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TOS: "Elaan of Troyius" (s3e13) with Jordan Hoffman
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TEARS FOR LEERS. Captain Kirk falls under the spell of... a former co-star of William Shatner's? It's Spring Flings Month here on Trek Marry Kill. Bryan is joined by film critic Jordan Hoffman, who also authored the Star Trek Book of Friendship, and whose writing can be found in Vanity Fair, Foreign Policy Magazine, and his Substack -- Hoffstack.Substack.com. Will they TREK, MARRY, or KILL this season three episode?
The grades begin at (24:46).
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Theme Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Next on Trek, Merry, Kill. Swine! Spankings! Klingons! Energize!
00:00:11
Speaker
Now the women, they're supposed to be something very special. They're supposed to have dry men wild
00:00:27
Speaker
Swine, stick back again. Glory. These are your wedding slippers.
00:00:36
Speaker
Our interrogation techniques are more excruciating than you are even capable of.
00:00:43
Speaker
And I will not be given to a green pig as a bribe to stop a war. That's another one of your problems. Nobody speaks to me that way.
00:00:53
Speaker
Scotty, that bomb he planted, can you dismantle it? Not without being blown halfway across the galaxy. This is your last chance to surrender. Your term. Prepare to be ported or destroyed.
Guest Introduction: Jordan Hoffman
00:01:16
Speaker
Hi, I'm Brian. Hey, I'm Jordan. Welcome to Trick, Marry, Kill, a podcast whose heart has been enslaved to Star Trek forever. Here in the month of May, we're kicking off a new theme month, Spring Flings, episodes that feature romances of our main characters.
00:01:30
Speaker
And joining me to discuss one of Captain Kirk's many brief entanglements is a New York movie critic whose writing can be read at Vanity Fair, Foreign Policy Magazine, and on his own sub stack, Hofstack,
00:01:42
Speaker
which you can and should subscribe to today at Hofstack.substack.com. He was the host of the first edition of the official Star Trek podcast that was called Engage, the official Star Trek podcast.
00:01:54
Speaker
And in 2022, he co-wrote the Star Trek book of friendship. You have been and always shall be my friend.
Exploring 'Elaan of Troyius'
00:02:00
Speaker
He's Jordan Hoffman. Jordan, welcome. Hello. Hello. Thank you so much. i'm honored to be here.
00:02:06
Speaker
We're recording on ah on a Saturday morning and it's bright and cold and fabulous. And let me tell you. I'm thrilled to be on the show and I'm always eager for an opportunity to revisit a TOS episode.
00:02:20
Speaker
ah This one particularly is not like one of the, I think few people would rank it in their Mount Rushmore of perfect ones, which is great because i you know, there are some that I've seen so many times I have every line memorized. This is not one that I have every line memorized, ah but revisiting it was nothing but a joy. So I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity to do so.
00:02:45
Speaker
We're talking about Ilan and Troyes. It's the 13th episode of Star Trek's third season. It premiered on NBC, December 20th, 1968, written and directed by John Meredith Lucas. More on that in a second.
00:02:56
Speaker
Memory Alpha describes it. The Enterprise transports Elan, Dolman of Elas, to an arranged marriage on Troyes. What Memory Alpha isn't telling us is that the tears of an Elasian woman are able to cast a love spell on any man that touches them. And unfortunately for our crew the Enterprise, it's Captain Kirk who touches those tears and he falls hopelessly, madly in love with her just as the Klingons are attempting to attack the ship.
00:03:26
Speaker
But they're doing that in concert with Kraton, one of the people in Elan's coterie, and they've sabotaged the warp drive. So you've got that problem going on.
00:03:38
Speaker
Elan is basically ah ah savage woman, a regal savage who needs to be taught manners in order to be ah accepted by Troyan society.
00:03:49
Speaker
And so the Troyans have sent, or the people of Troyes have sent this ah advisor to teach her how to be a respectable woman in their culture. And she's not having any of it. She's throwing pillows.
00:04:01
Speaker
She's stabbing people. And it's, it's a lot. And of course the solve is pretty simple. Some of the jewelry that Elan has, turns out those were dilithium crystals. So the sabotage warp drive with the burnt out dilithium crystals, easily replaced with their necklace.
00:04:17
Speaker
and um And the love spell is solved Not by Dr. McCoy figuring out the antidote, but because Captain Kirk is so powerful, so strong, his love for the Enterprise beats out his love for
Nostalgia and Gene Roddenberry's Portrayals
00:04:31
Speaker
Elan of choice. And they're telling each other they love each other, they want to marry each other.
00:04:35
Speaker
It's all very melodramatic. And a little silly. Jordan, usually I ask guests how they got into Star Trek, but you're one of the few who've already answered this in a published item. So it's in your Star Trek book. Readers, go check that out. Jordan, do you remember the first time you saw this episode, though?
00:04:51
Speaker
You know, I i don't. I don't. This was just one of the ones that just sort of appeared in in my world. So I don't. But I do remember the um gobbling up my first round of TOS.
00:05:07
Speaker
And it's it's actually very... um it's It's fun because I grew up in the New York ah market in in Central Jersey. um And when I was in late junior high and then high school was when I started getting into Star Trek.
00:05:25
Speaker
And I believe it was Channel 11 or maybe it was Channel 9, actually, I forget. No, Channel 11. Channel 11, which was like a local channel, had Star Trek reruns at midnight every night.
00:05:37
Speaker
And, um you know, I was in school, so I wasn't supposed to be staying up till 1. And I did not have a television in my bedroom, but we had a little guest room that had a very small ah color TV, um smaller than the laptop I'm looking at right now. um And I would kind of sneak in there at midnight to watch...
00:05:57
Speaker
TOS and a lot of times I would fall asleep because, you know, I was a growing boy who needed my rest and I would sometimes fall asleep to an episode, even if it was an episode I loved.
00:06:08
Speaker
And I would have these but maybe this is why I'm a Star Trek fanatic, because I would have these very vivid dreams. where the audio from Star Trek would kind of infect and guide my dreams. I remember falling asleep to Arena the first time.
00:06:22
Speaker
And Arena still to this day has this sort of surreal quality over me. mean, Arena is very surreal. It's very stream of consciousness. It starts off as a chase, and then they go, and there's a fight, and then the Metrons show up. It's so weird.
00:06:33
Speaker
um So anyway, the point I'm making is um Channel 11 would cycle through. they would just They would show all season one, all season two, all season three. They'd loop back. Go, go, go.
00:06:44
Speaker
And um as I was gobbling up the first ah round, when you get to season three, not not all those episodes are so great. And at 1230 every night, a program by the name of Late Night with David Letterman would come on.
00:06:59
Speaker
And at the time, you know, this is before YouTube, you you know Late Night with David a Letterman was the hippest thing you could watch. I mean, later for the younger audience members listening, you know, later Letterman later went to 1130 on ah CBS and he was still funny, but he wasn't quite the. um He didn't quite have the punk rock edge that Letterman of the early years, the late 80s and very early 90s, had on his 1230 slot.
00:07:24
Speaker
um And those shows were incredible. So what happened was I would at 12 o'clock midnight start watching Trek. And at like 1227, I would have a debate with myself.
00:07:37
Speaker
Do I continue watching this episode or do I switch over to Letterman? What is my true love? Is it avant-garde comedy or is it this, you know, old, dorky sitcom from the 60s and if it was an episode that i'd seen 15 times already i'd be like all right let's see what's on letterman tonight and see who the musical guest is and then it was a funny so by season three there probably were somewhere like i don't know what's the one with the with the the empath that's probably my least favorite literally the empath yeah the the empath is yeah the empath is probably the worst tos episode for me or and the children shall lead is pretty obnoxious that's probably probably yeah I probably probably on those episodes would switch over. But um so to answer your question, I do not have a distinct, right I mean, I distinctly remember when I first saw Mirror Mirror and Arena and and you know
Cultural and Stereotype Reflections
00:08:23
Speaker
some of the great TNG episodes and whatnot.
00:08:25
Speaker
But I don't remember like Ilan of Troyes, the Dolman um and and her wacky ah guard just sort of came into my life and they've been a part of my life for decades, but I don't remember how they got here.
00:08:39
Speaker
this I kind of had a similar experience in that ah I had a flu that I almost died of in like 2012 or something. Well, that's terrible. I don't like that at all. But but it was when Star Trek was on Netflix.
00:08:52
Speaker
And so you could just run it. And so this was definitely something that my blurred mind did see. And it was an episode, like a lot of season three episodes, either just tried to skip or fell asleep to.
00:09:04
Speaker
yeah and so Yeah. I mean, the even the... like Even the worst episode of TOS is wonderful. you know I find it very hard to criticize TOS. I like to talk concepts and themes for episodes sometimes. Sometimes that leads to a fun discussion. Sometimes we just move past it quickly. But yeah what do you think Gene Roddenberry's deal with women is exactly?
00:09:25
Speaker
Oh, God. this This episode is not um very – well, it's not progressive at all unless you look at it from – and this is kind of a reach.
00:09:35
Speaker
If you look at it from the point of view of in the future – there will be such a lack of sexism that you can... hit women and it won't be a big deal because you treat women just like you treat everyone else. Like a weird shoe horse or a horseshoe theory. I mean, it's it's not, yeah this, this episode is is very much a product of its time.
00:09:59
Speaker
I mean, this episode has more in touch with an episode of i Love Lucy than today's sort of, um you know, gender politics. It's very dated it it does It's not a serious episode. From the very beginning, Kirk is like, oh, these wacky dames, you know?
