Jack The Ripper? | With Walter Koenig | TOS 2.14, "Wolf in the Fold," | T7R #345 - The 7th Rule -- A Star Trek Podcast with DS9's Cirroc Lofton

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There are nearly four hundred and forty humans aboard the Enterprise.
Bones has some stuff that will tranquilize an active volcano,
and Scotty is going to like our Gaelias. Hello everybody,
and welcome to the Seventh Rule. Was Sarrock Lofton and
Walter Kanig.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Kalo.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
My name is Ryan T. Huskin. Today we're doing a
review of Star Trek the original series, season two episode fourteen,
Wolf in the Fold, written by Robert Block, directed by
Joseph Pevney. This was December twenty second, nineteen sixty seven.
Where were you, Hi, you guys doing today? You remember

(00:39):
Joseph Pevney, do you Walter? He's your buddy?

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Yeah, well I worked for him on the Alfid Hitchcock Hour.
He was very, very supportive, and he sat in when
they had the casting call for Star Trek, so he
was one of the people who voted to whether or
not I would be a good addition to the show.

(01:05):
So I consider him my buddy, definitely. Yeah, I do.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
That that that recommendation turned out to have long lasting effects,
so yeah, I would call him my buddy too. But
you weren't in this episode, Walter, But what did you
what did.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
You think of it? Yeah, we'll see that changes his backdrop.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Oh yeah, well see this is exciting though, because he's
never been in He wasn't in this episode, so this
is like a fresh perspective. What do you think, Walter,
Not very exciting at all.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
This is we haven't seen spot Spring yet, and I
mean that's reputed to be the worst episode of Star Trek.
I felt very, very unenthusiastic about this episode.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
U m hm.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
One thing, there's a whole lot of dancing going on.
It went on too long to begin with. If this
was the way that Scotty becomes enamored of this lady
is by her dancing, it didn't work for me. I

(02:24):
would much rather have heard her talk and get a
sense of who she is and then begin to understand
the rapport that Scotty felt for her and and and
the amorous feelings he felt. Just didn't happen for me.

(02:50):
Then the dead girl in blue? When is that we
had a dead We had a dead uniform person in blue?

Speaker 5 (03:03):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (03:03):
How confusing were they out of red uniforms?

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well?

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yeah, uh, I gotta be honest, Walter, Just to jump
off what you were saying initially, I agree that I
don't think this is one of the best original series
Star Trek episodes we have reviewed. In fact, I almost felt,
and forgive me everybody at home, I'm just gonna be

(03:30):
bluntly obvious, because otherwise I'll be in stark contrast to Walter.
This is the truth. I felt slightly disappointed, Like I thought, huh,
this is not as good as the other Star Trek
episodes I'm accustomed to watching, and I kept expecting it

(03:51):
to hit up at that level. And it got. We
got a few blips, we got a few times where
it kind of, you know, peaked, but it never really
reached that quality of episode that I'm accustomed to seeing.
With you guys, not to be too harsh.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Well, I'm glad, I'm glad to hear you say the epics.
I had a sense that I was all alone in
this feeling. I mean, I felt that Bill and Leonard
uh did their predict the league quality work, but I

(04:30):
didn't feel I didn't feel anything intense going on. I
didn't think anything personal. They played Kirk and Spock uh
as as they always do. I didn't. I didn't find
I just didn't find the work. And any way, new

(04:51):
in any way? Uh was any quality added to their work?
And my biggest my complained. The most egregious fault the
episode for me is when the third lady gets killed,
the wife of the guy who runs this thing, and

(05:13):
you see a wound. Where's the weapon? How do we
accept the fact there's no freaking weapon. Scotty has blood
on his hands, so he must be the killer, and
they take it for granted, but there's no weapon.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Nowhere.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
I don't get it. That bothered me a lot.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
You know what bothered me about that scene? I mean,
there are a lot of things. I'm sure we'll get
into it. And then Sirokskin convince us that we're all
wrong and it was a great episode and he might
be right. Is that the reaction that they gave when
there's a lady who the lights go out, lady gets
stabbed in the back. Nobody runs to her aid. The

(06:05):
husband doesn't run to her aid. He barely reacts and
and bone just goes she's dead. Jim, Well, you're a
dark See what you can do, bro Give it a shot.
Give it a shot. What do you say, see see
if maybe you can resuscitate her?

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (06:22):
Put a blanket over the wound, something the husband doesn't.
It was like nobody gave a They were just like, eh, whatever,
she's dead, do you care husband, And husband was like, now,
I'm gonna stay over here. I'm fine, and I like her.
I don't really care what happened to No, it's just weird.
It just.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah. This The problem I had with this episode was
that it was typical of the.

Speaker 4 (06:50):
Kind of chauvinism that you have in that era of television,
and this actually had the maximum level of it from
what I've seen so far, opening on the yeah so far,
opening on the dancing, and the whole placating towards these
guys wanting to have a sexual excursion. I mean, it's

(07:14):
okay to have that because we've seen Riza and other
planets where having these kinds of sexual escapades.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
Happen on Star Trek. I just felt it.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
Wasn't complicated enough for it to be into the realm
of science fiction. It was really a basic murder mystery.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Who done a type of episode, and.

Speaker 4 (07:34):
They didn't put enough science fiction spin on it for me.
They didn't put any diplomacy between this government and the Federation.
There could have been other reasons why this thing was
happening in that particular sector. That would have added to
let's say a diplomatic reason, and maybe that could have

(07:57):
been a suspicion somewhere. It just was very basic and
it wasn't much mystery in the murder mystery. We knew
Scotty wasn't the one who did it, so that left
basically the other guest star characters, and so the you know,
to play deduction on that wasn't going to be difficult

(08:17):
for me. A matter of fact, I initially thought it
was the investigator. From my initial original suspicion. I thought
it's got to be the investigator, hey, And I wasn't
even thinking that hard.

Speaker 2 (08:31):
I wasn't trying to put.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
Anything together, and just felt that he was the guy
resisting the logical process of things. So you would normally
try to, let's say, collect evidence or ask these questions
or follow up in certain ways, and he wasn't doing
that thing. As a matter of fact, Kirk was taking
the lead on those investigatory questions and he was interrupting that.

(08:55):
So it just made it obvious to me that he
was the guy who was in charge, the one responsible,
and so the mystery wasn't even there. So you have
a murder mystery with no mystery. You have a science
fiction show with no science fiction per se, and you
know that just leaves you with a really.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Light weight show. That's why I didn't really hit on
all the notes.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Ouch John Fiedler, who was really wonderful and Twelve Angry
Men the film that was.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
That was so good, so good.

Speaker 3 (09:30):
But they obviously chose him because he's supposedly the least
likely person you would ever expect to be the crazy
murderer thing. I mean, that's the way he was always cast.
So they cast against type to surprise you. And it
was no surprise because it was so he was so

(09:56):
you know, squeaky little voice he had. The whole thing
was to throw you off. And because it was so
consciously done, you know that he had to be the guy.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
I didn't know.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah I did, and then yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Then I'm sorry to have to say I don't think
he pulled it off when he became the crazy person
and the didn't believe it, so it didn't work all
around for me.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
M did you believe it when the stunt double was
seven inches taller than him with a bald cap was
so funny. He's like shorter than the lady. He grabs her,
and then the stunt guy shows up and you could
just see the cap. He might as well just be
wearing a baseball hat, and then he's towering over. But

(10:50):
I'm going to give my two cents on the fact
that I did not know who it was. I didn't guess.
I wasn't really trying to figure it out. I just
kind of thought, I wonder if it's probably going to
be one of these four guys. I mean, I just
feel like that's probably what they're going to do. But
then I also gave star Trek the benefit of the doubt,

(11:10):
and I thought, it's very possible that it's not one
of these four guys, that it's some entity because the
lady kept saying something or Scotty said something, and so
I thought, maybe it's none of those four guys. Maybe
there's this alien that they're going to find at Presence.
You know, it was kind of a blend of those
two things, but you know, the thought kind of crossed

(11:33):
my mind. But I was like, I don't have enough
information to make any guesses. You guys guess correctly because
of the way he was acting, and that's that's great,
I will say to you know, his voice did make
him kind of weasly. But and I could be wrong
in this, but at the end when there was the
ship's computer that had taken over it, or the entity

(11:55):
had taken over the ship's computer and had all these
spooky voices, I'm pretty sure that was the same actor.
It sounded like him in which case, if that was him,
I thought he did a fantastic job doing though I
almost feel like that's why he was chosen, because he
could do all kinds of things with his voice, and
he was being like low and bellowy but also squeaky

(12:16):
and giggly, and he was going all over the place.
If that was the same actor, which I suspect, I
thought he did a great job there.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, not me. I didn't. I didn't.

