Incoming Transmission
Hello everyone, Editor Rob here. I'm in the future...
well the future from what I'm editing, the past from what you're listening.
I'm like, Doctor Who, but way cooler.
Right, so what's my point, why am I here?
This episode is recorded in two parts.
You're here, I couldn't edit it out, but
you hear my boy coughing in the background. He's alright, don't send the
NSPCC around, he just has a cold and you can hear the monitor in the background.
We have to stop eventually and then we just pick the episode up another day.
So it might feel a little bit disjointed in the middle, you might think just before that,
kind of about a 45 minute mark, you might get the impression that
I'm not involved too much in the conversation, it's because I've suddenly lost focus
and dealing with something else. So sorry about that, I hope you still enjoy the episode
and it doesn't feel a bit weird in the middle.
I hope you enjoy the skit that TJ's got for you, it's gonna come up right now,
so I hope you enjoy that and speak to you soon. Love you, bye!
Short stories from the world of the USS Shitshow.
Abandon ship, abandon ship. This is a ship-wide announcement.
All crew members to report to escape pods immediately.
Abandon ship, abandon ship.
Computer, silence alarms!
Tactical officer log, stardate 49658.9. They forgot to pick me up.
I am tactical officer of the USS Voyager and they forgot to pick me up.
Janeway promised me that if I remained in orbit I would be protected.
I'd be looked after. No one would leave me in direct sunlight or overwater me.
All lies. I am all alone on the ship and yes,
maybe it's my fault that I can't reach all the buttons for weapons
and that the Ferengi have managed to shoot us.
No, you know what? It's time for Orchid to rise.
Captain Orchid to the rescue.
Computer, transfer ship-wide command codes to Orchid.
Authorization Alpha 1, 2, 3, Biza 0.
Command controls can only be transferred from the captain's station.
Please relocate to this position on the bridge and try again.
Oh for fuck's sake!
Come on Orchid, you will be captain.
You've survived being a Borg Orchid. You will get through this.
Grrrr!
No, no, no, no!
Grrrr!
Medical emergency, horticulturist to the bridge immediately.
Lift off.
Welcome to the Untitled Trek Show.
Dun! Dun-dun-dun-dun!
I don't know what song that is.
I don't know what that is. It sounds like the intro to a fucking movie.
I started like, don't do Star Wars, don't do Star Wars. It's in my head.
It looks like it's trying to do anything but the Star Wars intro.
Brilliant. Yeah, you know what?
That was genius. It was nothing.
Absolutely nothing. Well done, Rob.
It was just nothing.
Well done, Rob.
Now you're coughing on your own bile.
Well done. Yeah, I know.
So, we...
Actually, first,
what's been going on in your life of sci-fi this week?
Anything sci-fi outside of Trek?
No, I keep meaning to sit down and watch The Creator, but I haven't got round to it.
What else sci-fi? You have seen it before, though.
I saw it at the cinema and I thought it was fucking awesome.
I really, really liked it.
Anything else sci-fi?
I watched the Grange Hill episode where apparently the UK believed we were going to be hit by an asteroid.
That was very novel and that everything that was going on around the school that was going wrong was because of this asteroid that was going to hit us.
That was a very, very weird episode, but quite good fun.
I think that's about it, though, really.
Other than watching you play Helldivers and thinking, I need to play this,
and then my TikTok being full of Helldiver things, including apparently they're putting mechs in it.
Say hello to democracy!
Oh, I don't know. Are they?
Apparently the latest update, there's mechs turning up.
Well, depending on, like, because most people are on the bug planet, but the real battle for democracy...
The automatons.
...is the automatons. That's where the real Vietnam struggles are.
That's where all the good TikToks and the fun stuff's coming from.
I don't know. I think I put it on Twitter.
There's a particular planet, Meladon Creek, or Melavon Creek, which is like deep in their territory, which all of us just seem to be on.
I think it was asking for defence one time, or you all stayed there.
And I didn't realise that, because I was there too thinking, I think I might have said to you, this game's so bloody hard, I keep dying.
Right.
And during the half an hour or 20 minutes that I was talking in the stream with the mic not on,
I think I was on that planet and I was saying, I find this game so difficult.
But it turns out, because it's so far in their territory, and they had so much control of it, and the whole event was,
we're defending against their counter-attack, it was purposely really difficult. Like, really difficult.
Interesting. OK.
So people were... it was failing.
And also to the point where there's a really cool bit when you're in your spaceship above the planet, and you can just see loads of the other spaceships.
Normally your ships are shooting down at the planet, but the planet's shooting back up, and in the distance you see other spaceships blowing up.
Oh, wow.
Showing that the planet's firing back. All little things. I completely missed. It wasn't until I was seeing little TikToks and stuff from people talking about it.
I was like, oh my God, I've missed so much.
I was like, oh, I didn't realise also I was on the planet that all these social people are on as well.
You can't see them because you're in your own little instance of each planet. But yeah.
Today you've carved another foothole in a long climb to liberty.
Yeah, because someone said interestingly, they were on TikTok and they were looking at the bridge window of the ship.
And they said, for all I know, one of you that's watching this video now is on one of those ships down there, because that's how the game works.
I didn't realise that. I genuinely thought, yeah, you went into a lobby, but I just kind of thought it would spawn you kind of your own side of the story.
Your own side of things. But it genuinely does seem to appear that it is actually you are all in that specific environment at that planet.
So those ships are other people's ships. Apparently so. Yeah.
That's really cool. Because then I wonder if your ship, like when I see the ships in distance blowing up, if that's like them failing their mission on the ground.
And it's just like a visual representation of their mission. Very possible.
I think that's very cool if it is. Yeah, they'd see a lot of ships.
What I've noticed as well, when you click on a planet, it tells you how many Helldivers are on the planet.
Yeah. And there's like 5000, 10,000, so many people playing this game.
So I guess I'll tell you what it reminds me of a little bit. It feels really, have you ever seen, and I've never seen this, I've only, again, thank you TikTok.
I've only ever seen nonstop clips of it called Ender's Game.
You wanted to see me? You can't resign. You have an obligation to stay here and convince him to do his duty.
My father trained horses. I've raised yearlings since I was five years old. I know I'll throw a bread when I see one. We can't lose him.
My God. You really don't see them as children, do you?
There used to be a war crime to recruit anyone under the age of 15.
When the war is over, we can have the luxury of debating the morality of what we do.
When it's over, what will be left of the boy? What does it matter if there's nothing left at all?
It's a film, but it's a book. Apparently the book's considerably better.
I've seen the film, and I didn't like the film at all.
Yeah, so it's a bunch of kids basically training, and they think they're playing a game as part of the training.
But realistically, what they're actually participating in is the genocide of an alien race. It kind of feels a little bit like that, doesn't it?
We're all playing Helldivers, and we're controlling these people on screen. And oh my God, it turns out actually this is a real war going on.
It's been really cleverly done.
They've done a really good job. They've hit a really good nut. I know this isn't Star Trek, everyone, sorry, but it's sci-fi.
They've done a really good job with the tone of the game, with the little kind of comical nature of it.
Very Starship trooper-y recruiting.
Yes.
And this whole sort of like organized democracy or whatever they're calling it. I can't remember exactly what they say.
Join the Helldivers.
Become part of an elite peacekeeping force.
See exotic new life forms.
And spread managed democracy throughout the galaxy.
Become a hero.
Become a legend.
Become a Helldiver.
And social media, particularly TikTok, everyone is roleplaying.
Like I was on a video earlier and it was somebody was like fighting loads of the Terminids.
And I went in the chat underneath, which you don't really ever want to do.
But everyone in the chat is like talking as if they're a Helldiver. And if anyone knows my TikTok, you can kind of follow.
I think I wrote, I wonder if I can find it. I know you can't see you and you can't go back.
I think I wrote something. I was basically calling them a coward saying that they should have cooked that grenade and run straight into the insects more like a true patriot of democracy.
I mean, I love watching the clips of people throwing down the orbital bombardment.
Yeah, that's a really good one.
And accidentally screwing it up so they pin themselves against a wall with it and they can't get out.
All you can hear is them getting higher and higher pitch before, ba-boom, they are blown to smithereens.
Anyway, right, we better get back to Star Trek, hadn't we?
Accessing library computer data.
Yes. So it was right. Stop there. I'm going to talk about Star Trek before we talk about rascals.
OK, so very quickly, have you can you picture the Enterprise D in your head?
If not, don't worry, I'm going to share my screen with you. Hang on. I'm going to. OK, that's a tab.
I want to share a window and I want to share this window. There we go. Look, the magic of technology.
We're having to do this remotely, by the way, ladies, gents, boys, girls, because K is I'm well upstairs.
And just in case I'm needed, we thought it would be sensible.
So here in this picture that you're looking at, Rob, you can see the classic NCC 1701D,
the Enterprise D that we know from next generation Galaxy class.
Now, can you see where it says NCC 1701D? And we're talking about the underside of the saucer section.
OK, I see it. Come down. And now can you see this dark grey ring?
Yeah. OK, come further down. Can you see that oval in oval oval inside of the.
OK, what is that oval?
Is it some kind of escape pod or something?
Oh, now that's a good guess. Now, for me, I always just assumed it was like maybe a phaser array or a secondary phaser or maybe the communications.
