Phasers Set To Stun: Strange New Worlds S4. E9 | Once La'an a Time

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 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, is your core Trek crew. I'm David Burns.

1:02 And I'm Wayne Whited. Welcome back to the Bridge, listeners. Scott is on an away mission, something about storming a castle. But not to worry, Wayne and I have everything under control. At least, I think. On this episode, we are continuing our discussion on Season 4 of Strange New Worlds with Episode 8, Once Upon a Time, written by Onitra Johnson and directed by Sydney Freeland. Red Alert listeners, if you are not caught up with the series, please go do so as there are many spoilers ahead. We'll be right here on the bridge waiting. Wayne, please tell us just what this episode is about. When the Enterprise encounters a mysterious flat fantasy world, La'an, Pike, Spock, and Pellia find themselves trapped inside a real-world version of the Elysian Kingdom. The strange realm is filled with magical sightings and doppelgangers of the crew, forcing La'an into an adventure where she must confront a princess version of herself.

1:59 As the crew searches for a way home, La'an is forced to face the guarded and lonely parts of her personality that have kept her from allowing herself to be happy. Well, Wayne, this is another gimmick episode that we were afraid was going to pop up. Um, But it does help with pushing a little bit of a character forward, which is Leon, obviously. It does bring the lightness and darkness together where she can finally feel a little bit better as a character. I do have to say that the comic relief that's in this episode with Pike and Spock's doppelganger was brilliantly done. I have to say the...

2:47 I think we've said this before. It might have been a couple episodes ago. But Anson Mount is brilliant when it comes to playing odd characters and proves it here again when he's playing Sir Amon Ralf. Is he not? Is he not brilliant in this? No, he is brilliant. He's really got a wide range of acting. He does great in any character, any part he's playing. Yeah. So what do you think of this episode, Wayne? Well, you know, I don't hate it as much as I thought I would. Actually, to be honest, I thought it was a pretty fun episode. I did not have very high expectations for this episode. I really wasn't expecting to enjoy it. But I mean, I was pulled in for the entire thing. I actually enjoyed this. It's weird.

3:41 I have mixed feelings. You know, I'm not sure if I like it or not, to tell you the truth. But I did enjoy it. I don't know. Yeah. I think a lot of it has got to do with Lon's story and how Christina Chong played her in this because I always loved the character. And I thought it was really interesting. It was not the way I thought her story was going to end. That was quite a surprise. But I enjoyed watching her. I enjoyed the visual effects. There's a lot about it. Story-wise, I'm not sure if we needed this episode. But, you know, it was okay. It was good. I think my struggle with this episode is where it's at in the lineup of the season.

4:23 I mean, there's only one more episode left. So this is how you spend episode nine. I mean, yeah, you did kind of give us Leon's character, give it back to us, right, where everything is settled with her. Very odd way of doing it. I would agree with you on that for sure. It is. I did like this is a sequel to season one's episode 10, Elysian Kingdom. So I did like that. And you're right. I'm with you on this. I didn't think I was going to enjoy this episode as much as I did. Again, odd decision to go with this kind of story. But I thought all the characters playing their doppelgangers did a fantastic job. I felt it was a way of just letting their hair down and just relaxing and enjoying and having fun with the script. At least that's the way I felt it was. It was.

5:10 And I have a feeling that they had planned to do a sequel to that episode for quite some time. Because like I said, I said last episode that at this point, they didn't know that the series was going to end. This was right around the time I think that they were discovering it. But so this has probably been planned for a while that that's why. But I mean, unfortunately, they are ending the series and we've only got seven more episodes left of it. So it does feel rather awkward to be. Using an episode as for the sequel. But, you know, they had a lot of fun doing it. I'm not going to fault them for that because it looks like the actors are having a great time. And it is it's pretty wild. I mean, the episode is is for Star Trek. That's pretty wild. What's going on during the whole thing?

