Phasers Set To Stun: Strange New Worlds S4. E2 The Griffin Incident

0:01 Space the Final Frontier. Join us for a bold conversation our prime directive to recap our favorite Star Trek shows, both new and old, to engage and debate about all things Trek. Prepare to energize with Phasers Set to Stunt. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Phasers Set to Stun, where we continue to show our love for everything Star Trek and its ongoing theories from a film by podcast which focuses on every quadrant of the expanding universe of Trek by covering television, animation, movies, directors, merchandise, and so much more, plotting the course as always as your Core Trek.

1:00 I'm David Burns, and I'm Scott Hoffin and I'm Wayne Wall. Welcome back to the Bridge. On this episode, we are continuing our discussion of season four of Strange New Worlds with episode two, The Griffin Incident, written by Robbie Thompson and directed by Axel Carolyn. Regular listeners, if you are not caught up with the series, please go do so, as there are many spoilers ahead. We will be right here on the bridge waiting for you. All right, let's transport into this episode. Guys, Wayne, why don't you give our listeners a brief summary of what this episode is all about. Spock Lon and James Kerk answer distress call from the long lost to USS Griffin, only to discover an abandon Federation vessel hiding a terrifying mystery. As a sinister force praise on the deepest fears and threatens to consume the away team, the mission becomes a desperate fight for survival with no easy scientific explanation. Forced to confront their own inner demons, the three officers must overcome a darkness aboard the Griffin before it claims them as their next victims.

2:10 Thanks Wayne, Well, gentlemen. H First off, I want to say I absolutely loved this episode and the fact that we're only two episodes into this season and I think they are just doing an incredible job already. I cannot wait to see what the rest of the season has for us. But I have to say this is the scariest, the creepiest. It has to be the gloriest Star Trek episode we've ever seen. Would you guys agree with that? Definitely? Yeah, yeah, for sure, Yeah, yeah, I definitely had that. Yeah, you want to watch it again, but you're not sure when exactly. It definitely had a lot of event horizon going with it for sure. Yeah, I've got the same thing.

2:51 Yeah, I mean it had that kind of vibe. But that scene when Sam was getting sucked out and you were seeing like his intestines and stuff out in space as he was, Oh my god, that was like awful. Yeah. Yeah, that's about as as horrible as you can get. Yeah, Well, tell me what you guys think about this episode. Well, I think they did an amazing job at keeping you guessing as to what was real and what wasn't. Yeah, because I was buying it all the way along, and I thought like when Commander Unington Riley kind of slices into herself, I was like, is she really there and she's being manipulated like Spock is or I don't know.

3:33 I mean, aside from what you just mentioned with Sam getting kind of sucked out through the glass, there there was a lot of doubt when I was like, I don't know if I can tell who is real and who is. Well, even when the Pike and beamed on board, You're like, oh, they're here to rescue it. I mean it felt real right, like they were actually beaming on here. Everything was cool, and then they were getting involved with the mystery. Everything's going on, but then all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, no going on. Yeah, and some very creative ways to you know, torture or kill people in a Star Trek kind of way, like the uh when Ortegas is beamed into herself. Oh yeah, what Like I've never thought that they would go to that kind of place. So, I mean, if they, if they would decide to do anything that division thirteen, I think this is a great setup for it, or a great case study for doing something like that.

4:26 Way, what'd you think? Oh? I loved the episode. I thought it was great. I'll say this is the first time Star Trek's ever went this far into horror. They've kind of touched it a little bit, screwed around the edge, but never never this uh, you know, full frontal work they did right here. But it's they did a fantastic job at it. You know. I was totally confused throughout the entire thing, just like they wanted. You know, I I couldn't figure out whether or not I was what I was seeing was real or was or wasn't. I was tricked. I thought there was a lot of great They had some great tension building moments, you know they I'm not much of a horror movie fan. Everybody, you know, most people know that, but I really like this episode because it's it's it really builds at tension rather than just like, what do they call that, jump scares, which I don't care for, never cared for that. But I think probably my favorite part of this is the fact that this episode centered around really in depth. You know, got Spot and you got Kirk and you got Lawn, and these are three characters that you know, we want to see more and just separating them from the rest, I think is what I enjoyed most about this episode.

5:42 Just good, good haunted ship episode. That's the best way to put it. I think another thing they did really good with this is they took a horror story, a ghost ship, whatever you want to call it, and they actually were bringing out the ps PTSD with these characters because when they're they're back on the ship at the end of this episode, you could really see that these people are struggling and it seems to be piling and piling and getting worse and worse. And I think that's where we're going in this season with that kind of especially on I mean, where is her character going? I'm we've kind of talked about this last episode right where, you know, is she going to turn against everybody and turn into that super soldier?

