Hello.
Has it started?
It has started.
Welcome to the No Rules podcast.
This is the No Rules section of the Channel 84.
Yeah, hang on.
You know I'm completely lost already.
Well, I mean more of Channel 84 as us too.
The Varite Show and the Untitled Trek Show.
Yeah, fair enough.
I understand what you mean now.
I think I'm even less scripted than Socks.
I really don't do anything.
I just like, we talk about what sci-fi we've watched and we talk about the episode or we
answer questions.
I'd argue I have the most scripted thing with the shit show.
Yes.
The most scripted.
100% you do.
So then I have to balance that off with the most unscripted and unplanned section, which
is the main actual show.
Number one on nearly all science fiction parts of Good Pods.
Yeah, we get there don't we?
Somehow we get there.
Somehow.
Someone's listening somewhere.
Anyway, what sci-fi have you watched?
I had to get in there first for once.
What sci-fi have I watched?
You know what?
Not, well other than the episode is what we always say, oh, have I watched not really
any sci-fi.
We've started watching Supernatural.
Does that really count?
That's like...
Yeah, fancy sci-fi.
Let's put it this way.
If Netflix or Prime or whatever your streaming provider of choice is, if they list it as
sci-fi and fantasy, then it counts.
Okay, well in that case, we've finished all of The Walking Dead.
Okay.
We've binge watched The Ones Who Lived, which is like the special one with Michonne and
Rick.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And we've watched, run around and started watching Supernatural again.
Carry on my wayward son.
I looked over and said, you're watching Supernatural.
We were playing Helldivers every day.
And I said, you can't watch anymore now because I want to watch it too.
Because we had never watched the last series.
We had the Blu-ray and for whatever reason, we had not gone away.
And it was like, it was our thing for such a long time.
For us, Supernatural was bigger than Game of Thrones.
It was such a big...
Because I'd never heard of it when I met Randi.
She'd been watching it and then she brought like, I think the first three seasons on DVD
so we could watch them.
And then we watched them all the way through.
I could have my own podcast on Supernatural.
We've watched so much of it, apart from the last series.
So now we're literally...
Let's have another spin on the untitled.
The unfinished Supernatural series.
And we started it again.
So I've started from episode four because you'd already watched the first four episodes.
So yeah, that's what we've been doing.
Absolutely love Supernatural.
The more I watch, they look so young in that first series.
Really, really young.
I mean, Jensen Echols and Jared, I don't want to crucify his surname because it's quite
complicated.
They look so young.
I can't imagine how old they are at the time.
Well, I was just going to say that I've got the iPad in front of me.
So how long ago was the first series?
I know it's not the Variety Show and we don't normally do that sort of stuff here.
No, we do quizzes on this.
We do quizzes on what we're talking about.
Okay.
So again, now we've got to work by my age.
327 episodes.
Yeah.
I don't know what that translates into.
I think 2000 and...
15 series.
2002.
Not bad.
2005.
Oh, you know what?
I did this all the time.
That was a number in my head first.
I went, no, that's too late.
It's got to be earlier.
So 19 years ago.
Yeah.
That's ridiculous, isn't it?
19 years.
And there you're right.
You've got Jared Padalecki and Jensen Echols.
Yeah.
I'm going to go for those two.
They're very attractive men.
So let me have a quick look here.
Jared does not change how he looks from then to now.
Other than he looks a bit more baby face at the beginning.
But if you see him now, he just looks like he doesn't age, like he's a vampire.
And then Jensen has just got more attractive the older he's got.
So Jensen was 27.
He was 27?
He was 27.
He was born 1978.
And if my math is right, 20 years plus two takes you to 2000.
So that's 22 plus the five plus two there.
So 27.
So he's seven years older than me.
Yeah.
Let me have a look at what Jared was.
Jared was born 1982.
So two years younger, older than me, sorry.
So 1982.
So he would have been 23.
Yeah.
That looks right for him.
Jensen looked like, to be fair, he looked like he was a bit younger than that.
But yeah, they both, yeah, Jensen is just a really attractive man.
I'm just looking at pictures of him actually at the moment.
What else has he been in?
He's in The Boys at the moment.
Yeah, he's in The Boys at the moment.
Oh, right.
Okay.
As a pretty bad ass character, yeah.
Just swearing and stuff.
What's his character in The Boys?
I cannot remember the character.
He's not the dad of...
He's like their version of Captain America.
Right.
Okay.
That makes sense.
Okay.
That's the picture I can see of him.
And then obviously the dad from Supernatural is in The Walking Dead.
Yeah.
He's Negan in The Walking Dead.
I think those two together.
I think Jensen Eccles was in that terrible House of Wax film.
He was, yes.
That had the Hilton, maybe Paris Hilton was in it.
Oh dear, yes.
Paris Hilton.
Not a classically trained actor.
Specially trained at maybe swallowing, but certainly not doing acting.
Yeah, fair enough.
Thank you for listening to the last ever episode of the Untitled Track Show where we get cancelled.
Oh, I doubt us saying something against Paris Hilton is going to get us cancelled.
I think she's not quite so disliked nowadays.
No, she went into being a DJ, didn't she?
Is that what she's been doing?
Yeah, I think she became a DJ and was doing DJ sort of stuff.
Garage.
A little bit of garage.
Nice.
And what have you been watching then?
What have I been watching?
I'm sorry.
You actually have to ask a question on a podcast.
Just looking at you.
It's an audio format.
You know, people can't see the look.
I'm giving you the look again.
That's the audio sound of the look.
I've been watching the new Planet of the Apes films.
I loved the original Planet of the Apes films.
So the ones from the 60s and 70s.
Well, how old is Caesar now?
I don't know.
interests or different scenes,av competition through something that has replaced the same
ancing
business.
the next one after that which is when they're trying to do...
John Franco, whatever the name is, isn't that right?
Yeah, James Franco. Yeah, James Franco. John Lithgow.
John Franco.
It's a lesser-known brother.
John Lithgow is the one you might have been thinking of.
No, it wasn't that. Just got James Franco's name wrong.
Oh, fair enough.
Thank you for trying to save me, but I can't be saved.
Then you have the next one after that which is where they're trying to save the hydroelectric dam.