00:10:18
Speaker
And then there's the ambassador who's clearly quoted as gay. And he's like, ah, yeah this flamer here is driving me nuts. And this wacky dame, she needs a spanking. And ah, I just want to fly my spaceship and be left alone. It's very much rolling their eyes But if you um approach it with the right point of view and the right sensitivity, it's very, very funny.
00:10:44
Speaker
And ah but it is antiquated as hell, for sure. It's ah this
Character Dynamics and Humor
00:10:48
Speaker
was an idea that Roddenberry pitched to Gene Kuhn in season two and it didn't work out. And then with all the changeover in season three, I mean, Gene Kuhn was like, thanks, Gene. Yeah. In the in the in the drawer.
00:10:59
Speaker
And ah so he tried it again for this. And it's just very strange to me that this was the second episode shot of the season. It comes after Spock's brain, which ah my regular co-host, Kristen and I, we we deem like, what was happening with Gene Ronberry in his life? Was he going to like parties in the hills and getting turned down by women? And he's like... ah What is that? What is that Dame seeing Jim Brown that she doesn't see in me or whatever? Like ah something was going on and he was writing it out in there. And Gene Kuhn actually actually wrote that episode, too. So it's like the the the men were a little inelly in celly in that one. And then in this one, yeah women are fickle.
00:11:38
Speaker
ah So it's it's, I don't know, it's strange guy, but he's obviously kind of aging out of his prime. I feel like, um look, there are a lot of great people from history that are ah do what they say, not as they do. i mean For sure.
00:11:53
Speaker
Thomas Jefferson wrote the you know the the finest Declaration of Human Rights, and ah you know and then he went home and and and sexually assaulted his slaves. So he is a...
00:12:07
Speaker
he so So Thomas Jefferson and Gene Roddenberry. That's right. If we want to hold the two pillars of America. you Gene well, like certainly he had these ideals and he he did sort of – i you know, have a vision of, of what society should be like, but he was a product of his time and he was figuring it out. I mean, i mean, even, even this episode, which, which is not exactly a feminist statement, you you do sort of like the character at the end. You feel, you feel bad. It's like you pity her, but you do sort of understand her point of view. And, um,
00:12:44
Speaker
At the end, this is the big question, like at the end, do she and Kirk actually like one another? Like, who the hell knows? But we'll get to that later, I imagine. But ah it is it
Episode Critique and Analysis
00:12:53
Speaker
is um it is curious. And yeah, I mean, his his attitude toward women um is, ah you know, it's been discussed to death. And i think, you know, at the end of the day, he's in the win column for his time. But, you know, this episode is not exactly putting his best foot forward.
00:13:11
Speaker
Yeah, and obviously Fred Freiberger's running the show. John Meredith Lucas wrote it. So they have a little bit more ownership than just the story idea by Gene Roddenberry from season two. To that point, Daniel Leonard Bernardi, I need to mention this, in his book, Star Trek and History, Racing Toward a White Future,
00:13:27
Speaker
He mentions Elan of Troyes as Troyes brings into play stereotypes of the Asian female, the manipulative dragon lady, and the submissive female slave. Elan is both irrational and primitive.
00:13:37
Speaker
So, I mean, it's two white dudes talking about race here. But, I mean, I think that's pretty clear, actually. It definitely comes across as this is a very the dragon lady idea, the the yeah the sexual object.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah. ah some Somehow between a child but then a devil that just beguiles men and Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, the actress, I mean, she is, I think she's Vietnamese or half Vietnamese or something. um She is French and Vietnamese, I believe. Yeah, I mean, the way she's, she's kind she's coded as just other, you know, you know she's correct yeah clearly, you know, she's biracial actress.
00:14:14
Speaker
If you'd said, oh, she's Algerian, you'd be like, sure, she's Algerian or she's ah Syrian or, you know, even Brazilian. I mean, she passes for anything other than she's clearly not from New Haven, Connecticut. You know, you just don't know, you don't know exactly where she's from.
00:14:29
Speaker
And at first she's very like, she's the queen, she's Cleopatra. And she appears on the on the deck. It's like bow down before her. But then later she's kind of like a slob. She's eaten with her hands and she's like practically belching at the table, which is kind of proto Klingon in a way, proto Duross sisters.
00:14:47
Speaker
And I don't know, I find that sequence to be really cool. Like I think she's tough and awesome in those scenes. And, you know, she stabs the ambassador and she throws hurling things and nearly kills Kirk. And then she uses her tears to win him over and whatnot.
00:15:01
Speaker
So I don't know if I see her necessarily as villainous. I mean, she's clearly like the antagonist to Kirk because all Kirk wants to do is complete the mission and get on with his life. And she's interrupting his flow.
00:15:15
Speaker
But I think that she, I mean, I would imagine that somebody watching her back in the day would think she was kind of cool. I mean, I don't know. I think there that element does still ring through. i just think the idea of of what it, casting an Asian presenting woman in that role is like very stereotypical if it's time. It's like yeah they could have only imagined casting someone who looked like her for that role. They wouldn't have written that for Susan Oliver, for example. No, i think you're right. I think you're right for sure. And, um,
00:15:46
Speaker
And yeah, there just weren't that many opportunities for women of color to do anything else, you know, other than Ohura, who, you know, has maybe two lines in this episode. Ohura draws such a short straw in this episode. So it's very, okay.
00:16:01
Speaker
So France, that's right. It gives up a room. ah So France Nguyen Elan, she was 19 years old when she was cast opposite William Shatner for the Broadway show, The World of Susie Wong, an adaptation of a bestselling novel.
00:16:14
Speaker
Play ran for over 500 performances.
Personal Anecdotes and Production Insights
00:16:17
Speaker
She and Shatner both received Theater World Awards for their performances. Also in that group of recipients, because it wasn't like best actor, best it wasn't like one-to-one, just a group of actors. And I don't remember how many, there was maybe eight or 10 of them.
00:16:28
Speaker
But among that group, with them, Larry Hagman, Rip Torn, and Susan Oliver. so Oh, wow. Nice class there. rip Torn and Shatner. Could you imagine that those two guys? Rip Torn, if listeners don't know, that guy was a madman. Truly a madman. Maybe this started I'm assuming that Rip Torn is no longer with us, but I did go to a screening years ago.
00:16:51
Speaker
Maybe I shouldn't tell. Well, no, I'm just I'm just reporting the facts. He died in July 2019. OK, so I don't know. 2015, 2016, whenever I went to an event, a screening of of an old film he was in and he was in the audience like it wasn't announced that he would be there.
00:17:07
Speaker
And um he was there and the like the manager of the theater is like, if you want to come up and speak? And he was so drunk and was so rambling and started to cry on stage and had to take him down. It was really, really unlike anything I'd ever seen before. it was, ah but it was kind of great. Like in a way the audience was thrilled. Like, yeah, we just saw Rip Torn, drunk off his ass, blubbering about this movie, totally incoherent. And then everybody applauded and like, you know, had he got up there and just said normal things, nobody would have been like, oh great, we saw Rip Torn. But like this brought the house down. It was marvelous. It was great.
00:17:44
Speaker
ah her She was interviewed in 2020 during lockdown by ah the Lambs Club, a New York social club for the arts. She was asked a couple Star Trek questions. i want to run through them. Was William Shatner a good start ah good co-star?
00:17:56
Speaker
She said he was professional. I think he was young. I think he was insecure. He perspired a lot.
00:18:03
Speaker
He was professional is a great answer. You know, I have in my time as a loosely affiliated Star Trek um interlocutor, i have met Mr. Shatner. eight times, you know, and um people will say, oh, my God, Bill Shatner. Is he madman? Is he difficult? The answer is absolutely not.
00:18:23
Speaker
Like, oh, is he really fun? Is he a great hang? And the answer is absolutely not. He is super professional. He calls you, sir. he shakes your hand. He does the job. He gets the hell out of there. And it's breezy and smooth and there are no problems.
00:18:37
Speaker
um There are also very few adventure stories. You know, he's just in and out. But um i have one one time I made the guy laugh. ah This was in Las Vegas at you know the big convention. And um ah back when I was doing this sort of thing, I would host the costume contest. I did this probably 10 years.
00:18:55
Speaker
maybe not 10, maybe eight times in a row. And they would get a professional guy to give give me makeup. And one year I was an Andorian and one year I was this one year I was that. So they decided this year um we said, okay, we're I'm going to be in Orion this year. So I just wore like a suit and just had very professionally made green skin.
00:19:14
Speaker
And the costume contest starts at seven o'clock, whatever. It's 642. I'm out of my makeup. I go in the back into the green room at the Las Vegas Rio convention um just because that's where you go to hang out further. And there's nobody in there except for William Shatner.
00:19:29
Speaker
And he's not there with his handler. It's just William Shatner. And he's reading the newspapers. And I walk in the green room and I've met this guy a bunch of times. I do not. He doesn't remember me. He certainly doesn't remember me with green skin on. You know, I'm just some dude who shows up a green skin.
00:19:43
Speaker
He puts down the newspaper. He sees, you know, a tubby Jew in green skin standing there and he just looks at me. so I point to my face and I go.
00:19:55
Speaker
It's a living. And he cracked up. He cracked literally slapped his knee. I made William Shatner slap his knee. And he slapped his knee, thought it was really funny. I went over to the water cooler. I got a glass of water. I sat down. I waited 10 minutes and I went on the stage. That's what I did.
