Phasers Set To Stun: Strange New Worlds S4. E7 | Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass

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 in debate about all things Trek. Prepare to energize. Welcome back to a new episode of Phasers Set to Stun, where we continue to show our love for everything Star Trek in this ongoing series from a film by podcast, which focuses on every system of the expanding Star Trek universe by covering television, movies, animation, directors, merchandise, dice, and much, much more. Plotting your course on this voyage of the USS Enterprise is your core Trek crew. I'm Wayne Whited.

1:05 I'm David Byrne. And I'm Scott Hoffman. And today we're talking about the seventh episode of the fourth season of Star Trek Strange New Worlds, titled Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass, which is written by Dana Horgan and Bill Wolkoff and directed by Anna Dokoza. So this point forward, it's red alert. There are spoilers ahead. And by now, you should have went over to Paramount Plus and watched the episode. So sit back, relax, and have a listen to what we have to say about the episode and Star Trek in general. Well, David, why don't you give us a short summary. Of the episode? Absolutely. In today's episode of Days of Our Enterprise, Captain Pike awakens from an apparent head injury that he doesn't remember.

1:50 He finds himself on an Enterprise he doesn't recognize with much brighter lighting, crew members acting very weird with their overdramatic performances and awkward pausing, not to mention odd situations like a heart transplant for Spock, cosmic amnesia, space madness, and a whore suddenly being his daughter. Pike is quickly removed from command and is up to ship's counselor, Dr. Eleanor Shivers, to try and help him on his way back into the captain's chair. Meanwhile, it is Lon who tries to desperately convince Spock's brother, Cybok, to give up his heart and apparently his life so Spock can live. Pike fears the musical has returned, but he quickly discovers that Trelawney is behind it all with this odd project placing the crew of the Enterprise in a soap opera that only he controls. If anything goes awry, as it does with Pike, who is the only one that realizes what is going on, he will quickly remind, and we'll be right back after these messages. It will take everything Pike has, including facing emotions he has buried deep inside to help with recovery for not only himself, but the entire ship.

2:48 All right, so, well... We have another gimmicky episode, obviously, but some of the other ones have worked really well. What do you guys think about this episode? Well, Scott, you start this time. Well, I mean, my mom was always an As the World Turns fan, so I wasn't too tied to Days of Our Lives. Me too. We dip into that every once in a while. I feel like this one is skippable. It feels like a short trek. I think if they were going to boldly go into doing a soap opera parody, they did a great job of it. Even bringing in an official counselor, who we've talked about several times. It's about time. Being pretty busy, yep. And finally getting another version of Cybok, although I don't know whether to trust the casting of that.

3:34 We can talk about that in a little bit. But anyway, I don't know. I found it entertaining enough. It wasn't cringing, but it wasn't one of my favorites. You know, as you guys know, I have been plugging this all season. I'm tired of the gimmick episodes. I really am. Just like you said, Scott, I felt like they hit the nail on the head with making it look and feel like a soap opera. I have to hand it to the actors, though, because the fact that they were able to pull off to make it have that soap opera vibe, kudos to them for that. Especially Mbenga, because his overdramatic responses and stuff of what he was trying to explain... Was just incredible. So just in his performance alone was great. But with that being said. The one thing that I absolutely. Absolutely loved. About this episode.

4:25 Was Pike. Finally giving in to his emotions. At the end of this episode. And just giving that raw cry. That we've never seen Pike do. That has been building up for every season. Up to the point where we're at right now. And you know. He was remembering the daughter that. He never had, but he kind of had. And he got to experience her a little bit here. And she feels so real to him on top of everything that he's had to deal with. We saw Pike like we've never seen him before at the end of this episode. And up to that point, I'm kind of like, okay, this episode's got its moments. It's cool. But when that happened, I was completely pulled and drawn in to that moment.

5:09 Because Pike is a human being. he's a captain of this ship. He's the father of this ship. He's the father of everybody on this ship. He takes care of them. He, you know, we've seen him countless times, countless times, put himself in danger to protect everybody, including protecting them from Starfleet. And now we get to see that raw emotion come bubbling out of him. So with that particular scene, this episode, I have to love this episode for that mere fact. Yeah. I'm kind of with you that time, uh, on everything you pretty much said, David, um, I wasn't sure how I would feel about this episode because I'm not a big fan of soap operas in the first place, but I do like, it wasn't the best episode this season.

