September 1, 2025 • 38 mins
Yes, we watched it, maman. We saw "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans." Our tears are bitter, maman. Our souls are thin as to be wisped away by a wayward zephyr. We weep for our bodies are malnourished; our spirits are distressed. It is a dark age, maman. We require a bonfire of the inanities.
Episode Reviewed: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x08 - "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans"
Hosts:
David C. Roberson
Matthew Carroll
Note: This episode of Star Trek Universe continues Dave and Matt's ongoing journey discussing Star Trek as they have since the late 1980s.
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David C. Roberson's Newsletter: https://davidcroberson.substack.com/
Episode Reviewed: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 3x08 - "Four-and-a-Half Vulcans"
Hosts:
David C. Roberson
Matthew Carroll
Note: This episode of Star Trek Universe continues Dave and Matt's ongoing journey discussing Star Trek as they have since the late 1980s.
Join Us:
Site: http://startrekucast.com
Apple: http://bit.ly/StuCast
Spotify: http://bit.ly/StarTrekUCast
Spreaker: http://bit.ly/StuCastSpreaker
David C. Roberson's Newsletter: https://davidcroberson.substack.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
On this episode of Star Trek Universe, we were talking
about strange new worlds three eight, four and a half vulcans.
After these words from our mystery sponsors, welcome to Star Treking.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I guess we can listen on two lifelong friends and
chat about Star Trek.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
My name's Matthew Carroll. I'm David c. Robertson. Yeah. How's
it going, man, Oh it's okay. It's you know, chronic
pain filled.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, I had a cute pain today, not so chronic,
just a lot of I woke up with a terrible
headache and like I just I've been having more of
a lately. It's been not good. I gotta figure out
what's going on with that. I think it's just tension,
headaches or some shit. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Maybe you should have your eyes checked. Yeah, no, they're
they're bad. I think my eyes are getting bad. I
think my old age just catching up.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
It's a thing where you're ocular nerves swell mm hmm.
And sometimes it could be, you know, due to Wait,
sometimes it can be due to other issues much worse.
You hope us Wait, that's the thing. But it's apparently
kind of common. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
It could be I am getting a little bit worth
worse I sight with my old age, but there are
a number of reasons it might have been happening today.
But also I think just to stress stress. I'm stressed, man.
But things are getting things are getting better. Honestly, We've
had some good turns this week that I'll tell you
about off cast, but good, good things moving, a little
little reduction of stress, so I'm hoping that'll all be good.
(01:39):
I also had two drinks yesterday. And here's the thing.
I'm a binge drinker. I don't drink that often. When
I do, I like to rage. Like I'm a party guy.
I like to party. I don't really like to drink.
I don't sit around and drink beers the house. I
have beers in my fridge, but they always last forever.
Like time I have a party, I end up with
(02:01):
more beers than I started with because people bring beers
and then I'd never drink at the house, so they
just sit in there for you know, months, literally, And
so I'm just not a drinker. But when I drink,
I normally party drink, and I know how to party drink.
I know I know at the end, I need to
drink us a few waters, take a headache medicine or
something like before bed, and then I wake up fine.
(02:24):
But sometimes when I just have two drinks, I don't
think about it. I don't think to hydrate, and I
don't think to for whatever reason. Often, like just two
drinks gives me a bad hangover. So this morning might
have been a hangover because I had just two drinks yesterday,
but it yeah, I don't know, I don't know. Anyway,
that's enough speculation about my headache. I'm sorry you're having
your pain shit too?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Oh yes, Impin's nerve shit you know? Yeah, yeah, no,
I know this tough time.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, let's turn to this, this universe that we look
to for for comfort and in our in our time
of pain, let's.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Speak of pain.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes, that's probably a better way to say it.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
This might be the my least favorite Star Trek episode
of all time.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's a really high bar. Going that far makes me
want to defend it. But I'm not far off from
you where you are, like this is a cartoon of
an episode. Yeah, and even living in the like okay
forgiving it for all the cannon problems of like, that's
not how vulcans work. Like that, we knew this. We
(03:32):
me and You've been talking about and like dreading this
episode since the beginning of the season, since the trailer
came out. They released a clip of this, and we
were like, this is stupid, that's not how vulcans work.
But like this was such a cartoon Like when he
rose and this isn't the trailer too, I think when
he rose up as a vulcan and had different hair.
I mean, like that is just like a such a joke,
(03:54):
you know what I mean. It is such a like
lack of care that the world you're building even has
any kind of like reality feeling at all, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, I mean I was gonna say, they've had, you know,
a bunch of it and I made a series, but this
is the first time Star Trek has been a cartoon.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, that is very much how I felt. That's very
like this felt to me in some ways more it
felt as cartoonish as Lower Decks. And like we've talked
about how Lower Decks was kind of like successful in
what it was doing and people liked it. So this
show has kind of adopted some of the tone of
lower decks at times. But this is the first episode
where I just felt like it felt I mean, it
(04:37):
felt like they gave it to a cartoon right to
write it or something. It didn't feel like the show
at all.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, I feel like the people running this show don't
know what the hell they're doing. That's just my that's
my personal feeling. Like they might turn out some really
good ones, but I mean, especially since like last season,
it feels like it's just been getting a little sillier
and a little sillier, a little more ridiculous, and uh,
(05:03):
you know, and they're kind of ignoring, you know, some
of the some of what they're they're they I don't
think they realize they're saying it, but I kind of
feel like when you're telling me in a hand wavy fashion, yeah,
we gave that the serum has you know, it is
transferring over spots years of you know, logic training, and shit,
(05:24):
I'm like, that sounds like genetic determinism.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I don't wait, wait, wait wait, did they say that?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I listened closely and did not hear that line. I
literally rewound rewound it and did not hear that line.
It's in there, Okay, yeah, it's stupid. It's stupid for sure,
Like if you if you have that ability at least
if that line's in there, which I honestly I literally
listened to it twice because I was like, there's no
explanation for their like they're having logic, And then I
(05:54):
rewound it and listened again because I was like, am
I am I just missing it? Is there some throwaway
line in here? And I missed it twice?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I guess there.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Okay, Yeah, even if you were to do that, you
also need to line about how there's a drawback, because like,
why wouldn't every vulcan just do that? It just doesn't
make any sense, like, yeah, this is a this is
a temporary solution that will only work once or something,
you know, some sort of thing like yeah, it's that's dumb.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I'll tell you this though, Even if you have some
some version of a serum mm hmm that could transfer
over that training, I don't think you would make Captain
Pike act like a conehead. Yeah, that motherfucker did not
act like a vulcan. He was waddling around like a
cone head and screaming at the top of his lungs.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you these characters.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
One of the things that I thought the best joke
of the episode was kind of a joke, I feel
like on a character more than it was a joke,
and that is the fact that they almost they had
Carol Caine take the sarum as well.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'm forgetting her her character's name, right, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
They had Pelia take the Sarum, and it was like, oh,
that would be kind of interesting to see Polia and
Carol Caine tackle being a Vulcan because she's I've never
seen her have I don't know her body of work
that well, but the things I've seen, she's always kind
of this character.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, you've seen her.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I can think of four or five appearances. I don't
want to like say she has no I don't want
to say she has no range because I've only seen
four or five things. But the things I've seen, she
is this character, and it kind of feels like them
like they were joking about her lack of range. It
was like, hey, let's let's give her the serum see
(07:51):
if it works, and and the audience goes, oh, interesting,
Carol Kine trying to be a Vulcan. That would be interesting,
and then she's like, Nope, not gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Once again. Though really all she contributed to the entire
episode was explaining that I did a thing and dush
exties okay, yeah, once again, mentioning how old you are?
