Strange New Wednesdays - Subspace Rhapsody

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, where we continue to talk everything about the current season of Star Trek Strange New Worlds. Once again Red alert, please be warned spoilers our heads. So you haven't seen this week's episode, please stop watch it and then come back to join us.

0:58 I am David Burns, I am Scott Hoffman, and I'm Wayne whited. Well. Today we are discussing season two, episode nine, Subspace Rhapsody, the Star Trek musical we've all been needing right, Well, I don't know, Scott. Can you guys a quick recap of this episode? Absolutely. This episode takes us where no Star Trek has gone before, into a musical reality. While investigating a rare subspace fold, they discover the chance to explore an experimental quantum probability field. While investigating the potential they could expand communication exponentially, the crew accidentally opens a tear in reality that causes them to burst into song during emotional moments, just like a musical. It starts with the stats report that's most unusual and so peculiar, and follows with several moments when the crew can't keep secrets anymore. Chapel declares that she's ready to leave the ship and Spock for a fellowship, which makes him contemplate if he's the X.

1:56 Not even Pike can have a private conversation with Captain Battell without into song. Their career races against time and klingons to sew up the musical zipper before the songs drive them apart with a horror keeping them all connected in many ways. As the voice of the Enterprise, that's a bold direction for the show, and I, for one, I'm glad they took it well. I thought the performances were extremely well done in this episode. They were, But you know, I think this is a bad choice were in where to position this episode. We had such a very strong, powerful, serious episode with Under the Cloak of War, and then we go right to this right after that.

2:38 Just a very strange situation. I don't know, I don't know what you guys think. It's it is some huge changes. I mean we went from having a comedy episode to the most serious episode of the series, and then another extremely lighthearted It's it's might be just a little bit too much of a turn, especially at the end of the season, like this, Yeah, see, I don't know, see I'm on the other side of the fence. I have a feeling I'll be on the other side of the fence for this, for this conversation. I think this is one that helped to sew up a lot of different emotional arcs for the characters. I do think it's a fun departure from under the cloak of war. We had seen this kind of beat before, where they kind of alternate between serious episodes and ones that are a little bit more lighthearted and probably setting up a few relationships that might be in danger when we get to the season finale. I don't think it was necessarily poorly placed, because I don't know that it would have would worked better earlier in the season. I feel like it would have been too early and there wouldn't have been as much development that we'd be pursuing or changes that we'd be seeing that worked, in my opinion, really well for the for the musical numbers that they had. I mean, there's there's certain parts

4:13 of the of the episode that I really did enjoy. It, just I felt out of my element watching this episode. I never imagined or ever thought I would want a musical uh in Star Trek and it was kind of awkward on how they got trapped into that. And I've got to say, the one thing that really really just like, really we're going to go this far is the Klingons wrapping. That was awesome. No, no, it wasn't. That was terrible, And I just I don't want to maybe I shouldn't say terrible because this season has been really good and I don't want to pick on anything strange New World has done, but I just it took. As soon as I saw that, I was like, and I'm done with this episode. They got Hemmer back for that, though, they got Bruce Horrek bet for that. Yeah, well this was a hard one. Yeah.

5:09 Let me let me say this about me. I don't hate anything. You know, I may find things boring, badly written, you know, performed badly, maybe bland on memorable, but you know, fifty years of viewing TV and movies, I can probably count the amount of things that I actually hate on one hand, and I don't hate this episode, but it's it's just not my cup of tea. I just and that's all right. It's it's probably the episode that's going to divide the viewers, the fans right through the middle. Either loved it or you didn't, and that's okay. You're allowed to have your opinion. And you know, some people don't like musicals, just like some people don't like westerns, or or or war movies or fantasy. You know. I say I do like musicals, especially the classic ones like you know, Singing of the Rain, Sound of Music, or the Disney films. You know, I absolutely adore bed Knobs and Brimsticks, you know, and I can sing every word in front of every song from that film. But that's just my opinion. Yeah, I find it really hard to get involved and enjoy the current trend of these music musicals on TV.

