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Star Trek Almost Never Happened, Part Two: In Which We Boldly Go · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye
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Speaker 1: welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
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Speaker 1: always so much for tuning, and this is part two
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Speaker 1: of our continuing mission to explore how Star Trek almost
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Speaker 1: didn't become a thing. With big special thanks are super
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Speaker 1: producer and research associate for this series, Mr Max Williams.
0:48
Speaker 1: Here here on Earth they called me Ben, they call
0:51
Speaker 1: you Noel and Noel. Before we got into a lot
0:55
Speaker 1: of this research, I knew Star Trek had some dodgy
0:58
Speaker 1: times and it's earlier day, but I personally did not
1:01
Speaker 1: know how close it came to being canceled just so often. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: because it's just, you know, it's just something that we've
1:08
Speaker 1: always known ever since we were a kid, whether it
1:11
Speaker 1: was the thing that we you know, really got our
1:13
Speaker 1: gears turning as far as particular sci fi properties or not.
1:17
Speaker 1: It's just ubiquitous, you know. And a big part of
1:19
Speaker 1: that I think had maybe more to do with the
1:22
Speaker 1: movies than the series itself, because, like you mentioned in
1:27
Speaker 1: the top of episode one here, Star Wars began its
1:31
Speaker 1: life as in the cinema, you know, and became a
1:34
Speaker 1: cultural phenomenon the areas we got our we got another
1:37
Speaker 1: costume change going on with Vader here, who never actually
1:41
Speaker 1: said Luke, I am your father. He said, uh, something similar.
1:46
Speaker 1: Also just like Ricky, that's right. And also Lucy, Ricky
1:50
Speaker 1: never famously never actually said Lucy, you got some splaining
1:53
Speaker 1: to do. He said some iteration of that. That was Lucy,
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Speaker 1: I am your father. Yeah, that's that's the And another one,
2:01
Speaker 1: uh Kirk never said, never said not once. Uh So
2:07
Speaker 1: we've got we've got this strange tale about something that
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Speaker 1: has become bedrock foundation of pop culture. And we introduced
2:17
Speaker 1: you to be Joe Betty Tremble, Betty Joe Tremble, who
2:22
Speaker 1: is known as the woman who saved Star Trek by
2:24
Speaker 1: leading a letter writing campaign that got it to a
2:28
Speaker 1: third season. We ended on. We ended at a crossroads
2:33
Speaker 1: because NBC had baked in a poison pill to their
2:37
Speaker 1: third season. They dramatically cut the budget, the quality of
2:40
Speaker 1: the show suffered, and it looked like the third season
2:44
Speaker 1: was going to be the last hurrah. But we had
2:48
Speaker 1: a bit of a silver lining because three seasons means
2:52
Speaker 1: a show can get into syndication. When a show gets
2:56
Speaker 1: into syndication, that means the reruns can go anywhere, everywhere,
3:01
Speaker 1: any time a network has a free slot, whether four
3:04
Speaker 1: pm or whether eleven am. Right, because in those days, um,
3:10
Speaker 1: it certainly wasn't the kind of mega, big dollar syndication
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Speaker 1: deals that we know of today, like with things like
3:17
Speaker 1: Seinfeld and all of that, and all the different licensing
3:20
Speaker 1: deals that go into having shows appear on streaming services
3:23
Speaker 1: and all that. This was just more of kind of
3:25
Speaker 1: like a way of filling time. Even if a show
3:27
Speaker 1: wasn't a hit. They owned the intellectual property, the studios
3:31
Speaker 1: and the networks owned the show, so they it was
3:33
Speaker 1: fair game for them to fill out their schedules. Uh,
3:36
Speaker 1: at a time where it was very important to have
3:38
Speaker 1: something on the air during that broadcast day. Yeah, because
3:43
Speaker 1: you'll still have some costs associated with airing reruns. Right,
3:47
Speaker 1: people get checks every time a show is back on
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Speaker 1: the air, but it's still much much less expensive than
3:55
Speaker 1: making something new out of whole cloth and hoping that works.
3:58
Speaker 1: So this indication, it turns out to be the reason
4:04
Speaker 1: that you know about Star Trek today. We want to
4:07
Speaker 1: shout Devin Maloney who wrote boldly going where no man
4:11
Speaker 1: or woman had gone before over at Rookie mag dot com.
4:15
Speaker 1: So let's paint the picture for you. You're in the
4:19
Speaker 1: nineties seventies, you own a television, You're you're watching TV.
4:23
Speaker 1: UHF stations all over the United States would buy the
4:28
Speaker 1: rights to re air part of all of those three
4:32
Speaker 1: seasons of Star Trek, and so this show began to
4:36
Speaker 1: hit airwaves on a daily basis, which meant that people
4:40
Speaker 1: would missed it the first time around were much more
4:42
Speaker 1: likely to see it this time. And kids and young
4:46
Speaker 1: adults loved it. This was perfect for them. The war
4:50
Speaker 1: in Vietnam had closed, people were walking on the moon,
4:55
Speaker 1: and there are a lot of folks who found Star
4:57
Speaker 1: Trek at the right time in their lives. A brighter
5:00
Speaker 1: future seemed ahead now that we knew real life astronauts
5:03
Speaker 1: could go to the move. It didn't seem two out
5:07
Speaker 1: of bounds to think future humans could explore the stars. Yeah,
5:12
Speaker 1: more Zeitgeist the stuff. It was already kind of within
5:16
Speaker 1: the realm of possibility and Star Trek you know from
5:19
Speaker 1: this well, I mean, and I know there's the whole
5:21
Speaker 1: like you know, kirk Um having dalliances with green women
5:24
Speaker 1: and fighting kind of bad rubber monsters like in you know,
5:28
Speaker 1: in the desert or what are in these desert planet
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Speaker 1: kind of situations but orn. But the basis of Star
5:36
Speaker 1: Trek was a somewhat believable future wherein we we did,
5:42
Speaker 1: we are able to you know, populate the stars and
5:45
Speaker 1: live in the sort of idyllic kind of you know utopia,
5:49
Speaker 1: you know, in space. So it really was something that
5:51
Speaker 1: kind of captured people's imaginations in a very big way. Look,
5:58
Speaker 1: there's also a role that Star Wars played in this.
