1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,000
3, 2, 1...

2
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:04,000
Hello!

3
00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:07,000
And, um, yeah, it's a little bit of an odd one, really.

4
00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:12,000
I'm going to look like a lunatic while having a walk around the local area I live in.

5
00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,000
But while I'm doing that, I want to talk all about Star Trek.

6
00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:19,000
So, as you can see, I live in the beautiful countryside,

7
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:23,000
so it's just a nice way to have a little bit of a walk around, really.

8
00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:29,000
But save lower decks is something that is really, really important to us.

9
00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:33,000
Now, you will have seen that Untisled Trek, as the show,

10
00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:38,000
interviewed the saving lower decks team, and they were absolutely fantastic.

11
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:43,000
Um, they already saved Prodigy, if you hadn't seen that.

12
00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:48,000
If you head over to Netflix, you can see that season 2 is due out soon,

13
00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:54,000
when the world thought that Paramount and the like had given up on Prodigy.

14
00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:57,000
But no, the save Prodigy team went out there,

15
00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:01,000
they campaigned, they got voice artists working for them,

16
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:06,000
they got big stars joining the fight, and, uh, they rescued it.

17
00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:09,000
Netflix bought it, and voila, it's amazing.

18
00:01:09,000 --> 00:01:11,000
They saved Prodigy.

19
00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:15,000
Well, the same people behind that are now behind the save lower decks.

20
00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:19,000
Head over to the Untisled Trek show on your podcast Player of Choice,

21
00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:21,000
or even YouTube, because the podcast is on there,

22
00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:26,000
and you'll see one of our episodes, we interview them about what they're trying to do.

23
00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:30,000
And it is super, super, super important.

24
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:35,000
Um, save lower decks. Why should we save lower decks?

25
00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:40,000
Because lower decks was awesome, and that's what this walk's about, actually.

26
00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:43,000
So, for the people that are listening to the podcast, head over to YouTube,

27
00:01:43,000 --> 00:01:47,000
and you can just see me walking through the countryside of Redborne, where I live.

28
00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:52,000
Uh, it's very beautiful, although sod's law, it's the hottest day of the year so far,

29
00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:54,000
and it's suddenly become overcast.

30
00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:58,000
However, as you can see over there, the sun is setting somewhere over there,

31
00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:01,000
and, uh, it's a bit darker than I wanted it to be,

32
00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:04,000
so if this doesn't look wonderful, I apologize.

33
00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:07,000
Um, but yeah, I just thought while I'm walking,

34
00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:12,000
I could talk to you about why lower decks is so important to me,

35
00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:18,000
and to understand that, I guess you need to understand what my relationship with Star Trek is.

36
00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:23,000
Now, I'm not going to lie, I'm not going to give you some story

37
00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:25,000
about Star Trek saved my life.

38
00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:30,000
Now, I know there's lots of people out there with various mental health issues,

39
00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:35,000
and Star Trek, or a great deal of other shows, in fact,

40
00:02:35,000 --> 00:02:39,000
have helped people get through some of the worst times in their life.

41
00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,000
I'm not one of them, okay?

42
00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:49,000
Let's rewind back to, let's say, 1989, 1990, when I was five or six years old,

43
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:55,000
and I think that's a fair time to shoot back to, because I'm likely to remember a little bit then.

44
00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:03,000
And my memories really are going to see my aunt, my dad's, uh, mum's sister,

45
00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:07,000
so it would have been great aunt, actually, at a care home.

46
00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:14,000
And let's face it, at six years old, that's not exactly something you're going to want to do.

47
00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,000
It's quite miserable, quite upsetting,

48
00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:21,000
so we were allowed to do a bit of free roaming.

49
00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:25,000
One of our favourite things to do was take a little bit of money from my aunt,

50
00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:29,000
and we'd go down to the newsagent, and we'd all buy a chocolate bar each,

51
00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:34,000
and mine always had to be a Fry's Five Flavours, if any of you remember those.

52
00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:40,000
And then we could come back and sit in their common room and watch TV.

53
00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:43,000
Now, on a Sunday, there wasn't much on.

54
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:51,000
Bearing in mind, we'd got BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, well, LDN, seeing as it was the weekend,

55
00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:53,000
and we'd got Channel Four.

56
00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:58,000
So, Channel Four used to go on, and as my two brothers were older, they used to disappear off.

57
00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:06,000
I got left with the TV, and Channel Four used to do reruns of, uh, ooh, right, what was his name?

58
00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:10,000
Something Irwin, uh, Land of the Giants, anyway.

59
00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:20,000
Great, great TV show, amazing practical effects used, all about a crew in a space shuttle sort of transport thing

60
00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:23,000
getting sucked through a vortex, and they end up in the Land of the Giants.

61
00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:26,000
And as you can imagine now, actually, where we're walking,

62
00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:31,000
if you saw a little person run out from the corn from one side to the other, that was Land of the Giants.

