Hegemony: When the Monsters Return

[00:00:12] Oh my gosh, Trek Geeks is proud to have Fansets as our presenting sponsor. Fansets is the place for amazing pin collectibles with over 500 officially licensed Star Trek pins with new releases every month. Stay tuned for a special discount code that'll be good on your next order over there at fansets.com. Get there, go there now! Fansets, our pins, have character.

[00:00:40] Hi, this is John Billingsley, Dr. Phil Phlox from Star Trek Enterprise. Now I'm reading something that was written for me and I think they could have done better. So this is not me, this is them. My prescription for you is a healthy dose of the Trek Geeks podcast starring Dan Davidson and Bill. He could have done better, Smith. It truly is the best medicine. Oh, come on boys. And here's how they close it.

[00:01:08] Doctor's orders, shame, tsk, tsk. For the record, that was Dan Davidson that wrote that. That was me. Wow. That's even better because now it's forever blamed on Bill. That's forever blamed on Bill. Thank you, Mr. Bakula. There you go. Ooh, wow. All right. All right.

[00:01:30] Good Thursday evening, one and all.

[00:02:24] Welcome to Thursday Night Geeks. I'm Bill Smith alongside Academy Award nominee Dan Davidson. It is so great to be here tonight, buddy. Good to see your face. How's things? Good to see you too, man. Doing great. Always fun to sit here on Thursday night and talk Trek with you and talk to all and get comments from all our friends. I'm doing fantastic. Looking forward to a great discussion tonight.

[00:02:49] I was a little afraid that we might not have been able to do it because we had a severe thunderstorm warning in my area for most of the evening. But as I look outside right now, there isn't a cloud in the sky. The sun is setting. It's like 85 degrees right now. We're going to have the first good weekend in 15 weeks here. That's amazing. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm hearing some echo on the line, Dan. Me too. I don't know if it's you or me. I don't think it's me.

[00:03:17] But we're going to press on just in case. If the echo is too bad in the audience, please let us know. I just want to bring up one comment since he's graced us with his presence. Our intro is fancy as hell, Fark. Oh my goodness. We have royalty with us, ladies and gentlemen. We are. For once, we are actually streaming live to Facebook and theoretically to Instagram, although it doesn't seem to work very well.

[00:03:47] Somebody will have to let us know. We configured it right, but it doesn't seem to be working. Oh, that's all right. That's why this is a live show, right? So we I'm fancy as hell and Dan, you're just not. So I'm just I'm just Dan. That's all right. So full disclosure here in North Carolina where I am. We actually are under a severe thunderstorm. Watcher warning, whichever one it is.

[00:04:16] I think it's a warning until 11 p.m. Eastern. So if for some reason I cut out in the middle, it's probably because I've lost power or Internet or both. And then I will try to join on my phone if that's possible. OK, but if it's not, then we'll figure it out. So. OK, so I'm going to have to add lib if you drop out. That ought to be interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:04:44] Well, at that point, you know, maybe you can get Garcia to bring up some comments for you and you can have a running dialogue. That's right. Absolutely. Good evening to Garcia in the control room. Garcia. Always good to have him here. He keeps the trains running on time and keeps us from from being here all night, honestly, because otherwise we. We we. Well, we'd probably suck at this, Dan. Probably. What do you mean? Probably. We would do. We are. You are.

[00:05:13] Your face is. So, Dan, you told me before we started tonight that that you had a special presentation and I'm supposed to ask you, what are you drinking? Well, I'm glad you brought that up. I am drinking some some whiskey tonight, but I'm going to air it live right here on the show. Get a little smoke going in that bad boy. Get some flames and some smoke. It's what you got to do when you're drinking whiskey these days now. Is it?

[00:05:43] I got some wood chips in there and getting some nice smoke going and that's going to taste fantastic in just a few minutes. So there we go. I will try not to burn the house down. Smells really good. There we go. Yeah. Sit for a little bit. Nothing like a little. It's oak wood chips with apple whiskey. So there you go. So how long do you have to let that sort of. I'll let it sit for for five minutes or so. I mean, it's pretty good right off the bat.

[00:06:12] There's been times where I've just I've done the smoke. I brought it to the I brought it to the table or Sue sit and then she'll try it. And and it's it's got that smokiness. I'm just it's just Crown Royal. Nothing. Nothing fancy. Just Crown Royal Apple. And but I like it. And that's what's important. So it's Crown Apple. It's not a whiskey. It's soda. Thank you. It's Crown. It's Crown Royal Apple soda. Yes. There you go. Yeah. I. I. I. Whiskeys.

[00:06:40] I haven't done whiskey for a long time, so I got to you know, I got to climb the ladder a little bit. You know, my wife works for a premium online alcohol distributor. Well, maybe you can, you know, you know, hook me up a little bit. Maybe I can get some of that Louie Vitton or whatever the Louis the 18th. What is it? I don't even know what it is like the thousand dollar shot scotch or whiskey or something. I would ever outlay that kind of cash for you.

[00:07:10] Do you? Well, if you're a real friend, but that's neither here nor there. No, because you you were cheap as hell and you wouldn't buy that for me. I wouldn't buy you a free bag of dog poop. No, but you've hurled plenty of them at me, so I don't know where you got them from. There you go. I like something that's free. Are you dumb? All right. I'm going in that. Well, see, that was meant to be part of the tongue in cheek, so to speak. It was it was a poor attempt. I know. I'm sorry. And he's.

[00:07:41] There we go. Oh, that's good stuff. I love this. The whole smoking whiskey thing is is like my new like, oh, my God, that is so good. I love it. It's so good. I'm glad you've caught up to 2005. This is amazing. Yes. Yep. It's a it's good that you're experiencing all that life has to offer. I'm very excited by that. So appreciate that. Tonight. Yes, we've decided that to kind of get ready for Strange New World season three.

[00:08:10] We're going to talk about the season two finale titled Gemini Gemini. When in case you weren't sure how to pronounce that word down. Um, it's not hegemony hegemony, which is what I probably would have said if I hadn't watched the episode a couple of times. Yeah. Started this day of broadcast. Yeah. Um, and uh, we're going to kind of pull a truck geeks on it and talk about the episode and kind of T us up for talking about 10 weeks of Strange New World's coming up mid July.

