Yet Another Star Trek Podcast - Ep 052: (SNW S02E07-E08) Those Old Scientists & Under the Cloak of War (Dual Review)

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Just when you thought two episodes couldn't get further apart in tone, Brad, Drew and Majeed dive into Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 2 episodes "Those Old Scientists" and "Under the Cloak of War."  Do Jack Quaid and Tawny Newsome make a good fit for The Enterprise crew? Does M'Benga bench 225? Find out this and so much more! Be sure to check out our website, social media, and join our Discord! Links for all are listed below: Website | Discord | BlueSky | Facebook | Instagram | Threads | Twitter | TikTok | YouTube Drop us an email at [e-mail]! “Warp Speed” and "To the Stars" was written and performed by William Grobbelaar Music: https://soundcloud.com/williamgrobbelaarmusic Additional artwork by George Rateau: https://www.fiverr.com/georgerateau

Good evening, morning, afternoon, I don't really know what time it is. Welcome to yet another Star Trek podcast. I am your host for the day, Brad, but as usual following me, my two lovely cohorts, Majeed and Drew Gellman, how are you guys doing today? It's nighttime, Brad. You want us to record it at night because you're a nocturnal. It's because I have a 10 month old baby who needs to be put to bed. Oh my god, actually, it's a good thing. How long we can have you play that same song? Baby this, baby.

So you know, I should actually ask you that, Vigid, you have a child who is coming of a older age than mine, I think, a few years above mine. When does that kind of level off? I don't know. It depends. It depends. You're gonna be one of those fathers that don't talk about their kids because they left them to go get a pack of cigarettes. I mean, I didn't. I'm pretty sure no, I'm not gonna be that type of father. I'm gonna stick around

Pretty sure no, I'm not gonna be that type of father. I'm gonna stick around until the very end. So right after potty training, I think is when you can stop using your baby as a crutch. Okay. Cause I need to become kind of stuff for lions. Teach them how to, you know, make toast and eggs, and you'll be fine. You know, I feel like that could go horribly wrong

with setting the house on fire, but you know what? True. You have two children of your own. They are the furry kind. Mmm. Yes. Metro! How are they doing?

Are they keeping you away from your normal tasks? Metro is very clingy. I love Metro. Yeah, but it's a little much sometimes, man Like I love him. He loves us. He loves like with all of his heart, but he also like won't leave us alone. Maybe ever. I'm in the kitchen. He's rubbing on my legs. If I'm sitting on the sofa, he's laying in between my legs. Lucky. Jesus. So it's just like, it's a lot. And then like I'm trying to sleep at night and he's literally just in the crook of my legs.

So I'm sleeping and I have to do gymnastics. So I want to get out of the bed. It's, it's just a lot. But, but he, he, he knows when it's, he knows where there's a warm spot. He can get advantage of. Dax is also affectionate, but not, not to the same degree. He, he'll leave us alone and then come back on his own terms. Are you able to kick them out?

No, at least. If I kick them out, you mean remove them from the bed so they can just jump back in, then yes. Well, no, removing them from the bedroom, and like close the door. So they meow at the door for starters, and then all I hear is meowing, at least when he's laying in the bed with us,

I can fall asleep. And secondly, we don't have air conditioning like in the whole house. So we have one very large air conditioner in the living room, and then we have strategically placed box fans that will push the cold air all the way down the opposite side of the house into the bedroom. We tried to get air conditioning installed last year and that fell through because the company that we had hired

stopped returning our phone calls. Did they just take your money or run? There was no money in exchange. It was an estimate and there was supposed to be some sort of a loan that was involved in it and then they just, they gave up on this after months and months and months of communication. I'll take care of it, buddy. I got you. No.

All right, whatever you'll loss. Remember, you know a friend I can mention to 25, that means that, you know, who? You know what? It's fine. I'm injured, I can't. You can't venture to 25? I can, normally, but can you do it right now?

I don't have 225 pounds to bench. Well, this sounds like a personal issue to me. I'll hear it as excuses. Your personal issue. I remember that time that I used to rub on your leg in a train and you could smack in my hand away. Yeah, that was nice. That was sexual assault.

It wasn't sexual assault. They were unwarranted advances. You kept hitting me. How was it? How was it assault if I was getting hit? Because you were touching my leg. You were touching my leg. Right. And you were hitting me.

No means no. You didn't say no. I did. You know what? I have the footage. I have the footage. Let's just upload. It's fine. We'll let the internet decide. Brad is so done. Brad is so done. Brad, I, I, I honestly don't know what to say. Brad. Yeah. I'm editing this week. Are you? Oh, yeah.

Thank God. You can talk crap about Brad again. Brad, just suck. Thank you, BG. I truly appreciate your warmth and lovely feelings. I do want to admit that you were a pleasure to edit when I needed to during the last episode. It was a thrill to have that power. I just throw you, buddy. I usually just silence entire sections And he clearly never listens to the episode so we'll never know I can't I can't I can't I it's very hard listen It's very hard to listen to yourself like I have to imagine that that like people who are On court, you know and on testifying and you have like audio evidence. Like, how do they do it? How do they listen to themselves? I couldn't do it.

And they have to do this like for a living, right? Like professional rats. Not like rats like splinter, but like rats like people who are rat on others. Like still pigeons. That's a profession. I'm like not really sure how we got from A to B, but you know what makes perfect sense. Don't worry, I'll fix it in post. Clearly. Brad, you're doing a great job wrangling us this week. I mean, last time I was at the editor this time, I don't know, I'm the, I have no idea, no analogy apparently. Just grab me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's the person that is on a play around with the kids and tells all the kids to behave the teacher? Oh, is it? Oh, yeah, okay, cool. So Brad's the teacher.