Yeah, I think I've seen that one.
And then I didn't realise...
In fact, let me just quickly type them in here because...
So the fourth one's just come out then?
That's what I'm just looking at now. Two seconds.
There's definitely one I haven't seen.
So let's have a look. Yeah, you've got Rise to the Planet of the Apes.
Definitely seen it, yeah.
Which is... I'm pretty sure that's the first one of the reimagining of it anyway.
Almost certain it is anyway.
Yeah, John Lithgow...
Jesus Christ. Do people really like listening to this shit? Get on with it, man.
Yeah, where the city is starting to kind of be in ruin a little bit.
They're trying to save the hydroelectric dam. So that was 2014.
Nope, nope, nope. I can't take it. Butt piss.
I love them for what they are. I love the original one,
even though the Simpsons ripped the piss out of it with the Dr Zayas.
I was just about to say...
Dr Zayas, Dr Zayas.
I love the one where the apes escape and they go back in time and end up in Earth.
And they're talking.
Nope, still going.
So those those ape films, for me, they live in the same realm as the remakes of these King Kong
and Godzilla's in that I have no idea which ones I've seen, which ones I haven't.
And I'm completely lost. One of them was on the telly yesterday or today.
And we're like, oh, let's watch it. And then we're like, which one is this?
It was one of the King Kongs. I had a big picture of King Kong.
And I was like, is this the first King Kong one or the one, the second one,
or is it the one with Godzilla in it?
King Kong, King Kong Skull Island.
I don't know which ones I've seen. I know I've seen at least one of them.
I couldn't tell you which one it was.
You should probably watch... I'm quite fond of that series.
I don't know why.
The Godzilla films aren't wonderful, but they're not they're not terrible.
They're a bit of fun.
We enjoyed them. I remember enjoying them, watching them.
But again, it's just one of those things where something must have happened.
Because at the time we were going to cinema a lot.
Yeah.
And we had the Cineworld cars like you.
So we were going a lot to the cinema, but it just must have just passed us by.
Yeah, well, that's fair enough.
These things happen, don't they?
There's so many of them come out.
I didn't even realize until I went and saw it that that Godzilla X Kong,
the latest one that came out this year, was even a thing.
It was just I was at the cinema going,
well, what one should I watch on the Cineworld account?
And it's like, oh, well, watch that then.
Yeah.
So yeah, you know what?
I don't blame you for not knowing because they do just...
To be fair, as I said, they're fun.
Yeah.
They're not memorable stories.
Yeah.
They aren't such good, wonderful stories that you're going to go,
I remember every single part of that.
They do just merge into one.
I know they are meant to be a continuing story,
but there's nothing that special about them that's going to make you go,
yeah, that really stands out.
So I'm going to remember it.
So I don't blame you for not remembering it really.
Unlike Star Trek Prology.
Enter authorization code.
I'm glad you noticed that straight away.
We didn't get too far.
Just as we jinxing ourselves, we were talking about,
never losing recording.
Yeah, we've never lost any...
I knew you said footage.
It's not footage.
Any audio from a show, except for the Lower Decks episode where we went to London.
And that wasn't our fault.
That wasn't us not pressing record.
That was a firmware issue with the radio mics we were using at that time.
So that was completely that fault.
There was nothing we could have done about that.
There was nothing we did wrong.
But that, yes, would have been the first time we purposely...
Well, not purposely, but our fault had lost footage then.
And no audio.
Footage.
Yeah, so we set you the homework of watching...
Had you ever seen Star Trek Prodigy before?
I'd started the first couple of episodes in the background like I normally do
when I was working and watching TV at the same time.
So I'd kind of seen parts of it as I'd worked,
but not paid 100% attention to it.
So I'm going to say no, I hadn't, because I think that's fair,
because I hadn't put any attention towards it.
So it hadn't been given a fair viewing.
What was your knowledge of it prior to this?
Prior to it, I'd only heard about it on Twitter and the social
and then the trailers that came out for it.
And I kind of got the idea that people were saying,
this is a way to introduce the new generation of kids to Star Trek.
That's what it came across as, especially as Nickelodeon
were involved in making that first series.
So yeah, for me, it wasn't...
I'm not going to watch it because it's a kids show.
You know us, we like watching kids shows,
especially when they're decent.
And yeah, it looked good.
So I thought I will give it a chance at some point.
Yeah.
How about yourself? When had you come across it for the first time?
First time I ever heard about it was you mentioning it on the podcast.
Yeah.
And you pretty much said something similar to that.
And then we went to the Lower Decks thing and they had a little bit about it then.
That was the first time I'd ever seen it.
Oh, of course they did. Yes, you're right.
They did.
Because that was one of the places they announced
they were going to do a second series of it.
Or no, it was in the...
They had the bit about...
We don't know where we were.
We don't know where we're going at the moment, didn't they?
They said the future is...
And then it showed like...
It showed that was in there and it made a big implication
there was going to be another series of Prodigy, but not from Paramount.
But they'd cancelled it at that point.
They then cancelled it.
It was actually in Netflix.
So maybe that was just their kind of thing of being like,
oh, you know, this will come.
Because I don't know, the people behind us were really excited,
they thought that this could mean another series of Prodigy.
100%.
In fact, yeah, you know what?
I'm pretty sure it had been cancelled at that point
because there was the murmurings of, well, you've cancelled it, blah, blah, blah.
But then there was the excitement that came on screen because you're right.
People were like, does this mean it's been given a second chance?
This is brilliant news.
Well, season one isn't even on their app.
Oh no, it's all on Netflix.
It's all on Netflix because I went straight to Paramount Plus to watch it.
See, I'm glad I didn't because oops, I cancelled Paramount Plus.
How it's not going to help you in this Star Trek podcast.
It will be fine.
I've got ways around it.
But the point is, there's nothing on Paramount Plus at the moment.
I just didn't, I can't warrant that six or seven quid it is a month for,
I think all I was doing is turning it on once a month, if that.
For me to tell you how we have Paramount Plus, it's going to open me up to some more.
Yeah, let's not go down that route.
So more of you telling me off.
Come on, Le Pack Boy.
Right, so the season one, episode one of Prodigy.
Accessing library computer data.
Lost and found part one, as we found out.
