Strange New Wednesdays - Those Old Scientists

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. Spoiler to our head. So if you haven't seen this week's episode, please stop, go back and watch it and then come back to join us. I am David Burns, I'm Scott Hoffman, and I'm Wayne Whited. Today we are discussing season two, episode seven, Those old scientists. Guys, do my eyes look huge? As my arm always done?

1:11 This? Well? Before we really dive into this, Scott, we get quite a treat with this week's episode. Can you give us a quick recap? So let's to say we start this episode in the animated future of Lower Decks, where Boimler, Mariner, Teddy and Rutherford investigate an ancient portal it's ben doormant for one hundred and twenty years. What starts as a nostalgic debate about who discovered it Orion scientists or are those old scientists Pike and crew from the TS Days quickly becomes a leap into the past for Boimler as the Enterprise crew tries to find a way to send him back before he fumbles the future. We see a run in with Orion scientists, some accidentally poignant moments with our crew, and another time traveling moment as Mariner joins the scene.

1:53 The two ensigns enjoy a trip to the past while having an impact on their heroes before heading home, and we get what I think is one of the best crossover episodes in TRECK history, certainly the funniest. Without a guest, what a treat is a treat? And you know, um, I know we're going to talk about it a little bit more in detail, but you know, there has been a lot of animated characters. There have been video game characters who have been brought to life in live action, but I gotta say Jack Wade and Tonny Knutham are probably the best ever in my opinion. Yes, yes, yes, high praise for both. Dear God, they got casting and like perfect crossover, a blend that you can you can see those animated characters perfectly brought to life by these two actors, And it makes you wonder if they had planned that in the first place when they first cast him, because that's very rare for an animated series to gather their actors looking just like their characters. They made a plan that, Yeah, and you know the one episode, one scene in this episode that's just there's a lot of scenes in this episode it would just have you rolling with laughter. But when Spock and Boiler are doing the uh the experiment, the experiment and then it explodes, scrieves. Yeah, I've got to assume that, like, seeing these two actors in the recording studio had to be an inspiration for their animated likenesses because they're just they're so they're hate animated, they're so animated,

3:29 like they play it so perfectly. And I can see them both doing all these things in the studio and just expiring some great animation there there, their mannerisms, everything. If you watch them closely, it's just like their cartoon characters in the animation, it's dead on it. In that scene in the hall when uh Una suddenly appears, he does that that walk away strut that they always have on the show. It was perfect. Yeah. Yeah, the power walking, Yes, the power walk Yeah, oh god, that was so good. I've gotta I know we're going to get into like favorite moments and things like that, but I gotta give I gotta give hats off to the writer's first. Aside from you know, um Akiva Goldsman and Alex Kurtzman, you've got Catherine Lynn, Bill walk Off and Onita Johnson are just doing an amazing job with this. And the direction by Jonathan Frakes dipping into sorry Onnitrich Johnson. Um, Yeah, the direction by Frakes dipping into comedy, he just knocks it out of the park. Yet, I just there's there's so much goodness about this episode. You know, I knew we were all anticipating this episode, we knew it was coming, we knew which episode it was, but man, I did not know what I was in store for me. And when I got halfway through this, I just found myself laughing so much and just enjoying a Star Trek episode that we've never really experienced like this before. This was just incredible. Yeah. Yeah, you know

5:03 what what I find humorous too is Pike is always cookie have you guys noticed this always going back to this now, Yes, I love it. I love it. That's such an important part of his character and something that gives him so much more depth. I think, you know the fact that he's taking the time to be really hands on and kind of take time in those moments to to talk to crew members or visitors. In this case, that all centers around cooking, and it's something they introduced in the first season and and keeps coming through here. The way his meals look too, he probably spent hours fixing them, so it makes sense that we'd see him cooking all the time. This is true. Yeah, I think we've we've got to see an antson Mount Um you know, cooking class at some point. That would be an exactly another I thought was really cool by this episode. I love that they animated them opening title sequence yes, yes, yes, yes, and then and then the whole ending too with the animation of the Enterprise crew, which is spectacular. Yeah. So, something that I've always kind of noticed from the start with this is how similar the intro for Um Strange New Worlds, How similar it is to the lower decks intro right where it's kind of like shows the critos like flying up to a board ship and then nope, just turning around and flying away. Um. When I first watched this episode, I actually skipped in the intro and if somebody hasn't seen this,

6:36 I strongly encourage you to go go back and watch that because they even insert not only is it animating the Enterprise, but they put little Easter eggs in there, like the alien was kind of suckling on them in the cell. I think they're supposed to be like a panda face in the background. Thank you, I didn't catch that, but yeah, it's such such a cool detail to sneak in there. This episode was full of Easter eggs too. I mean that's what Lower Dex does. They meant. There's so many mentions, and I think they touched every series that had ever been made for Star Trek on this. They had to have Oh yeah, my goodness. I mean, go ahead and tell us Wayne, all right, I'll just read off a list really quick, and these are just the ones I found.

