I'm a pink pony girl and I dance at the club
Let's get a wiggle on, you've only been here for nearly an hour and we've only just pressed record.
Oopsie.
Oopsie. How you been?
I'm very well, how are you dude?
Yeah, alright. Not bad. Getting there.
You're sounding a bit more chipper.
Yeah, my arm doesn't hurt anymore. I know what's been going on about it. It's my monkey thing.
That explains that web page your arm doesn't hurt anymore, I see.
Our little secret. The joys of Unifi. So what have you been up to?
Oh, not much really mate. Just getting on with things with work. Tee was three years old.
Yay.
Almost a week after your boy was four years old. Crazy timings, but that's been it really.
I mean there's something we'll discuss on the variety show, but Kay got her diagnosis.
She is officially, and it sounds very weird saying this and celebrating this, but trust me,
if you're an adult or a parent that's got this, you'll understand why. We're celebrating that she has autism.
I think it's a really good thing to know.
It's so important.
Because now it just, it would explain so many things and can just really help other people understand.
Well this is it. And as I say, listen to the variety show and I'm going to talk about that in the next episode.
It's quite a big chunk. But no, it's something to celebrate because it means now we can get her the support she needs,
especially at secondary school. If she really struggles, there's that extra support layer there.
Whereas without a diagnosis, as horrible as it sounds, most places just put their hands up and say,
we can't do anything because we're not funded to and we don't have the level of people required to provide the support.
But if you have a diagnosis, it makes all of that a lot easier. So yeah, that's a little celebration.
But otherwise, not much. How about yourself?
I've been doing different things. I'm slowly building myself up mentally to start working out again.
The physical aspect of it hasn't arrived yet.
I've rejoined the gym group in Charmin Park, right next to the cinema because I thought I could do gym, cinema, cinema, gym.
That's a good idea. Yeah. Earn the popcorn. You don't eat popcorn.
No, but I eat the ice cream or the hot dog. Yeah, exactly.
So it gives me another reason to go there. And if I'm paying for two things there, then I can do it in the same run.
I genuinely think that's a really good idea because getting out is a big step of actually doing the workout.
It's one of the hardest steps, isn't it? So if you're like, OK, well, I've got a film. It starts at nine o'clock.
Well, I've got nothing to do for the next hour and a half. Why don't I just go early? I'm going there anyway.
Go have a run, do whatever, have a chilled out workout and then go sit down for my rest period.
For me, I think what it's actually going to be is get kids into bed, see a film that's eight thirty nine o'clock showing
and then straight into the gym group straight after and then really kind of hit it hard and then head home to sleep.
Because I would have been sat down for the film. I would have enjoyed it.
I would have felt like now I need to do something. I need to have a good stretch. Boom, straight into the gym.
It's 24 hours in there. I've only paid for the off peak membership, which is 16 pounds a month, I think.
And the off peak basically means the only time I can't go is a no, I can go on a Saturday, is basically during the day, Monday to Friday.
Oh, yes. Oh, that's what they consider peak, basically. So like 10 a.m. to or 12 p.m.
But no, it's not. I think it is actually only something like 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. is peak time.
So I can never go during that time. And guess what? I'm so socially awkward.
I hate going to the gym when there's people anyway. So the later it is, the better.
That's like the one I went to, the one I'm not going to say the road, Docs Us down the road.
I would go before Covid, but that was the peak, the peak times for me, not the peak times.
There was no one there if you went as soon as it opened or the hour before it closed.
And I was always managed my workouts. It was just under an hour.
So I would be there and not have to worry about it. But then after Covid, the place was rammed.
So you said a lot of people could go in and you had to walk around the whole place in the border.
You weren't allowed to wait for stuff. I don't like all those people in here.
No, it killed it. But it's now back to free rein in all of them, which is what I prefer.
But yeah, there's there's it's just you go where you want. Yeah.
So that's my plan. I'm going to try and do a film a week and a workout a week and see how that goes.
Enter authorization code. Have you watched anything?
So I've not watched any sci fi, but I have got a few things booked. OK, cool.
So bookings wise, I've got finally a nightmare on Elm Street.
Yay. Because that's in Cineworld for the October horror series.
I think you like it. I think it's a good one. I think you like it.
Zombieland's 15 year anniversary. Oh, God.
15 years. Oh my gosh. But I love that film.
So to see it on the big screen is I didn't see it in the cinema. Looking forward to that.
And Smile 2. Oh, God, I saw that.
I don't think I saw a poster of it. I was like, showed it to Miranda and she was like, no, I enjoyed Smile.
I was so scared of Smile. There's a few bits in it that are a bit.
The end was a bit. You could see it coming and it was a bit of a wasted end.
Yeah. But I like how it carried on. And then the trailer to this next one.
I think it's actually got better legs to it than the original Smile.
I'd say the problem with this first smile is they put one of the best scares in the trailer.
Yes. Which comes with the car. Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean.
That's one of the best scares. Also, there's something scary about scary films where the monsters still alive at the end.
And it's not a monster you can see. I mean, the whole mother creature at the end of Smile is weird and disturbing.
It's really freaky. Yeah. So I thought it was good. A lot of people said they didn't like it. I really liked it.
You've seen Bubba Duke? No. I keep meaning to.
Yeah, watch Bubba Duke. That's a good one. Right. I don't think you'll find it scary. It's just a bit fucked up.
No, but sometimes that's what you want. You want something a bit more fucked up than just something that's going to scare you.
I'm not a fan of horror typically, so I'm very picky about the sort of horror I watch. Cheesy 80s horror? Fine.
Modern horror I find, I think we said it or you said it about Hostel in the Variety show, it's not horror.
It's just gore for gore's sake. Yeah.
And how uncomfortable can we make you feel by showing you horrible things? That's not horror.
Horror to me is something that can be clever, deep, dark and not necessarily, it's not always necessarily about the gore or injuries.
Horror can be something way more than that. I mean, I saw a really weird film called, what was it called?
