To Baldly Go

033 - Encounter at Farpoint

In this episode:
The premiere of Star Trek: The Next Generation – Encounter at Farpoint
Joined by my old friend, Gregg
Gregg’s background with Star Trek
Felt like a pilot episode, but overall good
Original Series comparisons
Star Trek feel with a much bigger scope
A hopeful future with a bleak near-term view
Gregg rates a 9 and says it can only go up from here
Nate’s old technical manuals
Next Generation trailer
Target demographics
Who is the main character?
Differences between the two series
Androids and AI
My questions or things I hope to see
What we are all looking forward to
Interesting characters
Wesley discussion
Nate was the captain of the quiz bowl team in high school

032 - Something About Whales

This episode we discuss:
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Didn’t go full Captain Planet
Nate surprised by his rating
Felt like a long episode
Ralph Winter – producer
Chekov in 1980s San Francisco
The pitfalls of knowing there is more to come
Plot holes
No butterfly effect?
Different timelines?
A Commander Random sighting
Plot devices vs. realistic story progress
Star Trek: Movie Memories – by William Shatner
Sulu’s lost movie moment
Eddie Murphy in Star Trek?
Nate is not a biologist
Trivia
Production battles
Similarities with Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Other time travel stories – Stephen King’s 22.63
Home video release included a trailer for Star Trek: The Next Generation

031 - Star Trek III: The Search for Spock

In this episode we discuss:
No more Animated Series
Enjoying the dialogue more upon second viewing
How Abbie remembers Star Trek
Two years thinking Spock was dead
Leonard Nimoy directs
Curse of the odd-numbered Star Trek films
Choppy scenes missing the emotional, dramatic effect
Another Yeoman Rand-om sighting
Sacrificing the Enterprise
Krug – the Klingon John Wick?
A compelling villain
Extra-Kirk
What happened to Spock’s body?
Star Trek IV trailer
Ferngully in space?
Time travel done right
Trivia

030 - The Animated Series

This week, Nate and I discuss:
The Emmy-award winning Star Trek: The Animated Series
Stopped rating the episodes
Less than the sum of its parts?
A bad series
Animated Series as punishments
Spaceships and aliens
Target demographics
Shortcomings of TAS
No Chekov
The great episode of TAS – a top episode for the franchise to this point
Political implications of airing certain episodes
Is TAS canon?
Life support belts
Kirk was the Devil’s advocate?
Missing charm and disjointed dialogue
Unrealized potential
What non-Star-Trek fans think Star Trek is
Felt like the Gorn fight from Arena
TAS trivia
Nate’s Star Trek models
Star Trek production guide
Looking ahead to Next Generation
Planning future podcast discussions and watch order

029 - TOS Season 3 and Series Wrap Up

In this episode Abbie, Nate, and I discuss:
Final seven episodes of The Original Series
Another episode it feels like we’ve seen before
Fairy Tale by Stephen King
Abbie wanted to DNF episodes
Creepy, ick factor
Valentine’s Day Star Trek episode
Worst episode of The Original Series
DC Fontana
Qualified ratings – a “Season 3” Seven
Mixed messaging
Space Lincoln
Anti-war, but winning a war at all costs
A real, not real Abraham Lincoln speech
When do we learn to not fear words?
An ok episode, but terrible series finale – but does that say more about today?
And just like that, it’s over
Better than Nate remembered
Greater than the sum of its parts
Unprecedented
If it was more successful initially, would we be talking about it today?
Remembering the good moments and forgetting the negatives
Original Series trivia
Up next

028 - Racism, Overpopulation, and a Russian History Lesson

This week I am joined by my wife, Abbie, and our friend, Nate, as we discuss:
Let that Be Your Last Battlefield, The Mark of Gideon, and That Which Survives
The Trouble with Tribbles story
Elaan of Troyius recap now that Abbie is back
Overt messaging in shows
Star Trek without Gene Roddenberry
Is a good message enough to carry an episode?
A Captain’s responsibility to keep the ship out of enemy hands
Great Enterprise security
The transporter as a weapon
Nuclear codes in history
Strangelove
A good message – “Don’t hate”
Terrible movies with heavy-handed messaging
Watching people watch people on TV
Episode context
What is the call to action in this episode?
Being extra-Spock
Spock needs to be more precise
Abbie gets attacked by a kitten
The Tunguska Event
Another callout to The Beginning of Infinity
Limits on human knowledge?
A victim of the medium at the time?
The decline of the series
Over Warp 14
More multi-culturalism on the Enterprise
A game plan to finish The Original Series
Planning a Star Trek trivia challenge
Looking ahead to The Next Generation
Abbie fires some shots at DS9
Nate throws down the gauntlet for the best episode ending in all of Star Trek
A Star Trek producer spoke in my video production class in college
Something about whales

