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DS9: "The Jem'Hadar" (s2e26)
100 Plays4 months ago
OUTSIDE CONTEXT PROBLEMS. Ben Sisko just wants to hang out with his son in the Gamma Quadrant, but Quark wants to advertise his bar on the station monitors. Something's gotta give and it turns out the entire Star Trek format gets sacrificed to tell this story as the DS9 writers looked to differentiate their show from TNG -- and boy do they! Is the destruction of a Galaxy-class starship a traumatic moment in Bryan's life? Does the introduction of The Dominion equal Strange New Worlds' take on the Gorn? Listen and find out.
The grades begin at (22:09).
Recommended
Transcript
Dominion's Lethal Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
This week on Trek Mary Kill Dominion Odyssey Jambalaya Next! They come from the other side of the galaxy. The Dominion will no longer stand by and allow ships from your side to violate our territory. They come with a lethal force. No one ever escapes from the Jambadar. They come to conquer. Commander Sisko will serve as an example of what happens to anyone who interferes with the Dominion. Now the Federation faces its deadliest enemy. You have no idea what's begun here. On the next Star Trek Deep Space Nine.
Podcast Introduction and Season Recap
00:00:44
Speaker
Hi, I'm Brian. Hi, I'm Kristen. Welcome to Trick, Marry, Kill, a Star Trek podcast that's about to put its fist through your opinion, Kristen. Mm-hmm. Here we are at the end of our second season, and we're also at the end of Deep Space Nine's second season. We're also releasing two episodes on July 30th, the other one being the season two finale of Strange New Worlds. I have no idea why I got so obsessed with pairs and twos, but I did. So sorry, Kristen, making you work overtime. The two handers. That's right. So it sort of works out, though, because I was able to pair a lot of our wild card episodes that we drew together with Strange New Worlds episodes to search show how Star Trek has done more episodes in the past, especially since they were very adamant that they were doing things never done before in Star Trek. So it just kind of works out that this episode, even though the Strange New Worlds finale is basically their version of Best of Both Worlds, it certainly has that element.
00:01:39
Speaker
It actually shares quite a lot with Deep Space Nine's second season finale that we're going to talk about, the Jem Hunter.
Network Transition Clarification
00:01:46
Speaker
But before we do that, I believe we have a correction that we need to issue from months ago. Yeah. I just listened to it today. Our episode on preemptive strike. the penultimate episode of Next Generation with our guest, Samantha Gregory. We were talking about how she came to be watching the show and that was through basically Spike TV. And then the comment was made that Spike TV turned into G4, which turned into Esquire, which then turned into the Paramount Network. None of those things is true.
00:02:21
Speaker
Okay. So um Spike TV eventually became the Paramount Network. It is not affiliated with G4 or Esquire network. G4 actually never went away until somewhat recently. It was originally supposed to become the Esquire network. But then at the last minute, they decided to make the style network. Esquire network and Esquire network. um So style network had a lot of female viewers and G4 actually did have a fair fair amount of male viewers like in the right demographic, but they wanted to rebrand it as Esquire. I don't know why. And they literally could not get men to watch Esquire. It was just the same female viewership from style network because it was on the same channel on the dial.
00:03:09
Speaker
So it's G4 to Paramount. Or sorry, Spike to Paramount. G4 has nothing to do with anything. Spike to Paramount, basically. okay And then G4 just puttered away. They just played like reruns of old G4 shows. And at the end, the only advertiser was general car insurance.
00:03:32
Speaker
I'm not kidding, like that's all it would be, is just ads for the general. I like this version of you where you're kind of like a hospice nurse for cable channels, it sounds like. You were there at the end. I was there. Yeah, it was bleak. Yeah, I was like, that can't be right. The only ads we're running are general and insurance are like, yeah, that's true. Or promos for our other shows, that's it. Everyone else in the sales department had jumped ship long ago, but they still had like Ted in his 60s. Yeah, I think it was like four people on the whole network. It was like a family of networks. So it was like, you got, you know, you shared resources, but there wasn't like a single, there was, I mean, there was literally someone who had like program all that in.
Nostalgia: Star Trek Finales & 1994 Pop Culture
00:04:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:04:22
Speaker
But I think that was it. Spike, so what I remember about Esquire was they they were going to be like a parks and rec repository. Like that's where the reruns are going to wind up. And then they they backed out of all of that. Sounds like very quickly for all the reasons you said. Yeah, they put a lot of money behind it um at first. And then like, but well, I won't say like, all the the the tea, but basically, they quickly were like, why did do we do this?
00:05:00
Speaker
We've made a huge mistake. One of my favorite things about- Well, we're going to move it to an online network. Of course, that's not going to work. Yeah, yeah but I mean, some of the programming was really interesting, but um again, couldn't get that the male demographic to watch it. But the male demographic was still watching G4, which just reruns of stuff and like it's movies and whatever. I think this is good to bring up that part of this conversation back because we were talking about the almost the end of the next generation just going off the air. It's been 30 years. It's been 30 years now since the gem had are the second season finale of Star Trek Deep Space Nine aired.
00:05:43
Speaker
It premiered in syndication on June 12, 1994. Yikes. I really, I can't believe it's been 30 years. It was written by Ira Bear and directed by Kim Friedman, but we are not doing all good things. It's just like a couple of days before O.J. Simpson won a Margaret Spring Spring. The recently departed O.J. Simpson. Let's see. Hold on. The Bronco Chase. Chase date was June 17th. So this is the week of. And our lives would never be the same television would never be the same. This was like the good. This was guys.
Creating the Dominion: Historical & Sci-Fi Influences
00:06:23
Speaker
This was the good old days. All good things came to an end. but Yeah, guys. OJ Simpson is like single handedly.
00:06:35
Speaker
ah yeah like responsible for so much bullshit you've no idea the murders first of all okay yeah number number one number two then yeah just yeah I can't believe it. I guess I hadn't thought it's all, it didn't, my Star Trek thoughts have been bifurcated from OJ thoughts, but now the summer of 1994 comes flooding back. I remember participating in a basketball camp. I remember being with friends and playing like video games at a pizza parlor and like going like, OJ didn't do a titty. And it's like, that seems weird that he would do that. We were just kids, we had no idea. I was a child. yeah So I was like, no, he couldn't have done that. The guy from the Naked Gun movies, I enjoyed.