00:20:12
Speaker
But that was my one um genuine bonding experience with William Shatner. That's a wonderful experience. My goodness. Yeah. You'd probably never thought when you were getting ready that day. When I was falling asleep to the lot of Troy us in ninth grade, I did not think I would one day be wearing skin, a green skin with it.
00:20:31
Speaker
All right.
Shatner's Acting and Star Trek's Impact
00:20:32
Speaker
From memory alpha, this was the first episode to be written and directed by the same person. The only other one and the history of the franchise, some 950 episodes is Terry Metallus who wrote and directed the series finale of Picard.
00:20:45
Speaker
The next generation. ah This episode's title is a take on Helen of Troy, but the plot is a science fiction version of Shakespeare's plays The Taming of the Shrew and Antony and Cleopatra.
00:20:55
Speaker
The armor of Elan's guards were constructed out of red and orange plastic placemats. The incomplete body armor worn by Tony Young, Crichton, was sold in Christie's 40 Years of Star Trek The Collection auction for $800. The of Elas go undergoes ellos undergoes more costume changes than any other TOS character, with the exception of Barbara Anderson, Lenore Caridian in The Conscience of the King, and Ricardo Montalban,
00:21:21
Speaker
in Space Seed. Is that true? so but Wow! Memory Alpha is rarely wrong. so Wow! I didn't know that about Khan. See, with Space Seed, I'm so riveted to the story that I've never noticed the costumes. I did clock the multiple costume changes on this round.
00:21:40
Speaker
yeah um She's got to have at least five, I want to say, at least five costume changes? yeah I feel like it's that many. I was really more focused on the last two looks, particularly the orange dress. yeah so The one where she looks like Chun-Li at the end and it looks like they just took two pieces of butcher paper, colored them blue, and then kind of barely strapped them around her.
00:22:00
Speaker
I was like, I can't believe, is she wearing underwear? Like, I don't know what's going on with that one. But the orange dress, I'm like, that if she went to a wedding in that dress, there and no one would be looking at the bride. No, no, no. yeahba well So those are two. And then she opens up with the the purple bikini situation.
00:22:17
Speaker
placemats. Yeah, God knows what's going on there. And then then she's in the engineering um in something else. So there's four. There's probably a fifth you know when she's having her... her green chicken, which just looks disgusting. Yes. It's funny because whenever they show food on TOS, it's just like these you know protein blocks that are clearly Tinker Toys.
00:22:38
Speaker
yeah So it's like, this is a rare example of them actually showing actual food on TOS. And it's just chicken with food coloring spray on it, I would imagine. And she has to bite into it. Ugh, that must have gross.
00:22:52
Speaker
She's sifting around for the ones, the bits they told her were edible. This like this has this has a lead paint on it. Don't eat this one. but yeah At the time it was just paint. like they didn't know all All paint was lead. I'm glad though that you mentioned the costume changes because it is, um it is a remarkable piece of of production work. The, the amount of times that made her change her clothes. I mean, just from scene to scene, I mean, even at the big ending,
00:23:19
Speaker
They're like in the middle, she goes down to, she goes down to sleep bay and Dr. McCoy's like, we must extract your tears to find an antidote, ah which is off off scene. We don't actually see that, but we have to assume that's what he said.
00:23:32
Speaker
And then she goes up to the bridge at the end and along the way, she's like, well, I'm going to change but i'm going to slip in into something a little more comfortable on the way up to the bridge. I cried in those, like the last clothes, clothing. I have to change. I can't be in the same clothes that I cried in. That's right, because they have the poison.
00:23:48
Speaker
They have the poison, yeah. And then last note, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated during the filming of this episode. And France Nguyen, a big supporter of Kennedy, had been deeply shocked by the news while shooting her parts as Elan.
00:24:01
Speaker
1968, a... and ah Previously a huge year in American history. yeah And it' it's interesting to note what episodes were shot, ah what was going on, the civil rights movement.
00:24:14
Speaker
They come back from summer break when all this is going on and they're like Spock's brain first up. you Here's this show that's so celebrated for its allegories and progressivism.
00:24:28
Speaker
And it's like, well, now, you know, now that, ah now that all these assassinations have happened, Spock's brain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Gene Kuhn writing about why won't these women fuck me is, All right, let's get into the grades. ah We'll start with great scenes. Jordan, do you have any great scenes you want to highlight? god Yeah, I mean, it the scene with the with the with the green chicken. I mean, it's the it's the, that's the meat of the, that's the meat of the episode. If you were going to pitch it, it's, you know, it's My Fair Lady in space. It's I'm going to tame or the taming of the shrew or whatever.
00:25:02
Speaker
I'm going to take a... a spoiled brat demon s ah woman who no one no no one has ever stood up to and I'm going to civilize her and teach her how to eat with a fork and knife and that scene is marvelous because Shatner is so funny in it because he's the captain you know Picard had more of this where you get to see him
Comparative Analysis of Star Trek Series
00:25:30
Speaker
have to work his diplomatic angles.
00:25:33
Speaker
I mean, obviously Journey to Babel was the is the OG of the diplomacy episodes for Trek, and you and it's you know much better than this and in total. But, um you know, TOS, it's still, you know it's like but you know, it's the old west. It's like the tough guy, alpha male, and Kirk is going to use his wits, and he's going to use his muscle, and he's going to blow shit up.
00:25:56
Speaker
And then there are episodes where he has to use diplomacy, and which he does in like um a Taste of Armageddon and whatnot at the end. He's he's got to give him the speech about ah learning to live together and whatnot.
00:26:11
Speaker
But in this one, he has to do it in a he has to do it with a female and he has to sort of feminize himself and act as a little bit of a nanny. And you've never really seen him like this before.
00:26:22
Speaker
And like I said earlier, he's annoyed from the very first interaction with the Dolmen. You know, he's rolling his eyes. He doesn't really take this mission seriously. This whole mission is a nuisance to him. It's a thorn in his side.
00:26:35
Speaker
He just wants to get on with it. So when he's got to really sink his teeth in and be the nanny, it's very, very funny. The moment beforehand, though, when Spock says,
00:26:48
Speaker
But Captain, how did you know that the Dolmen would behave this way? And he said, he goes, Mr. Spock, the women on your planet are very, very logical. And that could be said. Let me we try to find the exact line here. um My wife was sitting next to me when i was watching this. Oh, it's terrible. She like gasped. Mr. Spock, believe the women on your planet are logical.
00:27:09
Speaker
That's the only planet in this galaxy that can make that claim. I mean, that's like... off I mean, I'm going to say that even for 68, that was not meant to Like, if that had been on i Love Lucy, if Desi had said that, or if if um if Ricky Ricardo had said that, um ah Lucy would then do something to, like, pull his pants down. you know to like Yes. Yeah. Like, you know, or would have alice cramed that if Ralph had said that.
00:27:37
Speaker
you would cut to Alice being the smarter one. So even by, even back then, this line, which is a sexist line is, is meant to be a joke. Like, you know, give me a break guys, but it's in there. There's no reaction. You know, you don't have Alice Cramden telling Ralph Cramden to to eat it. You know, it's, it's in there. Mrs. Fox, the women of your flat are there are logical. That's the only planet in the galaxy that make that claim. And then the next scene is the scene that I'm talking about. So that to me is high comedy.
00:28:09
Speaker
Obviously it's very offensive comedy. Um, if there are some people who, who hate it, I write i recognize that and respect it. And I, I, I could understand why you would reject this episode based on its sexism.
00:28:21
Speaker
Nevertheless, if you go in there and watch this sort of as a historical, uh, piece, I find it to be very amusing. I think her performance is is really good in all of her scenes. And that's why it makes it tough to say like, that's not like a terrible scene. But if you just listen to the episode or if you read the transcript, you're like, yeah what's going on here? What are these turns?
00:28:44
Speaker
So know. I didn't have any great scenes in particular for this one. I mean, I had like nice little moments that I think I'll highlight elsewhere, but that's good. That's just as good to see. If you were to pick one, sure, why not? We'll go with that.
00:28:56
Speaker
ah Best Trek tropes. I have four. What are my best Trek tropes in this? Well, you go first. How does that? ah So transporting a dignitary. It's a standard Trek setup. ah There's definitely a range and quality of these from I'm thinking of like Lonely Among Us for some reason always jumps off from TNG as like a bad version of that.
00:29:16
Speaker
And then you got Journey to babel Babel, as you said, that where it goes from one. that This is. Not in the middle. This is probably closer to Lonely Among Us than it's The Journey to Babel. But, you know, I like It's a good tre Trek trope. It's good way to establish some drama, the stakes.
00:29:31
Speaker
You would have liked to have seen them had an advanced team instead of everyone learning on the fly of how to get this done. This seemed a little slapdash considering how important it to the Federation. I could have said that email in advance. That's right.
00:29:44
Speaker
This is the protocol for this dignitary. It didn't happen. I do love that the the diplomacy episodes because they are a great way to um draw out some world building other than planet of the week, disaster of the week. You know what it is? It's just like, oh, this is the workings of Starfleet. This is the workings of the United Federation of Planets.
00:30:03
Speaker
And then there's a cold war allegory at the end when they discover that the planet is actually a giant mine of dilithium crystal. Oh my goodness. I couldn't bull believe that. I'm like, so the Federation kind of was what they were just listening to their comm traffic or something. yeah and they like, we're just watching the news and had a sense of what the war was. so the science pretty strange that but I kind of love, I love the ending. was great. um But I do love the diplomacy episodes here and on TNG. g And, you know, so much of DS9 are these diplomacy episodes within the Federation Voyager. Obviously, they're they're in the Delta Quadrant, so it's not so much Federation. um
00:30:42
Speaker
I just think it's it's a great way to sort of pretend that this world really exists, you know? And then Klingons. Klingons are always the best Trek joke for me. ah the Very rarely are the Klingons a negative for me.