6:02
Speaker 1: Just holding on my Darth Vader mask again, because these
6:07
Speaker 1: reruns of a show that had been canceled were becoming
6:10
Speaker 1: incredibly popular, and the Star Wars universe was a blockbuster
6:17
Speaker 1: film event. Paramount had acquired the rights to Star Trek
6:21
Speaker 1: from Lucille's Lucille Balls Studio Desilou, and they said, you
6:26
Speaker 1: know what, there's a lot of interest here. People like
6:29
Speaker 1: space movies. Let's take this crew to the big screen.
6:34
Speaker 1: And that's when the first Star Trek film comes out.
6:37
Speaker 1: Nine nine. Star Trek called in a burst of creativity
6:41
Speaker 1: the motion picture, which you know, felt like a four
6:45
Speaker 1: thirty on a Friday decision, But it was okay, it
6:49
Speaker 1: was all right, I want a barn store picture. Yes, Max,
6:55
Speaker 1: you have this in the notes. Yeah, but they did
6:58
Speaker 1: have a sequel just a few years later, Star Trek
7:01
Speaker 1: to the Wrath of Con much better title and super
7:06
Speaker 1: interesting story. If you saw the original episode that inspired it,
7:10
Speaker 1: that's right, And and it had a bona fide movie
7:13
Speaker 1: star in it as well, with Ricardo Monta bomb Um
7:18
Speaker 1: playing this villain or reprising his role as the the
7:21
Speaker 1: titular con and and then you know, portraying his wrath
7:26
Speaker 1: in Star Trek two. I gotta I gotta interjected, are
7:29
Speaker 1: we are we gonna do some con screams? Yeah, I
7:31
Speaker 1: was gonna say, can we play the clip the con clip?
7:35
Speaker 1: Or basically if if legal won't let us get away
7:38
Speaker 1: with it? It's this you have to shake your face
7:49
Speaker 1: in a very uncontrollable red really read real scenery chewing.
7:57
Speaker 1: It's it's sort of the equivalent of the space equivalent
8:00
Speaker 1: of like the part in them in any you know
8:03
Speaker 1: kind of B movie where it actor drops to his
8:05
Speaker 1: knees and just shakes roof, you know, to show you
8:12
Speaker 1: the full extent of the uncarried universe. Look, the Wrath
8:16
Speaker 1: of Cod slaps. It is a good film, and uh,
8:20
Speaker 1: the original series for two decades, for twenty years, it
8:26
Speaker 1: gets all these excellent ratings anytime it's in syndication and
8:30
Speaker 1: be broadcast, and the other films do well at the
8:33
Speaker 1: box office, especially wrath of con by. Paramounts starts calling
8:40
Speaker 1: this once derided universe it's crown jewel of programming, and
8:46
Speaker 1: they get Gene back on the scene and they say,
8:49
Speaker 1: all right, let's make a new Star Trek series. What
8:52
Speaker 1: what one for the kids? And that when ultimately gets
8:57
Speaker 1: bogged down in production limbo right production all they call it.
9:00
Speaker 1: Sometimes their concerns about the budget, legal concerns about usage
9:04
Speaker 1: rights and so on, but Paramount and Gene still agree
9:09
Speaker 1: that they want a new iteration of Star Trek. Eventually,
9:13
Speaker 1: what they developed becomes called Star Trek the Next Generation
9:17
Speaker 1: or st tn G for the the for the fans.
9:22
Speaker 1: But still, you know, it's weird to me is despite
9:25
Speaker 1: the fact that this was now recognized as a license
9:29
Speaker 1: to print money, a lot of networks still weren't willing
9:33
Speaker 1: to green light the next generation. NBC and ABC said
9:37
Speaker 1: we'll do a pilot, no further, CBS and Fox, which
9:41
Speaker 1: was a thing by then, said they came with these
9:44
Speaker 1: weird kind of half measure offers like let's do it
9:46
Speaker 1: as a as a limited mini series, you know, a
9:49
Speaker 1: made for TV kind of long film. So Paramount and
9:54
Speaker 1: Gene say, you know what, We're gonna skip the networks entirely.
9:59
Speaker 1: We're not gonna us with the big three ABC, CBS, NBC.
10:03
Speaker 1: We're going to go straight to smaller TV stations around
10:06
Speaker 1: the country. I want to do a quick uh Noel
10:09
Speaker 1: Brown famous walk back. Marcrdo. Montalban wasn't exactly a list
10:14
Speaker 1: movie star at the time. He was much more known
10:16
Speaker 1: for television roles, um and I think he was probably
10:19
Speaker 1: a bigger star uh in Latin America than he was
10:23
Speaker 1: in in the United States. And I think he got
10:25
Speaker 1: a lot of acting um experience playing kind of a
10:30
Speaker 1: foreign villain, you know, like which was very much a
10:34
Speaker 1: trope of the time. You know, anybody with an accent
10:37
Speaker 1: and he looked a little bit different would often be
10:39
Speaker 1: cast as a villain. And of course that's where he
10:42
Speaker 1: was cast as here. But if you look at his IMDb,
10:44
Speaker 1: a lot of TV work. He was also on Fantasy
10:47
Speaker 1: Island and and things like that, like I think Hawaii
10:50
Speaker 1: five Oh a little later, but um so he was
10:53
Speaker 1: kind of still in this middle ground of of of icon,
10:58
Speaker 1: you know, and he really I think it's probably eight
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Speaker 1: too many known most for his portrayal of of con
11:05
Speaker 1: That's how I know him. Back to the setup of
11:14
Speaker 1: the of something unprecedented and very smart the Paramount and
11:19
Speaker 1: Gene Roddenberry do. It's kind of similar to how when
11:23
Speaker 1: Ellen Musk gluvemar hate him uh got Tesla to a
11:27
Speaker 1: point where you didn't have to go to a dealership.
11:30
Speaker 1: You could buy Tesla cars directly from the manufacturer. These
11:33
Speaker 1: guys were selling their products Star Trek directly to individual
11:38
Speaker 1: network affiliates and independent stations, and this made them able
11:44
Speaker 1: to circumvent so much bureaucracy and red tape and studio politics.
11:49
Speaker 1: They were selling the Next Generation directly to the TV
11:52
Speaker 1: stations that would air it, and eventually Gene and Paramount
11:56
Speaker 1: start distributing the shows directly to fans, and they circumvent
12:02
Speaker 1: major broadcast outfits all together. They're getting past the fat cats.
12:07
Speaker 1: The Next Generation comes out in seven and it's on
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Speaker 1: a hundred and thirty seven local stations across the country.