00:07:17
Speaker
That's right. why would Why would a rich, famous person do something like this? That was the bottom line. It's like, why would someone like that need to murder anybody or want to murder anybody? Yeah. ah But we again, we're not talking about all good things because we think that self-evidently, Mary, it's one of the best television finales of all time. It's a great episode. So, you know, watch that one for sure. But it's important to talk about that in and the end of next generation and how it relates to Deep Space Nine, because even though Voyager was getting ready to get going, Deep Space Nine suddenly inherits the mantle as the sole Star Trek thing that's on. There's no movies yet. The generations hadn't come out yet.
00:08:01
Speaker
It wouldn't come out until later in the fall. So this is Deep Space Nine's time of having the crown. And this season finale of theirs, the season two finale, runs three weeks after the finale of The Next Generation. And how do they sell the episode? A ship that looks very much like the Enterprise. Oh my god. It blows up. And that was definitely like, wait a minute, oh, wait, did they blow up the Enterprise in Deep Space Nine so that they get a new ship in the movie? That was definitely a thought that people had. I think I remember having that. Not from the description of this episode, would you gather that something as monumental as that would occur. Memory Alpha describes the Gem Hadar, the name of our episode that we're discussing today, as on a camping trip in the Gamma Quadrant, Sisko, Jake, Nog, and Cork encounter the lethal soldiers of the Dominion, the Gem Hadar.
00:08:52
Speaker
I like to tell you what memory Alpha doesn't mention, but you know that's a simple setup. the the season The season-long mystery of who the Dominion are is revealed here and to show that Star Trek is trying to create a new villain and adversary for not just our heroes in the show, but the Federation at large and the concept of Star Trek.
Writing Process & Dominion's Impact
00:09:13
Speaker
They blow up a galaxy class starship and one of the most painful fake science fiction deaths I've ever seen. Do you remember the first time you saw this episode? I don't. I don't have a clear memory of it, actually.
00:09:28
Speaker
Well, my recollection is I'm, you know, I'm big. I had not yet made the crossover to like loving Deep Space Nine. It was like ah all Deep Space Nine was at this point was like other Star Trek that was on. Chief O'Brien was in it. I liked ah Commander Sisko. I liked Dax. I mean, I liked some of the characters. I liked that the show was on, ah but next generation, that was my thing. And you know, I had just ah gone into the summer. You know, some yeah, i I don't think I watched this as it aired the first time. But I definitely was like, oh, space battle. Oh, a galaxy class ship in the space battle. This will be cool. And then it looks a lot like the Enterprise. Yeah, they even get ah a white haired authoritative captain to really sell it. And I'm going to talk about that in a second. But
00:10:16
Speaker
ah So yeah, it was it was a monumental episode in that sense. For me at the time, it was kind of like, it's kind of hard to follow all good things. It was such an amazing finale and you're so excited and and all that. And literally almost three weeks passed between that airing and then this being on, and you're kind of like, okay, all right. But listeners, do you remember when we did the three-part Deep Space Nine premiere earlier, many, many months ago? I certainly do. Yes, many, many, many months ago now for us, Kristen. But we contextualize Deep Space Nine as basically being extraordinarily 90s. We talked about the Usenet reviews from Tim Lynch. And so I kind of want to cap that, like just bring it back. what's What's old Tim think about this one? Of this episode, he said, a nice show and a nice looming thought to end the season with, and referencing the Dominion. But Nog needs a swift removal from the show now.
00:11:15
Speaker
ah The episode suffered from a somewhat slow start and a focus on a character who's so far gone as to merit introductions to an airlock. Damn. really damn But once it got moving, it was virtually unstoppable and thus ends a season. Not with a whimper or a bang, but with a bit of both. What? Yeah. So I think he kind of thought felt like the first half with the Ferengi, the father-son stuff, all that stuff, not his cup of tea. But once we get into the Odyssey and Kyo and the Dominion and dealing with the Gemadar, that's when, to him, the episode picks up. And that is a decent chunk of the episode. Do you think that perhaps the Ferengi had not built up the amount of goodwill?
00:12:04
Speaker
it had later after you know seven seasons of Deep Space Nine. This episode could have been the turning point for that, I agree.
Episode Direction & Jem'Hadar Introduction
00:12:13
Speaker
I think that could be very true. yeah because like i Big fan of Quark. I think he was a very popular character who tested well. I'm not going to waste our time going back and looking through this, but I know I have seen that they've posted somewhere all the old, like. ah Focus groups. Focus group testing scores for Deep Space Nine characters and all that stuff. And Bashir was like the lowest character by far. Oh, yeah. yeah And I think Quark did test very well pretty consistently. But the Ferengi at large, I think people were still kind of like, eh,
00:12:46
Speaker
And this episode kind of went some way. Another Ferengi. A child Ferengi and a And it was Ira Bear's intention to really be like, OK, it's been two seasons of Deep Space Nine. We've had all those years of next generation. I want to change it. The Ferengi are not a failed villain. There's something else now. And this was here. But this episode was really to kind of an encapsulation of an idea. They started exploring at the end of season one, going into season two. i ah Robert Hewitt-Wolf, a Deep Space Nine writer in twenty twenty three, appeared on Inglorious Trexpert's podcast to talk about the Dominion because Star Trek Picard season three mentions the Dominion a lot with the shapeshifters. And so they thought, well, how did the Dominion come to be? Let's talk to one of the writers who helped develop that. It wasn't just Robert Hewitt-Wolf, though.
00:13:35
Speaker
Ira Bear and another writer and our boy, our guy, Peter Allen Fields, who lived with Sophia Loren back in the day and was like a- Former train conductor and banger of Sophia Loren, lover of Sophia Loren. So they all got together and they were trying to just you know figure out how can we make our mark? How can we make a villain? um How do we define the Dominion as something interesting and surprising? ah is what he said and then he kind of launched into this notion of quote an outside context problem and he he was borrowing from this analysis from the book Guns, Germs, and Steel about the Aztecs being the pinnacle of their civilization until they encountered the Spaniards and so basically the Dominion was designed to be the anti-federation and an outside context problem something that the Federation had never faced sort of like when Q introduced
00:14:33
Speaker
the enterprise to the Borg, just like something that's so far outside the realm of what the Federation's have ever had to deal with, and then give them these elements of like, well, they also have been aware of the Federation for a long time, unlike the Borg, and they've been plotting. And it's only the wormhole that kind of mess with their plans, because they didn't think they'd be encountering the Federation for a couple hundred hundred years. So anyway, Robert Hewitt-Wolf said they wanted them to be every bit as scary as the Klingons, but every bit as clever as the Romulans. And if you Google the term outside context problem. Oh, they didn't seem all that clever to be honest. If you Google outside context problem, you get an even more dramatic description, an extreme, typically unmitigable existential threat faced by a civilization.