00:30:56
Speaker
ah So having them as the baddie. Technobabble. Sometimes this this could be a worst Trek joke, but I it as the best Trek joke because I like that it is established with the rules for what the warp drive does. Like this...
00:31:07
Speaker
this is what establishes Star Trek. Like Star Trek becomes science magic when you use warp power. If you use warp power, the Enterprise can do almost anything. anything And and ah so I appreciate that. I like that it maneuvers at warp, something the other shows get away from.
00:31:23
Speaker
ah you know, it in Next Generation and beyond, it's more like straight line travel. And I remember Balance of Terror was the first TOS episode I ever saw. and But I had been watching TMG.
00:31:33
Speaker
So like they were maneuvering at warp and balance of terror. I'm like, wait, what are they doing with the enterprise? You know, I'm a little kid. I'm like super nerdy. And here they're like, we need warp power to turn quickly and move around. and like, yeah, that's how warp power should be used too. I like that. um Yeah. it' It certainly is confusing, but I agree. I agree.
00:31:52
Speaker
I also put the dyed regular foods so that they appear alien. Yeah. I think the chicken wing dye job was perfect. Some of that fruit looked like it was left over from Journey to Babel. It looked like the same melons that have been dyed blue and green. so Another great trope in this is, and this is expands not just through TOS, but through all of Star Trek, is the bad guy...
00:32:15
Speaker
um communicating to his a secret ship from the ship. You know, oh god there's ah there's ah ah mess i why would they phrase it there's um a message, a tight beam somewhere on the ship. We have to locate it.
00:32:28
Speaker
Triangulating now, Captain. um That's never going to work. They're always going to catch you. you Use a burner or something, but they're always going to catch you. When you're when you're ah communicating and and Creighton talking to the Klingons on his community. You know, what's funny is that Kirk um tries to flip open that communicator and it it fails and they they they kept the take.
00:32:50
Speaker
If you go back and watch, they discover the communicator. He's there with Scotty. He's like, it's some sort of Klingon communicator. And he goes to flip it and it just kind of goes and it doesn't really go all the way.
00:33:02
Speaker
they yeah They only had five and a half days to shoot in season three. So there's paid basically probably two takes. And three of those days were just spent putting Ilan into new clothes. so That's right.
00:33:14
Speaker
Uh, worst Trek tropes. I have four or three of those. Oh gosh. Um, I love, I'll hear yours first. Jean Ron Barry's misogyny, you which we already talked about, but she doesn't even merit them putting on their dress uniforms for a dignitary. I mean, we can get down to the granular level. That's pretty bad. You're right. They should have done that.
00:33:33
Speaker
This is more of an, of this is an old category we used to have most of its time quality. And it would be very easy when you do the old episodes to be like, well, that, those clothes, but I'm going to see the Orientalism is kind of basically Star Trek being so much of its time that it's kind of like, it's, it's an ugly anchor of, you know that time. I yeah got to imagine this is such a bad, it's such a nasty stereotype. It persists still to this day. I don't know.
00:33:57
Speaker
It's tough. And then the other one is Turbolift travel times because they're as long as the conversation requires. Yeah. And to me, they're only extra suspicious when they go on for too long. So it's like, how long does it take to get to the transporter room? This is a lot of conversation. yeah It seems like the bridge should be closer to the transporter room. and and obviously, because they've cut the budget, they can't do a walk and talk.
00:34:19
Speaker
ah where they finished this conversation as they might have. Because that's too difficult to set up camera-wise. It's just an extra setup, yeah. um But I do like that on this transporter ride, you get to see them move horizontally, which you didn't always get to see.
00:34:32
Speaker
that That should be a best Trek trope to be perfectly honest. that's So that's a good one. But you know, it's funny at the end when he gets, when, when Kirk and Spock realized that the the Dolman's necklace is made from dilithium crystals and like Scotty needs to power up the warp engine immediately.
00:34:50
Speaker
If this was Picard, Picard would have hit that comm badge and say, transport a room. We need a ship to ship. Uh, uh, Beam immediately. Send Mr. Spock to the the engineering.
00:35:02
Speaker
Instead, Spock gets back on that transporter. yeah as zi gets back on the on the turbo lift. It takes him an hour and a half to get back there. That's right. and You're watching that. You're like, Spock, run, you idiot idiot. Why are you going? When did they first do the sight-to-sight transporter?
00:35:22
Speaker
I think it's TNG g because they were like, oh. Yeah. Oh, that's kind of unusual. yeah But I have a feeling has something to do with it. I'm trying to think of what would have finally gave them that idea. It's weird that it didn't exist in TOS.
00:35:37
Speaker
I mean, maybe there is a TOS where they mention it, but I really can't think about it because in like TNG, there's they do a lot of weird stuff with the transporter from on top of site to site. They're like, we're going to drop out of warp real fast, do a transport and then and then warp away. i'm like, what's why is that a big I mean, i dearly I do remember the first time seeing site to site transport and being like, you could do that without transporter pads. What?
00:36:02
Speaker
Yeah, I guess, you know, I've never I've never done a deep dive in this. I would imagine that in theory, the transporter room is taking you from the bridge and not directly to the to the engineering, the bridge to the transporter room.
00:36:16
Speaker
yeah just three It's a three stops, but are you're taking the express. You just go, boop, boop, boop, you know. Bridge buffer engineering. that's had Had this been TNG, for sure, those dilithium crystals would have gotten directly to... yeah you They just would have beamed the crystals, no person. Yeah, you'd be spocked there, you'd be spocked on the bridge.
00:36:36
Speaker
Or send just some red shirt. you know's been Send whichever yeoman is always coming around with that black thingamajig for him to sign, you know, to send that. The Etch-a-Sketch, yeah. The Etch-a-Sketch, come on.
00:36:47
Speaker
Well, anyway, good. I'm glad we can both agree on that. ah But ah so that is a negative. That sort of annoyed me. And there was something else that annoyed me. But now I obviously cannot remember it. um
00:36:59
Speaker
and Well, you were saying like the negative tropes. Maybe we're talking about the diplomacy and oh, well, the sexism and the Orientalism. I mean, there's a little bit of of ah homophobia in this. I mean, that that. ah that, um I forget the character's name. pima Petri. Petri is, I mean, even in 1968, you're watching like, oh, this guy's gay. I mean, he's like, ah he's like um um the ah Paul Lind up there. You know, he's, he's really wonderful designer. though. His hair is magnificent. He's a compelling looking character and I think it's a really good performance let's right for how theatrical it is. It's fantastic. He's one of the greatest characters and and and he's doing, you know, he's like Dr. Smith from Lost in Space. You know, he's just flaming around up there.
00:37:43
Speaker
And again, if you approach it from the right, from the, from a perspective of humor, it's great, but it is, um, He is a walking gay stereotype because he's like, oh, this woman, I cannot talk. You know, he's like he's like the in the theater production. He's the stage manager who can't deal with the lead actress. It's too much of her Madonna. I cannot work.
00:38:06
Speaker
yeah I cannot work with her. She's horrible, horrible. And she's he storms off. That is not um that is not a robust, progressive depiction of a gay character.
00:38:17
Speaker
But for 1968, it is pretty par for the course. So most hospitable character or a moment, i would what do you have? Petri? Well, I've seen some Crichtons at conventions. What I have seen is a woman as the Dolman with like three of her of her pals as as the Coterie and a Crichton. And the Dolman is tough to pull off because you got to do that hair.
00:38:41
Speaker
i don't know what's going on with that hair. That hair is – that hair –
00:38:47
Speaker
I think it kind of works against the overall look, but I get why they did it because her real hair is kind of fine. yeah I get what they were going for. The Cleopatra look like you Yeah, But ah but it's fine. The HD does it no favors. Yeah, but the braided of it. I mean, it is sort of a hot, I mean, it's a hodgepodge of racism. It's racism from the whole all over the globe.
00:39:08
Speaker
I mean, she's sort of the dragon lady trope with sub-Saharan African hair, you know? So she's like the woman king ah with meets the dragon lady. It's it's ah it's it's pretty rough stuff, but her her look is tough to pull off, but I have seen at conventions, ah Crichton's and the other, ah you know, the Dolman's guard, and those are great because those shoulder pads, I don't know what's, it's just like it' construction paper, really. It just looks crazy, and I've seen that pulled off. But yeah, if you can do a Petri, I mean, the skin looks great, the hair, ah the makeup, it's kind of like, I'm
00:39:44
Speaker
ah ah Batman 66 Joker makeup in a way. Oh, that's great call. No, there's a lot of similarity there. Yeah, I can see that. Oh, I want to say one thing about Crichton because you keep mentioning him because I looked this up. I'm like, they this seems like a a type of dude that they would have recycled, which they did sometimes.
00:40:00
Speaker
Stahn, the guy who played Stahn, I think was and another Romulan, but... ah He was not. He was only in this episode, but he's married to he was married in real life to Marla MacGyver's. Oh, how about the actress who played How about that? You know, in this episode, there's a um ah black security officer. has that guy? Yes. I feel like I've seen him else.
00:40:19
Speaker
else I'm not sure. i i have a tough time with this episode of like them cutting off the black people talking. Yeah. Kirk does it twice. And um like he the security guy after Crichton annihilates himself, he's like, I'm sorry, Captain. And he doesn't even be like, no, I'm glad you're OK. Which season two Kirk would have been like, it's OK, Lieutenant. Like they would have made a point to do something like that. In season three, it's like oh we saw yeah i don't know what's going on in season three. It's like. Yeah.