12:16
Speaker 1: At the end of its run, it was and remains
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Speaker 1: the most successful Star Trek series of all times. Seven seasons,
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Speaker 1: great ratings, throughout all seven of those seasons, even after
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Speaker 1: the man himself, Jeane Roddenberry, sadly passes away in nineteen one.
12:37
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a line that you pulled, Max,
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Speaker 1: that really really stood out to me, and I think
12:45
Speaker 1: to all of us talking about how Star Trek almost died.
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Speaker 1: This is that Entertainment Weekly article. This is from June four.
12:54
Speaker 1: We may have mentioned this in part one. The thing is,
12:57
Speaker 1: this is an epic comeback, and we'll just give you
12:59
Speaker 1: the quote here. In the years since Star Trek has
13:03
Speaker 1: exploded into an entertainment phenomenon of galactic proportions, reruns of
13:07
Speaker 1: the original series are still broadcast hundreds of times a
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Speaker 1: day and have been translated into forty seven languages. Among
13:14
Speaker 1: his stellar offspring or six feature films, which have earned
13:17
Speaker 1: more than four dred and seventy million dollars, two sequel series,
13:21
Speaker 1: Star Trek The Next Generation and Star Trek Deep Space
13:23
Speaker 1: nine currently TVs top rated syndicated dramas. Here's Max's favorite line.
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Speaker 1: Not even Spock could have calculated the odds on a
13:32
Speaker 1: comeback like that. Spot. What what's the other spot? Quote?
13:37
Speaker 1: The needs of the many needs a few long and
13:41
Speaker 1: prosper had a lot of great quotes. You can argue
13:48
Speaker 1: here was the true star of the original series, to
13:51
Speaker 1: William Shatner's chagrin, Oh yeah, and uh, you know, it's
13:55
Speaker 1: no secret now that there were a lot of rough
13:58
Speaker 1: patches for the original cast in terms of stardom, in
14:03
Speaker 1: terms of things as small as like who gets to
14:07
Speaker 1: say the h an amount of lines in an episode?
14:11
Speaker 1: But you know, fame is never a dent uh angel
14:16
Speaker 1: fart said and trumpets, there's always it's always something it
14:19
Speaker 1: comes along with it. But they made history and it
14:22
Speaker 1: looked like Star Trek was finally here to stay, or
14:27
Speaker 1: was it. Yeah, it kind of had a bit of
14:31
Speaker 1: a period of I guess, let's just say, not greatness.
14:37
Speaker 1: It sort of fell into kind of a bit of
14:40
Speaker 1: a dul drum kind of period, wouldn't you say, Max,
14:43
Speaker 1: How would you describe this as a as a fan? Yeah,
14:47
Speaker 1: I think adult rum is a good way to describe it.
14:49
Speaker 1: I mean, it just feels like at one point it
14:51
Speaker 1: was just too much Star Trek. It was constant and
14:54
Speaker 1: it had been on the air for so long, and
14:57
Speaker 1: some of the series were less creative. I'm tak a
15:00
Speaker 1: shot D S nine that's obviously my favorite series. That
15:03
Speaker 1: was great, but it just kind of was like Star
15:07
Speaker 1: Treks on, like it always on, Right, Yeah, there was
15:11
Speaker 1: you could also call this a threshold of diminishing returns. Right.
15:15
Speaker 1: You could see Star Trek the original series on all
15:18
Speaker 1: the time, but you had probably seen all of the episodes,
15:21
Speaker 1: you know, and the Yeah, there's there's kind of a
15:27
Speaker 1: low point, not quite a Nader, but there's definitely kind
15:30
Speaker 1: of a slump in the story here. So Star Trek
15:34
Speaker 1: six The Undiscovered Country comes out, and after it, the
15:38
Speaker 1: cast of the original Star Trek the they're not doing
15:43
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff in that universe. You'll see them
15:45
Speaker 1: make cameo appearances, you will see them show up at
15:49
Speaker 1: um maybe conventions or publicity runs. The next generation also
15:55
Speaker 1: concludes in the main cast is again they're very six fessible.
16:00
Speaker 1: So they go on to make four movies themselves, some
16:03
Speaker 1: of which I thought were pretty good, and the Trek franchise,
16:07
Speaker 1: the Enterprise, you could say, continues to push on. That's
16:11
Speaker 1: where you get three more series, Deep Space nine, Voyager, Enterprise,
16:17
Speaker 1: and I don't know, yeah, let's talk about this. Yes,
16:22
Speaker 1: there's too much Star Trek, but I thought I thought
16:25
Speaker 1: Deep Space nine had something really interesting involved because they're
16:30
Speaker 1: not traveling out their ship is well, for the most part,
16:35
Speaker 1: their ship is by this mysterious wormhole, right, and a
16:39
Speaker 1: lot of things are traveling to them or they're sending
16:41
Speaker 1: people out. Is that correct, space station kind of situation. Yeah. Yeah,
16:46
Speaker 1: so DS nine is that it's an d snige is
16:49
Speaker 1: a very different series than all the other Star Trek series.
16:51
Speaker 1: That's what it stands out to it. I actually two
16:54
Speaker 1: weekends ago went back and watched the DS nine documentary
16:57
Speaker 1: make sure I was like up to data on that one.
16:59
Speaker 1: But yeah, so it's it's a very different one because
17:02
Speaker 1: they're there. It's all about you know, galaxy politics and
17:06
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And it's also broke from the mold
17:11
Speaker 1: of T O S and t G where it wasn't
17:14
Speaker 1: Monster of the Week. It was had some serial like elements.
17:18
Speaker 1: I mean they have at one point the show ends
17:20
Speaker 1: on a ten episode arc and stuff like that. Yeah,
17:23
Speaker 1: and also they do some they used some really interesting
17:27
Speaker 1: off the map kind of things, right with the Gamma
17:30
Speaker 1: quadrant and this other analog to the Federation called the Dominion.
17:35
Speaker 1: But anyhow, yeah, so there's still being experimental, but to
17:38
Speaker 1: the audience. A lot of this seems like, okay, more
17:41
Speaker 1: of the same, you know, like, oh, yes, I like fajitas,
17:46
Speaker 1: but I don't eat fahitas every day, so stop trying
17:48
Speaker 1: to sell them to me. As a result, we see
17:52
Speaker 1: the casual audience falling off and Star Trek decides to
17:56
Speaker 1: take a four year break. There were no new episodes
18:00
Speaker 1: of any Star Trek stuff from about two thousand five
18:03
Speaker 1: to seventeen. There were movies. That's the lost connection we're
18:07
Speaker 1: talking about. In part one. J J Abrams runs point on.