Yeah, we didn't realise it was a two-parter.
Yeah, we didn't.
And I purposely didn't watch the second part knowing that I'd only said to watch the first episode.
Exactly, so we've not watched the second part.
We've only watched part one, which takes us all the way up, spoilers, to them discovering
the Proto Star.
Is that what the...
That's the name of the ship, yeah.
Right, it looked like Voyager.
I was on my comment on it was it looks a lot like a Voyager.
Yeah, it's...
Same class of ship, surely.
It's, yeah, it looks a similar class.
I would say, is it like the, you know, the Enterprise E.
Is it the Enterprise E version of Voyager?
So the next generation of Voyager.
Yes, the Voyager E.
See, oh yeah, the Voyager B, I guess it would be, wouldn't it?
It'd be called the Voyaged.
Well, for all we know, it's a completely different class of ship because we haven't seen it fly yet.
Yeah, it'd be called the Bon Voyage.
That's just... no.
Stop recording, no.
Right, let's talk about the episode as it plays out.
It has a pretty good intro.
Yeah, the intro is really good.
I would say, and this isn't going to be the first time you hear me say this,
it rings music-wise and sound-wise more about a more like the Kelvin timeline of Star Trek.
And by that, I mean the Chris Pine era of Star Trek movies that we've had in the past.
Again, they're old, 20 years now.
So that's what it sounded like.
It didn't sound like a classic TNG or Voyager or Deep Space Nine.
It sounded far more modern.
Well, it was quite short because the first...
Because I have only seen this one.
I don't know if, like we did say with Orville, how that first episode didn't have a Star Trek intro.
It was the second episode of Orville that had the Star Trek intro.
It was quite short, had the great music, but then it kind of quickly transitioned into the show.
Yes.
The gems.
So that's what I really liked about it.
It was kind of doing a Star Trek intro with the stars and having the badge come up.
And then suddenly it all turned into these yellow gemstones and off it goes and it's into the mines.
Yeah, you know what, actually, it kind of felt a bit like some of the classic Star Trek films as well,
because it kind of had that...
Often, if you looked at some of the classic Star Trek films, ignoring some of the ones like...
Well, the motion picture, which is near, I think it's something like six or seven minutes of the intro
is just black screen with a little bit of music, some stars and names.
Yeah.
And that's it.
So ignoring that, but if you look at a couple of the later ones, it does that.
It does the music, obviously a little bit longer than they did for this, but yeah,
then it kind of disappears into and merges into the beginning of the film.
Yeah. I mentioned it again later, but like in Star Wars, how you have the kind of the text scroll
and then the cameras pans down into some action. That's kind of how it felt.
Yeah, there wasn't text, but it kind of felt like that.
And I would say a lot of this could easily have been a Star Wars show.
I am so glad you said that, because I was literally just going to preface what I was going to say is,
this may upset a lot of Trekkies, it may upset the Save Lower Decks people, but oh my God.
The creators of this, whether you think this is right or wrong,
did this absolutely right by the kids of our generation.
So the kids of, not the kids of our generation, sorry, the kids of this generation.
So kids of this generation have grown up with Disney Star Wars, which let's face it,
and if you're a Star Wars fan, I make no apologies for this.
The first three, the original three films are fine. Yeah, they're fine.
They are bloody boring.
They're not the Phantom Menace.
And they are so slow in everything. It's just like you're watching the lightsaber play and it's like,
I could have stabbed you 14 times by the time you did that swing, Luke. What the hell?
Yet the ones that we get now, they're bouncing all over the way, even like, yeah, from episode
one onwards, they're bouncing all over the place. And they've kind of taken that energy
and put it straight into Prodigy and everything else kind of feels very Star Wars-ish as well.
So you've got, what's his name? I'm just having a quick look here because of Dreadnock.
Yep.
Feels straight, what's the name of the robot one in?
General Grievous.
Feels very Grievous, doesn't he?
Yeah.
But yet the energy feels Star Wars.
It felt like they're on a Sith base.
Yeah, the whole thing, it felt like Star Wars, but it's Star Trek.
Yeah. The little watches, the little drone things.
The watches, yeah.
Battle droids.
Yeah.
Battle droids and the little rolly ones as well, especially when one of them gets blasted away
and you just go, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Stiddy listens and he's going to correct me. Are they called droideka?
Stiddy, you can message me. You're allowed to correct me.
I think so, yeah. But yeah, it just kind of feels like they went, look, we know Star Wars
is more popular than Star Trek. We know Star Trek, if you look at the original series,
TNG, Voyager, D space nine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
they're not exactly action-packed series. And yes, we get action in those. So the Borg
fights in TNG, Deep Space Nine, we get these, an amazing kind of war between the Federation,
the Bajorans and another one that you will come across. I'm not going to ruin that for you.
Voyager against all the races they come across, all the Borg stuff in that. So we get really good
action in them, but a lot of the time we get slower, fake science sort of series, don't we?
It's a slower thing. So for them to go, kids are not going to be interested in that,
but we want them to know Star Trek. Let's do a little bit. Star Wars was a brave move,
but that's what it feels like they've done. They've gone, let's take the good bits from Star Wars,
but mix it with Star Trek. Would you say that using just the term science fiction, Star Wars,
Star Wars leans more into the fiction access aspect of that phrase, where Star Trek leans more into
the science aspect of it. Whilst they're both science fiction, there's a much more heavy basis
on making sure you get trekked in Star Trek. 100%. 100%. You've got Star Trek, which is like
trekking the trek, teching the tech sort of stuff. So it feels, I guess you could say it feels more
believable as to it could happen. If you were to be told, right, I'm going to give you these two
things. You've got Star Wars in there, if you've got Star Trek in there, I want you to watch Star
Trek, I want you to watch both of them and then tell us if we would tell you one of these things
could happen, which do you think it would be? I would say Star Trek is the one you'd go,
well, yeah, I can see that being a real life progression for the human race. And if we ever
came across Ains, where as Star Wars is, you're right, it's 100% more fiction. It is, I can't see
that. Maybe that's just me. Maybe that's me and my whole, not anti-religion, but I'm not religious
therefore the whole idea of having some little sperm things that fly around in you and give you
magical Jedi powers. Yes, Steddy, you can also correct Rob on that one for me. Correct me on
you calling, calling mechlorians. What did you call them? Little sperm things. There you go.