He's a substitute though, because we oh, oh shit. Oh, yeah. Okay. Cool. So grads the teacher. He's a substitute though because we're walking all over the substitute teacher. Thank you. I appreciate that. Magi. Love you too. So how's everything been going guys? What's new? Yeah, I don't really have anything to report. I worked 10 days last week. And I spent the entirety of my first day off yesterday, like meal prepping and doing stuff around the house before trying to get some sort of relaxation in. And then today, I played video games most of the day, which was nice, but then I also feel like guilty for doing that. I feel like it should have been more productive. You should have. I can completely understand that.

I actually did a few games for my phone and iPad the other day, just for that reason, because I was thinking about how much time I sunk into those games and I'm like, yeah, probably a bit of a waste. I did finish Star Trek resurgence today. Oh wow. Yeah.

I enjoyed it. You don't seem very excited. Okay. There it goes. It's not just a black and white answer. Like the game was fun. I think the story was excellent. And I think they delivered 100% on the promise of giving us a Star Trek adventure.

But the game was glitchy and just some of the gameplay elements were quite frankly a joke. Anytime you're getting into like a phaser fire, or you know, firefight or something like that, it's a nightmare. You know, these, the aiming mechanics are terrible. You have to hide behind cover and then you know popping out of cover to shoot like it's very difficult to aim. Sometimes it slows down your turning for no reason whatsoever just to make it more challenging I guess I don't know. So some very questionable decisions with the gameplay there and it was very glitch, constant graphical pop-ins, characters appearing and disappearing from scenes, just randomly. Things that'll just really take you out of the element

if you don't just try to forget about it. But that said, I do enjoy the game. I think it was a lot of fun. I'm glad I bought it. I'm glad I played it. You know, so I think if you're a Star Trek fan, I do think it's worth your time. There's some nice Easter eggs and surprises in there. And it's a fun game

overall, but it is by no means a flawless experience. What did you play it on? I played it on my Xbox Series X. It's called to buy this segment brought to you by Xbox Series X. I wish it would sponsor us. Oh God, seriously. To have glitches on that says there's a lot that that should more than be capable of handling that game. And the graphics are not that complicated either like I heard somebody say like it looks like it should have been on a PlayStation 2.

And while that might be a bit of a leap It's not that far off So so maybe a PS3 then. Yeah. Yeah We um We uh, I thought of you in that game Drew Did you at least like the story elements like to choose your an adventure stuff? Yeah, no everything seemed to have like weight when you're making some of these choices. There were definitely moments where a decision

that I made utterly pissed off one character and turned them against me. And if I had gone a different path, that might not have played out that way. You know, definitely the kind of thing where like you have to think about the choices you're making. But then the, it's just really that my biggest takeaway is just a lot of the other gameplay elements outside of the story choices felt really baked on and almost took away from the

experience. I'm more than want to take occasion. Fortunately they do include a quote-unquote story mode where it reduces the difficulty of those things by quite a bit. I think it's actually impossible to fail. So it literally just leaves you with making the choices throughout the game. You should check out a game called The Expans by Telltale. It's like a choose your own adventure type thing. It's similar to what they tried to pull off

in Star Trek resurgence. It's apparently like a pretty popular series, like property. I've never heard of it before. Yeah, check it out. I may like it. If people are recommending it to you, maybe you should give that a shot.

But it's funny that you mentioned that game because I also bought that yesterday as well. I just haven't played it yet. I can't wait to hear what you think about it. So, gentlemen, we have two new episodes this week to watch, or that we did watch, I should say. Those old scientists and under the cloak of war. Shall we get into them? Do it! Right, KER, we start with those old scientists and we start a little differently. I think this this week it's not the enterprise and it looks a little different.

It is animated. We start with the crew of the serritos. Now just to give any listeners who may not be familiar, the crew of serritos is from the Lower Decks Star Trek TV series, which we highly highly recommend. It is a phenomenal series. But we are doing a crossover where part of the episode is animated and part of its live action. So we start with Brad Boimler, Beckett Mariner, Devana Tendi and Sam Rutherford. Those are the main protagonists in the Lower Deck series and they're going on in a way mission to the planet Krullmuth B. I pronounce that correctly. I hope gentlemen. Sure. That's close enough. We get fixed and post. No, we can but that's what I would have I would have called it. Yeah, so

Chromeuth be so they are going to be mod out this Planet to Observe a portal that was discovered by Pike tendi says the Orion's Discovered the portal and it was not pike And so there was a little bit of them, you know, disc, but Blamlaire being the quirky animated character he is wants to take a picture of the portal. And yeah, things don't go well. They take the picture and he gets sucked into time and goes to the time period of the enterprise.

We're strange new worlds is clarification on that. And there's spot a number one and Lieutenant saying are all just kind of standing there. And yeah, they're like, Hey, who the heck is this guy? Yeah, so comments on them being quote very realistic Love messing out and this is just one of many like fourth wall breaking jokes that we start to encounter It was really fourth wall breaking just like hints and like little nudges and nods. Well, I think you know fourth wall is in my office.

I think it's fair. I think it's for I think it's fourth wall breaking because doesn't that classify towards making fun of yourself like of like what the situation is? Well, it's a kind of fourth. That Deadpool does fourth wall breaking. He's talking directly to the audience. Okay. Well, sorry.

We're, I mean, we're split in hairs, but, but I think I get what you're saying. Because it's your point though, is it's like he's the entire Cerritos is animated, whereas everybody's realistic in the live action TV show. He's commenting on something that only the viewer would perceive. Yeah, because he doesn't know he's animated. Yeah, pretty much. And so then therefore he's talking to the viewer. So fourth wall breaking. You know what?

It's fine. We'll just edit that part out. I love how you guys are arguing over it. And I'm the one that said it and I already conceded. So one of the weeks up on the the enterprise pike number one and banga are all there and he's freaking out. In the sense that well, he's let's face it, he's fan-boring. He's just being a huge fanboy and is completely overwhelmed with the, his heroes of people who he always talks about.