Speaker 4 (12:27):
I didn't feel any tearror in that moment when he
was trying to create tear with the computer voice. It
didn't I didn't feel fearful. It didn't make it didn't resonate.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Terror for me.

Speaker 4 (12:40):
It actually sound like empty threats, like you know, I,
if you do sudden, I'm gonna gonna come over there.
But you it's like, all right, it's not scary when
you say it like that, And I wasn't really terrified that,
you know.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
What I will say is.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
There were some elements of this that are original story
elements there, and that is number one, having this kind
of shorely location for pleasure that ends up becoming another
kind of theme that becomes prevalent in Star Trek.

Speaker 2 (13:20):
So going to a location.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
Where women are there and it's kind of a pleasure island.
Per se this place the Argyllians, I see elements of
what eventually becomes Rise there. I see elements of what
eventually becomes Holo deck programs in other on deep space nine.
I see that there. So that I would say, idea

(13:46):
wise showing this pleasure place is one element that story
wise becomes recycled down the road. And then the other
thing story wise that I think they could have better
would have been if this entity is able to transfer
bodies like it did in that one conference room when

(14:12):
it jumped over from one body to the next, then
the question really would have instead of it being a
mystery about who murdered somebody, we could have seen Scotty
actually commit the murder, and he could have been visually
guilty and at the same time having been possessed by

(14:36):
this entity. And so that way we could have had
multiple murders with different people committing them, all by the
same entity that was inhabiting the person. Then the question
would be raised whether somebody is guilty for doing something
even though their faculties weren't in control of themselves. And

(14:56):
I think that could have been maybe more of an ideological.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
Absolutely, I thought that was the direction it was going too.
I thought it was going to be something like that,
where yes, the moral it's the moral question of well,
you know there, it's like temporary insanity in a way.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
You know, which they which they touched upon in Kirk's
dialogue at some point he said, well he is guilt,
he is innocent. If it was temporary insanity, that could
have been the if they were going to play on that,
play on that all the way, and let us have
the debate about is somebody guilty and because we saw

(15:33):
them do it, we know they did it. But then
you know that they could have then went through the
mystery of solving that he was possessed at the time,
that this entity inhabited his body, and that could have
been part of his defense, could have been a little
bit different. I just thought it was a very flat
line episode that the casting wasn't I mean, I did
like the casting of the husband, I mean of the

(15:56):
husband of the wife. I thought he was eerie and good.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
He definitely harkened back to the sixties. For me. He
felt like a sixties type of like you said, eerie.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
You know.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
He made me feel like I was watching a sixties episode,
like HARKing back to these old times. It was really good.
Do you know anything about that actor, Walter?

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Say that again?

Speaker 1 (16:21):
Do you know anything about the actor that played the husband.

Speaker 3 (16:28):
No, I've never seen him before, at least I don't
think I have. I did have one other thing. Yeah,
It's almost as if with the ending, was almost as
if nobody was going to take this seriously. And the
ending I'm talking about is when they give Sue the
shot and he goes wee. You know, they're making it

(16:52):
into a comedy at the end, and it was such
a false note for me. I mean, let's suit, George,
you get a chance to do something besides push a button.
But it was inappropriate. It did not it was not
in line with what the story was about and it
said to me, we're not taking this very seriously. And

(17:13):
that's and that's what I felt about the whole episode.
I didn't feel I felt that Leonard and Bill did
what they were supposed to do. They got paid for
being Spock and Kirk, but there was no real personal
investments from them, and I thought that ending, that silly ending,

(17:36):
it was inappropriate.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, three people just got killed in cold blood. Scottie
was almost put in, you know, prison for life, and
they're all just kind of giggling about it. Honestly, that
scenior talking about Walter confused me more than anything. I
didn't even remember seeing Sulu get the inoculation. I must
have missed it. But at first I was like, why
is Szulu giggling? And I was like, oh, I guess

(17:59):
you must have got tranquilized. And I see everybody's gotten
tranquilize except for like the three or four of them,
but I didn't. I don't know. I guess they were
going for comedy, was the point, and which is your point.
They shouldn't have gone for comedy. In fact, this lady
in this scene here, when that guy first grabbed her
and pulled her back and she was laughing. I had

(18:23):
to remind myself why. At first, I was like, oh
my god, that background actress or that featured actress couldn't
even get rid of Like you know, some people when
they get on camera, they can't They don't even realize
that they're smiling or giggling or doing something distracting if
they're trying to be a background. For a second, I
thought that that was just the best take they got

(18:43):
out of her. They're like, okay, whatever, And then I
had to remind myself, oh, wait, no, she's giggling on
purpose because she's tranquilized and she's it's supposed to be funny.
So that was a little confusing for me. But I
need to pay better attention.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
I guess, yeah, yeah, the tranquilizer thing. And I wasn't
so bad about that. I don't know, I just like
it did make light of something that was so serious.
You had a starfleet officer murdered, you had the guy's
wife was killed, and then you had another person's wife

(19:20):
was killed or I guess his fiance was killed, and
I don't know, the whole story messed me up. It
was like the dad is playing music for his daughter,
that's a belly dancer whose fiance is there watching him
dance for Montgomery for Scotti. That didn't even make sense

(19:46):
to me either, Like why is her father playing the
music while her fiance is there watching and she's dancing
for somebody else and leaving with somebody else presumably, right,
So that just I didn't even get that connection in general,
because that didn't even make sense to me.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
You know, there's another point about that, when you mentioned
the fiance. It's the same kind of thinking. They get
the strangest looking guy with a broken nose who worked
a lot by the during that period. I saw him
in a lot of things with a guilty.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Looking the case, right, a suspicious looking is going.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
To be the bad guy he's got He looks like
he's going to be the bad guy, and he isn't.
You know. It's like these little casting tricks that did
not work for me at all. I mean I almost
I almost, uh from the very start said he can't
be the bad guy because he looks so much.

Speaker 4 (20:51):
Yeah, one hundred percent, I agree with that. I mean
the casting. They tried to go over the top with
the casting and make it like, make you grab like
because even the you know, when they first showed the fiance,
the camera swoops by him and he's wearing a cape.
You know, he's wearing a cape like he's some kind

(21:12):
of you know, cloak and dagger mysterious guy, you know,
and and he's you know, the camera pans by him,
so you're thinking, oh, that guy is some kind of.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Definite and affair. He as criminal type of person. You know,
he's got the.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
Scar on his face, he's got the broken nose, he's
he's definitely going to.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Be up to something.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
And so automatically they established the suspicion on him. And
when they do that, it makes you think that's the
distraction instead of, you know, that's the focal point. So
when they eventually say he's the fiance, I'm like.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
That was weird.

Speaker 4 (21:44):
Why would he be wearing a cloak in this, you know,
watching his future wife dance with Scotty and and supposedly
he's the jealous type of I mean, how is sad
You're not going to be jealous.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
That's when you're yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
That's what I was thinking, like, of course, like look
how she's acting.

Speaker 4 (22:06):
That's that's not like a suspicious you know, accusing you
of something jealous type where you're not doing anything but
you know, just.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Paying the receipt for your Starbucks.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
This is like, you're going to go leave with Scottie
to go sleep with him, presumably while.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
You while your is there watching. It's just like, Okay,
I'm going to go with this Stranger's like, what are
you jealous?

Speaker 2 (22:29):
Why are you looking at me like that?