Mm hmmm, it's so boring. Please get get her the
fuck off of my screen. Hmmm.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I don't mind her for the most part. She's not
my favorite thing in the show. But this character is
just too I don't have that. I don't have the
same hatred that you do for her.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
She's just become like the same joke over and over again,
and about half of what she says. You can barely
understand what she says. You have to play on subtitles.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That is the thing that I think Strange New Worlds
has a habit of doing is just And I said,
I said, how different it felt that episode where we
finally had I believe it's when they go down to
the planet, the Q planet or whatever we speculated with
a que planet with.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
The with the Pawraith or whatever vesca Pa.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
They they go down there, they get that one guy.
I was talking about how like interesting it was to
see a character just like being excited to be in
Starfleet and have this like starfleet experience and just like
living his life as a star Fleet officer and him
doing his little recordings and stuff, and it was just
like it felt like star Trek to me. And that's
one of the things I loved about that episode. And yeah,
(09:22):
they have a bad habit of having these characters that
they're only there to make the kind of like silly
jokes they make. They're not often like doing anything with
their job, especially now that Scotty's on the ship. Pelia
is just hanging out in her room and they've got
Scotty doing all the engineering.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
She literally interrupted like the briefing to go you know
up hop. Yeah. Yeah, that was so ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I was watching that. I was just like, this is
so like he looks annoyed at her, like he's not
happy to be sitting there with her. It's not like
this is a funny gag they have.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I don't know why she's in.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That chair next to him, and it just felt so awkward.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
M hmm. I missed the blind and Dorian guy. I
just oh, me too, me too. He was great. He
was so good. I don't remember his name at the moment,
but it's been a while.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
One part of this episode I did like, Okay, I
did like one thing. I liked Patton Oswalt's a. Doug
was his name. Yeah, I know it's silly, and in
the context of the rest of the episode, it's like
a cherry on top of all the rest of the silliness.
But if you just take that section and move it
to another episode, the idea of Doug the vulcan who's
(10:40):
fascinated with human human human experience and like wants to
focus on that and like name this kid's children his
children Earth names, and like wants to experience Earth. I
thought that was a fun little little thing. And the
love story between him and Una like the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
It was that that worked for me. It's like the
whole ABC plot thing where a lot of times the
start trek you get an A plot that sort of serious,
a B plot that's relational, and then a sea plot
that's like a silly joke. That would have been a
really nice sea plot, which it was in this episode,
but unfortunately the A and B plots in this episode.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Were also just silly, kind of drek. Yeah. I did
not I didn't. I wasn't a big fan of it,
and honestly, like, I was so pissed off with the
way they presented him because it's like he's built up
as this character who like, you know, he's this this
(11:37):
axe of Ounah's that she just doesn't she can't be
around and stuff. And they did the stupid thing where
they show like the hot guy and you tricked the
audience for a second and thinking like, oh, yeah, that
makes sense, and then he moves aside and it's like
the squat, little fat guy and I'm like, mm hmm,
that's some punching down shit that I didn't want to
(11:58):
see from Star Trek.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Interesting I hear that I didn't take it that way.
I took it the way of like, UNA's not so
uh superficial, and it's a surprise because it's it's Una,
and she's played by Rebecca Romaine, and it's like she's
she's a model, and so you might expect the person like,
(12:21):
as an audience, we have the expectation that it might
be a like, uh, like some hot guy that's she's
so sexually attracted to. But but that's that's that's not
what she cares about. And I didn't feel like they
treated their relationship as any less sexy and like drawing
her in even after his introduction, you know what I mean.
(12:42):
And it's not like the other characters were going like, God,
what are you thinking? You know what I mean, it's
a it's a little gag. It's a little sight gag.
I agree, But like to me, it was more like,
I bet you expected this. Nah, she she's she's into
she's into Patton Oswalt type. And and I, I guess
I didn't mind it. I thought it was kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, like I didn't. I didn't mind the way they
represented it after that gag, but the fact that it
was it was introduced with that gag annoyed. It was like,
I hear that could not stop themselves from making some
kind of commentary on it.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Well, I'm also, yeah, I hear that, But I also
think like, while this is a utopia, we don't live
in that utopia, and so like not commenting on it
in any way feels like it's gonna be something people
are gonna comment on. But I like, at the end
(13:37):
of the episode, it doesn't end with her like coming
to her senses, right, you know what? I mean it
ends with them like going to be together, and it's
like cool, like is he gonna be on the ship
some is he gonna be like a lover of UNA's
for the next year, Like I would love that.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
I think that's cool.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
For representation for schlubby, fat guys who end up punching
away above their weight when it comes to or below
their weight, however you want to put it, uh, when
it comes to when it comes to the classic beauty
of their partners.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
You know, if they were going for that gag though,
you know, I don't know, Patton might not be the one.
His his wife is pretty attractive in real life.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So well, yeah, I mean, but yeah, sure, And I'm
not going to comment on that. I like, it's it's
an awkward thing to comment on period, so you know whatever,
Like I don't.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
It's just an odd choice all around for Star Trek,
is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Like, hmm, yeah, use me that gag at the beginning,
like it was a gag that has been in a
bunch of shows.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
It's really played.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah no, this entire episode is nothing but played gags.
Like it's nothing but gags the whole time. It's silly
it doesn't have any meat to it at all. I
do not like this episode. Yeah, four Modern Trek. It
might be one of these favorite episodes.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
This one and that one from a few weeks ago
up to the murder mystery are two of my are
my least favorite Strange New World's episodes. Yeah, there have
been some weak Strangely World's episodes, but those were bad.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
In my opinion. I agree we're bad. I don't want
to say I mean, I don't like to just be like,
this is the worst Star Trek ever period. I'm sure
that I could find one that might be worse, but
all of the really bad ones in my memory. I
was thinking about it, and I'm like, h no, I'd
watch Threshold before this again. Yeah, no, I'd watch spock
(15:31):
Spring before this. I'd watch that episode of DS nine
where last Year becomes possessed and apparently didn't like the
storyline so you overacted on a purpose. I'll watch that again.
I don't like this episode so much. Yeah, I'm with you.
It's it's bad. It's just bad. There was an interesting
(15:54):
possibility with Laan. What does the vulcan DNA do with
the augment DNA I feel like they took way too
fucking long to figure that out. Mm hmm. Like I
was like, Oh, something's gonna happen with Lawn. She's gonna
become a bad guy. I knew it immediately. As soon
as they saw her as part of the group. I
(16:16):
was like, Oh, yeah, that's not gonna mix. Well. The
Vulcans were a violent race, right.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
They also combined it with the idea of the Romulans
for a second.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Which was which was ad I do think that.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Scene was funny, then be it's funny, but not for Vulcans.
It made all the Vulcans. I know that part of
the Vulcan thing is that they think they're all good,
but they're they're just as flawed as humans are. They're
just flawed in different ways and they're arrogant. But that
(16:49):
moment where they're like, uh I thought it was a
funny gag, when they're like, we we don't uh I
heard about a thing on a previous mission. Oh me too,
We say it at the same time, Romulans, we should
speak of this no more. And they turn around like
it was a funny. It was well delivered.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It's a funny little.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Joke, but it doesn't make any sense from vulcans. It
doesn't make any Also, like m Binga was on the
side of the people who were trying to like commit
a mutiny. Basically he's the medical officer. He could just say, like,
you gotta you're not the captain anymore. Yeah, completely realistically,
(17:27):
and like in the chain of command, he could just
be like, uh, you're not the captain, Like you gotta
step down for a while. We gotta fix this.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Oh you know, you know what else Imbinga is canonically,
im Benga is an expert on vulcans.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh thrown out? Mm hmm, maybe he's not yet.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
No, no, he interned. It was Yeah, it's the whole
thing from original series.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Okay, it was yeah yeah, yeah, Well I guess I
like we could go into each storyline or we could
just leave it like it.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Really just not I'm not very impressed with this episode.