And he quickly, you know, lets them know that he's from the future. And so as this is a thing in surf, he is a protocol to he should have little to no contact with anybody. What does he do? He, you know, rums around the ship. Talks to Lutans saying and trying to get an understanding of how everything's going. It's kind of going a little awkwardly for him. He's not very socially adept. Trudeau life, Trudeau's character. Oh, he's very, very, very, he's portrayed by what Jack Wade, Jack said, yeah, Jack Wade on fire this

year, man. Yeah. He's a fanatic. Anyways, he makes his way to the conference room and you know, happens across a saddle, you know, from pikes and he decides to make a hop on to it. He riker. And he says riker out of an exclamation, which was apparently not scripted and was totally outlipped. Yeah. Drew had to point that out to me. I didn't catch it. It was quick. It was very subtle. A lot of things happened so quickly in this episode.

Yeah, they definitely adapted the lower deck's style of script writing and acting for this particular episode. And that was something that you could have easily missed if you weren't looking for it. I heard it, but I didn't make the connection when I was watching the episode. And then I watched the, the Ready Room hosted by Will Wheaton. And they talked about it and that they had Jack Wade, Tony Newsom and Jonathan Freik who directed this episode on there.

And that was a delightful interview. Did he do that because Frank's was directing? That's part of it. Yeah, he said he saw Frank's and he just had to do it. And he breaks it down. He talks about how it's not the riker or doing the riker. It's just riker. Riker.

So it was an ad-libbed moment that they end up keeping. And I think there were a couple others that they talked about too. If you haven't had chance to watch that interview, it's about a half hour episode, but the interview itself is probably about 20 minutes or so. Where's your time? Where's checking out? Well, I'll definitely give that a shot. But now they're trying to get, or figure out a way to get Boimler back to his current time. So Spock, Manga, and him fly down to the,

or beam down to the portal, and they're trying to identify how to make it work. It seems like it's out of gas, not really going anywhere, and they go back to the enterprise and there's a Orion ship that is a present. It kind of beams up or it kind of warps on in and apparently their Orion's are known for being space pirates. And the assumption is that those are rinds are there to steal, pillage,

or whatever pirates do. But, Boimler being Boimler is the guy kind of going with his friend Tendia, which she said that they are actually scientists and that they are okay. And so Pike makes the decision to trust Bumler's information and sure enough they beam aboard the portal and they high-tail it. Now that the reins are gone Bumler feels like crap. Pike is not happy with following Bumler's decision. So they have to kind of figure out a way to get the eight back.

Of course, Boimler being the individual that he is and he can't keep his secret in any sense of the way. He somehow lets Chapel and Ortega's know when Pike's birthday is, which is apparently this Friday, and it's gonna have like a surprise party for him, who knows, I don't know. But in the interim of them trying to track down the Orion's boiler tells them to turn around while he modifies the system.

And everybody's like, sure, why, why not? Because, you know, we've already messed up this much. And they literally just turn around and he's like, one more, one more, I'm almost done. Closer eyes, secure, secure fingers in your ears. Right, and then he gets stuck in there. He gets. Well, they find the Orion's pretty quickly. And they get to them and they negotiate a deal,

which is they trade a bunch of wheat that they had carrying on to like another colony location. And they get the portal back. And of course, they discover a way to activate the portal one more time. And, uh, Bimler being Bimler kind of overextends his farewell speech. And yeah, so Mariner jumps through and, uh, she says she rescues us. We talk about this is a rescue mission.

I love that. I love live action Boimler. I also love live action Mariner. Both of them so adorable. I am very disappointed in the fact that they didn't include Rutherford or Tendi. I don't think Rutherford looks anything like Rutherford. He does.

He doesn't, he doesn't. But come on, man, wouldn't it be great to just still have him somehow? By the way, live action, Ryan's, oh my God, they look so good. Yeah. And they did it really well. In response to Brad's disappointment,

I think it was fine the way they did it because I think the two characters are, you know, Boimler and Mariner are the number one characters on Lower Decks. They are. And I think if he had Tendi and Rutherford in the mix as well too, well it would have been cool. I think it would have watered the story down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rutherford's, his attachment, his IPs would have recorded everything, that messed up the future of the past. Yeah. Wait, what?

No, it didn't, because he would have recorded everything and then he would have went to the future and therefore it would have been out of the past. What? Kind of a brad's of time, traveler. Back on board the Enterprise, Mariner and Blomler are kind of bickering back and forth over the whole situation, and Mariner kind of wants to see her idol, Uvra. Which for me was a little bit of a surprise. I didn't really realize Uro was Mariner's idol.

Did she mention it previously in one of the other lower decks episodes? Yes. Yeah, I don't know that she did or didn't, but maybe. But the way that Mariner describes Uroa was very different from what we were seeing on Stranger World. Somebody who is very relaxed knows when to put her forward to do the work, but also knows when to just chill and not do anything. That's not over in any sense of the way. So it's almost when to hold them, those when to fold them, and just, knows when to walk away. At, at that point though, pipe kind of just gives up on

real and in the two time travelers. And just is like, yeah, you know what, you can have a rule of the ship. Just go wherever you want, just stay out of trouble. Yeah, he's literally just thrown in the towel and just giving up. And the other thing too, which I didn't mention, is that anytime number one gets close to Boimler, he kind of just freaks out and just runs away. Yeah, he's actually like, he's got the hots for something or knows something about her that he's not allowed to say. Yeah. Um, but it's in terms like he idolizes her. Yeah.

Or the, because she's the poster child. It was so awesome. It was, it was like the poster child for the federation. And that's why like he, it's like meeting your hero kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. He'll, he'll, he'll straight up touch Pike, but he'll run away from number one. So great.