[00:08:40] Which is going to, which is pretty good. As we've talked about several times, it's been almost two years since the finale. The finale aired in August of 2023. And here we are just a month and a half out of two years since we last saw Pike and crew in a cliffhanger that we have not seen the likes of since probably, uh, best of both worlds. I don't know that I'd rated that level. Oh, I'm not saying I'm writing it that I'm just saying it's a cliffhanger that we haven't seen since then.

[00:09:08] Cause there really weren't any cliffhangers. Voyager's had a cliffhanger, hasn't it? I mean, I've only seen the series through once and the, the, the, the, the, the fly things coming at Janeway and that wasn't a cliffhanger. Well, it was a cliffhanger. Yeah, it was. It was a cliffhanger. Equinox. Yep. Yep. Don't, don't argue with me, man. It's not, don't start the night off wrong. All right. All right. Hold on. Tribs end game is not a cliffhanger.

[00:09:38] Get out of here. Well, he's waiting for the next one. It's coming up, you know, beginning game is going to start another season or so. No, the second one came out, the Avengers were in it. Um, very good. I like that. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Well, um, so yeah, we're going to talk about hegemony tonight and we're looking forward to it. We get a lot of discussion topics. Um, hold on. I got to answer. Actually, Ryan, a year of hell wasn't a cliffhanger.

[00:10:07] It was actually broadcast as a two hour episode when it premiered. Yeah. And it was in the middle of a season too. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, but he, he likes generations. What does he know? So, so did I say that out loud? I love you. It was very loud. Actually. You want to know about some whiskey. I'm sure Ryan has, has exceptional taste. So in all seriousness, um, as opposed to your, your crown apple soda there. Um, yeah. Smoked apple. Oh, I oak smoke.

[00:10:37] Yeah. Well, the oak smoke was my wife's recommendation and it's pretty good. So, um, I'll give her credit for it. Uh, you, your face is a year of hell, Dan. I'm not, I'm not going to argue with that. It's an endless year of hell. Like groundhog day. Oh, well, you just keep waking up to the same face over and over. I'm getting word from Garcia in the control room that actually in Voyager seasons two,

[00:11:05] three, five, and six all had cliffhangers, Dan. So suck it. Well, okay. Now hold on. Let me back up. I didn't say that there weren't any cliffhangers. I'm just saying that there weren't anything of cliffhanger that was like, oh my God, I can't wait until the beginning of the next season because I'm just not going to stop thinking about it for the rest of the summer. Why do you hate Voyager? Why do you hate Jane? I would say the same thing about deep space nine, but I'm not. Except deep space nine cliffhangers were, were, were good. Just like Voyagers.

[00:11:36] Yeah. Well, Voyager was after festival of the worlds. So yeah. Yeah. I just, you shut your face. All right. We're going to, uh, reset the stage, talk a little hegemony and, uh, we shall return momentarily.

[00:12:20] Dan, one of these days I'm going to forget about the end of that segment break and I'm going to be doing the robot that comes on. Hegemony. Hegemony. Um, careful. YouTube will probably flag us. So, um, and this reminds me, I still have yet to do the right for walk at STLV. We got to do that because I've seen it and it's, it's something that you will never forget once you see it.

[00:12:50] Or my imitation of Mick Jagger. Remember starting up? Why not both? Um, well, here's the problem though. On the, uh, on the Zep bound, I'm not really drinking. So I'm kind of, this will be my first dry Vegas in a long time. You're going to go dry the while we're there too. Uh, I can't promise that, but I'll certainly be dry by comparison. Oh, that's well, I don't even know why I'm going. I don't know why you're going either.

[00:13:18] You could save me a lot of grief by staying the hell home. Anyway, season two, episode 10, Star Trek, strange new worlds, hegemony. I'm going to keep saying it that way just to annoy people. Somebody in the comments is going to go, why do they keep saying hegemony? Um, not tonight, but I mean, in the comments after it gets posted, some trolls going to why do they keep saying hegemony?

[00:13:39] Um, so I thought it was a bold choice after, you know, seeing the Gorn, you know, in season one, after having them teased a couple of times to bring them back for the season finale and season two, you know, especially, I mean, it's a controversial choice, no matter how you pose it, because there are people who say the Gorn just shouldn't be in strange new worlds

[00:14:08] because of Kirk's log entry at the beginning of, uh, um, arena. And depending on how you choose to interpret those words, um, there's room for the Gorn in this show, but I think we were all surprised it was going to be this much Gorn. Yeah. Um, I don't disagree with that. Um, there's been a lot of people that, um, have complained

[00:14:31] about the look of the Gorn. Um, you know, we're all used to the rubber suit and that's, and I'll, I'll be honest, I want to see that. I want to see a non enterprise rendition of the Gorn that we're used to seeing it by that. I mean, Star Trek enterprise, the show, because the episode with the CGI Gorn was just awful. Um, I would love to see it now. Are there different Gorn, you know, kind of like different areas of the, of their world or of their, of their empire where they look different

[00:15:01] and they're like cast system, like soldiers and, and, and stuff like that. We have yet to see what's going to happen. Um, I was very surprised that they came back to it with such ferocity as well. Um, yeah, there's not your TOS is Gorn. That's for sure. Um, and it will be interesting to see based on what we've seen, the small bits that we've seen prior to this episode, it'll be interesting to

[00:15:27] see what we have seen in this episode, how they're going to continue to build this whole Gorn arc. Is it going to end in the, in the first episode of season three? Is it going to continue on? Are they going to classify it all so that Kirk can kind of pretend that he doesn't know what's going on? Um, it'll be interesting to see, but yes, I do agree with you. It was interesting. It was an interesting choice to have a cliffhanger and with this version of the Gorn in modern day.