I think it was called Hatched or something like that. It was a foreign film and it's about this little girl and she basically, oh, it's weird.
She's, she hatches this weird bird creature and it goes around killing people and then eventually kind of morphs into her and takes her.
It's really weird, but it's pretty grim, but it's really dark as a whole story. Really dark.
When you said hatched, then immediately in my head, I thought she's laid an egg and she's been sitting on this egg.
But really it was just had an egg.
Yeah. I'll show you the trailer afterwards and you can see what I mean. What's the bird that does that?
Doesn't change, but they lay their eggs. Cuckoos. Yeah.
They push out the other egg and then they lay their egg and they leave someone to bring up their own kids. Yeah.
Yeah. Great parenting.
Bastard birds.
What have I been doing? So I played a few more games, not just Final Fantasy. Okay.
There's no Supernatural. I haven't gone back to it. No. Miranda is still watching that vampire thing.
Oh, which is leaving me a lot of spare time to do. So what am I going to do?
World War Z, obviously.
Yeah. Well, which is why I've ended up writing this massive script from the next shit show.
Because of that time, I've been playing. Yes. We did a little bit of World War Z. Didn't we?
We haven't gone back to it yet. No, but we've got another eight chapters to do. Yes.
I'm looking forward to doing it. I like the fact we do a chapter an evening and we're not overdoing it.
Yeah. Well, we've also got to go back to the first two because they've both got extra missions that we never did.
Yes, that's true. We do. Yeah. Doing the story only does three.
Oh yeah. We failed the last one, didn't we? And we failed the last one. Those two randoms joined us and oh, hi.
And then it made it more difficult. Hang on. You're random. Oh shit. We actually need to help you.
Yeah. We thought they were just NPCs. I've just been gunning through one of them. It's like, oh, actually you're a real person.
We treated them like NPCs because they were level one. Not like we were experts. We'd played it twice before.
And yeah, I played a very small amount of a Space Marine 2. Very small amount to get to where it opens up the multiplayer.
Is it as glorious looking as all the adverts make it?
Okay. So it looks flipping brilliant. It looks absolutely amazing.
But what I'm going to say is my first impressions of it haven't been that brilliant because I've gone from two very fast paced games, World War Z and Fun Fantasy,
said Rebirth and like the Melee Combat Rebirth is so fast that you barely even really see what you're doing.
You just have to know your combos and do whatever. And then you go play this very slow. Very like boom, boom.
And I'm, as we know from my Elden Ring times, which I've now stopped playing because it's too hard.
There's almost an element to it of timing and knowing when to do stuff that I just don't have. That part of my brain is missing.
So I get the yeah, the parries. Yeah, there's four difficulty settings.
It starts your number two. And I just was reading the blurb. The third one is the one it says that the developers want you to do.
So it's like, okay, well, I've played these kind of games before. I'll pick the third one. Couldn't get out of the tutorial.
I was sat there for maybe four or five minutes and the dogs are next to me and I'm going, where's the fun? Where is the fun?
This is not fun. I hate it. It's like literally the second big enemy that I came up against.
I couldn't kill because it would just instantly just wreck me. I was like, okay, I'll start again. Put it on the second difficulty.
I could get through it. But then I got to the next part of the tutorial and it had two of those big things and a big swarm.
And I'm dying. I'm like, I want some fun now, please. Can I please have some fun? When you get out of the tutorial, it gets better.
For me, first impressions were not good, but I can see why people really like it. Graphically beautiful.
If you have any inclination to like Warhammer, you're going to love it.
Again, if you understand any of the lore of 40k as well, that does help from what I've seen.
There's no reason why you can't, but it is interesting that people are saying the more of the lore, you know, the more help you get in the game.
I think it's just a game that people have wanted. It's like very throwback to how Guild Wars, Gears of War was.
Guild Wars Gears of War was kind of based on it, really the Starlines and all that. But that kind of, you know, third person, slightly cover shooter-y, small group kind of thing.
It's very much this. The weapons feel really powerful and punchy, big recoil and stuff, which isn't a bad thing when you think you're firing a bolt cannon out of your hand.
You think, yeah, your hand's going to move. Even if you are this eight foot tall superhuman, you know, it all felt great.
And you, as we've said before, you can really see the technology of World War Z in it.
Yes, the swarm technology. You just change the models basically. It is there, but they've perfected it in this, particularly when they're climbing up the walls.
You can really see they've fixed the kind of niggles that World War Z might have had, which didn't quite look right. With the crawly monsters, it makes sense, looks great.
Yeah, with the jeans. I'm really looking forward to playing it with you and just waiting for when.
Well, next week is payday. I will buy it on day one of payday. I'll get it downloaded and we will just crack on with it.
Yeah, because I'm really looking forward to playing it. I've been playing a game called Black Desert Online with CyQuest Mark. It was 89p on Steam.
I had it direct from them when it released a few years ago. Miranda and I played it briefly. It's a Korean MMO. If you know what that means, it's fucking confusing.
I don't have a clue what's going on. Mark's had an interest in it and we're thinking what should we play? So yeah, we played that.
I said 89p for me to buy on Steam. I didn't think that was much of a problem. No. I really enjoyed it so far. It's a cool MMO. I like MMOs because I like that kind of fantasy RPG stuff.
What sort of MMO is it? Is it kind of a... It's fantasy. I mean, styling of games. Is it a top down, early Warcraft style? Is it third person?
Third person action combat. Right. Okay. Yeah. With combos. So there are a few things on the bottom bar for you to press, but you don't press them. They're numbers you tap.
But they are the same as doing combos like right click and forward or back and left. Hold, left click, do Q. They're proper combo combos to do all these really very elaborate, very pretty looking moves.
We don't know what's going on because you can just tap R and skip everything. So basically that's what we've both been doing. And we kind of got about an hour in and like, what's the plot? No, I don't know. Let's just kill some more shit.