Pretty much, pretty much. But yeah, Marinor finds a way to a horror and kind of, you know, tries to help her decipher the language. But eventually it's like, hey, you know what, it's ain't going anywhere. Let's go get a drink. And as the reluctant individual who are a falzer and they go to the bar and Marinor makes them a drink. Well, sorry, also Ortega's as well.

Ortega's joins us. And of course, who is trying to figure out the dialect on the machine while she's having the drink, but that doesn't go so well, eventually or take us call zero. And or take us actually figures out what language is on the machine, Or take is actually figures out what language is on the machine Which apparently doesn't mean anything other than was it time portal Yeah So it's it literally it's all it is just the language there is just says hey, this is what's called It's like you know going to a

Like aliens come to our planet and they find something that says dodge. Oh, it's a dodge truck, okay. Banger. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm either bandage. Anyways, so Bormler and Spock are trying to make more fuel for the actual time portal and they try not to blow up the enterprise in the process,

which Spock has been exhibiting strange, humanistic characteristics. Yeah, you had that problem once. I know. I know. Thankfully, it's curable. Curable. It's called having a's called, you know, having a trial and then you're just, there we go again. Oh, goodbye.

Twice in one episode, man. And golly. Listen, you made that decision. You can't undo it. Well, no, you know, let's not get into that drill. How dare you? Anyways, things are getting right. I'm not the one that brings up my baby every 10 minutes.

It's not, it's been at least 20. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry, Brad. I'd like to you guys better when I was gonna be the editing, the editing. I'd like to you guys better when I didn't have a baby. I'd like to you guys better when I was gonna be the editing. I like you guys better when I didn't have a baby. I like you guys better when I lived in Connecticut. I'm sorry.

Can we talk about how great this scene with Spock and Boimler was. This might have been my favorite scene in the entire episode. The two of them wearing these ridiculous goggles and running for cover and getting a live action Boimware scream. Oh, I love that. I love the live action Boimware scream. I don't know.

I didn't understand it. She didn't get it. Like she's like, okay, what's the big deal? I said, buddy, that's Boimware. That's a live action, Boyler's scream. That's the true is alarm clock ringtone. So, and by the way, after the experiment blew up,

both of them looking out from other sides of the wall. Yeah, just, at great. Yeah, it just, it was a screened 80s buddy movie. There was a meme that I saw, and I saw it before I got to see the episode. So I didn't understand the context, but it was that scene with weird science logo underneath it. Oh, that's perfect.

Yeah, it is definitely screened weird science. All right, so with things looking grim in both a Mariner and Boimler probably being stuck in the past, the two concoct a plan to contact the Orion's because they filled guilty for trading away the wheat for the portals and so just never gonna go home, so they say like, hey, why don't we just undo what we did

and then get those wheat for people and we can just live our lives back here. However, Singh ends up catching them because of a whoreau smart and knows how to monitor things and takes them to pike. They have a very blunt conversation with Pike regarding things are going on. And they find out that Pike knows that he's going to have a demise at some point in his near future. Also a great scene. Watching Marinere do like the whole wheelchair sign with the little girl. Oh my God. Oh, Mariner. God, listen, like, we

talk, I talked a lot about how good Boymer was, how Jack Wade was, but in Mariner, she's so quick, everything just so quick. And you know what it, you know, actually, what it was, the funniest things about this episode, we're not what Mariner and Boymer were saying, it, you know actually what it was, the funniest things about this episode were not what Mariner and Boima were saying. It was everybody reacting to what they were saying. So a good example of that is when Boimler is talking to Embanga, he's like, oh my god, is it the trans quarter and what a version is this? And oh, it's, you know, it's less prone to blowing up.

And Embanga's like explodes. Just like rope play. It's just such a great, just such bangas like explodes. Just like rope fire. It's such a great, just such a great like reaction. Kudos all around. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I agree. It's like the how would the others react to them was the best. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like they're constantly making very specific references. Right. So they talk real slow in the past. Compared to that in the talk in the future. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. So however, in the whole course of the conversation with Pike, they come to their realization, they have a solution to their problem. The specific material that they're looking for to help fuel the time portal is actually a part of the old original enterprise, the original enterprise where Captain Archer was there. And through a long and drawn out explanations to how they know this information, they go down

to engineering, they pull this piece out and they're like, Hey, it's right here. And everybody's like, we've been walking over this the entire time. How do we not know this was here? Anyways, they go through a full process of going down to the planet again and kind of say, goodbye. They let number one know why pileers freaking out about her and Spock does his live long and prosper thing. Was that his first time doing that in this season or series? I'm gonna say no, but I don't have proof of that. I don't recall it ever occurring before, but this is maybe because this episode's so memorable, like kind of pop. Yeah. But Bumler, Pike, Marineriner and saying all boom down to the planet. And there's a Ryan's there.

He's like, Hey, we got your message. What's up? And well, Mariner and Boimler saved the day by going through the whole spiel of saying, Hey, we know you're really a scientist. You have, uh, was it attendees, great, great grandmother on your ship her name is this and Pike was like all right here's the deal we'll say that you discover this place and it wasn't us yeah and they made a mappy because they're actually scientists they're not actually they're pirates man they They're totally pirates. Yeah, if you got that they were actually scientists out of the sea. I watched yeah You may want to rewatch that again. Right and Boima just didn't want to upset or tendi at the end

He's just like yeah, no totally Orion scientists hint hint wink wink. Yep Anyways, they make their way back to the Cerritos in the future and everything is okay. And then there's an after credit scene, I think, wasn't there? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I don't think it was after credit, too. It was like right before the end. So the crew of the Enterprise gets animated as well.