00:40:50
Speaker
It's like weirdly progressive at times. and Sometimes it's not. And then Ohura having to give up her quarters. But you know, so you can make events it doesn't make any sense at all. Why would there not be a spare room for a dignitary? like yeah There should always be a dignitary's room because they're always doing missions like this. And even if there isn't, why does Ohura, a bridge officer, i guess because she's a woman and they want to give the woman, the Dolman, a woman's touch, maybe? I don't know.
00:41:18
Speaker
But I feel like you clear out, so like you don't make a whore do it, you know? And then when a whore is like, i I gave that bitch my room. What is she complaining about? And Kirk is kind of like, thank, like he kind of is appreciative, but also is like, shut up a whore. You know like he's kind of,
00:41:36
Speaker
He's kind of dissing. He's not dissing her. He's just like, what do you want from me? You know, he's annoyed. Kirk is just annoyed this whole episode. It's just, yeah it's kind of funny to watch, but yeah, he should have treated Uhura with a little bit more respect by not even offering the room in the first place. And then later when the Dolman's annoyed, he even says, my Lieutenant,
00:41:55
Speaker
My communications officer gave me this room. You'd be a little more respectful or whatever. But I don't know. You're right. It's a little bit. I was just kind of curious because when I was watching it again, like, oh, have I seen this guy before? I don't know if I have or not. And he does get a couple of lines, which was for 1968 was a rarity. But they don't give him that much to do. But that's – I guess my – Mike, I didn't, I don't like saying headcanon, but I was thinking about and I'm like, why would they make Ohura give up her quarters?
00:42:26
Speaker
And, and obviously it's the same quarter set that they use for everybody. But I did have the thought of like, it does make sense that Ohura would like Kirk would just give her the biggest quarters. You know, they're like, Ohura, who doesn't love Ohura?
00:42:39
Speaker
Like I could see, like you have the biggest cabin on the ship for this one mission, give it up. yeah That I could see, but it's not talked about. and i I just thought be funny to think of Ohura. If Kirk is um figuring out you know, when he's, when he's crewing up for the season and he's figuring out where everybody's going to stay. He's like, right, I've got my bridge crew.
00:43:01
Speaker
It's like, all right, well, you know, Chekhov can sleep anywhere. Who gives a shit? You know, Mr. Spock, you know, put Mr. Spock in a cave. He doesn't care. He just wants to meditate. And, um you know, McCoy, he's got like all of his extra little doodads. So maybe he needs some more room. But other than that, it's like, well, who yeah, of course.
00:43:17
Speaker
Oh, she's a peach. Yeah. Give her the nice room. Give her sweet three, you know. You know, or sweet three. She deserves it. I can, I can see Kirk saying that, you know, cause they do respect her in the, you know, they, they, they always like, is it my, one of my favorite moments in TOS and I forget the episode off top of my head. And it's like when, when the shit's hitting the fan and Spock and Uhura are trying to fix something and they're down on their knees, poking around, um, underneath a thing, underneath a panel.
00:43:47
Speaker
And, um, just Spock says something to O'Hora. Like he really just says something. He's like, I'm really glad that we're working on this together. I forget the exact line. I'm sure somebody listening will know, but there's a moment where it's like, I can think of no better person to be working on this mission with than you, Lieutenant O'Hora. That's just such a nice moment. You know, I just, ah yeah I wish there was more. I love when everybody's nice to each other That's why I like TNG so much. Then it's also pleasant and, you know, caring. i I love Roddenberry's no interpersonal drama rule. I know that everybody hates that.
00:44:18
Speaker
And it became a great um ah obstruction for the writers to have to work around. I think it was a great thing that made them have to think harder. I just love that. you know I totally agree. I think what Michael Piller – because Michael Piller was like, that's the role. going to play by it. And that's why his like embrace of it is why – it worked much better earlier in the season. And he seemed to be the only person out of all the other new writers that ever adopted that. But but he was very focused on making sure that they were having conflict over the issue yeah in the episode.
00:44:48
Speaker
It wasn't like some personal thing. yeah I got a close loop on this Lee Duncan, the the security guard. So he does have... This was his only Star Trek, but ah he wound up... He did Knight Rider. Knight Rider is one favorite shows as a kid. I know you don't care.
00:45:03
Speaker
So he did two episodes of Boston Legal. This was his last credit. there you Where he played Justice Clarence Thomas. And I was working on the show at that time, so I don't remember... I remember those episodes. The Shatner is always... ah That's right. Always got the Shatner in there. That was ah that was basically... um Alan Shore played by James Spader just walking to the Supreme Court on short notice and and lecturing them, which couldn't actually do, it was fun.
00:45:29
Speaker
And the whole point was Clarence Thomas never has that like never spoken in the trials, never asked questions. And so James Spader's just mouthing off at all them and he says something and it finally gets Clarence Thomas go, hey, that's his one line. Oh my God, wow.
00:45:46
Speaker
Now it's time for the line, Mr. John. Yeah. Great lines. Well, the spanking line. I mean, because i think ah by season three, there is a lot, there's a long conversation to be had about how much of a, of a sex pot was um Kirk.
00:46:04
Speaker
And, you know, was he truly a space, space ah stood. And that has over time, by the time you get to Futurama and, you know, ah that character, what is it? Zap Brangian. It's way overblown and it becomes a cliche. um And I do think that over time, if you go back and really study it, Kirk is not sleeping with that many green skin aliens as one thinks in, in, in popular culture, but he certainly did have, he did do it from time to time.
00:46:38
Speaker
And I think by the time this episode was up, I mean, that's why you're programming it for your spring fling ah ah specials. He was, ah you know, a ladies' man in space. And i think by the time they were producing this episode, they're like, yeah we got to, you know, have a have a love episode for for Kirk. It's part of part of the deal.
00:46:59
Speaker
And when he mentions the spanking at first, that's kind of an I love Lucy type joke. And then she brings it back to him.
00:47:07
Speaker
Captain, that ancient earth costume. It's, um, it's, uh,
00:47:29
Speaker
That's like pretty kinky for star Trek. You know, it's like that, that is even, even back in the day, you would read that and be like, Oh my God, what are they going to get up to once we fade out here? So I think that's probably my favorite look. Yeah.
00:47:40
Speaker
Yeah. I had a few, which is... yeah This is a writer directing his work, which in Star Trek, it's only happened two times. so But anyway. Oh, Captain, when I am near them, I do not want peace. I want to kill them, Petri's line.
00:47:54
Speaker
think that's the essence of diplomacy, right? So good, yeah. And he's really trying... Kirk is... Like you said, he's cranky this whole episode. He goes, stop trying to kill each other, then worry about being nice.
00:48:05
Speaker
That was my other. And then I really liked the Klingons line, Enterprise, prepare to be boarded or destroyed. i love the 60s flat affectation for villain deliveries because It it lets you it's kind of like a horror movie where you don't see all the horror. It's like it lets your imagination fill in. I'm like, are they being serious? This seems pretty scary. The Klingons are very basic in this. I mean, they might as well say you have one of your Earth minutes. You know, they're very that's right that's very tough. You know, it's just like, yeah, ah it's great.
00:48:36
Speaker
Yeah. That diplomacy moment is wonderful. And it's watching it again. It was like they just showed this at the U.N. It's like, yeah, you know, don't have to like each other. Stop killing each other. ah Make everybody watch, you know, send this episode. This and a taste of Armageddon. yes like, there you go. Can we get Vladimir Putin to watch this episode? Wouldn't that be great? ah it's it's um it's it's It's a very funny moment. And again,
00:49:01
Speaker
Kirk is kind of making a joke. Like, cause this, you know, cause that for sure. He's like, oh Oh, I can't deal with this woman. it was like, Dr. Smith. Oh, the pain. And he's like, shut up, dude. Just get your shit together. Like he's not taking it that seriously. And that's why I find it so funny.
00:49:17
Speaker
And then like a comedy, like you said, he suggests a different approach, which Petri takes him up on and he wants to get stabbed for it. so And the the the act out on that of Kirk's face would be like, well, like it's a very sitcom. Yeah, you can do want want right ah Would this be a fun hollow novel to play? Absolutely. Oh, my God. Yes.
00:49:39
Speaker
I agree. as it yeah ah You're a captain of a starship under attack from the Klingons and you're in under a love spell. Like that is a holodeck scenario for sure. yeah yeah ah So the Anton Crudion Award for best performance.
00:49:53
Speaker
I mean, I'm going to go with Shatner, but, you know, it's yeah or her. I mean, they maybe they're tie, you know. it's if' the Both of them are really... great I mean, she's flinging stuff, she's throwing daggers, she's pounding a pillow. she's I think she's elevating what the the port the script is not, like her turn of of suddenly being vulnerable is not earned. not organic. starts you The only way you could have done it is if she wanted over her to like her or want, know, there's no children that would cost extra money.
00:50:23
Speaker
But like the thing you do is like, she, there is something she wants people like her for early and then that doesn't happen. And then you could buy it, but they did this probably cause she's a woman.
00:50:34
Speaker
They're like, well, who cares about that development? right She's, she's just mean. And then she's vulnerable. Yeah. I mean, the ending of this is, is very preposterous. I actually still don't really understand what happens. I mean, Crichton,
00:50:46
Speaker
Was in love with her and then she is going to rat them out the Klingons. And when she discovers that Crichton stabbed them in the back, she decides to turn good, I guess. Is that's what happening? And then maybe she kind of does like Kirk.