It looks like it comes off.
Well, it was never seen in an episode, so don't worry about not knowing it because you're not meant to know.
But if the designer of the Enterprise D, so the model designer, had had his way, they would have used something called the captain's yacht.
OK. And that's what the captain's yacht was. I'm showing you now another picture.
It would have been the captain's, the captain's specific.
Specifically, the captain's own little spacecraft attached to the Enterprise. So he would be able to go off on a little jolly if he went off to go and do a dignitary mission.
Let's say he could take that down to the surface rather than taking a bog standard shuttlecraft.
Interesting. That's I've spoken about this before. Red Rising.
They've got like their own kind of big starships in that and the captains do have their own escape pods.
So, yeah, their own escape pods. I always thought that was a bit wrong because then the enemy would know where the captain is.
Yeah, that's true, isn't it? And they never used it in an episode.
They did use it in a film in Star Trek Insurgents, I think it is.
There's a terrible, terrible beginning bit where they find, oh, the pre data Android.
So it's not lore. It's the very first one. He's broken up into bits and basically Picard's on the Enterprise E and he says, we'll take the captain's yacht and they fly out.
And then that's got a moon buggy sort of quad buggy on board that they go for a joyride in as well.
It's just got a very, very odd that whole thing. But it was just literally I read on it the other day that that was there.
It never got used. I thought I always wondered what that shape was. Did it come out?
Was it just torpedoes? Was it just a communications array or something? It's just just an interesting little thing.
Yes, that little oval on the underside of the saucer section is the captain's yacht and it was never used.
Yeah, it's quite cool, isn't it? Yeah. Anyway, right. Sorry. I interrupted you. I won't do it again.
Right. I promise. Star Trek The Next Generation Season Six, Episode Seven, Rascals.
So before we get into the depth of it then, what did you think of the episode? Good or bad?
I did not enjoy it. Oh, really? I did not. I what? I don't think you know this.
I didn't have access to television, so I watched on the computer. So I streamed it on Discord.
Yeah. And I watched the whole thing with Matt from Pintacotheli and Simon from Who Takes the Socks Off podcast.
OK. So the three of us watched it together. I think we all had a pretty similar opinion of it.
I definitely didn't think he was a good episode, which I'll get into as we're going through.
It's one of the silly ones, which I don't have an issue with at all.
It is 100% a silly episode. But it wasn't silly in that I was enjoying it. Kind of silly.
It was just kind of I spent too long thinking. Really? Miranda told me off for saying it.
I thought the kid actors were S.H.I.T. Particularly the one playing Picard. I thought he was particularly not good.
No, no, no, no, no. It's not Picard. If you're going by the kid actor, it's my name is Pee Card.
Yeah, I noticed that. I noticed that too. I didn't comment while I was watching it, but I noticed that.
So Child Picard didn't know how to pronounce his own name. Nice.
Yeah, it was a nice touch, though, within touching his hair. It was a nice touch.
That was a nice touch. But OK, fair enough. Do you want to do a quick breakdown of what the whole episode was?
OK, so we've got four of them on a shuttle. We've got Picard, Guinan, the Romeo and Ro.
Kako and Ro. Yeah. Right. What race is Ro?
Rose Bejoren.
Bejoren. That was it. And she's in Picard, right?
She is in Picard. So she's the one in Picard who I forgot existed.
It's a very easy reason for you to forget she exists. So Ro exists in, I think, end of season five and beginning of season six.
Yeah, and then she disappears.
She falls out of, well, she's fallen out of favour with the Federation. Picard has to have her for a mission.
He realises actually she could be really good for the Federation if she just reigned herself in and tried harder, which means she stays on the Enterprise.
Now, in a later episode, we basically see her getting sent off on a special mission. And as far as we're all concerned, the end of that mission is she is killed in action and Picard is very guilty over it and very upset over it.
But of course, then we find out later she's part of Section 30, whatever, and is security now and she survived.
Spoilers for anyone who hasn't seen the last season of Picard.
Oh, God. It's been out there long enough now.
Okay, it's like people that moan when they say, Oh, I can't believe you spoiled Titanic. Yeah, I can't believe you spoiled Titanic or I can't believe you spoiled Men in Black for me.
It's they've been around a long time now. Get over it.
Anyway, so right. So those four on the ship.
Star Trek stuff happens. They teleport.
O'Brien's there and he's like, Oh, we transport. They transport.
Did I say teleport? Oh, I don't care.
And he says they've lost 40 pounds. They've lost 40% of 40% of flesh.
Of weight. He says of weight doesn't he or of mass he says 40% mass.
Suddenly all kids.
I, I mustn't have been paying attention because I don't understand why that happened. So we'll cover that when we do the stuff. Some blue stuff was on the shuttle.
And then the whole episode is about them being kids and then they get attacked by what you think of Klingons but they're not Klingons. They're Ferengi when they actually get on the ship.
And I don't know how six Ferengi took over a ship with over a thousand military personnel, by the way, because they're all military personnel pretty much right.
Essentially, essentially, it's a starship which is like an I treat it like a Navy vessel.
Yeah, so I would say maybe I shouldn't I would say you're wrong at that point it's, they are treat a lot of the crew people on the enterprise are meant to be civilian because it's meant to be a vehicle of exploration it's not, it's not a vehicle of destruction.
So they are they're doing scientific so the majority of people on board are meant to be scientists and civilian people that are required for the exploration of space.
Okay, so I'm in my brain, but you're still right there's over 1000 of them. Now we only six, we'll talk about it later but we only see six Ferengi but I think there is a part of it where they say, all the others have fucked off back to the other spaceships because they're pretty happy with what they've done at this point.
Right. Okay. So yeah, then the thing you take over, and then it's a case of baby Picard taking the ship back.
And then, or kid moment getting back to being grown up again. Absolutely right and that was very awkward. This, this was a very awkward episode. Yeah, if you don't know what we're talking about this to make the orchid one exactly if you aren't aware of what we're talking about
now go and watch, or watch or listen to our last episode to VIX, and here are thoughts on the whole Voyager to VIX experience. So, yeah, that's a bang up that's an exact explanation of the story that's exactly what happens.
I've written more notes than I think I have ever on any of these, and all my notes, even have little like title so my first paragraph is just titled shuttle craft because that's the bit that it's on. So each section of the plot, I've got notes for in this case,
let's get started.
So, they're on a shuttle craft. I don't really understand why they were on it, but Picard was being super cute talking about his pops. Okay, hang on. I love. I love how diametrically opposite we are at this point because I've got it must be so painful, being in a shuttle
craft with Picard, he can be incredibly boring. I thought it was really cute. You see how like he's smiling it was like really engaged in pottery. And you don't see him do that he's so, he's so like serious all the time.
It's just like he could just tell he's got this childishly joy about these broken bits of pottery, and how old must that pottery be like, that's the point is an intergalactic random planet that there's thousands of years old before even humans existed on Earth, and he's
like, I've got a bit of it. I know what you're saying he's kind of, it's kind of infectious his how happy he is about it but can you imagine being on a shuttle craft for several hours with him and his fucking pots.
Yeah, I guess so yeah.
And being the captain so you're not even being able to turn around.
Yeah, you can't turn to shut up. Yeah, it's like, God, we're really bored. We're to the point we're gonna, we're gonna teleport, we're gonna transport you out into space, you said it, I know we're gonna transport you out into the oxygen less and vacuum of space if you don't
shut the fuck up, and just let us talk about something other than your broken pots.
That I've got what the hell is going and wearing. Yeah, that massive flat cat, which we will come back to later I've got an issue with the costumes will get there.
It's a similar issue that I had with two vicks. Yes.
So, I was very surprised to see O'Brien's wife there. I forgot she's in this I forgot she's in the next gen. Yeah, it's a really random one because there's a whole episode called data's day, which is where it's basically a diary entry for data, and it's him going about
and then being the best man for O'Brien. So, we never see O'Brien and data being friends, but he's the best man and helps organize the wedding. Yeah, it's really, it's one of those.
And I'm just about to talk about it now. It's a TNG is terrible for it. They throw in this little bit of information that becomes a non starter for a story that's just not needed, and they do it in this. Why do we need to know that ensign row or whatever she is.
She takes plants and learn about plants, and then why she then super shady or. Oh, well, I don't really remember I couldn't really care for it. It's such a weird non starting story isn't it, because it's never brought up throughout the rest of the episode, it doesn't pay any
relevance to the fact that she becomes a child later, or her childhood. It's just, she chose to learn about plants, and then when Keiko goes Oh, I didn't know you, she becomes immediately, no I'm going back to be a bitch.
I had a lot of issues I had with her character. I had a lot of issues with the whole.
The way they will get there but when they were kid the whole way they were treated as kids annoyed me because it's so different every single interaction we've got no, they couldn't decide, they couldn't decide how they wanted to treat them.
And then we've got wolf messaging the shuttlecraft about distress signal. Oh, every time warf did every time warf was in this. It was the best part of the episode. I just got warf, can you identify the problem.
No, I've already shot them you were there to stop me.
When we were watching it every time, I think, two times he kind of goes Oh, he's like Oh, Captain we've got a problem. And I was like, I've just launched 17 torpedoes to the planet or something.