00:15:17
Speaker
Uh, so they played the Dominion reveal as the mystery of season two. And just to go back to Peter Allen, Allen fields, I got to drop this in here. Uh, Ira bear asked this group of guys coming up with this idea to go ahead and read Asimov's foundation trilogy. And in the deep taste line companion, I cherish book. I sleep with most nights now. Uh, but wow yeah he said, uh, he wasn't sure why he said the foundation trilogy for the writers to read, but Uh, everyone did read it except for Peter Allen Fields. Uh, and he didn't read it until after he'd retired, which was at the end of season two, Peter Allen Fields retired from writing. So he sent a fax to Ira Bear after season two had wrapped production. Yes. And the fax simply said to Ira Bear, Deep Space Nine, I finished reading foundation trilogy. Please advise Fields. And that fax hung on Ira Bear's wall for the rest of Deep Space Nine's run. Peter Allen Fields, alleged.
00:16:14
Speaker
yeah Just amazing. um And I also think that the that the framing for the Dominion and their purpose in Star Trek what the intention was this outside context problem is why the episodes that is set up the way that it is because one of the things I distinctly remember watching is like this is a weird way to do a season finale and it's like a very quaint Star Trek episode for what like 20 minutes of it and then BAM this franchise altering thing literally runs into the scene And so I think that was the intention all along, uh, to kind of show like, okay, it's not just Star Trek anymore. It's now changed, changed into something else. And then to that point, the Gemadar, why they use the Odyssey as a galaxy class ship. They really want, it's like when Wharf would get beaten up.
00:17:02
Speaker
Right. They wanted to to just show like long-term fans how dangerous. These guys are serious. And Cisco says exactly that. ah Robert Hewitt-Wolf continues. It's my belief that it had been the enterprise and not the Odyssey and Picard rather than Keo in command. It still wouldn't have survived. Ron Moore may not agree. Patrick Stewart probably wouldn't, but it's my belief that Keo had just as good a ship, just as good a crew, and he got smoked. So that was the intention. And, uh, three weeks after, uh, the finale of all good things or, you know, the next generation finale, you can tell that the deep space s nine dudes were like, let's fuck with things. Let's really try to be legends here. So memory alpha notes, the outdoor scenes, uh, on the scam, a quadrant planet were filmed at both the descanto gardens, uh, and lock coming out of Flint Ridge and in the bird sanctuary at, um,
00:17:58
Speaker
What's the name of the
Filming Locations & Technical Aspects
00:17:59
Speaker
Griffith Park? I've never, I've been to discounts of gardens only at night. They do like a light show everywhere. Yeah, I have been during the day. ah Beautiful, is it? Yeah, it's great. I've been to the the other one from, what is that one? The library, the Huntington Library. Huntington, yeah. Discounts of gardens is significantly cheaper to get inside because it's like part of the park system. Got it. That is my my main gripe with the Huntington Gardens too. Number one, the price. Number two, they don't let you bring any food in whatsoever, even if you have a small child or infant with you. Yeah, you have to hide it. Yeah. And and ah Henry Huntington and, you know, ah you know, it's it was made to to cover up some. Yeah. ah just Don't don't yeah read too much in the, you know, on the Google or the Wikipedia page about it.
00:18:56
Speaker
This episode is ah getting, you know, OJ Simpson. and yeah huntington yeah We got some, got some, uh, notable people in here. Uh, the episode was nominated for an Emmy award for outstanding individual achievement in special visual effects. I did not win that award was won by Voyager's series premiere caretaker. Ridiculous. Okay. I'm so confused by the Emmy voting window. Oh, I see. Because this episode aired in June. That's the next Emmy window. Oh, yeah. Coincided with January because January 95 was when Voyager came out. So tough. Michael Westmore designed the gem Hadar to evoke a rhinoceros. He thought the horns made them look dangerous. Well, you know what? A plus then.
00:19:45
Speaker
If you bump into one, you're going to bleed, so you know automatically that you never get close to the Gem Hadar. I gotta be honest, they look cool. I think they look cool. For some reason, they never quite scared me, but I think I- No, they're not that scary. No, but they do take up space, and so the part of, like, you have to give them, like, a wide berth, that actually does come through. They're not very particularly scary to me anyway. The Odyssey was ah obviously a reuse of the Enterprise-D model. It's the four-foot model. the The shots of the Odyssey's destruction also involved
00:20:17
Speaker
parts that they salvaged from cause and effect. Remember the episode where the enterprise kept blowing up? Oh, yeah. Well, they saved a bunch of like the blown up bits from what they're using and they kind of repurposed them here. And also some damaged parts. That's like very forward thinking of whoever saved all those bits. Yes, they will. In the moment. You're going to need to blow this thing up again. The enterprise might blow up again. You might need to save this. And they also still had model ah parts from Star Trek II and Star Trek III. You know, that's, you know, Star Trek, again, has always been a very thrifty production. So um this was the last episode for which Michael Piller served as the writing supervisor. He nominally, according to Memory Alpha, quote, nominally continued as his co-showrunner with Ira Bear until later the following season. He was obviously trying to get Voyager off the ground.
00:21:09
Speaker
But this is basically the last episode where Michael Pillar was too hands on. Morn. In the German version and in the Spanish and Italian versions, he actually speaks in this one. He just kind of sighs. So there's something I don't know what he says. I thought that was interesting, though. And then this is the last episode to regularly feature the twenty three sixties con badges, the ones with the circle behind the Delta shield. Later, it would change to that shield looking thing. So those are all my nerd notes.
Character Interactions: Quark & Sisko
00:21:40
Speaker
Anything you want to mention?
