Strange New Wednesdays - Hegemony

0:04 Space the Final Frontier. These are the voyages of Strange New Wednesdays. It's continuing mission to explore episodes of Strange New Worlds, to seek out new information and new discussions, to boldly go where no podcast has gone before. Hello everyone, and welcome back to Strange New Wednesdays. Or we continue to talk everything about the current season A star trek Strange New Worlds once again Red alert.

0:51 Please be warned. Spoilers our heads, So if you haven't seen this week's episode, please stop, go watch it and then come back to join us. I am David Burns, Scott Hoffman, and I'm Wayne Whited. Today we are discussing season two, episode ten, season finale, Hegemony Gentlemen, the Gorner Back. But before we get into that, Wayne, can you give us a recap of this episode? Sure. The USS Cayuga on a resupply mission to Parnassus Beta is taken by surprise during an attack on the colony by the Gorn. The Cayuga is destroyed and what's little of the crew has survived or trapped on the colony, including Captain Pottell. Captain Pakeke immediately wants to come to the rescue only to be told by Starfleet that the borders have changed and Parnassus Beta now sits in Gorn territory, and he is ordered not to cross over and potentially start a war. Nevertheless, Pike mounts a rescue mission to the surface, where he finds Captain Patell alive, meets a stranded Scottish engineer, and thousands of Gorn young lings surround him. Meanwhile, Spok in the Enterprise attempt to use the wreckage of the Kayuga to knock out the Gorns jamming signal and beat the landing party and survivors off the surface, but Spot discovers that Christine Chappell has survived the attack and is trapped on board and comes into first contact with an adult Gorn out to kill both of them.

2:17 It's the season finale blockbuster, complete with thrilling action, spectacular special effects, and an ending that will keep us guessing for months to come. Yeah, good old cliffhangers, you got to love them. I remember the days when I was a kid. You got there the Cliffhangers at the end of the season. You had to wait all summer. Oh do you remember best of both worlds? And that cliff This reminded me most of that and the agony of having to wait three months for the conclusion and not the guessing, not knowing what's going to go on. It's going to be the same here, but I have a feeling we might have a longer wait and we'll get into that. Yeah, a little bit longer waited. Let it tell you what. I love the Gorn episodes. I know we've only had what two of them? Yeah, I know. Last year season one, All Those Who Wonder was a really really good episode and this one was just the same.

3:13 I love the fact that they treat the Gorn as the like these monsters right now, and the episodes feel like Alien, the Alien movie. You know. I love that so much about it. Yeah, this is our third time seeing them. We had All Those who Wander obviously with you know. Unfortunately that's when we said goodbye to Hemmer Memento Mori. Oh that's right, it did in season one on Memorial Day. Yeah, brilliant. And yeah, we get we get a lot more depth into the Gourden here, right. We get to see them using technology, We get to see some of their behavioral instincts kind of expanded on here. Sam Kirk talking about them having certain responses to solar flares. Uh. And of course, speaking of the Alien movies, I love the Alien three moment when one of the Gorn gets right in Bettel's face and stops yep because she's carrying and oh. I was just like, oh no, oh god. Yeah. As soon as that happened, I knew that man goodbye Betel. Yeah, I really really hope they you know, aside from the fact that I think Captain Bettell's a great character, I think that actress does a phenomenal job. I really hope this isn't saying goodbye to her. Obviously. It's a very It's the most tense moment Pike has ever had to go through. Right, Bettel is in sick Bay carrying and she's at the end of the gestation cycle. He's got

4:46 some key crew members held in a Gorn ship and everybody's attacking him. Start that he's saying to take off, and if he does, he says goodbye to them. I thought it was very interesting to see that moment of heightened tension with Pike, and very interesting that both season finales we've seen Pike end with a look directly into the camera. I don't know if you notice that. Yeah, you know, speaking of going back a little bit about the Gorn, we're seeing them use technology now. You know, at first, we know, we thought that there were these monsters, these mindless creatures, but they're not. They're intelligent, you know, I mean, clearly they're intelligent because they've got ships. But we're starting to see more to that.