7:20 Um starting off, Rutherford's hollow camera was exactly like the doctors and voyager. Um boiler shouts, remember me when he gets sucked through the portal. Well, that's exactly what Beverly Crushers shouted when she got sucked through the portal. And remember me, Yeah, of course we just mentioned the space Quali, which you know has the Universe on its back, is mentioned many times on lower decks. Set like two is mentioned, and um, if you remember, Set like three was the planet where Miles O'Brien was on his original ship and thought the Kardassians, that's where the massacre happened in the Wounded and then uh boiler, he does the Riker chair maneuver and he shouts out Riker. That was absolutely perfect, especially director. Yeah, the Orion ship matches a design that the remastered effects for the original series episode Journey to Babel.

8:07 And continuing on, there's so many of them. They mentioned Spock's pet from the animated series. They mentioned the Belle Riots of the twenty first century from DS nine's Past Tense. Uh your HER's pad. This surprised me. Showed both references to the Jordan and Kardassian language. And I wouldn't even know where the Starfleet had met them at this time, but here there's here's a reference that they have. Then they find out the portal was Nausican. Another reference to the next generation that the episode Tapestry, and we knew that they'd already met them because they were seen an enterprise right. Um. And then of course the game the game dom jot Um And then also and this took a couple of times for me to catch us one Ortega's mentioned star based Earnhart and that is the star base where Captain John Lupicard are in s John Lupicard was stabbed in the heart by the Nausicans for I got into a fight because of a dumb jot game. Then there were mentions to Wharf and Q and Churlane from the original series, and then of course the big one, the big easter egg is Archer in the NXO one. Um they mentioned Boiler and Mariners mentioned that they went to the Fleet Museum, which we saw it recently in piccard, and of course or Taking Yuhara mentioned are talking about Travis Mayweather and Hashi Sato from the series, which their their idols, And um, I believe I reached the list end of my list. Did you did you catch?

9:35 There's one other one that I caught? Did you catch when Mariner stood up talking to Herror and he did the piccard. I didn't catch that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she pulled it down. I'm like, oh, he just did the piccard, which I thought was fantastic. I had a blast trying to find all these. It was fun. The whole episode was just fun to watch. It really was. But man, that was quite a list of far some of those I didn't even catch. My gosh, Wayne, well done, yeah done. That's one of the great things about Lower Decks. I mean it, it's it does an amazing job of writing um episodes standalone. It's not just fan service. But the way they kind of sprinkle those in is so clever, like, yeah, he says, holy cue and they don't know what that is yet, don't do it that maybe laugh Worf to say Worf's on her, kind of like Scouts on her. He's like, dang it, I can't say that yet.

10:24 And I loved how they reference the difference between the animated series and Lower Decks and the fact that I think it was Marner the mentions how how everyone talks so slowly. Yeah, and then of course mentions that they're very specific with their references. So many good ones. Um, I know, we've got a load, and this is going to open up a can of worms. I'm sure favorite moments for this episode, Scott Oh, I gotta start by playing off of some of Wayne mentioned. The riker Um I I watched The Ready Room. I think they do a great job with that. It's a great follow up if you have a chance, check it out. When they had that discussion, I'm pretty sure that was something that Jack Quaid improvised and they didn't know what was going to happen, and to do that in front of Jonathan is just it's brilliant. I loved the laughing and smiling Spoku.

11:24 Yeah, I saw one place call out that that kind of in the cage. I think in the pilot episode we see Spok kind of smiling while he's like looking at some flowers, so it kind of helps to explain that a little bit. It was great how they played that as this unnerving kind of thing, like I can imagine the animated version of that just played perfectly. But it's one of those poignant moment that it also gives us when he's talking with Chapel and he's like, Yeah, in my world, he's not like that at all. I mean, none of the history talks him being like that, and she's like, so I have no significant impact on him in the future and this is just temporary and it's not going to last great, and it's like, oh god, So it's a it's a heartbreaking moment in the middle of a comedy that just still works so well. You don't lose any comedic timing, you don't lose any comedic beat for that, but it still gives a little bit of depth to the character. Same kind of thing with Pike talking about his father and the fishing trip yep, that was so expertly infused into an otherwise hilarious episode, and Burner's response to that Scott before you go on when he says one day you're going to be gone and the people on this ship, which they had one more day with you, right, that is fantastic. Yeah, and then being real careful about talking how you know, talking about his future and what's going to happen, and they you know, the moments when they're like, we don't want to screw anything up, like him even thinking that bringing up the captain's birthday would be screwing up the future. I like, how chaplain Ortegas are giving him kind of