6:25 You know, like han is that where she's going? It looks like they're leaning that way, and she's really really struggling through this whole episode. Not only was she struggling to find an answer to this mystery on the Griffin, but you know, she's struggling internally with all the stuff that she's gone on mentally, So I mean, I'm really worried about her. I am. I imagine the reason that we haven't really seen much of a ship's counselor is because they're so busy they've never leave their office. Like the trauma that we're seeing here goes deep and goes far. I'm sure, especially for a lo on like you read a good point about her facing that kind of imagining that everybody expects her to become the next con Right. We've seen her kind of turn into a Romulut at one point, or a volcan that had more Roman tendency or I guess I know how to say that, but it's just interesting that she always struggles with that idea of will I become that horrible thing that everybody's expecting you to or will I become something else that's possibly worse. And for a ship security officer to have that sense of self doubt and lack of kind of self trust about whether people are safe around her has her struggling a lot. So I really appreciated the scene with Pike at the end where he's counseling her through it and he's like, I know what you're talking about. I don't need that in the report because I know who you are.

7:51 That's that's another reason why I like Pike so much, because he did that very similar thing with being a Remember, yes, he's protecting his crew because he knows that they are dedicated to that ship, they're dedicated to him, and he trusts them completely, and he's protecting them so that Starfleet doesn't get involved and remove them from that ship. That's another thing I absolutely love about him his career. Yeah, I just didn't like in this episode how he made finger sandwiches disgusting. Yeah. Wow, Yeah, he turned his fingers into rollos. That was just that good. No, thank you, No, there's there's a lot of squeamish moments in this episode. There's there's no doubt about that.

8:32 But for them, for them to be able to do that in the Star Trek episode really speaks volume they were to pull off of this. So it can goes to them for that, that's for sure. So the go ahead. Let me let me just state this the you know, we were recording this what like almost a week after the episode has been released. But I've been watching the the internet's feel about this episode, and it seems to be torn half and half. I think a lot of people are agreeing that they really like this episode, but unfortunately there are a lot of people that don't like corr stories of course, and I think that's what's what's hitting a lot of people. But Star Trek thrives on changing its style, and you know, you can't continuously tell the same type of stories week after week after week.

9:20 I think that's really what happened to Star Trek Enterprise and why it lost a lot of viewers and why it failed is that they didn't change their format. Here, Strange New Worlds is doing it almost on a weekly basis, and I think that's why it's being so successful as of the new Star Trek series, I think is why it's thriving. So yeah, a lot of people don't like war. I don't like Karr, but I really like this episode and I appreciate it, and I think more people should do that too. Yeah. Well, you guys know, I love love horror, so this episode was right up my alley. So I was a static for it when I heard it was gonna be a horror episode, and then when I got to the end of this, I was a and that was fantastic, So thank you.

10:03 There was a certain point when I was like, you know, I mean Star Trek I've always thought of as a series that could be shared with different generations, could be shared with the family and things like that. There was a certain point in this episode when I was like, oh, this would be a good, like spooky episode that you know, kids can watch with their parents. And then certain things started happening. I was like, or not or not at all? Yeah, no, I mean I could see where there's maybe a little bit of you know, squeamish us around that or saying that you know, they need to be careful of that. But to me, we've talked about this before, like you're by testing other genres, by getting into other places you don't necessarily expect, you are also kind of expanding the reach.

10:49 Like Dave to your point, if you've got, you know, friends that are fans of horror that are like, oh, I don't know about the Star Trek. I don't necessarily want to get into that. It's like the Frog Brothers and the Lost Boys, right, like, hey man, what's this? It's not necessarily a sample of everything you're going to get in there, but it does show the range that you can get with this franchise. Absolutely, I couldn't gree and you know, we need to see more of this season. But it could be also if you do want younger viewers to see, it could be an episode that could be scared. I don't know. We'll find that out later, but I don't think it really should. I don't think there's anything in here that younger viewers, and I'm not talking about five or six year olds and talking you know, low teenagers, ten year olds or so. I don't think there was anything in the episode that they couldn't watch. But then you know, hell, I went and I was watching horror films when I was five years old. My sister was forcing me to and they didn't bother me.

