Yet Another Star Trek Podcast - Ep 062: (TOS S02E08) I, Mudd

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

When The Enterprise is hijacked by a napping android, Kirk and company are forced to beam down to a planet run by Harry Mudd and an army of identical androids. But when they realize he intends on stranding the entire crew there, Kirk must come up with a plan to outsmart Mudd - and the androids that are holding them hostage. 500 Stellas can't be wrong, can they? It's "I, Mudd!" 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 Looking for more great content? Consider checking out some of our friends below. Stone Age Gamer Podcast

Welcome, everyone, to another episode of yet another Star Trek podcast worth three, count of three friends. Two Star Trek nerds, one Star Wars nerd, talk about Star Trek. I see you counting Drew. I am. I see you counting Drew and your eyes do not deceive you. His name is Brad. The RAD. Like the whiteboard says, and we love Brad. Brad's just not here right now. Brad's not here. Bathroom, car troubles. We don't know, but whoever Brad is, he's probably not listening to us right now. No, I think Brad stopped listening to us from the moment he stopped recording with a regular basis. We still love Brad.

Brad is still very much our friend. We still talk to him a lot, but enough about Brad. Who's Brad anyway? In front of me. 30 miles away is my good friend, Drew. Hi, Drew. Hi buddy. Hey, what's going on? You're looking really good.

Your beard is immaculate. I saw your calves earlier. Yeah. They are strong as ever. Thank you. Some mighty oaks you got there. Thank you, thank you. I am going for the mighty oak look.

I read in the catalog, get calves like a mighty oak. And that's been my goal ever since. Man. Um, dude, I'm tired. I'm so, I'm so exhausted. We have been, uh, my wife and I have been like really working incredibly hard at, uh, getting our yard ready for the summer. And it is planting season here in Connecticut. So we do a vegetable garden every year, and we've had some ups and downs with the vegetable garden over the years, regards to like critters eating it. We've had invasive bugs that took out our squash plants.

Last year, a groundhog who has been the bane of our existence for a couple of years, but mostly mostly okay. Groundhog had babies and the babies killed a lot of our plants before they actually grew large enough to produce. So we dug up the entire fence perimeter and credit to my wife who did the bulk of this because I work ridiculous hours. She did like a trench around the entire perimeter of the garden. And then we attached a second fence of chicken wire and buried it like six inches under the ground in the hopes that

will keep the groundhog out and put everything back, made it all nice and neat. And then she did like a mulch bed around that. So now we have like a mulch perimeter so we can kind of mow around easily and not have like grass growing in the fence. It looks fantastic. We also built a raised bed from scratch. I did that with my father a couple weeks ago. And we bought two more metal prefabs. We got I think four cubic yards of compost and filled the beds with some twigs and logs that we had and then back filled the rest with compost that we have. I we had and then backfilled the rest with the compost that we have. I still have half of a pile of compost in my driveway.

Excuse me. So I'm going to have to deal with that. And on top of all that, I've been building a fire pit with a patio and it has been a wonderful learning process about how to make mistakes and roll with the punches. Yeah. But I'm very happy with the way it's coming out. It looks natural. It doesn't look like a like I really was trying to avoid the sand pit look and not that there's anything wrong with that sort of look. It just wasn't the aesthetic I was going for. I'm trying to go for a natural grassy look.

So I currently have a square mud pit in my backyard that eventually I think will look very nice. But nice. But for now, you're not going for the sand pit. I take offense to that because I just made mine gravel. I took the easy way out. I feel attacked by your statements. I assure you that was that was not my intent. Like my my parents did the same thing that you did, though. They had we had a pool when I was growing up. And when we took the pool down, we turned it into like a patio area. And it was it was wonderful. But it was the the upkeep on it ended up being worse than we expected.

And I don't know if it's because they just kind of took what was there and just put rocks in and called it a day or, or what, but for all the weed prevention that they did, they still had a bunch of weeds and it's just, uh, you know, kind of a pain. So if there's grass growing in between the rocks already, then when they turn into weeds, it's just part of the aesthetic and I can just mow over them like I do all the other weeds and that's, that's kind of what I'm hoping for. I'm hoping for something that's going to, you know, the stones will lock in place once

the grass is grown in and then everything will just be great. Or if weeds go through, you can get your act together and kill the weeds and grow proper grass. Well, you see, if I grow proper grass to begin with, and I won't have to worry about weeds, but with the garden, we try to avoid using herbicides. Oh, gotcha. Gotcha.

Gotcha. So even though the fire pit is a pretty decent distance away, you know, I just I'm concerned about runoff and things like that. So yeah, I try to keep an organic garden and I'm proud of, you know, what we've done so far. Not that like I go crazy about like eating organic food, like that's not something that we do. But with the vegetables that we grow, everything has been, you know, a hundred percent, uh, fertilizer free, pesticide free, everything that we use. We do a lot of like mulching and, you know, tilling and putting all these nutrients back

into the earth from the yard. Uh, so it's not uncommon for me to take, uh, you know, if I mow and bag, um, take the clippings and put that in the garden. And if there's herbicides on that, you know, yeah. So, yeah, I get it. Last thing I would want is going to your house and be like, oh, what's that metal taste in your squash? Yeah. And then you'd be like, oh, I'm sorry.