5:54 Yeah. But I mean, other series have done similar things, right? I mean, they've had goofy episodes and things where they've gone into fantasy worlds and those kinds of things. Even where they've had versions, different versions of themselves for crying out loud. This is nothing new to Star Trek. Nothing new. So the fact that people are throwing a fit about it. I mean, yeah, I get it. We only get 10 episodes. I mean, they don't have very many episodes to waste. But I mean, come on. This is in the vein of Star Trek. It really is. Yeah. Oh, yeah, very much so. I mean, You know, look at, you know, all the weird, wonderful episodes that were created. I mean, you know, you've got the whole Alice in Wonderland episode of the original series. You've got Robin Hood for the next generation. And, you know, yeah, I mean, you know, they all do this. It's, you know, it's just a fun way of doing something completely different out of the normal for Star Trek.

6:50 I know. But usually they have longer seasons. Like I said, as it sounds, as you can tell, I'm really torn with this episode because I did enjoy it. Yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. And it just was really surprising how they ended that whole La'an storyline. I was just, it's just, I'm not sure if that sets with me very well. But, you know, I guess looking at it, it's been so much of the series of this season building up that type of storyline that it just sets me as weird that this is how they ended, ended that. Um, it's definitely not going to be my favorite episode of the season. No, no, by far, but it's not my, my least favorite at all.

7:33 It's probably, I would say probably directly in the middle, but I do like, I do like the end result of it where they left, uh, Laan. Um, and I loved, you know, Christina Chung, she carried this episode big time. I think she did. I think I just gave away my choice for, uh, um, spotlight character, but I. Think we're both going to go there. So I'm, I'm with you on that. And when I do, if they're going this route, I do like the fact they took this opportunity to write Pelley character off. And that was a surprise. It was, it was a very big surprise, but you knew it had to come. We didn't know it was going to be like this. And I do absolutely love the fact of being Miracle Max, Billy Crystal's character from the Princess Bride. That they were able to blend that into this episode. I thought that was fantastic.

8:21 Yeah, they weren't exactly subtle with that. We all knew what they were doing there. Yeah. But I love that they did that. I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. It was a wonderful nod. It really was. To Carol Kane, her character was Valerie, I think it was, from The Princess Bride. So, I mean, I thought that was nice. How do you feel, Wayne, about the Kirk and Leon being a couple? If they're hinting to that at the end. How do you feel about that? Well, I mean, we all know where it ultimately ends and that they're not together within like a year or two. But right now, in this point of Star Trek history, I'm OK with it. I like the idea now that all this has been settled with Lon. She's allowing herself to be rather vulnerable with Kirk. I really like the change in her personality for the end of the episode, you know. All those different versions that she had to deal with of herself and all the emotional baggage now stripped away. And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with their relationship, short as it's going to be. I'm curious to see where they're going to take this, though.

9:32 Yeah, I found it humorous when he was Prince Dashing. And then when he took the mask off and you got the wind blowing in his hair and all of that stuff. I thought that was pretty funny. Oh, I know what it was all about. It gave me a little bit of a, yeah, it reminded me a lot of Shrek. It did, exactly. It's exactly what I felt like. It had the Shrek vibes through this whole episode, it did, in my opinion. It did, yeah. I don't know. I think they were doing that on purpose. Oh, I think so, too. That and the Princess Bride, they were mixing the two, and like I said, they weren't very subtle with it. It was pretty obvious. But one thing I do want to point out is one scene that I really did like, because it's so absurd, was the dragon attacking the Enterprise. I thought that was just so how would you put wonderfully ridiculous. I mean, it's, it's, it's pure fantasy, you know, the, the dragon flying, flying through space, breathing fire in space. I mean, what, what the heck, you know, you have to kind of suspend belief, but I'm willing to do that for this episode. It was just, it was just a lot of fun. So plus the whole thing with the Pike doppelganger and, and the way he was acting, God, I laughed really hard during that scene. It was so good.

10:46 Him up into that captain's chair like he was. where he didn't know how to sit in the chair and how he's freaking out. He didn't know how to handle the situation. Yeah, the way he curled up in a ball when he was afraid. Yeah, that was. I was rolling with laughter. And even before that, when he came up the turbolift and almost fell out of the turbolift because he didn't expect that chair to be moving. That was so extremely well done with his performance. I want to go back to the scene where they were first on the Enterprise, the doppelgangers. And... He was telling Spock, you must keep your wits about yourself. And then Ahura steps out and freaks him out. And he does that girly scream. I thought I rolled with that scene.