5:30 And it's a race that we haven't really seen hardly anything at all. It's never been explored. It's not like you know, the Klingons or the Romulans. You know, we know nothing about it. We saw it, saw them once back in nineteen sixty seven, and that's it. We we have no idea about this. They've got a blank slate to play with the Salient Race, to do anything, to create a whole new race and background and everything. And I've always wondered about the Gorn, you know, we've never got to mention at all whatever happened to them in the future. Well, you know, there was never mentioned in Next Generation or anything. The only time we ever saw them was on the Enterprise, which of course that takes place before this series. But I'm glad that we're exploring this race that we know nothing about. Would it be fair to say that this is a strange New World's board. Yes, I agree. This is going to be the main villain, the main enemy for the Enterprise for Pike in them. Yeah, yeah, I think so too. I know. One of the moments that I really appreciated was when Pike realized that there he couldn't cross that border and he knew Batel and that crew was on the other side of that.

6:33 The look on his face that he got when, you know, telling everybody to the ready room. You knew what was coming. You know, there's no way he was going to stay and hold back and not go after a rescue. No way. Well, and we had talked last time about the you know that the idea of Captain being emotionally compromised, right the Admiral had said, you know, are we good? Can they killing you to hold that together? And this definitely stretches that to limit. Absolutely it does. I thought the c GINUS episode was incredible, fantastic. It's one of the things I really appreciate about where we're at now with streaming services and stuff like that, that episodes of TV shows have equaled motion picture when it comes to CGI and stuff like that, and I just was in all the entire time of this episode for that. Yeah, it's it's definitely one of the more cinematic episodes for sure. I think we could have had this as a two parter on the big screen, Yeah, which wouldn't be a bad thing, you know, if we could have it maybe premier with like you know, buying tickets and you get to see it with the group. I've got a shout out to Legacy Effects, the company behind the Gordon. So if you, if you have a chance, watch the Ready Room. I think I'm always pushing the Ready Room, but it is a great look behind the scenes.

7:49 The puppetry and the practical effects work that they do that's combined with the CG is astonishing. You'll learn about how this group used to work with stan Winston Studios. They design a lot of the special effects, if not all the special effects for Strange New Worlds, and just some of the nuances they put into it, like they when they We've seen several stages of the Gorn. We've seen the babies, we've seen the adolescents. Now we've seen an adult. We've seen the larva or whatever you call it. When they kind of emerge from someone. They've designed each of those puppets, each of those rigs, each of those body rigs, and apparently when they were designing the Gorn, they reverse engineered from an adult. So even though the first ones that we've seen were the larva and the babies, they always had the adult in mind with each of those designs. And the one that you see, good god, the massive presence of that adult Gorn. I think the name of the performers were Insurer that plays the adult Goren' that's a massive suit.

8:50 Like when you see the episode, it's one hundred pound rig on the person's head, all manner of articulation and design. It's just absolutely beautiful and terrified. Quite a change from a man in a rubber, rubber costume like we saw it in back in sixty seven. Yeah, that whole sequence when they were fighting on the bridge like that was just incredible, man. You know when they lost a pistol and Chapel was going after it and oh my gosh, that was just so intense and so well done. Yeah, just reaching out and barely catching at the fingertips. Yeah, magnetic book catches her. Just it was so good I loved it. Well, one thing I really want to talk about. I had a conversation a few weeks ago and we were just talking about, what do you think they're going to start introducing some of the other original crew members to strange new worlds, and lo and behold, we get Mountgomery Scott go up, big surprise. I was like, holy as soon as he started speaking, like, please tell me this is Scotty, Please tell me this is Scotty. And sure enough it was played by Martin Quinn. I gotta say, and I've called them out before in this series. The casting department knocks it out of the park every damn time.

10:07 Yes, spot on perfect. Yeah, we get a Scottish Scotty and I thought he was he knocked out of the park man. I just I want more of him, and clearly we're going to get more of him because we know how this episode ends. So I can't wait to get more of that. And I love the fact, you know that everybody was calling him, you know, Scott and stuff like that until we see a palea who runs into him, you know, to help him out, and causing Scotty like, yes, there we go, you know, saying that he was her best student. Did she really mean that because she knows what she's done before. Yeah, Although it was interesting, She's like, you're my one of my best students with the worst grades. It was like, that's an interesting dynamic. I think the way they're exploring the entire engineering department is fascinating, absolutely fascinating. I'm looking forward to seeing the dynamic between Scotty and Ahura, who has you know, a lot of interest, a lot of connection to the engineering department. I think they've got some great things to do here.