You have radiation poisoning. That's not funny, but the twist of events so quickly. Yeah. Yeah, buddy. I don't have the patience that you do for a garden and I every time you talk about it, I see the love in your eyes, but I guess it's this kind of the same thing. Like you can hear me talk my my head off about like taking

pictures and editing. It's the same kind of love and passion, but like the things I'll talk about, you'd be like your eyes will glaze over. Well, I mean, it's like I've I do video editing, right? And I enjoy it, but it is a tedious process. And, you know, would you want to hear me talk about video editing? How I created a three cam multi cam project and synced all the audio up and, you know, did that. Like if you're showing me real life examples and yeah, no, absolutely.

You know, they come on over. I'll teach you right now. Yeah. I mean, we have a show to record, but thanks for listening. We'll see you next week. And this is why Brad left. Press like I want to go to Drew's house. He can't because he decided to move. Yeah. Man.

We listen, I'm I hate I love it. Hate being an adult. You know, I know we talk about being tired. Yeah, I have a love and hate relationship being an adult. My wife, we just turned. I can't say it, but it's yeah, yeah. The week after, like she had like one of those things that happened in the eye, where it's like the capillary kind of, oh, I think a week after, a week after her birthday, man,

a week after. What a time to remind you of your impending doom at the end. And then she sat on the couch working on a PowerPoint and she heard her back. I'm like, What a time to remind you of your impending doom at the end. Yeah. And then she sat in the couch working on a PowerPoint and she heard her back. I'm like, Oh my God, this is real. Like you turned 40 and you have to fall apart. Yeah. I mean, I mean, you've got a couple more years, right? I have less than a year. I'm 39. And I'm at the gym. I can't go super low for squats anymore because I don't know if I'll be able to get up. Well, that's a mobility thing, so that's something to work towards. In all seriousness, I've never been a big gym person, right? But I've been an athlete my whole life.

And I got to a certain point where the stuff I was doing was causing more injury than anything, right? So I kind of needed to slow down and stop doing it. And now I do workouts at home. And it's not because I'm trying to look good or I mean, like all those, you know, health benefits are a side product of me just trying not to wake up in pain every day. Yeah. You know, so it's like preventative maintenance. My exercise routine, I try to stay on target with that so that I don't wake up and my back hurts or my knees hurt or whatever

aches and pains I have from, you know, 30 plus years of exercise, you know, things like that. So if if your goals shift because you just don't want to be in pain, you will make it just fine as a 40 year old. Trust me. I am. My goal is originally, and I promise guys, this is a Star Trek podcast. We'll get to the Star Trek in a second. Well, Captain Kirk's in great shape, right? He is. He is.

And he works off shirtless. Right. My workout started as a way of combating high blood sugar. And once I got over that, once I beat it, I now have shifted towards mental health maintenance. That's also an excellent reason. Yeah, this is like, if I don't go to the gym, if I'm having a bad week and I don't go to the gym

because I'm tired, it doesn't make it better. It doesn't make a difference. It probably makes it worse. Going to the gym is my therapy. I'll feel even just fractionally better after I complete a workout. Lifting heavy things and dropping on the floor, it feels good. Well, because we've been doing so much work in the yard, I have not done any physical gym work. have not done any physical like gym work, you know, and it's definitely bugging me, man. Like I really want to get back at it and get back in the groove. Because like, I'm certainly some

of those aches and pains I was talking about are starting to come back. And but but I will say that the mental health side of things are still being fulfilled because, like with the artwork, I'm seeing something get accomplished. Yeah, that's also an adrenaline. That's dopamine. Yeah, it feels good. Yeah. Like, you know, I sat down after rolling around in mud for four hours today and just kind of looked at the patio and you know, I still have a lot of work to do on it. I'm like, hey, this vision is actually coming to fruition. This is gonna be great

Yeah, I don't know if you had to roll around in the mud for four hours Well, I think you could have shaved someone at time down. Yeah, but but you know, it's it was a nice day Man speaking a nice day. I have no way of transitioning. We watched the episode of Star Trek, Drew and I. Some of us watched it earlier than others. Some of us probably fell asleep towards the middle. This feels like gaslighting. Wait, you fell asleep too? No, no.