027 - You stupid cow

This week we discuss:
The Empath, Elaan of Troyius, and Whom Gods Destroy
Star Trek: Saw
What do you do if you have limited resources and can’t save everyone?
Low-percentage vs no-percentage
Intellect alone is not sufficient
Kirk acting in slow motion?
Book recommendation – Shadow Divers – don’t get the bends!
Star Trek’s Helen of Troy?
Stories about things that the stories aren’t about
Elaan hit first
Tony Soprano is a bad person who does bad things
Kirk has bad moments but isn’t a bad guy
How was non-slapstick violence received in the late-1960s?
Old tropes that are uncommon today
Power struggles over resources
When does the Prime Directive apply?
Warp speed, physics, and suspension of disbelief
Baggage when watching Star Trek
A Spaceballs connection
Litmus tests for how much I enjoy an episode
Two Kirks and memories of X-men
Pirates of the Caribbean and too much of a good thing
Ensemble strength
Powerful, yet helpless. Art imitating reality
Episodes that are less than the sum of their parts
Fan fiction from a simple line
The Cochrane Deceleration
High-stress turns in space?
Planning some competitive trivia

026 - Kirk is Grits

This week we discuss:
The Tholian Web, Plato’s Stepchildren, and Wink of an Eye
We continue last week’s debate and how Nate is wrong
A traditional Star Trek episode
Ratings with qualifiers
Episode and series hero journeys
Scotty the full-blown alcoholic?
A weak spot in the episode?
Explaining to the audience instead of the characters
Grown-up storytelling
Shatner stepping back in an episode
Could this have been a TNG episode?
Star Trek memorabilia at auction
Scotty’s hair
Another back-in-time episode
First television inter-racial kiss, at least in the US
Abbie wants internal consistency
Subtle vs overt messaging in shows then and now
Motor control vs mind control
We can again see why the series was canceled
Things that take us out of the story
Inception and X-Men did it better
Star Trek Customizable Card Game
How the series was experienced in the late-1960s
Cinematography
Kirk’s coffee
Why didn’t they harness the power when they had the antidote?
Abbie is refusing to watch The Animated Series
Star Trek graphic novel
Getting rid of Kirk?
Hanlon’s Razor?
A Waffle House story

025 - The Talosian Illusion Strikes Back

In this episode, we discuss:
Spectre of the Gun, The Day of the Dove, and For the World is Hollow and I have Touched the Sky
Budget issues during Season 3?
Nate is over the non-spacey episodes
Some bourbon discussion
Klingons with swords
Nate rejects the premise of the episode
Nate nearly rage quits the podcast over the IMDB rating
I claim victory in the discussion
We’ve seen this episode before
A Star Trek Sith Lord
Who is pulling the strings?
How does Kirk run into the same Klingon multiple times?
Captain Uhura?
Truth, religion, and dogma
Prime Directive
Is Bones married?
Characters are always safe (except the redshirts)
Similarities to other shows

024 - No Sh*t, Shatner!

In this episode, we discuss:
Abbie and I had an opportunity to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and a Q&A session with William Shatner
For a 92-year-old man, Shatner was ranting and raving and moving around pretty well
An education in COPD and lung disease
The impact of the Actors’ Strike on the show
Stories about bow hunting and pranks on DeForest Kelley
Getting pulled over dressed as Captain Kirk
No shit, Shatner!
Shatner was what we expected. A master of his craft
Curiosity
Seeing the movie in the theater was a trip
A better appreciation for the movie on a second viewing
The experience of watching this kind of movie in that kind of setting
A great movie in its own right. But even better for a Star Trek movie
Felt like Star Trek
Shatner’s thoughts about Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Space Seed holds up
Movie reshoots after leaks
Gene Roddenberry intrigue
Kirk’s forgotten plots
Leonard Nimoy was ready to be done as Spock
Why is the Genesis technology a threat in Khan’s hands?
Vulcans can cry?
Learning why things work on a Starship. If you don’t know why, you can’t adapt.  You can’t be creative
William Shatner and George Takei don’t get along
Ricardo Montelban’s real chest
Character names changed because of clerical errors
Continuing voyages of ongoing missions…
Original story proposal
TV in the ‘90s