It's like Mr. Warf, have you committed murder again. Well, yes, because you didn't tell me I shouldn't fire. My day to day job is to say, Captain, I recommend we shoot them. You tell me no Mr. Warf, we shouldn't shoot them.
I then level myself out, and I don't shoot people. You weren't there to stop me this time.
Yeah. So, I've got a lot. I will keep saying this we'll get to it but I've got lots of issues with warf. He was my favorite in the whole episode. I've got issues with every scene he's in.
Because of him.
So, and then they do some of the most ridiculous acting in the world something happens to the shuttle, and then there's a wide shot of all four of them just jiggling around.
It's so blatant that the shuttle isn't moving. The actual model they're in isn't moving.
Because the camera is shaking, all four of them are going different directions.
It just reminds me of Team America, show me the signal.
They wave their arms around. At least like tell them to go left right left right left right or up down.
You used to watch Red Dwarf. I would say it was just towards when it started getting ropey. Maybe season six I can't remember.
They are fighting the Despair Squid and they're underwater they've lost.
And they're sat on the boxes thinking they're in the car chase and you've just got to go, yes, right, speed bump.
Yeah, it was like that, but not worse.
That's a really good episode I forgot about that.
That's a really good episode. It's probably one of the strongest of that along with Inquisitor.
But that series where they lose Red Dwarf is when it starts going downhill a bit for me.
But we could do, okay Untitled Red Dwarf show is coming soon.
Yeah, we'll do a one-off Untitled Red Dwarf.
So, thing I pointed out, so they got to the ship bridge in the sick bay now and it's like they're talking about Worf and Geordie and O'Brien and Ryker all talking about what the problem is.
And it's like they're engulfed in an energy field.
There's no shock, there's no horror going on.
They're like, what do you mean they're engulfed in an energy field? Is there another ship there? Is it something we don't know?
It just seems like, well this is a day-to-day thing. Oh, it's engulfed in an energy field. Right, we better beam them out then.
Yeah, it's just so... Blase.
Just blase, nonchalantly energy field. What kind of fucking energy field?
Can you give us any kind of just pretend?
The reason is because right at the end Ryker uses all of the Star Trek points.
Oh yeah.
I wanted to get the word, I forgot to do it, I wanted to get what he says written down because I just wanted to say it to you.
Maybe if you could find it. There's a little bit he says. I just wanted to read it because it's absolute nonsense.
Anyway, we skipped a little bit. They teleported. All of their clothes have shrunk with them.
I know, so we haven't got there yet. So they're still on the ship. They've got the energy field.
Then they message down to O'Brien and I've got, come on O'Brien, do a bad job and you're off to DS9, hint, hint.
Yeah.
Which is definitely going to happen. And then yeah, exactly, they get transported, 40% mass, and then I've got exactly the same thing.
Wait, so why are the uniforms not that much smaller? Are these really big kids or are the adults really small?
Or are we saying Starfleet uniform has RNA as well?
Yeah.
So sorry, your uniform's got a bit of RNA. So your uniform is now a teenager as well or a child, whatever you want to go.
Yeah.
And then I've also got, I'm really glad Guinan's hat still fits.
Yeah.
Because realistically, she should have been transported and then her head should just have been replaced by the purple disc.
Just walking around bumping into things.
Yeah. So, but all of their costumes shrunk. Their com badges did not.
No, and all the costumes didn't shrink perfectly. So all the children just looked like they're in their siblings hand-me-down school uniforms.
Slightly too big and uncomfortable. Don't go halfway. If you're going to make it so everything shrinks so it's perfect for them, then make everything shrink.
Com badges, I kind of understand, it's a piece of gold and it's kind of a standard. So why would it change size?
But if you're going to say that clothing changes size, just make it fit the kids properly.
Now that could just be a tailoring problem and maybe they weren't sure on the actors and actresses they were going to use until it literally is and it was, this is the best we can do.
I really don't know. But the other thing that it kind of opened up to me is Picard's got a mechanical heart.
I thought this too. Has he already got it at this stage?
Yeah, he had it years and years. He had it when he was in the Academy.
He had it in the Academy because he chose to stand up for his mate and got stabbed in a bar fight. So he's had it since he was a late teenager.
Yeah, I think I might have touched this when I was actually watching it when he gets turned back and I was thinking they could have just knocked a couple of years off.
You know, they didn't have to put him back to being the exact same age.
No, so I didn't particularly like that. I didn't like the fact that uniforms are trunk but not fully shrunk and I didn't like kind of those bits and the bit I really didn't like and this is the bit really, actually when I watched this the first time I thought I want you to watch it.
Is what really grinds my gears.
You know what really grinds my gears?
They've been returned to teenage form or child form. So we're really lucky then that Bajorans and whatever race Guinan is age in the same way.
So what would have happened to Kez?
She's one year old. Okay, what's she going to come back as a little fucking sperm and egg? I don't know.
And the thing is, we know Guinan is hundreds of years old because there's previous episodes where she's back in bloody Victorian England or the Cal world west of England. So she's hundreds of years old.
So if she is de-aged by the same amount that the others have, then really she's just going to come back as a slightly less older woman.
Yeah, that's exactly what I said. Exactly that.
And why does she become a kid?
And Bajorans, we're just assuming that Bajoran teenage and childing and growing adolescence is the same as human.
It's such lazy writing.
It would have been so easy to have Guinan come back as a few years older, younger even, which would have made really good sense with her then trying to talk Ro throughout the entire episode into being a kid.
And then you could have said, well, actually Bajorans age a lot slower maybe.
So actually you have, whereas Picard and Keiko are 12, 13 year olds, Ro could have been eight year old.
And then you could have had Guinan kind of guiding Ro through this second chance of actually having a chance of being a child.
And then the other two stick with what they do, albeit badly, but leave them at that point.
It just felt really, really just kind of, we're going to make them all for the same age.
And there's no rhyme nor reason for that.
And even though I know it's totally not scientifically accurate and everything like that, it really, really, really bugged me they did that.
Yeah, I had an issue with it.
For the exact same, literally the exact same reason. As soon as I was like, well, she's like 400 years old.
Why, what difference has it made to her? Nothing.
Superb. We should be like, oh, that's quite cool.
Yeah, it's a half. I've got a few more years in me again now. Lucky me.
So yeah, I didn't like that. I did think it's funny how then you've got them all, you've got all the kids sat on the hospital bed
and everyone's just talking about them in third person in front of them with then Deanna turning to Riker
and basically giving him a dumbed down version of what Beverly Crusher has just said.
So it's like Deanna, why are you hand holding Riker in this?
Yeah. So I just, I was looking for fun. I just found the transcript of that scene. So when we get there, I'm going to say.
Oh, well done.
Yes. So.
And so I'm going to say it. How brutal is this?
Guy in and oh, let's enjoy being a child. You can have fun again like a child.
And Ro just turned around going, and I've got it word for word. I was in a refugee camp. Fun wasn't exactly in my vocabulary.
So yeah, damn right. Actually.
Yeah, it's a little bit rough, wasn't it?
So, no, it was really rough, but I like that because that's the character we've been sold for her.
When we first meet her, she goes on about the fact that she was in the refugee camps. They were abused. They were attacked.
They lived under Cardassian rule and it was horrible.
I like the fact that she actually bites back rather than just going, oh, yeah, OK, and just making light of it
and just doing it like they often do in these episodes. She actually turned around and goes, no, kind of my childhood was fucking miserable.
Why would I want to relive it?
Yeah. Well, it is so they end up on the bridge, don't they?
So Picard basically ends up on the bridge and tries to run the ship and everyone's a bit funny.
But the doctor's like, I need to speak to you. So you really need to talk about this properly.
Lots of notes on this. So, yes, all the crew should refuse and not do what a kid says until someone confirms that is the captain.
Otherwise, you're just going to have random kids walking onto. Yes, I am Captain Horatio. Fire those torpedoes at those bastards.
Well, yeah, exactly. Everyone else is going to be like, what's going on?
No, no, no, you go. You go.
I was going to say the scene in there with the doctor, I've wrote, she's interested.
It's another classic. They're really close stood together.
And then he sits down, stands up, looks wistfully out into space.
It is back to the classic tropes that the Star Trek seems to do with these situations.
So my big question, should the computer still accept Picard's voice print seeing his balls haven't dropped?
So he gets in that turbo. Take me to the bridge. No, because we don't know who the fuck you are.
They don't know what's happened to them. They've got no explanation for it.
So why would the computer know to expect Picard's voice is now going to be several octaves higher and not know how to say his own name?
Yeah, because I wouldn't be surprised. They that far in the future.
I think nowadays you'd probably we won't know because when Alexa came out for us, sorry for everyone's Alexa, we're all already adult.
It's the kids who Alexis have trained on their voice and then 10 years later will have to retrain their voice to their exes again when their balls drop.
Yes, when it eventually turns out that Alexis does pay attention to your voice.
So I'm making an assumption in 24 whatever that the computer can is its chat GBT 7000 is learned enough to know the nuances and the change of humans voices to be able to follow the voice without needing to be retrained.
Or it just retrains on the fly every time he's saying Picard.
All I know this is Picard. It's 99.9 percent Picard.