I was right awake. OK. I didn't fall asleep either. But we watched season two, episode eight, I, Mud, which after seeing the episode and after like right now, saying it out loud, I robot. Is that like a play on? Oh my God, you're right. I didn't even think about that. Cause when was that book written? I'm not sure. Let's see here. I literally just put it together 1950 so so yeah, okay. Yeah, it makes sense So I guess now we've had two I guess book references in one season with you know, Moby Dick and now I robot so

I'll Ben this is gonna make the conversation a little more different for us. Uh Sure is. Yeah, why don't you fill us in? What happened, buddy? All right. Well, the episode begins with Spock and McCoy walking together down the corridor and they walk past a new member of the crew. His name is crewman Norman. He's a, a new addition to the enterprise. McCoy turns to Spock and says, this dude's a weirdo, but Spock hasn't picked up on any weird tendencies. Norman then turns around once they're gone and ducks into auxiliary control, which he does not have security clearance for beats up everybody inside. And then suddenly gains control of the enterprise back on the

bridge. Sulu notices the ship has made a strange course correction. He tries to override, but he fails. Meanwhile, Norman is beating the tar out of everyone. And he has made his way in engineering to do so there too, before help can arrive in engineering, Norman heads up to the bridge and then just opens up his stomach and reveals that he's an Android. Well, no wonder Spock liked him. After all Norman says he has locked the controls of the enterprise and set them on the course that they all arrived to in four days. He then takes a nap right on the bridge

while standing rude. What'd you think of this opening? I thought it was just zero to 60. Yeah. Just I think within the first five minutes, it was this six foot, however massive unit has taken out an entire like squad. Yeah. There's one guy who jumped from like the top stairs. Norman caught him and just like suplexed him. Yeah.

Or your body stand though. I chuckled, I laughed. I said, man, what dedication? What makes you think it was gonna work? These guys, they go all in on the stunts in this show. Well, the guy that jumped at Norman after he got body slammed, he cartwheeled away. Watch it again, watch it in slow motion.

He kind of lands on an angle where he's able to cartwheel away. Yeah. It is the weirdest thing. It is so funny. I pay attention to the fight choreography because I think it's hilarious and beautiful at times, but yeah, he cartwheeled away. I don't have to look this up, man. I don't remember the cartwheel. I do remember Scotty standing in next to the communicator, just kind of like grunting and like playing like dead for an extended period of time. Like it was a really awkward thing. You know how like, you know, you're hanging out with some friends and somebody shows up that you don't really want to talk to. So you just kind of hang out in the corner and you glance over your

shoulder every now and again until you see that they're talking to somebody else. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Like Brad has done to us. So many times. It's kind of what it felt like, but it took a long time. And it's like, meanwhile, Scotty should have been like helping his dudes out. Scotty can't fight. Guess not. Apparently. But isn't he like Scottish? Yeah. Okay. They're not the fighters. I think the Irish are. Scott's throwdown. Scott's throwdown. It is a stereotype. Yes. And Scott's throwdown too, man. I'm Scottish. You want to fight? Let's go. Oh, you know what? You're right. Because groundskeeper Willie is Scottish. You want to fight? Let's go. Oh, you know what? You're right. Cause groundskeeper Willie is Scottish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He likes to fight anyway. Four days later, this dude just wakes right back up on the bridge. Like he wasn't even standing there in everyone's

way the entire time he insists on beaming down the entire bridge crew. Otherwise he'll destroy the engines and strand the enterprise there forever. They reluctantly beam down only to be greeted by the one, the only Harry mud mud has created his own harem of androids. I mean, there's 500 in the Alice class alone. They are there for him at his Beckham call for any needs he may have. He fills in the crew on where he's been. And guess what? It's prison. Thankfully, after being sentenced to death, he was able to flee and wound up here. Sadly, he's gotten quite bored of his Android friends, but they will not let him leave unless

he's got some replacements. Hence the enterprise crew gives the tour of, it gives a crew a tour of their new home, including a shrine to his wife, Stella. Oh, is that where you got the name? Would you respect me more if I said yes, I might know eventually the Andriza managed to completely take over the enterprise led by Norman Spock realizes there's only one Norman, but many other types of Androids. They decide to target him with nonsense logic, but first they'll test the plan. Spock tells two Alice's that he loves one of them, but hates the other and it breaks their brains. Then they move on to Norman and attack him with silly dances and paradoxical statements. Guess

what? It works. It works. Has one parting gift to mud. Kirk and crew leave him on the planet in a type of parole, but with a twist 500 copies of a nagging Stella waiting to yell at him for every little thing. He begs them for help as they leave the planet and mud to sum up the episode. Rob robots make bad crewmates. Harry's harem is too expensive for Starfleet stipends and 500 cells can't be wrong. What a, what a really, uh, this episode was kind of a palette cleanser for me. It wasn't bad. It wasn't good. It was fun. It was, uh,

it was shenanigans filled. Lots of shenanigans. Um, checkoff is a horn dog. Well, yeah. I mean, we knew that in the first appearance of check off, but man, he's like, too bad. You're not real. Hint, hint. Wink, wink. Not sure I say no more. Yeah. Yep. And once he found out that their program do anything, he's like, all right, death by

snooze knew it is. I'll do it. Um, I was surprised at, uh, your Hora, you know, being all in on, uh, wanted to be a mortal. That was, uh, well that was, that was a, uh, that was a ruse. Well, the plastic body, like how she had, you know, interest in, in being a mortal Like that. I mean, you know, it was work. It was K fave. Sure. Can I use that? Have I used that term correctly? K fave. I think there's the crossover. Yeah.