Speaker 1 (22:31):
I just met him forty five seconds ago. That's plenty
of time.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:37):
So I think they played on a lot of stereotypes
about women's sexuality and women's vulnerability. They talked about how
their high level of fear, and Spot talked about the
reason why this you know, this entity praise on women
is because of their fear factor and all that. I
just think those were just typical, kind of chauvinistic ways

(22:59):
of perceiving women, and you know, and it was a
little dated for me. I just you know, I thought, oh,
this damsel and distress and you know, here all these
men gonna and they're gonna save the day. It just
felt like, you know, it wasn't really the progressive kind
of problem solving show that I'm used to. This was

(23:19):
really remedial and I couldn't understand why Scotty, for example,
we now he's the murder suspect, why was he allowed
to really roam and walk?

Speaker 1 (23:29):
That was my biggest That was my biggest.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
They didn't have a holding facility for him on this
particular playform.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
With that, Yeah, it felt weird. Yeah, that was my
biggest problem with this episode was the very first murder.
The first thing they did, you would think would be, oh, well,
let's handcover, let's tie him up, let's put him in
holding let's because it seems very obvious that he did it.
That doesn't mean he's guilty. But I mean, if there's

(23:58):
a lady who was murdered, who's screams and it was murdered,
and there's a guy standing there she's been stabbed at
that he's holding a knife for I don't remember if
he was or not. Like, you're obviously going to be like, okay,
you're coming with us, even if it's a different planet.
I'm assuming all planets still have you know, logic. You
would take him and hold them and they'd be talking
to him through a jail cell and he'd be like,
I swear I didn't do it. They'd be like, we

(24:19):
believe you. We're going to prove your innocence. That was
my biggest problem with it was how they're just allowing
him to roam freely, including the people that never met him.
Weren't they thinking, WHOA, this guy's killing people right in
front of us. The light went off, somebody died, presumably
it's this guy, and we're still hanging out in the

(24:39):
same room with him. We're just hanging out waiting for him,
Wait did murder weapon? Waiting for us to be next
on his list?

Speaker 2 (24:46):
What that was?

Speaker 4 (24:48):
Very with the weapon and they're like, yeah, I give
him a weapon another girl to murder it. It was
kind of weird. I felt like he should have been
under arrest. I think that Kirk should have be in
fighting to, you know, free him and say, hey, you know,
what are your laws here? And you know, and Starfleet
one of our guys, we we defend them, so I'm

(25:08):
here as is representative.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
It could have been more.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
Starfleet rules versus our Galian's rules of law and them
trying to defend this guy. Did Jack the Ripper you
know from nineteen thirty two to China and all this stuff, well,
you know again, it was it felt like they were

(25:34):
piecing some different stories together and didn't have one solid
kind of theme to it for me.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Yeah, we'll talk about that a little bit more on
the other side. It feels like this is the right
time for a break. We will be right back everybody,
and then on the other side, in our next segment,
we're going to talk about all the things that we
loved about the episode, all the scintillating aspects of this
episode we wrote down in our notes that we cannot

(26:00):
wait to praise. We will be right back on the
Seventh Rule. Well, hi there, everybody, Welcome back to the
Seventh Rule with Sarak Lofton and Walter Kanig. It is
time for the Trivioids of the week. Everybody's dying to
hear them. In the break, Walter was like, what about

(26:20):
the trivioids, and I was like, they're coming here we go. Okay,
Scotty is going to like our gallias. Captain Kirk invites
a belly dancer to his table. On our Gallias, they
use lights to applaud mister hengist Is from Ragel four.
Cibo or was it Cibo Cibo has the ancestral gift.

(26:43):
Spock wants to employ computers to learn the truth. Jack
the Ripper was never identified. In twenty one oh five,
eight women were knife to death in the Martian Colonies.
In twenty one fifty six, ten women were knife to
death in Heliopolis Alpha Eridani two. There are nearly four
hundred and forty humans aboard the enterprise. Bones has some

(27:04):
stuff that will tranquilize an active volcano, even though volcanoes
are not living creatures. All right, so that was interesting.
Walter as promised, what did you love about this episode?

Speaker 3 (27:27):
When they were running the credits at the end?

Speaker 1 (27:32):
Okay, what did you like about the episode?

Speaker 3 (27:38):
What did I like about it? I really can't. I
really can't think of anything that I felt was worth
you know, mulling over later, you know, of the enjoyment

(28:00):
with I just I just felt it was pretty mediocre.
And I guess I gotta leave room for spocks brain
because everybody feels that's the worst episode of all time.
And we haven't done that one yet, right, Nay, we

(28:22):
have not, so I can't say this is the worst
because we haven't seen Fox.

Speaker 1 (28:28):
Well, let me ask you this then, Walter, because this
is what I was thinking, and you tell me how
wrong I am. You know in baseball you're a big
baseball fan. There's something called, by.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
The way, I just got to say, Aaron Judge is
having the most amazing first month of this season. Amazing
hitting over four hundred, took the lead in home runs,
take is ahead in the has the best batting average
in the league, the best lugging average, the best on
base percentage. Okay, what were you saying?

Speaker 1 (28:59):
The best advice? No excellent knowledge, Aaron Judge shout out.
He watches the show, so that's nice of him. Baseball,
there's something called we all three know the dog days
of summer. It's kind of like July August. It's one
hundred and sixty two game slog. People kind of get bored.

(29:22):
It's kind of tough to stay motivated, especially if they're
not in a pennant race. It's just a six month thing,
and so they just kind of get tired. They kind
of just show up sometimes and it's hard to stay motivated.
I wonder if eighteen episodes in or fourteen episodes in
whatever this is here, do you think TV shows Star

(29:44):
Trek in particular, had these kind of dog days of summer?
Because that's what I was thinking when you mentioned Shatner
and Nimoy not really phoned it in, but they didn't
give it anything extra. They just kind of they showed up.
They gave us Kirk, they gave us spot Yeah, and
they went home. Do you feel like there's a little
something there?

Speaker 3 (30:07):
Well, I, you know, it's presumptuous of me to speak
to how they operate, how they function. It's what I'm
I drew a conclusion, and the conclusion may or may
not be right. This made me may well be one
of those up one of those situations where they read

(30:28):
the script and they felt that it was not going
to provide anything exceptional. Certainly what they had to offer
was pretty conventional and traditional, and perhaps perhaps they took
that attitude. I don't. I don't know. That's what came

(30:50):
across to me, that this was one of the dog shows.
But you know, you'd have to you'd have to get
get their opinion, I suppose, and that, of course isn't
quite possible anymore. But anyway, Yeah, what I'm comforted by

(31:11):
is that there's a uniformity of feeling here. I thought
it might am my crazy. I never heard Wolf from
the Fold being thought of. It's one of the least
successful shows. I heard that, as I say about Spock's Breen.
But gentlemen evidently share some of that same opinion that

(31:32):
I have.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
I thought I was going to piss you off. I
was gonna say, well, yeah it was okay. You'd be like,
what are you talking about? This was a grand episode, Ryan,
how dare you? I'm relieved too?

Speaker 2 (31:47):
Well?

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Is there any validity to that? Not obviously not saying
that any particular actor, you know, phones in or anything,
but just on TV shows in general, just like on
shows that are going for six months at a time,
or seven or eight months, did you ever kind of
feel like a lull where the excitement is a little less,
the motivations a little less people are. It starts to

(32:09):
feel more like work and less about like Day one,
all right, this is fun. We're you know, doing a
good time, or you know, or day two hundred, where
people are excited to go.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
I'm watching No Welton, please go ahead.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
I'm watching an old show, a show that's about eight
years old, and I'm watching it in sequence, and I've
seen one full season so far, and I'm just into
the second season, and I think this is a really,
really good show.

Speaker 1 (32:47):
What's that it's cooled.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
To hand tale every every episode is interesting. It's it's
totally evolving, involving. They keep using flashbacks to tell us
they don't start the story at the beginning, they started
in the middle, and then you learn how they got
there by these flash picks, and they work, I think brilliantly.

(33:09):
It's just terrifically written. It's wonderfully acted and nothing to
do with science fiction.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
The lead actress is really really good. I thought the
directing was awesome too, really good stuff.

