Phasers Set To Stun: Strange New Worlds S4. E8 | Orders of Magnitude

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. With phasers set to stun. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Phasers Set to Stun, where we continue to show our love for everything Star Trek in this ongoing series from a film by a podcast that explores the expanding Trek universe by covering television, animation, movies, directors, merchandise, and so much more. Plotting your course, as always, is your core Trek crew. I'm Scott Hoffman.

1:00 I'm David Burns. And I'm Wayne Whited. And I'm really excited to talk with you two about the latest episode, Orders of Magnitude, directed by Sherrod Lewis and written by Ellen B. McElroy and Onitra Johnson. Since this is fresh Trek with Strange New Worlds, we're calling for a red alert on spoilers. So if you haven't seen the latest episodes, just pause us for a little bit while you get caught up. Wayne, why don't you tell us what this episode is all about? The Enterprise is commandeered by Admiral Simon Rieger, a decorated Starfleet war hero, to pursue a mysterious cloaked alien vessel responsible for a devastating attack on a Federation colony. With Captain Pike and several senior officers away on a distress mission, Lieutenant Commander James Kirk is unexpectedly placed in the position of acting first officer, only to discover that Rieger's pursuit is becoming increasingly personal and extreme. When the alien ship disappears into the atmosphere of a populated planet, Rieger invokes General Order 24, ordering the destruction of every living thing on the planet to ensure the enemy is eliminated. Kirk refuses to stand by, uncovering the truth behind Rieger's obsession and the Admiral's connection to Kirk's father, while Pike and his away team face their own dangerous encounter with Andorian smugglers.

2:22 I feel like this is a Trek episode that absolutely stands out in this season, um, I think it's another episode that obviously goes, Trek Admiral's a bad name. Yeah. But overall, I think this could be considered one of the best of the franchise. Dave, I hope you agree, but what are your thoughts on this? No, I completely agree with you, Scott. To me, this is the best episode of the season. This is Star Trek at its finest right here. When I go back to look at other Star Trek shows and look at those episodes, I remember so many episodes that just stand out. So when I look at this season of Stranger Worlds, this one's going to be the one that stands out. I feel like even though we've seen a lot of Kirk, and Wayne, I know you made that note this year that you hoped we were going to see him, a lot of him, but this one needed Kirk for obvious reasons because of his dad and those kind of things.

3:13 But I feel like that this is the birth of the Kirk that we know. This is where it's launching him to become that captain because the decisions he makes in this And, you know, Paul Wesley, we've always said he's done a phenomenal job as Kirk. He would be on that level in this episode as Kirk. And I would love to see more of him. And I'm talking after Stranger Worlds, but I don't think we're going to get that, unfortunately. But I just think he was brilliant in this. I thought the whole episode was brilliant. I thought Joe Morton, even though the whole bad Admiral thing in Star Trek just keeps creeping back in, I swear. Yeah. But Joe Morton was fantastic as Admiral Raker. The scene where you find out that he got drugged, and he just blows up on the bridge and gets removed from command.

4:04 I just thought that whole sequence right there was phenomenal. How he kept punching Kirk, and I was like, holy crap, man, this is getting seriously intense. But that whole sequence was phenomenal. Overall, absolutely loved this episode, Scott. I feel like it had a lot of Crimson Tide. vibes in that particular scene. Wayne, what are your thoughts on it? Well, yeah, I agree with everything that David said. This was a really tense but incredibly well done episode. It had me entertained all the way from beginning to end, really. And I think a lot of it, because you're right, I did say that I was hoping that we didn't see very much of Kirk, but this episode needed to be made. A lot of what this episode came down to Paul Wesley and Jim Worden, which they're both fantastic in this episode. I love it. The bad Admiral can tend to be overdone in Star Trek, but he did such a great job at it. It really didn't feel like the usual trope that you get with most of Star Trek. I think it's probably the best part of the episode, but I really liked the stuff that happened on the planet with Ike and his group. because of Yohura's story. I mean, I'm glad that she got such a strong part, strong thing here in this episode, and I loved every minute of that. You know, she'd step up.