00:21:42
Speaker
No, all my nerd stuff was about the ah almost never watched cable network. So I don't think I ever watched it, which is not related. I don't think I ever watched you for. Yeah, it was. So it wasn't like the, you know, boobs and beard network. It was nerd stuff. It was video games. Yes. What was spike before it was Spike, though? I feel like it was something else. I don't know before it was. All right. OK. All right, great scenes. Personally, not so much a great scene, but we get into the beginning and Commander Sisko is so excited to take Jake on this camping trip, some you know father-son time. And then Jake is like, but now it has to come or he'll have to drop out of school. Personally, I would have just let him drop out of school because I don't know this kid. I'm not taking some strange kid on my vacation with me. And Sisko looks like he agrees with me. He's like,
00:22:41
Speaker
Like, my son will hate me forever if I don't bring NOG. Also, are 13-year-olds allowed to drop out of school forever in the future? I don't see why not. I don't see why. I mean, you can't do that here. Sure, but it's also Ferengi. He would be, you know, whatever. There's not technically. ah Yeah, he's not a Federation citizen. He's not. OK. No, no, the Ferengi are not Federation. Oh, yeah, that's the whole point. Yep. So I guess it doesn't matter. He can just drop out of school. Yeah. They're trying to, you know, trying to keep him on the straight and narrow, I guess, which works out because Nog winds up joining Starfleet. So and I do like Quark.
00:23:28
Speaker
is just tries to get on the camping trip to kind to convince Cisco to let him have like, what we call them now, almost like, to put commercials on like all the monitors. Yeah, like sponsorship yeah on the monitors. And then he realizes he he doesn't, he realizes too that he actually fucking hates camping. It's really funny. Yeah, it was a recording time decision for me because the teaser, you know, rewatching it, I was like, oh, whatever. But it's a nice teaser for all the reasons you mentioned. It's just got very, you know, we kind of bash charades for having these stock sitcom tropes going on. But this is a very stock set up of like father and son trip. Here we go. We're going fishing or whatever. The annoying Steve Urkel or whatever. I think Haskell's coming along. Exactly. Haskell's coming along. He invited himself on the trip.
00:24:23
Speaker
And ah Eddie Haskell's, Eddie Haskell, your uncle, is also going to join on. But that's that's kind of act one that that particular scene. know And you think, you know, it's like, oh, Rahm or or ah not Rahm, sorry. Cork is going to fuck this whole thing up and he actually doesn't. Right. But in the teaser, I decided it was kind of a nice setup of like where it for the episode, what where the episode goes, it's it is a very nice misdirection. And also, I'm i'm saying it's off. I criticize one show for being off the shelf, but I don't criticize it here because there's an authenticity to the fact that no, we for two seasons, we've been watching Jake and
00:25:04
Speaker
Ben beef, you know, son and father be it in a relationship, a parenting relationship. And so this is just like a cliche, but of a relationship that we've been getting a deeper understanding of. And here when Justin Sisko thinks things have calmed down, he's like, let's go bond and and spend this time. But guess what? This running through line since basically the first season of Jake and Nog being friends, you know, rears its ugly head. It's all earned, even if the setup is is pretty stock. And I love the way Odo just gives quirk shit when he's like, do you think, do you think Major Cara will ah let me do this? And he's like, well, Cara doesn't like you. He's like, ah, yes. Or he's like, Major Cara doesn't like me, but Sisko will. And he's like, well, Sisko doesn't like you either. He's like, no, that can't be possible. Yeah.
00:25:47
Speaker
And I love the scene though, when we come back, the first scene where there are, Sisko's, you know, he ah basically agrees for Cork to, I love the way Avery Brooks acts. He's not being the commander, like he's just being a dad and he's making all those weird goofy sounds. And he's like, let's go before anyone else jumps aboard this show, this runabout. I thought it was great. I thought, I liked the way Cork is really trying super hard to sell like, Oh, my brother is very concerned. Yeah. ah My brother would never allow his son alone with a human. Yes, because and this is the part where I'm like when when there's performances and direction that
00:26:29
Speaker
is conveys to the audience like, we know that you think this is ridiculous. And they play it that way. But I actually, I don't think i this is an old person thing. I just prefer when they're like, the show is just let Armin Shimmerman goes, I have to pretend that Quark thinks he's either getting away with this, or he's so committed that you can't really question How real, you know, Cisco knows he's full of shit, but it's not like not even giving an end. She's like, nope, I'm going to be the plus three guy who's insisting upon the point. I thought it was great. I liked it. The setup there. um I also thought it was cute. but how So Cisco is like so proud of the work that Jake and Nog have done on the Stupid Science Project. And they're just like so happy that he's like that he's given them some approval. It's very cute. um But later,
00:27:21
Speaker
after Cork and Sisko and that dumb lady um have been captured, quote unquote. a
00:27:31
Speaker
He, is like reading Sisko the right act about how the Federation doesn't it respect that respect the and he's like, at least we didn't have slavery and concentration camps, okay? Touche. It's a great scene, I totally agree. I just, I am very suspicious of that statement.
00:27:56
Speaker
I don't see how the frangi did not engage in slavery, given that they are driven by the profit motive. Maybe they had like an earlier like not like lesser primates to do work or something. That's possible. Fair enough. but i But I mean, like earlier in the scene that I really liked when they first get to the planet, we learned that Quark's basically allergic to being outside. um Was that, you know, they're like admiring this planet, which I'll talk about more later. And and ah Quark's like, you know what I see here? Exploitable resources. Yeah. I'll strip mine this planet and quotes, you know, a rules of acquisition. So to be i like, I don't know, I feel like slavery is
00:28:39
Speaker
They called it something like hell in Russia. They're like, we didn't have slavery. They called it something else. Fair enough. Yeah. They called it serfdom. Yeah. But the um what they call that indentured servitude. No, no, no. I had shit. They came up with a fancy name. ah But this was ah that particular moment you mentioned the scene you liked was one that Kim Friedman, the director and Norman Shimmerman really worked on and Avery Brooks as well, because According to the ah companion, they talked about it a lot because this is the commander he's talking to. And Quark is in a rather precarious position on Deep Space Nine. But we felt that Quark realized there was a chance that he could die. And then so therefore that would give him the courage to say the things he would never say back at the station. OK, they do have a Russian name for it, but okay you can just call it a serf. OK. Sorry. OK. Never mind. You can cut all that but call cut all that out. OK.
00:29:36
Speaker
um Sorry, we're back to great scenes. Yes.
Eris's Deception and Climax
00:29:40
Speaker
I like the campfire scene. but though It's a very long scene, really, with all those different parts to it, where Quark's complaining about the bugs, but then it transitions into Cisco and Jake just kind of sitting there reminiscing about the time they went water skiing on that trip with ah Jennifer. And which I'm like, Jake seems like he's like maybe 10 or 12 when the show starts. So good that he has that memory, actually. But but then, you know, corksleeve catches on fire. Yeah. And then and then in the predecessor to the moment you cited, that's when corks like you only like the people who reflect your values. You don't like Ferengi values, right?