63
00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:36,000
These people ended up in an alternate universe where they're tiny, and the rest of the world is huge.

64
00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:40,000
And it was wonderful, really, really wonderful.

65
00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:45,000
But alongside that, if it wasn't Land of the Giants, then it was Star Trek the original series,

66
00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:48,000
and I was engrossed by it.

67
00:04:48,000 --> 00:04:56,000
Um, and that was the beginning of my Star Trek fandom, seeing Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Mr. Scotty, all of these

68
00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:01,000
on the original series, weekly, at the old people's home.

69
00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:11,000
I was captivated. The stories of the USS Enterprise 1701, flying around, being picked up by giant green hands,

70
00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:19,000
seeing gods of a ancient myth portrayed on screen as actually just dicks.

71
00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:23,000
Uh, yeah, that is how I got into Star Trek.

72
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:29,000
And then fast forward a few years, and I got to watch, I'm guessing they would have been actually,

73
00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:34,000
the reruns of the first few series of The Next Generation.

74
00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:42,000
And that's really where my absolute true love came for Star Trek.

75
00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:48,000
But like anything with me, and anything with the podcast I do, there's going to be a tangent,

76
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:50,000
and that's because I forgot something.

77
00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:56,000
So I've talked about the original series. I discovered it by watching it at the old people's home.

78
00:05:56,000 --> 00:06:04,000
My true, true, true love of Star Trek and the original series was not from the television show, though.

79
00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:10,000
As much as I watched the television show, it was the original series movies.

80
00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:17,000
So the original actors in the classic Star Trek films, that really, really, really blew my mind as a child.

81
00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:23,000
And I have really fond memories of it being summertime, playing out in the garden,

82
00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:27,000
because obviously we didn't have a computer, we didn't have games consoles.

83
00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:33,000
I was down in the park, I was in the garden digging holes, you know, just typical children's stuff.

84
00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:39,000
And mum would shout from inside, one of the Star Trek films is on.

85
00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:43,000
And I would run in and I would be glued to it.

86
00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:50,000
In fact, for some reason, it always seemed to be during the summer, it was the voyage home.

87
00:06:50,000 --> 00:06:56,000
And any time that it was around Christmas, it was the final frontier.

88
00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:59,000
Honestly, I don't know why it was always the final frontier around Christmas.

89
00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:04,000
I remember always coming back around kind of Boxing Day or coming in towards New Year.

90
00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:08,000
And it was always on, always on.

91
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:11,000
I presume it was just a scheduling thing. But there you go.

92
00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:14,000
It wasn't exactly a Christmasy film, was it?

93
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:18,000
But yeah, I really, really loved the films.

94
00:07:18,000 --> 00:07:26,000
To the point that I remember I had this black polo neck jumper and not polo neck, round neck, whatever a round neck jumper is.

95
00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:32,000
I even tried to cut pieces of felt out to make my own Star Trek uniform at some point.

96
00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,000
It just, it was beautiful. Really, really, really loved it.

97
00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:46,000
But then, of course, I discovered the next generation and the next generation really is where I kind of grew into Star Trek.

98
00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:52,000
And yeah, everyone's going to think I'm very weird just talking to myself here.

99
00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:56,000
But that's the way it goes when you're recording yourself and no one can see that.

100
00:07:56,000 --> 00:07:59,000
Right. So next generation, where are we?

101
00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:06,000
So I got to probably watch it in completely the wrong order.

102
00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:10,000
I never saw encounter at a far point until far later.

103
00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:20,000
In fact, actually, the first real memories of the next generation I had was being absolutely shit scared of the Borg.

104
00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:28,000
And watching it with my oldest brother in his bedroom on his little probably a 12 or 13 inch colour portable TV.

105
00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:37,000
And seeing these immense great Borg, Borg, Borg cube ships appearing in the sky.

106
00:08:37,000 --> 00:08:46,000
And I used to have the recurrent kind of imagination, a little bit of a nightmare that I'd look out the window and I'd see one just up in the sky.

107
00:08:46,000 --> 00:08:52,000
And imagining how big they were and how big they would look in the sky is quite a freaky thing.

108
00:08:52,000 --> 00:09:03,000
But that's really, as I've already said, where my real in-depth love with Star Trek started, because the next generation is my safe space.

109
00:09:03,000 --> 00:09:19,000
As much as I didn't use Star Trek as something to help my mental health, it is something that if I ever need a quiet kind of calm down time or my brain is going absolutely crazy,

110
00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:28,000
it's going 10 to the dozen and I just need something safe, predictable, something I know is happening or what will happen even.

111
00:09:28,000 --> 00:09:36,000
I go straight to the next generation. I turn it on. I choose something from typically season five, probably the strongest season in my opinion.