Yeah, they're drinking some Orion drinks or something, I think. It's like Orion Brandy or something. Yeah, and they're using that as the excuses to why they all feel so funny. The fact that they were of the capture Pike's hair in animated form is just shout out, big shout out to the animated crew. Did I ever call it correctly where when a

Boimler met Pike for the first time, he's like going through everything is like, oh, in the hair too. Yeah, yeah, he's, he's going through all the, all the qualities. Like, yeah, you're a diplomatic, great leader, you're knowledgeable and great hair. And Pike is like, I'm so done. I just need a drink.

So, Jelma, what do you guys think? Oh, I love the episode, man. Oh, it's such a great episode. Just Jack Quaid, he's firing all cylinders. And I don't know Drew about you, but if this episode were playing on the TV randomly, I'm going to watch it every single time. I didn't pick up my phone the entire episode.

Like my phone was down. Yeah. I loved it. Jumman, I'm going to let you know that I'm going to bring up the baby again, but it's only because I was laughing so loud. I woke my baby. Oh, this baby. Come on. Three times.

Three times. I think I think this is a record for the amount of times it brings. It's basically these baby baby makes me by wake up the baby. I'm laughing too hard. The baby wants to go to warp speed. What's next? The baby doesn't want to let me sleep. I'm not eternal because it is a baby.

But I think this was probably one of the funniest episodes I've seen for Stranger World. Yeah. I don't know. Well, I mean, that's pushing it, though, right? Because it's changed the world. It's not really there to be comedy. It's there to be nostalgic. Can't wait, right? This is the only episode that's been pure comedy, I would say

up to this point. Mm-hmm. And they went in with that attitude, directing it. They talked about it in the ready room. I really need to watch that. I do, like normally I don't watch those, because I just, I don't know, I just feel like it's just extra content that's not really meant for me, right? I don't know. But with this one, I felt like I kind of needed to kind of hear from the three of them. Once I saw the clip of the Riker maneuver first,

either TikTok or Reels or something, I was like, you know what? I need to hear the whole story. So I went back and I watched the episode and it fills in a lot of the production gaps that we don't really get as viewers. But I got to say like, you know, since day one, I think there's been some valid comparisons to Marin or kind of looking like Tawny Newsom and Boimler kind of looking like Jack Wade.

But I never in my wildest dreams thought that either one of them would pull off the role, live action so well. And they just knocked it out of the park like they are those characters, whether it's animated or not, they are those characters. Did you see when number one came up to talk to Mariner and Boimler? Yeah, and Boimler starts doing the section three and one walk. I loved it. It's such an again. So many. There's so many Easter eggs that like, I mean, like lower decks is such a fast-paced

show with all these like Easter eggs too, and you blink and you miss them. And I felt like that was happening in real life. Yeah. Ah, just so good. Brad, I listen, if you have only watched it once, you owe it to yourself if you're a fan of lower decks. You owe it to yourself to watch this episode again. You know, I'm probably going to do that. And I'm also probably going to rewatch all of lower decks just because I want to watch the show again. Yeah.

Yeah. Listen, it's, it's, it's good. It's so good. I've been wanting to do a rewatch of it myself. And it's so easy because it's a half hour. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a stair climber show. It's, it's a cardio show at the gym, you know? Right.

We have a season season four coming. Yeah, yeah, wait. Hey, that poster of number one that's hanging in, um, oil and there's locker. That had been there, right? Like, that's not the first time we've seen it. It's been in like seasons one, two, and three. Has it? I think so. I don't know about one, two, and three. I think I remember there being some kind of

Easter egg on Reddit saying that, you know, attention to detail is key because it's been, you know what, let's maybe, I post it on Twitter. That would surprise me because even though it's changed your world is, is only in its second season, like Pike and number one were on discovery. I think two or three years prior to that, and I think that was before lower decks, wasn't it?

Say that I was I was scouring for information and memory office say that again, Brad. When did lower decks first first air? It's been a couple years. So they've been doing one season a year, more or less. So it's been 20, 2019. 2020. That sounds about right 2019. Season two discovery was 2019.

So lower decks season one must have been 2019 as well. Oh, you guys hear Kylo in the background? I thought there was a keyboard. No, my keyboard, brother. No, no, season one of lower decks was 2020. So there's a COVID show. Yeah, I remember that. But, but yeah, so that would indicate that they knew number one. So that's probably why they're like, they were like, oh, we're just gonna do that. It's easier. Gentlemen, anything you did not like about this episode or is it all roses? I hated how short it was.

Yeah. Yeah, I can get behind that. Yeah, I mean, there really isn't anything to dislike about it. You know, it was firing on all cylinders from Starry. I would have liked more Mariner. Like if the two of them came through at the same time, yeah, they could have played out in a sensible way. Like Mariner is always trying to keep an eye out on her body.

And like, of course, she would try to save him, right? Yeah. As soon as it opened, she would have merely jumped through. Yeah. Did you, did you appreciate or even catch? We got like a PLV, um, side of, of Boimler entering the bridge. Yeah, yeah, I did see that. Yeah. I love that. His excitement would have been my excitement. Um, I think he almost pushed the button that Kirk push to kill all those crewmen. I think that was, uh, I think he almost pushed the button that Kirk push to kill all those crewmen. I think that was, I think it was close to hitting that button.

I'm not really sure that's why it was, buddy. Well, listen, Kirk's murder. I would have to get into that now. But I would continue to watch this episode over and over again. This is so far my favorite strange new world's episode. You know, I could probably second that as well. I think it was phenomenal. Yeah, I don't have any arguments with either of you guys on that one either. Really enjoyed it.

At least it's my favorite episode for this season at the very, very least. Yeah, I really want Art Judah argument with me on something. So hopefully with this next episode, I can get you to argue with me. My favorite episode may change when I see subspace for Episodian or Roops city. Raps. Yeah, you like musicals. I do. I do.

I do. I love little shopper whores, Avenue Q. I'm just going to say this. I love Little Chapel Hors, Avenue Q. I'm just gonna say this right now. I actually don't really care for musicals. So, boo! Oh wow. Can't wait. Oh, Demar, Demar.