5:49 It'll never be my favorite, but there were some really good parts of it that I liked. I liked the, I liked the fact that they, they filmed it in a different aspect ratio. I will say that I didn't even notice that until like almost the very end. One thing Star Trek does not do very often or for that matter, very well is, um, showing the consequences of everything that these people are going through. You know, the trauma, dealing with the trauma of having, they go through a lot of trauma. The only time I ever remember Star Trek ever dealing with it, they did deal with it a little bit in Deep Space Nine with Nog and that, but was Captain Picard. And that's what Pike's journey is reminding me a lot of Captain Picard. There's a lot of parallels. You know, Picard was, he was traumatized by the Borg and, at the end of the episode, Family, he breaks down and starts crying, and this reminded me a lot of that. But Pike's journey reminded me also a lot of Picard's journey in Inner Light, and we saw nothing come from that. And that always bothered me over the years. We never really saw much of how...

7:05 the trauma, the, the stuff is a little bit higher, especially higher than the, it's, it's, I thought at first it was going to be my least favorite episode, but it's now it's, it's, it's not because of that one scene. And there were some other good things. I did kind of like the whole, uh, bit. I thought that was so overly cheesy that it, it spun itself around and, and to be likable again. I, I thought that was pretty cool, but there are some, and the casting, the casting was great. I thought that, you know, I love the guest cast and they're all seem to be having a lot of fun. So, You can't hate this episode, in my opinion. I think one of the things that they did well in this episode was with... The whole cast remembers everything. The whole crew remembers everything at the end. So it's not like, boom, everybody forgets what happened. They actually remembered the dialogue that they had with each other, including Ahura, what she had with Pike, of her being his daughter, and those kind of things. They remember all that. And if you really dig deep down into this episode, you realize...

8:04 even though this was a gimmicky episode and it was about a soap opera, you're still seeing these characters dealing with things that they are really dealing with in their. Real character lives. So the fact, even though this was a soap opera episode, you were still getting characters being pushed forward with their development in this episode. So when you really break it down and look at it, especially there at the end with everybody, this episode, even though it was gimmicky, still has something to say about what's going on in the season, in my opinion. Looking at the meeting behind the little vignettes that they had, that M'Benga might not have space madness or whatever it is.

8:47 He might not even have some kind of physical ailment going on, but it might be that he's coming closer and closer to the idea that he might not want to be with Starfleet anymore. And that La'an wants to be able to pursue who she is, maybe outside of Starfleet, or at least to kind of back off from the relationship with Spock. Maybe some confusion about what's happening there, with the Enterprise being more of a Horus family than her actual family ever was, because she's, I guess, spent more time with the Enterprise family than she was able to with her original family. There's a lot of different nuances here, but I really agree with both of you about when you bring up a good point about similarity to Inner Light. It reminds me of, and I know it's an old Alan Moore comic that it's based on, but the Justice League Unlimited Episode 2, Season 1 for the man who has everything, where Superman goes with, he's caught by the Black Mercy and he goes through an entire life and he has to say goodbye to it.

9:50 The fact that they got into how Pike is still haunted by that, that it's still a memory that he treasures and that it's love that he feels for his family there. But the ramifications of that, it was good to finally see him open up about that. I thought it was a bold move to make Dr. Chivers an actual member of the cast. That kind of surprised me. But we've talked so many times about the counselor having to be the busiest person on the ship because there's so much effed up stuff that is happening with these crewmates. And I think Deidre Hull, you know, obviously is a soap opera, you know.

10:32 Icon? Soap opera Mount Rushmore, yeah. Yeah. Did an amazing job in this one. And I think if she wanted to be a regular cast member through the rest of the season, I mean, there's only one season left, then absolutely. I think there's a great place for her there. Yeah. I completely agree with you on that, Scott. Absolutely. I thought she was a great addition to this, and I hope they keep her going. I really do. I loved her character. I had to laugh, though, when he goes, oh, are we back in a musical? I bust out laughing at that. And the fact that they made that second line of the whole episode. Just get right into it. Yeah. I feel that, Pike. I feel it.