112
00:09:36,000 --> 00:09:48,000
And off I go and I'm happy and it calms me down and I can just have it on in the background and then I can get back on with whatever I was doing.

113
00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:57,000
Looking back at the next generation now, as we've done several times on the Untitled Trek show, obviously you start to see holes in kind of the series.

114
00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:12,000
You start to see maybe a few problems like Geordi being a terribly, terribly, not awful character, but badly written for to the point that he's a lech.

115
00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:20,000
He's a fairly unsavoury character when it comes to women, which is an unfortunate thing because character deserved a lot more.

116
00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:29,000
Or you've got Worf who's at tactical, but really very rarely gets to do anything beneficial or good as a tactician.

117
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:39,000
In fact, he pisses more people off and gets shouted at more by Picard for trying to jump the gun, blowing something out of the sky before they've even talked to them.

118
00:10:39,000 --> 00:10:46,000
However, it's still my Trek and I love it for that. And then we got the films.

119
00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:57,000
Now, generations weirdly, I'd had the day off school. Which way should we go? Left, right? We'll go right.

120
00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:12,000
I'd been off school ill to the day and I'm guessing I must have been kind of obviously I wasn't that unwell, but mum had for some reason taken pity on me.

121
00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:25,000
So I was up at our shop in St Albans. School had finished. My middle brother had come up to the school because no one was at home, had come up to the shop, sorry, from school because no one was home.

122
00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:35,000
And I persuaded them somehow to get him to take me to see Generations at the cinema that afternoon.

123
00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:42,000
I honestly don't know why. I was off school ill, but I got to go to the cinema.

124
00:11:42,000 --> 00:11:50,000
And that was down at the Odeon when the Odeon in St Albans still existed. So Roland, bless him, hated Star Trek and still hates Star Trek to this day.

125
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:56,000
We can't all be perfect, obviously. But he took me down there and he sat through Generations.

126
00:11:56,000 --> 00:12:04,000
And as much as I enjoyed watching Generations at the time, having gone back and watched it again, oh, it's not good.

127
00:12:04,000 --> 00:12:18,000
I mean, I have a little bit of love for it, obviously, but wow, it is a bit of a lemon, especially when you consider how good technically the previous films where it was the undiscovered country was.

128
00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:27,000
But it doesn't matter because then we got First Contact. Very funny. And it shows you how much of a fond memory I have for anything TNG based.

129
00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:37,000
I was desperate to see First Contacts at the cinema and this was before the Internet existed and film times weren't exactly easy to get hold of in the UK.

130
00:12:37,000 --> 00:12:48,000
And I checked an old newspaper, an old local rag, and had seen that at Hatfield the Odeon that they were showing it.

131
00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:57,000
So I said to my cousin, oh, let's go and see it. And I persuaded him to come along and we went to see it. And of course, we got there and it wasn't on.

132
00:12:57,000 --> 00:13:04,000
It had been on for the past few weeks and I'd obviously read last week's paper, not this week's paper.

133
00:13:04,000 --> 00:13:16,000
So I missed out and I had to wait that gut aching long, long period that we had to do in the 90s to watch any film on VHS or rental.

134
00:13:16,000 --> 00:13:24,000
Because unlike today, it doesn't just appear on streaming. It's gone. It's you had to wait.

135
00:13:24,000 --> 00:13:30,000
So I waited and I waited and eventually it came out on VHS and I went and bought it.

136
00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:42,000
Bought it at a good old Woolworths and I know that's where I bought it from. And I rushed home. I put it in the video player and oh my God, I was blown away. What a film.

137
00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:51,000
First of all, the Enterprise E. Wow. What a ship and such a gorgeous design.

138
00:13:51,000 --> 00:14:01,000
And then we've got the Borg who some of my favorite bad guys and as Rob has said many times, if you've got a good bad guy, you've got a good show.

139
00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:06,000
So yeah, first contact blew me away. Now, this is going to be interesting for the audio.

140
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:12,000
I'm walking through a tunnel under the M1 at the moment. So you're going to hear lots and lots and lots of echo.

141
00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:18,000
Lucky you. Anyway, so first contact blew me away.

142
00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:29,000
And then we had Nemesis and no matter how hard Tom Hardy tried, Nemesis struggled.

143
00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:36,000
Now, I'm not one of the people out there that hate Nemesis. Funny enough, I don't mind it. I quite enjoy it as a film.

144
00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:45,000
I think for the story, it's not terrible. Just a few things could have been improved on it to have made it better.

145
00:14:45,000 --> 00:14:52,000
Now, I'm going to walk up the road because I'm pretty sure there is a footpath on our right at some point.

146
00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:58,000
I would go over here, but I know there's deep water somewhere over there and with the fields as they are, I don't want to die.

147
00:14:58,000 --> 00:15:06,000
Anyway, so yeah, Nemesis, as bad as some people call it, I kind of enjoyed it.