18:13
Speaker 1: They go kind of multiverse. It's like a reboot, same characters,
18:17
Speaker 1: but they have different actors, younger actors, and there are
18:21
Speaker 1: still some cameos. We don't want to spoil it for you,
18:23
Speaker 1: but in in the universe you can consider this kind
18:26
Speaker 1: of an alternate timeline. And those were all financial successes.
18:30
Speaker 1: They did the Con story again, right, what was that
18:33
Speaker 1: into Darkness? Yep, Yeah, Bennet commer best to play Con
18:38
Speaker 1: and Bennet comes as an amazing actor. I mean, it's
18:42
Speaker 1: not his fault. Movie was poorly written. I thought the
18:44
Speaker 1: first one was pretty cool first at first J J
18:47
Speaker 1: Abrams one. It was fun. It was a little more
18:51
Speaker 1: obviously Star Warzy than Star Trek e because it was,
18:55
Speaker 1: you know, had to be like a big blockbuster kind
18:58
Speaker 1: of action vibe, which really isn't for what Star Trek
19:01
Speaker 1: was even in the movies. It was a little more
19:03
Speaker 1: dialogue based than it was like big action set piece based. Yeah,
19:08
Speaker 1: and I I enjoyed it. I think it. It pulled
19:11
Speaker 1: the nostalgia strings, especially the first one, in the way
19:15
Speaker 1: it was calculated to do. But all right, now we're
19:18
Speaker 1: getting closer to the present day. In the present day,
19:22
Speaker 1: Star Trek has become depend on whom you ask, bigger
19:26
Speaker 1: than it had ever been before, Like Palpatine, it rose
19:30
Speaker 1: stronger and more powerful when it was struck down. Uh.
19:34
Speaker 1: So there's a new series that comes out, Discovery, and
19:39
Speaker 1: Discovery is successful, so CBS all acts Paramount Plus there's
19:45
Speaker 1: a lot of studio politics with us basically Paramount. They
19:50
Speaker 1: they put out the new these new iterations, and one
19:54
Speaker 1: of them follows Picard so much so that it's called Picard.
20:01
Speaker 1: He's the titular character and it's all about his life
20:05
Speaker 1: after the events of Star Trek. The next generation kind
20:10
Speaker 1: of panned Max. What's your thoughts Your thoughts on Piccard
20:14
Speaker 1: picard Um the second season. Piccard was much better in
20:18
Speaker 1: the first season. The first season was kind of I'm
20:21
Speaker 1: really excited for the third season, which I mean comes
20:23
Speaker 1: out in like three weeks. Yeah, I I watched. I
20:26
Speaker 1: watched as well, and there were a lot of interesting
20:29
Speaker 1: threads they introduced there, but not all of them came
20:33
Speaker 1: to fruition. You still you don't. I love have Jerry
20:35
Speaker 1: Ryan back. Jerry Ryan is amazing and yeah, and there's
20:39
Speaker 1: some great stuff going on with the board. No spoilers,
20:41
Speaker 1: but I love the board is villains. So there's now
20:46
Speaker 1: they're they're franchise down this card, similar to what the
20:49
Speaker 1: Big Mouse has been doing with Star Wars. They say,
20:52
Speaker 1: let's take this universe and put it in other genres.
20:56
Speaker 1: That's where you get stuff like Lower Decks, which is
21:00
Speaker 1: an animated series that has meant to be comedic instead
21:04
Speaker 1: of by a guy named Mike McMahon who used to
21:07
Speaker 1: be the showrunner for Rick and morty uh. And then
21:10
Speaker 1: they have another thing that I'm not as familiar with.
21:12
Speaker 1: Maybe you guys can help me out here, Prodigy, which
21:15
Speaker 1: is a collaboration with Nickelodeon. That's right, and it is
21:20
Speaker 1: trying to you know, kind of introduce I mean, with
21:22
Speaker 1: all of this legacy material out there, uh, certainly um
21:26
Speaker 1: an attempt to reinvigorate some of that intellectual property and
21:29
Speaker 1: introduce younger people to the series. UM, because I'll tell
21:34
Speaker 1: you as a father of a of a fourteen year
21:37
Speaker 1: old nerd, they're out there. UM. And it may not
21:40
Speaker 1: be something. Star Trek isn't really something quite front and center,
21:43
Speaker 1: you know, for that audience. So to have kind of
21:45
Speaker 1: a clever cartoon version of it is a good way
21:48
Speaker 1: to bring new younger folks into that world. Yeah. And
21:52
Speaker 1: there's more stuff that's happening as well. Strange New Worlds,
21:56
Speaker 1: which has been nominated for an Emmy, UH, tells the
21:59
Speaker 1: story of Captain Pike and the Enterprise back from that
22:03
Speaker 1: first pilot the Cage, which we mentioned in part one,
22:06
Speaker 1: and I've really enjoyed watching that. UH have also maybe
22:09
Speaker 1: as we get towards the end of this series of
22:11
Speaker 1: explorations of Star Trek, we talk a little bit about
22:15
Speaker 1: its role in the greater real life Earthbound culture. I
22:20
Speaker 1: mean we mentioned this not just in part one of
22:23
Speaker 1: this series, but in multiple conversations on Ridiculous History. This
22:28
Speaker 1: show comes out in the sixties, it's multicultural, multi racial. Uh.