11:14 What did you think about the extra additions at the end of the episode? I thought they were kind of funny. That was hysterical. You've got to wait a long time past those end credits. You do. You do. You know, what's funny is I didn't know they were there, so I just let it roll and roll and roll, and I was, like, typing my notes and stuff like that as they were finishing up. But they got to the end of the credits, and I was like, I already got my remote, and all of a sudden it came back. I was like, oh, wait, what's this? Yeah. I like the fact that when they focus on Pike, that he's like thrown off balance. Like, why am I spinning right now? What is this? Ridiculousness is what a lot of this episode was. Well, just like a soap opera.

11:54 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess, you know, it's, you're right, Scott, it's an episode that can be skipped. But, hey, if you know, it was fun. There were some fun bits to it. So, you know, I don't hate it. I'm glad they added it in here. All right. It's so-so. That's all we can pretty much say about it. All right. Well, we're going to have a dramatic close-up and pause for a while, and we'll be back after these short messages. We're now back on the bridge and ready to continue our discussion on this week's episode. Now that we've given our thoughts and opinions, let's take a look at the characters themselves. Which character do you think shines the most this week, David?

12:42 I think I kind of already gave it away when I talked about Pike, because I felt like he clearly shined the most. Dealing with the loss of a daughter that he really didn't have, but in his mind he did have. Getting to experience her, you know, showing up. Even the moments with Ahura. when he kept putting it off, not going with the soap opera, when he found out what was going on with Trelawney. He kept denying to deal with Ahura and what the counselor was trying to get him to do. And then when he approached Ahura and said, you know what, let's cook. Why don't you come over, we'll do that recipe, but you're going to have to read it because I can't see it. Those kind of things. And then she's like, no, no, and then When she does, then he goes back and then his daughter from that episode was in there. And she leaves and Ahura comes back. And it's just very powerful there for Pike. But what really did for me to just send it over the top with him is what I talked about earlier. With that last session he had with the counselor, when he realized he just needed to let everything out. You know, to be honest with you, how many strong guys that are type A, that are in a leadership role, especially they have to deal with all of that, have an opportunity to finally realize, you know what? All this pressure I'm dealing with, it's time for me to just let it all out. And that's exactly what he did right there. And I felt, to me,

14:15 that was the most human moment that I have seen Pike have in the entire series. It finally caught up to him, and... That right there made me love that character even more. And don't get me wrong, I love Pike. I love everybody on this crew. But as a leader, to show that raw emotion that we just saw there, it was perfect. I'd vote for Pike as well. Because it could have easily been something where he just shrugs it off and says, all right, more cosmic weirdness, we were just puppets and now we're in a soap opera, and kind of blow it off. But he sees through the layers of it and says... My crew is going through a lot. I'm going through more than anybody could probably be put through.

15:01 I need to reconcile with that. Because the only way that I'm going to be able to be here for the others that have to work with those same kind of issues is to work on myself. So the fact that, you know, clearly he's uncomfortable. He scooted the chair several times with Dr. Chivers before finally talking. But that he not only opened up, he not only had the strength to break down and cry and let that out and let somebody into that. But he also said, like, Uhura, I don't want to let go of what's going on here. Let's still have that dinner. Let's still connect. It's important. And I think that's one of the things that makes him a great captain.

15:42 Yeah, I agree with both of you. And you guys said it great. Pike was definitely the standout character here. on one side you got all the crazy soap opera stuff going on and Pike is our one grounded character. And this whole thing, he's the only one that sees how, how ridiculous everything really is. And he, he kind of becomes our connection to, to the real, you know, real Star Trek, you know, rather than ever going on with all the comedy and stuff. But yeah, the highlight is that the emotional side, just like I had mentioned with Picard, Even though that life, that reality that he experienced wasn't technically real, the feelings that Pike brought out of that are definitely real. And you can kind of see here, I'm glad they brought this up, how much that life meant to him. Anson Mount handled those moments so beautifully, and I really appreciate that they added this in there.