148
00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:13,000
It was still the good old next generation crew. It was the enterprise again. I wasn't complaining.

149
00:15:13,000 --> 00:15:19,000
Then we got insurrection and holy shit, what a disappointment that was.

150
00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:31,000
It was just an excuse for a terrible, terrible love story. It was a really sad ending for the next generation crew as films go.

151
00:15:31,000 --> 00:15:39,000
I genuinely thought they deserved better. I thought so. Here we go. Let's not get run over, but I can cross over here.

152
00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:47,000
And this will take me up to some nice woods, I think. Let's try not to break my neck on a tree.

153
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:54,000
Anyway, so yeah, insurrection, no matter how I look at it, don't like it.

154
00:15:54,000 --> 00:16:04,000
The whole bendy face thing of the alien race that turns out to be their long lost brothers and sisters, none of it worked for me.

155
00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:09,000
And the whole love story really, really was a bit pony.

156
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:17,000
I still watch it. I still watch it to this day because I like the next generation and it's part of their canon.

157
00:16:17,000 --> 00:16:23,000
So I stick with it. And I guess that's kind of where let's jump into the future a moment.

158
00:16:23,000 --> 00:16:33,000
That's why I stuck with Picard. Picard season one, I really didn't like. I really struggled with it.

159
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:43,000
I felt they really cheaped out on some of the effects and I'm not normally one that will say just because the effects are bad, it's going to make it bad for me.

160
00:16:43,000 --> 00:16:56,000
And that's not true. But as much as I enjoyed the last couple of seasons of Picard, season one really could have done better.

161
00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:04,000
Really, really could have done better. Then season two came along and it started off strong, but then it ended weekly.

162
00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:12,000
But then we got season three. Oh, fuck me. They fixed it, didn't they? They really went to town on that.

163
00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:29,000
And having the enterprise drifting through the inside of a super ball cube in Jupiter's fucking gas cloud, you can't fucking beat that, can you?

164
00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:37,000
No idea where I am. Well, I know where I am, but definitely not a footpath at this point. So that's a bit naughty of me.

165
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:47,000
Oops. Yes, Picard three kind of fixed it. I would love to see a continuation from that series.

166
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:57,000
I think a lot of people did. They wanted to see a continuation with seven of nine leading the new enterprise and us getting some of the classic crew back.

167
00:17:57,000 --> 00:18:10,000
But I severely doubt that's going to happen. God knows if you can hear me right now. I have got the microphone on as well as the camera, but I have got the M1 to my right here, as you can see.

168
00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:24,000
And that's probably going to be quite loud. God, you're probably wondering. You started off talking about save lower decks and now you're just rambling on about Star Trek and I need to.

169
00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:42,000
Okay, this is not compulsion. It's not a compulsion by any sort. But what I want you to get understand is there is so much Star Trek in the past, but we need Star Trek in the future.

170
00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:55,000
So, yes, we've got all the stuff in the past and some of it was brilliant and we have Star Trek in the present right now. But it's the Star Trek in the future that we need.

171
00:18:55,000 --> 00:19:09,000
And there's good reason for that. Anyway, Star Trek. Right. So that's the next generation. I think I've covered as much as I want to on the next generation and probably as much as you care to listen.

172
00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:23,000
So moving on, it's funny what you can remember and straight away I remember Deep Space Nine's release. It was around Christmas time in the UK. It was different to the US.

173
00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:34,000
And oh blimey, sorry field. I do know there's a footpath up by these woods, so I'm going to try and not squash this farmer's field and get told off any more than I have to.

174
00:19:34,000 --> 00:19:46,000
So sorry. Where was I? Right. Deep Space Nine. Sorry. Getting onto a tangent there. Don't you just love seeing power cables extending off into the distance there?

175
00:19:46,000 --> 00:19:55,000
It's just such a weird thing that we get all our power off them, isn't it? Anyway, right. Deep Space Nine. Around Christmas time in the UK.

176
00:19:55,000 --> 00:20:06,000
And I'd seen the adverts that this new Star Trek was coming and it was going to be like nothing else before. And I'd already missed the next generation first time round.

177
00:20:06,000 --> 00:20:17,000
So I hadn't got the excitement of the Enterprise is back. There's a robot on there. There's a bald captain. There's a man who's blind, who flies the ship.

178
00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:26,000
I didn't get any of that joy. So Deep Space Nine was the first new Trek to have appeared on my screen.

179
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:36,000
And I was this was kind of peak kind of early teens for me. And wow, I cannot wait for this.

180
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:48,000
So I sat down and watched it. And I remember seeing all the adverts for it. And I got halfway through the first episode before I got called away and told,

181
00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:57,000
Tom, we're going to go and watch your middle brother at school now. It's the yearly Christmas assembly they have for parents in the evening.