12:58 hazing him with that, you know, that was fantastic. Even the first shot of Boiler in the biobed how they had the shot framed at the end of his feet and you could see I think they were like insignias on the bottom's feet, but it looked like an animated shot. It made him look like an animated character, right, um, not touching any of the buttons, geeking out over the size of the bridge. I kind of like that POV shot that they had where that's how we would probably act if we were exploring that without a doubt. Yeah, you already mentioned like the power walking, the boilerisms that come through in this, like when he like screeches in the experiment. It's it's so perfectly Boiler and Mariner. It is such a great addition to this whole formula. Like you spend part of the episode thinking you're just gonna get Boiler, and then we get even more with Mariner so so amazingly portrayed by Tawny. My god, the way that she gets her to loosen up, like you can you can see Mariner so crisply like it's exactly like that is in the animated series when she was sitting at the table and they were all talking and they were looking at me. You know, it had zero instructions. And then she slowly pulled her hands back and you hear the on her hands on the table. Yep, yep. The last two big ones that come to mind for me. I liked the whole device

14:35 of Una on the poster. That was another poignant, beautiful moment. At first, it's a little bit of an interesting kind of callback to Rebecca Romain in her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit days. Um, so she's kind of like, oh, he's got like a pin up poster, and then you find out that just the courtroom episode we just saw a few episodes ago, becomes this inspiration for recruitment and the reason he joined Starfleet. That was beautiful. The second time I watched it, that actually got me tearing up a little bit. I was like, holy crap, go Una, well done. And then the follow up to that seeing Ransom, Um look at the poster in the animated world and he's like, hey, yeah, she's the best look at number one there's ever been. Ransom is played by Jerry O'Connell, who is actually Rebecca's husband in real life. So I love that crossover. David, what about you? Um, well, you mentioned quite a few of them, but there's a couple of funny moments that I found and I went back and watched him again and just laughed again. The scene when Boiler says he knows how to track the Orions and Una makes that comment, he says, you guys just don't look, and we can't do that, can we.

15:43 And then the next shot was then with their backs turned. Yes, that was so smart and it works, it did, It worked so well. Um. And then the other one was when um, they Boiler was telling Spock about trading with Orions and Pie with like you know, I can hear you, I am right here. Yeah, yep. So many good moments Wayne, what about you? Well, you've already you've already mentioned many of mine. Um, there's so many of them. But I really liked Pike scenes the most. You know, he's frustrated having these time travelers on his ship and he but but he can't help but feel a little flattered about all the hero warship that Boiler's directing towards him. You know, his comments about his hair. Um, and as you mentioned, when they're all turned around on the Bridge and Una says, is this wise and he goes, no, But I'm going with it. I love that. I mean, that's that's Pike, um, you know. And then his old fanboy mentions of Archer in the NX one is talk about his father and his birthday.

16:47 It really showed a side of Pike that so we've never seen, and I like this lighter version of him. I think antson Mount's performance is really really bringing brand new stuff every time we see him on Scream. It's true. You're absolutely correct. And I love the moment too, when um um Tanny Mariner said, uh, he even went with you he had triggered treat and he said, oh, I didn't mean to say that, and then like pipe by surprise that he had a hard time getting in the jawline right. But yeah, yeah, so good, my goodness. We could be here for ever talking about all the favorite episode scenes in this episode. It's so good. So um, I'm probably gonna know the answers on this one, but we're gonna go with it. Wayne, which character you think shine the most? Well? This was actually really hard to choose. I mean, obviously this is Boiler and Marner's episode. I mean that they're there's the center stars of this, but I'm only gonna choose strange New World's guests, and this time I'm going to say, uh un okay. Just I loved how Rebecca remained played her in this episode. You know, she was reasonably freaked out about how Boiler was acting around her, and and her reaction when Marner mentioned the poster thinking it was a pent up with that was sur priceless.

18:00 I love that scene too, And then of course, you know, you get the payoff at the end when she learns that her words and actions are remembered. She's literally the face of recruitment for Star Fleets. That was that was beautiful and that that was so great. It touched on in the earlier episode that with the trial, It's what an honor they've done to this this little character that you know, only appeared once back in nineteen sixty seven and in two parter that pretty much was forgotten and never mentioned again until now. She is creating this almost completely herself, and she's doing a fantastic job at giving us one of the strongest characters we've seen in Star Treaking a long time.