5:33 She rescued the landing party, and that was really impressive what she did. That's the Yohura we always wanted to see, and as usual, Celia Rose Gooding is just doing a fantastic job playing Yohura. I cannot praise her enough. of what she's done on this. But this is, I love the episode. It felt like classic Star Trek to me. Put a pin in that part. I want to go back to that. I love the planet. Okay. I feel like this is kind of a thesis statement for why we should continue with this crew in kind of the original series. And I know that it's, I don't know if it's absolute that it won't happen.

6:13 I'm sure it's probably likely it won't happen. It is a crime that it won't. happen because they have such a strong template here for the franchise to continue. I agree. Um, yeah, but I mean, it makes a great case for it because I, I think they're all gelling together really well. Um, I have a question that might be a dumb question. It might be obvious, but the, the alien cloaked ship that they're talking about, is it Romulan? Yes. Yeah. And it's basically setting up the balance of terror kind of episode. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Because he has that very pointed thing when he says the blood, the terror that's coming around is on your hands. So it's interesting that we have this Kirk facing that kind of decision. And now we have a little bit more background as to what he must have been struggling with on the bridge when he went through that.

7:07 Assuming that the canon we see here is actual canon. Right. Which would be really smart to see continue. And yeah, I think the side mission, another cave adventure. We love our cave adventures. We do. I love that we get a little bit of bar table banter between Ortegas and Lon talking about that. But I think that mission itself could have been a standalone episode. I think it works really, really well as a plot device here, and it seems like it helps to contain separate stories in one, which gets at it efficiently. But yeah, I thought that that particular side mission was done really, really well because we got a villain with, uh, tour the Andorian and his army, um, who was, was very laser focused and was seeing through all the negotiations. Um, I thought that was really cleverly written, um, and did its own amazing job at keeping that tension going on both sides of the, um, both on the ship and in the cave.

8:15 So I'm gonna go back to my pen. On the cave thing. Yeah. So as much as I love this episode, I have a few problems with it. One is it felt too easy that they were writing Pike and the crew off so that Kirk could get on that ship and, you know, make sure that he was part of that story. That was just a very convenient way of doing it. The other part that I really struggle with is Pike is smarter than falling into that trap. Yeah. I struggle with him falling into that. It's just, come on, Pike is too smart for something like that. And on top of that, so they can't communicate to the Enterprise, but they can do an SOS. They can send a signal out that the Andorians wanted to do. Okay, that doesn't make a lot of sense. My other problem with this episode, I hate to feel like I'm tearing this episode apart.

9:09 I didn't think of that. Although they did say it was a faint SOS. They did, but still. Why oh why did you give us the Asha character just to write her off like this? Oh, there. I'm glad you brought that up. I forgot all about that. That was so dumb. The only thing, the only thing that I can see it is it was part of a device to push Ohora to get her promotion that she gets at the end of this episode. Because it was kind of like Even though she didn't get Asha to do what she was supposed to because she was training under her, I still felt like that was the waste of all of our time.

9:51 Yeah, if that was their intention and it didn't come across like that, it was too vague. The character hardly really appeared and didn't hardly do anything. It seemed like it was a waste. It was a waste of a character. I was expecting a lot more to come off of that than just what we got. It just seems like so pointless to have that character exist in the first place. And really, I mean... What was the purpose? What did she do? Nothing, really. Nothing at all. That it could have at least, you know, did something with her in one episode that more, you know, made a storyline about her or something. But, yeah, I forgot. She was so unmemorable, I completely forgot about her.

10:33 In this episode. I know. She really is. I feel like I'm picking the episode apart, but I'm not. You know, these are just minor things. They really, really are. This episode is phenomenal. Maybe they've got something that she's still going to do in Episode 9 and 10 of this season. We haven't seen it yet. I don't know. But I feel like the way this ended, she's like, oh, see you later. Yeah, it did sound like an ending. I feel like it's entirely possible that if there had been more seasons, they may have kind of drawn it out. As we're talking about it, it feels like she's less of a character and more of a plot device for Ohura's growth. That she was kind of a Kobayashi Maru management To be like, this is something that Uhura is going to struggle with. It's someone who you're going to try to connect with. You're not going to be able to.