Speaker 4 (33:22):
Anyway, Well, that leads to my answer, and that is,
you know, shows like that usually have eight to ten
episodes in a season, and when you're doing a ten
episode season show you can do ten. You give you
ten quality episodes and they sit there and they map
out those episodes beforehand.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
They know where they're going.

Speaker 4 (33:43):
It's very well, it's more thought out than a twenty
to twenty six episode arc season where they just hit
the ground running with a pilot that they know is
great and they might have a couple episodes here and
their ideas, but they don't have the whole twenty something
episodes laid out.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
And this is exactly what we're going to do so.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Yeah, there is a point in the middle of the
season where you know there's a little bit of fatigue,
there's a little bit of looking towards the finish line
where you're thinking, Okay, hiatus is coming up in a
couple of months, and there is a lull sometimes. But
I think what defeats those lulls is quality material and actors,

(34:26):
just like the production gets up for good work. When
you read a script and you're blown away by it
and you're excited by it and you're passionate about it
because you believe it and you're excited to do the work,
then you're going to bring a different level of enthusiasm
to the set because you look at the work as
something challenging.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
You look at the material.

Speaker 4 (34:48):
As something useful for the public consumption, and you want
to nail it and do a good job. But when
you read a script, I'm sure you know when Leonard
N moy and Shadner were reading the script, they thought
they must have fucked to themselves. You know, there's nothing

(35:08):
really here for me to add or add to this.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
It's pretty.

Speaker 4 (35:16):
A basic script, and it's not that exciting, and it doesn't
give you that much enthusiasm to get up for.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
So, yeah, they're gonna you know, they're going to deliver.

Speaker 4 (35:25):
The characters of Spock and Kirk, but they're not going
to approach it with the passion of an actor who
feels like the work is challenging. And I don't think
there was much challenge in this. What I do see
were a little small moments of levity that, you know,
I enjoyed, very small, tiny fragments of have to extract

(35:48):
something I like out of this episode. One of them
was when Kirk tells, uh, Scotty as he's walking away
with the woman, he'say, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
He says, I actually might come back on time, you know.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
That's what he says, meaning he's gonna be fast, I
guess with this girl. And then Kirk says, oh, yeah, yeah,
go ahead, relax and enjoy yourself, and he kind of
mutters it and whispers it away. But I like the
delivery because I thought it was it was a reluctant
kind of and there might have been an add on
in post production because the camera was on the back

(36:27):
of Shatner's head, so they might not have actually had
that line scripted, but after in post production, they did
add it, and the way he said.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
It was, yeah, go ahead, relax, enjoy yourself. I like
to throw away of it. I liked the whole tone
that he took.

Speaker 4 (36:44):
Doctor McCoy, for example, he had he had a moment
where he when when Kirk was suggesting the place that
he knows where there's really hot girls or whatever, McCoy says,
I know the place. I know the place, let's go,
and he, you know, he kind of like alludes to
the fact that he's been there before and he has
a good time there.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
So a small moment like that. I thought that was
funny to me.

Speaker 4 (37:07):
I enjoyed that, you know, how excited he was about
going to that place. But you know, the the cirtain,
the pomp and circumstance behind this woman who was doing
the seance and conducting this seance essentially.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Yeah, like I you know, with all due respect.

Speaker 4 (37:31):
To her, I didn't really feel that.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Performance as that much either. I thought that was kind
of lackluster for me.

Speaker 4 (37:38):
It felt really, I don't know, Forrest, it didn't feel natural,
it didn't feel I didn't feel the energy there I
felt really I thought it was underwhelming.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, and you know what else, there.

Speaker 2 (37:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:51):
When I when they did that part, that's where I
put in my notes. I said, Wow, this episode is
really all over the place, Like I just could not
get a read on this episode where they're just they
were just pulling things from all these different directions. There's
belly dancing, there's murder, there's fog, there's romance I guess,
I don't know. There's now they've got a seance. There's

(38:14):
all these things. And then after that they're adding Jack
the Ripper in there. I'm like, what are we trying
to say now that Jack the Ripper wasn't just like
a bad person, he was just like possessed by some monster.
I don't even know. I don't the whole it just
there were just so many elements. I'm like, just pick
one and give it some depth. I'm so lost. I

(38:36):
was so confused by it.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Then the knife to the murderers.

Speaker 4 (38:41):
With knife, the entity supposedly was able to get into
the computer system. So now we're talking about something that
can go from a human life and enter into an
actual living thing and go from that into an entity

(39:01):
that can enter inanimate computer.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
Isn't that transhumanism or something like that?

Speaker 4 (39:08):
It just it just was like, if this entity was
that smart and complicated and elusive, then you know, there
would be no catching this thing. If it can transform
from a computer into a person into.

Speaker 1 (39:24):
And it cut life, it could cut life support too,
why didn't it do that?

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Why didn't it kill in other ways?

Speaker 4 (39:30):
And so if this was such an evil, menacing, dark
force of bad, then when it had the power to
cut every kill of four hundred and forty people at
least or at least all the women on there, that
has this hate for women, it would kill the women
on the crew. Why did it have to only be

(39:50):
done through.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
A stabbing motion?

Speaker 4 (39:52):
Why couldn't it be done through phasers or you know,
gas or turning on light support or whatever. It felt
like they didn't know what direction they wanted this thing
to be. It was a killer that needed a knife,
that took over bodies, that also jumped into the computer that.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
You know that it was the evilest thing in.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
The world that had actually killed over the space of
actually has a lifespan that's hundreds of years now, right,
and can travel from.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Planets to planets.

Speaker 4 (40:25):
It's what are we really talking about here?

Speaker 2 (40:28):
Was really confusing for me as well.

Speaker 1 (40:32):
Walter's feeling justified right now.

Speaker 6 (40:34):
He's like, and the.

Speaker 4 (40:38):
Idea of reading minds, that wasn't that that Spock can
do that. Spock can mind meld with anybody. So they
were making it look like that.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
You know that this.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
Woman comes from this culture that's able to figure out
things and and and they have this psycho ability. Well, Spock,
you have that ability. You could mind meld with uh,
with Scotty and and figure out what happened.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
If you wanted to. I think I'm you know at
least what's in his brain.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
You would know whatever is in his brain and unconscious subconscious.

Speaker 1 (41:14):
Brain Spock's brainpox mentioned once again. Uh So, here are
a couple things I noticed here and Walter, I know
you've got way more to talk about on this episode,
but let feel free to jump in if you think
we're wrong and you want to defend this episode. So
a couple of little nitpicks I had. These are not

(41:35):
actual real things, but I did think it was weird
when Kirk said Spock beamed down a technician and Spock says,
I cap'n and Kirk just hangs up on him, and
it just felt so weird. I was like, say thank you.

Speaker 6 (41:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
That's just me, but like say thank you or good work, chum,
I don't know something. Also, first thing that the uh
what was pre fig Jaris did somebody gets murdered. First
thing he does is invite the murderer into his home
to talk about it. Also weird to me. One thing

(42:11):
I did like weird Right in the guy Jarris's home
there were those ruby buttons. There were like buttons that
he used to like close doors and things, and they
were kind of made they looked like rubies. I thought
that was cool. That is One good thing was the
production design. Production design was good. We're really digging deep

(42:31):
if that's what we're looking for for something good. But
I thought the production design was very good. I also
thought it was interesting. By my count, no less than
four times did Bones have the line she's dead Jim
or he's dead Jim four times in one episode. And

(42:54):
he never once said, oh, I'm trying to save this person,
or oh let me check or or change up, say
I think she might be dead, or I mean just
they're just like keep it simple. She's dead Jim. She's
dead Jim. She's dead Jim, He's dead Jim. I don't
know though, what do you think of that one?

Speaker 3 (43:18):
No, boy, you got you hit it on the head.
That's absolutely I have nothing. I feel I am nothing dead.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
Because we're doing it for you or we're inviscerating this.

Speaker 4 (43:34):
Uh and then and then I'm sorry, but then, you know,
just just a pile on. The episode ends with them
going to the strip club.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Is that what happens? Is that? How?

Speaker 4 (43:46):
I mean maybe not like somewhere like.

Speaker 2 (43:49):
A strip club.