I'll tell you what I laughed at in the episode. Yeah,
at the very beginning when when Spock wanted to sit
with Lawn and Una and they were just so weird
about it, and then it just cuts it. They like
look back over it at him eating alone and he's
(18:29):
just it's just kind of cluelessly chomping, like I don't know. Yeah,
that made me laugh. That made me laugh. That's funny.
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That made you laugh. That made me think they were
It's so funny all this episode. I feel like, even
the parts that we both tried to like, yeah, the
other person's like I was stupid. I didn't like that
because it made it feel it felt a little like
they were making a joke of Spock.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Oh yeah, they definitely were, And I agree. There was
a part of me that was pissed off about that
because I feel like the Spock that I am a
fan of is just so far above that shit. But
at the same time like it. It made me laugh
because it was something that I would write if that's
(19:14):
that sounds so conceited, but there's something I would write
for myself, not for like Spock, but that is totally
a thing that I would like create a character around,
whereas he's just like okay, and while they're spiraling, he's
just over there like happily chomping on a sandwich. You know. Yeah,
it's yeah, it doesn't work for Spock, but it was
(19:35):
funny overall over like, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
This episode is like a cartoon, but it's a it's
a competently written and acted cartoon.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I don't even think that's true, but I do.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
I think like if you if you take away the
Star Trek universe from it and you're not worried about
any of the weird cannon things or whatever, like, I
think it's fine. But it's just nothing, nothing that I
want from Star Trek. I don't want this in Star
Trek at all.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I'm not. I just did not enjoy it at all. Yeah.
I I hated the weird I don't know dance number,
fight dance number in her head? Oh yeah, the mind
meld that was dumb, with the spotlight following them. Yeah,
I just hated it. I hated everything. Almost everything everything
about this episode I hated. I hated they changed the
(20:25):
opening Uh monologue? Did you did you skip it? Uh? No?
I listened to it. It was bad. Yeah, it was it. Really.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
It feels like they were to, hey, we're gonna do
it everybody gets to be a Vulcan episode, and we're
not going to really discuss what it means to be
a Vulcan at all. We're just gonna do try to
get everyone to use a flat affect and yeah, it
just yeah, it just it's such a thin version of
what it means to be a vulcan that it is
insulting to me.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Mm hmmm, which is silly because I feel like.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Like an ownership of of these characters, and like, if
you're gonna do an episode about what it means to
be a vulcan and like what it would mean for
Pike to understand what it's like to be a vulcan
and what it would mean for all these different characters
to experience being a vulcan and like what those emotions mean,
and even even if they could figure out a way
to like, instead of having them do whatever in the
(21:23):
serum the line I missed, let like let them experience
the extreme emotions, then let Spock help them control it
with a mind meld, you know, mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
That's that would have been much better.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
They could have gone into the fact that Spock felt
like he was being bullied again, like he triggered from
his youth, because they can. Yeah, well they did a
little bit. They do that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
They like play with the fact that he's just annoyed,
but like all of that could have been interesting to me.
Like I could see a rewrite of this episode that
could have fit really well in the Star Trek universe
and been interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
But not with magic care. Yeah, not with magic.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Hair and like like a serum that fixes their emotions
and a and no discussion of what it really means
to be vulcan or like what these things like these walls,
you know what even really interesting? They they get Spocked
to do a mind meld with them, but you know
(22:22):
how mind melds have that sort of effect on the
person doing them.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, like have him have.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
To take on like he fixes their walls so they
can go to the mission, but it makes him like
really have to let all his emotion out, you know,
like his his walls fall down. And then you've got
like the B plot is Spock is in the brig
like freaking out, you know what I mean, Like Spock
is Spock is or in his quarters trying to control himself,
(22:48):
trying to and like having to deal with what his
emotions mean and having like a real conversation with Chapel
or with whoever.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
On I'm not sure I would have gone that way personally,
like just because they this is sort of a sequel
to the episode where he became human and suddenly all
of his walls were down.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Wait, I'm forget I don't remember the details that episode.
All his walls were down when he was a human. Yeah,
that doesn't make any sense either.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
They also didn't do very They didn't make any Yeah,
that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
So like, if you were a human, you'd just be
less emotional and still have all of the training.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, Stu wid thing. That makes no sense either.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I don't remember what we thought of that episode at
the time, but that's dumb just on the face of it.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's been a long time so we
saw that one. So so to me, like, I want
to know, how does Vulcan Pike think about, you know,
his fate that's coming.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Oh yeah, exactly exactly, Like I deal with the actual
character and what is being a Vulcan mean? What is
the logic of understanding the future and time travel? And
oh that's that's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah. I wanted to see Lawn tapping into that violent
history of Vulcan and what it means with her you know,
augment DNA, Like that's what I wanted to say. I
didn't wanted to see she became a cartoon villain. Yeah,
a silly villain, it's all. It's also you want to
know this one of the silliest moments the episode for me,
(24:16):
when they beam down to the planet and they're like,
it's gonna take a few hours. We're done. Yep, there's
a way to play that, And I feel like, why
the fuck did Pike bring Alerpa? What's Alurpa? The big
the big fighting stick with the blade. Oh, that makes
(24:38):
no sense, makes no sense, no sense at all.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Maybe maybe they're security officers from Vulcan ships carry those
or something like they're pretending to be a Vulcan crew.
Maybe security officers carry them in this situation, I don't know. Uh,
I'm trying to headcan and a thing that makes no sense.
But the like TNG would have done this joke, or
Discovery or any of these shows would have done that
same joke of like, it's gonna take three and a
(25:04):
half hours and they're back in like maybe forty minutes, right,
Like it would have made sense if they were like, well,
it's saying that it's gonna according to the schedule, a
schedule we had set up, set up. It's gonna take
them about three and a half hours, and they get
an alert. It's like they're done. Wait but it's only
even forty minutes. Like that's the joke you make, you
don't make. They beam down, it's gonna take three and
(25:24):
a half hours, and then they beam back up.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Like it's so stupid.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
You don't have time to like put down your like
gear yet, Like you don't have time to they're not
the flash, Like it's not it's so dumb. It's so
like obviously a cartoon to the point of breaking the
universe that it really pisss me off.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, you want to know what my head canon is
for this episode? By the way, what's that this is
the way? This is the way it happened according to Pelia.
I think somewhere telling the story and embellishing the out
of it. Yeah, all the dumb episodes, we just say
it's Pelia's misremembered moments. I like that that works for me.
(26:12):
Or it could also be that this is the way
that Mariner tells the story of what happened back then, right, Yeah,
like one of the people from lower Decks. Oh my god,
So this is what happened? Okay, yeah, because it just
doesn't work. It doesn't work in the universe. No, it
doesn't at all.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
There's a bunch of stuff that's like literally just broken
and doesn't work in the universe and it's annoying.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Okay, it sucks. Do we have any feedback? Huh do
we have any feedback? Uh? Yeah, Stu little Rodin. Okay,
I love you Andre.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
But I I'm sort of glad we don't have a
really positive one from Andre this week.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, I didn't see one. Also, didn't look really hard.
I know.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
I'm saying this to say I love Andre and I
appreciate his feedback. They may they often make me feel
like a little Oh that's an interesting take on the episode,
But like, I don't have a positive thoughts about this
episode at all, and it'd be really hard to like not
just be like no, Andre, No, don't even do it.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Sorry. Yeah, so Stu says oof, hmm, indeed, that's it.
That's his whole thing. That was his entire email.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
That's the Jesus Wept of Stu emails.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Do you know that community episode? No, I don't think
I know. It's talking about I was laughing about that
all week someone reminded me of it, not that it
takes very much to remind me of community things. But
there's an episode in like season five or six where
the Dean I can't remember how he comes into possession
(28:04):
of this, but he gets like an old like nineties
VR system and he's like in the little like enclosure
and he's got the headsett on and he keeps like
he's like, oh my god, I'm more powerful than anyone
could have imagined. He just feels like a god in
this thing. And he's like climbing up a wall of files.