00:50:58
Speaker
I mean, she put him under his her spell. but Yes. So that's the question. Does she? And that's what I'm seeing. Like that whole scene actually, to me, played as a manipulation. yeah I think there is absolutely no point in trying to really understand this episode because it's poorly written and it's season three and it's kind of hodgepodge. But.
00:51:17
Speaker
You know, the the the grand strokes are there. you It's an like an impressionistic painting. You can understand it from afar. If you if you really analyze a lot of Troyes, it kind of falls apart.
00:51:29
Speaker
But um I do think, though, by the end... just because she has a very sympathetic face, ah Franz Noyen is a sort of in the back of the bridge, just sort of pouting and looking sad.
00:51:42
Speaker
And at first you're like, oh, I hate this witch. I hope she gets hers. You know, she's, she tried to kill Captain Kirk. She flung a dagger at him. And then by the end like, oh, I guess she's all right. You know, you kind of like her at the end. So then the Shatner, which is not a bad acting award, it just means who's, who do you think it can be? If you're like, that person was trying really hard and didn't, they came up short.
00:52:00
Speaker
Who's really going for it? Oh, ah well, Petri is the most... j Alexander, yeah. He's the most flamboyant character in this. Yes. yeah I still put Shatner because I have a very particular...
00:52:14
Speaker
note about his acting, not the stiltedness, but he does this in um Plato's Stepchildren, which is actually one of my favorite episodes of season three. I think that's a pretty amazing episode, but it's a thing that Shatner himself does do where he stops acting, which is not like Shatner is able to inhabit a role and become a character, but he has a style where it's like, I'm acting and I'm trying to get the drama of the scene. But then there are times where he's just William Shatner.
00:52:40
Speaker
So he's trying to be buddy-buddy. And he's like, we're all friends here, right? And I think the reason why they cast Frantz Nguyen is because they were on stage together in a hip show. And like you said, Kirk's a ladies' man. Or they realize, like, why is Nimoy getting all the attention? We need to emphasize that Kirk is also virile and powerful and all that.
00:52:59
Speaker
But I feel like they just didn't know how to get chemistry with other actresses. yeah So they just imported something that worked before. Yeah. yeah and And kind of cobbled together a story that would do that.
00:53:12
Speaker
And I feel like he's acting of like, we've been in scenes before we know each other. And that's how it's coming off to me to kind of shortcut to get us to the emotional vulnerability, but he's not capable of being emotionally vulnerable. it could be not as Shatner, not as Kurt. No, no, no. And there is that there's like a moment um when I forget exactly what's happening, but.
00:53:33
Speaker
He gets like these two or three close ups where he's just like, i mean, he knows he has to save the day, but he's under her spell. And it's before it's before Bones and Spock get him out of the room.
00:53:44
Speaker
And he's just like his face is just ashen. You know, he's just like, hmm. hollowed out on the inside and he's just like ah and you don't see kirk drained like that that often you've certainly seen him in pain and in chains and all kinds of stuff but you've never seen him just like ah and he gets a couple of these very sad close-ups with extreme lighting and ah it's pretty effective i think it's pretty good So the scene where McCoy and Spock interrupt them when they're kissing after the tears have a ah you know poisoned his heart or whatever, he kind of steps back and he's staggering. zo And then he he's petrified and he turns towards them and walks slowly. And i'm like, that dude has a raging boner in his pants. Like that is that was the performance. I just thought it was funny. So all so you're giving it to Petri. That's fine. yeah I'm honorable mentioning Shat. For sure. For sure.
00:54:39
Speaker
Shoot to thrill most exciting image or sequence.
00:54:45
Speaker
Gosh. Oh, it's when um Crichton commits suicide. That's a good one. i just got to give credit though, because this is definitely a a director or for a writer directing, wanting to make an impression. That's a good one.
00:54:59
Speaker
um I thought, wasn't it weird that they added that wall in engineering though? just You just made me think about it. There's just suddenly ah an extra wall in engineering that had never been in there just so that they could do the scene where he's hiding behind something. Anyway, um but the shot in the transporter room when she after she first arrived, and it's all of them in a shot.
00:55:22
Speaker
You've got the whole Enterprise crew, and Petri and and ah Kirk are in the foreground, and they're talking. And that was just an an interesting shot, so I just wanted to highlight that. What part of this will you teach at Starfleet Academy?
00:55:36
Speaker
Gosh, probably with some what not to do i mean I mean, let's let's do let's you know, let's imagine that this same scenario is going on with some of her other captains. You know, what would Janeway do What would Picard? What would Cisco do?
00:55:51
Speaker
What would Riker do? Riker would probably do exactly what Kirk did, but I mean, how would Janeway have handled this? what i mean, she would have taken a different, you can almost hear her going, all right, and then trying to figure something out.
00:56:04
Speaker
um They would have taken a different approach, um but I don't, you know, I don't know, i don't know what other approaches there there would have been. All the other captains just, I feel like, would have been better prepared.
00:56:15
Speaker
Yeah, there would have been better. Yeah, I mean, Picard certainly was in this pickle a few times. There are a few diplomacy episodes for Picard. um I don't know what they would have done. So, I mean, what would they teach in the in Starfleet Academy? Well, you know, that that moment that you highlighted a moment ago when when shut out when Kirk pulls Petri aside and explains his mission, which is your mission is to stop Picard.
00:56:41
Speaker
is to try and stop bloodshed. Like that's why you're here, right? You're an ambassador and you're, you're, you know, the the two planets have at least agreed to try and set up this marriage for the sake of stopping annihilation.
00:56:55
Speaker
Don't let your own personal anger, cloud you in your goal. And that's a very difficult thing. I mean, you know, I know that we're recording this several months in the past before it's actually, but I can guarantee you on the day that this is actually released, the front page of the newspaper will be about some horrible thing somewhere in the world because two parties couldn't stop hating one another. Right. I mean, unfortunately that's never going away.
00:57:23
Speaker
and um, That's just what, you know, it's it's ah it's in the corniest episode of an old TV show, but it's a pretty smart and basic thing. It's like, you got to just tamp that down.
00:57:35
Speaker
You know, and it's a lesson we can all use. I mean, at work, there's a guy that we hate or a gal that we hate. And all we want to do is just like make but like just shut up, find something you like about that person, even because you have to work with him or her or he or she may be your boss.
00:57:50
Speaker
So you got to have to find some kind of thing, some kind of common ground, as they used to say. What do you like about that person a little bit? Highlight that. Get through your day. get your paycheck and continue looking for another job so you can get the hell out of this situation.
00:58:05
Speaker
But until that happens, you just gotta find a way. And that is my philosophy. And that is, I think ah the moment from this episode that can be taught at Starfleet. Great. Could this episode have been hornier and would that have made it better? I don't know that it could have. No, there's a spanking joke.
00:58:21
Speaker
There's smooching, there's crying. She's wearing a, ah like you say, two pieces of rice paper. it could not have been, no. i I guess I'm thinking it could have been because I always think about Marlena Moreau in Mirror Mirror and going, and I'm like, whenever I think about Mirror Mirror, she occupies so much of my mind. And then you go back and rewatch it and she's barely in the episode, like really towards the end. And it's like, that is an impression. And that is really hot.
00:58:49
Speaker
Yeah. It's a very hot ah couple of minutes that she's in it. And here, Fran's neon is great, and she's in a lot of this episode, but it's like, i don't know. It's just their love scenes are unconvincing. There's something, the orange dress I'm i'm thinking about, not because she's she looks beautiful in it, but I'm like, that, you know, whatever. But I'm not thinking, I'm like,
00:59:11
Speaker
Horny about it. It's not like a horny thing. um And then, the again, the Chun-Li look at the end from Street Fighter. That's what it looks like. It's like it's pretty ridiculous. But all right. So we disagree, but that's fine.
00:59:22
Speaker
ah So Trek, marry or kill Ilan of Troyes. OK, now I know that there are rules to this. There is compared there are compared to TOS and compared to the all of... Actually, that part, you can it's up to you. I don't care.
00:59:35
Speaker
yeah If we are comparing this to the entirety of the Star Trek canon, especially now in a post-Section 31 world where the over to the window had depreciated phenomenally. yeah i mean, I don't know enough about math, but you know, when you find a median, you have to find your highest and your lowest. Our lowest has, has like a, like a turbo lift that has lost all of its grass, you know, just fell to the bottom.
01:00:04
Speaker
So Star Trek Picard season two, section 31, we have a lot of negative anchors weighing down the average. You know, I'm one of the weird people that, I mean, I don't get me wrong. I think Picard season two is terrible, but I think Picard season one is actually worse.
01:00:18
Speaker
Well, that's why well I don't necessarily disagree. Picard season two at least has some energy. You can at least watch it without falling asleep. I i don't know that I've actually watched all of Picard season one because I cannot stay awake through it. It's just awful. Well, I'm a California taxpayer and we did Star Trek Picard season one recently because it's a five-year anniversary. yeah And I looked at how much money California gave to those productions and I want a refund. That's your tax dollars at work.
01:00:48
Speaker
That's right. Your tech doesn't work. All right. So given all that. It is compared to the all of it is it is a Trek. It is the highest. It is the highest category when you are comparing it to all of Star Trek, because there's a lot of duds in all the recent crap. I mean.
01:01:05
Speaker
pretty much, but let's be honest, I would say the bulk of everything Kurtzman has done has been its more negative than positive. But but but overall, um obviously, I love Lower Decks and I love Strange New Worlds. um But ah you know and I think the cast of Discovery is amazing. and i just wish they had gotten better material.