11:07 I can't I can't wait to explore that in season three. And we'll talk a little bit that here at the end of this episode of what we can expect and stuff like that. You know, you gotta you gotta feel sorry for Alan, she's a prisoner again for crying out loud to the gorn. Really you gotta do this to this character all over again. Wow. I when they got beamed up there at the end, I'm like, all right, everybody's getting saved until you found out what exactly happened and you're like, oh crap. But then we may be in for next season when they start exploring that, you know, last last episode or not last episode. Two episodes ago we got to see the Benga and how he had to deal with with his PTSD with Klingons for making an episode with her having to deal with hers with the Gorn, and I really would like to see that episode.

11:54 I think there'd be fantastic. I think that'll be an episode that's all center on her and it will really give that actress something something very dramatic too. To actor chops Off, yeah nothing so too. Well, let's let's talk about some of her favorite moments, Scott, do you have any uh? Yeah, I mean you know one that's kind of non Gorn related, but Ortegas finally gets her away mission finally, it's with a little bit of trepidation, like why did I sign up for this? I loved the flying flaming rock into the planet moment when everybody's just like you gonna pull up, you canna pull up, you canna pull up, and you get that final swoop over the tree line I thought was great. I think kind of a similar idea basically steering the saucer section of the Cayuga. That was a brilliant plan that was just fraught with tension, like when when Spot kind of floats past the window, and she and chapels like banging on the window like spok Spock and can't get him. So much great use of atmosphere in there, very much an alien the first Alien movie kind of environment. There was great to see. Aside from everything we've mentioned about the Gorn, I've got a shout out to Sam Kirk his work as a xenobiologist to help understand them.

13:11 I think it's going to be so if I'm not mistaken that the crew that was beamed up to the Gorn ship includes Laon, a Benga, and sam am I forgetting anybody, not that I can. That's correct. So it's interesting to see that triad. When you've got Sam who was able to understand that they had a reaction to light that that triggered some kind of a feasting instinct. So we'll get him get to or take us I'm sorry, oh yeah, getting to you know, understand like how are they working, What are some things that we know about other species that might help us figure out the Gorn. You've got Laon, who has a great arc of somebody who went from the hostage to someone who's in more of a position of power.

14:00 She can use her history with the Gorn to help them escape, help them figure some things out. She finally gets to take out of Gordon, So that's got to feel satisfying to a certain degree. You've got a Benga who is probably going to have to help treat if anybody gets infected with the Gordon, if they get eggs in them, and then Ortega's kind of think we're probably going to get to see her piloting a Gorn hunter ship or something like that to get back. That would be fantasy, would Wayne? What about you? Well, let me first start off by talking about something we've we've barely even mentioned this season, and it really deserves a shout out here. The musical score. Nammy Melamad, that's her name. Earlier year she won the David Raskin Award for a New Talent and on her work for Stranger in World season one, she's really his shine this season with her music. One of the biggest issues I've had with New Star Trek, with Discovery, with the card and this show is that the current style of sound mixes that they have kind of takes brings the music into the background and it hides behind the dialogue and the sound effects. But every now and then the soundtrack will come out, you know, and then I'll listen to him like, well, this music is great. You know, why why didn't I hear this?

15:22 But this episode she had a lot of opportunities to break out past the sound effects and the dialogue and and let her score stand out above everything else, and it it really helped that there were the quiet scenes and that that the director had planned out where she could give it a powerful underscore. She really channeled James Horner with this episode. I heard a lot of his style, and rightfully so, since you know, it was obvious that this episode was influenced by aliens. Yeah, and you know, that actually brings me to my first Easter egg for this episode that I noticed, And it just happened to be perfect timing because I've been listening for this last couple of weeks. I've been listening to the scores for the original Star Trek series, the ones that were released from Lalla Land Records a few years ago. And just because I've been in I've been in the Star Trek mood, and I listened a few differently. It was about three days ago I listened to the score for Arena and when in this episode, when when the Gorn appears out of the clouds at the beginning of the episode, Melman, she quotes a few bars of the Gorn theme from Arena in her score. And this is something I would never have noticed. I would never have picked out any other time.