Speaker 4 (43:50):
I mean that's like four people died. Uh, there's no,
there's no like they're like, hey, we have five hours
of happy time, gas left.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Or nitrous oxide.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah, whatever they were doing.

Speaker 4 (44:08):
And I'm like, okay, well here was again trying to
end on that happy note, like oh you know, it's
like there was no seriousness to this really at any point.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
M hm, Well, there are a couple other things that
I did, like, uh, one is I think Spock joined
somebody on the bridge, like looking under things and wires.
I always think it's really cool when we see the
guts of the enterprise. You know, there are all those
buttons and do dads and we're seeing under the console
of the computer. That's always cool. I always appreciate the

(44:41):
work that's put into that because the buttons were super small,
and I was thinking, like, did people in the sixties
have the technology to make small things? I don't know.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
It seems like, you know that that Spock has done
that again he does he looks at the guts of
the ship. He did it in this episode with Kirk,
but he somebody else in it might even in Uhura.

(45:10):
I'm not sure, in either another episode or in a film.
I do recall that anyway, go ahead, awesome.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah, I love that stuff because you know, you just
picture the work that was put into it, and they're
conceptualizing the ship, how the ship works. You know, they're
they're when they're not just putting a bunch of buttons
willy nilly. They're trying to think, Okay, how does the
ship work, what would look cool, what would look right?
You know, they're also on a budget, you know, on
a time crunch, so they're not going to go crazy

(45:38):
about it. But I like that. Also, there was no Checkov,
there was no Uhura. That's a thumbs down, but the
thumbs up was, well, that was no but no, no,
that was the thumbs down. But the thumbs up to
that is we did see a Lieutenant Kyle. That was fun.
We did meet, you know, the red shirt lady that

(46:01):
was in the conference room with them, even though she
only had like one or two lines, and she giggled
this lady. So, you know, every once in a while
they introduce us to one or two other crew people,
you know, or reintroduce us. And I think that's really cool.
And I understand probably why they didn't have Uhura and
check Off, probably financial reasons, but also because they had

(46:22):
like five, six, seven guest stars and you know, like
it would have been crowded.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Well, Walter hasn't in his contract.

Speaker 4 (46:30):
He doesn't want to be any bad episodes, so he
dodged a bullet with this one.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
Were you in Spox Brain, Walter, Well, I'm I'm.

Speaker 3 (46:44):
Going to give this a low rating. I'm not going
to give it rating is because we haven't seen Spox
Brain yet.

Speaker 4 (46:53):
I mentioned that there's got to be a room for
lower uh No, you know what. Speaking of the Lieutenant Kyle,
he was the one in the transporter room at the end, right.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
We've seen him a couple of times.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
We like him, and I thought it was weird that
spot goes up and pushes him off the way he
pushed him off the console was like it was aggressive, unnecessary.
It was he literally football pushed him off of the console.
And then Kirk says, well, I guess we got five
hours or six hours of u, you know, euphoria until

(47:29):
this thing wears off. I know a place, right, and
they all walk off and nobody invites Kyle, and Kyle's like, well,
I'll just stay here.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Can I give one more netpick? I know I've only
given like one or two one more nitpick and I'm
saying it out of love Star Trek. Towards the end,
Kirk says, all right, everybody, stay at your posts, don't
do anything, don't go anywhere, you know, stay safe, Kirk out.

(48:02):
Next scene cut to Kirk and Spocker walking down the corridor.
It's full of people just walking around doing the other thing.
Like nobody listened to him. It was crowded. It was
actually like a crowded corridor full of people. Walt waltson
around and nobody thought, oh wait, didn't Kirk just tell
them anyway?

Speaker 2 (48:23):
They were all high. I thought, you know, they were all.

Speaker 4 (48:30):
But yeah, I did think that was I mean, this episode, man,
it just I couldn't I couldn't really follow it bock Gate,
Spock gave He's basically Spock's solution for this episode was
to give the computer pie to solve, and that was

(48:53):
the what's.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
The answer to twenty two divided by seven? Meltdown? I
don't know, Jack the Ripper figure.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
It out forever.

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
By the way, everybody, while we're tearing up your favorite
Star Trek episode, please make sure you like this video.
Subscribe to the channel, hit the bell icon for notifications,
and if you're listening in, give us a five star
rating and a nice review. We'd really appreciate that, and
also us visit us on patreon dot com slash the
seventh rule to support the show, be a part of
the team, and have some real fun with us. All Right, Walter,

(49:33):
the time is finally here. We're going to talk baseball again.
Who gets the home run of today's episode? The home
run home run? Who was their of today's episode?

Speaker 3 (49:49):
No air, I'll tell you. Out of deference to seeing
Spock's brain, I'll give this two point five.

Speaker 1 (50:05):
I guess that'll work.

Speaker 7 (50:07):
Well.

Speaker 1 (50:07):
This is definitely the most times we mentioned Spock's brain
in an episode so far. What about you, Sirok who
gets the home run of today's episode.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
I'll tell you what, I'm probably not going to get
too many chances to give this man a home run,
and I never got a chance to meet him in person,
and so I'm going to say that Montgomery Scott gets
the home run. He had a lot to do in
this episode. He was believable as a guy to me

(50:40):
that didn't know what happened. So when he kept saying that,
I believed him and I thought he did a good
job playing the victim in this episode. So, you know,
I don't know how many times he gets a chance
to start in different episodes are as heavily featured, So

(51:01):
I think he deserves to recognition when he does get
a chance.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
So, yeah, see you put me to shame.

Speaker 1 (51:09):
Yeah, Walter, would you like to change your answer.

Speaker 3 (51:14):
I'd like to change my answer. I'd like to give
it to Montgomery Scott. I give him as six and
a half.

Speaker 7 (51:23):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (51:24):
Well, then that is three home runs for James doing
playing Montgomery Scott a lot for the reasons that Sarrak mentioned,
which is we don't get a lot of opportunities. You know,
he usually says one or two quips or quirks or
isers or Laddie, don't you think you should rephrase that
or stuff like that. But this was an episode kind

(51:45):
of wrapped around him. He's a very charming guy. By
all accounts. He was a great man. He saved the
freedom of the world back in World War Two. He's
a war hero. Just seems like an incredible guy. I
never got to meet him either. I've only heard great stories.
His son is awesome Chris, and his legacy lives on

(52:06):
through him.

Speaker 3 (52:08):
All right, great story. No, I'm not going to tell
it because it's about spontaneous ejaculation. And then Jimmy, jimm
you're doing. It's a true story. I've told it in
public with him at present and he told it to me.
But I'm not going to repeat that story.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
But we still have a minute if you want to.
You've already given a punchline. What's the set up? All right,
we'll talk about that in the all.

Speaker 4 (52:40):
Right, James jo I never got a chance to meet him.
You know, I've heard great things about him as well.
And yeah, he did deliver on this episode. He hit
the notes that he was asked to hit in this
particular episode. So he delivered on the script. And I
thought he did a fine job.

Speaker 1 (52:57):
So and he's a true American hero. Oh. By the way,
here's a bit of trivia for you guys. Uh the
lady that played Kara, her name is uh Tanya Lemani.
But do you know what her birth name was? She

(53:18):
apparently changed her name in Hollywood. Her birth name was
Tatiana Soleimani Zade.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
So there, Wow, I'm glad I know that.