00:30:24
Speaker
And then Eris runs in and literally the entire shape of Star Trek changes once Eris runs in and they're surrounded by the Gemadar. Kira tells Odo that he doesn't have to come with them when it's when in a clear they need to go rescue Sisko. But Odo says somebody has to look after Cork. It makes me laugh every time. I've seen this episode many times. that then It starts with Odo being like, the station's on super duper, security alert, Bajor's sending attachments, we're gonna be ready. And then Major Kira's like, you don't have to come with us. And then he's like, someone's got to look after Kork. Yeah. He belongs in my jail. Yeah. Okay. If anyone's gonna put him in jail, it's me. Okay. ah Yeah, I had that too. I also like Kork and Cisco busting out of jail.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, that was good. Quark says his own. And then like just all the the battle stuff. I liked just before that Corkin, uh, sorry, Nog and Jake are trying to navigate the runabout manually. Not the, not the little kid stuff where they're pulling the parts out and nearly blow up the ship. That was another kind of like vaudevillian jokey. We're having a little fun here in the tension, but the part where they've like disabled the autopilot. Now Jake's trying to figure it out. It's a great payoff to the beginning. Cause remember Cisco's like, what would you like to do for a science project? And he's like, learn how to fly a runabout. It's like, that's not science project.
00:31:52
Speaker
So that was a nice little payoff there. But, and then I don't, Aaron Eisenberg's acting did not bother me because he's being a Ferengi and they make those squealy noises and they get all excitable. So that didn't bother me. So I i didn't mind all that. I loved when the Odyssey comes out of warp though. When you see the ah galaxy class starships swoop in. Listen, I was 13 when this episode came on. I was excited as they were. Yeah. All right. Let's go. And then like you said, the last act, basically the last act, it's a big space battle. Yeah, the Dominion shows how far it's willing to go on as a kamikaze on the Odyssey. Captain Kiyo orders that they transfer shield power to weapons. That's what you know. I'm like, I've never heard that before. Yeah. ah Oh, things must be bleak. I feel like that's if they had Geordi La Forge on board, maybe they wouldn't have done something like that. Well, that's it. So Robert here, also certain. I'm like, you're telling me between David Wurf and Jordy, the enterprise is going to get rinsed by three quickly in the original script. They are able to take out one of the gem had our fighters. I don't think they showed that in the episode. um But, you know, the battle is not quite as one sided, but it' are they have some kind of backup plan of like, what do we like? Let's not get.
00:33:12
Speaker
They have some backup, better backup plan, then let's arm some runabouts. Right. That's true. Yeah, it would have been, you know, Chief O'Brien, they would probably figure out a way to be like we could network the ships or use their shields and so I don't know. ah It's a good point. It's a fair enough point, though, just in terms of like when you have the galaxy class ship, it's like that's the best possible ship that Starfleet has. Right. So you're sending that in. You're probably covered. How bad could it be? and And we find out. And just to be clear, I mean the last act, all the way to the end, Eris gets back to the station, we find out that this has all been a setup. She beams away to a place unknown. yeah Parts unknown. Having watched all Deep Space Nine, we know like, well, the Vorta, which is what she is, they run, they manage the Jem'Hadar. So like her cluster of Jem'Hadar soldiers, like they did they were like a little theater troupe.
00:34:08
Speaker
They're pretending, you know, to to be in this situation, but also the vorta are rep our ah clones. And when they die, their clone takes over for them. So for show, she could have just been beaming into space. You know what I mean? Like just to show like, well, we don't know where she's going, but the plan was just like to make it look like they're all far reaching. We don't know. Pretty intense. Best trek tropes. OK. Cisco as a baseball. Yeah. um
00:34:41
Speaker
Cork has a scheme that is to you know jump on the ah camping trip to convince Cisco to let him have his um ads on the screen. Can I piggyback on that? Yeah. There's a franchise in joke in there that I've put as a best Trek trope because he's listing all the things he would sell. And one of those is a Vulcan Eddic pin infinite diversity naming infinite combinations, which was introduced in the original series and Lincoln enterprises, Gene Roddenberry's sales arm, basically like they were trying to sell Eddic pins that they started putting stuff in the show that they could then.
00:35:19
Speaker
market because I guess there were no merchandising rights for studios. They hadn't thought of that yet. So he's like, Oh, I can write stuff into the show and then sell those things separately. So I just liked a little callback to that whole idea. Was that at all successful? Oh, yeah, Lincoln Enterprises. It went on for years and years. Yeah, it was a very, like, how do they, did they actually buy ad time? I was there something me like, yeah did you like that? Oh, so it's like in a magazine, like, did you like that pin you saw three weeks ago on Star Trek or fanzines? It was maybe kind of like both. Yeah, I mean, they weren't selling like hotcakes or anything.
00:35:58
Speaker
I mean, they I think Lincoln Enterprises lasted for a very long time, though. They would also take snippets of ah film from episodes, you know, because they had the episode films, they'd take like a frame and you could just pay for that and they'd send it to you. And it was like Majel Barrett or major, you know, just working, just doing it herself. but Like in the in in their den at home. Yeah, exactly. And they're dead. It was not like a complicated operation. No, so that means that shows to me that it wasn't hugely successful. It was run by Majel Barrett in a den in her spare time.
00:36:35
Speaker
Let's see, former Lincoln Enterprises, formerly Star Trek Enterprises, was a mail order company set up by Bajo Trimble and Gene Roddenberry to sell merchandise. So this was started by like the biggest Star Trek fan, the head of fandom for Star Trek. It was known for selling official scripts and film sells directly from Desilu during the run of the series. It later expanded into general Star Trek merchandise under Majel Barrett and has since been subsumed into Roddenberry dot.com. So it was successful. You can actually like, that's amazing. You just buy a script, they'll send it to you. Yeah. Very, very hard to do, you know, pre-internet obviously, but even once the internet started, it wasn't like you could necessarily get your hands on scripts. And there were some places in Hollywood that were very successful at like having some scripts that you could buy. And I remember people would come on trips to LA and you'd go there if you were into film scripts.