Wasn't a shoe brother. Drew is my expert on wrestling terms and K fave is what I'll try to implement a lot. Now. I like it. I like it. Thank you, buddy. And then just the the logic overhaul, shenanigans. My favorite gimmick, by the way, is the Falcon Sleeper hold not working.

Yeah, yeah. Wasn't that great? Spock's like, what do you mean this doesn't work? Right? He's like, what are you doing back there? No, I'm just reciting. Just, just, I love you. It's still rightful.

It's still rightful. Hi there! You think there's room for yet another Star Trek podcast on the internet? Have we got a show for you! I'm Chris And I'm Ben And we're the hosts of the Stone Age Gamer Podcast podcast the official podcast of StoneAgeGamer.com Which is you guessed it yet another video game podcast every Friday Chris and I spend a Few hours talking about the world of video games from retro gamers perspective We cover everything from the latest news older games. We missed out on even non video game related stuff like

older games we missed out on, even non-video game related stuff like lawn care and cooking and child rearing and whatever other nonsense is going on in our lives. I love rearing children. Tune in every week for recurring segments like the SAG Cartoon Express where we talk about old video game related cartoons and how great they are. The 10, 20, 30, 40 where we discuss notable game releases from 10, 20, 30, and 40 years ago, quarterly-ish trivia episodes, interviews with people who are usually way cooler than me, but not cooler than Dan, and more. Listen to two guys ramble on about video games, or check out the Stone Age Gamer Podcast, which is part of the Geek Aid Podcast Network. And as always, keep playing games. I'm a big fan of Harry. But what a fun character.

It's the first time that we've seen a character that was introduced in a prior episode show up again. Right. Okay. At least as far as I can recall, maybe I'm missing something. I mean, I suppose I'm going to ask you next. It's the first time I've that's gonna ask you next. Like, you know, this the first time I've seen someone come back besides Khan, right? And you see Khan

come back. Yeah, but we don't see Khan come back until like 20 years later, right? It's a movie. I suppose we can say Captain Pike, you know, with the menagerie, but I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure this is the first occurrence of like a recurring villain, so to speak, you know, played by Roger C. Carmel, just a delightful performance, whimsical and mischievous, I would say not necessarily evil, you know, uh, it's often that we see evil villains. Uh, he's just a very mischievous villain. He's trying to make profit and get away with, you know, stealing things, but he's not looking to kill people or, you know, commit genocide or anything like that. Right. Right, he's out for himself. He's out for himself, right?

Any means necessary. And he'll leave people hanging high in drive if he has to, but that's not where his intentions are. He's just looking out for himself. Yeah, I like when there's a villain that can match the wits or he's like the opposite of our protagonist. So I think Connor is a really good example of a really good antagonist who has like a

mental capacity to beat Kirk. You know, like he is brilliant and also he's, you know, physically capable of handling himself in the fight. Right. Harry mud can match wits with Kirk as well, which, you know, it's, it's good to see. So having a good villain, having a good antagonist towards your protagonist, you know, starts with, you know, can this person hold their own? And I think they're, I'm sorry, to your point, like he's, he's not trying to match physicality with Kirk because he won't win. Right. So he's outsmarting Kirk. He's using what tools he has available to gain the upper hand.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know enough about TNG to talk about like Q. You know, Q was apparently and again, you know, you keep me honest. Q was Picard's like a mental or someone I match what's with him. Was he even an antagonist? Oh, Q was very much an antagonist, but Q was different because he was essentially a God. You know, he had powers that were beyond anything that Harry mud would have been able to do. Like he could snap his fingers and change you or change your surroundings or just, just put you in a bad situation or save the day at whatever whim and whatever desire he had. So I think it's, it's tough to say that Mud is on Q's level.

They're just so different in what they bring to the table. And this is why I miss Brad for these conversations. Cause I think if I would have said, Hey Brad, you know, give me an antagonist in Star Trek that can match what's with the protagonist, because then he'll bring up a life wager or he'll bring up Deep Space Nine. Yeah. You know, and he'll give us some examples that way. Brad, come back to us. We, I mean, if you want to talk deep space nine, you know, I can definitely offer up some examples there. You know, Goldie,at is, you know, Cisco's equal

and antagonist throughout the entire series. You know, Kai win on a different level. I mean, there's, there's so many. Yeah. But, but I mean, don't get a, we don't get a lot of recurring characters in the original series that I'm aware of and to a lesser degree in next generation, although we do have some, you know, yeah, yeah, he was probably the one that, you know, recurs them the most frequent from a villain. Even even with Pike, even with daddy Pike. Yeah, I don't know if he has like, you know, someone that equals him in terms of, uh, you know, being an antagonist,

not a single individual, you know, but he's had a race like, yeah, like the corn, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but like I thought they were kind of do that with angel, uh, from season one. Oh my God. Angel's great. I miss Angel. Yeah. What a fantastic character. Right, exactly. And I was expecting to see Angel in season two

and we didn't. So maybe season three, right? You know who would be a really good antagonist for Pike? Stick with me on this, Gordon Ramsay. Please go on. Think about it. You know, Pike likes to cook and Pike takes pride in his cooking. Imagine if there's a time travel episode and to keep the cover, he asked the cook

on Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen and Gordon Ramsay just tears his his dish apart. That he would be the villain in that case. I got nothing. That's great. It's it's it's it's it's the kind of nonsense that you that you develop when you are this deep into it. Yeah. Yeah. So what did you think about the idea of there being so many classes of androids, right? Where a whole bunch of them look the same. Like it's, it seems excessive, but I guess it kind of keeps in line with,

with, uh, with muds first appearance. Didn't he have like, um, like genetically altered women in his first appearance as well? I think so. Yeah. I think so. Cause he talked about how he had to get rid of them when he got the androids. Right. Yeah. Right. So I mean, like this race of androids, like they just think they're the last of their race. Right. I mean, is it like an assembly line? Like, how does that work? So that's all I was going to ask you there. Norman told Kirk or told one of these guys that they were made by someone called The Maker. And I think that's the kind of name drop that you take as an Easter egg and then develop somewhere on the line.

So, you know, we talk about this a lot. We talk about how if this show is made in today's time, a name drop like that, the maker is something that would be referred to on a previously on a, you know, recap, right? Then this person comes in the shadows. Hey, I'm the maker. Right. And then that person becomes the villain. So if there's no one called the maker, I feel like that definitely drops the ball. Yeah. I am not aware of anybody by that name. So all dropped. Well, maybe not. Remember the lovely thing about Zaddy Pike's show is that it takes place way before the original series.

So theoretically you could pick up on a character named the maker and this race of androids and then have Pike fight him and defeat him and kill him. And then years down the line, Harry Mudd finds his creations. Right. Oh man, I'm cooking right now. I see it. Yes. Yeah.

I mean, I just looked up the makers on, uh, memory alpha, and this is the first and only instance that they have been, uh, yeah, you know, ever raised. It definitely drops the ball for me. A little bit, a little bit unacceptable. You know, I mean, like I, I hear, I hear it and I'm not opposed to it, but I also want to kind of encourage the, uh, current creators of Star Trek to diversify the things rather than call back to them constantly. Yeah. There's a lot of callbacks and I feel like some of the mystique has been ruined in some cases. Yeah. And that that kind of, you know, brings

me to my next thought. This is a shower thought, like legit. I was thinking about how Star Wars is now kind of going all in on the TV side of things. And as a Star Wars kid, as a 90s kid who discovered like, you know, the original trilogy, seeing Star Wars on the small screen, it's weird for me. They've had their stumbles. They've had their missteps. And when you make the obvious comparison of Star Trek versus Star Wars, I feel like Star Trek has a better handle on TV shows than Star Wars does. Well, I mean, Star Wars has a better handle on movies than Star Trek does.

Yeah, no, absolutely. because I see Star Wars films as an event film. Now, we talk about taking the mystique away, right? We have a Star Wars show coming out this month. I'm super excited for it, by the way. It's called The Acolyte, and it takes place during the High Republic era. But it takes away the mystique of this time

before the Sith really, you know, came into play. Right. And, you know, when you answer too many questions, like you said, true, that mystique goes away. It does. Totally with you. You know, I think part of the charm is like, like. A great example is Boba Fett. Yeah, absolutely. You know, Boba Fett was awesome.

You know, even though he was kind of a, if we're thinking about it, like if you look at like return to the Jedi, Boba had Boba Fett has one job and he's really bad at it, right? Bad at it. He's bad at it, but he was the coolest, right? Yeah. Well, he appeared in, in empire strikes back. He was the coolest. He was a mass guy with this hand cannon and jet pack who has a little jet pack. Yeah. I love jet pack. I want to jet pack. Yeah. I will say that Padden Oswalt's rants on parks and rec about Boba Fett's return

is so much better executed than what they do with the TV show. And if if anyone's listening ever wants to dispute that, listen, Drew's DMS are open. Fight him like he will defend his tooth and nail. Don't come at me with this. You can follow us on Twitter at yet another STPOT. But no, look up Patton Oswalt. I think it's it's Parks and Rec, and it's like a seven minute rant.

Right. Yeah, there's there's an outtake. It's the because they edited down. But but he does like a full on like filibuster. Yeah, yes, that's what it was. He was filibusting. Yeah. Yes. That's what it was. He was filibusting. It's great. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. I love it.

It's great. And he gave us the best Boba Fett. So I just noticed on our crawler going across the screen that I spelled yet another ST pod dot com incorrectly. I just wanted to point that out. I missed the th. You only have eight jobs, Drew. Oh man, I got to fix that. So you see my eyes darting around.

That's why I'm fixing it in real time, baby. I listen, whenever I see your eyes out around, I assume that's you trying to just stay awake. Well, that too. But yeah, yet another. OK, go on. Anyway. This this episode was a surprise. And man, we have now that we've made the connection between iRobot and iMUD, which it shouldn't take a genius to put two and two together, right? Once you see the episode.