182
00:20:57,000 --> 00:21:08,000
You bastards and your brother's doing a reading piece. So you need to come with us because you can't be left home alone. And I missed the second half of Deep Space Nine,

183
00:21:08,000 --> 00:21:20,000
which I was gusseted because I loved it. I genuinely remember watching the first half of that episode and going, wow, this is just this is so different.

184
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:28,000
This isn't a spaceship going to different planets. It's it's a space station and there's a shape shifter.

185
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:36,000
And this is this new race that I don't think I'd ever come across before. Obviously, I had if you look at the TNG series, Bajoran's do turn up.

186
00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:46,000
But to me, it was absolutely all brand new. I'm not going to walk through that because that's just going to absolutely bring me up in spots and all sorts.

187
00:21:46,000 --> 00:21:58,000
But if I come to these words, I can get into the woods through here. So, yeah, I was captivated by it and I watched the first probably three seasons religiously.

188
00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:06,000
Cisco is a massively, massively underappreciated captain.

189
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:18,000
In fact, the whole of Deep Space Nine is the storylines are some of the best storylines of any Trek. And it doesn't always get the recognition for that.

190
00:22:18,000 --> 00:22:30,000
And the acting, too, I've got to say, the acting on it is considerably better. Not all the time, but a lot of the time, much better than the next generation.

191
00:22:30,000 --> 00:22:37,000
And we're not going to do that on the original series because the original series is what it is.

192
00:22:37,000 --> 00:22:45,000
It is a figure of its time and it was expected. So we will avoid that.

193
00:22:45,000 --> 00:22:52,000
But TNG onwards, I think it's fair to judge the acting on everything at that point.

194
00:22:52,000 --> 00:23:01,000
And Deep Space Nine came out blown away. It wasn't then, probably for another three odd years.

195
00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:10,000
So I must have been, oh, I don't know, maybe 13 or 14 before I discovered Voyager.

196
00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:17,000
Now, we didn't have Sky. We only had channels one to four and then eventually Channel five in the UK.

197
00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:27,000
Not that we as the UK, I mean our household. And yeah, I missed quite a lot.

198
00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:40,000
Sky got all the Trek before British Terrestrial TV did. So, yeah, I missed a lot before I got to catch up.

199
00:23:40,000 --> 00:23:47,000
And Voyager was one of those. And that was when the BBC had bought the rights to Star Trek

200
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:53,000
and were showing reruns of the next generation while also doing reruns of things like sliders.

201
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:59,000
In fact, probably wasn't even reruns of sliders. It was probably their first run through.

202
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:07,000
And then it suddenly finished the next generation and I saw Voyager and I thought, what on earth is this?

203
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:12,000
And watching that first episode, I wasn't blown away.

204
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:19,000
Now, I know a lot of people will say that Voyager is a lot better than Deep Space Nine.

205
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:25,000
It's a lot better than the next generation. In fact, Rob would say that Voyager is his Star Trek.

206
00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:32,000
Or he used to say that. We could ask him and actually see what he says his current Trek is.

207
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:41,000
But Voyager was his Trek and I watched it and I religiously watched it on a Sunday night when they rerun it

208
00:24:41,000 --> 00:24:46,000
and on a, I think it was a Tuesday or a Thursday night. Oh, right.

209
00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:55,000
Now, we could go into the wood and the light will be shit. So no, we'll go around the wood. We'll keep walking this way.

210
00:24:55,000 --> 00:25:05,000
And I grew to love it. The one thing I would say and my criticism of Voyager is that it was repetitive.

211
00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:11,000
It was basically the ongoing story of them getting back to the Alpha Quadrant.

212
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:17,000
Janeway looking for coffee while occasionally committing genocide.

213
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:24,000
But it really then started to get really, really, really good when the Borg showed up again.

214
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:30,000
And that whole Borg story arc, I loved.

215
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:35,000
But I wouldn't put it as my favorite Trek. And that's why I'm not going to really talk about it much more.

216
00:25:35,000 --> 00:25:44,000
Then we've got Enterprise and I watched it. I enjoyed it as much as there's so much hate for the theme tune.

217
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:50,000
I like the theme tune. I've got it on one of my playlists.

218
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:56,000
Sorry if you don't like that, but that is the key point I want to make about this.

219
00:25:56,000 --> 00:26:04,000
Before we talk about some of the modern Trek and the current Trek, Trek didn't have a mold.

220
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,000
Yes, we've got the same story. We've got the Federation.

221
00:26:07,000 --> 00:26:14,000
We've got Starships and we've got a series of races that we regularly saw until, of course, Voyager.

222
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:23,000
And then we got more races. There was a little bit of a mold that you could say, as long as it fit within this, you could call it Trek.

223
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:31,000
But otherwise, each series was very much its own series and they had the freedom to do what they wanted.

224
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:41,000
And most importantly, not one series aimed itself at a particular group of people.