[00:15:56] I don't know that they have to classify it like discovery did with the mirror universe because so far Kirk hasn't seen a Gorn. He's never said, you know, Starfleet has never encountered the Gorn. He's saying a creature called a Gorn. Oh, gosh. He's setting the table for the audience. Um, and of course, because it's the first time we've seen them in TOS. I mean, how could they have known almost 60 years ago that they were going to bring these lizards back and make them a central

[00:16:25] part of strange new worlds? Yeah. You know, a lot of with, with not only a, not only a central part of strange new worlds, but a ton of history, especially with blonde, uh, that's just tons of, you know, everything that happened to her. And, and there's a lot there to dissect, uh, understand, make sure you got everything, you know, lined up in order correctly. Cause they do flashbacks all the time and stuff like that. But, um, I'm not complaining

[00:16:53] about the fact that they brought the back to Gorn, but it was a surprise to me. No, absolutely. I don't think that I expected this nor really did I expect a cliffhanger quite frankly. Um, I feel like a lot had to happen to make this cliffhanger possible. This isn't really cutting to the end of the discussion, but as far as cliffhangers go, I really find

[00:17:16] it kind of wanting. Um, it's I'm not, well, even with, you know, at deep space nine, right. You know, it's the end of what is it season five or six and Jake is stranded on the station. I think it's five and you know, Cisco realizes it when they've evacuated and I'm like, what the, what are they going to do now? I don't have that feeling at the end of this episode. I didn't choose best of both worlds because I mean there's best of both worlds and there's

[00:17:45] everything else, everything else. Yep. You know, as far as cliffhangers go, nobody's summer was, nobody's last two years were ruined because we didn't change the worlds. Okay. Right. That's right. But I, I felt it was an odd choice for this show. Um, do you think that it's because they're trying to, you know, with a more episodic style series, even though it's kind of not in a way, um, kind of evoke some more of that, that nineties feeling? Yeah.

[00:18:15] I also kind of think that for whatever reason, and I could be wrong about this. It's just my take on it. Seeing what happens, especially in the later part of this episode, I think the powers that be Kurtzman and everybody else wanted to throw action into this, wanted to have a big, you know, big battles, phasers, explosions, space scenes, um, a little bit of, um, JJ Abrams track, which we'll get into in a

[00:18:44] little while. I think they wanted to do that. And I think based on everything that's been going on so far in the first two seasons, they didn't really have a lot to choose from other than the corn. Maybe that's why they did it because there isn't a whole, there isn't a great big bad. If there's certainly not going to end season two cliffhanger with Cybox showing up again. Right. Um, so which hopefully can we have some more of that please by the way? Right. Um, so, uh, so yeah, I think that's part of the reason why they decided to go with it. They wanted something that'll hit you.

[00:19:12] That'll hit hard, got a lot of action and based on everything that's going on, they just did the Klingons earlier in the season. I didn't think they were going to bring them back again. Don't want to overdo the Klingon. So it, it kind of makes sense based on what they've done so far in the first two seasons. So, well, you know, for a show called strange new worlds, they spend a lot of time dealing with things we've already encountered. Yes. Um, and I, you know, I got to state by the way, I actually, I do like this episode as an episode of strange new worlds.

[00:19:39] It's, it's not a terrible episode by any means, but I think it's a little convoluted in that sense. You and I were talking about this, you know, before we went live, there is a whole lot in hegemony. Hegemony. That seems like it's been lifted or emulates other things. Yes. And the one you brought up to me, I really didn't think about, and that's the alien tie in, which should seem obvious to me, but it wasn't.

[00:20:08] It was that's, that's, that's two of them. Um, the first one I'm going to mention is, well, actually there's three, but I'll go, I'll, I'll stick with what you talked about. Yeah. Battelle is infected with the Gorn eggs and the Gorn shows up in the shuttle and leaves her alone. And I instantly thought of Sigourney Weaver and alien cube or alien three, however we want to call it where she was impregnated and the alien was right up, you know, the famous picture of her

[00:20:35] right up next to the alien space. And the alien does nothing to her because it knows that she's impregnated with a, with an alien baby exact same thing here. So I'm kind of like, really guys, isn't that kind of like, you know, that's kind of like taking from something that everybody knows. Another thing, the very beginning of this episode, which I will tell you, I had not seen this for a year and a half. I've watched it twice since we said that we were going to talk about this. I did not even remember the first 15 minutes of when I originally saw it almost two

[00:21:03] years ago. And I'm like, okay, it's a nice American looking town. This has Miri written all over it, where they decided to use an American or Canadian set to make it look like regular everyday earth here now. And that was kind of interesting and a good way to save a buck. Parallel earth, right? Yeah, exactly. Yes. I think that that back lot has been used in a number of shows, including Wednesday and,

[00:21:31] and maybe even Reacher and some others. I noticed, I recognized that as soon as I saw it, because it looked, you know, like small town Canada, I guess. Right. Not that I've ever really been to small town Canada, but I'm sure somebody in Canada can tell us that. And yes, I said, Canadian on purpose too. Being half Canadian, I figure I can. You're allowed. It's allowed. I'm allowed. So let's talk about the Gorn attack on Parnassus

[00:21:59] beta, which I'm glad you didn't have to say up front because you likely would have murdered that word. No. See that one, it's spelled really bad, but it's Parnassus beta. I mean, I would have said it fine. I'm looking at it right now. And of course I said that I did that on purpose. No, sure you did. Sure. I absolutely 100% did because I knew that you love that. Do you smell burnt toast? Tell me. No, you smell burnt apples. I smell oak. Burt apples. Parnassus beta.

[00:22:25] You know, everybody on, on Parnassus beta thinks that everything's going fine. And Anki Dori, chapel's hanging along with the, uh, the Cayuga, um, and Captain Patel. They're getting these, these colonists settled. Why we're building colonies in space that look like, I don't know, mid-century towns in the 1900s. Yep. Is lost on me. It is lost on me. I don't know. Yes.