22:32
Speaker 1: The cast itself is a statement that not everybody wants
22:37
Speaker 1: to acknowledge right in in the world and which was
22:41
Speaker 1: created and uh, Roddenberry made these great points and he said,
22:46
Speaker 1: you know, this is the twenty three century. Do you
22:48
Speaker 1: think people are still gonna be as intolerant as they
22:51
Speaker 1: are in the nineteen sixties? I hope not. Uh. And
22:56
Speaker 1: the uh this was a big enough deal that Soviet Russia,
23:00
Speaker 1: a state run paper, complained that there wasn't a Soviet
23:04
Speaker 1: Union representative on there. And that's why in season two
23:07
Speaker 1: you got check off on the scene because they said,
23:10
Speaker 1: oh no, no, yeah, good point. Okay, no, it's it's
23:13
Speaker 1: a very good point. And it shows that he was
23:15
Speaker 1: able to put his money where his mouth was in
23:17
Speaker 1: terms of leaning into that multicultural perspective. So you know,
23:21
Speaker 1: again there there is some pretty cerebral, kind of allegorical
23:28
Speaker 1: type of storytelling in this show, if somewhat veiled social
23:32
Speaker 1: commentaries that it was kind of a little bit bombastic
23:35
Speaker 1: for the time to address some of the issues that
23:38
Speaker 1: the show did. For example, in the episode let That
23:41
Speaker 1: Be Your Last Battlefield, Um, the the Enterprise has a
23:47
Speaker 1: run in with the planet where the the inhabitants of
23:50
Speaker 1: that planet are black on one side and white on
23:53
Speaker 1: the other side, and there is a burning racial resentment
23:59
Speaker 1: between those who are black on the right half and
24:01
Speaker 1: those who are black on the left. And it's just
24:05
Speaker 1: a very interesting way of handling that type of of
24:09
Speaker 1: of attitude that was very you know, pre prevalent in America,
24:12
Speaker 1: but also clever in a way because it wasn't right
24:15
Speaker 1: out in your face to the point where people could,
24:18
Speaker 1: you know, protested exactly if they weren't smart enough to
24:22
Speaker 1: kind of read what they were actually trying to do.
24:25
Speaker 1: You also had kind of lampooning of some of the
24:28
Speaker 1: Cold War paranoia and sentiments of the time, and episodes
24:32
Speaker 1: like a Private Little War. Yeah, Yeah, And this is
24:36
Speaker 1: something powerful. And we we see a similar phenomenon in
24:41
Speaker 1: The Twilight Zone, which is by far one of my
24:44
Speaker 1: favorite UH programs ever committed to television. In in these Things,
24:50
Speaker 1: you will see that there its law and order. SVU
24:53
Speaker 1: actually does a lot of this. You will see recent
24:57
Speaker 1: news stories that get U that get used as the
25:01
Speaker 1: creative fuel for a story in Star Trek. The the
25:07
Speaker 1: idea of Private Little War. I don't want you to
25:09
Speaker 1: think I was ignoring your Pointnal. The idea of private
25:12
Speaker 1: little war is about a move to about a problem.
25:19
Speaker 1: Should we help a primitive people in a Garia war?
25:24
Speaker 1: Because there's this planet where the Clanns are waging war, right,
25:30
Speaker 1: the waging a proxy war, and the Clanons, who are
25:32
Speaker 1: often a stand in for the USSR, honestly have given
25:36
Speaker 1: arms to one side of the war, and the Federation
25:39
Speaker 1: has to decide whether they're going to violate the prime
25:42
Speaker 1: directive and give the other side of the war weapons. Right,
25:47
Speaker 1: So we see that the Cold War idea of fighting
25:51
Speaker 1: via proxies in a third country is very much on
25:54
Speaker 1: the mind of the Star Trek writers. And you're able
25:57
Speaker 1: to talk about these conundrums in way that you couldn't
26:01
Speaker 1: in a non fiction show. You can always just say, hey,
26:04
Speaker 1: these are aliens, this is art. If you see something
26:07
Speaker 1: in it, brother, that's on you. Uh. And you can
26:10
Speaker 1: also see like, yeah, a lot of geopolitical stuff is
26:13
Speaker 1: echoed in these shows, and they had to because it
26:17
Speaker 1: was taboo to talk about politics openly. That's right. And also,
26:21
Speaker 1: just just to backtrack a little bit to something that
26:22
Speaker 1: you said that maybe folks might not fully be aware of,
26:25
Speaker 1: the idea of the Prime Directive we've kind of hinted at.
26:28
Speaker 1: It really is the guiding philosophy of the crew of
26:32
Speaker 1: the of the starship Enterprise. It's sort of like a
26:35
Speaker 1: leave no trace kind of situation where they're exploring and learning,
26:39
Speaker 1: but they're not out to influence, you know, uh, geopolitics.
26:43
Speaker 1: They sometimes get caught up in the middle of it
26:45
Speaker 1: and are left with some tough choices. Uh. And again
26:48
Speaker 1: you said it. At times they've had to somewhat go
26:50
Speaker 1: against the prime directive for the greater good, But in
26:53
Speaker 1: general their goal is to be as neutral as possible
26:57
Speaker 1: and seek out new life and and then expl lore,
27:00
Speaker 1: you know, the deepest reaches of space, but not it's
27:03
Speaker 1: not a conquering force and when and they and they
27:06
Speaker 1: portray conquering forces like the Klingons as villainous to some degree,
27:12
Speaker 1: but then they're also there's a complexity there, and so
27:15
Speaker 1: it's not black or white. They definitely are handling a
27:18
Speaker 1: lot of these things with a lot of care and
27:20
Speaker 1: a lot of thought. And if you want to watch
27:22
Speaker 1: it strictly as a science fiction situation and just have
27:26
Speaker 1: a good time and go on a little romp, you
27:27
Speaker 1: can do that or you can look at the deeper
27:30
Speaker 1: levels and really enjoy, you know, the care with which
27:33
Speaker 1: they approach these are very complex geopolitical ideas. Yeah. Yeah,
27:38
Speaker 1: and this again, this is something that Roddenberry, Gene Roddenberry
27:42
Speaker 1: is acutely aware of, to the point where he says,
27:47
Speaker 1: I don't consider myself a science fiction writer. I'm interested
27:50
Speaker 1: in what's happening on this planet and what may happen
27:52
Speaker 1: in our society. We're treating man less and less like
27:55
Speaker 1: an individual and more like a social organism. And I
27:59
Speaker 1: think that's one of the really inspiring points of Star Trek. Now,
28:03
Speaker 1: Trickys will be the first to tell you that Star
28:06
Speaker 1: Trek doesn't get everything right all the time. But also,
28:11
Speaker 1: you know, when you think about the message the idea
28:15
Speaker 1: here that you could do your best to be a
28:19
Speaker 1: benevolent force in the universe without being an imperialistic force,
28:25
Speaker 1: then you see a hard lesson that a lot of historical,
28:29
Speaker 1: real world superpowers should probably pay more attention to in
28:33
Speaker 1: the modern day. Looking at you, Henry Kissinger, let me
28:36
Speaker 1: check and see if he's still alive. Right. Diplomacy, you know,
28:39
Speaker 1: that's a huge part of of of what makes uh,
28:43
Speaker 1: you know, John Luke Picard in particular of a very
28:47
Speaker 1: compelling figure because he's always weighing, you know, this kind
28:51
Speaker 1: of rhetoric and how to properly uh you know, approach
28:54
Speaker 1: that prime directive, and so diplomacy becomes a big part
28:56
Speaker 1: of it. It's probably also a reason that some people
28:58
Speaker 1: maybe are more Star Wars people than Star Trek people,
29:01
Speaker 1: because they find some of that stuff to be a
29:02
Speaker 1: little dull, you know, or a little two mired in
29:05
Speaker 1: the in the political side of things. Um, So it's
29:08
Speaker 1: like become this almost like Stones versus the Beatles kind
29:12
Speaker 1: of divide where it's like, are you Star Trek or
29:15
Speaker 1: Star Wars. I think it's kind of a false equivalency.