But weren't the three laws of robotics just kind of explored during that time. The robots would not harm. They have to protect and they also have to obey orders. Right. But they also can't conflict with the first two. So the logic bomb where. Let's see, What was a good logic bomb? Well, I think mud was hurt. Yeah. Right. And. You know, they have to save him. And the only way to save him is to put him on the ship. But then that also contradicts the orders they were given. Right. Now, I mean, there were a few of them.

I thought the, you know, the one where Spock told the twins, I love you, but I hate you and they're identical. So like the idea of loving one of them and hating the other one doesn't make sense because you should love them both or hate them both because they're identical. Right. Yeah. And it's not, it's not even like identical twins in a way where like, well, they look the same, but they have different personalities. No, these are identical, right? Yeah. So, so, you know, that broke their brains.

And then, um, I mean, I thought some of the, the, the slapstick comedy was a little weird where like everybody's dancing to a song that doesn't exist. And, uh, you know, the whole thing with the explosive device that they, uh, quote unquote planted and the fake explosion. I thought that was a little silly, but I liked the concept of what they were trying to do. They were trying to outsmart the smart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Norman telling Kirk straight up like, Hey, you cannot beat me physically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Norman telling Kirk straight up like, Hey, you cannot beat me physically. Yeah. You know, Kirk took that in the shrine. Kirk could have called his bluff. Kirk could

have opened up the, uh, you know, the cargo bay doors and blew them out the ship, but no, he decided to match wits. True story. Yeah. True story. I would like to see more of this race though. I think that there's more to explore. Well, there's plenty of opportunities to explore, you know, various Android style races in Star Trek. You know, Data would be the most famous of those, but you know, there's other characters in other races that we will encounter in Star Trek. I don't know if we're going to run into anything more like that in the original series. My knowledge of the original series is a broad picture.

But after we finished watching this, we're both experts. So there you go. Yeah. More so than Brad. Right. Exactly. Brad will have to catch up. Love you, Brad. Let's Brad will have to catch up.

Love you, Brad. Let's talk about a really good episode. Yeah. Let's talk about Stella, actually. What do you think about Harry Mudd creating? I saw you looking for your cat. I did. I did. What do you think about Mudd creating a shrine to his wife and then giving her the ability to nag the holy hell out of them and then shut down at the simple command?

You're married. Think about it. You're married. Your wife, uh, you know, kind of scolds you a bit. Look, this is public record, my friend. Be careful what you say. Does she listen? No, but you have a you're fine. Well, I'm fine. But you have a family. Yeah. I mean, and one day, one day your daughter might be like, gee, I wonder what dad was doing all those nights talking to his best friend, Drew. Yeah. So she's heard some things like, you know, the walls aren't thick. These are the walls here. He's heard some things like, you know, the walls aren't thick. These are, I don't have soundproof walls here.

She's heard things. She questions our relationship off the bat. Like she questions the thing that you and I have. But I mean, listen, you're married. Like, at a certain point, the nagging or the complaining, it can do one of two things to you. It can either break you down or it can motivate you to do better. Right. So I wonder if if I think I'm just being a troll,

you know, he's just being a troll just for the sake of being a troll. Right. It was a comedic device. But I also think that in a way, he just wanted to exert control. Because he could never do that in the past. He clearly couldn't do it in the end. Yeah. In my marriage, I'm the nagger. Are you really?

Yeah. That's surprising. I am. I would have never guessed that from you. Yeah, it's me. I'm the problem. And now I'm imagining you with hair curlers on, like a bathrobe and a rolling pin. Just waiting for her at the door. Yeah.

Just waiting for her to yell at her. No, no. It's not like that. But, you know, I I have like mental tics, like when it comes to like organizing things a certain way or. Oh, you know, in in. It's it's hard for me to just not say anything sometimes. I get that. You know, so it's easier just to do the thing. Right. Right. Right.

Yeah. You know. So anyway, well, this isn't a marriage. We can talk about it off air. We know we can do. You can start a Patreon. We record the therapy session and then put the therapy session on Patreon. I like it. I like it.

Yeah. But would the money be worth the agony that comes afterwards when she finds it and breaks you? Well, she'd have to subscribe. Nice. Yeah. You have any favorites about this episode that we haven't covered? Um, you know, I just overall, it was just a very enjoyable episode. There's, there's nothing specific for me that stands out. You know, I, I, I'm just a, a big fan of the performance of Harry mud. You know, he, he is a character that is is just so he is constantly trying to swindle. He is constantly trying to like just wiggle his way out of situations. And the actor is is superb. Just just absolutely superb. It makes me sad to think that we won't see him

again until rain Wilson plays a part. Oh, wow. That's sad. Yeah, that's sad. Very disappointing. I'm reasonably sure this is the last time we see Harry Mudd in the original series. I think there's an episode of the animated series that we'll see him in. I don't know if he's portrayed by the same voice actor or not, or the same actor as you know, but you know, I'm trying to see if I can get a list of episodes that he's in. Yeah, it's only the two. It's only the two. And then in the original, the animated series, there's an episode called muds passion. And I'm seeing if Roger Caramel's in that as well. That may be the wrong kind of Star Wars project or Star Trek project.