6:21 It just seems to be the thing to do. You know, Buffy did it, The Flash did it. Hell even David Doctor who did it twice. They did once on the stage and once in the audios. But the issue I have is this, if you look at all the great musicals over the years, those those big hits and their their timeless songs. You know, it took months and years to write those songs, you know, with trial and error, rewriting and creating demos, going back to the drawing board on many times, for those songs to you know, to be remembered like the hits they are. They just they don't have the time for these TV episods to do that, and therefore we get we get well written songs, but very memorable songs. You know. Uh, people remember songs like you know, you know, where will My Life Begin? Or Hakuna Matad?

7:15 We all know what those songs are, but how many you can remember? You know, what you feel you know? Or what even that came from? Or how about running Home to you? Can you tell me what episode or even series that came from? You know? Now? Yeah, that being said, I want to say that there there's there's much of this episode I did like, uh, you know, Jess Bush and Celia is Gooding and Christina Chong, they did a phenomenal job at singing their songs. You know, they they were beautiful. The final number for the episode what was to call this? The song we Are One? It was quite fun and it was a good way of wrapping things up. But uh, that cling on but that was embarrassed saying sorry, please don't do that again, but intentionally so like they're drawing on the comedy of that and how awkward it is and how it didn't make sense for klingonce to be singing it rather than having it be like a heavy metal kind of thing or the bit. I know, I think it was just better just not to have it at all.

8:13 It was it was a real cringe mode. But it was an episode that that teetered between storytelling and cringe worthy and that just went right over the edge right there, just just for that that what was it like thirty seconds but boom, we we've fallen off the cliff right there. Well, I mean you said it really well that you know it's going to be divisive, and you know that's totally fair. Like there are some people that might come to this episode and wait and say, wait the musical episode. Can I just read the synopsis right, because that will just automatically wrote them the wrong way, or even some of the numbers won't necessarily And I mean, I'll admit some of the songs were stuck with me a little bit less than others.

9:00 I know that the duet between Una and Kirk there was a little bit more of a Gilbert and Sullivan kind of thing. I don't know that that felt like it was kind of a I know they were going with it, given UNA's history with Gilbert and Tullivan, that it sounded a little bit more like a Mary Poppins or an Oklahoma kind of thing. I know those were Gilbert Sullivan, but you know, not everybody. Number is going to be for everybody. But I think it made sense to me how they introduced it. They've they've gotten into the scientific aspects of song before, like with Children of the comment right, and I feel like they had at least a plausible explanation for why it was happening. And I think as soon as I understood the tone of the episode, I was already invested in having fun with it.

9:54 I think I was already invested in doing so before I saw the episode start. And I think you do mention some of the other franchises that have done things like that. I haven't seen the Flash and what they did or heard the Doctor Who audio, but I did see Buffy when it came out once more with a feeling episode which I know is very influential in this production. It's something that they said that's kind of setting the bar for them to reach and kind of going beyond it. David had some easter eggs in there, like the probability of bunnies somebody talking about I have a theory, you know, these are all easter eggs that kind of pointing back to that, which I also think was as a fun musical episode. But not all the numbers hit. I will say for me, there's there's a lot of the songs that I have been I've been playing this episode on repeat, probably at least six times by now, and things like Status Report and I'm the Ex.

10:50 Even chapels I'm Ready number in the Bar are very easy to get in too. For me. You know, I didn't see the Buffy musical episode, not because I didn't want to. I wanted to avoid that episodes because I just I watched a few episodes during the first season of Buffy and it wasn't a series that I really got into. But the director of this episode was Dermott Downs and he's the guy who directed the musical episode of The Flash, which was called Duets, So it makes that he's directing, and I think he did. He did a good job at directing. I have no problem with the story. I have no problem. I really don't have to. It's not it's my problem. It's not an actual problem with the episode.