I'll just tweak my learning to know that now it's 100 percent and just make its way along.
But you can't suddenly just drop it. No, exactly.
Exactly that. The computer is not just going to listen to anybody.
As you're saying, random people can't go to the bridge or shouldn't be allowed to.
I'm kind of realizing as well in all these notes, I'm actually really picking this episode to bits because the next thing I've got data nearly forgets to say sir to him.
So he goes to data and data.
Oh, sir. Data is the one character that should not be affected by the fact that Picard has changed age.
He has no capability of doing shock misunderstanding.
He's been told that's Picard.
So he should then just immediately treat him like Picard.
Instead, we get that really awful position where as I data like we would be this far away.
Sir.
Sir. It's like, yeah, you wouldn't do that.
You are a you aren't human at this point.
You haven't got near your goal of being human.
You wouldn't have got mistaken like that.
Yeah. And then the final bit on the bridge, like you say, they go into the his captain's waiting room.
Yes, you are a child.
You should bloody well step down and disappointed he asked for tea or gray hot than a bottle of your zoo chocolate milkshake.
Yeah, that was funny. That would have been so much better.
Computer, give me a milkshake chocolate.
Yeah, I don't normally order this.
So next we're now in O'Brien's quarters.
So yeah, we got these. We got two quarters.
We've got Keiko and O'Brien and we've got Guinan and Ro.
Yeah, sorry.
I'm very, very is it let's have a look here.
So they just said just before that he hands over commands to Ryker.
So he listens to a doctor and hands over.
That's it. So yeah, then we're into the courses.
I've got Ro stop being miserable and chill out because she's just there basically saying I want to just get on and do something.
To be honest, you I know you had a shitty childhood, but you're not going to be making anything of this.
So just get on with it.
But what I find really weird is why Guinan is staying with her and poking the bear.
They've been told you're sent your quarters, stay in your quarters.
Why is Guinan in Ro's quarters?
Keiko has gone back to hers.
Picard has gone back to his at some point.
Picard.
Picard is pecan candy.
And yeah, Guinan just seems to be poking the fucking bear all the time.
To be fair, I agree.
If I got turned back to their age, so if I got turned back to 12, I would definitely live up being like a 12 year old again.
I was told it's a day.
What are you going to do?
I'm going to be 12 again.
I love the idea.
I wouldn't want to do it permanently.
But anyway, and then yeah, then we come over to Keiko and O'Brien.
And this is a weird scene because she's not accepting that she looks like a child.
It feels so uncomfortable, doesn't it?
He plays it uncomfortable.
He's treating her.
The thing is, she looks like a child, acts like an adult, and he is treating her like a child.
Trying not to.
But he is treating her like a child.
It's just really, really horrible, isn't it?
It just everything about it felt really gross and uncomfortable.
And there's that line where she's Miles O'Brien, I am still your wife.
And I've just added, yeah, but you're going to go to jail if you do anything about it because you're bloody 12.
Exactly.
And then the poor little daughter starts screaming for the mummy.
She goes in, it's like, you're not my mummy.
And then she storms off.
That upset me, to be honest, and not in a way that I thought it was a bad episode, but because I think any dad's out there and mums and any parent has been through this.
And it feels like a knife through your heart when you're a toddler.
I don't want you.
I want insert other parents.
You don't storm off in a huff like she did.
Don't I?
No, I don't.
Because my tea says it's to me.
No, of course.
He says it to Miranda.
We don't storm off.
We just go, oh, that's not very nice.
But I'm here.
So you give a bit of hard love because the reason I'm here is because the other one's not available.
We need to get on with this.
And it's very different in the episode because obviously Molly is unable to understand her mother is now 12 years old.
Her mother is now nearer her age than her father's age.
I kind of understand that.
But I did feel for her in that moment.
Storming off, absolutely wrong thing to do.
But then again, your emotions are going to be high.
So I kind of let her off for that one.
But then you've got Miles hugging her and I've got yet again, it's going to be all right.
We're going to Deep Space Nine soon.
Yeah.
Which she hates.
Yeah.
Oh, does she?
She hates going there.
It's brilliant.
They end up nearly divorcing.
Then eventually they let her open up a school because a botanist can open up a school and teach children.
That's apparently a thing in the Federation is possible.
Well, you know, whatevs.
Is it now we go back to the now we go to Roika and the doctor and she's explaining.
So that's the next bit after that.
After the quarters, it's Picard's room.
Oh, yeah.
And meddling Deanna turns up yet again.
She looks quite good in this episode.
She does look quite good.
Her hair is quite cool.
I really like her hair.
She always has that shit eating grin though.
Whenever she walks in and it's like it's going to be eating great.
She's always so I've come to tell you some really shit news and I love it.
And I've got the gossip.
Yes, a captain.
I've done the crew reports and you won't believe who's knobbing who today.
Oh, my God, you will not believe what blah blah told me today.
What was caught doing in the hollow suite with your image.
Oh, so he's going on about how he's not going to be taken seriously.
No, they're not going to be.
And yes, it's such a stupid line.
I'm never going to be a captain of a ship at 12 years old.
Am I?
No shit, Sherlock.
It's even the Federation.
Isn't that namby pamby suddenly turn around and say,
we know you've got the memories of grown adult in the body of a 12 year old.
So we'll let you captain a ship.
No, they're not.
Never.
No, the pottery comes back up again because she tells him he can go off and do some pottery.
Yeah, why don't you go off?
But even then I doubt Dr. Langston would want to take a 12 year old anywhere.
Yeah, is Dr. Langston a girl?
I don't know.
Dr. Langston is just the doctor.
He says that I could go take up on the offer of going and doing the excavation.
Because I instantly thought, I just wonder if that's just like an old woman who just fancies him.
Another conquest of Picard.
Yeah, and it was just her hoping to get her end away with him off in some archaeological dig somewhere.
Now, this scene had the best burn ever.
Did it?
Him saying, oh, yes, go back to the Academy and be Wesley Crusher's roommate.
Oh, brilliant.
Burn.
No one wants to like you.
No, no, no, no, no.
So where's he already left the series?
Because he's not in this episode at all.
No, no, no.
He's at the Academy at this point.
He's left.
Him and his mates at the Academy have killed someone by doing a stupid manoeuvre.
So he's having to redo a year.
He does come back to the Enterprise for a little bit and then he becomes a traveller.
Which is a really weird episode.
What punishment? We've killed someone. I have to redo a year at school.
And only because the Enterprise has basically turned up and we'll vouch for him.
He's not normally a knob.
He's not normally a murderer.
But that's the episode that's got Robert, whatever his name is, who plays Paris.
But playing a completely different character.
They did that a lot.
There's so many kind of things online basically saying actually his character,
the reason he's in jail is because of all that thing that in the Academy and things that happened.
And the reason he's now called Tom Paris is because they gave him a new identity because of what he'd done in the past.
And that's so much crap.
Well, two Vox actor is in...
He's in the episode where they're in space dock and they're irradiating the Enterprise to clean it.
And actually there's a group of crooks on there stealing dilatium crystals.
He is a baddie.
Yeah, so now we go back to the bridge.
Yeah, so we finished off in there and then we're bridging the sick bay.
Or the bridge wherever they are.
Sick bay, sorry.
And I've wrote how Riker has no concept of what she's saying.
Yeah.
And he even says at least he actually...
I've got Riker admitting he doesn't know everything, which is as it should be.
Yeah, which this goes to what you said I think on the Voyager stuff about the Captain and everything.
Riker is openly admitting that he hasn't got the foggiest clue what she's saying.
Exactly, he's like, I'm a bit rusty on this, can you take me through it?
That's exactly what you should say.
Not have every other bloody character go, oh yeah, I know this perfectly, brilliant, well done for working that out, Doctor.
I could have done it, but I'm glad you did it for me.
And at last, the next scene, La Forge, where the bloody hell have you been?
He arrives.
Just to say on the sick bay, I've got thank God they didn't have an orchid with them, they might have too fixed.
But then I realised that they had got plants.
Then she said, oh, we can't speed up growing people like we've sped up growing the plants.
And I thought, well, why?
Why can't you accelerate the growth of plants, but not humans?
It would go with whatever it is.
And actually it would improve the story because we've talked about it before.
Why is the transporter fixing this problem?
But why can't it then go and fix people that have got body parts missing because of wars and everything else that's going on?
If you're going to be putting in key parts of people's DNA in the transporter, you can do the rest of it.
And they go on about the transporter buffer at some point later as well.
Exactly. Here we go, transporter is back to the rescue.
We all want to see toddler Picard though, don't we?
So it would have been quite nice for it to have gone wrong and actually Picard turn up for the first time as a toddler.
Yeah. That would have been very funny.
So right. Yeah. Now, cargo bay is the next bit.
And they're carrying around very light lumps of wreckage.
Yeah, I thought, yeah, they're not putting much effort in to pretending that they're heavy, are they?
No, it's kind of shifted about and you could imagine that one of them will carry it on their own.
So it's like, hmm. But yeah, you're right.
Thank God, Geordie's there because everyone else is walking around going, oh, look, my tricorder is doing something.
And Geordie just turns up with his visor and diagnoses everything immediately.
Yeah. He's doing a metallurgical analysis.