11:27 I did too. I did too. That was hilarious. It was so fun to watch. I'm going to say I think I'm settling to the point where I do like this episode. Because the whole thing was really... fun to watch the the the actors having fun the weird visual effects the whole thing i i really enjoyed that and um anson mount and christina chong they're so wonderful i'm gonna miss them when this series. Is over with yeah me too i almost won an entire episode of spocking in pike's doppelganger all the whole episode it really would because i mean they were they were brilliant in their in in that There was even the scene where they were walking past and they see the tavern. Well, they say it's a tavern. He says, oh, look, a tavern. Yeah. Should we go and get a drink?

12:12 And then Spock turns and starts talking and he looks back and he pikes already in there drinking. Yeah. That was great. I laughed at that, too. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. It was fantastic. And you mentioned the practical effects. Dude, the practical effects of the werewolf was incredible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they did a really good job. That was some wonderful makeup and what they did there. It was really good. And you could tell that as a practical effect. That was not CGI. I mean, you could really see that they were doing puppet work and stuff like that. And I applaud them for that. Yeah, I do too. I mean, that's one thing that we haven't talked about how much is the makeup and prosthetic department. They do an incredible job. They always have.

12:56 And that was just exceptional work there. It was very impressive for this. Yeah, it's just, I know the episode's getting some flack from some people, but I'm sorry. I thought it was fun. Yeah, it is. You know, just relax, people. Like I said, Star Trek has done this plenty of times before. We're going to move on. You know we're going to, everyone knows we're going to get a serious one next episode. Come on, it's the season finale. Oh, yeah. You know we're going to get something big or something dramatic is going to happen. I have a feeling. Oh, yeah. Something's coming Mimbinga's way. I think we're going to get the Admiral coming back. Do you think we're going to see the Admiral again from last episode? I think, yeah, at least some of that storyline, yeah.

13:37 Like I said before, I don't think Mimbinga's going to make it past this season. I mean, as Chief Medical Officer, I really don't see him. If he's in next season, it's probably just, you know, the fallout of everything that's happening. But, yeah, I do see the Admiral coming back. I do. Yeah, yeah. But you're right. I think we're going to see his downfall in next week's episode. I don't know anything about it. I've not watched it. I've not seen any trailers. I don't know anything about it. So I'm trying to stay away from it because I'm surprised. Yeah, they gave a very, very brief, not a synopsis, a tease, which says very little. I got some speculation to talk about that at the end of this episode. But yeah, I don't even think there is a trailer yet.

14:19 I don't think they released one for this time. Do you think, there is any kind of hidden meaning with Leon getting the dog at the end? Is that just to give her something or do you think there's something else involved with that? Hmm. I mean, I never really thought about it that deep other than the fact that she's, you know, like I said, she had a personality change. She's so happy and satisfied with herself and her place in life and it just felt like you know, she got a dog. I never really put too much thought on it. I know there's some stuff a little bit behind the scenes, but I kind of liked it. I love the idea. She's a wonderful dog owner. I will say that. That dog is so cute. And I like the idea of her, of the character having a dog, you know, this hard hitting character that we've really been wondering what the hell's going to happen to her all season. And now she is.

15:15 She's happy. She's in a relationship and she's got a dog. And I, I could be reading too much into it. I could, you know, I just, I just, it just felt, are they just giving her a dog just because she's completely changed her personality now? Or is there something else behind, behind that? I don't know. I'm like, again, I could just be reading into it. We only have seven episodes left, so maybe I am. I don't know. I mean, there could be, you know, I, I, as I've said a couple of times now, I love Christine Chong. Yeah. I love her works that she's done on this series. And of course I got to mention, you know, she started her career on an appearance on doctor who, During Matt Smith's era. I loved it. But after this episode and reading, doing a little bit of research on it, I love her even more. Now, first of all, that dog is just absolutely adorable.

16:00 It is. But I want to bring this up because that's her dog. That's really Christina Trump's dog. Oh, really? Oh, that's awesome. That's her dog. And the reason I want to bring this up is because the dog's name is the real name of the dog, okay? Yeah. Is Runa Ewok. Runa Ewok. And... She called him that. I'm not sure where the runic comes from. She called Ewok because she thought when it was a puppy that it looked like one of those baby Ewoks from Return of the Jedi. I can see that. Now, when I was a kid back in the 80s, we had two dogs. And when we got our second dog, which I think was in like 83, 84, mom looked at him and said, he looks like a baby Ewok.