11:42 So you know, what do I know? There you go exactly and you. Turned out right. The look, Oh, I was traumatized by the Amityville horror, but that's a different story. I wasn't going to bring that up. For well done, Wayne, I'm impressed you brought that up. So it didn't seem like did anybody else get kind of a flashback to the VESDA? Yeah, specifically with the glitches, like the glitch in the machine kind of things. I'm glad it didn't go there. Oh yeah, me too. It was kind of like flipping that on the head, like it's not something that's trying to possess somebody to escape, it's somebody who's trying to kind of basically get somebody to stay. Very much a haunted chip, a haunted part of space. I don't know.

12:24 Yeah, that one shot where Lawn walks realized surrounded by all the dead crew, that was kind of cool. That what was the is it the Andorans? Yeah? That was a I assume it was an intentional choice, but a very scary choice considering who we lost a couple of seasons, the crew, maybe we lost a couple of seasons agoing exactly. Yeah, that was that was That was a creepy touch for sure, you know. And it's not often I get to talk about like edits when they're editing an episode because most of it's cut and dry. This episode has some really cool editing in this episode. The one scene where they were walking through the ship is shining the flashlights, and the flashlight would cross the camera and it would cut to another shot of them walking around smoothly. Oh, I love that shot. And then you had another shot where they were moving from one hallway to another part of the ship and the camera kind of swiped behind a bulkhead into the dark and it cut right to another part of the ship that they're walking towards. Us.

13:24 I love the editing in this episode. I thought it was very well done. Yeah, very effective for this kind of episode especially. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean, and I mean, let's talk about the mentioning of Carol and David. I mean, that's a lot of building here for this franchise, because we know who they are. That's bringing back some of the stuff that we saw, you know, with the Wrath of Khan. Right, so you know, getting to hear some of that tid that going on when David was very very little, and the struggling that they were having, the struggling that Kirk was having, even his brother was having that at first, he didn't realize his brother was having until they had that conversation, even though he really wasn't having conversation with him, you know, it was all in his head obviously. But I mean there's a lot there to unpack from Kirk.

14:12 Yeah, and and I never realized. I guess this is just something I never really thought too much. I didn't realize that Kirk had had a relationship with David that young. I I didn't even know he had had known him. I you know, I just assumed that he knew of him, but never actually you know, got to meet him at Carol took off before or took off when she was pregnant. But I looked back. When I was doing the research for this, and and no, I'm wrong. You know, he definitely knew David's So it's it's interesting that they're bringing all this up, you know, and because it really connects the whole Star Trek universe, all this continuity, and there's a lot of Easter eggs in this episode.

14:56 Yeah, there's a great use of that emotional arc aside from him, you know, having that concern for his son. That that phone call toward the end of the episode, Oh yeah, very emotionally powerful and ambiguous enough to make you think you're exactly sure where they are in the relationship is this? It is this where she is has left or she's starting to leave. And I hope that's something we can continue to see play out with Kirk at least through this season, because I think there's a lot of time back there. I agree, And I like how they mentioned that Caro got to prove of her dream project, but I think we do what that is. Maybe not, Maybe we don't know, but no, I like how they are touching based on that already. I know, I thought them comments from people that were kind of upset that why is Kirk with them for curring out loud, Well, I mean it makes sense why he was with them, and they needed that, I feel, to really carry this episode in my opinion anyway.

15:59 So yeah, well, I mean as a as a centric episode, I argue it's very fitting it is there because she's already kind of disarmed psychologically and emotionally being around the two of them on the same shuttle craft. Yeah, let alone trying to save them and save herself from killing. Them, right, yeah, no, absolutely, all right. Last thing Albin on the cover is just Chapel's reaction to Spock. Oh yeah, so unexpected, but so good. I feel like Spot could have done a better job at maybe rationalizing that or explaining that so he doesn't, you know, continue to chip away at her emotionally unintentionally. Yeah, but I mean like that was a nice touch. I'm glad they added that in.

16:48 But that was a good scene too, because she could tell Spock was struggling, which is why he didn't want to be down in the medical bay, because of what he experienced PTSC you know, on that ship. And then she he you know, basically says, well, this is why I don't like to eat the cafeteria because of what wasn't the cafeteria, what was it the but you know what I mean, she was talking about why she doesn't eat with everybody because of what happens, you know, they're in the klingon wards and stuff like that, what she had to do with the wounded in those kind of things. You know. So, I mean, I loved that she had that conversation with him, you know, because obviously he's Spock is back. You know, he's trying to hold his emotions and those kinds of things. He's part human, we know, but still she recognizes that because she had that relationship with him at one time. So I love that scene. Scott. I'm glad you brought that up. I thought that was a fantastic scene between those two characters. All Right, well, let's let's take a break. We'll come back. We will continue our discussion of this episode. All right, welcome back, everybody.