[00:22:50] It's like transporting a Scottish village to another planet for Beverly Crusher's grandmother. Um, I, I don't, I don't get it. Um, but here we are. All right. So the colonies up, it's running. And then all of a sudden one day, almost kind of like the crystalline entity, um, the Gorn show up and they decide that that's theirs. It's time to hunt humans. And

[00:23:19] it looked, I, I, I hate drawing a comparison to something else when I'm describing something in this episode, but I figured that it's really hard to not do. It almost kind of reminded me of independence day when through the clouds, when it comes to the clouds. Yep. Um, and it's at that point that things seem pretty dire and bleak. And honestly, at that point, I thought chapel was going to get killed off the show. I did too. I did not expect, uh, her to survive. I was,

[00:23:48] of course we all know that she does based on what we see in TOS, but it wouldn't have been, it would, it would have, but then you can know they would have brought her back or something like that, but I'm sorry, let me back up. I'm surprised that, um, but tell was not killed off. Sorry. Um, I'm surprised that she was not killed off. At least as far as we know, she wasn't killed, killed. She's just now could die from what's going on. That was what was surprising. Excuse me,

[00:24:14] not chapel. I'm sorry. I can, it was confusing. Well, I'm, I'm not surprised that, you know, they, that she wasn't killed off too. Um, because I, I really wouldn't pass them to kill off all the decent female characters there. I said it, I said it, um, you know, but I, it, it turns into a situation very fast that presents a real problem for Starfleet and for Admiral April and the prime

[00:24:43] directive and the entire tone of the episode, everything from here on in is on completely unsure footing. And it's, um, it's, it's not good for captain Pike generally. Genuinely. It's not. And the, and, and it's hard to not think about arena when we're seeing everything that's going on, especially when he's having those conversations with the Admiral. I mean, they

[00:25:08] show the map, which shows the Gorn territory and they're very familiar with, with, with the, the Gorn being a threat and this, that, and the other thing, but they're, they're, it's such a complete unknown in arena. Now, granted we've talked about, does Kirk know everything, but you know, there's gotta be these, unless for some reason that we find out that these were all very secretly classified missions that took place in this episode and whatever happens in season three.

[00:25:36] Uh, it is a bit of a surprise that Kirk doesn't appear to know anything about the Gorn at all. As a captain, you would be probably have information regarding threats that the Federation has faced maybe in the past decade, cause it's only 10 years ago. You know, you know, it's, you know, it's one thing if you're talking about, you know, you know, way back enterprise or, or, or, or discovery or, or whatever. So, um, yeah. Well, that's why I go back to, he never says he doesn't know what they are.

[00:26:07] Um, he just says a creature called a Gorn. Call it Gorn. Call it Gorn. Um, clearly somebody has to go in and try to save the, the colonists and the crew of the Cayuga. And of course it's gotta, it's going to be the enterprise. Of course. Um, the only one in the, it's only one in the sector. Right. But, you know, they, they kind of have to stay on their side.

[00:26:34] You know, they kind of gotta, you know, observe and report and all that stuff. And the situation kind of necessitates that they do a lot more. And I think that that's where really the entire episode starts to go wrong for them. Um, not only, you know, do they get there and realize that it's a giant mass, but there's no real good way to get past the Gorn initially.

[00:27:00] Except to pull a trick right out of the empire strikes back and pretend to be garbage. Pretend to be garbage and pull another one out of JJ Abrams and have Spock space jump. Like we saw in, uh, in the darkness, uh, not in the darkness. I'm sorry. Um, was it in the darkness?

[00:27:20] Yeah. In the darkness. Yep. When he was, uh, going from the enterprise to whatever the hell the shit name of the ship was, the big ship through all the space after the battle of vengeance. Yep. Um, so yeah, I, I thought of that as well. So this, so you, I've mentioned a couple, you mentioned empire strikes back. A lot of stuff has been taken out of different things to make this episode. Not that that's bad and not that it doesn't work. No, right. Right.

[00:27:45] The creativity factor. I was kind of like in my head a little bit. It's like, okay, how much more are we going to take from, you know, do you think that the Gorn are a monoculture, or do you think that there's different species of Gorn? You know, because obviously you've got the Bobby Clark rubber suit. And by the way, it's a travesty that they haven't found a way to work a Bobby Clark cameo into a Gorn episode. I protest. Yes. Um, yep.

[00:28:11] You've got the Gorn in enterprise and then you've got the Gorn in strange new worlds. So is it possible that they could be all different species or do you think that there's just one Gorn monoculture?

[00:28:28] I think, I don't think it's anything like the Zindi. I think that it is something along the lines of what you see with insects. You have, you have the soldiers, you have the, you have the, the people at the security. You have the queen, you stuff like that. So I think it's kind of like that. So what we've seen so far have been like the soldiers. Maybe later on, we'll see something more to what we're familiar with.

[00:28:55] What Gorn looked like. If we meet a Gorn captain, I don't think the one that Spock fought on the bridge of the Cayuga of what was left of the bridge was a captain. Um, he could have very easily been just another soldier. Um, the look of these Gorn in my opinion have absolutely nothing recognizable at all to the Gorn that we're familiar with. Nothing in any way, shape or form. So hopefully they'll be able to build on that a little bit. I would like to see.

[00:29:24] They kind of remind me of Zorak from space ghost. Um, I'm not going to lie. It's the way their heads look, you know, um, uh, that's just my takeaway. Um, regardless of whether we think they're a monoculture or not, it's clear that they're supremely intelligent.

[00:29:43] Their tactics have changed since the last engagement, you know, they, they're an intelligent species. They may look like monsters. They may act like what we think monsters act like, but you know, they decide to pivot and take human prisoners. And, um, that's a definite escalation in this case for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I had, I had a thought on my head as you were going to say,

[00:30:13] going through that whole sentence and then it completely, it completely flew out, which is not a surprise because you know, it's me. Um, but, uh, No, I'm not getting it. I remember what I was going to say. You were talking about how smart they are, no intelligent they are. It, they're, it's, it's amazing to me that they have the technology that they do. Um, and that they communicate through light, uh, as we found out in, in the previous episode that, that dealt with the Gorn.

[00:30:42] Um, and the more advanced and the more unknown does not equal good things when you're dealing with someone who is a threat like this. No, this is probably the most vicious, um, ruthless villain that we've ever seen really in, in Star Trek. Um, it's hard to compare anything from the sixties because television was different than as a landscape.

[00:31:09] So it was too, in the nineties, I mean, the Borg were fearsome in next gen simply because they were this, you know, autonomous collective that, you know, seeked or sought, pardon me, to enslave humanity. Um, you know, and that, that was its own level of what the hell back then. Yep. Since then, we haven't really seen anything that kind of comes close to that. The Klingons in discovery. Okay. They eat people.

[00:31:37] Um, that's different. Um, but nowhere near as, as fearsome as, as this, you know, evolution of the Gorn. I think you could describe, okay, the, the Borg were, were malevolent. They were, you know, they were, they were scary. I think this is the first time that we've actually had a, a villain slash alien in Star Trek that is truly terrifying. I mean, they are terrifying. They're scary looking.