16:41 And we called our dog Ewok. That's awful. For the exact same reason that Christina did. I have such great memories of that dog. Loved, you know, lived a long life. And I really hope that I get to meet Christina soon sometime at one of these conventions, because I want to tell her about that. I want to, I want to, I want to tell her because she brings, she brings the dog to conventions all the time. So I think that would be great. But I love that story. I love the, you know, that the parallels with, with what I had when I was a kid. I think it's, it's great. I do hope we see more of the dog during the series. I really do. Cause I think, I like this new personality of her. I like her having, I hope, a happily ever after storyline ending to her.

17:23 I hope she's not one of these characters that gets killed off. I'll be very upset if they do that. Well, that makes me like the dog even more now. Now that I know the story behind it, that's really her dog. So that makes it even cooler that they did that. So well done to her and them. The scene when she beams off and the dog is there and he waits for her. And then she beams back. I love that. Isn't that so sweet? It is. So adorable. It really is. Yeah, I agree with you. My heart is always just like, oh, that's so cute. Yeah. So, yes, I agree with you on that one. All right. Well, I tell you what, Wayne, why don't you let's take a break. We come back and we will talk about what character we thought shined the most. I think we kind of gave it away, but we'll be right back. Welcome back, everybody. We're Wayne and I here at Phasers are continuing our discussion of Once Lana Time from Strange New Worlds. All right, Wayne, it's that time of the podcast. Which character shined the most?

18:22 Well, we gave it away. La'an, I keep calling her La'an, it's La'an, is easily the character that shined the most in this episode. This was her episode. But I like, and I'm just repeating a lot of the stuff that I just said, but I like seeing the different side of her. You know, she gets to, well, Christina Chong gets to allow on to be funny and to be vulnerable and to be relaxed you know she literally put her hair down uh you know then we've seen her all season and i i love that i feel very satisfied with this being you know this part of her character yeah you know the whole the whole adventure just basically forced her to confront you know the different parts of herself different personalities that she's been bottled up all season and and i think it worked really well for her and Now she's putting her guard down, taking the chance with Kirk. I felt very satisfied about that. It's nice growth for the character.

19:27 I'm on board with you on this. I think this being Leon's story was fantastic, and it's something that the character needed to be wrapped up. Odd way of doing it, but I do like the fact that they did it. You got to see her fight herself. in order to get to the point that she needed to realize of who she needed to become, that she needed to accept that darkness but bring in the light to become the person that she needed to become and quit fighting it off. So I really like that part of the story. Very symbolic. of the fight that she was having internally. And, you know, we've seen it through this season. It is. So it was very enjoyable to see that come to play on screen and for her to be able to work that out.

20:07 And you're right. Getting to finally see her basically let her hair down at the end of this episode to become, to feel relaxed and become the character that, you know, the person that she wanted to become. So it's good to finally see that. So, yes, I'm with you on that one. So if you could be any character in this episode, who would it have been and why, Wayne? Well, I think, and I had to think about this because a lot of the characters all seem to be having, but I think Helia probably would be the most fun character to be in this episode. She's already one of the most eccentric people I've ever seen on Star Trek, but just dropping her in this fairy tale feels like, it's like the It's exactly the situation where she would be working best at. She gets to run around in that, you know, completely ridiculous setting that is, you know, she's interacting with all the strange characters. She just seems she'd be treating it more of a fun adventure rather than really, you know, the crisis that it was to some of the other characters. And she didn't seem bothered by it.

21:17 You know, it seemed normal to her. It was just so much fun. just, I think, yeah, it's, it was certainly different. Um, it just would have been a lot of fun, a lot of, a lot of humor. Yeah. Um, so I chose her. That's a good choice. I decided to go with, uh, Kirk on this one and his doppelganger, by the way, Prince dashing. So it's kind of a, kind of a twofer here, um, because he gets to dance and clearly start a relationship with Leon. I mean, sure. Dashing has to turn into a werewolf, which I'm sure does not feel good whatsoever. Um, So he had to go through some pain to get some love. I mean, isn't that life in general, really? Yeah, that's very true.