225
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:49,000
Now, there are people that will absolutely adore the original series, but they won't watch anything else.

226
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:55,000
And there's people that will watch the next generation and they won't watch anything else.

227
00:26:55,000 --> 00:27:03,000
And you can say that for Deep Space Nine. You can say that for Enterprise just about. You could say that for Voyager.

228
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:14,000
However, the one thing that although in any community it happens, Star Trek was not designed to be gate kept.

229
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:21,000
It was not designed to have gatekeepers. And yes, just like any community, it happens.

230
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:25,000
We know this. There are... I'm not going to actually get in.

231
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:31,000
No, I'm not going to say the generic description of what a Trekkie or a gatekeeper is,

232
00:27:31,000 --> 00:27:35,000
because then I'm not being any better than them, am I?

233
00:27:35,000 --> 00:27:44,000
But of course, there's gatekeepers in any community. But Star Trek was designed to be enjoyed by anybody.

234
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:51,000
Anybody could watch it. And if they enjoyed it, they were welcome.

235
00:27:51,000 --> 00:28:00,000
And now we come on to the modern Trek. We have Discovery, we have Prodigy, and we have Lower Decks.

236
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:06,000
Now, this is all personal opinion, and it has been since the beginning of this walk.

237
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:14,000
But Discovery for me is the worst Trek that I can imagine.

238
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:20,000
OK, that is my opinion. I didn't like the storyline.

239
00:28:20,000 --> 00:28:29,000
I didn't like the random design changes to make it more... I don't know, more impressive on screen.

240
00:28:29,000 --> 00:28:37,000
I guess you would say. However, I can fully understand.

241
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:42,000
And I will say I have improved my standing on this and my way of thinking about this,

242
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:48,000
because once upon a time when Discovery came out, I would say I hate Discovery.

243
00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:55,000
I think it's shit. And that's not fair. Think about all the people involved in making it.

244
00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:03,000
They made something that they are proud of. And me saying it's shit or I hate it is not fair.

245
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:10,000
I can say I don't like it, which is personal opinion, but to say it's shit, it's horrible, it's crap,

246
00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:14,000
that really is not on, because that is only my opinion.

247
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:19,000
And there are millions of people out there that probably loved Discovery.

248
00:29:19,000 --> 00:29:24,000
And they loved what they did with it. They loved they made it more adult.

249
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:30,000
They loved what they did with the Klingons. They loved what they did with the ship design.

250
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:39,000
The whole floating nacelle thing. As much as I might dislike it, there are many more people than me that do like it.

251
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:47,000
So what I've learned is, shut up, be quiet, and let the people who enjoy Discovery

252
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:52,000
enjoy Discovery for what they find in it, because that is their trek.

253
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:55,000
And you know what, you could extend that out to anything.

254
00:29:55,000 --> 00:30:02,000
DuckTales. I love the original DuckTales cartoon. Not just because it's got a great theme tune,

255
00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:07,000
but because I enjoyed the stories and I grew up with it. That was my DuckTales.

256
00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:15,000
But I also fully understand that there is a new generation of children now who love DuckTales

257
00:30:15,000 --> 00:30:18,000
because of what Disney have done with it over the past few years.

258
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:26,000
I'm not going to take that away from them. I will try and guide them into seeing what the original DuckTales was like.

259
00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:36,000
But their DuckTales, oh wow, look at that sunset. Now I bet you on camera that just doesn't look good at all.

260
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:40,000
But to me, that looks fucking awesome.

261
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:45,000
And sorry, you are now going to see my phone come out as I try to get a photo of that.

262
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:53,000
Because that is genuinely a thing of beauty. Lovely.

263
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:59,000
So Discovery, as much as it wasn't my cup of tea, I will continue to give it a try

264
00:30:59,000 --> 00:31:06,000
because the creators have created Trek for a new host of people.

265
00:31:06,000 --> 00:31:14,000
And then we've got Prodigy. And Prodigy, as much as I've only watched a small amount of Season 1 so far,

266
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:25,000
is an incredibly, and I really do mean this, an incredibly important piece of Trek history.

267
00:31:25,000 --> 00:31:35,000
Because it's the first Trek that someone like Nickelodeon jumps on and made it for not just adults,

268
00:31:35,000 --> 00:31:47,000
but aimed primarily at the children audience. And they managed not only to keep what made Star Trek Star Trek,

269
00:31:47,000 --> 00:31:54,000
but add something completely new to it that no other Trek had done.

270
00:31:54,000 --> 00:32:01,000
And they deserve so much praise for that. Sorry, I'm going to stand here and watch this because it's a...

271
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:10,000
I don't know how many people haven't ever seen a sunset or a sunrise, but if you haven't, do it.

272
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:17,000
Because this is what you're missing. Look at this. This is... I mean, damn it.

