food, it's finding food, it's eating, it's moving on, it's preparing to reproduce, which takes a certain amount of the moral quandary of what do we do with it out of the equation. And then you're left with the scientists talking, and I really found that engaging. I really liked the role of Kirk as a decider around the impossible choice. There is no easy solution here. And it leads to some moments between the characters with each other and the characters with Kirk that I really, really, I've held onto for a long time. I'm nostalgic while I watch this episode 'cause I remember so much of it as I'm watching it, but I also find it as an adult looking at it. They handled all of that I think in a really, really strong way that makes it very compelling and easy to watch and made me feel like this is Star Trek. This is like, this is doing what I want Star Trek to do. So the too long didn't read is Sean likes this one. How did you feel about it? Well, the too long didn't read for me is I really like this episode. And to get on my little mini soapbox, I, I have said numerous times, I'm sick and tired of how this show is so uneven in quality, like Gamesters of Triskellion and then this, and it's like night and day once a really bad episode. How'd that get made? There's this one which I thought was really tight, exciting, interesting, lots of interesting debate, but there was still also lots of action that kept you excited and interested. I thought it was great. And it's funny that how you kind of tie it back to the analysis of how the best episodes, the fan favorites are actually some of the worst performing episodes. But again, that built a dedicated audience. And this episode to me, it felt like, again, there's probably three or four episodes of Next Generation that came to mind. Yeah. That are very similar to this. Uh, Deep Space Nine has some, uh, Voyager has some, and it's like, it feels Super Trek, like Super Trek. But in the, in the mode of, as I was watching and in the notes I was taking, and I was thinking about like, okay, for Trek in Time, this was made in the late sixties, and I, I kept writing down like, what's the metaphor? What's the, what's the takeaway they're going through? What about the time period made this idea a reality? I was like, is it about being in the dark? Is it about dying and like something like an incurable cancer? Is it like just about disease? Is it about some kind of scientific discoveries, like how there was rapid discoveries happening at this time and the space race and all we talked about before how like there was a recent discovery about like. You know, genomes and DNA and all that kind of stuff. The first, yeah, the first time DNA had been Right replicated in a lab. Yeah. So is that some of what inspired this, which was science and our understanding of the universe is accelerating right now and it's going so fast and is overwhelming and here's an episode that's kind of dealing with that head on of like, yeah, and it, my thought was that's probably the case, but then I kind of flipped back around, was like. It doesn't matter because some of the best storytelling is timeless. Yeah. And this episode feels timeless. So I couldn't place it into the 1960s really well in my head. And I thought maybe that's actually the point. Yeah. But this was just a compelling, you know, was it that human versus human. Human versus nature, human versus self. Yeah. This is human versus nature. Just at at the highest level. It's all, it's, yeah. And they stay true to that. They don't get overly complicated. Yeah. And they don't come up with a B plot and a C plot that makes things like crazy. It's literally just a plot. This episode is like just a plot. They're like, they kept, they kept it super simple and all I kept thinking was why they know how to make good tv. Yeah. They know how to do good storytelling. And it's like, and this is, this is one of those ca test cases of like, it's very easy to see how to do a good episode of Star Trek. How could they not replicate this again and again, and again and again? I don't understand why they were so uneven through all these different seasons. Yeah. To go back a bit to the ratings question. Yeah. If we go back to Wolf in the fold, as I mentioned, that was Christmas week, so we don't know the ratings of that one. Then we go to the Trouble with Tribbles. We're at an almost nine, so very classic episode, almost a nine. Gamesters of Triskellion. Almost an 11. Yeah. Wow. Geez. So that's January 5th, so people are, maybe, you know what that one had, Sean? The Mylar balloon outfit? Yes. On a beautiful woman. Yes. A beautiful woman in a Mylar balloon outfit. Wolf in the fold Christmas week. Yeah. Trouble with Tribbles two days before New Year's. They are putting these episodes on at a time where they're not gonna perform well just because the holidays. Mm-hmm. Tribbles maybe outperforms because to almost get a nine, two days before New Year's is actually pretty impressive. Gamesters of Triskellion first, full week of the new year almost gets an 11. The episode we're gonna be talking about next week, next time, a piece of the action, which some people will know immediately which episode that is just based on the title. Oh, not one of my favorites gets almost a 10. It's in a literally a 9.97. This episode is the next in line, January 19th, gets a 9.4. And then we've already talked about