11:23 You're going to try to give her guidance. She's not going to take it. You're going to see potential in her, but it's not going to go anywhere. So kind of an intentionally frustrating no-win situation for Uhura. And her having to kind of wrestle with that at the end. I think she... Uhura comes out with flying colors, obviously, to save her life for the rest of the crew, to take some big risks. But also just to go above and beyond to try to connect, to try to reach her, and for Asha to basically say, like, well, you just won't. And it's not a failing. It's not something that, like, it was Uhura's failing that she didn't stay with Starfleet.

12:06 It's just that she didn't want to, and that's okay. So... Yeah, I mean, it feels odd that we had all this set up just to have it go nowhere. I feel like it was also to try to get us to empathize with Ahura, to say, like, really? After all that, it goes nowhere? Let me add this to what you said, too. From what I understand from the interviews and stuff, that, you know, about, you know, possibly maybe they were going to do something more with her character if the series had continued. At this point in filming, they did not know they'd been canceled yet. They did not know until after they finished filming the end of this season before they knew that. So this must have been their intention for that character.

12:50 You're right. Unless David, she returns in the next couple of episodes. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Sorry, I didn't mean to get on a tangent, but it's just... Sorry. I just started liking her character a tiny bit, if I remember correctly, in the last episode. They do this, and I'm like, really? Come on! We know what we'll do. We'll get Dave angry. If they would have killed her off, I think it would have been better for her character. If she would have died from that injury, at least that would have been a more respectable ending for that character than her surviving and then just walking off. I still would have been pissed. Yeah, but at least she had some purpose there in the episode. She did something, you know, she died, but that, you know.

13:34 Yeah, yeah. But I think then Ohura would have been crushed in a moment when she was supposed to, you know, feel like proud of what she had done and kind of turn the corner. This one is just kind of like disappointment. Hey, at least we know now where Membinga's going. Yeah. We got that answer. And that was a great turn. I feel like there's... a courtroom episode that would have, that would have come around. Maybe it's going to be a next season, but yeah, that was a really interesting twist. It was. And I love Christine's reaction to that. Like, this is what you're going to do. You're going to kind of quiet, quit and let yourself be ruined. Um, but kudos to Mbenga for, for doing that. I mean, it feels similar to what he had done with, uh, It sparked a memory of what he did with the Klingon ambassador, how he had kind of kept that secret for a while as well.

14:30 Well, I mean, even Pike saved Mimbinga, remember? So Mimbinga's kind of returning the favor, even though it's not to Pike, it's to Kirk, you know? Because he sees the potential in Kirk. He knows, you know, well, obviously what George Kirk went through, you know, and he was there to live that and see that. So I guess he felt that he owed that It makes me appreciate men being so much more. I mean, I've always loved his character. He's been fantastic throughout this series. But just the decisions he makes and they write for him are just really well done. They are. And when he does leave the ship, it's going to be heartbreaking.

15:11 But he comes back. Remember, he's in the original series. He has to serve under Kirk. He's keeping that secret and everything, but he serves under Kirk. But he can't be the chief medical officer. I find that actually rather interesting how he ends up in that. I don't know if they'll explore that with the remaining episodes, but I'd like to see, you know, I know where we're at. I'm glad they did. We did predict that they would end his story by the end of the season rather than continue it next season. I'm glad they did that. I did find it humorous when Kirk shot Leon saying, hey, you stabbed Mitch. Yeah. I like that. Getting back at her. There you go. Yeah. Well, and there was also some surprising phaser fire on the bridge when she shoots the Admiral Rieger.

15:55 Yeah, that surprised me. It was the right thing to do, but he had that really sinister chuckle of determination when he was like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. He was treading toward that console. But yeah, kind of surprising. I like how they hid the fact that Kirk drugged him. We didn't know. You know? Until it came out towards the end. I mean, when you look back at the episode now, you kind of see why they kept hinting to the coffee and stuff like that. So now that kind of makes sense. But the fact that when they were mentioning he got drugged, what? Who's making that crap up? And then it did come out. Wait a minute. Holy crap, he did! Yeah.