We'll agree to disagree. Demar. Hey, gentlemen, the next episode we watched is under the cloak of war. Before we get into this, can we just talk about how the writers of Stranger Worlds have the balls to have a complete farce of a comedy one week. And then a soul crushing episode, the following. That's also a meme. That isn't that very much a meme. Yeah. Oh, I could totally see that being a meme. It's it's it was something like range of emotions,

watching Star Trek change the worlds. And I was like laughing one crying in the next, watching Star Trek change new worlds. And I was like laughing one, crying the next, laughing one, crying the next. I haven't seen that, man. Yeah. I got you. No, I'm surprised you haven't seen it.

You know, it's been on Twitter. I know you're on X now, Brad's not on X. I'm not calling it that. I hate the logo. Brad's not on X. I'm not calling it that. I hate the logo. I can kind of I can kind of understand the alternating happy sad base phone or whatever. Remembering for the season. But yes, I do agree this next episode takes a very drastic turn.

very drastic turn. The crew of the enterprise head to the Prospero system where an ambassador of Starfleet helped negotiate a ceasefire between multiple different warring factions. Upon being aboard, we find out this ambassador is a former general of the Klingon Armory who defected to the Federation, Doc Crab, or as he prefers to call himself just raw. To his welcoming aboard the the Enterprise to say the least is pretty icy cold, especially those who fought in the Klingon Federation War, or Tegas does a phenomenal job of making him feel

welcome when she brings up that he is known for killing his own men when leaving the planet. He actually walks in on that conversation that was a like one of those insert foot into mouth type of situations. Mm hmm. I love, I love, um, or take us this season. You know, I didn't like or take a season one. I love or take a season two.

They must have heard my feedback, which my only feedback was, my only feedback was I hate Ortega's. I'm sure they specifically tailored Ortega's to you. What a weird thing to say to me, but continue. Through a mishap with food replicators and pike insisting, raw makes his way to sick bait, which I drew. I wanted to make a note. Did we're food replicators around back then? I can't remember. Yeah.

Yeah. They were. Okay. Were they in TUS? Yeah. Okay. It doesn't stand out thatout that much apparently for me. I mean, it wasn't as glamorous as it was on next generation,

but it existed. Yeah, it's true. Both Embangah and Chapel are in sick bay and are clearly destroyed at seeing general, or I'll just say raw, because no longer generalism bastard at this point. Raw. We take a jump back a few years to during the Klingon Federation War and we're going

to the moon, Jigal, where chapel is arriving for the first time and meets Commander Buck Martinez, AKA Clint Howard and then bango for the first time. Drew, I wanna say, when I saw Clint, I was like just so fanboying out, pointing at my screen. All I can think of is that like that meme with like, Leonardo DiCaprio just pointing that, that was me. Yeah. There it is.

That was G. Do. There it is. That was G. Do you, that's pretty awesome. Do you remember, do you know who that was that Clah Howard? I know who Clah Howard is. And I remember he played that creepy kid back in, in TOS. But when he said his name was Bunk, all I thought was the kids that drew hated bunk bunk. You mean balls like wait buck Not bonk don't curse don't curse at me. Bye. Buck. She's Like fuck oh So the war appears to be at its highest

Yeah, it's highest. Drew is so done. And both Chapel and Benga are in full swing trying to save lives. And we additionally start to hear rumors of how bad general raw is and how much atrocity he really has brought to the war on the moon. he really has brought to the war on the moon. Back to the present time, we learned that Pike is hosting a dinner for the Abassar, and the higher-ups want things to go very friendly and warm, so they invite war veterans to the dinner, so I mean, like, what could possibly go wrong with doing such

something? Well, it was a gesture like he's trying to show that, hey, if the war veterans can, you know, come to terms with a peaceful solution, then anybody can. Yeah, I guess I get where they're going with it, but it's it's a, um, in those situations, I think it's best to get those individuals who may have barely touched the wars, they're not that potentially impacted. Um, but, uh, as, uh, as you would imagine, tensions are high or Tayus is debating on just bailing. Ambenga arrives just in time to kind of push her in through the door and nurse chapels off to the side, looking like she's already had a nice hard drink.

But apparently needs like double scotch as well because she's not really doing well. The topic of war and inevitably gets brought up, Rae is asked if you really killed his own men. He kind of dodges the question, or Tag is eventually loser, cool with the ambassador and eventually just is dismissed. Chappel goes off, like trying to see if she's okay,

and it looks like Embanga is about to lose his crap and Pike is like, hey, Doc, you should probably go part ways and check after or take us. However, Rod grabs him by the arm and is like, hey, how about we do a sparring match? Like I heard you're pretty good. You agree. So back into the past,

we start to uncover more backstory behind Ambanga to undercover more, more backstory behind, uh, and Benga, and we, we meet a, uh, I guess a commando from the federation who's like going to go try and kill, uh, raw, this commando, he wasn't a Ryan true. What, what was Andorian Andorian. Yeah. Yeah. He was Hemers cousin. Yep. Yep. Hemers cousin. Got it. So this Andorian commando was trying to get a mega to make him some sort of serum that apparently he's the only person who could create that get basically The only person who could create that get basically Increases the adrenaline and you know make you super sensitive to everything. It's what we saw in the first episode this season

Yeah, and then goes like no, no, I can't do it. But blah. I'm not that's not me. I'm here to heal people That's that's my goal. Well the command is like whatever dude, I'll just go do this myself anyways. Ends up taking a bunch of guys to go kill raw. We, of course then, here the federation team doesn't, their plans to kill raw don't really go so well and pretty much all of them die for the most part. Back in the present, Ross bars with a good doctor. He tries to get the doctor to open up to him, but that obviously is not going very well.