16:42 He has to accept.... That it wasn't real, that he'll never have that life. But in his head, he did. It's such a great bit of PTSD that Star Trek can do wonderfully when they do remember. To do it. And so I think out of this episode, that made Pike stand out above everybody else. When he said, I miss her, and he just started breaking down, dude, my heart broke. It did. Yeah. Especially because that her could apply to his daughter and Patel.

17:23 Patel, yeah. Right? Maybe it means both at the same time. Yeah. And it adds so much more value to the gift that Patel gave him of being able to experience like, you know, we're never going to get to grow old together in this crisis moment. But then they do. And as painful as that is for that to be basically taken away It's something that still has. And I think it's a great addition to have his daughter there instead of Patel. The actress Anna Mirrodin that played Juliet did a great job. Aside from being completely plausible that she could be the daughter of Pike and Patel. Did a great job in a lot of emotional maturity in that moment.

18:11 It seems like she's a teenager in that scenario. Like he said, I walked her down the aisle and the grill together, but a lot of emotional maturity for a, for a teenager to be able to say like, you know, it doesn't matter whether it was tangible in this reality or that you have any proof of like, here's a necklace from that time or anything else like that. The memories themselves have the emotional value because that's, that's the gift that Patel was giving him. All right. If you have any choice to be any character that appears in this episode, which one it would be and why. This is kind of a hard choice, but then I made it easier on myself by just saying Trillane. The guy who's running the show, who's pulling the strings and whatnot, aside from the fact that he'd be able to peek at the script notes and see what else is happening.

19:00 I don't know how long I would last in the period piece get-up that seems kind of itchy as sort of the mutton chops, but it seems like he was having a lot of fun with it. I think Rice Darby did a good job in. That role Scott's looking at my notes clearly because I picked the same thing for the very same reason. He's the master of puppets in this episode as a producer and a director. And I thought it was so funny when he kept doing the commercial breaks and stuff like that because things weren't going the way he wanted it to go. I thought it was absolutely hysterical. But yeah, I don't want to be anybody in the soap opera. I want to be the guy controlling the soap opera. So that's who I'm going with.

19:40 Oh, well. I really didn't want to be anybody, actually, to tell you the truth, but I chose Cybok, really, because I thought he'd be the most fun. of the characters in the episode. The whole thing is just absolutely ridiculous, that bit of it. So that is probably the most soap opera-y part of the entire episode. And, you know, Ethan Peck's having a wonderful job. He's having a great time. He gets to flirt with Juan. He's mysterious. He's dramatic. It's just I don't know. The tension between the two of them were fantastic. It just looked like it'd be a lot of fun. Yep. All right. Now comes the section where we dive deep into the episode and see if we can't pull out any Easter eggs.

20:21 You had to kind of dive a little deep for some of these. But you two, did you find any Easter eggs? Want to start first? No. I'll let you handle this one, Wayne. Really? Well, the only ones that stuck out to me, the ones that made me chuckle, were the... I don't know what the sound effect... uh, is called other than the Trillian ping, whenever he would blink, uh, Pike back into the, um, Oh yeah. Back into this thing. Yeah. Um, that took me back to original series, um, vibes there. And then just in the, in the cyborg, I'm glad they tossed in that line of, you know, um, the, uh, pain in the sharing or whatever that line is. Yeah. It's like from the, um, from the movie that gave me a chuckle too.

21:04 Yeah. I mean, uh, As you said, you know, probably the biggest thing in here is Trillane's return. You know, he was in last season's episode of Wedding Bells Blues. And of course, from the original series episode, The Squire of Gothos. That is the original sound effect that they used in The Squire of Gothos. I'm glad to hear it because they didn't use that last time. But for this episode, it's even more obvious that Trillane is part of the Q continuum. The Proctor that was overwatching Trillane is wearing a costume very similar to Q's robes. in Encounter at Farpoint and All Good Things. So there's really no doubt they're Q now. And of course, you mentioned also Cybok from Star Trek V, Final Frontier, the best of the Star Trek movies. It's great seeing him. They mentioned him once before, but this obviously is not the real Cybok. He's not Spock's twin brother, okay? But it's nice to see the character being mentioned again. And not just, you know, everyone forget about Star Trek V. Now, Cybok and Lon are playing a game of Kalto. And that's not the first time we've seen that game. Actually, we've seen it quite a lot. It was a favorite of Tuvok's.