Little clorians. Yeah, it's fine. I think that was a bit of a fuck up for the Phantom Menace.
I'll allow that to be the one blemish on the Phantom Menace's otherwise perfect story.
I would also say, maybe last thing to say about it, I'd say if we're going to put it in gaming
terms, Star Wars is, quote unquote, arcadey. Yes. Is what I would say. Yeah. Star Wars is the game
that you're going to get feedback that you enjoy straight away. Star Trek, you've got to be in it
for the slog. It's going to be the game and it's going to be, oh for fuck's sake, it's a not
skippable 10 minute cut scene at the beginning. Do I want to be doing this? But if you hold on
and you get through it, it's so worth it. It's really rewarding. Whereas Star Wars just, I mean,
blows its lows at the beginning and you've got what you've got. Yeah, 10 minutes talking,
you can't pause it. You need to piss. Yeah. And then you go for a piss, you come back and you're
dead. And it's like, oh no. But again, it's not as bad as something like Battlestar Galactica,
which is the 10 minute cut scene followed by, you've now got to learn all the moves and you
can't skip that either. So you can't skip the tutorial. That's the word I couldn't think of.
So yeah, you've now got the cut scene and the tutorial to do. Okay, right. I know I said lots
of tangents, but this one's a long one. Oh no, but you're right. Prodigy has felt more
Star Wars than Star Trek in this first episode. And I'm not saying that's a negative thing. As
much as I'm not a huge fan of Star Wars, it's made me pay attention to it. And I reckon it's
probably made any kid that's watched it pay attention to it more. Because if that had just
done properly Star Trek, you would not have got half the action in that. And I don't think it
would have been as engrossing. And I love Star Trek, but I'm happy to admit that. Yeah, it's
definitely, it was not a negative to say it was like Star Wars at all. It's just a different way
of doing Star Trek and I enjoyed it. Yeah, exactly. It's almost the Lower Decks approach.
They went with fun and rather than it being obviously adult orientated this time, they went
fun and action because we know that's what kids want. Yep. Anyway, back to the episode then.
Sorry, the intro is finished. Oh God. So the first thing that is, it looks brilliant. The
art style is great. It does. They didn't do a random, horrible, jagged edge sort of art style.
They actually made it look really modern, but smooth and nice. It's like Pixar-esque
like quality. Yeah, you're right. Really good quality. And it's a really good scene as well.
He's running. Can you hear that? We've got a little bit of a, we're having a little technical
issue. These two are so unprofessional. Let me just skip ahead for you. One moment please.
Where were we? He's running away. Right. So yes, the animation style. We're still in the first five
seconds of the show. The animation style we really like. It's not too obnoxious, but it's also not
too childlike and it's not too completely out of the ordinary. It's a really nice mix of semi-realistic
with cartoon overtones. Yeah. And I was in it straight away. If I'm going to be watching
something CGI, I want it to look nice. Yes. So I was happy straight away. Love the intro,
running through. He's like a prisoner from what he can get at this point. Trying to plot his escape,
isn't he? He sees an exit above him and there's this big mine cart full of this weird coloured
gems getting pulled up. He's counting the amount of time it takes for that to get up and past him.
Yes. And he sees this kind of figure in the background, which looks like if anyone's played
Portal 2, it looks like one of the robots from Portal 2. Not the skinny tall one, the short fat
round one. Yeah. Okay. I get that. I hadn't thought about that. I was going for Clap Trap.
Well, Clap Trap is more like a square. Yeah. Kind of a square with a wheel. Yeah, fair enough. But
you get the idea. Small little robot. Small little droid of some sort. Could be any droid that you
see in any other Star Wars show that you might be watching. R2-D2. Maybe he's R2-D2. A mixture of
R2-D2 and C3PO. If R2-D2 had the arms and legs of C3PO, that's the robot. And wasn't as fucking
annoying as C3PO. Yeah, and wasn't so annoying. Yeah. So, and then he starts kind of running
through the... And I can, no, sorry, I've gone away for it. He's not running away yet. He's plotting.
He sees the robot and then he gets confronted by General Grievous. Yeah. So he, we'll go by the
actual name Dreadnock. So he gets... But I didn't write those down. So I'm going to do Star Wars
acronyms for the whole way through. That's fine. I've got IMDB. You've got your notes. We'll meet
in the middle. But yeah, Dreadnock confronts him. What do you know about Prisoner Zero?
Yeah. And so we've got to assume that that's Prisoner Zero. Fugitive Zero. Fugitive Zero.
Sorry. Yeah. And then he gets a bit more upset. The dark side starts to take hold of him a bit more.
And he has to be saved. So Fugitive Zero starts fiddling with the control panels and blows something
up. Yeah. And in that kind of mess, he then... Oh, that's a yeah. Dreadnock basically converts
an arm to something that looks like a red hot poker. A lightsaber. He's going to... Yeah. It's
a lightsaber, isn't it? Let's face it. And he's about to kind of kill our main character, Dau.
Yeah. So yeah, Prisoner Zero rips out a power conduit because we're talking Star Trek finally.
And the power goes out. Lots of explosions. Yes. And then whilst doing that, somehow Fugitive Zero
managed to undo the security coupling thing. Well, I think that was because the power went out.
Oh, I thought it was only his that it happened to. Oh, possibly then. Oh, okay. No, fair enough.
That was the impression I got. Because I didn't see him. He asked something and they go, oh,
clink. Yeah, true. Otherwise everyone would have been trying to escape. My ASBO bracelets.
I've been undone. Welcome to Planet ASBO. Planet ASBO. And now he's running away,
getting chased by the Watchers. And it's a really good chase scene. It's a great chase scene.
Jumping around. It's so action filled. But they keep it...
Well, like the animation style, it's not too over the top, but they fit so much into it. And it looks
so nice. It's so fluid. And it goes on for a while. It does. A good few minutes of him running
through. And he's like talking to himself as you go through. Because obviously he has to,
because at the point none of us know anything that's going on. So he's kind of... Yeah.