(28:29):
He's like transitioned to everything in the school over to
this stupid VR system and he has to like climb
mountains to get to files and destroy them. But he
just keeps screaming like Jesus wept for there were no
more worlds to conquer. At some point, he just very
(28:53):
boisterously screams Jesus wept, and Jeff, it's like, stop saying
Jesus wept.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
It's really funny. What who is that? What is that
from he wept for? There's like that's from something else?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I was trying to think like who that is? It's
a very okay, yeah, I'm looking it up on Google.
Uh yeah, apparently attributed to Oxander the Great.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I don't know if it's from a.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, they wept because he had conquered all available worlds.
The historical texts suggest he wept because he learned there
was there were an infinite number of other worlds and
he had not yet conquered any of them.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
What okay this Google AI.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Is no, you can't, but I just it normally gets
like the top line right, but then when you literal
you down, it's just like what what is happening? Sometimes
what really annoys me is when I'm with me and
uh the Nashley Coffin. We're on an MCU cast episode
one time, and we were trying to find out how
many episodes something had, and we both searched at the
same time, and I was like, oh, hey, let's se
(30:06):
it has eight episodes, and she's like, it has six episodes,
and we were both looking at Google AI, like the
answer on Google AI, and it's just different, like something
about her algorithm versus my algorithm. Yeah, gave her just
the different answer than I got, and we're both like
what the hell, Like, what is going on here?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
That they put that there for the Joe Rogan search
what do you mean? So? And Joe Rogan is on
his podcast and he says, hey, look that up. They
put that there the incorrect information so that you can
spout that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, indeed, indeed, Oh is it Ozzi Mandias who has
that line? I'm sorry, never mind, Ozzy Mandia set uses
that line, and Watchman apparently that Alexander the Great Web
for the number worlds to conquer.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, that yeah, that was totally a reference, though no,
I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I was thinking it might be because Ozi Mandias the character
is a reference to the poem, and I was wondering
if the poem Ozzy Mandius had referenced it, and then
I clicked on it and it was a Watchman reference.
I was like, oh, never mind. It was like, wait,
is that line in the Ozzy Mandia's poem, like the
old school whatever? Yeah, nope, never mind.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
By the way, when Patton Oswald's character says, uh really
has a full vulcan I cannot lie, he should have
known that Vulcans can absolutely lie. They fucking always lie.
That is a thing that's like a It's almost a joke.
That they don't lie, or a myth in the cannon
because they lie. It's always like a little thing like,
(31:39):
well we do. Sometimes it was an exaggeration or some shit.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Right right right, They come up with some sort of
explanation for it. But yeah, I I I thought that
they weren't supposed to be able to lie, but obviously
some can and some do. Like obviously there was there
have been like conspiracies where the Vulcans were, you know,
firing to do something, and you can't really do that
without a lie.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Secrets. You have to able to keep secrets and lie. Well,
there was like like in the original series, there was
a thing where it was like Vulcans don't lie, okay,
and then like we would see spot lie and it
would be kind of it was an exaggeration, you know,
like the original the original movies. Yeah, oh oh, okay, interesting.
(32:26):
But you know we had the whole thing in two
thousand and nine where Sarah talks about you know, he
said that it was logical to marry his mother and
then he's like, that was a lie. I married her
because a lover. But I don't want to admit that
I love because I'm a vulcan Like that's those are
fucking lies, dude, Like yeah, canonically they have lied, yeah
for sure, over and over.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, all right, well that's about all I got. Yeah,
anything else you want to say with this episode?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Strike it from Cannon agreed.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
This might be the short episode of our podcast we've done,
because we always get on here thinking we're gonna do
a short one, and we always go an hour.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I tried, I tried to you know, by the way,
why is Beto there? What? And also like why is
a guy who was just like they're like, oh, he's
a people pleaser. You didn't know that about him as
one of the best parts about him. And I'm like,
this is a dude who was just making a documentary
(33:27):
trying to claim that Starfleet was full of colonizers, Like.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, that's not a very people please reaction. Like yeah,
if he was willing an episode ago to burn down
their relationship to and lie to her and like secretly
record her and all this stuff, and now he's not
willing to hold on his own personality like yeah, it
just doesn't know, Yeah, that doesn't line up that and
(33:50):
that is something about you know, the sloppiness of this
show and and this this happens on All Star Trek.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sometimes the characters are not well defined. Sometimes they're not
well defined, and then like later they become well defined.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
But you know, like.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You can watch a show and if the show is
well written and the characters well defined, you know how
they'll react to certain things. And this show, it's driven
by whatever they want the story to be, whatever the
plot is, they'll react the way they want it to.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
It's the opposite of that sort of.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Breaking bad Vince Gilligan ethos of like we just you know,
whatever the characters are gonna go through, they're gonna make
the decisions they're gonna make, and we got to decide
what those decisions are, and then based on those decisions
to do what the next decisions would be. You know,
what's the best decision for the characters to make based
on who they are? Like that's that ohld Vince Gilligan thing.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Mm hmm. And this is very much the opposite.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It's like, we want a funny Vulcan episode and we
want Betto to give up his personality even though he
just did a documentary that would have burned this relationship down.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Like yeah, it makes us sense. If I was Chris
Parnell and I the guy who just took over not
this s no guy, and I saw this episode, I
would fire every fucking person in charge of this show.
Mm yeah you would. I absolutely would, Like there's no
doubt about it. I would go in and just be like,
(35:19):
this is unacceptable. Yeah, it is unacceptable. This is an
unacceptable Star Trek episode. And I do not accept it.
I mean, you know it's there, it's cannon whatever, but
I but I hate it, hate it with passion, and
it sucks. I'm glad the last three were good.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
I really am, because like I was already in a
dark place fives four episodes ago, and then we got
three good ones in a row, and I'm like, Okay,
I can survive this one and head into the last
final two.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
You know I can.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
I survived. My love for Star Trek survives even this
because they gave me three good ones.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Right, I mean even still, though I've said it on
the show, I've been walking around I say this part,
but I've been It's like I've been walking around with
a splinter in my foot because I know that Vulcan
episode's coming. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, and we made it through. We made it through week.
We survived. H My love of Star Trek is intact,
but I'm pretty annoyed at it right now.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah. Pretty rough.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
All right, Well, great to talk to you, Dave.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, man, like what, sorry, it took a minute for
us to get on the show. No, totally fine. Al right, man,
I'll talk to you soon. All right, man, bye, wait
wait Joe Lontrue and all that show.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, I literally felt like we're on the phone. That
was really funny. Yeah, we didn't do anything in the show,
Like we were just talking. We're commiserating about how bad
this episode is. We forgot we were on a podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
That's amazing. That's fucking amazing.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
That has never happened to me that I'm just like,
literally completely forgot there was an audience that I was
making a podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah. This is one of those shows though, where I
was just like, I'm a little scared for our friendship.
I'm pretty sure he's gonna hate this. I don't know
if it could survive us him liking.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
It though, Yeah, No, I didn't like it. It's like
there's just no there's no way this kind of cannon
breaking and like world breaking, there's no acting like it.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I just it's not it's not in me. I'm not
this that kind of fan. So yeah, thirty five year
old year friendship might have ended like this this episode.
Now that's funny. I would have been concerned. No no, no,
no no, this isn't matt Who are you? Oh? Man?
(37:32):
Joel n True, Live, long, and prosper.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Thank you for listening to the Star Trek Universe podcast,
a Stranded Panda production. If you'd like to hear more
from David C. Robertson, check out the DC on Screen
podcast or Malagistic dot.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Tv for his web videos.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
If you'd like to hear more from Matthew Carol, check
out the Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast or listen to his music.