17:44 We're continuing our discussion of Strange's New Worlds season four, episode two, the Griffin incident. All Right, guys, wish character shine the most. Wayne, I'll let you go first. Oh, it's it's line, without a doubt. She stood out for me the most because, yeah, everyone's dealing with this terrifying things, you know, on the US script, but she seems to be the one that that they centered on, h that stays focus, you know, really when it mattered. She's she's also I think the one with the most how to say that her storyline is really moving forward.

18:26 I think this this episode, in my opinion, is probably going to be pretty important to what's happening to her, which we really don't know what's going on right now. But she was definitely affected by everything she saw. But but then she you know, she didn't let her. Fear stop her from doing her job. That that's one thing. But I I just really liked how resilient. She was. In this this episode just she just came across really well better than the others. So that's why I chose her. Good Joy Scott, I agree with that completely. However, the one that I'm going to choose is Spock for one particular sequence when to Praying first appears. It's the first time I've ever heard somebody use logical reasoning like that to basically almost outsmart the ghost, Like when he starts thinking through like, well, there's no way I can answer, you know, ask a question, and only to Praging would know because I already know the answer. So like he knew that there was nothing that he perceives that could be able to tell him whether or not she was really there. And that seems like an interesting angle in this type of story that you only really get through the Star Trek lens, So I just appreciated how much he was trying to use all these techniques. He was trying to use that meditation, he was trying to use all these things to kind of rationalize like this is not real, and had an extraordinarily time a hard time

20:01 doing so. So I just thought that was a clever use. That's a good choice though. I liked that. Both both very good picks. I'm gonna go with agree with Wayne with with law On because I you know, I kind of touched briefly on this earlier, just the battle she's having not only she's trying to find a way to get off the Griffin, but you know, she's batting those inner demons that she's been struggling with. But the one shot, the one scene that actually loved that you could just see all that come to fruition with her was when they got finally got Bean back on the Enterprise and Kirk is laying on the ground just bleeding out, and she's just standing over him with that knife, and you could just see the reaction in her face when everybody in there was looking at her just freaked out that like, uh, what did we just have? What just happened? You know what was going on in that ship, but you could see it in her face, the reaction she got that, like she realized what she had just done. Yeah, the ship kind of tricked her into that, but she also knows in her head that you know, things are changing and it's scaring her. And you could see in all that reaction and just how frightened she was in that very few seconds when she finally came back to So I loved I really did love that in the whole between her and Pike and stuff like that. At the end, it's just again, I'll say it, I don't know where they're going with it. I'm worried we're going to lose her. I don't know if it would be this season, but it seems like that's where they're heading.

21:20 So I hope not. I hope not. I love Christina Seng I think I do too. Yeah, I agree, I agree, she's she's incredible. But I mean, some of these characters have to go somewhere because they're not going to be on the Enterprise. We know who's on the Enterprise when Cork's the captain, so some of them have to go somewhere. Doesn't mean they have to die. I'm not saying that, but. They had to go. We don't know. We're gonna find out very soon in the next year, but we don't know what's gonna happen with these characters. Yeah. Absolutely, But quick side note, Yeah, while you're on this scene, hats off to Paul Wesley in that specific scene on the pad. I loved how he was in that. He's at a defensive position at first, like, please don't stab me, it's okay, and he's trying to calm her down more than he's trying to like fight her off or anything else like that. But as soon as that kind of situation is disarmed, the way he holds himself kind of in kind of a half crunch, a half sit up, and he's like, my brother, my brother, Sam, is he okay?

22:24 And it's almost like you could see the way he was acting made it seem like he was physically and mentally like holding himself together until he knew that Sam was okay, and then he kind of let go. I just thought that was it. I don't know, there was a little moment, but it gave me chills. Is just a powerful performance he did absolutely all right. If you could be any character in this episode. I don't know why you'd want to be any beyond the Griffin, but that's besides the point. Who would have been? And why scott I'll let you go first. Sample answer is Scottie because he's far far away from all the scariness. I can't I can't imagine anybody else i'd choose to be. But Wayne, what about you? Well? Along the same lines, I chose Captain Pike because he never went aboard the Griff and he stayed calm, and.