Just talking to himself to kind of move the plot along while he's running along. And he kind of
slides down this cool slide and finds a vehicle that he nicks off a guy who's trying to repair it.
Well, that's it. So yeah, he tries to run one way and it just caves in. He's like,
yeah, no, not that way. And then he runs off. Yeah, everything keeps going wrong. And he
eventually falls down, doesn't he? And he comes across a spaceship.
Yep. And then he's in this... Well, it's kind of like a little hover car thing, isn't it?
Yeah. It's the... A little wagon.
Star Trek, Star Wars equivalent of a space dump truck.
Or a space for transit.
Yeah. It's a transit. It's the transit that hasn't been looked after. You know, rust over the real
arches. Engine's got about 90,000 on it. It's never had the oil changed.
Yeah. He's going down this kind of... Now we're in the... What is it?
The...
Speeds up for speed bumps.
Now he's... He's now going down a long corridor looking for the ventilation shaft of the
mining planet. Oh no, sorry. That's the Death Star. Sorry. So he's going down this long
corridor, avoiding stuff like rocks and gems and things that are all falling down,
and gets this factory bit where they're, I guess, crushing the rocks and stuff that they're mining.
He sees on the map, it says something like, oh, stone extraction or something extraction.
So he thinks, well, that sounds good. That must be going up. So he goes up there and then he's
like, this was a bad idea because everything is just kind of crushing and pulverising as he's
flying through it.
Yeah. And there's like this big ramp. I didn't really get this bit. There's like a big ramp.
I guess it seems like it's catching the rocks and the rocks are falling down the ramp.
And he must think, if I go up this ramp enough, I might be able to get the air to get out of the...
out of whatever this thing that he's in. Well, spoilers, he doesn't make it.
Doesn't quite get there, falls down to earth and fade to black. Isn't it?
Yeah.
Okay. Then we get the logo.
Then we finally get the name of the show, Prodigy.
Prodigy. Yeah. Next is we... This is where I really would be like, now we're in Star Wars
territory because now we're with the baddies.
Yes.
Now we're going to... And then, yeah, we've got the emperor or...
Oh, actually, no.
Ness Grievous is not the emperor.
No, the one that's floating. So are we at that point yet?
I can't...
No, you see him, you see like his mouth, a side view of his mouth.
And I instantly knew who the actor was playing that guy's voice.
You know before Luke it up?
I don't.
John Noble.
It is John Noble playing the diviner.
You cannot not know that dude's voice when he starts speaking.
Or you'll be like, what's that guy from? What's that guy from?
But can I just point out again, very Star Wars-esque.
When you finally see the diviner on the outside, he's basically floating in a giant chamber.
Yeah.
As I... So this is Darth Vader.
Yeah.
Just in his little cocoon thing that you see them screwing his lid back on in that part of Star
Wars. And it's just kind of floaty kind of Emperor hologram or Darth Vader-esque.
That's what this is again.
One thing we didn't know is that no one can speak his language.
Plus we haven't mentioned that because they don't have the universal translators on the planet.
Yes.
So they turned it off.
So I can't remember if it happens then or it happens after. They say all of the universal
translators have been removed from the planet so no one can talk to each other.
Therefore you can't plot an escape.
Very clever actually idea to have included that. If you can't talk to the person next to you,
you're not going to be able to escape. You're going to just have to work.
Yeah. And that's where this lady baddie comes into play because she can speak
loads and loads of different languages.
And she's the daughter of the diviner. But yes, she can speak millions of languages.
She's Princess Leia. In this scenario, the Star Wars scenario,
she's Princess Leia because she's Darth Vader's daughter.
Yeah, basically.
Spoilers. Really wouldn't have seen that.
Spoilers.
Star Wars.
We've got to start doing the Star Wars this day now. I think they've got the idea.
They've taken a lot from Star Wars to make this work.
At least in this one episode.
And they've got some Bouncy Hunter there. So it kind of looks like
they're populating this prison planet with bounties.
Yeah. So they'd got the... Oh, bloody hell. What was his race? Because it was a race from Voyager.
Yeah. I can't remember what it was. I didn't write it down for once. I normally write those
bits down. Oh, that's really annoyed me now. So I'm going to have to very, very quickly look it up.
But yeah, you've got the race that is from Voyager, who basically brings...
Little cat.
Prisoners to their planet to work in the mine in exchange for whatever it is.
One can assume Latin, I suppose. Or whatever currency they're using around here.
But he's brought a little cat. A little cat boy or girl.
Little cat creature. Yeah. Which was very sweet, to be fair.
Kazon.
Kazon. That's it.
That was it. It was the Kazon Trader.
Interesting. It is also the voice for rock.
Oh, the...
The rock creature.
The rock creature. Yeah. Yeah. So then the lady tells him off for bringing a little kid.
She then gets told off by General Grievous for saying, you don't know what your dad wants.
Yeah.
Although we shouldn't say dad yet. At this point, you don't know that the...
You don't know what he wants. Yeah, basically.
But then that's where they then walk inside and we do hear the dad and her talking for a little bit
about what he needs from this kid.
Yeah. So we get the idea that there's something else going on, especially because when she leaves,
Dreadnock turns back up and he's like, I don't care what I've just told her. If she fails,
just get the job done.
Yeah.
So we know that there's something else going on that he's not telling her,
but that's what you get the feeling of anyway.
Yeah. And then we're back in the prison with the main character. You're really good at
remembering all these names. I didn't write any of them down.
I've got IMDB in front of me.
Yeah, I didn't write any of them down.
So Dahl's in jail or he's in the brig or whatever you want to call it on this prison planet.
And he's talking to a random voice who we don't know who it is. He doesn't know who it is,
but just as they're getting into the conversation, the guards turn up and they pull him out,
don't they? And he goes along and he looks into the prison cell next to him and there's no one
there. So we can then say for you, well, is that Zero? Is that fugitive Zero that we're hearing
about? And that's what he's kind of clocked onto. Is that the case? And they take him up to go and
see the daughter again. And honestly, I can't remember her name.
I think her name was Gwen.
Yes, Gwen. You know, that typical alien name that everyone has.
Yeah, I did write that one down.