11:33 It's it's just that I felt like with with with many of the songs, I felt that they just were really out of place, and I half the time I just wanted them to be over with and to continue the storyline. I just got tired of hearing him and and it was there was very little story in between them. It was just one song after another after another, and it was no variety really, with the exception of the Klingon, they were all very similar type song. So I just I was glad when each one was over with. And it shouldn't be like that, not with musicals. It shouldn't be like that. And I'm with you on that. I felt like I was drifting from the episode quite a few times. I mean, and I haven't done that to a Strange New World episode the two seasons that we've had. And I really got bored a few times and I was like looking at something else and oh I should be watching this, you know, and had to pull myself back to watch it now. There are some numbers that are really good. You know. I thought the opening song was really good. You know. I like when Spots started singing, everybody's looking at him like, uh, what are you doing? You know that kind of thing. So you know, I did laugh at that. I like Membinga's line I prefer not to be a bunny. I thought that was really funny and I laughed out loud for that. So there are parts of it that I enjoyed. And I'm with you, Wayne, and you know, I don't want to hate anything because a lot of work went into this episode. You know, a lot of work went into their performances, you know, of singing and dancing and doing all that kind of and you know, I respect that completely, respects that I did it knew it for me.

13:05 Many of them had great I mean the many of them saying really great. I mentioned a few of them, and I have to give credit to the director too that those cast members who couldn't sing or really couldn't take center stage for singing, they kept that down to a minimum. I think one of them definitely was Anson Mount. We never really owe very much of him singing because he kept getting cut off, and I think it's probably because they wanted to keep his his scene ability to a minimum. I'm glad they did that. That's that was a smart thing to do. Yeah well, and I think they declare job of pulling that into the character right where he was like, let's nip this in the butt, let's stop this as soon as we possibly can. When he was trying to sing de Batel on the bridge, they were having this argument of their relationship and uh Long goes over and turns it off like and cuts him off in like mid sittings, and he turns back and looks like, you know, basically happened. I like that too. I thought that was pretty funny. Yeah well, and they had they had a really clever element there with Lawn with Pike, where they were talking thinking about this as you know, it's one thing to have people like randomly burst into song, but keep thinking of it as a security threat.

14:18 Is interesting. And particularly her arc that I think mirrors what we saw with Spock, both of them having doubts about allowing their emotions to come out or trusting that they can kind of invest in their emotions in different ways. You know, she is on the fence about opening herself up to Kirk and hoping that something will come out of it, and she does end up getting hurt, but I think it was interesting to kind of explore, you know, in her dialogue but also with the song, places where she was having a hard time with there are reasons why I'm holding myself back. There are reasons why I'm holding myself in and I'm afraid to do so. And I really think, especially in that dialogue she has with Kirk, she did get hurt, but it wasn't in a hurtful way, if that makes sense. I think it was shocking to her to hear about Carol and unborn David, which I thought was a nice, a nice bit of backstory that we hadn't really heard with Kirk, especially by him thinking about it is a sometimes relationship, you know, So I thought that was very interesting. And then kind of mirroring with Spock, you know, finally feeling like he's going to open up his human side and trust that he's going to be able to deal with these emotions, just as Nurse Chapel is ready to leave, and you know,

15:48 I think we're starting to see him get to that place where he's going to be like, well, maybe this is a mistake. Maybe I should shut down and kind of withdraw on reserve, which if he does, I really hope that he doesn't, because I do think that would be a mistake. It's it's not necessarily that Chapel is leaving because she doesn't want to be with him. This is an important step in her career, right. I think her her song was very dynamic. I thought a lot of the it wasn't all Gilbert and Sullivan. It didn't the songs didn't all sound the same to me. There were actually a lot of places in the songs where they took directions that surprised me. You know, you start to kind of sing along, you think it's going to go to a certain place, and then they kind of hook it a little bit. I love when songs do that.

16:33 I think it's really interesting. But her song in particular was so so strong and so confident. I can't think of the artists that I'm thinking of that it reminds me of. But it almost sounds like an a Dell kind of thing, you know, not like a mournful kind of thing, not a sad kind of thing, but kind of that you know, upbeat, kind of strong and confident thing where she's going someplace in her life. And I think to a certain degree she had been kind of waiting for Spock to come around, and maybe she's realizing I've waited so long, and now with Boimler's somewhat of a spoiler saying, you know, this doesn't last, maybe she's thinking, you know, I need to pursue what I need, and if the relationship with Spock is going to continue, I should be able to trust that at a distance. I don't know. There were a lot of interesting things like that that I think could have gotten through with dialogue, but I just feel like getting it across with music. It does give you a chance for emotional Catharsis with an efficient delivery. You know, you can express more with songs than dialogue in less than three minutes. It does make you have to kind of like listen to it and pay attention to it and wear the different kind of twist and turns that it's that it's taking. But I don't know, I feel like we got so much out of what we heard from