And Ross tries to convey that he is a changed man and that he's trying to atone for what he has done in his past. Back to the past. We learned that and Penga essentially ends up killing a Starfleet member that is stuck in a transporter buffer buffer to save other people. It was the one that was one that chapel had thrown in the buffer per his recommendation, because his organs were like falling out of his chest cavity. Yep, they didn't have a way to regenerate it. And so like the docs like, hey, we got incoming people, they need our help. If we can't

get to them, they're going to die. So this guy's already going to die. If, you know, he doesn't get the thing, we just can't wait. So he makes the decision to just, I guess, essentially killing the guy. Right. And, you know, we additionally start to see these children coming in that are casualties of war. We learn that the atrocities of Ra are just getting higher and higher and that one of the biggest things that, like the direction from him for his men was that kill anybody who is not a cling on. So and Banger kind of had enough and decides to go Rambo and kill the general himself,

which we don't really actually go see and or follow him when, but it seems to have impacted him severely. Back to the present. The crew of the Enterprise aren't really doing well and number one makes a suggestion to say, hey, let's take this more direct route to our or thing to get this guy off of our ship. Pike agrees and takes the short run. Rob decides to go to the good doctor, and make a one last time to try to make amends, make peace between them or, I don't know, get them to accept him for who he is,

that doesn't go as expected. The amangas like, I need you to just leave. I'd get away from me. Don't don't do this. And this is where we learned what had really happened back on the moon is that Manga was actually the one who killed Ross men. And it wasn't raw killing his own men in his attempt to escape. But he was escaping while his men were dying. And Rah was so ashamed of

just his cowardice that he did not want to admit to it. And he betrayed his people because he didn't want to admit that he was a coward, which then earned him the butcher of, what was it again? Ja. Ja. Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Richard Jigal. And well, we now see that Embangue has the dagger of the one that he had from years ago that had the blood of the three men that the were under Ross command and we then kind of turn the camera away. Chapel, I'm just in.

It's a frosted screen. You could hear Ron, banker, good, kind of get a jargum it. And then there's a stab and Ross dead. Portland out for a. Yeah. So this then it kind of goes through like the true a really fast pace of chapel giving off like the statement um pike listening to mango side of the story and they confirmed that the dagger was the the dagger they killed, the three men and say that raw came to kill a mango and

Banga ended up killing him in self-defense. Convenient. And this episode ends in such a way that it makes you question on how much one can do that can be forgiven. And in how much in a way should we try to strive for peace and accept an individual for who they are? Well, the vibe that I got from raw was that he was basically just a chameleon trying to fit into whatever circumstance he was in the best he could, right? I don't know

that he necessarily was truly changed. I think he was trying to give the perception that he was changed. The doctor makes a line in this episode and I can't remember exactly, but I think it's something along the lines of, if you start living the lie enough, it becomes the truth. Yeah. And so, to me, my question is, is that the case for raw? I do agree, though, with you in the sense, was that raw didn't kill his men. So at this point, he's clearly just where he had been for a period of time just posing that he's a changed individual. But

at what point is he really changed or is he at this point just kind of that, you know, wolf and sheep's clothing. Right. Yeah. The, um, that speech, not the speech, is his journal entry, his log entry, talks about fixing the machine and it could break again. And then, you know, seeing that the machine on the surface is fixed, but yet that system failure.

I think that was a bit of, you know, subtlety and merely for what, thank you, it's metaphor for what Rebecca's going through. On the surface, he looks fixed. He is fundamentally broken on the inside. And by the way, Jack, man, he is cut up like a Julian salad. That man is shredded.

I bet you he can bench press to 25. Shut up. Stop. I don't you dare. I bet he could too, but you better stop it. Hey, look man. I know you know, you know, Dan, well, I could bench to 25, but I just don't, I just don't understand. I just don't understand why you feel the need to plaster it all over my tweets. How else do I get you to acknowledge me and the things that I do? Well, I don't know. I'm sure there's other ways. All right, I'm gonna go to your house with Tewach and Twink, for a crash. I'm gonna bench it. You're going to the crats or something.

Okay. Yeah. I think Babs is making a case for being the sackeder on the show. Oh, and Benga? Yeah. Oh, I didn't, I don't know his real name. I can't pronounce his last name. Uh, okay. Yeah, no. Sometimes it's better not to try.

Yeah, I'm going to, I'm going to butcher it if I do, but uh, yeah, he, um, he's, it's great. So during this Klingon War, was his daughter already in the buffer? I think she was. Okay. That would explain how he knew it, right? Yeah. Okay. That was so heartbreaking. Yeah. So how did you guys feel about how this episode played out? Do you feel that it was a little disjointed at all with the back and forth between the future and past?

I think it was bookended really nicely between the present scene and the one that happened in the past. It was really, really well bookended. Yeah, I didn't have any issues with the way it was laid out either. Everything seemed very clear to me when they were going back and forth between present day and the past. Yeah, the elixir, the potion, the medicine that he developed was at position 12. Something like that. Yeah, I think something like that, yeah. All right, well, that took a toll on his body, right?

Cause he's having like, he was grabbing his chest a lot on Lesley's or Panic Attack. I think that's what Panic Attack is. Yeah, okay. So what about the the overall experience that Amanga and Chapel had While they were on that planet and and how they were

Handling themselves like that seemed pretty accurate to you guys. That's so Like no, do you feel like that that was like a pretty good portrayal of like their anxiety for this man that they kind of loathed. It definitely explained it. Yeah. You know, it did a really good job explaining why this guy was only mentioned in name and you know, what was it? Transport incoming, right?

That's all they kept hearing. Seeing women, children just slaughtered at the hands of this tyrant, this war criminal. It was the word life changing. Right. I mean, I've never been in war, but I have to imagine it messaged you up pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah.