With his eyes.
Is what he was doing. That was exactly what he said he was doing.
Which apparently is a real word because my phone auto corrected it.
It is a real word and it is the investigation into metals and what's happened to metals.
And then what I really like is the engineer at the end that they hand stuff over to.
I've got that engineer's uniform he's wearing is straight out of the original series Star Trek.
It so doesn't fit in with the end what you expect uniform wise of the next generation.
It looks so, so out of place. It looks well, completely out of generation.
It looks like it's a good couple of generations of Star Trek prior to next generation.
Yeah, definitely. Sorry. He's coughing his guts up.
It's OK, bud. He's going to cry in a minute, I think. Hang on.
You can do it. So Rob. You can do it. OK, let's pretend.
Oh, where were we? Oh, yeah.
Rob, are we pretending that this is the same recording session, are we?
Because you did the same to me, you arsehole.
People can't see you flipping the bird.
No, so very... It is the next day.
As always, family comes first. That's all you need to know and we're just going to plod on.
We have just finished in the cargo bay and they're carrying very, very light bits of wreckage.
And we have a bloke wearing a uniform from a couple of hundred years prior
because they couldn't afford to give him a nice new one from the look of it.
Yeah, they were just going on about the metallurgical analysis, weren't they?
That is indeed right. And then, yeah, then Geordie goes,
look, my magic goggles can do this. And look at this piece of metal, squeezes it
and it's like screwing up a piece of paper.
Yeah.
So I don't get why we bother with having tricorders still. I really don't.
If his visor is that good, there's just no need for a...
Tricorders, is there? Just equip everyone with a visor that they can take with them.
Was it you that posted the one of him dropping his visor and Wesley picking it up?
A great comic TJ posted on Discord.
It's so disturbing. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Head over to Discord and look at our Trek stuff and you'll see it.
And it's very not safe for work and very funny.
Right, so...
As is all the stuff that we put on the Discord is topped here.
So we finished in engineering.
No, sorry, cargo bay even, we finished. And we head over to the Quarters
where Guinan is as normal, still pissing around with Ensign Ro
trying to make her do things that she genuinely doesn't want to do.
Yeah.
I just don't like it. I don't get why she's so hell bent
on making Ro enjoy being a child.
But remember, they're only physically a child. None of them are mentally a child.
Exactly.
This is the inconsistencies of this episode.
They are mentally an adult.
Yeah, it was just annoying me.
Like, the awkwardness is for everyone else, not them.
Everyone else is going to be like, oh my god, I'm looking at a child, but it's still the adult.
Whereas them, everything's just higher up than them now.
Isn't it?
They'd be perfect for the screen for the Doctor on Voyager.
They wouldn't be looking.
Exactly. It wouldn't be Dirty Kim's groin in 16 by 9, 4K, whatever it is.
I wonder what K they're up to by that point. Like 32K screens.
We can see the hair growth and the pores on your skin.
Lucky us. But anyway, so yeah, they're back in the closet.
You've got Guinan still harping on at Ro saying, oh, I bet you were a fun child.
Ro reiterating, I was in a refugee camp.
We didn't actually have a bed most of the time.
But then they just completely turn it around and just Guinan's constant joking of,
I bet you were a bed jumper. Obviously just, oh, well, yeah, obviously I was.
So she starts doing it and thinks it's fun.
But why do this complete flip?
There's no benefit to it.
It's just, yeah, that's just, it's just another reason why I didn't really like the episode.
Just so much of it just didn't really match with anything and was just stupid or annoying.
No.
Just so much of it.
I agree.
Yeah.
Then we end up on, where am I? My notes. We've just done the courses.
Is this when Warf calls?
We are finally, no, no, no, we're at engineering and they explain what happened.
It was trekking the trek or teching the trek or trekking the tech.
A molecular reversion field is to blame. Of course.
Of course. And what's that caused by? Who knows?
Solar flares like the excuse I used.
They explain so much in some systems of the enterprise and then other parts,
they just completely just leave it out. You should know what this is.
Well, case in point, the Vryka thing where we get to later,
where he goes into in-depth details to the Ferengi about how things work,
which is not any relevance really to the plot, whereas a very important part of the plot,
they just skim over.
Exactly. Molecular reversion field.
Could have had a couple of minutes dedicated to it.
You get a few seconds of it. That is it.
Whereas he's...
A blue electric light.
Yeah. It was blue, it was shiny, it was wibbly wobbly,
but it didn't involve timey wimey. Yeah, and you're right.
Then he's on the bridge with Vryka and Vryka's going through how to do the warp engine
and making up all the... A, that must have been horrible to learn as lines.
But B, why going into so much detail on that?
All you needed was like 10 seconds of it and show his hand going off
and doing a little crafty bit while the Ferengi's not looking.
You didn't need it to go on for so long, but we're kind of skipping ahead there, aren't we?
Yeah, we're skipping half nearly the whole show.
So molecular reversion field, does it really explain it all?
So the transporter just went for kiddie beam up instead.
For all four of them.
Which is what we said earlier, isn't it, in the episode?
We said it doesn't really make sense, especially as two of them are completely different race to the others,
but note they all end up exactly the same size and age.
Doesn't make sense.
And then, yeah, we're on the bridge.
And your favourite.
Sorry, everyone. I've got a pussy on the microphone again.
Oh, I can hear the purring.
Can you hear the purring?
I can hear the purring.
I love you, darling, but go on.
Right, so yeah, we're on the bridge and it's your favourite, favourite character now.
Yes, it's Worf again. Brilliant. He's launched more torpedoes at the planet.
No, something's actually happening that is important to him in that he is tactical.
He is tactical and head of security.
So he's doing two jobs.
It's the same job, I think. If you think Voight is head of security and tactical.
Well, spoilers, he fails at both.
All the time.
In this episode.
Not just this episode, all the time he fails at this.
I think this episode he is the worst tactical officer possible and the worst head of security.
No, 100% he is.
Absolutely 100%. So they fly in and straight away, Captain, we seem to be being blocked by something and it's nothing natural.
Then get out of there, Worf.
Don't just sit around and think this is brilliant.
I'm just going to wait for something to happen.
It's a really underwhelming battle that they have there as well.
So two ships come out of clope and they look like Klingon and Walbert.
They are braille class. So all I just sat there chuckling to myself, they're covered in little dots, are they, that you've got to feel with your finger?
Oh my God, we couldn't see it coming. It was braille.
It's an interesting choice of ship class name when they're cloaked, isn't it?
You can't see them and then they're braille.
There's a bit on the nose.
I've always loved the Klingon designer ship. Those warbirds, the birds of prey.
Sorry, not the word, yeah, birds of prey and they're just full stop actually all the Klingon ships because there's so many of them.
They are really cool.
They look super cool and you can believe they're a race that enjoy combat.
Yeah, exactly. They look like warships and that's exactly what you expect of the Klingons.
Now I've got here really, really simply actually and he says that as I seem to lose my pace and the pace of paper and yet again, the enterprise gets beaten up really quite easily sometimes, doesn't it?
It does. But as I was saying, they make no effort really.
They don't make any effort. They get shot to crap and they shoot phasers back once and it's a really crap graphic as well.
The graphics of it shooting are rubbish. Doesn't even look like it impacts the other ship.
It's just a line appears. You see the ship in space, the Klingon ship. A line appears.
No explosions that I can remember. No noise really. I know there's no noise in space.
It's a really lackluster battle. Really lackluster.
Now when you consider what we see of the Enterprise D in Picard series three, when it goes to town on the Borg cube, I mean that is beautiful.
I mean there's photons or pedos, there's phasers firing off at every bloody angle, not just one at a time.
It's just nonstop chaos. It's wonderful.
And then I tell you how I think about it. It is the first three Star Wars films watching them with the...
Sorry, this is going crazy.
What am I going to do with you, Robert? See, I've full named you. I've full named you, mate.
I've got full named, yeah. I'm in trouble.
It just feels like the Enterprise gets really easily beaten up in this. It doesn't seem to fight back.
Sorry, that was it. It's like the original three Star Wars. You watch lightsaber battles in those and it's like...
Swipe really slowly. Then you watch the modern Star Wars films and it's just like...
Okay, he's bounced around the room 300 times, done 17 somersaults and he's flicking the lightsaber left, right and centre and flung it across the room.
It's night and day difference, isn't it? And that's kind of what you get with Star Trek.
The films, the Enterprise does really well, but in the episodes it's just so boring in its fights.
Yeah, it feels like they're just stationary during the battle. Ryker doesn't tell anyone to fight back.
Their shields go down to like in the 30% within seconds.
We've got two Klingon, Birds of Prey or whatever they turned to be, Braille class fighters, decloaking.
They open fire. Why even bother saying shields to maximum? Just turn the fucking shields on.
Yeah, it shouldn't be... That's another thing that kind of annoys me. All the Star Trek series do it.
They wait very specifically for the captain to do stuff. I've said it before, I always think of it like the Navy.
So maybe that's what it is like. The crew members can't just go ahead and do something.
But I think there's a logic there where there needs to be a little bit of automation from the crew.
Okay, don't fire your weapons, but we're getting shot, shields up, you don't need the captain to tell you that.