I mean, we've got Dahl, the main character. We've got Rock Tuck, which is, I can't stop
doing things as Klingon. Rock Tuck, which is the spiky rock. You've got Murph, who is the little
slimy thing. You've got Zero, the ball of energy, who's got a robot. You've got Jancom Pog, which
is the Telerian, did he say he was? And then you've got Gwen.
You know what it's like? So the new game of Thrones, the House of Dragons has got,
you know how all the names in it are really cool names, like the Targaryens, and it's going on.
And it really got whiplash when I heard it, because there's a guy in it called Alan.
Oh my God.
What? Anyone who watches it would know what I'm
talking about. They're just going, talking, talking, and then suddenly he just says Alan.
And I was like, what? The dude's called Alan?
Oh, that's just bloody stupid.
It's hilarious. He's a fine character, he's fine enough. Just the name Alan really knocked me back.
Geez.
Yeah. So, oh, he asks to eat some food on her desk. What's the food, TJ?
Oh, I don't know. I wasn't paying that much attention.
Honey lychee's.
Oh, it's honey lychee's. Oh, so they've obviously got human food then.
Honey lychee's, yeah.
Does he ask? I thought he just scoffed his face.
Specifically if he can have the honey lychee's.
Oh, okay.
And then she kind of, I don't know if she like pushes them to him or does a kind of thing and
the computer moves it over. I didn't really tell. I don't want to do another Star Wars thing.
She forced moved it.
But it did seem like it just moved.
Yeah.
I might have just missed her touch it, but it felt like it just moved.
Yeah. You kind of get the gist of though, get the idea of though is that she is,
maybe everyone doesn't like her because obviously they're keeping them all prisoners.
Yeah.
But you get the idea that she's not really that interested in them being prisoners.
She wants to be fair. She wants to be
nice while keeping them prisoners.
These two know each other.
Yeah. There is a history of some sort.
He clearly must get in some kind of trouble all the time.
Well, she says, doesn't she? You're always trying to escape
when you're going to learn that you can't.
Yeah.
So you get the idea. This isn't the first time this has all happened.
Yeah, exactly.
And then he gets, she kind of convinces him, well kind of makes him really,
I guess they want him to go undercover to capture.
First of all, she sends him away, doesn't she?
She gets the watchers to come and say, no, take them away.
You don't know anything about me, the fugitive zero.
So nope, see you later. Off you go. You can go and die now.
I'll let Dreadnought deal with you instead.
Yeah.
And then he finally says, no, no, no, I have spoken to them.
They were in my head in this prison cell next to me.
And yeah, she then says, fine. We think he's over here.
That's where you're going. And he's like, but I'm tiny.
I'm going to die there. I'm going to get crushed to death.
Deep core mining.
Yeah. You get anywhere else, you find a way basically.
Yeah. So basically send him to the lowest part of the...
Yeah. The deepest mining.
Yeah. Mining with all the dwarves down in there looking for Mithril.
Hi-ho, hi-ho. It's off to mine we go.
In the, was it the Mines of Moria? Have you seen,
you won't have seen the Lord of the Rings series, will you?
No.
And they've got like a whole section of the mines, which is like closed off the people,
because it's where all the Mithril is. But it's really unstable and too many of them died in there.
So the King's like blocked it off.
Okay.
Spoilers. I might cut that one in case people do actually want to watch that.
Yeah. But he goes down the elevator and he watches a great little video.
Don't they have like a safety video?
Oh, that was so beautiful. That was just the right amount of comic relief you needed,
because we hadn't had much up to that point. We'd had a couple of the phases with him escaping.
Just him is the comic relief really, isn't it? So far.
And then all of a sudden, you've got these perfect, like, I get it, I get it. Ticks, not crosses.
Yeah. There's a lot of crosses here.
If you do this, it has to be a big X. Like, and it's all like really funny little cartoon
things as well. Like if you've ever been on a ride at Disney or whatever, and they play those
little videos about getting into the rides and stuff, it was kind of like that.
Yeah. And it just suddenly even dawned on me now, because we're talking about it.
It makes absolute sense that they've done it like that, because no one knows a language.
No one's got one specific language. So you have to do it like that. And it is how everyone does
it, don't they? They do it with funny little cartoons because it draws your attention to it.
It makes you remember it.
Yeah. And it comes back a bit later, this video, in a really funny way.
I didn't see it.
Okay. Well, I'll tell you when you get there. So it's doing the crosses and the ticks,
and it's showing how they pair you up by attaching your two ankles together by a long cord.
Yes.
And it was like two ticks, because you're nice, happy, stuck together. And it's like,
if one person goes the other way and one person goes the other way, then it goes like two Xs.
That's the gist of the thing, getting crushed by rocks, big X. It's quite funny.
Yes. And he gets stuck with this giant, or the biggest rock, red rock monster out of all,
like a big golem made of red, like the thing in Fantastic Four.
Just a little bit more pointy.
A bit more pointy and red.
Yeah. I think they're called the Bricker or Bricker.
And the rock, I wrote Red Rock Man Gets Annoyed.
It roars at him, a kind of guttural, loud roar.
Yeah, to get him to walk along with them. And then they're mining, and he's not really mining.
He's like drawing on the floor to try and explain to the rock monster how he wants to escape.
Yeah, look, I need to do this, so can you please do this with me? And he's just more
interested in actually just working.
Yeah. And he draws this little spaceship on the floor with a picture of his face above it.
And the rock monster is like, and then goes, and you too, and then draws their face next to it.
Which I thought, again, he's the comic relief, and he's genuinely quite funny as well.
Because at this point, nothing else is funny. He is the funny thing. Everything around him is
actually a bit serious, other than the little comedy bit on the lift.
And this is what I'm tying, why I said I'd bring it up later. I tie it more into the Kelvin
timeline of Star Trek, because he feels exactly like how Chris Pine portrays Kirk in the modern
films. Not taking things seriously, comic relief, doing things because he's going headfirst into
it, rather than standing back and thinking about it. And it just felt very much like
a story arc taken from that, doesn't it?
Like a Mr. Bean-esque character.
Almost, yeah.
Yeah. And what's the... People will have a go at me for not remembering his name.
You know that old TV show where you've got that guy and he gets stuck on those roller skates,
and he's roller skating.