Yeah. So we've been doing that. Yeah. And I've watched a shit film. Oh, what film? I watched the most recent Aquaman. Oh, dear. Oh, Aquaman. I enjoyed the first one. Aquaman. Aquaman. He talks to the fish just like no one can.
Yeah. So I'm just going to go behind the be up. So I can just name and shame. Oh, yeah. It's got 5.6 out of 10. Yeah. I think that's being kind to it. The real problem with Aquaman 2, I'm calling it. Is it the second or third one? Who knows? Doesn't really matter.
The most recent one is not Jason Momoa, but the way he's acting Aquaman. They've basically made Thor Ragnarok, but Aquaman. You hated Thor Ragnarok. I didn't hate it.
You didn't like it though. I'm sure you're the one who said to me you didn't like it. No, I enjoyed it. I just thought there was some very odd choices they made. But actually, no, I quite enjoyed it. I liked the cheesy 80s of it and the stylings. It was just I thought there were a few odd choices they made in it.
The comedy part of it. You know how they've gone the comedy route with Thor? Yes. But the whole films match the comedy. Yeah. Well, Jason Momoa is the only one that got the email. The rest of them didn't get it.
See, the problem is I quite like Jason Momoa. I like him too. I mean, I watched the latest. Oh God, I can't imagine admitting to this. I watched the latest Fast and the Furious. Oh, dude. He's a baddie in that, isn't he? I genuinely thought, look, it's the last film. This is brilliant. Family.
No, yeah, it's all about the family. Sorry, I said his tenders. Jason Statham over there. Yeah, I went to see it. It's the last one. I'll do it justice and I'll go and see this last one. I know in the last film, apparently they went to space in a car.
They went to space? Yeah, they take a car to space. Ludacris, was he the one in it? Yes, I believe so. Of course he was. And I was getting towards the end of the film and I'm thinking, God, is this a three hour film or something? It's getting near the end now and everyone's just been killed off in it.
And then it comes up to be continued. It's like, did I not get the memo that this is a two part film for fuck's sake? Oh, so there's another part to it? Is it out? No, I don't know when it's coming out. So they're all dead in space.
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That was the last film, The Space. They're back on Earth now. But no, Momoa is in it and he's the only reason to watch that film. He is so good at playing this insane bad guy. It's just wonderful to watch him because he's literally just turned up and gone, I know you're all playing this seriously, but it's fucking Fast and the Furious. I'm just going to have fun with this.
Well, you've got Vin Diesel trying to be serious. You've just got Jason Momoa just cheesing it up and it's just brilliant. Yeah, he really cheeses it up in Aquaman. And whilst I think that would be good if other people were in on the joke, I didn't feel like it worked. And because he doesn't play Aquaman like that in the first one, and he doesn't play Aquaman like that in any of the Justice League or whatever those films are called. He doesn't play him like that. He plays him quite straight. No, he plays it fairly seriously, doesn't he?
The Batman one that he's in.
Superman. Yeah.
Yeah, he's straight faced in that. And yeah, I just don't think it worked. Patrick Wilson plays his brother. He's brilliant. He's absolutely brilliant. And he plays his character well. But he does a few little bits that are funny. But it's funny because he's interacting with this moron essentially. Aquaman is a bit of a moron in this.
Yeah. You know, and tricks him into eating a cockroach and all these other things. And he plays it straight. And it works for him. But yeah, the rest of it I didn't like. Yeah, and it's got Adolf Langegrin's in it.
Oh, nice.
He's great, isn't he? I'm going to wreck this name. Tamura Morrison is the guy who plays Boba Fett. He's his dad as well. He's good in it too. There are some good people in it. Unfortunately, they didn't take Amber Heard out of it enough. She's still in it a bit, which is frustrating. I still don't understand how she's basically got these superpowers.
He's got a kid with her now in the show.
I've avoided Aquaman just because it's not one that's ever interested me.
You're not missing anything. The first one was good. This one, it felt like they were trying to do a Guardian slash Thor thing but underwater. And DC keep doing this. They keep chasing this Marvel dream.
This is the problem with DC.
Just do your own fucking shit. Just do your own shit, please.
When they do their own thing. I've finally seen the Batman, by the way. When they do their own thing.
Isn't it brilliant?
Oh my god. It's so much better.
When did you see the Batman?
About a month ago, I think. Again, I need to watch it properly.
I'm going to watch it again before the Penguin because I would like to watch the Penguin.
I didn't even know that was coming out.
So that's the series with Colin Farrell's 10 episode series where he is the Penguin. Because he's in Batman, isn't he? Colin Farrell is the Penguin.
Yes.
So they're doing a series of him. And then they've got a second Batman film coming out that Robert Pattinson is doing.
Interesting.
Right, look. We've had fun. I think it's time we talked about some genocide.
Agreed.
Accessing library computer data.
Duets.
Duets. So the first thing I want to say about Deep Space Nine, other than the fact that I genuinely think it is a beautifully written series of Star Trek compared to some of the other stuff that we enjoy, it needs an HD release.
It does, yeah.
I can't believe that. Well, not every other one because I don't think Voyager's had an HD release yet, has it? I think that is that still standard definition?
I'm not sure, but it doesn't look quite so standard definition when you're watching it as Deep Space Nine does.
No, but Deep Space Nine, it's a tough watch because of the quality and it deserves so much better.
It's vaseline, isn't it?
Oh, it's very vaseline. Very vaseline. It just deserves that HD. I don't know why they've not done it, but there you go.
Yeah, and if any episode ever says it deserves one, is this? What a great episode.
So, okay, I know it's not going to be fun. It is an incredibly powerful episode and it shows to show at least one character in the main group of characters, the acting prowess they have because holy shit, do you feel a lot in this episode?
Yeah, I'm guessing you... I'm going to get all the names wrong because I don't know anyone's name in this.
That's fine. So, I'm talking Major Kira. So, the actress is called Nana Visitor.
Oh, that's an interesting name, Nana Visitor. Oh yeah, there they are.
Fun fact is, in real life, she married Dr. Bashir.
Oh, really?