this episode, a private little war. This is the one where they go to the planet where Kirks friend who lives amongst a group of tribesmen and there's a woman who casts a spell on Kirk and all of that. That one outperforms this one. Could it be just at the time, because I'm also thinking about shows, they're very kid oriented, but like Batman? Yeah, it's, everything is a little more surface level. A little more primary colors, a little more comic Booky. Or simplistic. I'm wondering if just the time period the show was ahead of its time for the good episodes made today would do really well. Yeah. Versus then it was just they were just ahead of their time maybe? To go back to your, to your comment about like the simplicity of the plot here and there is just a plot. There are subtle plots. Subplots, yeah. Woven in very tightly. You get the McCoy Spock thing, which I absolutely love in this. We'll talk about that in a while. But I do agree this, this feels timeless because it is a little akin to the one where they are going after the planet eater, which is the, it's Moby Dick. Like the simplicity of that is like, oh, I'm like, there's a guy he is committed to going after this thing that's been destroying planets and it destroyed a ship and he now wants revenge. That is a basic, straightforward plot. This one feels like that, and yet it, because of that, as you said, it feels timeless. And what they managed to do in connecting to that is have these brilliant little moments like let's talk about Spock and McCoy in this. You get them in. What I really like is at the beginning of this episode, you get the hint of the snarky teasing back and forth that feels more mature than the first times we've seen it in the original series. When we go back to earlier in the first season, and McCoy seems outwardly hostile. To Spock, he seems outwardly hostile to the idea of a Vulcan being a part of the crew. And now at this point, it's clearly a kind of teasing comradery. This is their friendship, this is how it manifests. And then it turns into direct competition for a specific task. And in that you get Spock maintaining the surface control of none of this has anything to do with personal ambition. This is me making a decision about which of us is logically better suited to do this task. But McCoy is taking it very emotionally. Mm-hmm. Right up to a moment that I think is one of the best scenes between the two of them. When they're in the hallway outside the shuttle bay, and yes, Spock says, give me my integrity. Give me like, let me have my Vulcan dignity. And he and McCoy says, how can I give you what I don't understand? Which is a brilliant line. Like that's, that's the kind of line that just like stands out as like woof. That's terrific. And it's followed up with an even better line. Yeah. Of Then how about you give me what humans give, which is wish me luck. And then Yeah. I love that that line is just like Trump card on top of the original and then they outperform that line by McCoy remaining silent. Yes. And I was just like, this episode, the writing in this episode, and then waiting for the door to close, and then him whispering and then whisper, whispering. Good luck. Yeah. And then cherry on top. It's like a cherry on top of a cherry on top of a cherry. To have the moment on the bridge later when McCoy says, when Spock says through the radio, yeah, you should have wished me luck. Tell McCoy he should have wished me luck. And Kirk looks at McCoy with befuddlement, like, what the hell does that mean? Yeah. And McCoy is sheepish and abashed and yeah, I loved all of that. All of that was such a beautiful rendering of their relationship. And when you know these characters the way that we do when fans know what's coming. Mm-hmm. Like you harken to Star Trek two, star Trek three, what their relationship is at that point. Moments like this are where that began. I really, really loved it. How did all that strike you? As far as like it's, it's effectively the B plot, but it is so tight with the A plot that it's, you couldn't get's I'm part with a razor. Yeah, it's a plot. Like it didn't feel like a subplot because it's part of the main plot. Like yes, it's secondary characters that aren't on the bridge and something's happening over here and over there, but it's still the main thread. It's so tightly to, uh, woven into it. And for me, this is, this is the catnip of Star Trek for me is episodes like this because you get the heady science and you get the logical debates around a very thorny topic. Then you get the excitement and tension of the action that's kind of unfolding around it and then you get the character development. That's the reason why we watch all TV shows. It's like you get pulled into the characters, you start to feel and empathize and love characters and hate characters. And this is one of those episodes that does a wonderful job of like continue to flesh out these relationships and Bones and Spock and Kirk specifically Spock and Bones. It's just one of those just like, like I said, catnip me on a floor finding the catnip bag, and I'm just like, ah. I just, I just, I love this stuff. This is what Star Trek is to me. Yeah. Which is part of the reason why I, I don't think this is the best episode of the original series by far, but it's like, it's excellent. It's really good. Yeah, it's, I had a really good time watching it. Again, we went