00:37:28
Speaker
They're pretty expensive to print. Like you have to find the best place in town that'll do like a hundred of them. Yeah. For like, you know, five cents a page or whatever it is. But anyway, so back in the... I don't know how many they were used though. Anyway, sorry. Yeah, very few. Yeah. But just like these kinds of businesses were for those who don't know. you would see it advertised in like a print publication and they would say send a check or money order or sometimes cash to this address. And including postage and will send you the item and you just did it and they would send you the item more more often than not. Right. But nowadays, like it was kind of like an Etsy shop.
00:38:24
Speaker
yeah but you had to like send your cash just to some address and hope that you'd get get your ah you know film sell. What else do you have for best trick troops? Sorry, okay. The villain is a little overconfident. um They seem very ah overconfident and it's like remark that they are. You think it's a best trick troop? Yeah, because like that means they're not going to win. Oh, well, it takes a very long time for them to lose. Yeah. They kill millions of people to get take over many Star Trek staple planets. Yeah. So Odo is going on the mission just to save Quark so he can throw him in jail himself. Great. Odo hating Quark is, you know, he hates him, but he's he's concerned. Yeah.
00:39:18
Speaker
Jake does a left-hand combat slap. So cool. ah Federation human racism. We've mentioned it before and as an as a worse trek trope, but it's a best trek trope because it gets called out and Sisko kind of doesn't deny it. he's like I never thought about it if my son would be with my people. That's right. At Starfleet Academy. yeah I mean, at the same time, again, I'm just I'm, you know, quarksing the Ferengir better because we didn't do this, you know, slave trade or whatever. And I'm like, I don't know. Seems anyway.
00:39:58
Speaker
ah Along the same lines though, Sisko is trying to represent Federation values when he's trying to be kind to Eris and put you know the best foot forward. Sisko, we said in the Emissary episode, what a textbook perfect first contact he has with the ah wormhole aliens, right? So here's kind of like not quite a perfect one, but you know it's a good one. He's trying to show the best qualities there. Even when she's annoyed by Quark's yelling, yeah Although I'll talk about that in a second, but it's still like it's so funny. He's like, well, you know, Quark, he's got his strengths. And he also doesn't want to leave Quark behind when ah when they're running and Quark's slowing them down. Yeah, she's like, let's just leave him behind. We'll come back for him or whatever. And he's like, no. So Sisko being the best version of of the Federation, I think, is a good best backdrop.
00:40:52
Speaker
Any other ones? I have a few more. ah Galaxy class starships, I just think they're neat. Oh, yeah. That's a good one. They are. They're neat. I'm putting this as a best trek trope, even though if you want to disagree, I i won't fight you. But that just the notion that a planetary survey is in any way fun sounding as like, I need to do this science project. It's like, let's go to the gamma quadrant. OK, to do what? A planetary survey. Uh, okay. I guess just nerding out on science or finding that that somewhat fun or thrilling is to be like, I don't know. ah The idea of going to ah the other side of the galaxy to study a plant an alien planet on its surface sounds good, but just the word survey in there. When you throw that in, I'm like, doesn't sound as fun, but it's still fun that Star Trek. Well, you get to like dig up rocks and stuff.
00:41:44
Speaker
Yeah, you get to use a tricorder a lot that I do appreciate. But anyway, and then I'm going to put rules of acquisition. Sometimes I would say there were struck tropes, but I think this is a perfectly great use of them here to talk about nature decays, but Latin and less forever. Oh, yeah. No, I have that under best lines ah reusing actors. So in this case, Captain Keough is played by Alan Oppenheimer, who is in the next generation as a Klingon, and then he'll play a different alien. in Voyager, so I just thought- Good for him. Yeah, and he was good as Captain Keo. hes makes a makes a yeah He's a memorable captain, which I don't think necessarily is the case with a lot of other captains. Worse trek tropes. Nog waving at the Odyssey in the runabouts. They cannot see you. I now understand why he is failing science class.
00:42:38
Speaker
OK, another fantastic parallel between this episode and the Strange New Worlds finale, though, because Nurse Chapel does basically the same thing as you. Well, of course, it was her, of course. Nog gets a ah slight, he gets a pass because he's like 12 or whatever. Yeah, that's right. And like academically, ah textually stupid. We're supposed to believe Nurse Chapel is actually quite smart. yeah well huh like They can't see you from here, sweetheart. Sorry. Any others?
00:43:17
Speaker
Um, no. So you're telling me that in a future where there are multiple spacefaring species, there's just a random uninhabited planet with no predators on it, sitting there without any colonization, no like space traffic around it or beacons or evidence of previous visitations. It's just there? I mean, I get it. It's a big it's a big galaxy. I understand that. It's just strange because the way the Dominion talks about the anomaly, the the wormhole, it seems like they would have been aware they would have been surrounding it with their colonization or their security. And instead, they give it this really wide berth. um It's very. Yeah, it's strange, this planet that's out there or i don't they should be like,
00:44:08
Speaker
Um, this planet doesn't have electricity. Like it can't be done here. The physics of it, it doesn't work. Oh, I like that. That's a good idea. Something like that. like Like to show why they have to rough it. It's like, because none of our tech will work down here. that Like you have to bring your own water because it like all has lead. Yeah, which they kind of are suggesting with the survey. That's good. I like that. Something. It's not that big of a deal, but it's enough of a deal. And obviously they couldn't do maybe the more logical story because it would have gotten the way of all the things they were trying to actually do. But, you know, this is set up in the teaser where
00:44:43
Speaker
Major Kira's like, hey, while you're over there, maybe you can check out New Bajor's aqueduct system. I hear it's supposed to be cool. And then we find out that, no, New Bajor got smoked by the Gemadar, which is sad. But kind of the obvious episode would be like they'd visit New Bajor and Jake would be doing, and Nag would be doing all the same stuff. Like, we're all the people. Yeah. And then the Gemadar comes in. Or that, or it's like a Jonestown thing. They could have done that too. That would have been interesting. Yeah, that takes more money, though, because just console gardens, they probably charge you a few grand a day to print to film. And there's no like buildings or anything. But also, I think the money is the main thing. But the other part, too, like they want to show like Star Trek, as you knew, it is changing. Yeah, we can't. You know, so you have to do it. How about the the soil doesn't have enough phosphorus to grow food? So it's. and It's it would be too expensive to import it like Hawaii.