[00:32:07] They got lots of teeth. They're vicious. They're practically indestructible by everything we've seen so far. It's very hard to kill them. Um, and they do a lot of damage when they're chest burst out like an alien. So, um, this is one of the top rated, scary, vicious, terrifying, go run and hide under your bed type, uh, creatures that we've seen in, in Star Trek.

[00:32:30] It's been a while since, you know, Starfleet has probably had to deal with something, you know, threat this elevated probably since the Zindi. Um, you know, uh, maybe there's something in between in that lost era. Or the first lost era, I should say. Um, but, or second, depending on how you look at it. Right. Um, anyway, yet I digress.

[00:32:54] Um, but I think that the fact that this is on Paramount minus has only allowed them to elevate this even more. Um, you know, if it were on cable, if it were on broadcast, the Gorn aren't going to be this terrifying. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the benefits of having it on a streaming service, regardless of which one it is. You don't have the restrictions that are in normal broadcast television.

[00:33:18] I think that's one of the benefits of having some of these services is you don't have to worry about, and I'm, I'm just, I'm throwing them out there. It's not like I look for it. You don't have to worry about the language. You don't have to worry about the nudity. You don't have to worry about the violence. All of that is fair game for any of these shows on any of these streaming networks. And I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's more realistic to have all of this stuff. There is, there is swearing in the world. There is nudity in the world and there is violence in the world.

[00:33:44] And if we're trying to do a story that is believable, I don't have any problem with seeing any of that stuff. So hell, I'm not wearing pants now. Um, Christopher Pike has a real crisis of command here. You know, he's put in the unenviable position of having the woman he loves, you know, missing, captured, starship, destroyed, you know, by a, by an enemy that probably will not let her live.

[00:34:13] And on the other hand, he's supposed to follow orders. He's, but yet he's still got to save people. So this is probably not the situation that he expected to be in or that their relationship would be in for sure. Well, that's what's something I was going to bring up. Um, I'm not sure that this whole relationship arc with Pike is a good idea for the show.

[00:34:39] And I've thought that for a while for a couple of reasons. One, sometimes it seems a little forced. That's not the fault of the actors or, or, or anything like that. All Starfleet captains always talk about from all the time that we have seen Star Trek is that it's the loneliest thing in the world. There's no time for love. There's no time for family, this, that, and the other thing.

[00:35:06] Yes, there are exceptions, but this is at a time where that would probably be something in the front of a captain's mind. And, um, how in the world, I mean, I'm just, you know, it's easy to say this whole, just don't fall in love with somebody else. When you're, when you're out, when you're out, when you're light years away the next day and this, that, and the other thing, they both know she's a captain too. It's, I mean, it's like, really?

[00:35:32] So you got two magnets coming at each other, which aren't supposed to connect, but yet they do. So I don't know, but you know where I'm going with that. No, I do. I do. Um, let's talk a little more about that. And, uh, and the other points we want to make about hegemony there. I said it right. There you go. After, uh, after the sponsor break, um, we'll be right back to talk about fansets and, um, well, and us stay right there. All right.

[00:36:10] Dan, we would be horrible people. Well, you're horrible anyway, but we'd be horrible people. If we didn't give our sincere thanks and love and gratitude to fansets for being the presenting sponsor of both Trek geeks and yield Thursday night geeks, which we are doing right now. Absolutely. They are friends. They are family. I just talked to Joe yesterday. As a matter of fact, buddy, uh, just, uh, prepping up stuff for STLV because that's only a month and a half away.

[00:36:38] I'm going to be with our friends again and we cannot wait. Um, they have over 500 officially, officially licensed Star Trek pins. 47 days. Look at that. The magic ring light getting in the way. Yeah. Love it. No, we can see it. That's good. 500 pins, buddy. Um, they release new stuff every single month. And today is no exception because there are four. Yes. Four new releases available right now.

[00:37:02] Head on over to fansets.com and get the newest of the new, which include the spiffy Starfleet Academy sciences logo pin a la memento more style. As I like to say beautiful round. Very nice. Also available right now is the Starfleet Academy school pennant pennant complete with that spiffy new Phoenix logo. I didn't even know that Starfleet Academy had a pennant. So that's kind of cool. Um, I hope we see that in the new show. That'd be kind of nice.

[00:37:32] It'd be a nice flag to be flying to my house. Um, and from strange new worlds, it is the latest of the micro crew pins and it is the coolest doc around. It's Dr. Joseph Mabenga. You can get that right now at fansets.com and the latest from the cool waters productions, limited edition signature series. It's Sam Bartholomeus as mirror universe. Dan B. Connor. Look at that autograph. It's beautiful. Just like he is. You can get them all right now at fansets.com buddy.

[00:38:01] Beautiful. Just like he is. I'm sure we're going to get a comment about that. Although he is beautiful. I'm not lying. I'm not wrong. No, of course, you know, it's our sincere hope that everybody goes to fansets.com. Put a whole bunch of those pins in your cart. Just like that. And check out, enter the special discount code Trek Geeks for 10% off your entire order. That's Trek Geeks in all capital letters. No spaces for 10% off.

[00:38:28] And of course, Daniel, if you spend more than $30 on fansets.com, you get what? Free shipping. Free shipping. Free shipping. So don't miss out. Get those pins right now, yo. Absolutely. Fansets. Our pins have character. And we thank our friends at fansets for being the presenting sponsor of Thursday Night Geeks. I'm going to call another crazy Ivan. Here we go. Garcia.

[00:38:59] And you can change the background to something neutral if you want. But of course, we want to talk about the new and expanded Trek Geeks store. Boom. You can shop official merchandise from Trek Geeks, including our brand new Fuck Cancer t-shirt. Nice. Yeah. Because we can say that. We can. All proceeds, of course, going to the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network.

[00:39:25] Something we are very happy to do to support our dear friends who are raising money for that each and every year. But we figure it's the least we could do. So that's available in both the purple color and a non-purple color. A bunch of non-purple colors. For your wearing pleasure, Dan. I love it. That's beautiful. It's a great design. Again, I'm going to give you credit, man. Where credit is due. You come up with a lot of these designs. That design is perfect. It's to the point.