through a little patch of like, oh, woo. I can, some of these are hard to watch. And then this one's like a breath of fresh air. Yeah. Uh, watching this one, it also, again, we're watching, uh, the remastered versions. I really like the special effects. Great special effect, remastered special effects better. This one? Yeah. Like it really, like I, there is a part of me that is a purist of like, there is value in watching the original broadcast versions. I enjoy seeing some of the cardboard imagery of how the 1960s television actually looked. But when you get to this kind of rewatch, I'm enjoying watching the remastering. I'm enjoying watching the ship look the way you would want it to look in the moments when they enter the complete void that is the protective outer. Yes. W whatever it this amoeba entity is emanating in order to suck all light out of it, it's effectively almost like the amoeba has a kind of black hole quality to it. And when they enter that area and the ship looks ghostly with its elimination on, uh, on itself. Yeah. And it looked like the special effects of current television. I love that. And I wanna go back for a brief moment and just say for the, for the character development in this one? Yes. McCoy and Spock are clearly center stage. You get some very nice, I mean, we've had a couple of episodes, we keep making a joke of it. The incompetence of Kirk occasionally flaring up in the form of like, well, let's send some more people down to that planet and watch if they die. And that kind of sense. Yeah. And in this one you get. I mean, when you get the stronger writing, they really bring home the sense of he owns the responsibility for choosing which of his friends may die. And it is the kind of depiction that is what we've been hungering for in like the competence of a captain who would be saying that of every security officer who goes down to the planet and dies to that cloud in the first episode, in the first opener of last week's episode, like this is the kind of gravity that Kirk arguably not just should have, but would have like better writing, would've brought that to last week's episode. And it gives Kirk, it gives Shatner an opportunity to really demonstrate mm-hmm. Like the gravitas here of that scene when the two men come into his, into his quarters. And I like the fact that they both walk in. Spock is always standing like Spock. Spock is Spock. You know, hats off to Nimoy for always being consistently his depiction, but McCoy in that moment is at attention in a way. Mm-hmm. That he's not normally at attention. The physicality of the performance in that scene demonstrating the seriousness with which these two scientists are approaching this. The focus and goal that they both have around it is coming through McCoy, primarily because Spock is always Spock. But here you see McCoy, who's very comfortable with calling Kirk Jim, who's very comfortable in private quarters with like letting down command, like the ranks drop away from McCoy quickly. Whereas they never drop down from Spock except for those rare instances. But here you see McCoy going the other direction. It depicts the seriousness of it. And the way that Kirk says, my apologies. No, no, no, you misunderstand me. My apologies, because I'm sending you potentially to die is such a great scene. I, I, it just resonated with like how all three actors. And like, I'd have to think the director, the screenwriter, like they all must have been in the same mind in that moment of like, this is what has to come through non-verbally. So the verbiage has even more impact the apology to those who are under your command for, I'm not apologizing for disappointing your hope. I'm apologizing for the fact that you may not come out of this. And I thought like, boy, when they wanna do it, they can do it. And it makes those moments where Kirk is just like, so how many security officer have we got left on this ship? Send them down. Send 'em all down. The other thing I wanna point out is, uh, the good writing. It's also in the humor. There's a lot of really good humor in this episode. One of my favorite bits I wrote down, which was, I came, it was between Spock and Kirk on the bridge where he kept, Kirk kept saying like, what is this? What is this? And Spock was like, ah, yeah, science, science. And one of the things he said was, what is that boundary we just went through? He's like, well, the boundary, it's the boundary between where we were and where we are. And he's like, are you trying to be Mr. Funny, Mr. Spock? And it's like that little, it wouldn't occur to me. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's just so wonderful and like almost throwaway lines, but it's, it's funny and it's genuine and it doesn't come across as hammy. And then there's the other side of it, which is again, the strong writing, which brings me right back to the hard sci-fi aspect of it. By the end, when Kirk is talking about the amoeba creature and he's realizing and having that epiphany of it's, we're like the antibodies like. It's like, here's an amoeba, which is usually a single cell organism that's massive. And here we are at the size of an amoeba, which actually makes us the antibodies. And that's when he has the realization of like, what if we acted like that? What if we triggered the antibodies? What if we behaved like a virus ourselves? Because that's basically what we are. I