00:45:37
Speaker
Maybe. I keep thinking about the expanse because they have all these different planets that they can finally go to through all these portals. And like a lot of the planets, though, humans can't thrive or survive on because the protein structures are like whatever the life is made out of there. Sure, there's oxygen, but like none of this stuff is edible to the human like biome or anything like that. So that kind of thing where it's just like it doesn't incompatible. Yeah, everything gives you the worst diarrhea but we you've ever had. Like, yeah, you have to bring all your food. You can't get down here.
00:46:11
Speaker
ah Runabouts should not have been able to hang around in that battle. No, I actually put that down. I was like, how are the runabouts doing anything? But i I just I was like, I couldn't articulate it better than that. Then like, huh? Like we put some photon torpedoes on the runabouts, but can they carry those and like launch them? That's new to me. Also, the the ship that ah Dax and Odo are on are like, they they could take like two direct hits from these like quantum torpedo looking things and they don't blow up immediately. i Yeah. And it blew up and, okay, no. it yeah that I didn't like that, but I was like, whatever. They don't actually have ships, like real good ones at Deep Space Nine. so
00:47:00
Speaker
It's the one time I will allow some dweeb to trot out plot armor because obviously these are our main characters that are involved in this, but I don't know. It was, I mean, cause you're conflicted, right? You want to tell the story of like, okay, here a galaxy class ship rolls up and immediately it shields don't work. Like that is a good, that's compelling action drama, but then you've got these little ships in there that can get picked off very easily and they don't. It's. ah anyway Do you think, I mean they don't have this budget to build a new set, but it'd be more believable if they were like, uh, we're commandeering this ship that stopped for so supplies. That's better. That's like still a small ship, but it's not, it's better armed than a f***ing runabout.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, they really, cause they really tried to do the whole like, well, have you tried rotating your shield frequency? Like how we deal with the Borg and like Kiyo says that doesn't work. They're really trying to establish like this is again, an outside context problem. It's so far beyond what they're experienced with, which again, only means that the runabouts should have not been able to. Yeah, they should have been obliterated in no time. immediately I did. I was thinking, though, because you're talking about budget. I'm like, was I wonder if there was any conversation about could we sneak into the enterprise d sets and just shoot this out before they turn it over and start remaking it, remodeling it for the movie? Because that would have been something.
00:48:31
Speaker
You know what I mean? like yeah bridge at The actual enterprise. ah That would have been something. Anyway, any others? No. Oh, the galaxy class starship. but Again, along those lines, the galaxy class star starship is supposed to be the most powerful vessel before the defiant comes into things. And yet whenever we see it in battle, it's lumbering and firing basically one phaser blast at a time. And maybe a couple of torpedoes and I get that there's like a budgetary reason for it. I'm just saying like, but in this particular case, it kind of sucks.
00:49:03
Speaker
It really amps down the tension. And this would happen in next generation all the time. And this happened in generations where the Klingons are just shooting at them. And they get one phaser beam. It's not until Star Trek Picard season three, the finale that we see the Enterprise actually kick ass. I couldn't believe it. it's but It takes 30 years for us to see it unleash and be awesome. ah So I just want to put that as a worst trek, Joe. So a ship that should be super cool is only really cool. Pew pew. Yeah, exactly. All right. Most of its time quality. The psychic strap Aeroswares looks like it's made out of a hemp belt or just really flimsy shit that will not look very interesting when they upres this to HD. No, I watched on my new TV and it was not standard def with standard defing for sure. Like it like when you watch it on a really nice TV, it's like
00:49:59
Speaker
It looks worse. What'd you get? What'd you end up getting? Yeah, it's not that nice. no um You're like, it's a reference quality panel. um It's like ah I got the QLED because I can't afford the other one with a child in the house that will throw a chair at the TV. So I wasn't willing to invest. say $1,500 to $2,000 in a new TV. ah Good call. So I got, we'll see how it goes. Yeah, especially since they're now being designed for the obsolescence, which was not the case for TVs up until about five years ago, which is a real bummer anyway.
00:50:42
Speaker
I was worried about the o LED d being like really fragile. Yeah. And apparently that's still a problem. Burning is an issue. And like the little pixels going out is an issue. And I, again, if a toddler touches the TV, I don't want that part to be black forever. Yeah. So it looks fine. but yeah So you can see the annoying strap. Yeah. OK, so I put Jake's jumpsuit. And also Nog's little overall outfit. Sure. And La Kenyatta as a faraway planet.
00:51:24
Speaker
ah It feels like it would be Toronto, but yeah that's true. Yeah. Griffith Park and law yeah, back at Los Angeles as, you know, a faraway planet. I put in the stunt performer when court catches fire. Oh, yeah. that There was a time when you just always had to have some stunt guy who can catch himself on fire. Mm hmm. I don't know what that was all about, but I'm not going to be I'm not going to lie. I miss those days. Yeah. All right. Now it's time for the line must be drawn here. Great lines. All right. So there was a lot of good lines in this episode. I didn't write them all down and I'm very sorry.
00:52:07
Speaker
quark, it isn't heat so much as the humidity and the insects and the stench of these flowers. yeah And then when quark is trying, before that one, quark is trying to be like, well, Rom would never let his, but I of course love humans, but my brother Rom isn't as liberal as me. yeah for some like like You're humans.
00:52:33
Speaker
Oh, that was great. and Of course, nature decays, but Latin lasts forever. Rule of acquisition number 102. I like Nog saying, Jamba, what? I don't care. I don't care how corny that is. I thought that was great. so When they're like, maybe they were attacked by a vicious animal. You heard my dad. There are no animals on this planet. Maybe they were attacked by a vicious tree. Yeah, that's why you can't live there. It's like the trees from the Wizard of Oz. They're busy bo bodies and start screaming at you.
00:53:09
Speaker
I have three more, and one of them is strictly because of Avery Brooks delivery. It's one of the great Avery Brooks in this episode is such a normal person in it, despite all the ridiculous stuff going on that it's so great. But Cork is just yelling, hey, get who could help, Cork shut up the way he says that. I'm not even doing it justice. It's perfect. Yeah. And then I'm about to put a fist in your opinion. safe Another great Cisco line. And then Jake's line, a line that I still use all the time. If Chief O'Brien taught me anything, it said it's a lot easier taking things apart than putting them back together. Always important to remember that. Was saying that a lot during the Trump presidency, if I'm being completely honest. Yeah. And I have, Nog, you're never going on a field trip again.