I don't think they're married anymore, but yes, they were married for a period of time.
So, yeah, so Major Kira and Golda Cut, they both acted very well.
Golda Cut, so he's the one that you see on the view screen and then you've got...
No, Golda Cut's the... Oh no, yes, sorry.
You know what, let's do my quiz really quickly because that's a great way to start.
Okay.
Let's see how much you paid attention.
Okay.
And welcome to another episode of Shit Trek Quiz. This week, we have a great guest. Come on now, what's your name and where do you come from?
Oh yes, hi, hi, a bit nervous. My name's Rob and I'm from Hemel Hempstead, yes.
Great, great. And here's your host with the most, Tom.
Yeah!
So at the beginning, we see a ship appear bringing a Cardassian with them who's ill. Can you remember the name of the ship?
These are really hard questions.
Oh, I didn't write it down. I was going to write it down. I've got some... It's not the...
I will let you use your notes.
It's not the Koberian.
I think that might be the race.
The race. Oh, I just didn't write the ship down.
The ship name is the Raxmunus.
Oh, yeah.
What illness has their passenger got?
Oh, it's a Kalanor... Well, he has Kalanora.
He has Kalanora.
But there was another one they're claiming that he has, but I didn't write that one down.
Oh, because that's the next question. Name the other illness he pretends to have.
Pottrick syndrome.
Pottrick syndrome, yes, well done. And what mining colony was he meant to have been on?
I wrote that down. The Galatep Labour Camp.
Well done. What was his actual job?
Well, this is spoilers for our episode.
It is spoilers for the episode.
So he...
If you're listening to this, you're going to have to expect spoilers.
Yeah, sorry, guys.
So, no, his actual job, not what he's pretending.
His actual job was like some kind of filer or something.
He was a filing clerk.
A filing clerk, yeah.
Well done.
The best filing clerk.
Who did he pretend to be?
He pretended to be Gul... I've written it down. Let me go down here.
You see, this is the depth we go. We both have written notes.
Gauldahill.
That's it, Gauldahill. And what was his nickname? Final question.
The butcher... Yeah, the butcher of... What's the... Gauldeep. Galatep. The butcher of Galatep.
The butcher of Galatep. Well done. You did really well on that, actually. Well done.
I've watched the episode yesterday. Pay attention.
I watched it this afternoon.
Yeah, I did... I do go a bit crazy with some of the notes.
I think that's a good thing. It makes sense because it shows...
It helps you understand a bit more what's going on in the episode.
And you pay more attention if you're making notes like that because it shows some of the things that other people may have missed in the episode.
Talking of the episode, obviously it's my suggestion. The reason I chose this one...
I watched Deep Space Nine when it first came out in the UK.
And I've got very fond memories of being at home and remembering seeing the adverts.
Oh, it's coming. It's coming. Coming. Getting to sit down and watch it.
Because it was the first Trek I got to see from day one.
TNG I'd watched on reruns, the original series on reruns.
Voyager were reruns and I hadn't even known it existed until I saw the reruns on BBC Two.
So Deep Space Nine, seeing it from day one. Brilliant.
I can't remember any of them from that point watching them.
I was probably too young, wasn't really paying attention. I just enjoyed that they were on.
And I've tried to watch Deep Space Nine through several times, but most of the time it's because I'm working or I'm busy.
So it's just on in the background.
Duet, I remember I was out in the Netherlands for one of my first trips for my work.
And I was in the hotel on my own and I thought, well, I've got nothing else to do really.
So I put my iPad on and I watched some Deep Space Nine and I'd got up to Duet on the plane.
So I watched it in the hotel room and I just remember being absolutely captivated and glued to it.
And it just, that was the point that I realised, you know what?
Deep Space Nine needs so much more love and so many more fans to go to it and realise it's not the same Star Trek you're used to.
It's still Star Trek, but fuck me, is it deep?
So let's do a really quick rundown of what happens in this episode.
A ship's coming along and they've got someone who's not very well on it, basically seeking medical attention.
And it's a Cardassian, Cardassian, Cardassian.
Cardassian, it's not a Cardassian. That would be horrendous for the crew of Deep Space Nine.
That's almost teleportation level with me.
I wouldn't want any of the Cardassians on that star base.
Which apparently is a problem for the Bajorans.
This is an interaction I'm not familiar with because I'm not a very good Star Trek host.
Right, so the Cardassians basically went to war with the Bajorans and basically interned them.
They are space Nazis.
So they're the Nazis and the Bajorans are basically...
The Bajorans and everyone else.
France, Poland, whoever we want to decide.
And it turns out that this disease that this guy's got is a disease that you could only have contracted if you were on a particular mining colony during an uprising.
It must have been some gas release or a weapon loss.
Yeah, during an accident in the mining colony, something was released from there which led to, yeah, Kalanora, a disease.
Basically proves that this particular Cardassian was one of the bad, bad ones.
And he should be getting sent to Bajoran death camp or something.
Which is what the Major would like to do to him.
You get the gist that, yeah, he was at the labor camp and that the Bajorans want to see him hang for war crimes.
And Major, what's her name, Chris?
Major Kira.
She was a rebel, a Bajoran rebel at the time.
It's not really a rebel, it's a Bajoran military person.
They're calling them rebels.
No, they were rebels.
They were rebels.
So they were basically terrorists.
Right.
The Cardassians call them terrorists because that's what they were.
So it wasn't strictly a war.
Basically, the Cardassians took over and tried to take over Bajor.
And they just did.
It's just a weird term calling her a rebel and her calling herself a rebel.
Because a rebel feels like you're rebelling against your own state, not an intruding force.
So put it this way.
So in World War II, you had the French underground.
That's what the Bajorans are.
So that's how the Bajorans are portrayed as an underground.
Because you'd got Bajor that had been taken control of by the Cardassians.
And they ran underground terrorist groups to get rid of the Cardassians or try and stop the Cardassians.
So that's where they were aiming for with that.
So she was one of them that actually helped liberate this camp, which is why she has an extra special bit of...