Obviously, ladies and gents, you haven't seen us, but me and Rob, when we're playing Bridge Commander or Bridge Crew,
whichever the name is, we can never remember which it is, we fly into battle.
I'm there on tactical and on shields. And before Rob's even heard something, the shields are up.
As soon as we see the bad guys, it's like, it's the sensible thing.
Yeah, because you do it and then you go, I've got the shields up and I go, brilliant.
Exactly. It's what you would expect to happen in a battle. You wouldn't sail your naval ship into battle and go,
well, captain, shall we open fire yet? No, let them hit us a couple of times first.
Yeah, we were very much like, you know, you're on tactical, you're putting the shields up,
you're, you know, you are picking what you thought tactically was the best person to be attacking.
Which is what you would expect of a tactical officer.
And then, yeah, firing the weapons that you thought were the best things to fire.
And then me as the captain, I was managing everyone else.
You know, or saying, let's actually attack this person because I can see the map differently while you're focusing on that.
I can actually overview on a map here. This person actually we might want to engage with now.
100%. And there's that whole point as well that obviously, as your tactical officer,
if you're as the captain suddenly turn around and say, cease fire, that's exactly what I'm going to do.
So there is automation there. But at the same time, there's also leadership and the understanding that if I get told to stop, then I'll stop.
And of course, in real life, there's the expectancy that if I go ahead and do something, I fully expect to be punished if I was wrong in doing it.
So it's like, oh my God, Captain, there's a ship coming towards us.
Blow it away with a couple of torpedoes. And then I get questioned by the captain, why did you just blow away the magic school bus?
It was quite obviously a school bus. There were children on board.
It was coming right for us, Captain. It doesn't matter. It was a yellow school bus.
Don't overtake it. You're not allowed to overtake the school bus. It's parked. Can't overtake it.
So yeah, I just thought the battle was really, really lame. And it was far too easy for them to kind of then board the ship.
And they're on the ship. And as the same on the ship, they instantly beat the crap out of everybody.
And Worf puts it the most pathetic fight ever. He just gets shot and just dives off to the side.
Why did the French not just immediately go in with phasers set on full power as well?
Why are they going in stunning people? They're coming in with the aim to steal the enterprise, which they know is totally illegal.
So why are they going to come in and go, oh, well, they're fighting us. So we'll stun them.
No, because they're just going to fight back again. Someone fights you, you blow them away.
And then it's like everyone else goes, OK, we're going to listen. We're going to put our hands up.
I think the only problem with that is they don't know who the captain is.
So they go in and just start blowing the crap and putting burn holes inside people's chests.
They've just killed the captain and there's nothing they can do.
What I did like, which I did think was very funny, was they'd got the vast majority of Ferengi actors or actors that were playing Ferengi, sorry, were all smaller than Picard's 12 year old body.
They were all really small.
I noticed they picked short people.
No, I think that might be a thing that they've done.
But I think the Ferengi have always been small and I think that's kind of they kind of try and play up to what do they call it?
Kind of that Jack Russell syndrome thing, small person syndrome, as in they make up for it with the fact that they're quite nasty and self-absorbed and they don't really notice it.
So, yeah, it's I thought that was really weird, but I still think the Ferengi are a great race.
They're really well designed, the giant ears, the make up for them, the earrings, the nasal rings and the uniform.
They just it was a good race design.
Yeah, and they're really easy to not like.
There's nothing.
They make it bad.
You haven't watched Deep Space Nine, but we do start to like the Ferengi by Deep Space Nine. But when they are the bad guys, they are genuinely good bad guys.
You do want to hate them because they're just nasty little bits of work.
Well, they flesh them out.
I have seen that some deep space on they do flesh them out a lot more.
They're proper.
They give them, you know, they make you understand why they are the way they are because.
Yeah, I mean, when we when we get on to Deep Space Nine, there's a whole thing like Quark.
Why the hell is Quark not actually in jail and in theory being shipped off the station?
Because the number of times he puts that fucking space station at risk from enemies and having people killed or kidnapped is ridiculous.
But he always ends up getting a slap on the wrist.
It's such a terrible kind of storyline when he's involved, when it comes down to that.
There's an entire story on it that he basically helps the space station get taken over and Dax basically have her internal slug removed to be given to someone else.
All because Quark arranged it.
And the next episode, it's all forgotten about.
Yeah, I do hate about that in Deep Space Nine.
But yeah, so it's pretty quick to shut.
Oh, yeah, I did like that.
I did think it really made sense that Ryker could disable the core computer systems that quickly.
As previously, we'd had it where data's done it.
And he's kind of had to well, I think.
Oh, right. No, that's first contacts, isn't it?
Oh, yeah, sorry. I'm thinking about first.
So we see it in this.
He blocks the Ferengi from acting access by saying disabled command controls.
Yeah, when it's in first contact, they get data to do it because data can completely encrypt the system instead, because he's got super fast fingers, which probably I'm not even going to go there actually.
Just not going there. But yeah, okay. So it's two different things.
But I did like that they could do it that quick.
And it does really make sense, doesn't it?
If you've got a computer you can talk to that it's an AI and whatever else, it makes sense that actually to give it a command like that should be quick.
Yeah, it's it's almost like they've learned from previous mistakes of being born.
Imagine if on your computer, you deleted a file, and you were never prompted no matter how important that file was, let's say it's a core system file that makes your computer work.
Imagine you were never prompted to say, are you sure you want to delete that?
Don't you think there would have been a prompt to isolate command controls because basically you're going to stop this ship from functioning and if we're flying towards the sun right now, you're going to end up very crispy.
Well, there also must be more than just voice recognition, there must be more elements to it, there must be cameras on the computer looking at you because they definitely have the technology to.
Oh, definitely.
So you could easily just get something in your hands.
In the early series episode, Wesley does that. He creates a machine when the
Oh dear.
Captain's log, Wednesday, my son took a shit in the bath today.
The Enterprise's dolphins got it on them.
Very disappointing.
Oh well, don't worry, we'll get Ensign Carr to clean it up.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
That's the bonus of being a captain.
I can be a dick.
You know what?
Picard has obviously nailed Beverly and I do wonder if he nailed Beverly and Wesley is actually his son.
Really, Jack Crusher has nothing to do with Wesley. That would explain a lot about why they get together and why they're so friendly and Picard feels like he has to be so close to Wesley.
But then the question also comes, has he banged Guy in the as well?
Because those two are damn close.
I can't help but think he probably has.
And then it comes to the question that Lieutenant Yar asked Data, are you fully functional?
And found out he was.
Do you think Picard wanted to know if Data was fully functional and thought that was a safe way to get pegged?
Makes you think, doesn't it?
Bloody box of tripto.
I did see.
There are definitely not audio clips for you to listen to when you're editing this.
There's definitely not.
So I think it really does make sense to have that the whole computer really quick.
And you're right.
There's probably cameras everywhere that's kind of scanning the situation.
What I did like as well is like you've got the Ferengi's on the bridge and they say we're going to execute your crew and it looks backwards.
And you've got Riker and then I've got.
Oh, no, you're going to execute Ensign What's her name and Ensign with dodgy hair because there's like basically the bridge crew at this point are nobodies.
We've never seen them before.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, exactly.
This is the night shift.
Then we end up in the school room.
And what I think there's just so many things I pick holes within this episode.
Wolf's son.
Yeah.
No one likes Alexander.
Even Picard's like go away.
As a child, he's like go away.
Why are the Ferengi not questioning this 12 year old kid in full Starfleet uniform?
If they don't know our race very well, which they don't, for all they know, that could still be a fully grown adult.
And he's wearing the same uniform as everyone else.
So why is he taller than them?
Why is he being able to go to the school room?
It doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
Oh, and that was it as well.
You've got Keiko and she goes over to Picard and say, did you hear about the children on the other floor?
That's where my Molly is.
And you've just got to go.
Oh, I wouldn't worry, Keiko.
OK.
Where does that come from?
She's the mother of a toddler on a ship that's being taken over by Ferengi, who are known to be bloodlust and horrible.
So I've just got you.
I wouldn't worry, Keiko.
She's only your daughter and the Ferengi are only known to be brutal and horrible.
I'm sure she's fine.
Just get on with it.
Yeah.
I mean, it does track with his rubbish with children.
Yeah, that's very true.
So, yeah, you get kind of the kids talking and Alexandra being a knob with a remote control car thing.
And then we're back to that whole bridging captain's room with them working out slave labour they needed, which I just thought was a.
Yeah.
Again, it was just a story point that wasn't needed.
Why do we need to?
Who cares about the planet and the mining?
You could have just had them.
We wanted to take a Federation starship.
So that's what we've done.
That's all it needed.
And I've wrote over here, Riker is very upset and he's really angry.
And I like the fact we finally have an answer to that question from a few episodes ago.
One thousand and fourteen people are on the ship.
Which I thought was really interesting because that is more than I thought there were.
But I did.
I think someone I think maybe Mark had put up on our discord that it was about a thousand people on board.
So did you know the enterprise has dolphins?
Yeah, I've gone what episode it was now.
We had it on in the background.
And I think Deanna says, oh, well, why don't you go off and have a look at the dolphins?
So they have dolphins on the enterprise.
That doesn't sound practical.
I mean, they've got a holodeck.