Just search for math if you Carol anywhere you get
music
On this episode of Star Trek Universe, we were talking
about strange new worlds three eight, four and a half vulcans.
After these words from our mystery sponsors, welcome to Star Treking.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
I guess we can listen on two lifelong friends and
chat about Star Trek.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
My name's Matthew Carroll. I'm David c. Robertson. Yeah. How's
it going, man, Oh it's okay. It's you know, chronic
pain filled.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, I had a cute pain today, not so chronic,
just a lot of I woke up with a terrible
headache and like I just I've been having more of
a lately. It's been not good. I gotta figure out
what's going on with that. I think it's just tension,
headaches or some shit. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Maybe you should have your eyes checked. Yeah, no, they're
they're bad. I think my eyes are getting bad. I
think my old age just catching up.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
It's a thing where you're ocular nerves swell mm hmm.
And sometimes it could be, you know, due to Wait,
sometimes it can be due to other issues much worse.
You hope us Wait, that's the thing. But it's apparently
kind of common. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
It could be I am getting a little bit worth
worse I sight with my old age, but there are
a number of reasons it might have been happening today.
But also I think just to stress stress. I'm stressed, man.
But things are getting things are getting better. Honestly, We've
had some good turns this week that I'll tell you
about off cast, but good, good things moving, a little
little reduction of stress, so I'm hoping that'll all be good.
(01:39):
I also had two drinks yesterday. And here's the thing.
I'm a binge drinker. I don't drink that often. When
I do, I like to rage. Like I'm a party guy.
I like to party. I don't really like to drink.
I don't sit around and drink beers the house. I
have beers in my fridge, but they always last forever.
Like time I have a party, I end up with
(02:01):
more beers than I started with because people bring beers
and then I'd never drink at the house, so they
just sit in there for you know, months, literally, And
so I'm just not a drinker. But when I drink,
I normally party drink, and I know how to party drink.
I know I know at the end, I need to
drink us a few waters, take a headache medicine or
something like before bed, and then I wake up fine.
(02:24):
But sometimes when I just have two drinks, I don't
think about it. I don't think to hydrate, and I
don't think to for whatever reason. Often, like just two
drinks gives me a bad hangover. So this morning might
have been a hangover because I had just two drinks yesterday,
but it yeah, I don't know, I don't know. Anyway,
that's enough speculation about my headache. I'm sorry you're having
your pain shit too?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Oh yes, Impin's nerve shit you know? Yeah, yeah, no,
I know this tough time.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Well, let's turn to this, this universe that we look
to for for comfort and in our in our time
of pain, let's.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
Speak of pain.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yes, that's probably a better way to say it.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
This might be the my least favorite Star Trek episode
of all time.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's a really high bar. Going that far makes me
want to defend it. But I'm not far off from
you where you are, like this is a cartoon of
an episode. Yeah, and even living in the like okay
forgiving it for all the cannon problems of like, that's
not how vulcans work. Like that, we knew this. We
(03:32):
me and You've been talking about and like dreading this
episode since the beginning of the season, since the trailer
came out. They released a clip of this, and we
were like, this is stupid, that's not how vulcans work.
But like this was such a cartoon Like when he
rose and this isn't the trailer too, I think when
he rose up as a vulcan and had different hair.
I mean, like that is just like a such a joke,
(03:54):
you know what I mean. It is such a like
lack of care that the world you're building even has
any kind of like reality feeling at all, you know.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, I mean I was gonna say, they've had, you know,
a bunch of it and I made a series, but this
is the first time Star Trek has been a cartoon.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, that is very much how I felt. That's very
like this felt to me in some ways more it
felt as cartoonish as Lower Decks. And like we've talked
about how Lower Decks was kind of like successful in
what it was doing and people liked it. So this
show has kind of adopted some of the tone of
lower decks at times. But this is the first episode
where I just felt like it felt I mean, it
(04:37):
felt like they gave it to a cartoon right to
write it or something. It didn't feel like the show
at all.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah, I feel like the people running this show don't
know what the hell they're doing. That's just my that's
my personal feeling. Like they might turn out some really
good ones, but I mean, especially since like last season,
it feels like it's just been getting a little sillier
and a little sillier, a little more ridiculous, and uh,
(05:03):
you know, and they're kind of ignoring, you know, some
of the some of what they're they're they I don't
think they realize they're saying it, but I kind of
feel like when you're telling me in a hand wavy fashion, yeah,
we gave that the serum has you know, it is
transferring over spots years of you know, logic training, and shit,
(05:24):
I'm like, that sounds like genetic determinism.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
I don't wait, wait, wait wait, did they say that?
Speaker 1 (05:30):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I listened closely and did not hear that line. I
literally rewound rewound it and did not hear that line.
It's in there, Okay, yeah, it's stupid. It's stupid for sure,
Like if you if you have that ability at least
if that line's in there, which I honestly I literally
listened to it twice because I was like, there's no
explanation for their like they're having logic, And then I
(05:54):
rewound it and listened again because I was like, am
I am I just missing it? Is there some throwaway
line in here? And I missed it twice?
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I guess there.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Okay, Yeah, even if you were to do that, you
also need to line about how there's a drawback, because like,
why wouldn't every vulcan just do that? It just doesn't
make any sense, like, yeah, this is a this is
a temporary solution that will only work once or something,
you know, some sort of thing like yeah, it's that's dumb.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
I'll tell you this though, Even if you have some
some version of a serum mm hmm that could transfer
over that training, I don't think you would make Captain
Pike act like a conehead. Yeah, that motherfucker did not
act like a vulcan. He was waddling around like a
cone head and screaming at the top of his lungs.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, yeah, I'm with you these characters.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
One of the things that I thought the best joke
of the episode was kind of a joke, I feel
like on a character more than it was a joke,
and that is the fact that they almost they had
Carol Caine take the sarum as well.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I'm forgetting her her character's name, right, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
They had Pelia take the Sarum, and it was like, oh,
that would be kind of interesting to see Polia and
Carol Caine tackle being a Vulcan because she's I've never
seen her have I don't know her body of work
that well, but the things I've seen, she's always kind
of this character.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
Yeah, you've seen her.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I can think of four or five appearances. I don't
want to like say she has no I don't want
to say she has no range because I've only seen
four or five things. But the things I've seen, she
is this character, and it kind of feels like them
like they were joking about her lack of range. It
was like, hey, let's let's give her the serum see
(07:51):
if it works, and and the audience goes, oh, interesting,
Carol Kine trying to be a Vulcan. That would be interesting,
and then she's like, Nope, not gonna do it.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Once again. Though really all she contributed to the entire
episode was explaining that I did a thing and dush
exties okay, yeah, once again, mentioning how old you are?
Mm hmmm, it's so boring. Please get get her the
fuck off of my screen. Hmmm.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
I don't mind her for the most part. She's not
my favorite thing in the show. But this character is
just too I don't have that. I don't have the
same hatred that you do for her.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
She's just become like the same joke over and over again,
and about half of what she says. You can barely
understand what she says. You have to play on subtitles.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
That is the thing that I think Strange New Worlds
has a habit of doing is just And I said,
I said, how different it felt that episode where we
finally had I believe it's when they go down to
the planet, the Q planet or whatever we speculated with
a que planet with.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
The with the Pawraith or whatever vesca Pa.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
They they go down there, they get that one guy.