[00:39:54] It's a phrase we've heard a long time. And to be able to incorporate it into Star Trek somehow, it just shows your sheer genius. So nice job. Well, and to get to it, you can go to trekgeekshop.com. I had to think of it because I've had so many URLs that I've been typing today for work. But trekgeekshop.com and our Dashery site, which is part of TeePublic. And, of course, our TeePublic store is still there. If you want to find other shirts from other creators, you can get them there.

[00:40:20] And each and every purchase you make there helps Trek Geeks immeasurably. So that is trekgeekshop.com. All right. We're going to be right back. We're going to look at some comments. And then we're going to finish up our discussion on hegemony. Be right back. Hegemony. Hegemony. God, I love Missile Command.

[00:40:51] The best part is I know when the video ends. So I know when to stop dancing. Garcia's in my ear saying I'm going to capture that later. Yeah. Thanks, Garcia. You're fired. And for everybody who joined late, Garcia's in the control room keeping us on task and on target. Really? Yeah. How do we stay on task? That's like an impossible. Garcia, that's how. All right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. And well, he's worth every penny.

[00:41:22] Absolutely. He is twice that. Let's talk about some comments, Dan. Before we start talking about the episode, Trib said, what? No strawberry martinis in response to your drink. I think that was to the fact that you might not be drinking in Vegas. And we usually have strawberry martinis when we go to Ramsey. We'll see. I can't drink all that much, but maybe I'll save myself for dinner that night to have something special. Nice.

[00:41:50] Although sometimes the old fashions call my name. What can I say? Hi, Heather. Heather. I couldn't say hi before. Hi, Aaron. Just popping in. Good to see you. Hi, Burley. Wonderful people showing up. This is great. I love seeing all these fantastic humans. I have to agree with Aaron. The cliffhanger just feels kind of meh. It feels like a cliffhanger on a show inside a show. Yes, it does. Yep. I love it. I couldn't agree more.

[00:42:22] Aaron's a very smart man. That was very kind to correct me on my pronunciation of hegemony, but I did let her in on the joke. So hedge money, hedge money. That's the problem with America is hedge money. Yep. There you go. Speaking of, I want a parallel Earth episode at some point. We're going to be doing throwbacks. All right. That's fair. I've got the sets already. Why did we have Roman Greek throwbacks in our cities like D.C.? Well, that I can't speak to.

[00:42:51] Yeah, it's a good question. See, I never thought of it like that. Helen says they could have brought back Chapel's evil twin. I suppose they could. She could. And she could have been the one that kidnapped the good Captain Lorca way back in the day. Who knows? Lorca, Lorca, Lorca. Kirk doesn't ever seem to read his briefs. Hell, he never read Spock's personnel file and had no clue who his parents were. Fact. See, we have the smartest viewers, I think.

[00:43:21] Because these are great comments. Certainly smarter than the host. I noticed how you kept that singular. I did. I did. Maybe the rubber suit Gorn is like a different life stage. Like caterpillars turning into butterflies. That's a distinct possibility. It is. Maybe he's a senior. Maybe he's like the Romulan Centurians, kind of a vaunted figure in their hierarchy, perhaps. And they're reptilian.

[00:43:50] And reptilians shed their skin. And they change and mutate and everything. So yeah, that's a great point. Great point. You mutate. I'm mutating right now. I love this comment. I don't know. The JJ Klingons made me pee a little. Me too, in a way. They are vicious. That guy with that earring. Wait. In the wrong way. I love this comment. This comment is everything. Oh my God, that's funny.

[00:44:19] I thought they were badass. Willow brings up a good point. Moopsie. Moopsie. Very fearsome. But doesn't look fearsome right from the get-go. That's how you get sucked in. Yeah. It's like Godfather 3. It's awful. Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. Oh, that was Kirk-esque. It really was, wasn't it? Ryan loves my continual reference to Paramount Minus. I've been doing that a couple of weeks now. That's pretty good. Allie Martinez.

[00:44:48] One of the best things about having Facebook streaming tonight is we get to see these awesome people that we haven't seen in so long. Hello, Allie. 20-something-year-old Trekkie? Because I'm not going to out you on your age. And honestly, because I can barely remember how old I am. Let alone, Garcia says old. He's not wrong. Thank you, Garcia. This would be something extra in your next paycheck. 47 days, of course.

[00:45:19] 47 among the greatest digits in Star Trek. We can't wait to see you either, Willow. Aloha, Pete Vanderpart. My goodness. Our dear friend, Pete, the ukulele sensei. Yes. He, have ukulele, will travel. We love Pete. He's been with us a long time. So, great comments. Thank you so much, everybody. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:45:45] It's one of the great things about doing this show before a live audience is the interaction, quite honestly. And I know that seems trite. But, you know, when it's people that you've developed friendships over the course of a podcast and who mean something to you, it's great to have everybody show up and enjoy Star Trek the way we enjoy it. So, thank you all so much. You're here every week. And I'll add on to that too, buddy, is that, you know, a lot of times we only get to see these people once a year. Yeah.

[00:46:15] So, even though we're not seeing them, just being able to talk to them like real time and stuff like that and see what they're saying. It's a treat. And that's one of the things I love most about doing this live show. Because I know it's not about here being with you. Wow. Wow. And I was going to say, I love you. Well, that's my way of saying I love you. That ship has sailed. So, let's talk about probably one of the most contrived elements of this episode.

[00:46:42] And that is the fact that Chapel survives and only Spock can rescue her. It's a lot of stuff has to happen. And they have to be incredibly lucky throughout that entire arc in order for him to pass by the exact window. Exact window. Thank you. And then she has to know intuitively that he's going to head up to the bridge.

[00:47:12] But I get what they wanted as an end result. I really do. They wanted to have that moment, you know, where they're stranded there and, you know, they're each relying on one another. But it just, it does not play well. I think it is the weakest element of the script, quite honestly. I agree. Now, there are going to be some people that love it. But, oh, my God, they're destined for each other because they found each other. They were lost. And sure. Sure.

[00:47:42] I can get the whole, she looks out the window and sees the Enterprise there. Yep. And I can get the whole, you know, figuring out that something's going to be happening. And maybe she sees Spock off in the distance. The same window, though, that's where I'm like, that's bullshit. I'm sorry. Uh-uh. What are the odds? Spock, what are the odds of that happening? And I can't wait to hear those odds because they're pretty low. But it happened. Yeah. And yeah, they try to build tension.