Speaker 1 (53:32):
I don't think you do know. I think if I
asked you se you won't remember what how I give
that episode? It all makes sense now anyway. Oh, we'd
also like to give thanks to these people who have
all changed their name because they don't want to be
recognized when we call them out. And their names are
doctor Anne, Marie Siegal, Eve England in Wales, You've got Blackman,

(53:55):
Tom TJ. Jackson, bay Out in Missouri, Titus Moeller, doctor
Mohammed aneil O Palatte, Joe Balcearadi, Mike Goo and doctor
Stephanie Baker, Carrie Schwent, Faith Howell, Edward Foltz aka Crewman Guy,
the Matt Boardman, Chris McGhee, Jake Barrett, Cool Guy, Henry Hunger,

(54:18):
Allison Leech Hide Julie Manosfi, Jed Thompson, doctor Susan V. Gruner,
who's gallivanting around Italy right now with her Cisco action figure,
Glenn Iverson, Dave Gregory, Chris Sternet, Greg k Wickstrom out
in Hawaii, Cassandra Gerard, Chuck A, Chris Garris, and of

(54:41):
course Jason Oakin, who's gonna say, quite frankly twice in
the Free for All, quite frankly. All right, everybody stick around,
We've got the Free for All. Up next we will
be right back on the Seventh Rule. Hey, everybody, welcome
back to the Seventh Rule with Sarak Lofton and Walter Knig.
This is the Free for All with Melissa Longo, Jason

(55:04):
m Okin as well. Cool background. Eve England is out
in Wales. She just got back from Japan. Carrie schwent Oh,
that looks like a Jack the Ripper background, Chuck A
has plates, Greg Kenzo is in Hawaii. Alison leech Hide
has an awesome sweater she got from Melissa. TJ. Jackson
Bay has a cool chat pack shirt on. And Chris

(55:26):
McGee is the dark Lord. All right, everybody. Jake Cisco
guesses the IMDb score. Oh, man, Eve's face.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
I'm gonna go.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
These folks have not seen the episode, but they heard
our critique. Is that right?

Speaker 1 (55:54):
No, they've seen the episode, but they have not heard
our critique of it yet.

Speaker 8 (56:00):
Yeah, okay, so then yeah, they'll get a sense of
our critique when they hear by rating a five.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Point five point nine. Good guess? Does anybody else have
any guesses as to what it might be on IMDb
that doesn't already know? You're right, Eva's making a face
when I asked that.

Speaker 6 (56:23):
I.

Speaker 9 (56:26):
Thought people might like it, though I don't know.

Speaker 10 (56:28):
Six and again it's an IMDb guest, not a personal one.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Right. The answer, of course everybody one is seven point two?
What crazy? Yeah? Alison loves it?

Speaker 2 (56:47):
All right?

Speaker 1 (56:49):
Non appearance mentions I didn't catch any hmmm No, was
there a some kind of or some sort of Chris McGee.

Speaker 11 (56:58):
No, they'd say something or something about fifteen.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
Times something on the wing. All right, So let's get
up into this. Melissa Longo, get it started off on
the right track by telling us what you thought of
this awesome episode from nineteen sixty seven.

Speaker 5 (57:20):
She's dead, Jim, She's dead, Jim.

Speaker 1 (57:23):
She's dead Jim. And then he's dead Jim.

Speaker 5 (57:28):
And then he's dead Jim. Yes, it was an interesting
episode with some interesting twists and turns that. Yeah, it
was interesting. I will say that that I think this
episode lacked two major things, one being whoa which is

(57:52):
why I'm wearing my shirt, and two being check off.
We missed both of well I miss both of them.
I did watch them twice. And I couldn't get over
the fact that the investigator guy was also the same
guy in The Golden Girls, where all the women were

(58:17):
attracted to him. He had this allure to him that
women found irresistible, and so I couldn't help but think
of that anytime I saw him on screen. But I
will say that I have a lot of things for
things left unsaid, and that's all.

Speaker 1 (58:36):
Wow edgy Okay, thanks very much, Melissa f Longo. All right,
Jason em Ochin, what's up? Was this your first time
watching this episode?

Speaker 12 (58:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (58:50):
Maybe in a month, but no, not not not the
first time. It is kind of an interesting episode in
a way that if you go through it, it goes
through genres one by one. It starts sort of with
this hedonistic kind of dance, then it goes into this
sort of a horror piece, kind of a gothic piece.

(59:11):
You get a seance, then you get a courtroom drama,
and then you get some sort of a sci fi
and comedy toward the end. If you mishmash that into
about fifteen minutes, I'm not sure you actually get anything
great coming out of it. I mean, in some ways,
it's kind of interesting that the episode actually made it.
I think the story behind it is a little bit
more even interesting than the episode itself. I'm not going

(59:32):
to get into this here. I'll save a lot of
that for later. But in the end, it does give
Jimmy doing something to do more than he usually would
get things.

Speaker 6 (59:43):
Kind of move along.

Speaker 10 (59:44):
One thing that bothers me, and I've said it to
no end is when the score is tracked. It's just
it takes me out of the show because I know
certain pieces of music are associated with certain things, and
you sort of get pulled out of the episode. I think, frankly,
the humor is kind of I placed the use of
Paul Baxley as a stuntman for a feedler.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
It was.

Speaker 10 (01:00:09):
Yeah, quite quite noticeable. One thing I did like, I mean,
you know, apparently Joe Pevney shot this episode on the
five day prep because we're shooting the doomsday Machine in
five days and he had to sort of put it
out very very quickly. But one thing that he did
he propped the camera up on top during the seance
and you can see sort of the stop view, which
was kind of unusual. It took some time to do,

(01:00:30):
and then there was a dollar shot that went around
the table. It was kind of a courageous thing to
do because he needed to make the time and it
was kind of a difficult shot. But I guess he
made up for it by having Act three in one
room with like two camera setups, and he was draggy. Frankly,
was a little boring. Again, some mish mash of things.
There are reasons why the episode is the way it is.

(01:00:52):
You can call it a guilty pleasure whatever you will.
It's certainly not the highlight of the second season.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Surprise to hear you say that, Jason, Thank you very much,
Jason m logan. All right, Eve England is out in Wales.
She just got back from Japan. What did you think
of this episode? Are you glad you rushed back from
Japan to watch it? I mean it was quite bizarre.

Speaker 9 (01:01:20):
I mean, if I'm looking at it sort of, I
was trying to think about it, thinking, Okay, I'm watching
it back way back then, and I can imagine that
it was fairly I think people probably would have enjoyed
it when it came out. I think it has an
age particularly well when you watch it for the first
time now. I mean, just the concept of a slasher horror.

(01:01:45):
You know, even Scream has dated really badly, so you know,
when you think of it in that context. So I
think it's just there's just sort of too much sort
of sexism and misogyny is in it. And you even
have Spock at one point saying O, yeah, because women
are more easily and more deeply terrified than men and
all this sort of stuff, and it's you know, and

(01:02:07):
they have the sort of that dance scene at the
start and talking about this hedonistic society, but hellenistic from
this perspective of the male.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Gaze rather than generally.

Speaker 9 (01:02:17):
So I thought the whole you know, so when you
but I can imagine it, you know, it would have
been it wouldn't have felt like that when you watched
it then. So I think in that sense of the
the sort of the intrigue and the horror aspect of
it and the linking it to Jack the Ripper probably
would have been quite interesting at the time. I probably
would have landed quite well, I think, and in terms

(01:02:38):
of sort of other Star Trek things that it reminded
me of it. It sort of gave me vibes of
empoc Nor in terms of, you know, somebody acting out
of character. So I thought that was I thought I
liked that concept of you know, it was almost so
obvious that he hadn't done it, but all the evidence
was there, so I thought, I thought the concept of it,

(01:02:58):
if you if you take out the sort of the
twenty twenty five lens was was.

Speaker 3 (01:03:02):
Was quite quite cool.

Speaker 9 (01:03:04):
But yeah, I just I just again, it's just one
of those examples of those episodes that just haven't dated
that well in the context of equality and things that
we have now.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
Mm hmm. Great stuff. Thank you very much. Eve England
out in Wales. Carrie Schwent aka Crafty Bear. She's nearby
in London. I think at least her background is What
do you think of this one?

Speaker 13 (01:03:27):
This one interesting ports Scotty just trying to take a
walk with a with a pretty pretty last in the
in the fog and ends up in a little bit
of trouble Portscotty. I wasn't sure about it at first,
but as I've kind of been thinking about it in
the background, I like parts of it a little bit,

(01:03:49):
a little bit more upon like reflection. I love the
Jack the Ripper stuff. On our first trip to London,
my husband and I were supposed to do a Jack
the Ripper walking to were which unfortunately got canceled so
we never never got to go on it. So I
went down a minor, minor wiki hole and found out
that the name Jack the Ripper came from a letter

(01:04:12):
that was written by someone claiming to be to be
the killer, and apparently there's a theory that it might
have been written by one journalist or another to try
to heighten interest in the case and possibly increase circulation.