I was talking about how like interesting it was to
see a character just like being excited to be in
Starfleet and have this like starfleet experience and just like
living his life as a star Fleet officer and him
doing his little recordings and stuff, and it was just
like it felt like star Trek to me. And that's
one of the things I loved about that episode. And yeah,
(09:22):
they have a bad habit of having these characters that
they're only there to make the kind of like silly
jokes they make. They're not often like doing anything with
their job, especially now that Scotty's on the ship. Pelia
is just hanging out in her room and they've got
Scotty doing all the engineering.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
She literally interrupted like the briefing to go you know
up hop. Yeah. Yeah, that was so ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
I was watching that. I was just like, this is
so like he looks annoyed at her, like he's not
happy to be sitting there with her. It's not like
this is a funny gag they have.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
I don't know why she's in.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
That chair next to him, and it just felt so awkward.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
M hmm. I missed the blind and Dorian guy. I
just oh, me too, me too. He was great. He
was so good. I don't remember his name at the moment,
but it's been a while.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
One part of this episode I did like, Okay, I
did like one thing. I liked Patton Oswalt's a. Doug
was his name. Yeah, I know it's silly, and in
the context of the rest of the episode, it's like
a cherry on top of all the rest of the silliness.
But if you just take that section and move it
to another episode, the idea of Doug the vulcan who's
(10:40):
fascinated with human human human experience and like wants to
focus on that and like name this kid's children his
children Earth names, and like wants to experience Earth. I
thought that was a fun little little thing. And the
love story between him and Una like the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
I like it.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
It was that that worked for me. It's like the
whole ABC plot thing where a lot of times the
start trek you get an A plot that sort of serious,
a B plot that's relational, and then a sea plot
that's like a silly joke. That would have been a
really nice sea plot, which it was in this episode,
but unfortunately the A and B plots in this episode.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
Were also just silly, kind of drek. Yeah. I did
not I didn't. I wasn't a big fan of it,
and honestly, like, I was so pissed off with the
way they presented him because it's like he's built up
as this character who like, you know, he's this this
(11:37):
axe of Ounah's that she just doesn't she can't be
around and stuff. And they did the stupid thing where
they show like the hot guy and you tricked the
audience for a second and thinking like, oh, yeah, that
makes sense, and then he moves aside and it's like
the squat, little fat guy and I'm like, mm hmm,
that's some punching down shit that I didn't want to
(11:58):
see from Star Trek.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Interesting I hear that I didn't take it that way.
I took it the way of like, UNA's not so
uh superficial, and it's a surprise because it's it's Una,
and she's played by Rebecca Romaine, and it's like she's
she's a model, and so you might expect the person like,
(12:21):
as an audience, we have the expectation that it might
be a like, uh, like some hot guy that's she's
so sexually attracted to. But but that's that's that's not
what she cares about. And I didn't feel like they
treated their relationship as any less sexy and like drawing
her in even after his introduction, you know what I mean.
(12:42):
And it's not like the other characters were going like, God,
what are you thinking? You know what I mean, it's
a it's a little gag. It's a little sight gag.
I agree, But like to me, it was more like,
I bet you expected this. Nah, she she's she's into
she's into Patton Oswalt type. And and I, I guess
I didn't mind it. I thought it was kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, like I didn't. I didn't mind the way they
represented it after that gag, but the fact that it
was it was introduced with that gag annoyed. It was like,
I hear that could not stop themselves from making some
kind of commentary on it.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Well, I'm also, yeah, I hear that, But I also
think like, while this is a utopia, we don't live
in that utopia, and so like not commenting on it
in any way feels like it's gonna be something people
are gonna comment on. But I like, at the end
(13:37):
of the episode, it doesn't end with her like coming
to her senses, right, you know what? I mean it
ends with them like going to be together, and it's
like cool, like is he gonna be on the ship
some is he gonna be like a lover of UNA's
for the next year, Like I would love that.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
I think that's cool.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
For representation for schlubby, fat guys who end up punching
away above their weight when it comes to or below
their weight, however you want to put it, uh, when
it comes to when it comes to the classic beauty
of their partners.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
You know, if they were going for that gag though,
you know, I don't know, Patton might not be the one.
His his wife is pretty attractive in real life.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
So well, yeah, I mean, but yeah, sure, And I'm
not going to comment on that. I like, it's it's
an awkward thing to comment on period, so you know whatever,
Like I don't.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
It's just an odd choice all around for Star Trek,
is what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Like, hmm, yeah, use me that gag at the beginning,
like it was a gag that has been in a
bunch of shows.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
It's really played.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah no, this entire episode is nothing but played gags.
Like it's nothing but gags the whole time. It's silly
it doesn't have any meat to it at all. I
do not like this episode. Yeah, four Modern Trek. It
might be one of these favorite episodes.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
This one and that one from a few weeks ago
up to the murder mystery are two of my are
my least favorite Strange New World's episodes. Yeah, there have
been some weak Strangely World's episodes, but those were bad.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
In my opinion. I agree we're bad. I don't want
to say I mean, I don't like to just be like,
this is the worst Star Trek ever period. I'm sure
that I could find one that might be worse, but
all of the really bad ones in my memory. I
was thinking about it, and I'm like, h no, I'd
watch Threshold before this again. Yeah, no, I'd watch spock
(15:31):
Spring before this. I'd watch that episode of DS nine
where last Year becomes possessed and apparently didn't like the
storyline so you overacted on a purpose. I'll watch that again.
I don't like this episode so much. Yeah, I'm with you.
It's it's bad. It's just bad. There was an interesting
(15:54):
possibility with Laan. What does the vulcan DNA do with
the augment DNA I feel like they took way too
fucking long to figure that out. Mm hmm. Like I
was like, Oh, something's gonna happen with Lawn. She's gonna
become a bad guy. I knew it immediately. As soon
as they saw her as part of the group. I
(16:16):
was like, Oh, yeah, that's not gonna mix. Well. The
Vulcans were a violent race, right.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
They also combined it with the idea of the Romulans
for a second.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Which was which was ad I do think that.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Scene was funny, then be it's funny, but not for Vulcans.
It made all the Vulcans. I know that part of
the Vulcan thing is that they think they're all good,
but they're they're just as flawed as humans are. They're
just flawed in different ways and they're arrogant. But that
(16:49):
moment where they're like, uh I thought it was a
funny gag, when they're like, we we don't uh I
heard about a thing on a previous mission. Oh me too,
We say it at the same time, Romulans, we should
speak of this no more. And they turn around like
it was a funny. It was well delivered.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
It's a funny little.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Joke, but it doesn't make any sense from vulcans. It
doesn't make any Also, like m Binga was on the
side of the people who were trying to like commit
a mutiny. Basically he's the medical officer. He could just say, like,
you gotta you're not the captain anymore. Yeah, completely realistically,
(17:27):
and like in the chain of command, he could just
be like, uh, you're not the captain, Like you gotta
step down for a while. We gotta fix this.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Oh you know, you know what else Imbinga is canonically,
im Benga is an expert on vulcans.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Oh thrown out? Mm hmm, maybe he's not yet.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
No, no, he interned. It was Yeah, it's the whole
thing from original series.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Okay, it was yeah yeah, yeah, Well I guess I
like we could go into each storyline or we could
just leave it like it.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Really just not I'm not very impressed with this episode.
I'll tell you what I laughed at in the episode. Yeah,
at the very beginning when when Spock wanted to sit
with Lawn and Una and they were just so weird
about it, and then it just cuts it. They like
look back over it at him eating alone and he's
(18:29):
just it's just kind of cluelessly chomping, like I don't know. Yeah,
that made me laugh. That made me laugh. That's funny.
It's funny.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That made you laugh. That made me think they were
It's so funny all this episode. I feel like, even
the parts that we both tried to like, yeah, the
other person's like I was stupid. I didn't like that
because it made it feel it felt a little like
they were making a joke of Spock.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Oh yeah, they definitely were, And I agree. There was
a part of me that was pissed off about that
because I feel like the Spock that I am a
fan of is just so far above that shit. But
at the same time like it. It made me laugh
because it was something that I would write if that's
(19:14):
that sounds so conceited, but there's something I would write
for myself, not for like Spock, but that is totally
a thing that I would like create a character around,
whereas he's just like okay, and while they're spiraling, he's
just over there like happily chomping on a sandwich. You know. Yeah,
it's yeah, it doesn't work for Spock, but it was
(19:35):
funny overall over like, that's the thing.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
This episode is like a cartoon, but it's a it's
a competently written and acted cartoon.