[00:48:11] And I don't think they do so effectively. You know, to the point where there's the confrontation with, you know, the Gorn in the suit. Spoiler alert, Gorns don't like the cold. Which makes sense because they're reptilian. Oh, I just thought of that. Good job. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You know, it just, it, re-watching it for the first time in almost two years, I was like,

[00:48:40] yeah, this actually hits me worse than it did the first time I saw it. Don't get me wrong. I love Ethan as Spock. I love Jess as Chapel. I appreciate that they kind of got those two together in Strange New Worlds and kind of the on again, off again sort of thing, which I'm pretty sure is going to be off again coming up in season three with Roger Corby showing up. But I like that they've added to that backstory, which makes some of Chapel's actions in TOS a

[00:49:09] little more native or understandable. Yeah. But this whole rescue is, is just weird. I got to go back to what you were just saying a minute ago, because I've thought of this several times. I love the idea of what has originally, what, what has happened with Spock and Chapel. It's good to see that there was something there before TOS. So we do know why that Christine acts the way she does in some of the episodes of TOS.

[00:49:40] That being said, I think they have gone into that well too often in Strange New Worlds and we're only in season two and it only started happening. End of season one? Or was it season two even? And I don't mean to, and I'm not saying that it's bad and that don't, don't get pissed off at me people because I'm saying, I think they've gone into well too often. It seems that any time lately in what I can remember of the end of season two, whenever

[00:50:07] Spock is on screen or whenever Christine's on screen, or if they're both on the same time, God forbid, all it is about is their tension and their relationship. And that bothers me sometimes knowing what the characters are like in TOS. I can see that. You know, you could make the argument that it's a younger Spock. It's a younger chapel. They're more, by the time we get to TOS, you're right. It's 10 years down the road. They're more seasoned. They've spent some time apart.

[00:50:35] Obviously something has brought them back together, you know, and she's back on the enterprise, but you're right. It is a little, I don't want to say teenage because it's not teenage, but it's very, it's very sort of mid nineties rom-com almost friends level. The way that they're bickering and tension in their relationship has been over the last couple of episodes is don't, don't shoot the messenger.

[00:51:04] It's bonk bonk on the head to me a little bit. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's like, okay, I get it. You guys are having trouble. He's supposed to marry her and she loves you. And she's going off with Roger. That's what we're, that's welcome to humanity and the way that relationships can sometimes be in this world. I think that this is a show that I think has spent a little bit too much time. I just talked about it a little while ago with Pike. The relationships are a very important aspect of Star Trek, but I think that they have focused

[00:51:34] on that maybe a little too much, especially with the Spock and Christine aspect. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with you. I, um, well, I, we know that that has to change, right? It has to evolve. Um, because that dynamic will be forever altered with the introduction of Roger Corby. So I guess what I would say is, and again, I don't, it's not, I don't dislike it. It's, it's, it's important stretching out over more time. We know we, they knew when they were filming this, that it was going to be at least season three.

[00:52:03] Now we know it's going to season 4.5. Um, so they have a lot of time that they can spread it out and, and do something with it instead of squeezing it all in to one, one or two episodes and making everything else seem secondary to what's going on. So from now on, I will refer to that final season of strange new worlds, a season 4.5 for the rest of my life. I finally, I did something right because if, if they're not going to give it a full season, I'm not going to call it a full season.

[00:52:31] You know, it's kind of like the two half seasons of the Sopranos that make up season seven, but they wanted to call it season six and seven or whatever it is. Um, uh, yeah. So we can't not talk about this part of hegemony and I want to laugh every time I say hegemony and talk about the introduction of Montgomery Scott. Yeah.

[00:52:59] Um, I thought it was done really well. I really like Scotty. Um, he's a little younger than I thought he'd be, you know, because right now Kirk seems older and, you know, in TOS Scott, he's definitely older than Kirk. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. You know, Scotty looks like he's probably about 18, um, you know, compared to, to, to Paul Wesley's Kirk, who I'm, I'm fairly certain is pushing 40 at this point.

[00:53:29] Um, you know, but I love the way that, you know, they gave him some additional backstory. You know, with regards to, to Pelleya. And I thought it was really well done. I, I love that. I think that's one of my favorite parts about the introduction, Scotty. And my, his name is escaping me. The guy who plays him is excellent. I think he's a perfect fit for young Scotty. I love his humor. I love his accent.

[00:53:55] I like his, his confidence, but his lack of confidence at the same time. Cause he's still, he's still kind of fresh. Um, I love that there is a backstory between these two. Obviously she is extremely smart and a great engineer and maybe she is his Padawan or the other way around crossing the streams again. Um, but I love how they kicked off with that kind of backstory right away. And I really hope they build on that later on.

[00:54:25] Martin Quinn is the name you're looking for. Thank you. Um, you're welcome. Um, I, I, I do think they'll build on it. I think that something as much as I don't want it to, um, something kind of has to happen to Pellia. Yeah. Um, whether she leaves the ship or whether something tragic happens, maybe that's kind of the fate that befalls all enterprise engineers until Scotty comes along. Um, you know, but, um, I, I, I makes me wonder what's going to happen to Carol Kane's

[00:54:54] character in season, season three, season three. Yeah. Um, she's been a, she's been a good addition to the cast. I like her. Um, sometimes I can't understand her very well because I know she's playing a character with an accent. Sometimes I have to rewind it just to make sure I'm understanding. And I actually, I think one episode I threw on subtitles to actually read what was going on, but I think she's been a good character. I think she's, uh, she's been a plus and I know that she's been loving it. I've been reading some stuff about her, um, and her time on the set and she's been very, very happy.

[00:55:23] I, um, I, I, I hope they don't do anything. To, to, to ruin her character or to, uh, you know, uh, to, to kill her or anything. I hope she just goes on to her next thing because she's clearly been around forever as a character. Um, and I would like to see that happen. I'd like to kind of believe that she's still kind of hanging around in Picard's era somewhere. Yeah. Maybe she's still at Starfleet Academy. I don't know.

[00:55:51] Um, but I think that, or maybe she's back in Vermont either way. I think that would be really kind of cool. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. All right. So before we kind of wrap it up, let's talk about the last minute rescue attempt. Um, the, what takes us directly into kind of the cliffhanger and the Gorn taking the human prisoners. I like the development. I don't like the execution.