18:44 Yeah, I agree, Scott, what about you? I actually wanted to defer to you first. I want to know who you say. So I appreciate Wayne went with strange new world characters because that's what this show is about. But um, at first, I wanted to give it as a tie between Quad and Tanny Knewsom, Boiler and Mariner Um. But I'm going to give the edge to boimler um just because we get to see him a little bit more than Mariner in this episode. But just a matter of fact, his mannerisms, his movements, um, his squeals, his screams, everything was just absolutely phenomenal, in credible and right on target of his animation. I have to give it to him. Yeah, and I'm in a similar boat. You really want to give it as a tie because there's such a power duo. Yeah, the two of them together are just perfect and I can love to see them. I would love to see them more.

19:38 Yeah, I've got to give it to Tanny k Newsome Mariner in this one because I see her really is the lead character in lower decks and I assume that that's the intention, but she is. She's such a such a lens to look at this universe in Yeah, you know what I mean. She she does a great job of like, you know, she's the one that kind of has her a kind of like relax a little bit, let that side come out of you. I'm not wreck in the future by doing this, but a little bit of a doubt and it brings that fun edge to it. I think we get a lot of comedy from from Jack Quaid, and he did a great job, but kind of the the heart of Lower Decks really comes through from from Tawny and Mariner. I love the fact that you know, again, you know, getting back into ready room looking at some of those behind the scenes conversations. I didn't know how much of a trek expert she is, but Jack Quaide is saying, like, whenever I need trek knowledge, I go right to Tawny and the fact that she does her own podcast, the Pod Directive with Paul If Tompkins. I'm gonna start listening to that and I cannot wait for the next season to Lower Decks.

20:56 And I'm really excited to show it to my to my ten year old son, who has started getting into track through Strange New worlds. This is the perfect gateway into that. Even though some of the references, it's absolutely there, so I've got to give it to Tawny amazing job. I've also got a shout out a couple of things I learned about Jack Quaid stretching into this. Obviously he's the son of Dennis Quaid. I didn't know that he's actually the latest Superman on HBO's My Adventures with Superman, so that's what I'm definitely gonna be checking out. And he almost played Spider Man, and that he was the voice of Peter Parker in Gwen Stacy's Spider Woman Universe and across the Spider Verse. Nice. I think that's amazing. So hats off, Jack, You're doing amazing work. Both of you. Jack and Tawny, keep it up. Thank you for everything. So if you could be any character in this episode, who would it be? And why Wayne I'm pitching it to you. Oh, no doubt. Boiler of course. He's literally the ultimate Star Trek fan. He's he's all of us Trek. He's out there and I have no problem using that word. He gets to have his own time travel episode, he gets to meet his heroes, he gets to walk alongside them. Many of yours return back to what I think is the most fun ship in Starfleet Day the Sarritas. He is living the most perfect star trek life and having a blast doing it. So I mean, who wouldn't want to be him? Absolutely good, good choice, and I would expect you to pick that one. So will done, Wayne Scott, what about

22:29 you? Um, I'll give a Hoffman answer and say, um, it wouldn't be a character. It would probably be director Jonathan Fraakes. But seeing seeing all of this stuff come together is amazing. If it has to be a character, I completely agree, Boimler. If nothing else to do. The Riker moment, Yeah, that's classic for me. I'm going with Spock because he is clearly just having a ton of fun doing experience, smiling and being socially awkward. Yea, yea. And those smiles and the use of the laughs were just so perfectly they were. When he just starts walking out of that room before that thing explodes, he didn't say anything. I love that. That that made me laugh. Yeah, it was great, It was great. All right, you know, let me let me say this, uh, to cap everything off, this is, in my opinion, Strange New Worlds. This is their high point. This is this is the episode people will be talking about for years to come. This episode will be most remembered. It will be the episode that gets the most the most rewatches from this series. This is Strange News World's version of sitting on the edge forever of yesterday's enterprise, trials and tribulations flashback. We've we've already hit the high point in the second season. I cannot wait to see what comes up next. Yeah, and David, let's talk about what we're seeing in the trailer for next week. So, um, yes, Scott, So what is it under the Cloak of War? I believe it is, yep,

24:02 so getting a very stark contrast to this week. It looks like we get a look into the battlefront of the Klingon War, and we get a little bit of a closer look into the past of Embanga and Chapel, a little bit of back history on Ortegas, and it seems to be a very tense episode. So coming after what we just talked about, it'll it'll be a bit of whiplash, but I think it's absolutely worth it. It's back to our normally scheduled program. Yeah right, I agree, Yeah, yeah, totally agree. Well, we're gonna open up a channel, so You can give us your thoughts, predictions, and questions on social If you want to leave a comment, discuss what's next, or even half to just you can find us at www dot film by podcast dot com a film by podcast at gmail dot com. I filmed by Podcast on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

24:52 Until next time, Thanks everyone and