Speaker 1 (19:45):
I don't even think that's true, but I do.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
I think like if you if you take away the
Star Trek universe from it and you're not worried about
any of the weird cannon things or whatever, like, I
think it's fine. But it's just nothing, nothing that I
want from Star Trek. I don't want this in Star
Trek at all.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
I'm not. I just did not enjoy it at all. Yeah.
I I hated the weird I don't know dance number,
fight dance number in her head? Oh yeah, the mind
meld that was dumb, with the spotlight following them. Yeah,
I just hated it. I hated everything. Almost everything everything
about this episode I hated. I hated they changed the
(20:25):
opening Uh monologue? Did you did you skip it? Uh? No?
I listened to it. It was bad. Yeah, it was it. Really.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
It feels like they were to, hey, we're gonna do
it everybody gets to be a Vulcan episode, and we're
not going to really discuss what it means to be
a Vulcan at all. We're just gonna do try to
get everyone to use a flat affect and yeah, it
just yeah, it just it's such a thin version of
what it means to be a vulcan that it is
insulting to me.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Mm hmmm, which is silly because I feel like.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Like an ownership of of these characters, and like, if
you're gonna do an episode about what it means to
be a vulcan and like what it would mean for
Pike to understand what it's like to be a vulcan
and what it would mean for all these different characters
to experience being a vulcan and like what those emotions mean,
and even even if they could figure out a way
to like, instead of having them do whatever in the
(21:23):
serum the line I missed, let like let them experience
the extreme emotions, then let Spock help them control it
with a mind meld, you know, mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
That's that would have been much better.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
You know.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
They could have gone into the fact that Spock felt
like he was being bullied again, like he triggered from
his youth, because they can. Yeah, well they did a
little bit. They do that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (21:46):
They like play with the fact that he's just annoyed,
but like all of that could have been interesting to me.
Like I could see a rewrite of this episode that
could have fit really well in the Star Trek universe
and been interesting to me.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
But not with magic care. Yeah, not with magic.
Speaker 2 (22:01):
Hair and like like a serum that fixes their emotions
and a and no discussion of what it really means
to be vulcan or like what these things like these walls,
you know what even really interesting? They they get Spocked
to do a mind meld with them, but you know
(22:22):
how mind melds have that sort of effect on the
person doing them.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, like have him have.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
To take on like he fixes their walls so they
can go to the mission, but it makes him like
really have to let all his emotion out, you know,
like his his walls fall down. And then you've got
like the B plot is Spock is in the brig
like freaking out, you know what I mean, Like Spock
is Spock is or in his quarters trying to control himself,
(22:48):
trying to and like having to deal with what his
emotions mean and having like a real conversation with Chapel
or with whoever.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
On I'm not sure I would have gone that way personally,
like just because they this is sort of a sequel
to the episode where he became human and suddenly all
of his walls were down.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Wait, I'm forget I don't remember the details that episode.
All his walls were down when he was a human. Yeah,
that doesn't make any sense either.
Speaker 1 (23:14):
They also didn't do very They didn't make any Yeah,
that doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
So like, if you were a human, you'd just be
less emotional and still have all of the training.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Yeah, Stu wid thing. That makes no sense either.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
I don't remember what we thought of that episode at
the time, but that's dumb just on the face of it.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's been a long time so we
saw that one. So so to me, like, I want
to know, how does Vulcan Pike think about, you know,
his fate that's coming.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Oh yeah, exactly exactly, Like I deal with the actual
character and what is being a Vulcan mean? What is
the logic of understanding the future and time travel? And
oh that's that's a great idea.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
Yeah. I wanted to see Lawn tapping into that violent
history of Vulcan and what it means with her you know,
augment DNA, Like that's what I wanted to say. I
didn't wanted to see she became a cartoon villain. Yeah,
a silly villain, it's all. It's also you want to
know this one of the silliest moments the episode for me,
(24:16):
when they beam down to the planet and they're like,
it's gonna take a few hours. We're done. Yep, there's
a way to play that, And I feel like, why
the fuck did Pike bring Alerpa? What's Alurpa? The big
the big fighting stick with the blade. Oh, that makes
(24:38):
no sense, makes no sense, no sense at all.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Maybe maybe they're security officers from Vulcan ships carry those
or something like they're pretending to be a Vulcan crew.
Maybe security officers carry them in this situation, I don't know. Uh,
I'm trying to headcan and a thing that makes no sense.
But the like TNG would have done this joke, or
Discovery or any of these shows would have done that
same joke of like, it's gonna take three and a
(25:04):
half hours and they're back in like maybe forty minutes, right,
Like it would have made sense if they were like, well,
it's saying that it's gonna according to the schedule, a
schedule we had set up, set up. It's gonna take
them about three and a half hours, and they get
an alert. It's like they're done. Wait but it's only
even forty minutes. Like that's the joke you make, you
don't make. They beam down, it's gonna take three and
(25:24):
a half hours, and then they beam back up.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Like it's so stupid.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
You don't have time to like put down your like
gear yet, Like you don't have time to they're not
the flash, Like it's not it's so dumb. It's so
like obviously a cartoon to the point of breaking the
universe that it really pisss me off.
Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, you want to know what my head canon is
for this episode? By the way, what's that this is
the way? This is the way it happened according to Pelia.
I think somewhere telling the story and embellishing the out
of it. Yeah, all the dumb episodes, we just say
it's Pelia's misremembered moments. I like that that works for me.
(26:12):
Or it could also be that this is the way
that Mariner tells the story of what happened back then, right, Yeah,
like one of the people from lower Decks. Oh my god,
So this is what happened? Okay, yeah, because it just
doesn't work. It doesn't work in the universe. No, it
doesn't at all.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
There's a bunch of stuff that's like literally just broken
and doesn't work in the universe and it's annoying.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Okay, it sucks. Do we have any feedback? Huh do
we have any feedback? Uh? Yeah, Stu little Rodin. Okay,
I love you Andre.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
But I I'm sort of glad we don't have a
really positive one from Andre this week.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, I didn't see one. Also, didn't look really hard.
I know.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
I'm saying this to say I love Andre and I
appreciate his feedback. They may they often make me feel
like a little Oh that's an interesting take on the episode,
But like, I don't have a positive thoughts about this
episode at all, and it'd be really hard to like not
just be like no, Andre, No, don't even do it.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Sorry. Yeah, so Stu says oof, hmm, indeed, that's it.
That's his whole thing. That was his entire email.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
That's the Jesus Wept of Stu emails.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
Do you know that community episode? No, I don't think
I know. It's talking about I was laughing about that
all week someone reminded me of it, not that it
takes very much to remind me of community things. But
there's an episode in like season five or six where
the Dean I can't remember how he comes into possession
(28:04):
of this, but he gets like an old like nineties
VR system and he's like in the little like enclosure
and he's got the headsett on and he keeps like
he's like, oh my god, I'm more powerful than anyone
could have imagined. He just feels like a god in
this thing. And he's like climbing up a wall of files.
(28:29):
He's like transitioned to everything in the school over to
this stupid VR system and he has to like climb
mountains to get to files and destroy them. But he
just keeps screaming like Jesus wept for there were no
more worlds to conquer. At some point, he just very
(28:53):
boisterously screams Jesus wept, and Jeff, it's like, stop saying
Jesus wept.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
It's really funny. What who is that? What is that
from he wept for? There's like that's from something else?