21:57 Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, you know, plus, you know, Kirk gets the girl at the end, as he typically does, as we know the Kirk that we've grown up over the years watching. So, yeah, without a question, Kirk was having a good time in this episode. You know, being Prince Dashing as he was, you know, being the hero. Well, Leon didn't need the hero anymore. She was able to handle herself, but still, you know, it was Kirk, without question. All right, so I'm curious to what you found. Go ahead. Oh, I was just going to add that, yeah, he may get the girl at the end, but we know that all of his relationships usually end in sorrow.

22:38 They do, yes. Sorry, Kirk, but unfortunately, they do. All right, so I didn't pick up too many except for the ones I have already mentioned. So, Wayne, give us some Easter eggs that you might have found in this episode. Well, you didn't pick up very many because there wasn't really that many to pick up. Okay, good. But there were a couple. There were a couple and some decent ones. But first of all, this isn't exactly an Easter egg. It's something I wanted to point out. The whole episode was a sequel to the eighth episode of the first season called The Elysian Kingdom. And also I want to mention that the director of this episode, Sydney Freeland, she's directed– one other episode of strange new worlds.

23:20 That was during the first season, but it was not the episode that this is a sequel to. It was the, uh, serene squall that she directed. Okay. Now at the beginning of this episode, we hear the crew are beaming back from attending a Benzite wedding that apparently Lon fought an Orion spy. Now we've seen the Benz, we've seen the Benzites a couple of times in star Trek, but never in the original series. Uh, we first saw them in the next generation episode coming of age, uh, where Wesley Crusher met Mordok, the first Binzite to join Starfleet Academy. And then the next year, in the episode of Matter of Honor, a Binzite named Minden joined the Enterprise in the Officer Exchange Program. And, of course, we also learned that in Deep Space Nine that the planet Binzar was conquered by the Dominion during the war, so we don't know whatever happened to them after that. But probably the biggest Easter egg of the entire episode was when they named the author of the book of the Elysian Kingdom was Benny Russell. Russell was a writer that lived during the 1950s and wrote sci-fi stories for a magazine called Incredible Times. We saw it in the Deep Space Nine episode Far Beyond the Stars. Captain Sisko began having visions that he was living the life of Benny Russell during his time in New York City in the 1950s. Now, Benny Russell would eventually suffer from a nervous breakdown and be admitted to a psychiatric hospital. And I have to be honest, up to this point, I wasn't aware that Benny Russell was a real writer in the Star Trek universe.

24:50 I always assumed that he was just a figment of Captain Sisko's mind that was created by the prophets. But apparently here he actually existed. So I'm curious as to the timeline of his writings, though. whether this book that was written before his work on the magazine or was it written after his breakdown, because this is a very different book from anything he was writing that we saw on Deep Space Nine, but it was never mentioned, so we'll probably never know. And that's everything I was able to find. Well, that last one was a pretty big Easter egg. That one flew over me, so good catch on that one. That's a nice connection that they did there, so all right.

25:31 It is, yeah. All right. Well, Wayne, thank you so much for joining me here for another episode of Phaser Set the Stone. It's always a blast. Always. Oh, it's always a lot of fun. And, you know, it's going to be interesting next week with the season finale. You know, that name of that episode makes me very curious. It's called Tomorrow's Enterprise. You know, it makes me wonder what that's about. But the official Paramount tease is, A temporal crisis brings Pike's Enterprise face-to-face with a future Kirk will one day inherit. That's it. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Now, I know there's been a lot of talk about, oh, could this be something connected to yesterday's Enterprise, the next generation episode? I don't think, other than the name, I don't think there's going to be any connection at all.

26:22 You know, because yesterday's Enterprise was the future Enterprise was seeing a past Enterprise come back. Now, I think this time We're going to see a past Enterprise, see a future Enterprise come back. So I don't know. But which timeline, which part of Kirk? Is it the original series? Is it the movies? Is it what? You know, there's a lot of open, and I'm looking forward to this. But it sounds like a very dramatic episode, very good ending of season. I'm looking forward to it. It's got me excited. Me too. To see what they're going to do with it. All right. Well, listeners, thank you so much for joining us here. What do you think is going to happen in the season finale? And beyond that, we only got six more episodes after that. So what do you think is going to happen? We know the original crew is eventually going to take over the Enterprise. What do you think is going to happen to some of our favorite characters that we know don't carry on to the next ship with Enterprise with Kirk?

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