WEBVTT
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Space, the final frontier. Join us for a bold conversation.
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Our prime directive, to recap our favorite Star Trek shows,
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both new and old. To engage in debate about all
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things Trek. Prepare to energize. With phasers set to stun.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Phasers Set to Stun,
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where we continue to show our love for everything Star
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Trek in this ongoing series from a film by podcast
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that explores the expanding Trek universe by covering television, animation, movies, directors, merchandise,
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and so much more. Plotting the course, as always, is
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your core Trek crew. I'm Scott Hoffman.
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And I'm Wayne Whited.
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And listeners, it seems like David took a shuttle on
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an away mission. He just stole the keys and split.
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But I know he'll be here next week with a
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brand new fresh take on the latest Trek. And Wayne
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and I are here to take you through the latest
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episode of Strange New Worlds. Episode 5 is titled Level
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5 Transporter Accident, directed by Jordan Canning, and written by
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Henry Alonzo Myers and Dana Horgan. Since this is Fresh Track,
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we're calling for a red alert on spoilers. If you
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haven't seen the latest episode, pause for a minute, go
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watch it, and come back to us when you get
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caught up. Wayne, why don't you tell us what this
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one is all about?
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Oh, it would be my pleasure.
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Oh, yeah.
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The USS Enterprise is ordered to protect Ryzonian space from
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Orion pirates while Scotty tests a new long-range transporter. The
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experiment goes horribly wrong, turning the entire crew into puppets
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while leaving Spock unaffected and responsible for keeping the ship running.
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When the Orions attack and capture Spock, the puppet crew
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discover their new forms make them nearly indestructible and use
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their bizarre abilities to rescue him and defeat the pirates.
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Thanks, Wayne.
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And I will stop right there because there's some spoilers.
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There's some big spoilers, which we'll get into.
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Exactly. So second spoiler alert. If you need to go
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watch it, go do it now. So I'd say it's
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most fair to say this is one of the most
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unique episodes we've seen in a while.
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I'd say that.
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And it seems like yet again, the fan base is
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split on their opinions about it. It had a strong
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production behind it with puppets built, constructed by the Jim
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Henson Company and an impressive amount of puppetry, a great
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cast of puppeteers. and some surprising, outstanding comedic additions to
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the cast in the Orions that I didn't even recognize
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until I kind of squinted for a minute and recognized them.
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Yeah, neither did I.
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But some people feel it was too far from what
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they want from Star Trek. So, Wayne, I'm curious about
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your thoughts on this week's episode.
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Well, this... I mean, we've known about this episode for
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quite some time now, about a year, I think. And
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I was very skeptical. I really didn't think I was
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going to enjoy this because... You know, they've been leaning
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heavily into the gimmicks this season. Right. And I was
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not looking forward to this because, you know, I'm a
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longtime Trekkie. And it's kind of hard to expend my disbelief,
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my structured Star Trek, you know, fave. Remember the musical episode?
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I still have trouble with that.
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Really?
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I'm going to tell you. Yeah. I.
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I really, really enjoyed this episode.
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Good.
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I mean, it was a shock to me that I
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was glued to the screen the entire time. Honest to God,
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I loved every minute of this. I didn't think I'd
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like it, and I can understand why a lot of
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Trekkies are not liking this, but if you turn off
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that Trekkie mentality and just sit back and enjoy the episode,
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it really is a lot of fun It's such a
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ridiculous thing. Ridiculous idea, if you really think about it.
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But I love the Muppets. I absolutely love the Muppets.
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I always have. I love every one of their films.
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I've always wanted to write for the Muppets. I just
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think they're hilarious and great. And this is the Muppet
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movie version of Star Trek. And when you think of
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it that way, just enjoy it. And it's so much fun.
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I laughed all the way through it.
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Yeah. Same here.
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I mean, I was.
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I'm probably kind of biased more than usual for this
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episode because my son is a professional puppeteer. And I
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have loved the Muppets since I was born, basically. When
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I was on the tube in the 70s. And I
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think for somebody who's expecting next generation kind of Trek
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or something that's going to take itself very seriously most
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of the way through, Although I'd probably point to like
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Deanna Troi becoming a cake at one point and doctors
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having sex with lantern ghosts. But, you know, this is
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one where, you know, fortunately, third and last spoiler alert.
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The whole thing is a dream sequence. So anybody who's
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all twisted up about, you know, the plausibility of this
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or whatever, you can skip it. It's OK if you
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know that this is not for you. You can move on.
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The great news is there's a lot of Trek for everybody.
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But this one in particular does have a lot of
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that great Muppet DNA in it, in that you have,
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thinking back to the original Muppet show, you have one
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live-action guest star who is amongst all the chaos that's
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happening in this kind of Muppetized world, right? So it
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very much felt like the writing was in line with that.
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By the same token, it felt like it was a
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very Trek... way of looking at Muppet physics and dynamics, right?
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Looking at the fact that like, well, we can't really
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be killed in this form. Um, we can be destroyed possibly,
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but you can sew things back together. Uh, and I'll
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get back into that a little bit, but I don't know.
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I felt like it was a very creative use of that.
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I thought it was a great, um, great Muppet designs
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for the cast. Uh, the caricatures of each of them. Um,
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I had seen an interview with, uh, uh, Melissa Navia
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talking about how she wanted to get her hair just right.
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I'm sure Anson Mount had the same kind of thoughts,
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but very fun, very creative. Um, just, there's so much
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going on in this episode. Um, but I can, I
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can see where, you know, if people are getting upset
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about it, it's fine. Just skip it and let it relax.