273
00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:26,000
This is as close to what Star Trek would want you to do. A peaceful world that we get to see the sunrise and sunset in harmony.

274
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:33,000
That's what Star Trek wanted. That's what we get from the TV show. And look at it right now. Isn't this fucking beautiful?

275
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:41,000
Excluding the language. I really am a posse-mouth. I do apologise. But isn't that absolutely beautiful?

276
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:49,000
Wow. But Prodigy, back to that then, back to the walking before it gets too dark and everything goes horribly wrong.

277
00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:58,000
Prodigy brought something new to the Star Trek market that deserved love. And Paramount took a knife

278
00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:09,000
and ran it around their throat and went, goodbye, you aren't loved. Unlike old Star Trek, you are not loved.

279
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:18,000
We're putting all our money behind discovery. And to say I was disappointed was an understatement.

280
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:25,000
And obviously, a lot of people were disappointed because we got save Prodigy. And look at what they've done.

281
00:33:25,000 --> 00:33:30,000
Netflix has paid for it. They're running out the second season. Even if they only run a second season,

282
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:38,000
they give a satisfactory conclusion. That's better than not giving it anything at all.

283
00:33:38,000 --> 00:33:45,000
So a lot of people loved Prodigy and Paramount just cut its throat. Now, luckily for Prodigy,

284
00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:51,000
it's a bit like Face Off, as much of a cheesy film as it is. Paramount weren't aware,

285
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:56,000
but Prodigy got rushed off to a private hospital and put on life support. And Netflix has come along

286
00:33:56,000 --> 00:34:01,000
and it's given him a new face and it said, here we go, Prodigy is back.

287
00:34:01,000 --> 00:34:06,000
I guess that now brings us to lower decks. And I'll try and put some tags in this.

288
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:13,000
So rather than listening to me to ramble on for as long as I have done, and Jesus, it really is a long time,

289
00:34:13,000 --> 00:34:22,000
you can just get to the save lower decks, but if you want to. Lower decks. Lower decks really,

290
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:30,000
really, really tried again to do something new. And I will be first to admit, I watched the first couple

291
00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:41,000
of episodes in the completely wrong frame of mind and said, I don't like this. And I turned it off.

292
00:34:41,000 --> 00:34:48,000
And it was an entire year until season two came out that I thought I need to give that another try.

293
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:54,000
So I put it on in the office when I was working and it turned out that was a mistake because I then

294
00:34:54,000 --> 00:35:04,000
binge watched the entirety of season one when I was meant to be working. And it was mind blowing

295
00:35:04,000 --> 00:35:13,000
what I had turned my back on too soon. Do you hear that paramount? You're turning your back too soon

296
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:24,000
on lower decks. Not only were we given a group of characters that you could fall in love with,

297
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:34,000
that you could say, I would love to be friends with these people, it gave us solid Star Trek.

298
00:35:34,000 --> 00:35:42,000
It gave us Star Trek stories that were straight out of The Next Generation, straight out of Voyager,

299
00:35:42,000 --> 00:35:53,000
straight out of the original series. It was just absolutely phenomenal. And the only difference

300
00:35:53,000 --> 00:36:02,000
with it being was it was animated. I can't really tell you how much love I have for lower decks now

301
00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:10,000
and how much respect I have for every storyline, every story arc they've done. It's been bloody brilliant.

302
00:36:10,000 --> 00:36:20,000
It's made me laugh. It's made me uncomfortable. It's made me sad. It's brought together entire

303
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:26,000
Star Trek communities who can then go away and say, actually, it was quite funny, wasn't it?

304
00:36:26,000 --> 00:36:32,000
This Next Generation episode that they're ripping the piss out of. Or, oh, I recognize that because

305
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:42,000
it really is Star Trek kind of lore. So when I heard that lower decks was being canceled after the next season,

306
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:51,000
I genuinely can't think why. Why did Paramount take out that blade again, run up behind them,

307
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:58,000
and just slash its throat? It absolutely bloody baffles me. Now, I'm standing here, by the way,

308
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:02,000
just hoping that no one's kind of listening to me because they're just going to think,

309
00:37:02,000 --> 00:37:07,000
what is this lunatic doing? But I'm also hoping that you're at least getting to see a little bit of sunset here.

310
00:37:07,000 --> 00:37:16,000
I'll tell you what, the temperature has come down so nicely now. It's beautiful. But yeah, lower decks.

311
00:37:16,000 --> 00:37:25,000
Oh, it deserves a million, million, million times more love than Paramount are giving it.

312
00:37:25,000 --> 00:37:32,000
And what's worse is the fan base. Don't just give it the love. They are shouting it from the rooftops.

313
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:41,000
They are saying how worthwhile a TV show this is, how good it is, how good the stories are, everything.

314
00:37:41,000 --> 00:37:52,000
And Paramount are just full on ignoring them. And I'm, I'm confused. I really am confused.