16:33 But I've just been listening to these CDs and it just it stuck out and I thought, well, that sounds just like it, So I went back, I listened to it. I listened to the music from the episode right there spot On. It's great that she she did something like that, a little bit of a connection. And then there wasn't very many easter eggs are continuity things in this episode, but I did see they had the new Assault phasers for the Gorn. They had a real Star Trek five Art Trick six vibe to those through the later phasers. But I do want to mention that I have a continuity boo boo that I noticed. Spot kills the adult Gorn. He smashes the face shill and exposes it to space and it suffocates.

17:17 But it in the Star Trek Enterprise episode. In The Mere Darkly Part two, it's established it that Gorn can survive the vacuum of space. Now this this doesn't bother me. I love finding finding these continuity easter eggs, but I'm not bound by them. If they wish to change them, I have no problem with that. I just wanted to point it out for the viewers that maybe didn't catch that, or the viewers it did, and let them decide whether they like it or not, whether they want to discuss it. Interesting. I didn't catch that myself, But that's that's going deep, man, that's going deep. But good call out. Absolutely for me. It's going back to meeting Scotti for the first time. I just thought that was such a great thing to see because I didn't expect it this season at all to meet anybody else of the original crew. I thought they were going to hold off on season three. So the fact that we got that nice little treat at the end of this season and knowing that we're going to get more just gets me giddy deep down, because I'm very excited about that at all.

18:15 But I also want to talk about the one scene when they were talking about with Una and they were talking about the sending the saucer section down, you know, and she came up with that when Pala looks at Palea looks to her. So well, if you would have come up with answers like that in school, you would got an ay. I thought that was wonderful, nice touch between those two characters. You know, they're still bringing that out between the two of them, that underlying like whatever. You know. Loved it, loved it. So which characters do you think shine the most? Wayne? Well, you know, I was going to say Pike because he had a lot to do, and Anson mounted an incredible job showing the tension and the horror of everything. But I'm actually going to give this Montgomery Scott. It was such a great surprise if they were able to keep secrets.

19:04 And I think Quinn m Martin Quinn plays played the character brilliantly and he even looks like a very young James Dowan to me. I hope that they keep him on the show. I hope that it becomes a regular or at least a reoccurring character in the upcoming seasons. And I'm sure the producers have plans for him in the future. They wouldn't have introduced him now if they didn't. I like him. I like his character, and I'm glad they introduced him here in this episode. Absolutely, Scotty, what about you mean, stay mister Scott. It is absolutely my choice too. I think it's a great introduction to the character that doesn't give me the sense that, oh, well, now that mister Scott's on the ship, they're going to go ahead and hand over the keys, and now Lester Scott's in charge of engineering.

19:55 I think it's a great idea to have him very much in that secondary role if he happens to join the crew, which I can't imagine he won't, but I can see a lot of what was hinted at in his first appearance happening on the ship, where he takes certain things and jury rigs them certain ways, and it's not supposed to be that way, but I mean I kind of, you know, filled with this and plugged it into this and also the kind of stuff and a lot of experimentation, a lot of using the imagination and engineering and doing things that probably should blow us all up, but it's actually going to work out really well. I think it was so clever to use the tension of the scene to introduce him, because I thought for sure they were going to get caught in a Gordon trap at first, and then he kind of steps out and he's like, oh, sorry about that, let me turn it off where my manners? You know, just nuances like that. He's got a great character that seems like it has a lot of potential, and I'm glad to see him introduced. It was that gasped too soon as he spoke up. I'm like, is that who I think it is? Oh? Yeah, I clapped. It was awesome, very excited. What about you? So I will agree with both of you on Montgomery Scott. That was just incredible. But I want to give a Hoffman answer. I want to give it to the entire team. I thought everybody did an incredible job in this episode. Everyone pulled their own weight.

21:21 Their performances were fantastic. Each character had something to do. Each character had an important thing to do. Uh in this episode. You know, it was well developed in that area, and without any of them it would have have fallen apart. So I definitely say it's the entire team for this episode. For me, that's a mega Hoffman answer. It is. But it's a good choice, very good. They were all were fantastic. Yeah, they sure were. So if you could be any character in this episode, who would it have been? Why Scott? Mister Scott. I mean, he's had such a and I'm thinking back before the episode when he's leaving what was it the Stardiver, the ship that he was on before this episode that was attacked by the Gordon Just to kind of, you know, I guess I'm going to be kind of like a fly on the wall to see, you know, what he comes up with, how he acts in a crisis situation, and how he's able to get through it with apparently a very good attitude. He should be so much more traumatized based on you know, what's happened to him losing an entire crew and having to run away from this, you know, bloodthirsty pack of monsters. Really, so yeah, I just love to see how he responds to you to these situations. Nice Well.