She's invested in it.
Invest, invest, that word.
Yeah, that's really it.
The gist of it.
A lot of the episode is them two having conversations.
It is a back and forth episode between those two.
With the girl, Adele, and her interrogating him.
And there's a few moments in it where I didn't know where the show was going.
Because at one point I thought he was actually trying to manipulate her to admit to some kind of crimes.
Because he was putting himself to get her because he knew who she was.
I'm jumping way ahead here.
But there was a very good back and forth between these two characters.
You're getting the feelings.
I don't know if you remember it, there's the Star Trek next generation episode where Picard gets caught by the Cardassians.
Yeah, four lights.
And there are four lights.
No, there are five lights.
No, there's four lights.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
You get that feeling in this.
You get that feeling that the Cardassian is trying to be nice, but he's trying to sway it towards what they're trying to find out about.
So yeah, you're right.
You get this kind of idea that there's something not quite right.
And obviously there isn't.
I just want to kind of make a way through a little bit.
One of the very first things I really noticed about this episode is I really like the uniforms in Deep Space Nine.
I know this is way off.
Oh, the Bajoran uniforms or the Federation ones.
Everyone had like Cisco's uniforms great.
I thought the Bajoran ones had big shoulder pads.
Didn't think that suits her particularly well.
Bit too wide, bit too puffy.
I remember having a suit myself as a young man that had very...
I've got broad shoulders, so if you then put padded shoulders on a suit jacket on me, I look like...
You look like you're wearing a suit suit.
I look like something out of Beetlejuice, one of those small head guys.
And that felt a little bit like she looked a little bit like that.
Yeah, but don't forget the era.
We're coming out of the 80s.
This was early 90s.
So you've kind of still got that power suit era is still hanging around a little bit then.
But I know what you're saying.
It's interesting to say about the Federation uniform because that is just the next generation uniform, maybe slightly adjusted, maybe a couple of...
A little bit of an era on.
The collar's a bit different, almost like tuxedo-y with a little bit coming out of the top bits.
So Deep Space Nine followed on from the end of TNG.
So yeah, it's the next generation of uniform, I guess.
Yeah.
You're right.
I prefer it to the Voyager.
Yeah.
But I prefer the first contact uniform, which then comes off Deep Space Nine.
Yeah.
It's funny, the uniforms change and sometimes they change for the better.
And we discussed it in the last episode, didn't we?
Pike's uniform in that Discovery episode, I prefer to the Discovery uniform.
I don't like the Discovery uniform, although the Discovery uniform does follow on from basically Enterprise's uniform.
So it's clever how they kept that, it's just its personal choice, I guess.
Yeah.
I guess, was that the bridge of Deep Space Nine then?
So that's the bridge of Deep Space Nine.
So Deep Space Nine is a old Bajoran station that was captured by the Cardassians and then run by the Cardassians.
And then when the Cardassians left Bajor, the Federation were invited to provide an additional position on that station while Bajor rebuilds.
So basically, additional protection to the station.
The Federation are going to help Bajor rebuild and they're going to help manage that station and keep it going as kind of partners almost.
So is she the head Bajoran?
So she is the, yeah, although you need to watch kind of the first series because she gets booted off back to the planet.
And then there's a whole thing that goes on with their religious leaders and ace, and Karen's even said it, she hates Vetic, they're called Vetics and I can't think, Vetic Quinn or something like that.
She's horrible.
And basically there's a whole story behind it.
But yeah, she is basically the lead Bajoran for the station. So she is the link between the planet and the station for the Bajorans.
And then Cisco is the Federation's link for the Federation to the station and Bajor.
Right.
Hence the reason he's not captain. He's commander Cisco.
Yeah, but he's in charge.
I think he does become a captain later, but yeah, he's in charge of the station basically.
And then his first officer is Dax and Kira.
Really is just kind of a lot of, it's just normal space gibberish, isn't it?
Before he arrives and then we see that he's a Cardassian and she's unhappy about it.
So before we even get to that one, can I just point out that normally in a Trek episode, you have main episode, sub episode.
So the main episode on TNG might be Picard becoming a Borg, but the sub episode might be Data being discovering another emotion that he's got.
You know, you've always got that slight sub episode.
No sub episode in this. And Deep Space Nine does have that.
So the fact that they felt this episode is strong enough just to have one main story, no side story, just that main story tells you a lot about what's to come.
I think the closest to having a side story is Odo is the one actually doing all the police work.
And he's kind of only in every now and again, isn't he?
That's true. I mean, I've put here, you can't just let someone so invested be in charge of the investigation.
That's bad. That was bad.
It's just awful because you could see, you just wouldn't fuck with Kira, would you?
You just look at how the characters are portrayed and how they are straight away.
I wouldn't fuck with you.
Yeah, it's like in medical terms, when you can't look after your family, you know, you wouldn't be doing an operation on your dad, that kind of thing.
Exactly. There's rules that prevents it.
And that's...
A doctor cannot prescribe for their own family, for example. It's not good.
Yeah, that's the kind of thing here. She's too invested in it, too much emotion.
She's not going to be able to make a rational decision on it. And it shows.
Yeah.
She can't make rational decisions until she actually does really by the end take a step back.
But only after being badged into a fight, really by Cisco being like, no, I'm in charge.
You're going to do what I want you to do at the end of the day.
Yeah. Now, can I just point out something? Do you know what Dax's race is, first of all?
I do.
She's a trill.
After we spoke, yes. She has a slug in her.
A million lives.
That's it. She has a space slug inside her that goes between the corporeal body and every time that body dies, space slug moves on.
And so do all the memories and emotions that are included.
Because I said it was like the gold.
That's it. It's exactly like the gold. Now, she says, I was a champion window smasher.
I did see that, yeah.
All I could think of was, hang on a moment, Scotty in one of the films invented transparent aluminium.
Hence, they could fly around with space whales, basically.
Wouldn't you have thought they would have transparent aluminium windows so they don't get smashed by dickheads like that?