War is hell, man. Yeah. And how about the decision to have the ambassador even on board? Weird one. Yeah. What was that? It was a little weird, I feel. The... I understand the enterprise is supposed to be the flagship,

the ship of peace. And it's not unprecedented for Star Trek to have like a you know a party from a faction or race that they've been at war with on board to try to do some like peace talks. But I don't know the whole thing just felt a little weird. Like where were they bringing him just to a star base? Yeah, to a star. To continue peace talks. So how about that ending though with Embanga and Rah? We're probably never going to touch upon it this season. I mean, listen, we're never going to, the season's almost over. That's one.

Yeah. Right. And it took them eight episodes to address the blue green lixer. Right. It took, you know, eight episodes to dive into that. I don't think we're gonna get any kind of follow up to how broken on the inside. Yeah. Well, no, I was I'm meaning more of, um, how do you feel about banga stabbing raw? Was he justified in doing it? Um, from, unfortunately, a obscure view, it doesn't appear that raw attacks and banga. it doesn't appear that raw attacks and bang. It sounds like it was self-defense, and I think just kind of based on everything we learned in the episode,

that filming, that framing of the scene, it made us think about it. It makes us have these conversations that's left for interpretation. And I love it, fantastic choice. I mean, this is like a cinematic, you know, kind of like obscuring what really happened. So we don't really know what happened.

But I mean, it seemed like it was implied that he at least put his hands on Embangue. Whether or not that was an aggressive manner, we'll never know. But, you know, he was was he was certainly trying to get him to see his point of view and his reason with forceful intent, it seemed. But if you if you think about the ending part where the justification is to why they're saying, hey, it was self defense.

he was self-defense. He was killed with the dagger that had his men, like their DNA on it. So it was proof that it was, quote unquote, his weapon. But it really wasn't. It was embankment's weapon. Well, as the story goes, you know, Ra was the one that killed those other three clings because they were attacking him for betraying his people by, you know, calling off the attacks, right? That was the gist, but the reality was embanga was the one that used that knife to kill all three of them. And he just never made it to raw Yeah, because he the three men that you

Were it was fighting like they ended up slowing him down right and to me the way I took the ending is that rod did not Initiate any any type of attack and in banggood just killed Rob straight up because of everything that he did. Right. As we can both or all three of us can see is a very different style of episode between the first and the second. Huge, huge difference. Yeah.

I mean, if you had a pick one of the two, do you guys have a preference? Like which one you like better? Yeah, those old scientists, man. I don't need to cry myself to sleep every night. That's fair. That's fair. The old, those old scientists was a lot more relaxing, a lot more mellow. Yeah.

Yeah, this was was this was heavy. This one was real heavy. But you know what though? Like to their credit, like, you know, how you had mentioned that you didn't put your phone down once during those old scientists. I did not as well, but I also, sorry, you didn't pick up your phone once, right? I didn't pick up my phone once. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, I didn't for either episode. Mm hmm. For different reasons. These were two very good, well-written episodes that really drew me in. Yeah. Yeah. Very good stuff. Over overwhelmingly, uh, just wonderful Star Trek these past two weeks.

Mm hmm. Yeah, I'm going to be sad when this show eventually has to come to a close. Like, you know, it's inevitable. Right. I'm gonna be very, very unhappy. That's what happens with live action TV, but these animated stuff, you know, they can go on for years. They can keep bringing it back. Yeah. Are you making fun of Futurama?

I still need to watch it. Well, don't worry about that because Futurama makes that joke about five or six times in the course of their twenty-two minute episode. I think my favorite was, I think, the season four of Family Guy. When they got canceled, like several times and they get finally got brought back. I remember the opening was like Peter just listing off every single, every show that would need to get canceled in order for them to return to air. And it was just like this whole list of horrible Fox TV shows.

Except for Firefly. Firefly was on that. I remember that was so upset about that. Yeah, but you know, Josh Sweden now in 2020 is horrible. Anything you want to talk about for this episode before we move on? It is two hours past my bedtime. It is two hours past my bedtime So on that note we will next be watching subs face Reps city and Hegemon had had had had had had you had you had you man had you come on had you money? Had you money had had had had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had you had had had Gemini had Gemini. I didn't I haven't seen I haven't seen the new episode listening. Yes, we got subspace for app. See

Yeah, had Gemini. So I'm looking forward to uh to doing the seeing how the last episode is as it will probably include the Gorn. I'm guessing is maybe it would be very odd to have the gorn in a musical No, it wouldn't it'd be delightful That's one way to put it it would be delightful Well listeners we have taken up so much of your lovely time when we thank you and appreciate you for tuning in We will catch you again in two weeks time, take care now. Later. Bye.

I can bet you 25, Drew can't buy. Thanks for listening to yet another Star Trek podcast. We're a part of the retro sessions in over. This episode was recorded on July 29, 2023, and is hosted by Brad Drew and Majeed. This episode was edited by Drew not Brad. However, Brad did do half of us synapses, the other half was totally wings and I'm sure you could tell. Mijitax's counterpart work as usual, special thanks to William Grubelar music for our music warps beat into the stars. You can find him on SoundCloud, we'll have links in the show notes. Also special thanks to George Rattow for the additional artwork he made us look like

lower deck characters, hit him up on Fiverr and you can too, we'll drop a link for him in the show notes as well. We'd love to hear from you, hit us up on TikTok, Instagram or Twitter, I mean X, I think it's X today, maybe it's Z, could be Y yesterday. I don't know. I add yet another ST pod or shoot us an email. Yet another ST pod at gmail.com. We've got Discord room as well,

so come chat with us and say hello. Next time, we'll be watching subspace, Rhapsody, and hegemony. Hegemony. Yeah, hegemony. I got it right for the love of God! Now, thanks for listening, folks. If you want to watch along, you can too by watching on Paramount Plus and let us know

anything of the episode. Shoot us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts from. It's free and it really supports us. Thanks again and take care. you