18:03 Laon and Chapel and Spock specifically his I'm the ex I think was very cleverly written, that kind of play on words, you know, him being the variable versus him being the ex boyfriend kind of the thing. Yeah, there was a lot that I liked about how that pulled more out of the characters. So what about some favorite moments, Wayne? There were there were a lot of Easter eggs I looked for it. I've of course picked those out, you know, there was this was a second mention of doctor Roger Corby. They referred to him as the Louis Pastor of Archaeological Medicine. That's exactly what Spock said in his classic series episode what Are Little Girls Made Of?

18:45 We got to learn that Captain Pottel are Yeah, Betel's first name, it's Marie. And we got to see the Jeffrey's tubes, and we get to see the transporters, Heisenberg compensators. And then there was that star map. I loved at that star map they showed when they were showing all the ships and stuff there, we got to see some some of the ships like the the USS Lexington, which was in one of the original series episodes, The Ultimate Computer, and we all such see the star uh Focus and that that was a real obscure reference. But Forcas three was the planet that Warf went and won his Battler tournament in the episode Parallels. And then of course, you know, as as Scott mentioned the mentions of Carol, which I mean, that's definitely talking about Carol, Mark Marcus and Star Trek to the rath Khan. And of course, you know, this is the first time I think in any of the series that the Katana class cling on battle cruisers have been mentioned. Those are from the movies. We saw that first in Star Trek the Motion Picture, and this is the probably the earliest reference in Star Trek continuity that that's even been mentioned. I like that, I mean, there were other little bits. I liked the performances in the episodes. I'm going to say that I really I like the singing, their ability to sing the songs. I mean, I have liked the song so much, but I love their ability. I think that everybody did a phenomenal job with what they had in here. I can't deny that. Scott. What about you,

20:17 Yeah, I mean, something you're mentioning is the you know, the musical ability of the cast, and I've got to give them credit, those who you know, it may have been a bit nerve wracking for certain members of the crew to get out there and do this kind of thing if they didn't have as much musical training as the rest of the cast. I got the sense that Bengo wasn't necessarily going to have as many numbers as Chapel was, But I think they had a great duet during Status Report. I think they wanted really well. It was an interesting dive into the background of the actors, knowing that, you know, Bruce Horrek is part of a band, Christina Chong having a musical background, and it looks like at one point she was going to be part of an Elton John musical called Ida or Aida.

21:08 I'm must pronouncing that. She was one of the ones that's been asking for a musical episode from the start, so it was it was great to watch the ready room afterward and see how happy she was about, you know, getting into that, and how much the entire cast was into it. I had no idea that Celia Rose Gooding was a Grammy winner and a major part of The Jagged Little Pill Broadway show, which is incredible, and that Carol Kane was Madame Morrible in several productions of Wicked, that would have been great to see on Broadway. Absolutely, you know, I've already mentioned, you know, a lot of the numbers that I liked. I was surprised at how well Spock was singing. I think he had a great voice in each of the numbers that he had, especially I'm the X. I thought the opening credits are always a treat that they pepper in little easter eggs, you know, having that be kind of an a cappella kind of a thing.

22:17 And yeah, I've already mentioned, you know, for this to be something that's such a big ensemble kind of episode and something that seems like kind of they're they're drawing the family of the crew together. I think it would have been a shame to not have Bruce Horrek in it. And I know that their their number is not for everybody, but I think bringing him in for that performance was very clever and very welcome to me. O. Yeah, I think for me it was a horror speech to get everyone to sing towards the end of the film ut the episode, I thought that was really good. But you touched on the one that I absolutely love the most, and that was the opening title sequence. I love when series blend were mixed or change their open type of sequence to match what the episode is going to be about. I'm always a fan of that, so I was glad to see it when they did with those old scientists, and I was glad to see if they did it with this one too. Very nice touch, is what I will say. You're reminding me of a piece of dialogue. It's small, but I thought it was very very much of kind of an honor to the Aha character to call her the voice of the Enterprise. Yeah.