Do you think she actually spent her job was to take all the windows off to when they get replaced with the C3 aluminium and her job was to smash them out?
I'm the champion window smasher because that's my job.
Yeah. Maybe they just had all this glass that they didn't know what to do with.
It felt really backwards. If I think about space in the future, I don't think about my windows being penetrable by some kid who's a bit of a dick with rocks.
It did sound a bit sexual, I get my back door smashed in. It was that kind of level. I was like, is this some innuendo I'm not understanding?
But Worf's not on board yet. And yes, he marries Dax.
Worf does? But it's the Doctor that likes Dax.
Yeah, but Worf marries her.
Is this after Dax? Because you said Dax changes.
No, no, no, no, no. When Dax changes, they divorced.
Poor Worf.
That's Worf. Come on. Nothing good can ever happen to Worf.
And he's upset by it, I'm assuming.
I presume so. I can't remember that far into the film.
Yes, she does die and becomes new Dax. And yeah, that Dax is like, yeah, I'm not interested in you.
Aw.
Womp womp.
Poor Worf. Don't put that episode in for a while, eh? Let's get past this one.
Let's get past this one.
I've said it already, Kira's acting's spot on though. So, NanoVista, oh my god, throughout this entire one, and then the actor that's playing Maritza, the Cardassian.
Yeah, I did add on DB up.
I cannot believe the quality of acting you get in this episode. It truly beats almost every other episode of Star Trek out there on just the quality of what you see on screen.
It makes you feel things for their characters. And the very end of it, which I know we're jumping ahead and we're spoiling it, when he's in tears over admitting that he's not really this horrible person and that his race of people deserve to be punished for what they did.
You can't help but nearly shed a tear for it.
His name is Harris Yulin.
Yes, and I've got here that he was...
Armin Maritza is his character's name.
He was in Ghostbusters 2 as the judge, he was in Training Day, Clear and Present Danger. He's been in a shit ton of things.
I can really see his face as the judge.
Yeah, I can.
He must go to Comic Cons as the judge. He must do.
He's got to, doesn't he?
Yeah. But those two characters, they made this episode. What wonderful acting, particularly by him. Such an emotional range he goes through for the whole thing.
Absolutely. I've got that written here. Where have I got it? The sudden change up he does from being, I'm this meek little, I'm a file clerk, I'm playing it all coy, to the bravado of being, I'm actually the butcher of Galatep and you all deserve to die, and putting on this complete false identity.
And then coming down to this completely broken man, it's such a huge range. You just don't get that anywhere normally.
And it's all so believable.
100% it is.
And remember, you're looking at someone dressed up in make-up as an alien, you know, and you really, by the end of it, you actually feel for this person who a minute ago, you were comparing to someone like Hitler, essentially.
Exactly. That's it, aren't you? You are putting him up there with famous dictators throughout history, basically. You are saying you are the worst of worst people that you can be. And I believe it.
And it's just the thing is it wasn't just about the acting as well. I mean, you can listen to voice actors and you can believe what they're saying. It's like, wow, that's beautifully acted.
Now he's coated in make-up, so expression is quite hard to tell. But even with make-up on, he's expressing his body language, his eyes, change.
He actually manages to make you not just hear the changes in the acting, but you see these physical changes in him about how he's feeling about these changes from meek to the bravado to the it's the end of the world and I just want to die.
I just can't say much more about it. It's just mind blowing, utterly mind blowing.
Because really he's, you know, we don't have to go too much deep because people have supposedly watched the episode. That's the point. People are meant to be watching these episodes.
You know, he is the clerk. He actually is the clerk. But he then tries to make her think he is Golda Hill.
Golda Hill, yeah. But the way he's done that, because basically the way they find out he's not really Golda Hill is because the doctor finds out he's taking a drug. I've written it down.
Space plasticine. Basically, I thought it was an odd thing to be calling it plasticine, but here we are. Dermatarylin Plasticine, which is a dermal regenerative agent to maintain skin resilience after cosmetic alterations.
That is exactly what the doctor said. Well written. Thank you very much. So I had to replay that back for every word. So like nearly 10 times.
He's obviously working at the university. Everything he says about working at the university, being an amazing clerk, teaching at this military school, it's all true.
Everything that Keira thinks is a lie is the truth. Because she wants him to be this super bad guy. But actually, he's just basically a secretary, had no control over everything.
You've got to have these people. I'm sure there were people that this is dangerous territory who were in some of these terrible Nazi camps who really had no control. Maybe even been there for the whole lives.
You know what? You don't even need to go that far back. You can actually go to current generations of people. There are daily in the newspaper, or was daily for a while. It's quiet now, but it's still going on.
You look at the Russian war, the Russian-Ukraine war, and look at the people in Russia. A lot of them have been imprisoned. There's been marches in Russia saying, we don't agree with this war.
He would be that equivalent. But he's doing, what do they call it? Statutory service? National service, I guess. He's been told, you have to go here. He's obviously a pacifist.
But being the Kardashians are who they are, you can assume that if you say, no, I'm not going to do my national service, there's pretty one thing that's going to happen to you. And that's, you're gone.
So he is obviously so guilt-ridden. So he tries to figure out a way that he can atone for his crimes. And that his idea is, make everyone think I'm this guy. Get here.
But again, you've got, don't forget, it's atoned for the Kardashians crimes. It's not even his.
Not just him.
He's technically committed no crime, except for being a filing clerk in a labor camp. And he's not had a choice about being there. And that's what makes this so bad. Because by the end of it, you understand he's guilt-ridden.
He hated the fact he was there, that he cried and covered his ears because he couldn't take the noise of the screaming of the Bajorans being tortured.
How can you punish someone for that? Would you punish someone in current generation? They were there.
Obviously, it's a really difficult question. And then, yeah, he decides he has to atone not for what he's done, but for what his entire race has done, his entire planet.
So was it that his idea was, he was going to be this guy, go there and let the Bajorans punish him as this figurehead of what it was?