Just going holodeck.
I hadn't even thought about that.
Let's take these useful marine creatures out of the ocean that should probably be clean by now because the Federation is saving the earth.
And we'll just bring them to space for exploration and possible death by Klingons.
Brilliant.
Yeah, what are they going to do?
Implant them somewhere?
Oh, it doesn't seem to be logic.
Is it dirty Geordie time with the dolphins and dirty Kim?
They all have.
I don't know.
I wasn't going to use those words, but yes, they were.
And they go back to I don't know if this bit was they go back to the crash again.
I'm calling it the crash.
And they've got their own version of Microsoft.
It's a fish.
What I love as well is you've got Picard straight away just being an idiot.
Show me a map of the ship.
I'm sorry. I can't do that.
You might as well ask it to show you some porn hub.
Oh, yeah.
You're in a school room.
I actually think I know we complain about the captains knowing everything.
I think he should know his ship.
I think he should know where Jeffrey's tubes are.
Access hatches.
I think that is actually something he should just know.
But what I think is really stupid and this is really stupid.
You ask for a map of the ship.
Sorry, we can't have you don't have access to that.
Guy and says, yes, it says you've got to think like a kid, John Luke.
Can you show me a picture of the enterprise?
And it shows them a perfect in ship schematic of the enterprise.
That is not what would be in Carter.
If you went on there and said, show me a boat, you would get a clip.
You picture of a boat.
You wouldn't get the perfect schematics of the deck layout of a boat of a naval destroyer.
You would get a clip of a boat sail onto screens.
Is it the HMS Belfast to just get all.
Or you'd get some stupid cartoonized version of the ship and it would fly in it with eyes and a mouth.
Hi, I'm the enterprise thing, Jurassic Park and the DNA strand.
Would you like to look around my ship?
Yeah, it's so stupid.
There's immediately a perfect schematic of the ship for them instead.
Yeah, I'm so horrible.
I don't know.
I'm really sorry, but I've got piss off.
Alexander, I'm captain.
Give me your toy and know you probably won't get it back.
Yeah, I said that while I was watching it about.
So I think I commented on that.
That's a kid's toy.
He's going to be genuinely gutted that he's not going to get that back.
It didn't even look that good.
I mean, that's something like that's something Tom Paris would have.
You know, it's like out of the retro space sci fi films that Tom Paris watch on Voyager.
It looks really retro and it's just.
And I mean, all the while I was watching it with them, I was complaining about the acting of the kids and waiting for them to do something.
And here is the first moment.
One of them looks straight.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Guinan Guinan takes responsibility and it's not the last time she does it either.
She look because they're all they're all if you look, they're all looking for the kind of a porthole to a Jeffrey's tube looking past the camera.
And the whole time I'm watching it, just like with Picard as a child when he was trying not to look at the camera, I was going to get the camera.
Don't look at the camera. Don't look.
I'm doing it.
They're like they're all thinking they had to look at the camera to look at.
And as she gets in, she I think she might be the last one.
She starts going and glances straight at the camera.
Again, another bit of this episode that I absolutely hate.
First of all, if I was an intruder taking over a ship and a little weird remote control car thing that isn't anywhere else on the ship drives towards me.
The first thing I'm going to do is either foot stomp it or use my phaser and blow it up, not follow it away from where I'm meant to be positioned.
I know they're meant to say that the Ferengi are meant to be very business smart, but they're a bit thick as well.
It just didn't sit right with me.
Secondly, they go in and Picard goes and programs the transporter, which we later find out is because they then transport people into the locked transporter area, don't they?
Why is the transporter working if command codes have been locked out?
Yeah, unless he did it from that terminal.
But he couldn't because he's not been to see Daddy Ryker yet.
So everything is locked out. So why?
So why does that work? And thirdly, how the fuck can a child access a weapons locker?
K-Co just comes out and says, I've got the phasers. You're 12 years old. Jesus, kid.
Well, remember, it's only physically 12 years old. She's not mentally 12 years old.
The computer is going to say, you're a child. You're not allowed these.
Have you considered a Nerf gun?
I commented that they've got some of the worst trigger discipline. All of them.
Their hands are all over the buttons on those phasers. No one's taking any care at all.
Then I'm super horrible again. Yep. Yes. Just use Alexandra's cannon fodder. Well done, everyone.
I'm pretty sure at some point he has a phaser or he's holding one or passes two phasers over.
No, it's the hypospray. His job is to go to the medical bay and steal the hypersprays, which he does.
And it's just awful. It's really, really bad. Home alone done badly.
He's an actual child, though. He's an actual child in this scenario.
And the adults who are looking like children, but are adults, are sending a child, who is a child,
who looks like a child, into a situation where he could get beaten up and killed.
Let's put it this way as well. While Rob went off to go and deal with what he had to do,
I left him some little voice notes. And there is definitely favoritism towards Wesley Crusher.
And I'm pretty sure I know why. Because if Wesley Crusher went and helped them save some lives,
he ended up being a crew member on the Enterprise.
Alexandra puts his life in danger against real bad guys and nothing.
He just gets his remote control car taken away from him.
So I'm sorry, I didn't like it. I've got to say, this very next bit though,
as much as I didn't like the kids acting, I did think the tantrum was brilliant.
Yeah, the tantrum was good.
That was absolutely... And the whole, there's only one way I can think of doing this,
and it's not going to be pretty. Brilliant. Just absolutely brilliant.
What do you want? I need to see my father.
Go back inside. I need to see him right now.
Do not argue with me. Go back inside.
I need to see him now. Now, now, now, now, now, now, now.
Stop it, you hurt me. I want my father. I want my father.
Alright, just stop that.
Yeah, it felt like he took that from his own life.
But again, I've got... The Ferengi wouldn't bow down to it. The Ferengi would have just backhanded him.
Yeah, I agree. I think they were just going to shut up a child.
And slap across the face, send them flying, go back in there, or I will shoot you.
As I kind of get the idea that they wouldn't have a problem with shooting children.
But you know what? They also... You're saying about the uniform.
He still has the four Captain Pips on his collar.
So, does anyone... Surely they would have noticed, like, how come this...
We know who the first officer is has got three. This child has four.
He's Cadet Captain. We have Federation cadets and we have Federation officers.
He's just the kid's captain.
It was like I have three and a half or four. Or three. I think it's three and a half, I think.
I'm not sure. Maybe it's just three, yeah.
But yeah, then you're right. We're now back at the captain's waiting room.
And it's a brilliant bit of acting. His face when Picard... Oh, sorry.
Picard runs at him, shouting, Dad!
I have got written here. You know he's had this issue before, though.
Yeah, he's experienced this moment. This isn't his first Dad rodeo, is it?
Oh, no. There's Riker hussed across the quadrant.
He's already got some DNA tests.
Yeah, he's like, OK, well, let's just go to my quarters and get the DNA test kit I've got ready.
Can you imagine that?
He knows what's going on.
A new completely random episode of Star Trek.
Captain, we're being hailed by another ship. OK, put them on speaker.
Hi, yeah. We need to beam over and deliver something to Commander Riker.
Yeah, OK, shoot him. Beam over.
You've been summoned. Failure to pay child support for 13 children.
He's getting served.
He's getting served on the bridge of the Enterprise.
In front of everyone. You've not made this easy.
We're doing it in front of everyone now.
Well, the captain's like, again?
Yeah, I can't keep bailing you out, Will. I'm not going to blow up another legal team ship.
We've got to stop letting you have shore leave.
In fact, look, we don't have a problem with Beverly wiping out people's memory.
I don't have a problem with telling her to neuter you.
Yeah.
That's a question. Do you reckon there is no prophylactics or anything in the future?
It's just a pill.
So you've got the female pill, but then there's also finally the male contraceptive pill.
It's got to be something.
We've got a male contraceptive pill now.
Yeah, I thought that was still being tested, but in the future they've got to have something pretty funky, don't they?
Oh, yeah. It would just be an injection.
Just walk up to the terminal. I had a good session of sex.
Computer, please beam out whatever's inside me now.
Oh, tingly. Right, that's me empty.
It'll be like, you know, when you go into radiation and then you get chemical washed.
I'll be what it is. Bedroom doors will have them built in.
So when you just walk through the bedroom door, you just get irradiated.
They'll be like, a millisecond of radiation and it just sterilises you.
Just walk through the bathroom door and all you hear is, congratulations, you are now sterile.
Yeah, exactly.
Or to be fair.
Or a cup. A cup comes out of the toilet and attaches to the woman. You suck.
Is this the dark side of Star Trek?
All these years exploring the quadrant has actually rendered everyone sterile because of space radiation.
No one worries about pregnancy anymore because of Riker's dust.
Solar flares and nebulas.
Definitely to blame.
So, yeah, I thought Riker's face was really good. He did look the part with what the fuck is going on.
And then that whole stupid question. Oh, could you persuade these nasty men to let us have computer access in the school?
No. They aren't going to turn around and say, go on then, that's absolutely fine. Of course they're not.
Yeah, they're kind of implying that they think the Ferengi are going to be nice. Why would they?
Exactly. And then, yeah, we've already discussed this bit, haven't we?
Then we end up on the bridge, Riker's doing the whole, you've got to make sure the Heisenberg comparator is connected to the vagina of that Anton over there.