16:35 When they first mentioned the cordrazine, I kind of felt like I could have looked at the camera and just paused temporarily and then keep going. Because I was like, yeah. That's going to come back later, right? But no, it was a really interesting use of that character. And I think there was so much kind of, clearly there was something wrong with Rieger from the beginning. But I feel like they pulled that mystery along just enough to make it like, is he or isn't he? Is it because he's just ruthless or is he actually unstable? And I think that was a great use of that storyline. Go ahead. No, it's just the whole story of that cover-up. That, you know, he just became a legend so quick that there was really nothing they could do about it. And they kind of just swept George under the rug, basically, you know? And then it really broke your heart, too, when, like, Jim and Sam were talking about how every time he wanted to go home to be with his family, Rieger would have another mission for him, and he wouldn't let him. Like, that's just, like, dude. Yeah. you're an ass. Yeah.

17:43 That's kind of similar. What I was just going to say, you know, I really liked the discussions between Sam and, and, and Kirk, um, about their father. That's a character we don't really know much about. Um, and you can't count the, the, uh, uh, 2009 Star Trek series. That was a completely different, you know, universe stuff like there, but, um, I, I love their scenes together. I really do. I, I, you know, I had said, I hope we don't see much more of Kirk, but now I'm, I'm kind of changing my, uh, My thought on that, I'd like to see a little bit more of him, and I hope we see a lot more of him next season, and those two together, because I like their interactions. Well, we saw, how many times in the original Star Trek series did we see Kirk bluff?

18:25 Quite a lot. That's his thing. And here he did it again. He does it. Actually, I guess for the first time, really, if you want to look at the timeline, he bluffed Rieger, that he had done something to the phasers and stuff like that, and they use them, you know, So he's a master of bluffing. He used that so many times when he's the captain of the Enterprise. So I just loved that that's what he did here. And it is his character. That is James Kirk right there. Yeah. And showing so much resolve, too, like in that kind of Crimson Tide-ish scene. He was not backing down at all. Yep. All right. Well, let's take a quick break. When we come back, I'm sure we'll have a lot more to say about this week's episode. Okay, welcome back. Let's talk a little bit more about Orders of Magnitude. I want to go back just a sec to talk about Sam and how important that character is becoming. I think it's interesting to dive into Kirk's family, but also kind of the background and what makes him who he is. And I think getting perspective from Sam on their father and on Jim himself is a great way to build this character.

19:37 So if it's not going to go anywhere, I think it's a Damn shame, because I would love to see the news, the news series, whatever it'd be with, uh, Paul Wesley on the bridge and his brother, Sam continuing to have that kind of relationship, at least for a little while. Yeah. I mean, I'd like to see that too, but it does seem that every week the past comes least less and less likely, but, but I, you know, it's still a little bit too early. Paramount can still announce this over the next year before I would say they would have to announce it before the next season premieres. But, I just, I don't know. We, nobody knows what Paramount's doing right now. I wish we did, but you know what their plans are for television. So who knows? Yeah. Hopefully he doesn't go on ice for a little while.

20:21 That's what I'm worried about. That's what I'm worried about too. Yep. Kind of, you know, all of sci-fi seems to be blinking out for a while. I don't like that. Me neither. Me neither. That's not good. I wanted to take just a minute to talk about Ortegas as well. So as we think about that balance of terror, Kind of episode. And we had seen her kind of lean into the side of, no, we have to go get this cloaked ship. We have to chase them down. We have to destroy them. And Pike didn't want to. He wanted to take more of a diplomatic approach. It felt like in some of the earlier scenes, we were starting to get that side of her take us again. Although this time it seemed to be more like she saw this admiral as a veteran war hero. something that she idolized and having some excitement about this admiral seeing a lot of potential in her in kind of moving forward with the mission. But it also felt like there was a little bit of kind of a dark side from her wanting to lean into what they had done until the end when she was like, are we really doing this? It almost seemed like she was echoing what Scotty had said, like, he's just bluffing, right?