[00:56:22] Interesting. Because I remember, I do remember when I saw this the first time and I did it again, when I watched it recently, all the buildup to that. And then they beam out and I'm like, what the hell did they screw up the special effects when they made this episode? Why did that transporter look so different? And then a few minutes later we found out why. And it, I didn't realize it when it happened. I'm like, okay, they're okay. What's going to happen? And it was a surprise to me. I'm a little slow. I understand.

[00:56:51] Um, but yeah, I'm like, what's going on with the special effects here? Yeah, I did. The control room tells me that Paul Wesley is 42. Now he was 40 the last time he was in strange new worlds and Martin Quinn is 12 years younger than he is. So he's 30. Not 18. All right. Thank you, Garcia. See on the spot fact checking. Boom. You know, that's really what makes us different. That and the fact that you're largely unintelligible.

[00:57:19] Um, you know, it's, I think cliffhangers succeed when you realize that there's something larger hanging in the balance. And with the Gorn, you know, already know that's true. So there really was nowhere for the cliffhanger ending to go. Other than, oh, the episode's over now. See you whenever we see it. And I think that's really why this cliffhanger is not as cliffhanger-y.

[00:57:47] It's funny that you say that because I think that's the exact reason why they, why the Gorn beamed the crew to the away instead of the ship. Because if it's just the Gorn and there's a big battle that's going to be happening, okay. Fade to black. See you next season. It'll be a fight. We'll see what goes on. You know, they're going to get away. Blah, blah, blah. This made it more personal. You know, bridge crew was there. You know, um, so I, I like how they did that, but you are correct. It is not a, I'm not personally invested in this cliffhanger.

[00:58:16] Like I was with best of both worlds or Equinox. Like, like I know that Ortegas and, and Mabenga and Lon and Sam Kirk are all coming back. I know this. Yep. So I know that the stakes are somewhat medium. Yeah. They're diminished quite honestly. Um, it doesn't mean that, you know, the, the action isn't, you know, um, shocking in the terms of Star Trek.

[00:58:45] Them taking human prisoners is, but you know, um, uh, maybe some of the colonists are going to be a part of the ship. They're going to wind up unfortunately dying. Yeah. But as far as our Starfleet crew, um, we know they're coming back to base. Right. With best of both worlds. We didn't know if Patrick Stewart was coming back to next gen. Absolutely. Yep. You're right. Um, it's interesting also that, uh, one of the things that I did like about what we saw in the final scenes and the battle that was going on the remastered TOS arena.

[00:59:13] If, if I'm not mistaken, the Gorn ship is that three prong kind of like flying star. I love how they have kept that with all of these flying, uh, with all of these, um, scout ships or whatever you want to call them that they're using in this. Yeah. And that they spin that way. I think that's, I think that's pretty cool. Uh, a special effect. And I like how they kept it going from the remaster. Yeah, I do too. I, um, there's a lot to unpack in just about four weeks, four weeks from tonight.

[00:59:42] Um, and we will talk about season three, episode one, four weeks from tonight. Wow. Thursday night geeks. So, uh, spoiler warnings will be up the whole nine. Um, but we will talk about it that evening. Um, so, uh, be prepared and we'll do that with pretty much all 10 episodes of season three. Bring your popcorn. Um, bring your smoked crown apple. No problem there.

[01:00:12] As long as you don't bring the Wilford Brimley, like you had during the pan can episode. I still think your blood sugar is not right after that. All right. I won't. All right. So a little housekeeping next week. I am actually traveling for work. So there won't be a Thursday night geeks, but the week after that, Dan, we'll be back. You'll have bells on hopefully some more things. And, um, I, I think the topic we're going to do is unpopular opinions.

[01:00:44] Well, also remember that, uh, we have a special guest that we're going to be recording with next week and we got to figure out when we're going to throw that in an episode too. Yeah. Um, if we've been, we've been, we can, we can tell everybody what we're doing. We've got Brian book wise that we're going to be talking to again, to talk about the incredible line of, uh, of action figures that are coming out. We've been trying to get him for a couple of months, but unfortunately he's been very busy. He's in studios and he's making stuff and blah, blah, blah. And unfortunately it turns out he does not have Thursdays available for the foreseeable future.

[01:01:14] So we're going to, you know, interview him sort of like we do with Bruce a few weeks ago. Uh, and then we're going to bring it to a Thursday night geeks, but we can do it whenever I guess. So if it's not next week, week four, week after, whatever. We may end up having to reschedule him on our end because I might be on a plane. That is correct. That's my plane's heading out Monday night. So, okay. Then, um, I will be in, get on that as soon as we get off the air tonight. I'll email him. I will be in Boston, Massachusetts. There you go. Great town.

[01:01:44] So, uh, yeah, it's all right. No, it's a great town. I love Boston, but, uh, so yeah, in two weeks we're going to do unpopular opinions and I'm going to tell you, Dan, this opinion is going to come up. Spur. Okay. Just as a little preview. Um, so things that, you know, that, um, and by unpopular opinions, we mean unpopular opinions of ours.

[01:02:13] Um, uh, you know, nothing is going to be, you know, earth shattering. We're not going to get, you know, uh, shut off by YouTube or anything or fan. Perfect example. Bill does not like yesterday's enterprise. That's an unpopular opinion. That's an unpopular opinion. That's a good example. Yeah. Dan is a terrible podcaster. Correct opinion, but very unpopular. I mean, this truth and opinion, that's two different things. Well, but I mean, anyone who has that is, you know, holding an unpopular opinion.

[01:02:43] And it's funny, I mentioned thunderstorms at the beginning. I'm now hearing cracks from thunder outside. Okay. Perfect timing. Uh, everybody, thank you for joining us tonight. We look forward to seeing you in two weeks on Thursday Night Geeks. And, um, Dan, I'm sure I will be talking to you throughout the weekend. And, uh, everybody else, stay safe, stay happy, and live long and prosper, everybody. We'll see you next time. Good night, all. Music for Trek Geeks is provided by Five Year Mission.

[01:03:12] They're writing an original song for each episode of Star Trek. Hear more of their music at fiveyearmission.net. Trek Geeks is a production of Coconut Media Works, executive producers Bill Smith and Dan Davidson. For more great Star Trek discussion, discover the other shows of the Trek Geeks podcast network at trekgeeks.com or find us in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.