22:44 I chose Erica Ortigas because I love Star Trek shuttles. I love the designs of all of them, from from the original series to the Galileo to the next generation there. They're sleek, they're speedy, and some them are damn comfortable, like the Das nine runabouts, and they look like so much fun to pilots and they take us. She not only does she finally get to go on her away mission that was promised, but she pilots that shuttle with perfect skill and finesse and and she got to scare the hell out of everyone on board, which and she had a lot of fun doing it. So I could look on her face. Oh, I couldn't imagine it. Just I think I would love to have been in her position at that moment.

23:26 Well, there's that great exchange where she was like, I thought you were a test pilot and he was like, I was as tense. Yeah, David, what about you? I'm gonna go with Paley on this one. You know. Sure she was working hard, you know, but she was safe on the enterprise and provide us some very good humor throughout the episode. So I definitely want to go with her. I hope we get more of her. I still feel like we got a little cheated with her. I wanted to briefly mention that too, you know, I was rather surprised on how little we saw of her, and when we did, it was just popping in for seen. Did any of you get the same Dinan vibes with character? Absolutely. That's I wonder if that was their original intention all this time with her, or could be were they planning on doing more?

24:11 Yeah, I don't know. That's a good question, man. But you know that that leads us into our next little topic here. You know, we can't really talk about what's the next episode because well we don't have a next episode until for a while. Anyway, you know this this gave us that to be continued. Of course, I knew it was coming, we all knew it was coming, and in sure enough it happened. So what do we think is going to happen in the upcoming season three? Well, I think you've got a perfect dynamic still on the ship that's going to be able to you know, you've got a Pelia and mister Scott working together to come up with some you know, probably off the wall solutions, but ones that could help them get out of a pinch. I think we're gonna see Bettel's status used to their advantage because I noticed that early on there was the scene where Una was talking to Spock about zombie movies and that sometimes they would you know, blend in with the zombies by looking like a zombie. I think It's entirely possible. Given how the Gordon reacted to Mattel and they backed off when she was carrying that, they will probably find a way to use that to their advantage with the Gordon, and maybe Abenge is going to be able to help them do that and be able to kind of make their way through. Like I said, I hope we get to see or take this pilot of Gordon ship, and I hope we get to see more activity on

25:41 the Gordon ship, a little bit more into them as a species. I think when Pike dropped that hint of you know, is there a way to reach them? And I think it's interesting, you know, given the last season finale where we kind of saw, you know, the consequences of him being a captain and that wants to reason a little bit more than fight. I don't think it's necessarily going to be reasoning with the Gorn like fun appealing to their better nature as much as it's finding out how they think and using that to their advantage to get out of the situation. So I'll be interesting to see how that plays out. Wait, and what about you, well, I definitely see the next season going into a much deeper exploration with the Gorn. I don't know if this what will happen at the end of this storyline, this story that we're current, that weve got to be continued, but whether we're leading to conflict with the Gorn. But we're definitely going to be getting into a much deeper look at the at the Alien race. Maybe learn maybe I should say Starfleet and Pike will learn more about this race.

26:49 I don't. I'm gonna say I was really surprised that it didn't happen in this stuff asode. I don't see Captain Mattel surviving the season finale, I really don't. I really thought she is going to die this one. I think I mentioned that before, and I'm I just don't see here surviving. I don't think it's I don't think we are in it. It's the series is in a position to allow that character to survive and Pike, I think it's necessary for the story for for that character to be written off, and it could be interesting to explore the consequences that they're invocations with with Pike after that. None of you know some we know some of these characters are safe. We know you're here are safe. We know Scotty's safe and all of those but a Tegus number one Lan whatever happened to those characters? Right?