Oh, Frank Spencer, or some others do have him, as the show was called.
That is very, very much like that. He could never get hurt, because he's just so clumsy,
and just messing everything up. The carnage happens around him. He's the eye of the storm.
He will create the carnage, but he will come out at the end unscathed.
Yeah. Oh, it's not on the mic. Sorry, everyone. Now, loads of rocks fall on it.
Yes.
Now, this is where it comes, what I'm talking about. As the rocks are about to crush him,
he goes, it's a big X.
Yes, I know what you mean now. Brilliant. But yeah, that's all cause, because
Rock wants to work.
He doesn't want to work.
He doesn't. He yanks the rope, doesn't he? Which means he fires his laser mining tool
and causes the rock side.
Yeah. Yeah. He says something like, I'm going to be an X, or it's a big X. He makes a very quick,
loud joke about the X, which is really funny. But no, Rock Monster defends him.
Yeah. He saves him. And even then, he's still a bit of a dick to the Rock Monster after,
I thought. He's just saved it. And then you're still being a bit dickish towards him.
Did they fall down somewhere?
Yes. So I think the floor gives way and they fall down into a cavern below. And the first thing he
notices is, oh my God, look at all of this special ore that we've been looking for. We've got enough
here to pay our way off the planet. Actually, hell no. We've got enough here to buy a ship
from that. Oh God, brain's really stopped working.
From those gemstone things.
Yeah. No, from the race that we were, I've already kind of said, I already can't remember.
For God's sake, Kazon. Yeah. We've got enough to buy the ship, let alone pay our way off the planet.
Yeah. So that's brilliant. And then Rock keeps walking towards the prod, well, we don't know
what it is, but what looks vaguely familiar to the USS Voyager.
Yeah. It looked like a really cool ship.
It does.
And I did think that's Voyager. And I'm thinking, what years is meant to be? Why is Voyager there?
It wasn't until he got on the ship and the bridge looked nothing like Voyager. When I was like,
okay, we mustn't be Voyager. It must just be a, they just have obviously modelled it on that.
Yeah. A hundred percent. And I'm just looking at the Proto Star now.
And because I've seen pictures of season two, of characters that are in it, I kind of thought
there must be a link between Voyager and this.
Okay. So the Proto Star is a form of class called the Proto Star Class.
Right.
And yes, it's the USS Proto Star is its name.
They named a ship after its class.
Interesting. Yeah.
Because the Enterprise isn't an Enterprise class ship, is it? The Enterprise is the Enterprise.
So yeah, it depends on what you're looking. You've had the Constitution class.
You had the Galaxy class. You've, oh, God, I can't remember what the Enterprise E is.
And that's terrible. Enterprise E. It's going to really bug me. So I'm going to have to look it up
now. Well, anyway.
Sovereign class. There you go.
Sovereign class. There you go. Yeah. So, and the ship looks great on the outside. They go inside.
It looks great on the inside. Really cool. High tech, but not, you know, horrible high techy like
in Discovery. It looked like a normal.
It looked like something from the Federation that we know.
It wasn't radically changed to give us a Star Wars-esque for ship, seeing that we were saying
Star Wars so much, but it's a Federation ship that we could recognise. You could say, like we have
been, well, that front section of the ship is very Voyager-esque. So for us, immediately our brains
click and go, is that Voyager? It's a Federation ship because you just, you know that design.
That design is in our brains as it's Federation at Star Trek. So Prodigy have kept that, which
is a good thing. It was necessary. Interesting. I didn't realise this. Do you know? I'm sure this
will come up and I mean, come on, if you're listening to this, you probably watched Prodigy
already. I know who the captain of the Prodigy was, of the Proto Star Wars.
I'm going to say who I thought it was Captain Janeway.
No. Oh, don't you, Kim?
Chakotay. Oh really? Chakotay is.
Chakotay. I can never get his name right the first time. Yeah, Chakotay after, so apparently
here under the command of Chakotay for a return mission to the Delta Quadrant undertaken in the
years after the return to US. That's a hundred percent explains why the Kazon are in it because
this means they're in the Delta Quadrant. That anyways, that's probably ruining it for ourselves.
So I'm not going to look at that anymore because that's going to.
Yeah, I plan to watch this.
That's got to come up in extra in later episodes. So no, I'm not looking at that anymore. Ignore me.
But anyway, yeah, we get the smoke and the light and we get the Proto Star. There it is.
And that's the end of the episode, isn't it?
Turns on. The translator starts working.
Yes. Okay. So yeah, we get Rock walking around the bridge with Dau and Dau's kind of,
Oh, wow, look at all of this. And Rock just walks over and goes, Oh, shiny at the.
Basically the, you know, I can't think of what they call it. My brain's just gone to mush. I'm
so sorry everyone, but basically the combat shape. And I know it's got a name.
Well, the thing about is the big gray rock man has a little girl's voice.
Well, yeah. So he presses the combat shape and the ship turns on and then Dau basically,
what have you done? And yeah, we get little child voice as I can understand you.
Yeah. As I can understand you. I can understand you.
Yeah. And then.
Delta. There you go. They're called the Delta or Arrowhead.
And then fugitive zero appears, makes some kind of cool action movie star cliffhanger reference.
Yes. Yeah. And that's where it stops.
And it's quite dangerous because Netflix basically runs the two together without even telling you
it started episode two. It's five seconds and it starts the next one. It doesn't give you,
we've been watching a lot of Disney and you get a bit of credits, then you get 20 seconds.
Yeah. Then bottom left corner, you get a little rectangle down here on the iPad you do. And it
says next episode starting in next episode starts. It didn't in Netflix. Normally Netflix does that.
It normally says, yeah, next episode about to play. This, it just went straight into it.
I thought that as well. Confused the hell out of me.
Yeah. Cause it kind of like started doing an end credit and it's like, okay, well stop now.
Cause it didn't say we're doing another episode. 100%. I'm going to say
pretty little now because I know you're going to press the stop button.
Transfer complete. What did you think?
I really, pardon me. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was for once something that was
not just new, but well thought out and good. It wasn't just a, we've got the Star Trek name.