00:54:04
Speaker
I like how he he pulls his ears. Sometimes I forget that the phrase or so. I look at the ears and I forget. Oh yes. They're very ear centric. Any other great lines? No. Okay. The Anton Caridian Award for Best Performance. I was going to give it to Cisco because I think you did a good job. He did. I kind of want to give it to both the Sisko's because I liked their interactions. Yeah. And I think Jake, when he's with Nog, he's, it would have been, you know, Aaron. He has that childhood innocence, but he's not annoying. Yes, that exactly right. I did not find him annoying and I like Jake a lot. so and then And I don't usually care for children actors. so
00:54:47
Speaker
Yeah. And Avery Brooks, you can tell he likes him. Like, and Avery Brooks thought it was very important that that relationship be centered and and be important. So yeah he's really invested. And he was very much being dad energy the whole episode. I thought that was great. The Shatner. Yeah. Who was really going for it? OJ Simpson.
00:55:10
Speaker
Yeah. You know what? Now that I know it's the week of, the we have to put that. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you can you can give it to one of the Gennadar or whatever, or whatever. Go ahead. I put it for both the Ferengi, because Aaron Eisenberg could be an annoying child actor, although he wasn't a child at this point. He's no longer with us, unfortunately, as you said. I don't think it was a bad performance. I have no issues with Nog. He's playing the part as written. and Yeah, I don't have any problems with Nog. Yeah, I like Nog just fine.
00:55:43
Speaker
And what I'm saying is like he's going for it as like being anxious and you know being a kid. But he's like friends with Jake. like I believe their friendship. He's good there. But come on, Armin Shimmerman is giving a Shatner-esque. He's really going for it. And he's great. he's He's fantastic. But it's got to be OJ. You're right. Oh, I didn't put this on under great scenes, but I think it it deserves an honorable mention. But Quark discovering that woman's ruse just because he was trying to sell the stupid collar. Yes. She was wearing that. He picked the lock. Yes. And on and yeah, that's like the real ruse. Yes. well Elaborate ruse.
00:56:24
Speaker
Yeah, he's great. Armin Shimmerman, when they gave Quark stuff to do, which they did a lot, but he could play everything, right? Like in that moment, he's not playing scheming Ferengi. He's being like, oh, this is really serious. You know what I mean? like So he's great. ah What part of this will they teach at Starfleet Academy? Well, probably a about the Dominion and the shield the shield nonsense. Right. I wonder what part of battlefield tactics that is when he says transfer shield power to weapons. That's obviously like, OK, our shields are pointless and they're hurting us anyway. And he's they've evacuated most of the Odyssey anyway, right? They offloaded all the nonessential on the station. So he's like, we can take some hits. We need to be able to like repel them. So that's like a very that's an emergency tactic, it seems like.
00:57:17
Speaker
The domain in for sure. First contact, right? you You always got to be ready to represent the entire federal. Yeah. yes Could this episode have been hornier and would that have made it better? I don't know. It's it's about a father son camping trip at the beginning. So I don't know. I don't think this episode could have been hornier. The only way might maybe could have is instead of like Dax and the captain. Yes, exactly. Instead of her just being annoyed by how arrogant he is, it's more of a it's more of a friction. The reason why she picked Deep Space Nine over The Odyssey was because of something where it's like it wouldn't be good if we were together. All right. So Trek, Marry, or Kill the Jem'Hadar. I'm going to give it a strong Trek. I think I actually like thought this was a cute episode.
00:58:06
Speaker
Yeah, it was my feelings on it have evolved over 30 years because I was fine with it when I was a kid. But then you see, well, you know, get into it and figure out what it's really trying to say. And it's a decent cliffhanger. for the next season, but not so much that you're like, God. Yes. I it was wait three months or whatever. Yep. And that was their intention was another way to differentiate themselves from next generation was to be like, we want to have, you know, say our piece for the whole season, but we want, you know, to suggest what the next part could be for sure. So yeah, I'm with you a very strong truck. Like they don't have in they don't have to get right into it if they don't want to. Yes.
00:58:48
Speaker
Which is kind of what happens at the end of season three, going to season four because the ratings never picked up in season three. So season four starts with Wharf and they're like, Oh, and the Klingons are now a problem. And they have to kind of press pause on their plans and revisit. Um, so that was, that was a good point. Uh, what is this a big swing that connects? Uh, we're still doing that. Okay. Uh, sure. We have to. Okay. I think, I mean, this introduces the gem of art and it changes it changes Star Trek history. It changes the course of Deep Space Nine because this would lead into the serialization, which, you know, as we've said before, changed television, you know, and just, you know, did all these different things just from this one point and it was all intentional. So they really were trying to aim for something. and
00:59:41
Speaker
I think, you know, the balls of like, let's put a galaxy class ship in there three weeks after the finale of the beloved next generation and blow this walker up. I think that was, that was a big swing. but what some written And ah yeah, so it definitely connected. All right. So if you are just running a a relay here, I guess, if you stick around your podcast app might just auto load our Trek Mary kill finale, which will be the 100th episode of Trek Mary kill Kristen. Wow. Yeah. So that'll wrap up for a lot of episodes. It sure is. It'll wrap up our season two by wrapping up the season two finale of Strange New Worlds. Hejima. Am I on that one? You're on that one. yeah Okay. I knew that.
01:00:29
Speaker
A few years ago, Kara Knightley was in this movie called Laggies. And she was in this movie... Laggies? Yes. And then she was in a movie called The Imitation Game. Uh-huh. I've seen that. And Laggies, it's a modern day story about, I guess, a depressed woman befriending like an awkward teen or something like that. And so it's a contemporary story. So she looks like a normal person. And I went to a movie, and Laggies was one of the trailers. And the next trailer was the imitation game, in which her first appearance in that trailer is her running into a room. So I liked to imagine that she left the Laggies trailer, did a quick change, and ran straight into the imitation game trailer. And that's what I would like to ah our listeners to imagine you're doing, going from this one, and then right into it.
01:01:22
Speaker
which we'll actually record a couple weeks from now, but... Yeah. We don't record them all in one night. We do not. That'd be very boring because we'd be really sick of it. That's true. I mean, and the format deserves to be shaken up, which I'm thinking about for the next season. Anyway, we'll figure out what we're gonna do with that. Change things up a little bit. But rate and review us. Hopefully you've been enjoying the show. Wherever you listen, rate and review. And check us out on social media, Trek Mary K Pod or trekmarikillpod.com for all of our standings. You can see after a hundred episodes where we stand in terms of our treks, marries, and kills. So until next time, TMK out. Bye.