22:18 He played it multiple times on Star Trek Voyager. And Cybok mentions the Arachnid Nebula. I had to dig for this one a little bit. The Nebula was first seen in the Star Trek Enterprise episode, Fusion. where Captain Jonathan Archer mentions that he's always been interested in seeing it ever since he was a kid. And, well, he got to see it finally in that episode. Now, Pike's recipe for Kokavin included the ingredient phylogian butter. Now, the phylogians were an alien race of sentient plants that were first introduced in the animated series episode, The Infinite Vulcan. Love seeing any references in live action to the animated series. I'm glad they're connecting all of this together. And then, of course, you know, we got Pike's trauma coming back at the end of the episode is obviously a direct reference to what happened to him in the new lives and new civilizations. So that was last season's finale. And as I mentioned, it's nice to see them dealing on and on about things like this because we don't get to see much of that.

23:21 In Star Trek. Now, this is what to end this episode. I wanted to bring this up. Does everybody know what this week is? 60th anniversary, is it not? Right, yes. We're recording this on September 6th, and as most Trekkies are aware, September 6th is the true premiere date for the original series of Star Trek, when it debuted first in Canada. But you'll hear this episode starting on September 9th, the day after the U.S. debut of the original series on NBC back in 1966. It was 60 years ago that Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future first came into our homes with The Man Trap, And six decades later, that vision is still going strong. There are celebrations happening all over the world this week, including special screenings of the first four classic films in theaters, anniversary events in Los Angeles and London, where a special screening of the first episode of The Man Trap, along with this week's episode of Strange New Worlds, will be shown on the big screen, a worldwide Vulcan salute in an attempt to break the Guinness World Records, and even a special celebration aboard the International Space Station, where astronaut Sophie Adonat, currently aboard the station right now, will be wearing the Captain's Delta badge, originally worn by Anson Mount in Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Plus, various television specials have been announced, including a special Star Trek episode of Entertainment Tonight, with archived interviews of Gene and the original cast. Star Trek-themed

24:53 episodes of the game shows The Price is Right and Let's Make a Deal. with the former featuring Strange New Worlds cast members Rebecca Romijn and Ethan Peck. And of course, the children's animated series Star Trek Scouts is returning for its second season on September 8th on Nickelodeon. So I want to wish Star Trek and all of our listeners a very happy 60th anniversary. Whether you've been a fan since 1966 or you discovered Star Trek somewhere along the line, this is a great... week to celebrate everything that has made this franchise so special for six decades. That's six decades of exploration, adventure, friendship, and the belief that future can be a better place. We here at Phaser Set to Stun hope that Star Trek continues for another 60 years and can't wait to see what the future has in store for the Enterprise and its crew. And that's it for this week's episode of Phaser Set to Stun and our look at the newest episode of Strange New Worlds.

25:50 We'd like to open a channel to our listeners and hear just what you thought about the most recent episode and the season in general. You can email us at afilmbypodcast at gmail.com. Find us online at afilmbypodcast.com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and X. Or if you're looking for more content, you can join our Patreon and find out what exclusive gems are hidden within. And also, as a reminder, you can find all of Afilmby's library, including the Phaser Set to Sun episodes on YouTube. So go ahead and check it out there as well. Well, we're approaching the final episodes of the season, and the next episode will be titled Orders of Magnitude. And the very, very short official Paramount Plus blurb is, the Enterprise is commanded by Admiral Rieger to track down an alien ship. Well, that sounds like pretty much every other episode, but it doesn't sound like a gimmick episode. I will mention that. So, hey, you know. It's interesting. A big thank you to my fellow truckers, David and Scott, again for joining me and you listeners for this trip into the 23rd century.

26:55 Likewise. Thanks, guys. Join us again next week when we return to the bridge of the enterprise and to you, our listeners, for the next episode of Phaser Set to Stun.