Yeah, it is him. It is him. Oh, that's nice. So that's cool. Hopefully someday we'll get an opportunity to watch that episode. But yeah, we don't want to go ahead. I don't want to do it now, but I think that at a certain point, I wanna see if these characters that have been played are outlasting the actor. A good example of that is Kirk, the character of Kirk himself. I think Kirk is absolutely gonna outlast William Shatner. Well, he already has.

You think so? If you think about it. Well, he's been portrayed by. How many other people, you know, one, two, two other people now, three. So you're including the kid from Star Trek one. No, no, no, we have strange new worlds. Paul Wesley. We have Paul Wesley, Chris Pine, the best Chris. And now you have and William Shatner.

So there's three people that play the role. That's fair. What about the little kid from Star Trek 2009? He drives off a cliff. Sure. I guess that counts. Four. Okay.

Spock has outlasted Nimoy. Yep. Who has also been portrayed by multiple actors at this point. Yeah. Khan has outlasted Rukada Mataba. I would disagree on that one. You think so? I love Benedict Cumberbatch, but I don't think he brought the same gravitas to the table. And you'll see why when you see wrath of con. Yeah. There was an intensity in Ricardo Montalbato's performance. Yeah. But you, you're in for a treat, man.

It's it's going to be worth the wait. I promise you when, when, um, when we get ready to cover that I want to be with you watching that together. All right, let's do it. Let's do it. So, Brad, I have plans that night. Oh, man. But yeah, I mean, that's just just really a fun episode. You know, I really enjoyed it. I thought the performances were great. You know, I wish I wish the androids had a

little bit more of an identity and felt like more of a threat than they were. But that aside, you know, it was about Harry Mudd, right? The whole episode is about Harry mud and he delivered in spades. Absolutely. So, you know, I'm very pleased with that performance. And, you know, I guess that kind of leads us into scoring it, right? Well, I want to also ask you if you had a part that you hated about the episode.

The slapstick part. Slapstick part, really? Yeah, I think. Oh man. I'm not a. The slapstick part. Slapstick part, really? Yeah, I think, man, I'm not a fan of slapstick comedy. So when I when I see stuff like that, I just kind of doesn't really appeal to me. You know, so you weren't a fan of like Leslie Nielsen and naked gun. That had like a that had a wit about it, though, like if you look like you had a movie like Air a wit about it, though. Like if you look like at a movie like airplane, for example. Right. Like there's a lot of slapstick in that, but it's surrounded by wit.

You know, sharp dialogue, things like that. Make a gun is similar in that way. But it's been so long since I've seen those movies that, you know, I would really kind of need to refresh myself. On them. But it's like one movies that, you know, I would really kind of need to refresh myself on them. But it's like one of the, you know, we've talked about my dislike of Jim Carrey and in previous episodes. Yeah. No, that nearly ruined our friendship. I know. I know. And, and it's his slapstick humor that just really doesn't appeal to me. Ace Ventura. I just don't like that

character. You know, and I think Jim Carrey is better than that. Like I enjoyed him in his more silly or serious roles. But, but yeah. Yeah. So let me just ruin naked gun for you really quick. Yeah. you go on a scoring. They're doing a new one. Yeah. It's produced by Seth MacFarlane. Okay. Starring look at me. Liam Neeson. Huh? Interesting. Yeah. Is that some kind of like alliteration with the names? Was that intentional? No, but it's it's welcomed for me. Yeah. Liam Neeson, I think he can be funny. He can be really funny. Yeah. So I think that I'm not going to be with all these people with the pitchforks. I want to see it. Yeah.

Before I judge it. And I think he'll I think he'll knock it out the park. It's it's about that. You know, being a straight man while you're you're being silly. Right? Yeah. So that could be fun. That could be fun. Yeah. Anyway, speaking of, of just the straight man comedy, I don't know why that triggered Matt Berry for me. I saw clips of Matt Berry in different skits

where he was offering to hold the drinks for a woman. And then she's like, oh, this one goes to this friend over here. This one goes to this other friend. This one goes to my boyfriend. He just drops it and says, F you. Delivery of it. It just killed it for me. Matt Barry is quickly becoming one of my favorites.

I adore him. He's got so many just amazing, quotable moments in so many shows. Um, yeah, yeah. Definitely worth looking out for his back catalog of stuff. Um, you know, send me links, send me links. I'll take a look. Yeah. Yeah. We'll talk off air. I have, I have a bunch of recommendations for you. So. So. So. This episode, I might, if I had to guess,

out of a overall 10, I would say that you gave this episode a seven. Just because you weren't a fan of the slapstick, but you are a big fan of Harry Mud. Hmm. Yeah, you know, I was leaning more towards an eight. Oh, okay. Just because I think that the rest of the episode

kind of outweighs it. But I, now that you've made a case for the slapstick, let's go 7.5. I do think that that knocks it down a little bit. I think that went on a little long and was a little unnecessary. And I would have preferred to have seen the crew of the enterprise outsmart, you know, I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point.