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I was trying to think like who that is? It's
a very okay, yeah, I'm looking it up on Google.
Uh yeah, apparently attributed to Oxander the Great.
Speaker 1 (29:27):
I don't know if it's from a.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, they wept because he had conquered all available worlds.
The historical texts suggest he wept because he learned there
was there were an infinite number of other worlds and
he had not yet conquered any of them.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
What okay this Google AI.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Is no, you can't, but I just it normally gets
like the top line right, but then when you literal
you down, it's just like what what is happening? Sometimes
what really annoys me is when I'm with me and
uh the Nashley Coffin. We're on an MCU cast episode
one time, and we were trying to find out how
many episodes something had, and we both searched at the
same time, and I was like, oh, hey, let's se
(30:06):
it has eight episodes, and she's like, it has six episodes,
and we were both looking at Google AI, like the
answer on Google AI, and it's just different, like something
about her algorithm versus my algorithm. Yeah, gave her just
the different answer than I got, and we're both like
what the hell, Like, what is going on here?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
That they put that there for the Joe Rogan search
what do you mean? So? And Joe Rogan is on
his podcast and he says, hey, look that up. They
put that there the incorrect information so that you can
spout that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, indeed, indeed, Oh is it Ozzi Mandias who has
that line? I'm sorry, never mind, Ozzy Mandia set uses
that line, and Watchman apparently that Alexander the Great Web
for the number worlds to conquer.
Speaker 1 (30:55):
Yeah, that yeah, that was totally a reference, though no,
I know, I know.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
I was thinking it might be because Ozi Mandias the character
is a reference to the poem, and I was wondering
if the poem Ozzy Mandius had referenced it, and then
I clicked on it and it was a Watchman reference.
I was like, oh, never mind. It was like, wait,
is that line in the Ozzy Mandia's poem, like the
old school whatever? Yeah, nope, never mind.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
By the way, when Patton Oswald's character says, uh really
has a full vulcan I cannot lie, he should have
known that Vulcans can absolutely lie. They fucking always lie.
That is a thing that's like a It's almost a joke.
That they don't lie, or a myth in the cannon
because they lie. It's always like a little thing like,
(31:39):
well we do. Sometimes it was an exaggeration or some shit.
Speaker 2 (31:43):
Right right right, They come up with some sort of
explanation for it. But yeah, I I I thought that
they weren't supposed to be able to lie, but obviously
some can and some do. Like obviously there was there
have been like conspiracies where the Vulcans were, you know,
firing to do something, and you can't really do that
without a lie.
Speaker 1 (32:04):
Secrets. You have to able to keep secrets and lie. Well,
there was like like in the original series, there was
a thing where it was like Vulcans don't lie, okay,
and then like we would see spot lie and it
would be kind of it was an exaggeration, you know,
like the original the original movies. Yeah, oh oh, okay, interesting.
(32:26):
But you know we had the whole thing in two
thousand and nine where Sarah talks about you know, he
said that it was logical to marry his mother and
then he's like, that was a lie. I married her
because a lover. But I don't want to admit that
I love because I'm a vulcan Like that's those are
fucking lies, dude, Like yeah, canonically they have lied, yeah
for sure, over and over.
Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah, all right, well that's about all I got. Yeah,
anything else you want to say with this episode?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Strike it from Cannon agreed.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
This might be the short episode of our podcast we've done,
because we always get on here thinking we're gonna do
a short one, and we always go an hour.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
I tried, I tried to you know, by the way,
why is Beto there? What? And also like why is
a guy who was just like they're like, oh, he's
a people pleaser. You didn't know that about him as
one of the best parts about him. And I'm like,
this is a dude who was just making a documentary
(33:27):
trying to claim that Starfleet was full of colonizers, Like.
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Yeah, that's not a very people please reaction. Like yeah,
if he was willing an episode ago to burn down
their relationship to and lie to her and like secretly
record her and all this stuff, and now he's not
willing to hold on his own personality like yeah, it
just doesn't know, Yeah, that doesn't line up that and
(33:50):
that is something about you know, the sloppiness of this
show and and this this happens on All Star Trek.
Speaker 1 (33:59):
I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Sometimes the characters are not well defined. Sometimes they're not
well defined, and then like later they become well defined.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
But you know, like.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
You can watch a show and if the show is
well written and the characters well defined, you know how
they'll react to certain things. And this show, it's driven
by whatever they want the story to be, whatever the
plot is, they'll react the way they want it to.
Speaker 1 (34:24):
It's the opposite of that sort of.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
Breaking bad Vince Gilligan ethos of like we just you know,
whatever the characters are gonna go through, they're gonna make
the decisions they're gonna make, and we got to decide
what those decisions are, and then based on those decisions
to do what the next decisions would be. You know,
what's the best decision for the characters to make based
on who they are? Like that's that ohld Vince Gilligan thing.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
Mm hmm. And this is very much the opposite.
Speaker 2 (34:48):
It's like, we want a funny Vulcan episode and we
want Betto to give up his personality even though he
just did a documentary that would have burned this relationship down.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Like yeah, it makes us sense. If I was Chris
Parnell and I the guy who just took over not
this s no guy, and I saw this episode, I
would fire every fucking person in charge of this show.
Mm yeah you would. I absolutely would, Like there's no
doubt about it. I would go in and just be like,
(35:19):
this is unacceptable. Yeah, it is unacceptable. This is an
unacceptable Star Trek episode. And I do not accept it.
I mean, you know it's there, it's cannon whatever, but
I but I hate it, hate it with passion, and
it sucks. I'm glad the last three were good.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
I really am, because like I was already in a
dark place fives four episodes ago, and then we got
three good ones in a row, and I'm like, Okay,
I can survive this one and head into the last
final two.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
You know I can.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
I survived. My love for Star Trek survives even this
because they gave me three good ones.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
Right, I mean even still, though I've said it on
the show, I've been walking around I say this part,
but I've been It's like I've been walking around with
a splinter in my foot because I know that Vulcan
episode's coming. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
Yeah, and we made it through. We made it through week.
We survived. H My love of Star Trek is intact,
but I'm pretty annoyed at it right now.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah. Pretty rough.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
All right, Well, great to talk to you, Dave.
Speaker 1 (36:17):
Yeah, man, like what, sorry, it took a minute for
us to get on the show. No, totally fine. Al right, man,
I'll talk to you soon. All right, man, bye, wait
wait Joe Lontrue and all that show.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Yeah, I literally felt like we're on the phone. That
was really funny. Yeah, we didn't do anything in the show,
Like we were just talking. We're commiserating about how bad
this episode is. We forgot we were on a podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
That's amazing. That's fucking amazing.
Speaker 2 (36:46):
That has never happened to me that I'm just like,
literally completely forgot there was an audience that I was
making a podcast.
Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah. This is one of those shows though, where I
was just like, I'm a little scared for our friendship.
I'm pretty sure he's gonna hate this. I don't know
if it could survive us him liking.
Speaker 2 (37:03):
It though, Yeah, No, I didn't like it. It's like
there's just no there's no way this kind of cannon
breaking and like world breaking, there's no acting like it.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
I just it's not it's not in me. I'm not
this that kind of fan. So yeah, thirty five year
old year friendship might have ended like this this episode.
Now that's funny. I would have been concerned. No no, no,
no no, this isn't matt Who are you? Oh? Man?
(37:32):
Joel n True, Live, long, and prosper.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Thank you for listening to the Star Trek Universe podcast,
a Stranded Panda production. If you'd like to hear more
from David C. Robertson, check out the DC on Screen
podcast or Malagistic dot.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Tv for his web videos.
Speaker 2 (37:51):
If you'd like to hear more from Matthew Carol, check
out the Marvel Cinematic Universe podcast or listen to his music.
Just search for math if you Carol anywhere you get
music
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Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.