23:09 He just he turned everything over to Division. Twelve at the end and let them worry about it. Yeah, him, either either him or Number one. I think she just kind of said nope, not doing that and stayed in her quarters for the entire episodes. I'll be one of those two. I love how every one of us went this way. I just went with anybody that's on the Enterprise that's not on the Griffin. Right, easy enough? All right? He chooses Lieutenant Cookie in the kitchen. That's right. I don't care what their job function is. As long as I'm on the Enterprise and not the Griffin, I'm good to go. So I will clean the toilets for car if I have to, so we're good, all right, So we were gonna move on to Wayne's favorite part of the episode, the Easter eggs. Wayne, go ahead, let Scott, do you have any that you would like to talk about? Nope, Wayne, have fun.

23:57 One of the things there really wasn't very men visual Easter eggs, so but there were a lot of throwaway lines, So I'll go over a few of those, starting off when Kirk tells Lawn that Carol worries that he would die alone somewhere in unknown space. This match is exactly how Kirk thought he'd die in Star Trek five the Final Frontier, when he said I always know I'll die alone. Of course he's wrong, because when he did die in Star Trek Generations, Captain John Wick McCard was with him. In Star Trek two, they're at the con Carol Marcus tells David that Jim Kirk was many things, but he was never a Boy Scout. Well, turns out, according to this episode, she was wrong as well, because Kirk states he was actually in the Boy Scouts. But now again here Lawn predicts that Kirk's son David would die at the end of a blade bleeding out in a dark corner of space. Now she was right because exactly how David dies. In Star Trek three the Search for Spock, and speaking of children, it's also brought up that George Kirk is already the parent of three boys. This match is exactly what was told in the original series episode What Are Little Girls Made Of, where it's said that George is married and the father of three sons by the time that Kirk took command of the Enterprise. Also, George states that he hears the voice of his son Peter aboard the Griffin. Peter Griffin, I justgot that.

25:24 I'd never mind, but. Peter Kirk would appear in the original episode Operation Annihilate. Now to Pring brings up a trip that Spock surprised her with to the planet Recall recalls a planet with three moons that by the twenty fourth century is happens to be to fall behind Cardassian borders and was mentioned in the Deep Space nine episode Returned to Grace. The scene where they're trying to beam or take us off the Griffin reminds me a lot of that scene from Star Trek the motion picture where the ship's news science officer and there was one other that was beamed over and ended up getting turned inside out due to a transform and malfunction. That just reminded me a lot of that.

26:08 I don't know if it was at Easter Egg, but that's the first thing I thought of. Now, David, you brought this up, and I want to debate this a little bit because Kirk mentioned that Carol was just approved for a certain dream project. And I know it's easy to assume that we're talking about the Genesis Project project, but if you remember in the Ratha Kan, David was also working on that project and he was about twenty five years old according to the star dates mentioned. So I'm not entirely certain that's what he's talking about. Unless it took them twenty five years to create and build the product up. I don't know. I mean, I'm not sure what what do you think? But I think that literally, but I think it could be. It could be. I mean, now I think about it. You know, the Genesis project, that's a major thing. Maybe it did take him twenty five years. And then finally we got another mention of Section twelve. It's a rather mysterious vision of Starfleet to sign to investigate unexplained phenomena. It was first brought up last season in the second to the last episode Geranium, and I refuse to believe that these these throwaway lines with them are just passing references. I have a feeling that they're going to pop up again later, maybe this season or next season. But it kind of reminds me. I wonder if they're the X Files version Starfleet.

27:24 I'm curious. Could we have that the X Files and Star Trek. That'd be awesome. Oh yeah, that would be cool. Yeah, all right, thanks Wayne, appreciate it. You always bring up the wonderful either egg that some of us miss out on. All right, well, let's thank you listeners for joining us for this episode. We were looking forward to discussing the next eight very excited to see where they're possibly going because these first two episodes were out standing. And the third episode. Let me bring this up. The third episode is titled Human's Best Friend, and the official paramount teases sure leave on a pleasure planet turns dangerous when the crew promise escape stops behaving like fun.

28:09 I had to bring this up because it sounds just like the urb for a original series episode. It's called Suore Leaves, so yeah, I really hope we don't have any giant white. Rabbit rabbits next episode, but who knows. Well, we're due for a comedy because they need to bring the tension down a little bit. So I have a feeling we're gonna get a little bit of a laugh in this next episode because we needed after the Griffin incident, because whoof I think so that was a real all right, well, thank you listeners for joining us. We look forward to discussing what else coming. Wayne Scott, it is always a pleasure joining on the bridge. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're welcome. Check out a www. I'm going to start that over again. Jeff's laughing right now because I messed that up. Check out www dot film by podcast dot com for film and TV articles and our entire library streaming free right to us a film by Podcast at gmail dot Comedy questions, comments and concerns.

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