27:37 You know, we don't know anything about them, do they do they survive? Don't they survive? You know, I don't expect all of them to survive the end of the series. I don't say. I'm not just saying they're gonna die in the next episode, but I think we could be leading more to that. And I also see them continuing on showing the consequences of Mabinga's actions two episodes ago. I think he's in for a lot of trouble with the Federation, with star Fleet, with Klingons. I hope they continue that, and then I hope also that they continue this uh let's uh spotlight a character in episode because it worked fantastic this season. We got to learn a lot more about these characters. But there's a lot more to learn and I want to I want to see each one of these characters develop in the years to come. And it could be a while too. I mean, you know, let me say that, you know, the writers and actors strikes could continue for a while. I know everybody's talking about when this show's going to come back, and they never started filming. They were at the from what I understand, and they were at the the pre planning and writing stages when this happened. That when they had to stop. So unless these strikes are over very soon, like in the last or the next month, we probably want to see this series that continue until twenty twenty five. Yeah, I would agree with that. Along those lines. You know, thank you to Henry Alonzo Myers, the writer for this episode on Nature Johnson.

29:02 We've mentioned before, thank you for the work you do on this And I hope they can come to some kind of resolution because the cast, the crew, the writers on this show are doing so much for Star Trek, and I hope they have a chance to come back. Of those predictions way and I hope the one that doesn't come true is Bettel's status, because I think we already know that Pike has a limited span before he ends up in that unfortunate situation where he ends up and Bettel. You know, I'd love to see him have a personal emotional constant in Battel, someone who's not part of the crew but that he's connected to that can be close to him, you know, before he gets to that, to that point and maybe through it, so hopefully. I hope you're right. I hope you're right. I like the character Bettel, Don't get me wrong. I don't want to sit here scratched off right now. I just Pike has always struck me from the beginning as a tragedy, as as a character that is going to lead to disaster, to to tragedy, and of course his his the accident. I just can see that the writers leading in that direction of adding more to the pain of Pike's life by killing this character off. Yeah, who knows, Yeah, nobody knows. But you know, I think I'm gonna agree with you on this way, and I don't want to see her go, but I think they kind of have to. They have to send Pike's character to

30:33 a different trajectory because everything's going too good for him right now. You know. I know this just happened, which isn't a great thing, but I think they need to lean that way a little bit more for his character. So I have a feeling that will be the case. It could be completely wrong, but we'll see. I know one of the things that they are discussing, and I when you and I were going back and forth us a little bit, but they're talking about raising some more episodes person even, and I really hope that happens. You know. I know we're not going to get the length of seasons that we got with the Next Generation back in the eighties and nineties, but I would still like to see at least two or three more episodes per season because it would give us a lot more to explore.

31:15 And the era of twenty six episodes a year are is over and we don't need that anymore. That was for network television anyways, and it created a lot of what they would call bottle episodes where they had to have really cheap and we don't need that anymore. But I do see this series could continue to thirteen episodes. Just three more episodes would allow them to continue with these these individual stories for the characters and explore more with you know, the Strange New Worlds. I saw an interview the other day. They were talking to the creators of Strange New Worlds, and they're saying, are we ever going to see Doctor McCoy and any other original characters? And they said, everything's on the table, nothing's off the table. And they said, if if the show continues the ratings that it's getting, we can continue to keep making season after season, and you can guarantee that's going to happen. We're going to see a lot more original characters pop up because they have to.

32:06 And they said, if we go into the the area of the original series and everybody wants it, we're going to do it, and we want it, We absolutely want it. I'm sorry all there's those people out there who, you know, love the original Star Trek with you know, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, they were awesome. But if we can get some news stories with the same crew of the original Star Trek with the cast that we are seeing now, I want it immediately after Strange New Worlds. Yeah, after Strange New Worlds. Yeah. So there's a lot to come, and I hope they do some more expirations of characters. And you know, we can talk a little bit about our favorites. You know, Wayne, you touched them. That's one of my favorites of this season. I love how each character got their time to shine. We got to be emotionally pulled to them a lot more than we have before. You know. I love how the episodes opened up with them doing their own you know, a star date, their journal. You know, I love they were giving those characters that opportunity to do that instead of always hearing the captain do it. You know, each character is getting their chance to do it and shine. And I love that. And for me, when you talk about our favorite episode, Minds the Old Scientist these, I absolutely love that episode and it holds up so well. Scott, what about you? Oh you're opening the Hoffman box here we go. I mean, it is very hard to challenge those old Scientists with anything because it hits so many tumblers. It's just some some other