29:17
Speaker 1: They're both very different and interesting in their own rights,
29:20
Speaker 1: sort of like apples and oranges. You know, yeah, well
29:23
Speaker 1: they're all they're all uh science fiction, you know, they're
29:27
Speaker 1: just very very different, like those stones and beetles or music,
29:30
Speaker 1: and listening to one doesn't mean you're not gonna be
29:33
Speaker 1: able to enjoy the other. I would say they're not
29:35
Speaker 1: mutually exclusive. No, there's certainly not, but there is, like
29:38
Speaker 1: it says something about you kind of as a listener
29:41
Speaker 1: and as a fan which one you like better. Like
29:43
Speaker 1: some people like the Stones because they're more rock and
29:46
Speaker 1: roll and like you know, rebel and kind of low
29:49
Speaker 1: fi um and a little bit just more kind of
29:52
Speaker 1: hard edge, whereas the Beatles are a little more you know,
29:55
Speaker 1: that psychedelic kind of high production value, you know, studio
30:00
Speaker 1: and banned. But then if you look at their careers
30:02
Speaker 1: and their cannons, both have examples of both, you know
30:05
Speaker 1: what I mean. There are pieces of each of those
30:08
Speaker 1: styles within the catalog of both of those bands, as
30:12
Speaker 1: are their pieces of the diplomacy and the you know, um,
30:16
Speaker 1: the action side of things in Star Wars versus Star
30:19
Speaker 1: Trek definitely space operas. And I want to, uh, I
30:22
Speaker 1: want to present another installment of Ben's continuing obsession with
30:26
Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger. Just confirmed Henry is alive still he is
30:31
Speaker 1: ninety nine and for reminder for everybody playing this game
30:34
Speaker 1: at home, if he makes it to ma of this year,
30:38
Speaker 1: he will be one hundred years old. He is. He
30:43
Speaker 1: is really pissed some people off, But then again, so
30:46
Speaker 1: some episodes of Star Trek expert expertly done. Ben, It's
30:58
Speaker 1: true and and and for good reason. We're going to
31:01
Speaker 1: devote a little bit of this section to episodes of
31:04
Speaker 1: Star Trek that either hit the mark too hard and
31:08
Speaker 1: pissed people off, or that absolutely deserved to be seen
31:12
Speaker 1: as bad examples of the show. Max, I think you
31:16
Speaker 1: should leave the chart of this one in a lot
31:18
Speaker 1: of ways, because, as you mentioned off air, a lot
31:21
Speaker 1: of folks at certain points sort of accused it of
31:24
Speaker 1: being too woke or to like social justice warrior e
31:29
Speaker 1: and that this is like sort of like a new thing,
31:31
Speaker 1: but that's not really the case. It was sort of
31:32
Speaker 1: that from the start. Yeah. I mean there's even quotes
31:36
Speaker 1: from Ronbart early on where he's like he had pitched
31:38
Speaker 1: a show before the original series and it got shot
31:43
Speaker 1: down for being like too controversial stuff. So he basically
31:47
Speaker 1: in some ways built original series around that other show
31:50
Speaker 1: he had made, just to kind of like, you know,
31:52
Speaker 1: put a guys under it. But I mean, yeah, every
31:55
Speaker 1: single series of Star Trek has episodes that are you know,
31:58
Speaker 1: it could be viewed as by some people's preachy or
32:01
Speaker 1: pushing morals, but are just you know, social commentary. I mean,
32:04
Speaker 1: I think the best one of them all is probably
32:06
Speaker 1: Far Beyond the Stars, which is from Star Trek Beef
32:08
Speaker 1: Space nine, which is where Captain Cisco Avery Brooks is
32:13
Speaker 1: transported from modern times where they are so twenty four
32:18
Speaker 1: century back to the nineteen fifties and as a black
32:21
Speaker 1: man him experiencing all the racial injustice of the time.
32:26
Speaker 1: And it's also directed by every Brooks and it's just
32:28
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful episodes of Star Trek ever made.
32:32
Speaker 1: And you also mentioned Max in the research material for
32:34
Speaker 1: this that one of the new series, Strange New Worlds
32:38
Speaker 1: already kind of hit it off with a bang in
32:40
Speaker 1: terms of, you know, in this culture that we're living
32:43
Speaker 1: in now, people accusing it of tarnishing the legacy of
32:46
Speaker 1: Star Trek by being to quote Woker, you know, s
32:49
Speaker 1: j W. But again to your point, and the whole
32:52
Speaker 1: point you're talking about this whole time is that sort
32:54
Speaker 1: of rodan Berry's you know goal from the start again.
32:57
Speaker 1: Will is the term that's been maligned and sort of
33:00
Speaker 1: twisted and become this term of abuse or of being
33:03
Speaker 1: like overly PC or whatever it might be. But it's
33:07
Speaker 1: just interesting how people that make those arguments probably have
33:10
Speaker 1: never even seen the show often or have maybe read,
33:15
Speaker 1: uh just just read a heated comment that they agreed
33:18
Speaker 1: with in a forum without having the full context. I
33:22
Speaker 1: want to talk about one of the I think most
33:25
Speaker 1: meaningful episodes, Plato's step Children. Yes, yeah, the kiss heard
33:30
Speaker 1: around the world when Ahura and Captain Kirk kind of
33:36
Speaker 1: trauma bond and endure some terrible things that result in
33:41
Speaker 1: the actors kissing each other. This is an interracial kiss
33:46
Speaker 1: in nine. Michelle Nichols, who plays Ahura, and William Shatter,
33:51
Speaker 1: who plays Kirk, are definitely like, they're definitely on air kissing.
33:56
Speaker 1: There's not a cut away, there's not somebody mentioning it later. Uh.