23:26 I thought that was such a clever touch, and I'm really glad that they put that in here. Yeah. Same here absolutely. So which character you think shine the most, Scott? This is a tough one. I'm on the fence, but I'm not going to give an answer. I'll say Aha. You know, knowing how much Celia has that background makes me much more interested in to see what other work that she has. But I think it was it was a great development for the character. It made me think of Galaxy Quest Soil Courtney Weaver's character where it's just like I have one job. It's a stupid job, but I have to do it, and thinking that that might be whatever feels like sometimes even though she's in charge of so much of the ship, but that her her character is really about communication. It's not just linguistics. It's about how people are trying to express themselves. And the fact that she's able to use those skills so well and that it's that idea of connection and bring people together really help put a spotlight on a powerful character. So I'm glad they did that with this episode. O Wayne, what about you? Well, everyone is pretty equal in this one, even even with all the singing. I like how they were able to wrap up a lot of the storylines for the season. Yeah, you know, it's so you see the end of the Spock Chapel relationship, which we knew that had to happen, the end of the Kirk and alone storyline, and I want to bring attention this is probably the person I personally think which shined is

24:57 Christina Chong, and she did a brilliant performance in that scene with her and Kirk. Her character in the way it's developed, this reminds me a lot of the character of Tashi yar If. If Denise Crosby would have stayed on the series, I think we would have seen something very similar to this. I'm glad that they're they're bringing a lot more to the Lawn character. And then, of course, you know Pike and Betel's relationship. It's escalating now, but I'm beginning to get worried about her. The comments she makes at the end about her mission makes me wonder if they're leading this all is leading to tragedy for her and that her character won't even see the end of the season. I don't know where it's going. That's the feeling I got with that. Yeah, yeah, I really hope that's not the case. I mean, I did see a sneak preview of the next next episode. There's a clip in the ready room. I think it's going to be an interesting look at Pike, and it makes me think of the Crisp Pine Star Trek movie where we get that idea that the captain can't be emotionally compromised, right.

26:11 I think that'll be interesting to see, especially given what was set up in the Memory Loss episode when we saw Pike really kind of let go and really get kind of angry. I wonder if it might go there, because it's going to be a high pressure, very tense situation with the Gordon. Yep. Absolutely So if you could be any character in the episode, who would it be and why? Wayne Well, I want to be the off screen mentioned doctor Roger Cordy because he didn't have to appear in this and saying, and he gets to spend three months with Christine Chappell, although I know what happens to him in the end, and I don't really relish the idea of being dropped in an android body and then end up by committing suicide, But that's who I'd want to be. Okay, Scott, what about you?

26:59 For me, it would be a I thought it was interesting how she was using that kind of handheld track quarter extension to study the songs and look for the pattern. I think there's a fascinating scientific aspect to music and to see what kind of thing she was studying and observing. She was close to a lot of the main numbers that I enjoyed quite a bit, and just to see how she was kind of analyzing and stitching it all together. I think she had a great role in here Table what about You Paleo because she didn't have any songs, and believe me, nobody wants to hear me build a solo, So that would be my choice for sure. So gentlemen, we've got the season finale next episode, so one episode ago. But yeah, it looks like, from what you know, I saw the clip that Scott was mentioning, Gorn looks like they are back. It looks like there's a Starfleet ship in distress. And from the clip that I saw, it looks like the Gorn send a picture of I guess, like a border that the telling Starfleet do not cross that, and it puts apparently Pike in a bad situation. So it looks like we're in for a treat for the season finale. Yeah, it looks like there's a lot of scenes where people are in danger. You see people you know, with dipris all over them, blood and whatnot. So obviously it's going to be a big battle episode.

28:27 Yeah, it's going to be a heavy action episode. I mean, we've also saw scenes in some of the other trailers of Spock doing a spacewalk and so there's going to be some huge visual effect shots in this last episode. Yep, looking forward to it, that's for sure, all right, So we're gonna pup up a channel to give us your thoughts predictions and questions on the social media. If you want to leave comment, you can reach out to us give us suggestions. You can find us at www a film by podcast dot com, I filmed by podcast at gmail dot com. I film my podcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Everyone. Thanks,