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I mean, I, I didn't know how they were going
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to approach this. When we first heard they're going to
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do a puppet episode of, you know, you groan, you know, like, Oh, okay.
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You know, how were they going to do this? I
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had no idea. Um, and I think they did the
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right thing. In fact, I think they did everything right
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with this episode and that don't make it serious. Don't
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try to include it in part of Star Trek continuity,
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just run with it and have fun and be just
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as silly and crazy as you possibly can. And that's
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what they did. I, I, I just, I laughed at everything.
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There's so many great parts that I loved about this.
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But the puppets, you were talking about the puppets' designs,
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in my opinion, and the puppetry itself was very, very Muppet-like.
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They did a fantastic job. They looked great. I love
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that Pellia puppet.
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I was just about to ask who your favorite puppet
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design was.
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I actually think she might work better as a puppet
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than she does live action, to tell you the truth.
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That hair looked like onion straws or something like that.
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It had its own life.
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The way she was zipping around and talking, she reminded
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me a lot of Rizzo the Rat, which I love
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that character. I absolutely love that character.
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Or Pepe the Prawn.
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Pepe, that's another one that I love that.
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Yeah.
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She made me laugh.
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One of the things that I thought was kind of
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interesting was it gave me just a second of Starfleet
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Academy vibes because I noticed that she was barefoot.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And I hadn't seen that before.
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I was like, OK, that's an interesting choice.
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You know, her and I, I honest God, I can't
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remember the name of the character from Holly Hunter's character
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from Starfleet Academy, but they were the same race. So,
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you know, maybe that's just one of their traits. They
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like walking around without any shoes on. I'm OK with that.
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Yeah. Oh, go ahead.
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Oh, I was just going to say, you know, even
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though you can, like you said, it's very much you
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can skip this episode if you want to. I suggest
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you don't. Just have fun. But there is a little
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bit of storyline heading through this. Everything that's happening to
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Spock is a direct result of what we saw a
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couple episodes in the Griffin incident. That comes from that
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trauma that he had from that. So I'm kind of curious...
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where they're going with that. It looks like that seems
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to be part of their story string for the season.
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So that part, I don't really think it's that important
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to watch this episode just for that. And then it seemed, too,
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that we advanced a little bit between Spock and T'Pring's
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relationship and story, which I love T'Pring. I thought she
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was fantastic. When she screamed, at first I was shocked,
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but then I started laughing. I thought that was so great.
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And Yeah, it reminded me a lot of Miss Piggy.
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They balanced it really well. They balanced everything really well.
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in this episode. That's why I like Strange New Worlds.
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I like that they're willing to take these unusual chances.
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No other Star Trek series could do that.
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Yeah. Well, it does get into a lot of Spock's
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kind of duality. Because his high anxiety and his ability
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to have a dream like this and think it's completely
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plausible is his human side kind of probably fighting for
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survival with his Vulcan side. And interestingly, he's going back
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to Pring with that. I think the relationships that he's
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in is a very interesting reflection of that.
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So I think it's a smart add. And she does
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a good job ofâ she brings him back down to
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Earth and really helps him focus. what he has to
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do for this episode. There's really genuine character moments in here.
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I mean, it's not all just comedy and, you know,
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flying Muppets. I liked, I think the writer did a
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fantastic job. I know this writer, it's the same writers
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that wrote the Star Trek con audio series, which we
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have not reviewed. And I've been wanting everybody to do
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that because I thought that was absolutely fantastic. So I
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had a lot of high hopes with, you know, the
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writing on this episode and they, they pulled it off. Um,
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kudos to them.
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Yeah. Well, I, I, as a, as a fan of, um, Buffy,
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the vampire slayer and the, the angel spinoff. Um, I'm
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also seeing kind of some, some influence of there's a,
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an angel episode called smile time where I think one
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or two of the characters are turned into puppets. I
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think I remember that similar kind of smile.
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Yeah. Creepy.
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Um, but just interesting how they kind of dug into the,
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the dynamics of, um, of being a puppet and kind
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of analyzing that through the, through the real world. I
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thought it was, it was hilarious.
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Yeah. And that's, that's another thing that I think they
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did right. And don't take it whole seriously. Don't, don't,
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you know, cause it would, it doesn't make any sense
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if you really think of it, it makes absolutely no
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sense that we could turn into puppets. So if, you know,
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the fact that they, they kind of explained it, you know,
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the fact that they don't breathe. And that was the
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first thing I thought when they shot, uh, um, Pike
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out into space. I'm like, well, no, wait a minute.
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He's a puppet. Does he need to breathe? And of
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course that's, that's what happened. Did, did you notice the
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moment that, um, before they shot him off into space with,
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with Spock on the other side of the glass?
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Oh, touch the glass.
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Yeah. Yeah. I love that. That, that made me laugh too.
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Yeah. That gave me a split second of doubt. I
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was like, is it, wait, they're taking that seriously. Yeah.
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And then no, no, totally not. Let's talk about those
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comedic actors. The surprise appearances we had by Rachel Harris.
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Rachel Harris, yes.
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Joe Latrullio. I think you had mentioned that Rachel was
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at a con recently, right?
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Yes, just two weeks ago, I attended the Steel City
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Con in Monroeville, Pennsylvania. I went there specifically to meet
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Rebecca Romijn, which I think I mentioned a couple episodes.
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And Rachel Harris was there, and I even... Briefly, because
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her table was right next to Bob Gunton, who was
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in Star Trek Next Generation. And I said hi to her.
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I had no idea that she was appearing in Star Trek.
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I would have talked to her about this episode. I