21:32 We're not going to kill all these people. What are your thoughts on that? No, I'm with you on that 100%. I really liked her character in this episode, but I see that line that she's writing there, but she could go either way here. Pike has done so much with her and everybody on this crew and have further advanced their development. And she's one of them, right? Because she was struggling there for a while. And even Una has been involved with her getting... you know, more into that position where she doesn't go crazy on somebody for crying out loud and just wants to take risks. You know, she could go either way here.

22:14 I mean, if she was under Rieger, she would do what he would want. There's no doubt in my mind because, you know, she got caught up in this episode, like a lot of them did, of seeing this living legend on this ship. You could see it in her face, her smile, everything. She was just eating it up. And, you know, she was willing to do it. But you're right. It was almost like that. We aren't really going to do this, are we? You know, so, I mean, I don't know. She could go either way here, Scott. She really could. I'd like to see she's grown so much. But everybody, you know, you're even Spock, you know, you're being commanded by an admiral. You got to listen to him, right? Unless you have the definitive reason to remove them. You know, I'll get on another. I don't get another tangent, but I want to mention something later. But go ahead.

23:02 Yeah. But I agree with you, Scott. I don't know about Wayne, but I do. No, no, I agree, too. I mean, it's she was suffering from hero worship. And what's it saying? You know, don't meet your heroes because, you know, he was so celebrated in Starfleet that I think they would have followed him to hell and back. But he started doubting, you know, everybody else around her is starting to doubt it. You know, fortunately, fortunately, they've been trained better by by Pike, I guess, that there's some ethical dilemma in their head to say, well, we can't follow him that far. Dave, you've got me curious. What's your offering?

23:42 So the only thing I wanted to mention, it's kind of strange. I don't know if you guys caught this or not. The first time that Rieger was reprimanding Kirk on the bridge, when he kind of questioned him, did you see that smirk Spock had on his face? Did anybody catch that? No. When he went to sit down, he had like a smirk on his face like he was enjoying that. I don't know if it was just maybe the way he was just... I don't know. It was kind of funny. Was Spock really smirking at that? I'll have to check that out again. Go back and watch that. Go back and watch it. Because he does. Did he have a ponytail? Was that really Cyborg? He just snuck right in here from the soap opera universe. Right, right. Well, let's get into one of our typical Trek tracks. Let's talk about which one of the crew members shine the most.

24:38 I'm pretty sure I know what we're all going to say, but Wayne, why don't you go ahead and start us off? Oh, I'm going to say Kirk. He edged everybody out a little bit. He really shines. You know, he was thrown in the deep end and acting as the first officer. I just like seeing him handle that pressure because he's becoming more and more like the Kirk. That we need. Are very, very familiar with. You know, he just doesn't blindly follow orders, especially when the Admiral does what he did, but he's, he's got, he's got morals. He's got courage and, you know, to stand up against someone where everybody else is just blindly following. I like that. You know, he, he shined, you heard him shine too, but Kirk, yeah, this was his, this is his episode.

25:21 Dave, what about you? Yeah, I mean, I think we're all going to agree on this. I mean, I don't know. You may throw a for a loop here. Throw a Dayton? Yeah, throw a Dayton, right. But, no, Kirk absolutely shined in this episode. Again, Paul Wesley is doing a phenomenal job as fleshing out Kirk before he becomes the captain that we know. But seeing him, the captain we know he's going to become, getting to see him doing the trickery that he does and the bluffing that he does, You know, shows what a leader that he is and which is why he will always be my favorite captain. He really will be. You know, if it came down, I think we might have talked about this question down, you know, if it became between Picard and Kirk, which one would you go with? I'd go with Kirk. You know, but it's just he proves it here to me that he is going to be a captain. And I believe he was the youngest captain, wasn't he, in Starfleet to get promoted.