01:01:27
Speaker
Discovery is too- Prodigy feels like it it escaped from a zoo somehow. I don't know how Prodigy turned out as well as it did. I have nothing to say about Prodigy and and and Discovery is just too upsetting to get into. so um But I love Strange New Worlds and I love Lower Decks. So it is it is great because because of all the reasons we brought up. It's silly.
01:01:47
Speaker
It is a great time capsule of like, oh my God, like that line about the logical women. It's offensive as hell. And in a way, it's it's great, you know, because it's so it's such a time capsule.
01:01:59
Speaker
um The costumes are great. It's got Klingons. It's got dilithium crystals. It's got ah Bones and Spock. you know, cock blocking him in the room. It's just like, this is funny stuff. So I think it's truly great. I think if you're just lasering in on TOS though, it's the middle section. It's, it's the, it's the Mary category because it's not top tier of TOS, but when you blast it out to the whole galaxy, it is, it is top tier.
01:02:27
Speaker
All right we'll go with Trek. That's good. For us, for even though it's ordered differently, Trek is like 40% of episodes and you've got marry and kill on either side as exceptional. Oh, marry is, which is the gold medal?
01:02:39
Speaker
ah The gold medal is marry. So you want to marry this episode. You say city on the edge of forever, Elan of Troy. All right, well, I mean, but but but yes, I mean, yes, it would be the lowest, yeah it would be like the last marry.
01:02:55
Speaker
You know, like this thing on the edge forever. like a Vegas wedding is what you're saying. Yeah, it's like this thing on the edge of forever and Mirror Mirror and Yester's Enterprise and Visitor and all the top tier stuff.
01:03:08
Speaker
The very bottom, one of them is a lot of because you got to remember you have – pretty much you know season three and season four of discovery section 31 these are all part of star trek now there's nothing we can do about it you know it's hard season one and season two and if i may be controversial i don't think the card season three is that great either really we don't i like to give that stuff time to percolate that's why we don't Because I'm like, the recency bias will be too strong. We had guests on them like, guys, they so they're spending a whole episode just looking at Easter eggs. That's not drama. Why are we? cards season People are like, put up the ships. it's Yeah, exactly. Picard's like, oh my God, it's it's Ensign Rho.
01:03:48
Speaker
Ensign Rho's blown up. wow Like it's so shocking that it's like you can't even, no, Picard season three is idiotic, but it is fun to watch. I mean, I i did get emotional watching Picard season three. um I got emotional during Picard season one. Boredom is an emotion.
01:04:02
Speaker
ah But I'm delighted in Picard season two. Anyway, so is it is it a Mary? I don't know. It's right on the line. It's right on the line between Shrek and Mary. For me, a lot of Troyes.
01:04:14
Speaker
I mean, look it's it's an and and if it is a Mary, it's not because it's a brilliant episode. It's like all the filigree. It's the it's the costumes. It's the wacky. It's the green chicken. It's the wacky acting. Yeah.
01:04:27
Speaker
Well, that's I mean, so the other wrinkle I always give is like Mary is like, is it also like kind of an exceptional episode of television? And kind of what we're talking about, especially what you're kind of pitching is this kind of ah a perfect encapsulation of a Star Trek episode. Yeah.
01:04:40
Speaker
Yeah. So in that sense, it's like the purest form of track of like, you know, the next phase. That's like a fun Star Trek episode, you know, or and this would kind of qualify as approaching. This kind of good. Let's say there's somebody out there who's never seen Star Trek.
01:04:56
Speaker
But of course, they know, oh, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, they kind of know those things. You could show them this and and they'd get it. First of all, they'd be able to follow it. And you that you could say this is pretty indicative of what you're going to get.
01:05:08
Speaker
You know, this is this is pretty much the formula, you know, yeah um for sure. theon there's Fighting this action at the end. There's wacky technobabble. um So I think I'm going to go positive and and put this in the Mary section, although that is, ah you know, it's a big category and they are very much at the but they're the first ones to get a divorce in the marriage. but We've had those before. ok All right.
01:05:36
Speaker
Let's bring up your Substack again, because I want people to subscribe to your Substack, hofstack.substack.com. Yeah, well, it's it's fairly new. I mean, we're recording this um a little bit before ah Spring Fling, so the Substack is actually less than two months old, and all it is really is a way for...
01:05:58
Speaker
readers to read what's on my mind. um No, it's a couple things. I'm just, you know, professionally, I write about film and television and music and I interview a lot of celebrities and i review review movies and whatnot and this is just an opportunity for me to write about other things and I also have an ongoing project I live in New York City and I'm over the course of many many years my goal is to visit every branch of the New York Public Library in all five boroughs Queens Brooklyn the Bronx Staten Island and Manhattan it's going to take me a
01:06:29
Speaker
till the end of my days, it'll take me a very long time. I may not ever complete it. Cause there are, i think it's under 200, but it's like, I think it's 187 libraries altogether. And, um, boom my and in well, it's, we got a lot of people in New York city yeah and it's also spread out, you know, Staten Island is very, very far to get there by public transportation is very difficult. You, you oftentimes have to take a boat to get to Staten Island. It is an Island.
01:06:53
Speaker
So, um, i've been I've written three of these visits so far. i go to the library. I check it out. I see how disgusting the bathroom is.
01:07:05
Speaker
and try to write a funny little... That's important. It's very important. yeah i well well Of the three, ah one of the three, that the flush didn't work. So... And there was a sign. There was a piece of graffiti. It's like, says that at least the sinks work here. ah You had flush three times.
01:07:21
Speaker
ah so So that's a fun little project I'm doing. And I write a lot about music and ah just various other musings. And, ah you know, it's free to
Financial Support and Celebrity Reflections
01:07:30
Speaker
subscribe. And there is a pay.
01:07:31
Speaker
If you want to throw a few bucks my way, you can do that, too. So that's Hofstack.substack.com. And if you ever do come across Jordan's work, you know, it's fantastic writing criticism interviews. You're Jesse Eisenberg follow up interview recently. oh you're in that one. That was great. Fantastic. Yeah, I read i read all your stuff. I will say this. I have interviewed a lot of celebrities across the spectrum over the years.
01:07:55
Speaker
And ah and truly, and you can kind of tell, like, I very rarely have had a bad experience where somebody's a jerk. That's happened very few times.
01:08:06
Speaker
um But usually they're professional. You meet them, you talk to them, you get the hell on with your day. ah Jesse Eisenberg was in, like, in this in the small category of, like, this is a genuinely good person. Like, you know, you can't... That's what I feel when I... You keep with some can't fake that. I mean, I was with him for hours. I was with him with other people. I was watching him interact with with other people. I mean, that's another thing I do a lot of interviews. Sometimes you meet at like a hotel and like a little conference room and then somebody comes in to like, give, give the person tea and you can kind of get a great sense of what someone's like as to how they treat staff, you know, how they treat a waiter, bringing you tea.
01:08:45
Speaker
And, uh, sometimes you'd be talking to an actor you're like, Oh, this person's pretty cool, pretty down to earth. And then when the person gives them tea, it's like, Oh, you just treated that waiter like scum. You know, what did you do that for? Um,
01:08:56
Speaker
Anyway, the point I'm making is that Eisenberg should, should anybody out there be listening and ever say to themselves, is Jesse Eisenberg a good guy? i really think the answer is yes. You know, a hundred percent. Jordan, it's been a pleasure. I'm a big fan of yours ever since engaged. oh what a nice special day I loved doing
Podcast Experiences and Star Trek Criticism
01:09:11
Speaker
engaged. Engaged was a great, um we we came so close to 100 episodes. I think it was 96. It was a great time. It kind of fell in my lap and then um it fell apart at the end through nobody's fault. It was, it was,
01:09:24
Speaker
CBS radio got sold to some other company and they're like, we don't want to pay for this. And then nobody wanted it. It was a great time. And then over the years, I did a lot of official Star Trek moderating at the panels and on the cruises and whatnot.
01:09:35
Speaker
I don't do any of that now. And I miss it. But I also. Had I still been in the official Star Trek fold receiving, it you know, payment from CBS or Paramount,
01:09:51
Speaker
um How would I have been able to promote Section 31 is a question that really I actually wrote but for the first time in my life. I wrote a negative thing that all throughout Star Trek have always been a booster. and And even when I had the show, there were like there are some moments in Star Trek that are just kind of silly. I mean, Trespass and and Star Trek five and what I mean, I love them, but you kind of make fun of them It's, a you know, because it's something you love, you can kind of poke it a little bit. Right.
01:10:20
Speaker
Definitely. There's never a moment when Star Trek was something that I despised. um And Section 31 is awful. It's beneath it's below beneath contempt. It's just an atrocious garbage.
01:10:32
Speaker
And the same can be said. I never so watched Discovery Season 5. I couldn't do it. Season 4 was so bad that I tapped out, which is a shame because I really like some of those actors. I've gotten to know Anthony Rapp little bit. He's the sweetest guy, genuinely good guy.
01:10:44
Speaker
i actually, not that long ago, bumped into Anthony Rapp on the street And he was there with his husband. Going to the library? if we were not a library. We were with his husband and they were, they were moving a ah baby carriage, you know? And I saw them, they were coming my way. I was going their way. And I'm like, should I say anything? anything that Like I met him.
01:11:03
Speaker
I interviewed him several times for my show. And then on the Star Trek cruise, we, we did a shtick together. I'm like, should I leave this guy alone or should I say hello? And I'm like, well, you know, he's coming right my way.