Speaker 5 (01:04:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:04:28):
Yeah, nobody ever really figured out who who who Jack
the Ripper was. There weren't sure which cases or murders
were connected to him or not.

Speaker 5 (01:04:38):
I enjoyed.

Speaker 13 (01:04:40):
I enjoyed that sort of historical stuff. One of the
things I also liked the seance. I'm a big horror
movie fan. I love a movie or TV show that
that gives it gives me a good seance. They are
always fun and almost never go almost never go as planned. Porcia,
So I thought she was beautiful. I loved her look

(01:05:03):
her hair. Her hair especially was fantastic, although it gave
me a little bit of a headache looking at all
that hair piled up on top of her head. I've
had that style done once and it gets it gets
heavy after a while. I didn't care for some of
the camera angles of it, but I enjoyed the dancer

(01:05:25):
at the beginning. That is definitely a style of dance
that is not in my skill set, but I can
definitely respect the dancers that can pulled that off. And
she apparently did her own choreography to it. The music though,
that she was dancing to is from Vena's Ryan Slave
Girl Danced from the Cage I found out on Memory Alpha.

(01:05:47):
My favorite part, honestly is at the end, once McCoy
gives everybody their injection and they're all happy and being goofy.
George de Kay, especially every line one once he was happy,
just made me laugh out loud and also made me
wonder what what how check what checkoff might might have been?

(01:06:09):
Might have been saying if if he had been been
on the bridge with with with George, you might have
to if you think think about it, Walter and let
me know if you can think of what what Checkoff
might might have might have been saying. But I did
grow together a quick limerick that came to me in
the car on the way home from a thing. So

(01:06:31):
I'll finish up with that. It's very short. We should
be relaxing. We'll get back to it soon once we
deal with Jack.

Speaker 1 (01:06:43):
Thank you very much, Carrie Schwent a k A crafty
bear from old timey London. All right, Chuck a A
K A T and G fanatic? What do you think
of this one? You've seen it before?

Speaker 12 (01:06:55):
Yeah, I had mixed feelings about the episode. Like what
has been mentioned, it seems like it was dated at it.
There had a lot of things that were you know,
that were said in the sixties that don't apply now.
I did notice that the gentleman who played Jarris uh

(01:07:20):
he was a land Drew in uh season one episode
Return of the Archons, and the gentleman that played Hengus
was John Fieldler. Uh he was in a lot of
sixties and seventies television. Uh He was all over the place.

(01:07:40):
I did like the end scene where we got to
see Kyle get pushed out of the way by Spock.
He was happy about it, but he was I got
his tranquilizer shot, so he was a little carefree about it.
We did get a lot of He's dead Jim and
She's dead Jim as was mentioned. I thought that was

(01:08:03):
kind of funny in a way because it was just
basically the same line what three or four times.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
I did like what Carrie was.

Speaker 12 (01:08:13):
Mentioning about George. George's reactions on the bridge were was
really nice. I was hoping to see Walter as check off,
but I kind of remembered he wasn't. He wasn't in
the episode.

Speaker 1 (01:08:27):
I did like.

Speaker 12 (01:08:30):
The uh the computer references about Jack the Ripper and
the different names and like they it enlightened everybody about
who the entity was. I did miss or Heara as
also that was mentioned. Uh, kind of surprised to see that.
Like I said, I have mixed feelings about the episode.

(01:08:52):
I like parts of it, but it didn't date well.
I was a little disappointed seeing it, and it was
a few years since I had seen it before.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
M Well, thanks very much, Chuck, a who says it
didn't date well, echoing the sentiments of others. All right,
Greg Kenzo, what do you think of this one? Though
you you loved this one out in Hawaii.

Speaker 6 (01:09:19):
You're actually spot on. I did love this one, and
I'll tell you why I had to go. First off,
I did exactly what Eve said, you know, I had
to take all the avert sexism and just shove it
down and say, it's the nineteen sixties, you know, give it,
not give it a pass, but understand that maybe even

(01:09:41):
at this time, it was ahead of its time, and
that it had an African American female post early an
Asian American on the bridge. You know, so many things
that are going for it that it so I'm not
going to knock it for its overt sexism, but I

(01:10:01):
have to start with the big nitpick. Even though I
love this episode, it's stop leaving your main suspect, your
murder weapon and the potential like a potential victim, right
next to each other, like the whole the whole time,
I knew it wasn't Scotty, because it's just obvious it's
not Scotty. But yeah, they avoided the second two murders

(01:10:25):
beside that this was I mean, it seems like a
precursor to slasher films. It was also a precursor to
like Skin of Evil in the sense that you know,
evil takes a form. It's the precursor to two Voyager episodes,
one where Tom Perris gets accused of murdering someone and

(01:10:47):
where another where Balana gets accused of murdering someone through
empathic means. I forget the names. I only know plot lines,
but let me see. Yeah, so, I mean Psycho came
out in nineteen sixty, but I think Halloween came out
in nineteen seventy. So, like the idea of fear and

(01:11:08):
like terror being the goal of the villain, it seemed
like it like definitely could have come from this episode,
or I mean from this episode and many other sources.
But yeah, let's see. I love that the solution was
everybody's just dropping Mollie's pretty much. They're's all on drugs,

(01:11:33):
you know, and everybody's like laughing they're about to die.
And then did Kirk get injected? Yeah I don't think. Okay, well,
so I guess we're fearless.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:11:46):
The advincibility of it, yeah, yeah, inherent and captain. I
get it. I get why they would do that, and
it makes it spoke in him. That's why they stand
out as these, you know, extraordinary characters. But yeah, I
did have to put myself in the not in the

(01:12:07):
nineteen sixties, but I try to put myself in that headspace.
But all in all, it is a fantastic episode and
it has made me excited to go back and watch
season one of the original series. I ashamedly have not
seen a lot of TOS. I got to Charlie X
and it was it kind of made me laugh. But yeah,

(01:12:31):
this was great. I'm excited to continue a season two.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
Great stuff as always, all the way from Hawaii. Greg Kenzo,
thank you so much. Alison Leech Hide is here in
the heart of New Mexico. Thank goodness for that. What'd
you think of this one?

Speaker 14 (01:12:48):
Well, this is one of the TOS episodes that I
think of and love as completely bonkers because we are
jumping around all of the different genres, and I think,
of the genres, my favorite it is going to be
the Gothic section because we get all foggy and dark
and all the colors are super like romantic.

Speaker 15 (01:13:08):
We get lots of purples and reds.

Speaker 14 (01:13:10):
And Cybo had the best costume of the entire episode,
and I want it so just throwing that out.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
There might be out there somewhere.

Speaker 15 (01:13:20):
It probably is, but it's gorgeous.

Speaker 14 (01:13:23):
The belly dancers were wearing a lot of tinsel, which
had to have been just strange.

Speaker 15 (01:13:28):
Walking around set in. But you know, there's there's that.

Speaker 8 (01:13:32):
I enjoy that.

Speaker 15 (01:13:33):
Scotty, It's like a running theme.

Speaker 14 (01:13:35):
Scotty has terrible luck with women and concussions, so like
when they're going bird on this, but well he has
a concussion, maybe he it led to murder. I'm like,
concussions don't really lead.

Speaker 15 (01:13:48):
To murder, but CTE can. So we haven't fixed CTE
by then. So that makes me really sad.

Speaker 14 (01:13:55):
So we got to work on that because ct is
terrible and we shouldn't have that.

Speaker 15 (01:14:01):
As a football fan, it makes me sad.

Speaker 14 (01:14:03):
But yeah, that it's a bonkers episode, you know, and
George all High is is like the best part of this.
But I also really enjoyed that Spock decided that having
the computer compute Pie was the way to defeat the computer,
and I really enjoyed that because most people can actually go, oh,

(01:14:25):
I know what at least a number of digits of
pie are and I know it goes forever, so they
kind of go, oh, I understand.

Speaker 15 (01:14:32):
Why he picked that. So I liked that a lot too. So, yeah,
it's a bonkers episode.