thought that was just wonderful to see. You could see that this is one of those things where Shatner's a better actor than we give him credit for. Yeah. Where you can not only see the calculations in his head in real time on camera. Yeah. Both the way he's talking it through, I loved, yeah. And it's like, it reminds me of Picard doing this on Next Generation. It's like it's, I love it when we see this kind of thinking and realization and epiphanies and smart people being smart and competent people being super competent. Yeah. And that comes through loud and clear here. Yeah. Last comment I wanted to make was in the amusement I had at the clearly unintentional blooper of, you have Lieutenant Kyle filling in for Sulu. He's on the bridge. This is one of those things that they do orig, they do in the original series by mistake. Mm-hmm. And then they incorporated it as part of purposeful in Next Generation was the idea of, okay, the shirts indicate specific roles and ranks, therefore you just don't swap 'em out. But if you do, you explain why. So you end up with Geordi LaForge in a red command shirt at the bridge until he goes down and becomes chief engineer, which he then dons the gold engineering outfit. The Original Series was far more cavalier in, oh, this week you are the navigator, and next week you're gonna be security guard. So you're gonna go from gold to red, maybe from red to gold, and you see that a number of different times. And here you see it with Lieutenant Kyle. I feel like there's a part of them that was just like, okay, when you see a person in a costume and you see them on the bridge and they have a name, they're gonna have that name. They're always going to be that person. Mm-hmm. But I feel like they also had one foot in the camp of, but maybe that doesn't make sense. So maybe we should figure out ways of changing that, like maybe change their costumes or in this case, with poor Lieutenant Kyle. Changing his hairstyle. Yeah. Which just made him look like he hadn't showered in about a week. It, instead of being his normal, like kind of off the forehead, quaff, looks like it's a plastered to the forehead, kind of greasy look. Yeah. And to add insult to injury, Shatner clearly misremembered his name multiple times toward the end of the filming because he refers to him as Lieutenant Cowell. So Lieutenant Kyle maybe just has a doppelganger aboard ship, somebody who is in fact a Starship pilot whose name is Lieutenant Cowell. Maybe that's my new head Canon, Matt. So viewers, listeners, I think it's pretty clear Matt and I both enjoyed this episode. We hope you did too. But let us know in the comments how did you feel about this episode. Was there anything that you saw that we missed that you wish we talked about? Jump into the comments and let us know. And as far as wrong answers only next time we're gonna be talking about piece of the action. I already mentioned that we're gonna be talking about that next week. I already know what that one's about, but I look forward to hearing wrong answers only what you think that one might be about. And just a heads up, there's family visit shenanigans happening soon. What does that mean? Family visit shenanigans Sean, why do I care about that? I'm not in your family. Yeah, well you are in the Trek in Time family. What that means is this. That's right. Matt and I will not be recording next week. So a piece of the action. Two weeks. You got two weeks to think about wrong answers only for that one. So we'll see you then. Before we sign off, Matt, is there anything you wanted to point out to our viewers and listeners about what you have coming up on your main channel? Yeah, a very sci-fi sounding one. Atomics Copenhagen Atomics making thorium nuclear reactors. I interviewed the CEO, so when we're taking our break next week for family shenanigans, uh, that full interview will be coming out on the Still to Be Determined podcast. Also, uh, the episode will be launched on the Undecided channel. I like the fact that you said it's got this very 1960s sci-fi feel, atomics. Yes. And then you add on Copenhagen. Copenhagen Atomics, Copenhagen. Copenhagen. That's not sci-fi. As for me. If you're interested in finding out more about my books, you can go to my website, sean Ferrell dot com. You can also go to wherever it is you buy or borrow your books. That could be your local little bookstore. It could be Amazon, it could be Barnes and Noble, or it could be your public library. My books are available everywhere, so thank you for your interest. If you'd like to support the show, please don't forget. Liking, subscribing, sharing with your friends, leaving comments. Those are all very easy ways for you to support us. And if you wanna support us more directly, you can go to Trek in Time Show, click the Become a Supporter button there. Not only does it allow you to throw coins at our heads, but it makes you an nin, which means you'll be signed up for out of time. Our spinoff podcast in which we talk about other things in more detail than we do here. Like Matt mentioned, the predator Animated series. Well, that's the kind of thing that on Out of Time we would probably spend 10, 15 minutes talking about in more detail. We hope you'll be interested in checking it out. As I mentioned Trek in Time Show. Thank you so much everybody, for taking the time to watch or listen and we'll talk to you next time.