01:11:14
Speaker
And I look at him and I go, Hey, Anthony Rapp, how you doing? And his husband, whose name I can't remember right now, but at the time I did remember it. I was like, Hey, Anthony Rapp, how you doing? um i don't know if you remember. it's And then he's like, Oh, of course, Jordan. Yeah. How you doing, man? Good to see you. And it was all very pleasant.
01:11:28
Speaker
He's a really, really nice guy. And he's great on that show. And with Tig Notaro, he's great. It's just that the this it just got so stupid by season four. I just couldn't do it. I had to tap out. It was so bad.
01:11:40
Speaker
um My point is this. When I was doing engage the official Star Trek podcast, never once did anybody from CBS tell me what to say. They, I never had, I w I was expecting at some point as contracts were being signed, listen, you're part of the team.
01:11:59
Speaker
You got to do it right. You got to promote the product. No one ever told me that no one ever censored me, but they didn't have to because I truly loved the product. And I, and,
01:12:10
Speaker
Discovery season one, i do think had a lot of promise and it was, ah it was an exciting time. Discovery, see all this new stuff. Oh, new, new costumes. Ooh, new ships. Ooh, the, the spore drive. What the hell is that all about? I was into it.
01:12:24
Speaker
Had I still been doing the podcast and I had to promote section 31, I would have had to have handed in my keys. I just couldn't have done it. I just could not have done it. And so the point is I did write, I wrote for the website, ign.com.
01:12:39
Speaker
ah They asked me to review section 31 before I had seen it. And I kind of had a hunch it was going to be bad, but I wanted to, you know, it's like, well, you know, Strange New Worlds is really kicking ass. And I always kind of like Michelle Yeoh's character as a side character, um Emperor Reggio. I thought it was interesting as a ah supporting role. I think as a main character, it does not work.
01:13:00
Speaker
um And I'm like, all right, I'll review section 31. Why not? And then I'm watching. I'm like, oh, my God, this is this is an embarrassment. And I said, do i do I say no, i I don't want to write this or can I just be honest? So I wrote what I was a very honest, I gave my argument. I said, look, I really love Star Trek and I always will.
01:13:19
Speaker
and I think Strange New Worlds is great. I mean, that's what's so weird about the current regime under Alex Kurtzman is that he's making stuff like, I know that he's not, he's just a figurehead, but he's, his world, his production company is making section 31, which is an abomination that should not have been released.
01:13:37
Speaker
and he's making his new world and lower decks, which are both fantastic. It's amazing that the same producer can do two things, you know? It's just, ah but they should have done with Section 31 is like what Warner Brothers did with that Batgirl and just deleted it.
01:13:54
Speaker
And there are many people wondering why they didn't just do that. yeah but so Not only is it just like it's incompetent, like if it had nothing to do with Star Trek, if it was just a generic sci-fi original movie, it would still be bad.
01:14:07
Speaker
It's just a bad movie. And then the fact that it's stapled to Star Trek and has a loose affiliation with like they say Starfleet once or twice. So it's vaguely start Star Trek. is It just, you know, denigrates the whole brand. And it's just ah it's just a weight.
01:14:21
Speaker
Yeah. I'm getting all this off my chest because I haven't. That's fine. I'll i'll be the pain. So anyway, you know, if if I if I was still doing the podcast, it would have been weird. I would have had to take in a meeting. be like, hey, guys, I can't promote Section 31. It's shit. It's absolute shit. what do you want me to do?
01:14:39
Speaker
But that never happened. I like I'll say, I'll i'll give those guys. I mean, the guy who gave me the job, actually, um one of them is unfortunately he he he passed away very suddenly. He was a very cool guy.
01:14:51
Speaker
by the name of Bill Burke and Bill, but if you really know Star Trek and go to the conventions a lot, you would have known Bill. He was somebody who um was the, the, the boss of all the licensing for Star Trek for years and years and years, you know, and then his second, well, they weren't second in command, but they, they were kind of co-partners, but they worked in different things. Bill Burke was in New York and in l LA was one of the loves of my life. This guy, John Van Sitters, who is very visible at Star Trek conventions.
01:15:19
Speaker
And he is ah He's been working for Star Trek for 30 years in some capacity. He is the maybe even more than 30 years. He's sort of like the brain trust of he is the real memory alpha and he's sort of quality control for Star Trek.
01:15:33
Speaker
And he wears a lot of different hats and he's truly one of the greatest people I know. I know him. i've met his wife. I, you know, he's a wonderful man. And John and Bill were kind of the people who gave me the keys to the podcast.
01:15:47
Speaker
And at no point they ever give me any guidance. And when once in a blue moon, I would check in and be like, Hey, everything cool with the podcast? so like, you're doing great.
01:15:58
Speaker
That's all I said. they They took a ah ah policy of it. It ain't broke. Don't fix it. And they they left me alone. So it was a great run. And then CBS got out of the radio business and and the show ended. Well, I'm glad you jumped in on our podcast, however briefly, and I'm glad you dumped all that section 31 stuff in. Yeah.
01:16:16
Speaker
I really am We did our review and I felt like I was on an island. Have you met the Section 31 fans? Are there any on the internet other people who like it? There are people who are like, I like it because I want to see Star Trek do something different. Diana Kang is a TV reviewer. she ah She was my co-host for that our review of that episode. And she gave it a Trek.
01:16:33
Speaker
I gave it a kill and it went to vote. And and it looks like voters are going to go with Trek. ah So, you know. Okay. But it's like you said, the Overton window has shifted. So what what does it mean?
Future Star Trek Projects and Franchise Critique
01:16:43
Speaker
And I kind of just think there are people out there that love Star Trek. And if it's new...
01:16:47
Speaker
we got it some, there's some consumerist mindset of like, we have to like everything. So they keep making it. And my point is we're almost at a thousand hours of star Trek guys. There's plenty of star Trek. that yeah and We do not have, that's not true. They're going to always want to make star Trek.
01:17:03
Speaker
and We don't have to, I mean, they are, they're doing the star fleet Academy, which I, right which I hope we agree. could be Good. I mean, it's set in the discovery era. So I'm skeptical, but,
01:17:14
Speaker
you know, it has a lot of potential. It's got Paul Giamatti in it. How bad can it be? You know, I'm i'm i'm keeping my fingers crossed for that. And Lower Decks had a great run. I mean, four seasons, or it was it five or four? Four seasons. Five. Five of Lower Decks. yeah Yeah. It's a remarkable run for a show that if you told me years ago, something like that would exist. It's like, ah it's a dream. You know, I think Lower Decks is really fun.
01:17:37
Speaker
um They're always going to do it. I mean, these mega corporate, you know Paramount, which owns, you know, on Paramount Plus and all the streaming and all that, It's like, look at, you know, Amazon had just bought James Bond. ah Amazon took over Lord of the Rings.
01:17:50
Speaker
They're going to pump this stuff out. Anything that's known. There only are so many things that everyone on planet Earth knows. Everybody on planet Earth knows Star Wars, Star Trek, Lord the Rings, James Bond.
01:18:02
Speaker
They're going to always make more. You know, it's just... ah yeah So you don't have to ah applaud like a seal every time something like, if you don't like, i mean, if you let's say if you really like section 31, God bless. I mean, I can't change your mind. I also think people have been harsh with Star Trek since the sixties. There's memos from Gene Kuhn to the other writers being like,
01:18:24
Speaker
This is the hardest show you will ever write. The fans are very critical. yeah And our scientific advisors find plot holes. Gene Roddenberry, Bob Justman, they are all very critical the writing. So Star Trek's writing has been heavily scrutinized from the very beginning. You think Dorothy Fontana was like an easy sell on a story idea or a draft of a script? No, this this show, you know, Michael Piller, like, was a... ah a quality control person ira bear quality control brandon braga had his own uh boundaries of what he wanted the show to be and it's like so there's always been that and i so i think when i see section 31 and it doesn't it's just a hodgepodge of what works today it's i'm with you it's like it doesn't have to don't have to like it so funny you say that when you when you think about it yeah something really broke with 31 i i think they're gonna
01:19:12
Speaker
I think they're going to do do a little bit of a course correction. They're not going to let something like that happen again. I mean, that was a series of, I mean, originally, as you know, it was going to be a ah so ah spinoff series. Then it was going to be a mini series. Then it was Michelle Yao. Like, look, you have 15 minutes to book me or else I'm moving on. I just won the Oscar.
01:19:29
Speaker
I don't have time for this anymore. And like, let's do it now. And then there were the strikes, the SAG strikes. So they had to do it. You know, it was, it was a disaster. They they should have just cut and run, but they didn't. Um, yeah but I do think though, um,
01:19:43
Speaker
yeah, if you're of the mindset of like, well, we got to support the brand. It's like a team, you know, like I'll always love the New York Knicks and I'll always fight for the New York Knicks. Like, I don't get that. Like, if you don't like an episode, just say it. If you do like it, that's cool. Hey, I'm not going to mock you if you like Section 31, but um i don't I don't get the support.
01:20:03
Speaker
It's like, you know, vote blue no matter who. That's power that's like your life. That's different. You don't have to vote blue no matter who for a television show. That's a little different. That's true.
01:20:15
Speaker
Next week, we're going to continue Spring Flings with ah The Price from Star Trek The Next Generation. Counselor Troy is enchanted by a doofus. We're CheckMerryKpod on social media, CheckMerryKillPod.com on the web, where you see all of our standings, our checks, marries, and kills. We'll be back next week. Until then, TMK out.