33:38 highlights from this last season that we've already talked about, but I mean, like at Astros per Aspera challenges Starfleet itself, which is a great place to go tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. How that great emotional arc used at present day time travel, but it still made it relevant and you know and emotionally jarring Charai. It's one of the favorites because we see that other aspect of Spok without not make without taking it away anything away from Spok. You get more of his you know, of his personality. And I'll double down and say a Subspace Raps rhapsody. I don't care, man. I loved that episode and i've I've picked up the soundtrack on iTunes. So I think they took some chances this season and they came out better for it. So I think it's I think it's a great season. Can't wait to see what next.

34:31 You're right, Scott, I'm glad that they did take the chances. I mean, good or bad. I don't think they all worked, but some of them I think they do, and I hope they continue that. I hope they continue to push boundaries, not just doing the special episodes like the Animation Crossover are the musical, but pushing the characters such as Mabenga and what happened with him and Lan and hit her relationship with Kirk. And I know they'll continue that, but keep moving past just the regular Star Trek formula and keep trying new things. You know, we agree. I loved those on side as those are always That's going to be my favorite for the season, lads down. But besides that episode, I'm going to choose loss in translation. I really really enjoyed that episode, not just because it was a Uroe episode. I think the actress did a phenomenal job with that. But just the way the story came together all you know, all the different elements and the characters, they all all the story just just all nicely tied together in the in the end, and then we had the historic meetings during it.

35:43 It just I just felt so like it was like just a full meal and we were all just enjoying everything that was being handed to us in that episode. And I want to see more of that. So I want to see more of them. I want to see more of the original crew and want to I want to see we've got Scotty now so we get we get to see his introductions to the classic characters. Yeah, I mean said, hopefully we'll get to see Sulu check off. You know, bring them, bring them. The casting department's knocking it out of the park, so we know they're going to do a good job with the casting in that area, so bring them on. I mean, we don't need them all right away, you know, little little treats here and there, like you're giving us now, it's perfect. We love it, and we're all eating it up because clearly the ratings are going really well for this show. Oh yes, yes, so keep bringing it to us because we are loving the Star Trek that you're giving us now, to all the creators, to CBS, to all of you, keep bringing it to us. We love every second of us. So some of us may not agree in every episode, but you know what, keep trying these original ideas because that's what we want, that's what we need. We don't want the same boring stuff over and over and over. Give us new treats. But we have a track record this season.

36:52 You know, with the exception of just one episode in which we were divided, all the other episodes, nine out of out of the ten episodes we've we've all agreed that we're fantastic. They were well, they were well acted, well produced. The crew, the writers, the producers, the team, the actors, they're they're doing an incredible job with the series. Paramounts is listening, so they're they're going to continue and the show will continue to be number one meetings in the streaming ratings. Yeah, and I mean, you know, regardless of how anybody feels about, you know, the episodes, it's keeping it in the conversation, right, We're having more more rich conversations about Star Trek than we have in a long, long time, and they're they're taking in so many different ways. There's so many things that can appeal to so many different people, and you know, it's it's always great to you know, talk about what we love or you know, debate the points. It's always in conversations. We've had fun this season. Yeah, I've had a great time talking about Star Trek, watching episodes, just just chatting, chatting with you, and I hope that the listeners have a lot of fun listening to us. It's it's that water cooler thing again that we used to have back a long time ago. You gathered the water cooler and talk about the current episode, how exciting it was, and you know, and just talk about your favorite characters, and you know, it's it's this all over again. And I've enjoyed this so much, you know, so to our listeners out there, you know we're going to come back absolutely

38:25 for season three. But you know, this wraps it up for season two. But you know, we are leaving the bridge and we're heading to the lower decks to start talking about another great Star Trek series. Absolutely can't wait to dive into that animated world. Obviously, we're big fans of those old scientists, and there's a very big reason. Come along with us for the ride, and we'll take you to a different place. And I have fun looking for those Easter eggs and lower decks. Is just four of them yet to the easter basket, all right. So if you want to leave a comment, discuss what's next, or even have suggestions, you can find us at www dot film by podcast dot com, a film by podcast at gmail dot com. A film by podcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. See you next time, everybody, Thanks, see it, See you later.