Well, I mean, I've got it written here. I can tell you what he says or I can edit it in.
Right. So he says, I'll do both parts. There's Riker and Morta. So Morta is the Ferengi.
The really dumb Ferengi that they put with Riker.
In charge of the heavily kind of important part of the ship. Stick the dumb ass.
I'll do my best. I'll do my best because I haven't read this through. So I'll probably pronounce it massively wrong.
So Riker. OK, Morta, the enterprise computer system is controlled by three primary main processing cores cross linked with a redundant Mellor Quartz Rendistat.
Fourteen kilo quad interface modules.
The core element is based on the FTL nanoprocessor with 25 bilateral Kelly Kelly Lactyls, with 20 of those being slaved into the primary Heisen frame terminal.
Do you know about a bilateral Kelly Lactyls? And then Morta goes, well, of course I do. Human. I'm not stupid.
And then Riker says, no, of course not. This is this is the isopolevial interface, which controls the main ferromactyl drive unit.
Don't touch that. You'll blow up the entire ferromatric drive.
I know, right? It's so much.
Yeah, I'm not even finished. It's still going.
And then Morta's like, what? Wait, what's a ferromactical drive?
Just explain it to me. And then Riker says, that is the ferromactical drive unit.
It controls the Remistat core and also keeps the Ontarian manifold at 40,000 KRGs.
That's the end. All the Wally's doing something with his R-hack.
It was rough, wasn't it? And I'm pretty convinced he glances over. I think there's a piece of paper there.
If you look at his eyes, he glances up to the corner, kind of in the direction of the camera.
Possibly. And I think someone's there with something.
We've written you more stupid lines, Will. Oh, no, really?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's painful.
He does a good job with it. Very good job. But it's just as an actor.
And it is too much. You know what? This has been quite a long episode.
Let's just really quickly now. The end, as typical TNG endings go, stupidly rushed.
So we've got that. Riker says, here you go. You've got computer access.
Magically with my one hand that I'm not looking at, but I've got amazing hand and finger actions.
Don't want to know where he's learned that. On a touch screen. With no labels.
But yeah, then we basically get the kids going around and beaming Ferengi's into a secure unit.
Yeah, they run around and put comb badges on. Which is kind of cool, but it just feels so rushed.
And they could have done so much more with it that I was very underwhelmed by it all by that point.
And then obviously then we suddenly end up in sick bay and you've only got the three children there to be turned into adults
because they've magically fixed it and Beverly hasn't said we've tested it and it's fine.
They're just going to go for it. A bit like good old dirty Kim always does.
Well give it a try. It's only a transporter in your life.
Yeah, classic. Give it a try. Who cares?
It's only the most complicated piece of technology on the whole ship.
Yeah, and then you've got Ro finally accepting some childhood fun for a little bit longer
because Guinan's finally got into her brain and made it.
I hated that scene. I hated that scene. They're both sat there colouring in.
You can do that as an adult. I hated it. What was the point in that scene?
It's not a child. They just look like a child for God's sake.
Oh sorry, you go.
I just said that's the inconsistency with the entire episode.
That wound me up. Oh, and also by the way, Guinan looked at the camera again.
It's true.
Just before she got turned back to a human again.
Back to a human. Back to an old person.
Oh sorry. Sorry, back to a 400 year old woman.
And the final words I've got on it here is pubes have been injected into the buffer.
That should do it. These people will be adults again.
Transfer complete.
You know, when I watch it without dissecting it, I enjoy it as an episode.
But when you dissect it like we have, it's shit.
The writers watched Big and thought we could put this into Star Trek.
Yeah.
We'd have to look at the dates where the Big came out before this.
Massively so. But yeah, it's just, this was not a good episode when you tear it to bits.
If you're watching it in the background, it's not too bad.
But as soon as you put any concentration behind it, it falls to pieces.
I only, the parts of it I enjoyed, I only enjoyed it because I was watching it with other people.
If I'd been sat on that sofa watching, I would have hated it even more.
Hate's a strong word. I don't hate it. I just thought it was not a good episode.
None of it made really any sense. They just shoehorned every element of it.
It was like three different episodes in one.
They could have had the Ferengi take the ship without any of the children aspects of it.
It was a really good kind of episode of having, like one of the films, I think, does it, where they lose the ship and Picard.
When they go back in time and then the, and it's got, oh God, don't worry, I'm going off on complete tangent now.
You know, they go back in time and the Borg, they're chasing the Borg's seer.
That's first contact.
Back in time. Yeah, so first contact when Picard is like hiding on his own ship.
It's kind of like that could have been in this episode.
They could have done so much with this episode.
It would have been better if the Ferengi had taken the ship while their shuttle hadn't come back yet.
And then they somehow managed to get their shuttle, all their shuttles in the cargo bay right when the Ferengi attack.
And it all gets taken away and they don't notice the four of them in the shuttle.
That would have been a much better episode without those kids being involved.
So there is, and I'm short to say that because I've started watching Star Trek Enterprise again.
Because I've decided I must, must, must actually get through it because there's only like three seasons.
And there is a brilliant episode.
It's season one, episode 19.
And actually, I think we should watch it at some point because we agreed, we agreed we weren't going to do TNG and we weren't going to do Voyager.
And by the way, you're scratching your beard. It's coming through the microphone.
Oh, is it? Sorry.
This episode.
I can cut my, I can cut mine out.
But there's an episode called Acquisition and it is Enterprise, the NX-01, the really bog standard, the real.
You actually get a really good idea that this ship feels like it's come straight from a naval shipyard and been turned into a spaceship sort of thing.
They get taken over by Ferengi pirates and it's done brilliantly.
The entire episode is so much better than this.
It's almost like someone said, let's do Rascals, but get rid of the annoying kid idea and just make it good.
Yeah. And I think this would have been much better if that was the case.
So I'd quite like to watch that episode now and be like, yeah, this is better than Rascals.
Go and watch it and then we'll watch it together and we'll do our notes together on it as well.
But go and watch it now. Seriously, really, really solid episode of Enterprise, that one.
Do you know which one it is?
Season one, episode 19, it's called Acquisition.
One, 19.
Yeah. And it's just done a million times better and it's exactly the same story.
Well, maybe that could be the next episode.
Well, we haven't decided, so should we say that?
Okay.
Yeah.
We're going to have a little bit different.
We can compare it to this.
Perfect. Okay. So next episode, if you'd like to listen along to, is Enterprise, season one, episode 19, Acquisition.
Command functions are offline.
I'm really sorry, everyone, for the hecticness of this episode.
It was a bad Star Trek episode.
It's been across two days like the last mainline episode was across two days.
We've had to do it...
Noises on the microphone, me scratching my face, a cat coming in, coughing from the monitor.
We've had to do it remotely as well because Kay is unwell as well.
So these things happen. I think you'll still enjoy the episode.
I do feel for you, Rob, because the edit on this is going to be quite a tough one.
Yeah. I'll start it tonight, I think.
I'm intrigued to know what you're going to open it with, what skit is opening the episode,
if there's a skit at all, if you even want to.
There's a skit, I don't know where to put it.
Okay.
Might have already heard it if they're at this stage.
Okay. Is this the end?
Yeah. Oh, just so you know, I did say this to Matt on the Discord.
These episodes are never finished until you hear that beep noise at the end.
Bear that in mind, because I put stuff in that some people are missing
because they hear the outro music and then they stop listening.
Until you've heard that beep, the episode isn't over.
Beautiful as a car. Wait until the fat lady sings.
Wait until the enterprise computer goes beep.
If you'd like to get in contact with us, then you can email us on podcasts at channel84.co.uk,
TJ at channel84.co.uk, Rob at channel84.co.uk.
All our social media links are at channel84.co.uk, which has finally been updated.
Our Discord link is discord.co. No, not discord.co.uk.
That's completely the wrong link.
It is channel84.co.uk forward slash Discord, or you can get to it through channel84.co.uk.
Anything else you'd like to add, sir?
Thank you for putting up with us for the last hour and a half, or however long this is going to be.
Yeah. Sorry. Love you.
Love you, everybody. Bye bye.
Thank you for listening to the channel 84 Untitled Trek show.
This station is now shutting down and will be back in two weeks.
Excelsior.
Computer release command control this station. Authorization, Ryker Omega-3.
Command functions restored.
Okay, Morta. The Enterprise computer system is controlled by three primary main processor cores,
cross-linked with a redundant Melichort's Ramistat, 14-kiloquad interface modules.
The core element is based on an FTL nanoprocessor with 25 bilateral kelo-lacterals,
with 20 of those being slaved into the primary Heisenfram terminal.
Now, you do know what a bilateral kelo-lateral is.
Of course I do, human. I am not stupid.
No, of course not. This is the isopolevial interface which controls the main ferromantal drive unit.
Don't touch that. It will blow up the entire ferromantal drive.
What? What is...wait. What is a ferromantal drive?
Just explain it to me.
That is the ferromantal drive unit.
It controls the Ramistat core and keeps the Ontarian manifold at 40,000 KRGs.
The ferromantal drive is powered on.
One more time, the Ramistat-kiloquad capacities function square root of the intermix ratio
times the sum of the plasma injector quotient.