His idea was, yeah, let the Bajorans kill me. That would feel, for him, it would feel like it would atone for what he suffered through for him personally, for not doing more when he could have, or he couldn't have, realistically.
And that's what you get told by the end of it. He couldn't have done anything. But what the true hope is that it forces the Kardashians' hand to admit to the brutal things that they did.
Yeah.
So him standing up in front of a war crimes tribunal.
And just admitting.
The Kardashians would have no option to either say, we deny all knowledge of this person, or we admit what he's saying is true.
And seeing that, you hear throughout the episode, the awards that Goldar Hill received, and how much of a figurehead of he is in the public eye.
You would have thought, well, we can't say he doesn't exist now, because then what the Kardashians can say, so we're going to have to do.
So you can understand what he's doing. As a political statement, it was a very powerful move.
And then for him, yeah, he gets killed, which is kind of going to get rid of these terrible dreams and memories he has of this, this incident.
There's one bit about the episode which needed to happen to really drill home the poignancy of this episode. I was just gutted by how it happened or who did it.
There's a character in this who's in the prison with him, who overacts like fuck.
Yeah.
You see him in the background, blurred behind you at first.
I was going to say.
I'm just like, who's this guy rolling around over, over egging the fucking whole thing.
That's what annoyed me. And I've got that as my notes as well is you've got this bar fly in the, in the, the, the drink tank, basically.
He, the drunk tank, he's there, he's pissed up. He's been locked up yet again.
And we've just had this powerful moment of Kira recognizing who this person is and demanding that he's in jailed and he's run off.
And then we've got this standoff between the two of them. And yeah, you're right.
Then we've got this ham actor suddenly, oh no, why am I in this cell with this Cardassian?
I know. I felt like he's just like a out of work theater actor, hamming it up awfully and completely ruined the energy of the scene for the 10 seconds that he was in it.
Absolutely. It absolutely takes it away.
He's the fucker that kills him at the end.
Yes.
And I was like, I get it, it needed another Bajoran, but why him?
Why not one of the ones we see halfway through that they, Odo says they're survivors of Gallatec.
Yeah, exactly. That would have been so much better because they're all there in hoods. They never come back in it.
They're just there very briefly. They can't really pass us past them.
We get Quarq say the pain, the sorrow that you think, oh fucking hell, he's changing.
Yeah, I like that bit.
Do they like to gamble? And I think, yeah, you needed that. You needed that light moment in the episode.
It just brought it up, just for a moment. How good is his makeup? Fucking hell, Quark, he looks amazing.
All of the makeup, the Kardashians look amazing, always. There's not a crack in the material.
Even, you look at Gold Eye Hill, his right hand temple, which is the one you see most deep, because of how they've lit him and you seem to be looking at that side of the face.
You can even see the varicose veins in his forehead under the skin. The makeup detail is just so believable.
Okay, it looks like they've all got Roy Orbison hair, the Kardashians. That's probably one of the things that I notice the most.
Kardashians like Roy Orbison, fair enough. But the makeup in Deep Space, and most, it's just beautiful.
And you can't get away from, yeah, you're right. Quark is, the Ferengi have always been done well.
Those guys, there's like six people that are supposedly survivors from the mine.
And it just pans past them, and they're all in a very similar kind of garbs, like cloaks.
Now, that would have been enough that that later scene where the Gold Eye Hill pretender and the Major, a walking way, just probably get stabbed in the back,
could easily have had just those cloaked people just there in the background, maybe even talking to that barfly.
And he could have just pointed at them. A background thing that you just catch the corner of your eye, and then one of them just comes and knives them in the back.
That would be so much better than having that guy do it.
Absolutely. I hated his character at the beginning. I hated him at the end.
Or maybe that's the point of it. If you think about it again, maybe we're not meant to like it, and we go through this whole emotional journey and actually finally liking this guy.
And then really the one character who just a real frustration for everybody to for him to get killed by this asshole.
Maybe they wanted that. Maybe that was the point. But just when you think you're going to get this beautiful ending, you don't.
But the thing is, is it just it actually leaves more questions.
And I know Bezure is meant to be absolutely upset over by the Cardassian thing, which is understandable.
It's quite right. But what I've got here is, can you imagine what that space station would have been like without a Federation presence on board?
Yeah. If the Federation hadn't been there, Kira would have walked in. And the first thing as soon as she said he would have been dead and there would be no questions asked about that.
Then this barfly kills this this Cardassian. What's actually going to happen to him?
You get the idea that they're just bloodthirsty and one of the biggest questions in it. Kira asks it, not Cisco, someone goes up and say, are you OK?
And she's kind of staring at the window. It's Dax. Dax goes and asks her. And the question Kira asks herself, is vengeance enough?
Or that's the scene where she goes about window smashing?
No, no, no, no. The scene about window smashing at the very beginning when they're sat there at the console.
No, this is when Kira is looking out one of the portholes of the ship and she's looking out into space and the ending of it is Kira going, but is vengeance enough?
And that's where she's finally triggering in her mind. I started this investigation just wanting vengeance. I don't care if he really was or he isn't that person.
Bajor needs to have a war cry in tribunal where we kill a Cardassian. To her, he just deserved to die no matter what.
And then at this point, she's like, I'm doing this for vengeance, but is that actually going to make me feel better about anything?
Yeah, she has some amazing character growth for 45 minute episode. She really spins it around.
She wants him dead to at the end of it going, it's not your fault. You couldn't do anything. You've done nothing wrong here.
Now, going back to your point about Dickhead who stabs him, there is better ways they could have handled that.
Personally, for me, I know what they were trying to do. I guess if you were going to do it, I would have done it with one of the Galatep survivors.
And I would have even ended it not with him being stabbed, but with him being stabbed.
And then in Sikve with Kira by his side doing the whole explanation of what's going to happen. So, you know, she explains to him, we've spoken to powers that be there.
They're going to give you help when you get there and so on. Cut that bit, have them walking out, get them stabbed.
And then have her explaining that to him in the med bay saying, I'm glad you survived.