26:13 Is that right? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. Okay. Okay. So you can see it. You can see why, because he already has that leadership skill, even though he's questioning an admiral, which he should, for crying out loud. But I also love the fact that he was just digging into some things that, you know, he kind of blamed his father for, but then started digging into when he started learning the mystery that was going on of what really did happen on the Constitution. And I love that he went and uncovered that and found out, got the answer that he wanted. So, yeah, absolutely, Kirk. Scott? No, I'm going to say Asha. She really took that shard like a champ. No, it's definitely Kirk. Another kind of aspect of that that really stood out to me was that he didn't just barrel through and do what he thought was right because he wanted to be sure.

27:13 And you can see him test that with Scotty. You can see him test that with Mbenga. You can see him test that with, um, Laan as he's walking down the hallway. And it seems like we get another, um, shade of Kirk, um, emulating, I think what we see from Pike and the keys like, but I need my crew to be on board because if it's just me, this doesn't work. And if it's not, if it's just me, then I don't know if I'm right. Yeah. So the fact that he was weighing his options and weighing perspectives from others and genuinely trying his best not to get into a situation where he would have to compromise the Admiral or go to any kind of extreme. He was trying to just get him to see clearly what was happening.

28:03 I think if there is some kind of trial, it'll be interesting to see Rieger tried for what had happened to him. even though he could say that because of the courtesies and he was compromised and all this other kind of stuff, but still his underlying drive for what he was doing was the same. So, yeah, I've got to give it to Kirk. Yeah. Well, David, if you could be anyone in this episode, this might be tougher, who would it be? No, actually, you kind of touched base on the character that I would want to be, and it's Erica. You know, she's having the time of her life seeing a living legend. in Admiral Rieger, but, you know, she was complimented by him.

28:45 You could just see the giddiness in her when, you know, she would compliment her on her piloting skills and those kind of things, and just seeing that joy on her face as she was getting to experience that. I mean, she's living in the moment, right? She loves to be a pilot. She's obsessed with being a pilot, and she's getting to live out everything that she would hope to be able to do, and she gets to do it with a living legend, even though she learns a living legend's a piece of crap, but, you know, I still feel, you know, in that moment before all that, you could just see the joy in her eyes, so it would be Erica. Wayne, what about you? Well, I thought about choosing her or one of the others, but, you know, because they look like they're having a lot of fun, but then they're also betrayed and very disappointed at the end, so I think I'm just going to settle and choose Kirk. He looked like he'd be the most fun in this episode, you know, he got to be the first officer of the Enterprise, you know, and right in the middle of this big crisis, he got to deal with a pretty intense admiral, you know, and figured out what the heck was going on with him.

29:54 It's classic Kirk. He had to make a tough decision. He stood up for what he believed is right. Got to command the Enterprise. Yeah, I think that'd be pretty hard to pass up. I chose him. Even with the radiation? I was going to say the radioactive sauna. Yeah, I mean, he got pretty beaten up, too. But, you know, heck, he'll heal. We all know he survives. Typical Kirk, right? Getting beat up. Yeah. Scott, what about you? Well, speaking of a Kirk, I was going to choose Sam Kirk, even though he gets clocked by Jim. Um, he had some bonding time with his brother. Um, and I, I just loved those scenes. I think that the two actors have a lot of chemistry together. Um, we also get to look at Sam's xenobiology lab, uh, which looks like a fascinating place to tinker around. Um, even though as he was working on things and he's like, yeah, there's a skull right here for no apparent reason. Um, but it looks like a fun place to be. All right, we'll dive into Easter eggs. Um, and there was one, um, one important one that really just like stabbed me in the heart. Uh, it was a great piece of writing.

30:59 It's something that was going through my head the entire time they were in the cave. Uh, but the reference to hammer, uh, when they gave her the commendation, um, that was, that was a little bit of a heartbreaking little nugget, but I'm glad that they put it in. I totally agree. He would have been proud of her. Yeah. I agree. I agree. Only one I got was the cortisone is the drug that McCoy accidentally doses himself with in the City of the Edge of Forever. That's the only one I've got. So, Wayne, what about you? Well, I think the biggest Easter egg of the episode that we were hinting about was the unknown and unidentified enemy ship that we were chasing. We mentioned it earlier.