Let's make it super kid friendly. For me, anyone could have watched that and enjoyed it. There was
no, it's more towards the adult. It's more towards the children. Like actually your words of it's
like a Pixar film is actually more true than you think. Because you look at things like toy story
and there's always the adult jokes in there that the kids will never get, but it's something for
the adults. And they've done that in this, like the little video with the crosses and the ticks
about the safety. The kids might find it funny, but the adults will find that funnier because
you've gone through it at some point in your life where you've done the health and safety
bloody training. So it's more like Pixar than I think actually I gave it credit for. There's
a lot for adults, a lot for kids. They blew it out of the park. Brilliant. Really good.
I reckon Kay could watch that and be quite happy watching it. I don't know if she's into that kind
of stuff, but she's the age that I think could watch it. I'd quite like her to watch it. Whether
or not I can persuade her to is another matter because she's watched a couple of DS9 episodes
with me in the background and she's then asked, are you going to watch one of those again? And
I've said no. And then I've seen she's going to, oh, but doesn't really want to say, can you put
one on? Well, ask her to watch it. She's obviously, she's Star Trek curious. Why don't you ask her to
watch that one and then record her thoughts and we can play it in the next one? That's a good idea.
Yeah, I will do because it's only 20 odd minutes. And she's got the attention span for that.
Just. She's 10. Come on, give me a break, you fuckers. What did I think of it? I really liked
it. So pleasantly surprised again. I would never have watched it in a million years. It would never
really have, even though you spoke about it, it didn't never kind of cross my mind to watch it
until a lot of people were making waves about the second series and how much everyone seemed to like
it. Well, yeah, the whole save lower decks team saying we've managed to save prodigy. Yeah.
Basically stirred both of us to go, well, if people are fighting that hard to get a show saved,
there's got to be something about. They like that as much as we like lower decks. There must
be something good about. And they were right. Yeah. They're a hundred percent right. Yeah.
It was that good. I'm going to watch the rest. I'm really looking forward to actually seeing
if it holds, holds that quality all the way from particularly season two, how season two pans out.
Well, that's going to be the interesting point, isn't it? So season one, I'm just looking here.
Season one has 20 episodes. 20 episodes. Okay. Wow. Yeah. 20 episodes. It's a proper Star Trek
series then it is. And then you've got into season two. Now my issue is going to be,
will the writing of season two be as good as the first? Have they changed writers because
they had to change who was producing it and everything like that was the storyline already
thought out before they canceled it and they're just going to carry it on or did they have to say,
no, you're right. We'll bring it back. And they've just gone, right.
Shit. We've got to think of a story now. I guess it depends how series one ends.
Yeah. Well, that's also very true. If there's a cliffhanger or not. Yeah. But you know what,
you know what shows like this can be like, they can end on a cliffhanger and then the next season,
a year has passed, you get a five minute, oh, this is how we got out of that sticky situation.
And then it's a completely different storyline. Yeah. And that, that would be disappointing,
but I'll hold out kind of any thoughts on that until I've seen it. Yeah. But no,
I think well worth watching. Absolutely. Well, happy with it.
Command functions are offline. So it's the end. Probably the shortest
Trek episode that we've watched. Well, absolutely. Because the lower decks ones aren't 22 minutes.
They're longer than that, aren't they? No, they're about 22 or 25 minutes because
you've got to consider about advertising that you've got to fit in between it. And it's,
oh yeah. So I think they're probably about the same length.
Yeah. The American is one on these. So they did. I remember the first time we went on holiday there
and we watched some TV and it was like, does the intro of the show, then adverts, then the first
part of the show, then the second part of the show, then adverts, then the credits. Imagine watching,
knowing when the show's over, you've got three more runs of credits before you see the start of
the next show. Cause you've got credits and you can say you got adverts, end credits, adverts, intro,
adverts. And I hate adverts. I absolutely hate them. Okay. So lower decks runtime 25 minutes,
prodigy 23 minutes. Okay. It just felt a lot shorter. But that could be to do with,
don't forget 23 minutes is a kid's show. They've got to fit more adverts in for toys.
Yeah. It just felt way shorter than just being two minutes shorter.
And maybe I just super enjoyed it and just felt really quick.
Well, I think that might be more likely. I think actually the enjoyment I got from that was
really high. So actually that's why I was surprised. I got halfway through the second
episode before I realised, oh shit, it started the second episode. I was enjoying it that much.
I hadn't even kind of noticed that it'd been going on for longer than I thought. It just,
time had gone like that. It's the sort of thing is when you go to a good film and you realise,
oh, it's the end of the film and I haven't got a num bum. Brilliant.
Next episode. I think I'd like to do some more questions. I love the question ones when we get
questions. I really enjoy the questions. I think we should do a few episodes, then questions,
few episodes questions. And then after that, I think I'm going to pick up a card unless you
can think of a different thing that you want to watch. No, I think a Picard is a good idea.
I think maybe the first episode of Picard season one, get one of every single season in and of
every single type of star trek there's been, because I think we'll do a Picard and then I
will pick a discovery that I want you to watch. Yeah, fair enough. So there's kind of the next
three sorted. Yeah. Well, next four, because then I want to show you a specific Deep Space Nine one,
which is, it's not a happy one, but I think it's a very powerful episode and it really demonstrates
the difference in quality of writing that Deep Space Nine got compared to all of the seasons.
Well, we managed to get a few loves out of war trying to commit suicide for an hour.
So I think we might be okay. And I was really worried about that episode.
Where can they find us DJ? They can find us on channel84.co.uk. Head over to the Untitled Trek
Show as we are part of the Studio Channel 84 network. If you head over to the Untitled Trek
Show on channel84.co.uk, you can find all the information about our social media, which is,
as standard really, ex Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, threads, Blue Sky, we're all on those.
And all our links are on that site. You can also head over to channel84.co.uk forward slash
Discord and that will take you to our Discord server. And then if you want to email us,
you can email rob at channel84.co.uk to go directly to Rob. To come directly to me,
you do TJ at channel84.co.uk. Or if you want to speak to both of us at the same time and
tell us we're both idiots about Star Wars, then you send it to podcasts at channel84.co.uk.
There you go. Thanks, mate. You're welcome.
Love you. Love you.
Thank you for listening to the Channel 84 Untitled Trek Show. This station is now shutting down and
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