It's being the person that's done it, it's going to be dealt with.
We've got you all the help you're going to need at Cardassian. Then have it explained to him and end the episode there.
The episode was a downer enough. It didn't need a second massive downer of someone who's basically turned two people's lives around now, turned Kira's and his to then just have him stabbed.
I did actually quite like the ending. I just didn't like the person who did it. I was happy with how they ended it with him dying.
There was a kind of poignant pain to the whole episode capped off by. We don't have to have happy endings. And I think that's true.
And I think having him murdered at the end is actually a real good touch for storytelling.
I just wish it had been someone else. Someone else that did it because I just thought that character was fucking dreadful.
And I actually really liked how it ends literally with a kind of bird's eye shot of her kneeling over the dead body of our Cardassian who only ten minutes ago in the episode was the most hated person she had in the entire world.
And now she's in anguish at his death. I can't get Goose Pimbles just thinking about that moment about it.
It's a beautiful scene.
Very poignant moment.
I think we've got time very quickly. I know we've been talking for ages. A really stupid point of this episode though.
I'm just enhancing the image now, Benjamin.
Oh fuck.
So space cameras don't just capture line of sight.
Enhance.
They seem to have a lens that can go left and right of a scene and they capture the whole scene so you can move around and see things.
I'm so glad you brought this up because I nearly forgot. I clocked him on the left hand side in that blur all the way from a distance. I was like well that's him on the left there so what are you going to do for the next few minutes trying to fill this gap.
And then when they zoomed in on the one on the left eventually, yeah he suddenly got, yeah he was suddenly behind the other guy. I was like what are they doing?
So they managed to reconstruct the image of someone.
And made it worse.
That's hidden by someone's face. But how can you restart, you can't, you know, if data doesn't exist it doesn't exist.
Yeah it's a photograph unless there's a section where they said about some other kind of information that was there.
Could you imagine that standing up in court today? Right so yeah his face is completely obscured by someone's head. Yeah but don't worry we had a computer recreate what we think the person looks like behind that head and it turns out it's the bloke in the dark.
That would never stand up in court.
Not in a million years, AI generated.
Exactly.
Why has he got two noses and six fingers?
Doesn't matter, he still looks like the bloke that's in the dark.
He looks like that six-fingered two-nose guy over there.
He's still got hair cut like a cunt.
Oh by the way, we're a mug watch.
Two mugs.
Yay!
Two mugs in this episode.
So when she sat down the manger with Cisco, she has a wonderful, very short glimpse of it.
Beautiful kind of turquoisey blue, tall, thin, what looks like a ceramic mug.
Yes.
With a handle, very nice, very demure as the memes would say.
Oh God no.
I was quite happy with that and also she gets given a very nice square glass receptacle from Odo with some weird green or blue.
Blue booze, I said I wonder what that drink actually was.
Yeah I wonder, I wonder if it's just like, well you know nowadays it would have been that blue Pepsi shit.
Yeah, booze and like Powerade, blue Powerade.
No, probably what it would have been back then, America isn't, they would have had Powerade.
Oh possibly, yeah.
It could have just been Blue Powerade.
Yeah that's true.
Or literally water with blue food colour.
Who knows but.
Yeah, so everyone who's up for it for Mug Watch, there were two great mugs in here.
Mug Watch.
They're practical, but you know like, glasses for alcohol normally are kind of funky, short and stubby, that glass one's fine.
And yeah, I've seen tall, thin mugs for tea just like that.
Yeah, I was disappointed it didn't get as much airtime as it deserved that mug because it was a very short glimpse behind a plant.
No.
But I saw it.
But the blue booze got about as much screen time as Miles O'Brien did in this episode.
He did.
Why?
Just why even have him?
He wasn't really necessary.
It's like right, just prick that, poke there, poke there.
Right, it's working now commander.
Yeah, bye.
You know what it was, they were just going, oh Miles you're not on the call sheet today.
Yeah, but I've just driven two hours through Los Angeles traffic to get here.
Oh fuck, yeah just, okay extra you leave, O'Brien you're going to take his place.
So I've got a note on this though, this is before the image enhancement happens, okay.
He's working under the counter.
He then stands up and says, commander, that should be it done now.
And then turns to Dax and says, right, it's now on your console.
Which has no screen by the way.
Which basically says that image enhancement in the Star Trek era is a hardware fix, not software.
Yeah, I didn't think of it like that.
He's installed hardware so they can do some image enhancement.
Adding more RAM.
Yeah look, Adobe version 9922, it's still really, really RAM heavy.
We've stuck another stick of 39 terabyte.
Yeah, we've finally got a laugh out of it.
Okay, so all in all we're very happy.
What a great episode of Deep Space Nine.
We need a bit of comedy interlude.
100% we do.
So the next episode is going to have the next, hopefully as long as I get everyone's audio through,
the next shit show, which is the last one before the Christmas special.
So there'll be some comedy there so we can all have a bit of a lighthearted energy there.
And we're going to be talking about season four, episode one, Lower Decks, Tuvix.
Excellent.
One of my favourite episodes of Lower Decks and it's about Voyager, one of my favourite Star Trek series.
I just needed some fun after.
We've had a few serious ones.
It's about time we got some Lower Decks back into this.
100%.
And it puts those numbers up for Save the Lower Decks, guys.
Because apparently it's all tracked, apparently, all these kind of streams and everything.
Oh, fantastic.
In that case then we need to do a bit more on Lower Decks because
Lower Decks is genuinely a bright star for Star Trek that they've decided to turn into a black hole of nothingness.
So that needs to be fixed rapidly.
Yeah. So that's it.
Episode is Tuvix, Lower Decks, season four, episode one.
That is the next episode.
Wunderbar.
Command functions are offline.
Ah, good day.
We just realised we did just that.
That is it. Not good.
I've lied to everybody.
I have not done any prep to learn how to do the socials.
So please, T-Shayzer, save us again.
That's Stein Kunt.
OK.
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