315
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:59,000
And now we've got save lower decks. Fingers crossed we will see Netflix or another streaming service,

316
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:07,000
even if it was Amazon. I know as evil as Amazon is, even if they bought it and bear in mind, they showed it first.

317
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:15,000
Even if Amazon bought it, I would be super happy because then it's getting the chance it deserves.

318
00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:20,000
Now, some people might say that, yes, it's had more seasons than Prodigy did.

319
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:25,000
And it's already, it may have really had more seasons than Enterprise.

320
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:36,000
But I would say that and personal opinion, remember, Enterprise probably didn't deserve that many more seasons, if any at all.

321
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:45,000
It got what it had and that's kind of it. But lower decks, lower decks could just go on and on.

322
00:38:45,000 --> 00:38:56,000
There's no end for it. The animated. Oh, what's my brain trying to say here?

323
00:38:56,000 --> 00:39:02,000
The fact they made it an animated series means they're not limited. OK, it's not like The Next Generation.

324
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:12,000
It's not like Voyager. It's not like any of the shows that have come before it, excluding Prodigy, where you're limited to have we still got the actors?

325
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:19,000
Have we still got the effects department? Have we still got the budget? Have we still got the sets?

326
00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:28,000
That is the bonus of being animated. The animated series can have whatever it wants done and it can be saved.

327
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:35,000
And there's very little that's going to stop that. However, Paramount seem hell bent on it.

328
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:46,000
So it's painful. It really is painful to hear that. And it's how it's more than devastating and it's more than disappointing.

329
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:56,000
And just finding that word is is hard right now. And that is why I'm incredibly grateful that the save lower decks team exist.

330
00:39:56,000 --> 00:40:01,000
I'm so grateful they came on our show to talk about it. And that's why I'm talking about it now.

331
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:09,000
So head over to save lower decks. It's on Facebook. It's on Twitter. It's on Instagram. It's everywhere. It's on YouTube.

332
00:40:09,000 --> 00:40:15,000
There are multiple videos up on YouTube at the moment. And I would genuinely want you to go over and find them.

333
00:40:15,000 --> 00:40:23,000
I will put as many links as I can in the metadata for this and on the YouTube description so you can go and find those videos.

334
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:28,000
Join them. Make your voice heard. Make your own videos. Make your own podcast episodes.

335
00:40:28,000 --> 00:40:35,000
Social media. It may be the root of all evil. It depends who you are and what your views are.

336
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:45,000
And who cares? Social media is something that will get Paramount's attention. It will get Netflix attention.

337
00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:54,000
It will get Amazon's attention. And the more people we can get moving forward saying save lower decks.

338
00:40:54,000 --> 00:41:02,000
Give it all of the chance it needs. Give it all the money it needs to keep that series going.

339
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:10,000
I really feel like I'm in some sort of a game at the moment now. They're all disconnected.

340
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:19,000
It's all a little bit like the map editor was a bit lazy. It's like these gas here. It's like just stick four of them in a row. We're all good.

341
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:27,000
It just kind of feels like lower decks needs more of a chance but it needs your voice.

342
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:32,000
And we can only do that voice through the channels we have available to us.

343
00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:38,000
Obviously if you work for Paramount and you're watching this and you agree with anything I've said.

344
00:41:38,000 --> 00:41:46,000
Please, please, please go and see your bosses and say look online. Look at the love there is for lower decks.

345
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:56,000
Let's reconsider. Let's see what we can do with this. Let's sell it to someone. Let's get them more series like they want.

346
00:41:56,000 --> 00:42:01,000
And I'm realizing I'm not going to get anywhere near home this way.

347
00:42:01,000 --> 00:42:07,000
Unless there actually there might be a tunnel under the motorway at this point. We'll find out in a minute.

348
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:13,000
Nice solar farm there. I did wonder how you get to this bit. So that's my plea.

349
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:21,000
OK, Star Trek for me didn't save my life, but it makes me very, very happy.

350
00:42:21,000 --> 00:42:30,000
That is a great big pile of shit. And this is a complete dead end. So yeah, I gone fucked up.

351
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:37,000
So I'm going to walk all the way back that way now because I know where I fucked up and I am going to head home.

352
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:45,000
Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. It's probably been way too long chatting and I'm sorry if I bored you.

353
00:42:45,000 --> 00:43:00,000
But for me, Star Trek is of great importance and losing possible Star Trek for the history books is something that I see is very, very wrong.

354
00:43:00,000 --> 00:43:07,000
And Lower Decks was made not just for me. It wasn't made just for you. It was made for everyone.

355
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:18,000
It's the perfect introduction to Star Trek. It has humor. It has emotion. It has great storylines.

356
00:43:18,000 --> 00:43:29,000
It was everything and it deserves so much more. So anyway, I'm going to let you go now. Thank you for watching.

357
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,000
See you soon. Bye.