34:01
Speaker 1: NBC was terrified. Uh. They they were so worried about
34:06
Speaker 1: this that they wanted to have two different versions of
34:09
Speaker 1: the episode, one for the majority of the United States
34:13
Speaker 1: and then one for the Southern States where, uh, they
34:16
Speaker 1: would go through this terrible experience and at the end
34:19
Speaker 1: they would come in for the kiss and then they
34:22
Speaker 1: would hug. They actually had takes of this, and according
34:27
Speaker 1: to the story not confirmed, but credit credit to William
34:30
Speaker 1: if this is true, apparently he purposely sabotaged the hugging
34:35
Speaker 1: take so that they would have to have to use
34:37
Speaker 1: the kiss everywhere they aired it, or they would have
34:40
Speaker 1: to blow a lot of money to reshoot it, uh,
34:44
Speaker 1: and this is this is crazy. There was complaints, but
34:47
Speaker 1: NBC was surprised and impressed maybe by the United States
34:52
Speaker 1: because there wasn't a huge backlash, not near as much
34:55
Speaker 1: as they feared. And uh, people were jen would leave
35:00
Speaker 1: positive in their reactions to this, and I mean it
35:03
Speaker 1: genuinely earned the show historical goodwill and another kind of
35:07
Speaker 1: notch in the belt of Star Trek as being progressive
35:11
Speaker 1: during a time where maybe that wasn't always the easiest
35:14
Speaker 1: choice to make. Again, when we look at the backstory
35:17
Speaker 1: of it, the executives were always kind of twitchy, you know,
35:21
Speaker 1: from the start, uh, you know, even back to the
35:23
Speaker 1: Lucy days. But whatever led to the end result, the
35:28
Speaker 1: end result was what it was and is a very
35:30
Speaker 1: important historical moment because I believe it maybe wasn't the
35:34
Speaker 1: very first interracial kiss that took place on a large
35:38
Speaker 1: broadcast format like that, but it was one of them,
35:41
Speaker 1: to be sure, and it was a very popular one
35:44
Speaker 1: on a very popular show, and it made a lot
35:45
Speaker 1: of noise. You know. At the top of this segment,
35:48
Speaker 1: we kind of tease the some of these episodes pissed
35:50
Speaker 1: people off just because they were not very good, Uh,
35:54
Speaker 1: you know, you make a lot of shows back in
35:56
Speaker 1: the day. You know, a lot of these series had many, many,
35:59
Speaker 1: many episodes. They're not gonna all be hits. I think
36:02
Speaker 1: over eight hundred episodes of the series Next Generation UM
36:06
Speaker 1: and Max I has thought to wrap up today, we
36:08
Speaker 1: could just go through a couple of of pretty significant
36:12
Speaker 1: misses just in terms of like the quality of the show. Okay,
36:16
Speaker 1: you guys, you guys are ready for this, because I'm
36:18
Speaker 1: gonna just give you a very general description of these episodes.
36:22
Speaker 1: I want to see what y'all's reaction is. I think
36:25
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start with let He who Is Without Sin
36:29
Speaker 1: from Star Trek Deep Space nine. So premise of the
36:32
Speaker 1: episode is Jazz Adax and Warf have started dating and
36:37
Speaker 1: Dax is like fun, loving and free. She's happy, and
36:40
Speaker 1: WARF's all stoic and strong. She's like, we need to
36:43
Speaker 1: go on vacation. That's what Dax is like. So they
36:45
Speaker 1: go on vacation to this planet called Risea. If you
36:48
Speaker 1: don't know what Rises, it's like the horniest planet in
36:51
Speaker 1: the universe, super horny. It's like the galactic Abiza basically. Yeah,
36:56
Speaker 1: So they get there and Dax is having fun and
36:58
Speaker 1: all this stuff when Warf hates it. So Warf And
37:02
Speaker 1: here's an important thing, Worf is in. Warf is a
37:06
Speaker 1: full time main cast member in eleven seasons of Star Trek.
37:10
Speaker 1: There's no character who has more about them than Warf, basically,
37:14
Speaker 1: and he's this honorable guy. And so he's like there
37:17
Speaker 1: and he's like, I'm not having fun. I'm gonna join
37:19
Speaker 1: this group of eco terrorists and start tormenting and threatening
37:22
Speaker 1: these lives of all these people on this planet. Yeah, cat,
37:26
Speaker 1: catch them by their horny, I guess right, right, right exactly.
37:29
Speaker 1: And then at the end of the episode, nothing happens
37:32
Speaker 1: and they go skiing dipping and it's all fine. And
37:34
Speaker 1: throughout the entire episode in the background corks running around
37:36
Speaker 1: having orgies, and then there's there speaking if things are
37:42
Speaker 1: weird with characters. There's also spots brain right, that was
37:48
Speaker 1: that one's where they just they tell you that, oh guys,
37:53
Speaker 1: sorry this didn't come up earlier, but for a while,
37:56
Speaker 1: vulcans will live without their brains. But you mean the
38:00
Speaker 1: brainiest species portrayed on the show can live without their brain.
38:05
Speaker 1: Is this sort of like a chicken with their head
38:06
Speaker 1: cut off kind of situation basically. Yes, yeah, the idea
38:10
Speaker 1: is that uh, Spock can spot can be operated by
38:17
Speaker 1: a remote control since he does have higher order or
38:19
Speaker 1: cognitive functions until they get his brain back, so they're
38:23
Speaker 1: on a brain heist and uh, Max, you described this
38:28
Speaker 1: as one of the few anti bangers of the original series,
38:32
Speaker 1: and this is this is held up often as an
38:35
Speaker 1: example to the class of the decline in quality in
38:39
Speaker 1: the third season. Yeah, no, it is. It is remarkably bad.
38:43
Speaker 1: It is just so especially there's this remote that Dr
38:46
Speaker 1: McCoy is walking around with with a couple of buttons
38:49
Speaker 1: and a control Spock. It's just so bad, damnit, Jim.
38:52
Speaker 1: I'm a doctor, not a remote controlled operator or a
38:56
Speaker 1: brain surgeon. That's popular, but apparently it's where there's focus
39:00
Speaker 1: in the Trek community that consider an episode of Voyager
39:03
Speaker 1: called Threshold kind of the spos brain of that series.