31:40 It is quite obviously that's Romulan, and these are my reasons for saying this. According to the map that was shown in the episode, the ship is heading in the direction of the Romulan neutral zone. And also, Rieger mentions that the ship can be tracked by gamma ray emissions. And it was established in the Star Trek Enterprise episode, Mind Field, that Romulan technology can be tracked that way. So, yeah, without a doubt, that's Romulan. Another ship that gets mentioned a lot is the USS Constitution. We've never seen this ship. To this day, we still haven't seen it yet. But the Constitution was the prototype ship for its new class, Registry ENCC-1700. That's where the Constitution-class starship design gets its name, which that's what the Enterprise is. Now, one other thing that was mentioned, too, in this episode is the Alterans, which, number one, states that mine the caves that they were in.

32:34 The planet Altair and its inhabitants have been mentioned many times in Star Trek, including the original series episodes of Mock Time and Wolf in the Fold. The movie Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan, Deep Space Nine's Profit Motive, and Starfleet Academy's 300th Hour, and Rubicon, just to name a few. It's also the planet where Commander Riker got his blemish on his record for refusing to allow the captain of the USS Hood to beam down, to which Captain Picard mentions that in Encounter at Farpoint. Now, General Order 24, which is an order to destroy all life on an entire planet, has been given twice before in Star Trek. once by Captain Garth in the original series episode, Whom's Gods Destroy, and then again by Captain Kirk in the episode, A Taste of Armageddon. And fortunately, including this one, none of those three officers were able to carry out that order. How many remember where Lon got that watch she was wearing? That was given to her by Pellia in the 21st century, back in the second season episode, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. Now, Admiral Rieger-Kirchner, Oh, excuse me.

33:39 Admiral Regan orders for this phaser power to be routed through the warp core. At this time in Star Trek, this is not something that was normally done. But when the Enterprise gets its refit in Star Trek The Motion Picture, that was implemented as a regular system process. If you remember that film, Admiral Kirk orders the use of the phasers when they were trapped in that wormhole, but Denker countermands the order and later explains that the phasers were offline because they used power from the engines. All later starships would use that type of phaser system. Now, Yuhura talks to the Andorians about the Ushan, and she thinks that it's the Andorian word for honor, but it's actually a code of honor demanding a duel to the death.

34:21 The Ushan was first introduced in the Star Trek Enterprise episode United, where Captain Archer fought Commander Shran, which resulted in Shran losing one of his antennas. And then finally, I want to bring up actor Joe Morton, who played Admiral Rieger in this episode. He's never appeared in any other Star Trek episode before, but he does have connections to the franchise. He narrated the audio version of Pocketbook's Star Trek Deep Space Nine novel, Millennium, The Fall of Tarek Noor, as well as their line of the Star Trek New Frontier novels. Well, I always, whenever I saw him, I always think of him as Miles Benedicin. In here.

35:02 Yes. But no, glad he had that history with it. Well, only two episodes left this season, right? You know, this episode wasn't a gimmick episode, I don't think. No. Was it? No. Well, we're back to them next time. I know we are. Thank God we're done with those. No, we're not done with them yet. Nope. Just you wait. I'm sure it'll be fantastic. It's going to be a musical episode with puppets and soap opera. No. Fairytale theaters. No. No. No. No. Well, thanks as always, Dave and Wayne. Always a pleasure. Absolutely. Lots of fun.

35:43 And listeners, thank you for joining us as always. What did you think of the latest episode? Was there anything that we missed? Was there anything that was a highlight for you? Let us know and remember to check us out at afilmbypodcast.com for film and TV articles and our entire library streaming free. Write us at afilmbypodcast at gmail.com and share your questions, comments, and concerns. We may just read your response on the show. and send you some of Hilton by Swag. For all of you who are listening to the show and following us on social media, we thank you, and we'll see you next time for another episode of Fazer Sets Us Up.