Speaker 14 (01:14:38):
I do like it, but I very much get hung
up on the fact that the bad guy is Piglet
and it.

Speaker 15 (01:14:47):
So I'm just like, but.

Speaker 14 (01:14:48):
That's Piglet, Like Piglet is like the best character in
Winnie the Pool. We Jeck the Ripper now, so that's
to look hard for me, as you know, an eighties
nineties baby.

Speaker 15 (01:14:59):
So but I do enjoy the episode.

Speaker 14 (01:15:02):
And my kid, my oldest, was watching with me today
and he had like the first half and and he
comes and he's watching the courtroom scene and he goes, well,
he did it.

Speaker 15 (01:15:12):
I'm like, yes, yes, you're right, he did it. He's like, yes,
so proud of himself too.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
Yeah, good stuff. Wow, But you're right. That's some acting
range from Piglet to Jack the Ripper. Wow, thank you
very much.

Speaker 15 (01:15:28):
Big range. She's got very well. Cava, yes, exactly, Golden Girls.

Speaker 5 (01:15:36):
He was a casanova, so he's got some range.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
All right. Golden Girls is to Melissa the same way
that doctor Quinn Medicine woman is to Carrie Schwint all
right up next, TJ. Jackson bay Out in Missouri. What
do you think of this one?

Speaker 6 (01:15:52):
TJ?

Speaker 7 (01:15:57):
I wasn't all bad. I like what Jason called the
sci fi part of the episode. I thought was good,
was well done. I did you know, I didn't have
as easy a time as Greg did you know getting
out of the twenty twenty five lens. So the beginning

(01:16:18):
of the episode is a little bit rough for me.
And even throughout the episode, just the way that you
know they referenced the women and the victim, they almost
never called her by name. Only I think Jaris called
her by name once, and so you know, that brought
me a little bit. And even if it's nineteen sixty,

(01:16:41):
I think it was still bother me. But you know,
there are like I said, it's not all bad. I
did appreciate some of the character qualities, but there was
also some character misuse in this episode. And I thought
Scotty was definitely misused, not in the the actual story,

(01:17:03):
but in the fact that you know, up until you
know he's kind of proven innocent, if you will, he
doesn't really have much to say, other than I don't know,
you know, I don't know, I don't know what happened.
Uh And you know, I just think that a character
like Scotty would would have a little bit more input
when he's up against you know, being called a murderer

(01:17:28):
and being more active and in vocal in his innocence,
not seeing his silence made him sound guilty. But I
just think that the character of Scotty would have a
little bit more to say about that, And so that
that was a little bit disappointing. Uh well, let me
get to some of the good stuff I did appreciate

(01:17:51):
for character quality Captain Kirk. I thought that, you know,
him trying to walk the line between you know, following
their laws and the fact that the planet is diplomatically
important to the Federation aside from the fact that they
like to go there and look at women that is
strategically important, you know, caused him to you know, carry

(01:18:12):
himself in such a way. A lot of times we
get the sense, or think about the reputation of Kirk
is like this kind of maverick or somebody that's always
bucking the system. But you know, really he's a highly
trained starfleet officer, and I think that carrying out the
role of a captain and a representative of the Federation

(01:18:34):
is where he shined in this episode. Also, I just
gotta love the line that doctor Moore McCoy gave when
Kirk asked him about using sedatives. He says, I've got
some stuff that will tranquilize an active volcano. A pretty

(01:18:56):
good line, very much in character with doctor McCoy. I did, also,
you know, miss the characters that other people mentioned were missing,
such as Aura and I definitely you know, check Off.
I think they would have had some some good input.
I think there could have been a little bit more
of a group effort in resisting the thing once it

(01:19:22):
got loose in the ship in the computer. But as
it turns out, they lied to the crew and just
said the computer's malfunctioning. Because Sulu says, I've never had
a malfunction threaten me. I thought that was kind of
funny as well. I do have a lot of unseid stuff,
but I'll leak one of the things that would have

(01:19:43):
been left unsaid, just just for kicks, because I think
it's funny. The bar that Kurt wanted to visit across
the street that he kept referencing is script Club with Benefits?

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
All right, thanks very much. TJ. Jackson Bay out in Missouri.
All right, Chris, maybe is the dark Lord? However, you
have some light thoughts on this episode, Maybe I'll let
you be the judge of that.

Speaker 11 (01:20:15):
I mean, I appreciate a good wrongfully accused story if
it's done well. Movies like The Fugitive and Double Jeopardy
are great. Sadly, I can't really say that of this episode.
There's just so many moments in nitpicks that stretch by
willing suspension of disbelief to.

Speaker 1 (01:20:31):
Its breaking point.

Speaker 11 (01:20:33):
But I'll say those nitpicks for things left unsaid for now,
I'll just say that, Well, once again, the Argelians are
another alien race that are identical to humans. I love
that Star Trek was in the habit of inventing a
new type of trike order whenever the plot demanded it.
I mean, we haven't heard of a psycho trike re

(01:20:55):
order before or since. This episode reminds me of the
Union race, whom we saw in our recent review of
the Next Generation episode Violations helping people to recall memories. Oh,
and about the resolution, could Kirk be considered a murder
having beamed hangused into space or would he get off

(01:21:18):
of the technicality since McCoy declared him is dead in
an earlier scene. Now, I'll go ahead, like I said,
I'll save my nitpicks for things up and jump to
my memorable quote, which it's memorable to me only because
the SoundBite is sampled and repeated many times in the

(01:21:40):
Information Society song walking Away. And that's Scotty right at
the end saying let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
See that is his favorite letter in the alphabet. Thank
you very much, Chris McGee, great stuff. As always. That's
it for us, Just kidding. Srock's final thought, final take,
any final thoughts on this episode before we go So Rock, Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:22:06):
If I was gonna do some rewrites on this episode,
I'd probably bring in Aha and have use her as
a kind of trap to try to set for this
entity to try to attack her and so they can
catch it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
I think they could have done a lot more. It was.
They didn't do.

Speaker 4 (01:22:24):
Much for me as far as trying to get to
the bottom of it. Again, you guys, ever, everybody mentioned
the chauvinism, but it was it was just latent with it.

Speaker 2 (01:22:32):
It was too much. All over the place.

Speaker 4 (01:22:34):
It was, you know, Scotty says, a real captain, always
thinking of his men, and I was just like one
thing after another where you could see the language was
really dated. I saw that Kiev got a non appearance
mentioned in this episode when they mentioned some stabbings.

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
That happened there in nineteen seventy four. But that was
interesting to see.

Speaker 4 (01:23:01):
I would have called this episode spocks pie hole.

Speaker 1 (01:23:05):
Yeah, that's funny.

Speaker 2 (01:23:08):
That would have been for me.

Speaker 4 (01:23:12):
Uh And then my last comment here is.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
Jason likes that one.

Speaker 3 (01:23:21):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
It works, but yeah, the last thing I want to
say is.

Speaker 4 (01:23:31):
I don't know who has the worst macking game, if
it's Jordi or Scotty, because Scotty says, did I ever
tell you about the marvelous fog of Aberdeen? And I'm like,
are you about to go into a fog conversation? That's

(01:23:53):
that's that's not going to work as well as you
think talking fog.

Speaker 1 (01:24:01):
Also, the Fog was a scary movie back in like
the sixties or seventies. No One was pretty disconcerting for
a lot of people. Hey Walter, before we go, do
you have any final thoughts on this episode? No, I
feel well that's it for us. Everybody. Thank you so
much to Chris McGee, T J. Jackson, Bay, Allison Leech Hide,

(01:24:23):
Greg Kenzo, Chuck A, Carrie Schwent, Eve England, not you, Jason,
just kidding, Jason m Ok and Melissa Longo for myself,
Sarak Walter, Melissa and mister Aaron Eisenberg. Thank you all
very much for hanging out with us. We will see
you next time. We appreciate you, and until then, always
remember the seventh Rule.

All Episodes

Jack The Ripper? | With Walter Koenig | TOS 2.14, "Wolf in the Fold," | T7R #345

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jack The Ripper? | With Walter Koenig | TOS 2.14, "Wolf in the Fold," | T7R #345