39:08
Speaker 1: H and Max, I believe you felt this episode was
39:11
Speaker 1: in fact the worst of all time within the entire
39:15
Speaker 1: Star Trek universe. Yes. So side note, I've been born
39:19
Speaker 1: and raised Treky. Both my parents are big Trek. He's
39:22
Speaker 1: my mom will not watch the series Forager because of
39:25
Speaker 1: this episode. You saw it when it came on, came out,
39:27
Speaker 1: and she's like, that is just the worst thing I've
39:28
Speaker 1: ever seen. And what really makes it so terrible is
39:31
Speaker 1: it kind of feels like a real episode of Star Trek.
39:33
Speaker 1: A lot of these really bad episodes. You can tell
39:35
Speaker 1: from the get go, oh, this is gonna be bad.
39:37
Speaker 1: It feels like it's gonna be a real episode at first,
39:40
Speaker 1: but it really kind of goes off the rails and
39:42
Speaker 1: just keeps going more and more off the rails. So
39:45
Speaker 1: it's like she said, it goes warp ten off the rails. Mix. Yeah,
39:48
Speaker 1: So let's first and foremost start with this concept of
39:50
Speaker 1: warp ten Star Trek. Very nerdy concept. Warp ten is
39:55
Speaker 1: basically written as something impossible. Warp ten means infinite speed,
39:59
Speaker 1: and so Forager, it takes place in the Delta quadrant,
40:03
Speaker 1: limited resources, and all of a sudden one day they
40:05
Speaker 1: wake up and food we can get our like, you know,
40:07
Speaker 1: our little shuttlecraft. Going warped ten for some reason makes
40:11
Speaker 1: no sense. But then the guy Tom Paris goes warped
40:13
Speaker 1: ten and he which means he can be anywhere in
40:16
Speaker 1: the galaxy at any moment. It's all great woo who
40:19
Speaker 1: then he turns into a salamander because of some weird
40:22
Speaker 1: advanced uh evolutionary thing that causes by you going infinite
40:27
Speaker 1: velocity that is yet that has not really been laid
40:31
Speaker 1: out in the in the lore of the show up
40:33
Speaker 1: to this point. Yeah, no, it doesn't make any sense.
40:35
Speaker 1: But it gets worse, it gets way worse. So then
40:38
Speaker 1: he decides he gets all like you know, hot and heavy,
40:41
Speaker 1: and he abducts Captain Janeway, throws her in the shuttlecraft,
40:45
Speaker 1: takes her warp ten, turns her to a salamander. They
40:48
Speaker 1: go to find some planet. They get freaky on the planet,
40:51
Speaker 1: make more salamanders. Then everybody shows up who's not a salamander,
40:55
Speaker 1: and then they kind of just like pick up the salamanders.
40:57
Speaker 1: They carry them back to the ship, just the justin
41:00
Speaker 1: Jane way in Paris salamander by the way, and then
41:03
Speaker 1: it's a quick cut and all sudden their back human again.
41:06
Speaker 1: Never explained, they're just humans again. And then they're like, yeah,
41:09
Speaker 1: we're not gonna talk about and then left the children there,
41:11
Speaker 1: left the children there, no alimony, classic salamander. This is
41:15
Speaker 1: some anti salamander propaganda when you know, salamander children left
41:18
Speaker 1: behind except Unfortunately they were totally left by I have
41:22
Speaker 1: to say that really quick before you wrap this up.
41:24
Speaker 1: Uh this as as a non trekky who really doesn't
41:27
Speaker 1: have much skin in the game, this sounds like it
41:29
Speaker 1: can't be delight. I'm interested in this as a standalone
41:33
Speaker 1: bonkers piece of television and I'm gonna seek it out.
41:35
Speaker 1: But please, Oh yeah, this is one. There's some star
41:38
Speaker 1: trek that it's like you jump into, you'll you'll not
41:41
Speaker 1: really fully get this. You can just jump into cold
41:44
Speaker 1: and watch. It is episode fifteen of season two, and
41:48
Speaker 1: it's great because the person who was in Church of
41:51
Speaker 1: the teleplay very involved this episode is Brandon Braga, who
41:54
Speaker 1: is like one of the big wigs. He's like important,
41:58
Speaker 1: like a lot of the ten G movies. He executive
42:00
Speaker 1: producer and forgure and this this episode is so infamous
42:04
Speaker 1: that it's now getting parodied in the new shows, like
42:07
Speaker 1: an episode of Lord Dex where they have a salamander
42:10
Speaker 1: around there is. They even get Kate mulgrew, who's represent
42:14
Speaker 1: the character of Catherine Janeway in Prodigy, to joke that
42:18
Speaker 1: I was once turned into a salamander. I've seen weirder
42:21
Speaker 1: things than this. Happened. It reminds me of that that
42:24
Speaker 1: producer who famously like always wanted the Holloway producer who
42:28
Speaker 1: used to be Barbara Streistand's hairdresser. He was kind of
42:31
Speaker 1: portrayed in um Licorice Pizza by Bradley Cooper, but I'm
42:34
Speaker 1: forgetting the guy's name, But he famously always really wanted
42:38
Speaker 1: to have a movie with a giant spider in it,
42:41
Speaker 1: and finally got his way with Wild Wild West. But
42:44
Speaker 1: this sounds kind of like that too. They gave you know,
42:47
Speaker 1: they let the big wig, right is weird Salamander script
42:50
Speaker 1: because he just you know, he commanded that much uh
42:53
Speaker 1: you know, prominence and and uh and and fear that
42:56
Speaker 1: they just let's go ahead let him write one. And
42:59
Speaker 1: with this we have to say we have many more
43:03
Speaker 1: things to explore about Star Trek, the role of unsung
43:06
Speaker 1: heroes behind the screen, behind the page, the dark side
43:10
Speaker 1: of this massive pop cultural phenomenon. We can't wait for
43:14
Speaker 1: you to join us on that continuing journey in the
43:17
Speaker 1: meantime special thanks to super producer and research associate Mr
43:22
Speaker 1: Max Williams. Also now our resident Vulcan Cause player, Big
43:26
Speaker 1: Big thanks to Alex Williams who composed this track, which
43:30
Speaker 1: I would put up against the Star Trek theme. Also
43:33
Speaker 1: thanks to Chris Frostiotis Eaves, Jeff Coat and Jonathan Strickland.
43:37
Speaker 1: And to you Ben, thank you for for your companionship
43:42
Speaker 1: and and and bravery on this ridiculous voyage to the stars.
43:46
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time. Books. For more podcasts for
43:55
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
43:58
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.