I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. I think that's a good point. of Harry mud. And the more I see of the original actor portraying mud, the more I appreciate

rain Wilson's take. Yeah, rain Wilson, I think he perfectly, you know, played tribute to Robert Caramel. Yeah, his name, Robert Caramel. Okay. I'm glad I knocked out the park. But, um, yeah, no, just a fantastic seeing this guy reoccur. Actually, if I'm being honest with you, you messed up his name pretty bad. It's Roger Carmel, not Robert Caramel. You nodded your head when I said it. You nodded your head. You nodded your head. You know that I corrected myself.

You were like this. Go on. Look, child, you got this. Cut that. All right. So I think you're going to give this an eight. Actually, I'm good at a seven. Wow. Why? Yes. Why is that? I, uh, I fell asleep. Of course you did. Of course you did. I fell asleep. Um, and I promised myself I wouldn't, but it was in the third act that I fell asleep.

I was perfectly engaged in the first act with the android and the wrestling match inside the comm room. I was perfectly engaged. Every single scene with Mud is engaging. I thought that I got a few chuckles out of Stella being in the room where he just knocks on it. It's like, what's there?

You notice the black, you know, like this thing is not lit. It's not colored, it's just a black square. And then when you finally find out the payoff is just perfect. It was played perfectly. Yeah. But yeah, the slapstick did go on for too long. And I would have liked to see Kirk beat Mud just by beating Mud, not by destroying the Androids. I think there could have been a different solution.

But then again, you're getting into a territory where you have 50 minutes for an episode, including credits, and you don't have the ability to do a two-parter, you don't have the ability to overrun that time as needed. At least now, I hate that we keep leaning on this, this device of a 2024 show with streaming, there are no commercials so you can go the entire one hour runtime. Sure. And be okay. But this one you have to contend for act breaks and commercials and credits and things like

that. So there are still even though we have that freedom in 2024,. So there are still, even though we have that freedom in 2024 though, there are still a lot of shows that format for commercial TV. Because a lot of these shows do have life outside of their original streaming providers. So, you know, I don't think that's as much of a crutch as you think it is.

OK. You know, like it's it's eventually, you know, you might see Star Trek Discovery on broadcast TV, right? It's possible. So those episodes that have weird lengths to them, that's that's going to be tough to contend with. Yeah. But overall, good episode is good to see Harry Mutt back. What's up next for us? We have what, season two, episode nine? Correct.

Metamorphosis. That is the next one, yeah. On an isolated asteroid, Kirk finds Zephyrum Cochran, inventor of the warp drive, who has been missing for a hundred and fifty years This will be an interesting one. I have never seen this episode Have you seen first contact Star Trek first contact? No, I've seen the lower decks episode where they go to the first contact area, okay

Well, so first contact is a next-generation episode series movie directed by Jonathan Frakes and it deals with Zephyr Cochran and the creation of the warp drive. Okay. And it's a very is he wearing a bandana? Yeah, he's played by why can't I think of his name? Is this going to really bother me? Wait, the same actor in, in first contact and, and next gen or, um, no, no, no. Uh, James, James Cromwell plays him in, in the movie. Oh, okay. Okay.

I thought it was the same actor. And he is wearing, he's wearing like a, um, a bandana slash, OK. OK. I thought it was the same actor. And he is wearing he's wearing like a bandana slash leather hat with beads. I don't know. It's hard to explain. But but, yeah. OK. Are you dropping hints for you kind of present you want for your birthday? A leather hat with beads? Well, I have no hair or so.

Anything to cover that up would be great. OK. So no promises. That's all right. But he's, Zephyr has been missing for 150 years, just like Brad. Yeah. I'm very interested. I mean, we're not sure that they're not the same person though. I've never seen them in the same place before.

Neither have I. Yeah. Buddy, I love you and, um, to everyone else, thanks for tuning in. We'd love to hear your thoughts. If you are a fan of Matt Berry, if you don't like that, Barry, yell at us in the comments. We're everywhere. Twitter, Instagram, TikTok.

Right. We don't use it, but yes, we're there. I'd love to start using it, though. Yeah. Give us a reason. But it's been a pleasure. Until next week. See you next time, folks.

Thanks for listening. Bye bye. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of yet another Star Trek podcast. We are part of the Retro Sessions Network. This episode was recorded on May 19th, 2024. It's hosted by Majeed and Drew, because Brad's still not here. I hope he comes back. Thank you to William Grubelar for writing the music for this show.

It's all original and it's all his. He wrote our songs Warp Speed and To the Stars. And if you'd like to listen to more of his amazing talent, head on over to his Soundcloud page. We have a link to that in the show notes. We've also got a link to George Ratao, who made us look like lower deck characters. If you'd like to hire him for any of your animation needs, we have a link for that in the show notes as well.

Of course, we'd like to direct you to all of the links in our show notes, including our social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, at yetanotherstpod, or even better, head on over to our website, www.yetanotherstpod.com Or even better head on over to our website www.yetanotherstpod.com where you'll find links to all of our episodes as well as all kinds of other fun stuff including a link to our discord room in which you can come by and share pictures of your cats and talk about video games and

Film and TV and all the kind of nerdy stuff that your heart desires. We'd love to see you there. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening.