Midweek Mention... Star Trek: The Next Generation

Star Trek Next Gen

Sidey: Are you ready, Dan?

Dan: Do I look ready?

Yeah.

No,

Sidey: Those

glasses. With those glasses,

1. You look ready for.

Dan: Thank you. Yeah. New spectacles. Yeah.

Sidey: They do suit you. you.

Dan: yeah.

You know, I'm trying to bring a little intelligence to the show

Cris: Yeah. You look

Reegs: Yeah. you are bringing a little

Dan: yeah. Thank

Sidey: you.

Dan: Thank you.

Sidey: This is the start of,

I

guess loop

Week. as It is. And

we're, we're taking it back to,

A time,

gone by sometime between

87 and 94. Yeah.

For Star Trek Colon, the next generation.

Yeah. And I've gone

for season five, episode 18. Cause and

effect. Yeah.

Anyone familiar with this particular brand

of

Dan: No. I wasn't familiar with this episode before. okay. But I, I was really buoyed to see that Kelsey Grammar was

Sidey: he is, yeah. It's a fleeting appearance.

Dan: was gonna feature, I didn't know, I didn't know at the beginning how much he was gonna feature, but

Sidey: his

name's in light right at

the start, isn't

Dan: Yeah, he, he's, [00:01:00] he's. In it. warp speed. Really?

Reegs: Mm-hmm.

Sidey: Yeah.

This is,

Gonna tell you right now it's the

top rated, episode

according to

Reegs: Star Trek ever. on

Sidey: of, well, certainly of

Star Trek Next generation. According

to

IMDB. Yes.

Dan: Wow. That does

Reegs: that's probably a strong enough, like rep

Sidey: out of 10. User, User recommends that's strong.

Recommend out of the

Dan: gate?

well, I've seen better ones than

Sidey: It's not actually my favorite either. but

this, I would've thought that Picard going Borg would be.

And it's a joint and it gets multiples. But anyway

this starts off with the destruction of the enterprise.

Reegs: Yeah. Well you get captain's log.

Yeah. And the star date, which is 4 5 6 5 2 0.1. Yeah.

Sidey: But it quickly descends into some sort

of chaos.

Something's going

Reegs: pods abandoned

Sidey: Yeah. All hands abandoned ship.

All hands abandoned

ship. Boom. Blows up. Pre-credit bangs

gone.

Dan: Totally

illogical.

Sidey: And, then we go to credits. The classic this is

the

it's a boldly Go where no man has Gone for all women,[00:02:00]

does all that.

And then we cut. and we're back into cap's log.

We've reset. We've Reset. So

it's clear that

it's either, It's either, the,

the

story of

what's happened to

make it blow up or we're in a

loop.

Yeah.

Which

of the, latter. But it starts off with the game of cards.

This is the

officers having their weekly game of cards.

Reegs: What game is it? Is it poker?

Sidey: It's three cards, Brag or something

Dan: that. Yeah. You've got Riker Wharf

Crusher. and

Reegs: Data wearing his little visor. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: And they're ribbing him about whether he is randomized. The

Dan: Yeah. 'cause he's dealing and dealing a billion miles an

Sidey: Wolf gives him a sort of passive aggressive threat that if they're not randomly you know, shuffled enough. He's gonna like tear him

Reegs: Yeah.

Wharf is, unfortunately he's not got the cards. He's also like only got one approach Really. And he's kind of losing really badly. And it's irking him and Riker and Crusher.

Riker is bluffing. Crusher.

Sidey: Yeah. We get to see this hand played

out. Yeah.

Dan: Yeah.

And

[00:03:00] crusher

Sidey: Crusher has a feeling that he's bullshitting.

Dan: got a feeling that he's bluffing. Then she gets called to the,

Sidey: well, what I would say is that in this. This

far into the, the future of the world in star Trek world, they don't have currency.

There is no physical, you know,

Reegs: No.

Sidey: Presuming because you can create matter through

replicators and all that. So what are

they

gambling for?

Reegs: Just, ch just pride,

Sidey: sexual favors? I think.

Dan: I was gonna say something similar actually. I, I guess it's just the, the things that only you've got,

wearing

Reegs: those like tight.

Sidey: yeah.

Reegs: Trouser

body suit things and that, you know, there is sort of a

a,

Dan: well, they're comfortable

Reegs: sexual tension on the

Dan: They're comfortable, light yet warm, aren't they?

Sidey: of course they all

end up

shagging because,

wharf and

Troy, fuck,

At the end of

season seven, but then Riker and

her have had a thing going on.

They end

up getting married and Picard and Crusher. Fuck,

And

Reegs: and Petro and Deanna,

Troy [00:04:00] and,

isn't, She got a love interest with

Sidey: She,

she Riker first

and then wharf, and at the end of the TV series it's wharf. But then when

we come back to it later on

that her and Raef got back

together and

Reegs: Oh,

Dan: but to be clear, it's not really much about fucking this episode. Is it

Sidey: so much

in this

Reegs: No. This bit is the let's get back to the

episode. She goes down

to, she gets called to sick

Bay because Laforge

has got dizzy spells

and she goes in there to check him up. And she

talks, you know, they go through this rigmarole of establishing his symptoms and what it might be caused by and all this stuff.

And then she, you know, she just says about having deja vu,

Sidey: Very matrixy.

Reegs: And anyway, shrugs it off and, and gives him the spray or whatever it is

that fixes 'em up. And then late,

later that night, she's pruning her flowers. loll

Sidey: and having a glass of sherry or

something

Reegs: just before bed, like necking a glass of sherry and then turning the lights out.

Yeah. And as she does turn the lights out, she suddenly starts hearing all

Sidey: Yeah. 'cause she's a drunk.

Reegs: Yeah,

Dan: exactly what I was

Sidey: Yeah. And I thought this was a bit [00:05:00] weird because it is her that

hears all these voices

where Troy

is the empath and you would've thought

that it would be her that

would be attuned into that first.

But

anyway, it's not.

So it's a kind of crush centric. Plot at this point.

Yeah. And she goes on to,

there's been sort of 10 or 11 reports of these

these voices being

heard

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: And then

whilst they're, they go

back to

Reegs: this, they go back to the, they, they all meet up, don't they? And it was just, I think I texted you, the techno babble in this episode.

is Fucking off the charts. I wrote some of it down, but I don't know if this was like typically strong or had

Sidey: they do repeat,

you know, they, they're

consistent with their techno babble, so they don't just make up for one episode. They'll, those will be

things that will,

that

Reegs: they're established in Canon and they have logical effects that impact

other

Sidey: yeah, I mean they're nonsense but they're also

quite fun.

But they're gonna end up back on the

bridge and,

Enson row. who's on the helm.

says that

we've got

Reegs: there's a localized distortion of the space time continuum is what wharf tells them.

And then the power drops out.

Sidey: They say back, back us away

from it.

Back us away.

Carefully. I mean, the

[00:06:00] power's out. Everything's out. The computer's

Reegs: Yeah. And then a federation, Starship

emerges from this like weird rip. in the, in the

space with them powerless, like they throw out suggestions. One is like blow the,

Sidey: well, it's important is it? 'cause Riker says it's

a collision course.

and Riker says.

Why don't we

decompress, decompress the main

shuttle bay. Yeah. The gas fucking explosion

thing will

blow us. Blow that And, and,

Data says,

no dickhead, we need

to do the tractor

beam

and because he's a robot

Android, because like, yes.

Do that. They do that. It

doesn't work. It

collides

with the,

Reegs: the starboard. Nael,

Sidey: Yes. Which explodes and then we get

to hear the, you know, eventually all hands abandoned. the thing that we heard at

the start. Boom.

Dan: Trek no babble on this

Sidey: Yeah. reset back to the

back to the card

game. It

Reegs: It is,

yeah. Well, the captain's log. And then the card game.

Sidey: And everything's now

getting

slightly the, the sort of little lingering

Reegs: Yeah. Well, this time.

Riker doesn't quite go through with his bet. He's got a feeling [00:07:00] that she'll call him on his bluff. And then, you know, there's other things. They, they go through the conversation again with

laforge.

Sidey: She, she,

Reegs: she,

she prunes her flowers

Sidey: that he's gonna come in. She, when the

I think she radios down to sick Ba Say, is

Reegs: laforge, Oh yeah. It's Commander laforge there? And She's like no,

Sidey: wait,

Here he is.

And yeah, that's

Reegs: then late that night, she's doing her flower again and she, she, this time I think she hears the voices and calls Picard, doesn't

Sidey: she? Yeah.

Dan: But around here, which is the character with three ears,

Sidey: dunno

Reegs: which is

Dan: No, you had

Sidey: the final

Dan: you had the

the the,

the

Reegs: oh my God.

Dan: and the

right, and then that final front.

here. Yeah.

Sidey: There's a continuity error here because,

When she calls Bacard and he comes, you

Reegs: they go to the ready

room, the captain's ready

Sidey: he

gives her his recipe for milk with nutmeg.

Reegs: Yes.

Sidey: Which then, so they are destroyed again in this continuity and later on. So this is never, it's never repeated that bit

in this episode,

but in another episode later [00:08:00] on, she gives out the.

The recipe that she's learned from me. card. Forgot. about she, that's a different recipe.

No, it's the

same recipe, but she wouldn't know it because she was destroyed.

Reegs: Oh yes. That version of

Sidey: and that. so they fucked it. They really fucked it. So

zero out

10.

So

yeah, there's that. the next time they're playing the card game this time crush is like she knows what's gonna be dealt.

Yeah. She just goes through and the odds. to that would

be like 7 trillion to one. Which she does. The four cars, then Riker does

four, then

Reegs: Yeah. and, and now there are loads

of reports as well

across as ship Wide that people are reporting that, that,

you know, weirdness is happening and

everybody's experiencing deja vu.

So

Sidey: So this time

I think they get to have an actual meeting.

Like,

In the ready room with all the the senior

leadership.

Reegs: Yeah. Well this is where she forgoes the standard testing on the forge in favor of running an

optical diagnostic. Yeah. And this is where she comes back

with

the results of being positive for a phase shift in

his visual receptors and he's starting to pick up on images Now the forge is visor. that's what's starting to cause his dizziness

Dan: busyness. And They're starting to piece together. They may be in some kind of loop, and they may forget everything. [00:09:00] And so we,

Reegs: and they may

have had these conversations

Sidey: Well, They're

able to, they're able to get a recording of

the noise that she's been hearing.

and then other people have been hearing And

Dan: do you hear noises? No. Good.

Sidey: is able to isolate it. And he says there's like 7,000

different Yeah.

Overlays of the same thing. And then they're able to isolate down to hearing bacard say

all

hands ban it. And they say they know that they're stuck.

and Somehow.

Reegs: Oh, well,

that, well, not somehow sidey, they modulate a deck on emission. Which sets up a resonance in data's onic subprocesses.

Dan: Yes. Exactly.

it's

Reegs: able to leave a, a message for him. Yeah.

In the next

Dan: Let's not dumb it down too much,

Sidey: but it does, it does still take a few iterations of

that.

Before, because

it's, it comes there's various messages left and we get to see that,

when it comes to. The actual

crunch moment. Yeah.

They

still go with the tractor

beam

in

this first

Reegs: They do? Yeah. Because they haven't figured

out what signal

to [00:10:00] leave.

Sidey: Yeah. And then the next

one, it's

Reegs: on the final loop through

They think they, they're all about,

oh, we definitely know the de review. I'm gonna predict the cards. And they all start to predict them and they're wrong. He deals 'em, it's 3, 3,

Sidey: They all get three of a kind. Yeah.

And then we just see millions of different. instances of the

Reegs: number

three keeps, They do a localized scan and it returns something

Dan: all three.

But who is third in command?

Reegs: Well, that's what data realizes on this little loop through. Just as he, as we're getting to the crux of it again, he spots the three pips on pick up on Riker's lapel. and realizes the message that's being

Sidey: he Disobeys

a direct order. he does. I hope he gets court marshaled after this

Dan: I think, data has gone into Picard's bathroom at one point and seen the captain's log, isn't he? Yeah.

Yeah.

Sidey: But they do escape this time. that they, they realize that, well, they,

they,

they get away with

it by doing what

Rikers suggest is, which is to blow up the, [00:11:00] or just

fucking release the,

the, vacuum capacity, blah, blah, blah. and that causes sufficient momentum for them to dodge the Starship.

that's

Dan: so they break the loop.

Sidey: And so they realize that fucking hell. That's an old looking ship.

It's something,

something, something in class.

And they say, fuck, that hasn't been in

service for eight odd years,

Dan: man.

Sidey: So they hail the, the guys, and this is where we see Kelsey Grammar.

He's captain

Gore.

Dan: Yeah.

Reegs: He, well cock

shore As

well, isn't

Sidey: is like, what's up? Lance?

Right? Yeah.

Reegs: guys? Yeah.

Sidey: And you're like, wow. His he's got some retro looking uniform going on there.

Dan: Real Spock.

Sidey: And, they know that they've, they've been stuck in the causality for. Something like nearly 90

years.

90 years.

Yeah.

So everyone they

Dan: only 17 days though.

Sidey: Everyone they know in love is

dead.

And he says to him,

unlucky,

Right? What? I think I suggested beam

Dan: beam aboard. We've gotta have a chat with you. And

Reegs: you. And do we ever see that character again or,

Sidey: No.

Reegs: He's just off, out there having his own

Dan: He's just

Reegs: just a man displaced from time freaked

Dan: out by this [00:12:00] stage. Yeah, so in space it seems there is some kind of time loop where you can just keep going around around, around, around, around and that's what they were caught in.

Sidey: Yeah.

They, they don't know how,

it, how it came

to be or anything.

though. no, the episode's not about that. It's just about the mystery of the destruction of the enterprise.

Dan: Wasn't my favorite Star Trek generation episode. Although I must admit I wasn't a huge fan of this one. I much preferred the old one. I. This one,

It seemed actually not even that clever. This really.

Reegs: I think it is probably suffered because there's been, you know, time loop has become such a massive, you gotta think this was in 87 or 88. This was not, you know, time loop is not

the big

thing that it is now. A whole

Dan: Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. Maybe I, I'm doing it a disservice for that, but I, I did, in, you know, it wasn't torture to watch this. And I'd probably tempt me in to watch another few episodes because I like the [00:13:00] characters. I like the situations and the possibilities of the final frontier.

Reegs: Yeah. Despite the glasses. I'm not a huge trekker, but I have watched Star Trek a bit and I tend to prefer the ones that are a bit more about social issues or political issues, which this one kind of isn't.

It's like pure sci-fi. So. As an episode. This one was, you know, I think it does suffer a little bit, like you say, because the idea has been done so many times since. But it was really good, really neat, good characters like you say. But yeah, preferred other episodes of Star Trek.

Sidey: Chris, you're a huge fan?

Yeah. I know you're, You love sci-fi. and

Cris: I love sci-fi. I love data.

Dan: Yeah,

Reegs: I love,

Cris: Time loops and I

Dan: This was

Cris: found it, I always find it strange when I see Picard walking that he can actually walk.

because I've

Reegs: so used to seeing him

Cris: Yeah. In the chair, in

Sidey: by Dan's chair. Yeah.

Cris: So it's, it's always a bit confusing.

I, I'll have to say, I do remember having this [00:14:00] in when I was a kid on, it was,

it was one of them that, I dunno if it was on purpose or it was one of them TV shows that in, in Romania it was at five o'clock or at half four. So it was like

Sidey: be like five,

Cris: you know, it's shit if it's, they put it at that time,

Sidey: No, it's family friendly.

That's what.

Cris: Okay, whatever. Again, you know, my opinion on sci-fi and that I, I, I don't really I would say out of all the whatever's like older and these kind of sci-fi things, it's probably the one I'm most familiar with because it was every day on and you get home from school. Even if you don't like it, you kind of put the tell on, because it's, that was the, the, the Toes of the Times, and I'm familiar with, I don't remember the guy with a forehead.

What, what's his name? Wolf. Wolf. Wolf.

Sidey: Dawn. Yeah. Yeah, him.

Cris: him. I, I remember the characters and I remember like how they looked like and all that. I couldn't tell you the storyline. I

Sidey: but, well, Wolf was, was, it was a real paradigm shift

because they were like

the classic villain.

Reegs: Yeah, it was a real shock

to have

Sidey: in the original

series.

The cling ones were like the, the [00:15:00] classic villains. Now he's on the,

Cris: in the side.

Dan: we, it wasn't

Reegs: a surefire bet as well that it was gonna

be as massive a success as it was,

you know, that it went on to spawn however many movies and

seasons of

Dan: Well, I always used to confuse. Star

Reegs: There was only two seasons

of the original.

Star Trek wasn't

there?

I think there's only two seasons, It's not very long. So like,

then this came

you know,

that's what expanded

the world. I

Dan: Well

I used to Confused. Star Trek with Star Wars and, you know, it's a Wie mistake really.

Cris: They're

all the same anyway, you know,

it's all the

Reegs: I think Trekker and Wars. would not

Sidey: I really like

Trek this. It's like really, really nice, and optimistic vibe to, to

Star Trek.

Reegs: It's the total opposite of

the way humanity's actually going.

Yeah, I do on Netflix. Did you see the picture when you search for Star Trek, it's Picard going, you know, the classic

Sidey: Well, he's,

I always find it quite funny because he's obviously like a Royal Shakespeare company, like

classic trained,

like

brilliant, brilliant actor

and he is doing all this daft stuff.

Reegs: Yeah. But he's

never a dick

[00:16:00] about it, right? because he, know, he understands.

Sidey: He, it is.

I just

find it funny that he went off to do this Daft TV show

and and

there's episodes, there's one

particular, it

Reegs: It gets a chance to do a

Sidey: lot Oh, don't get wrong. I am fucking all

in.

I love this.

It is brilliant. There's a particular episode

where he's being tortured by the Kardashians.

Reegs: oh, I've had that.

Sidey: Yeah.

I know. But,

And the

guy is saying to him,

how many lights are there? And They're just beaming this light down to

him.

and No matter what he says, it's the wrong answer. And they're torturing him and he is like acting the

shit out

Reegs: I'll

Sidey: with

this guy with like a stupid outfit. You know, it's brilliant. But like you say, he's just totally always been like he's owned

Reegs: it. He's never once, like, I've never heard him say anything negative about the franchise and stuff.

Sidey: He's Come back, to do do more. I'm not so keen on the, the later Picard

series, But,

In the series I, I, this is not my favorite episode. still, I thought this brilliant episode, but the, the BO stuff and the ones with Q. And then

all the, the first contact

Dan: and, and the films. Yeah.

Cris: Is this,

Reegs: The Qing Borg? that was

the better stuff?

Cris: Is this the first time I, I don't, this is a question, but [00:17:00] for me, this was the first time I've ever seen the concept of teleportation.

When you rub the thing and they just teleport through,

Sidey: me up, that sort

Dan: rub your badge.

Cris: Yeah. The, the badge. Yeah.

Sidey: Three to. beam up, that Sort

Cris: It is the first time I've ever seen that in a movie or, or even the, the idea, maybe it's been done before, it's in, in terms of,

Reegs: probably done before, but

Cris: terms of you, you do that and it's a, it's a, it is not just a.

A, a product of people's imagination. You just touch the badge and

Sidey: just, a nice little plot device

to move things

along quickly. to like have them in one place then immediately somewhere.

Cris: Yeah. But it was, it was

Sidey: no, it was cool when I saw it as a

Cris: that was the first time I've ever seen it. So, so obviously I'm, I

Sidey: I think they have been able to teleport quantum.

Reegs: Yeah. Part, I think

qua at a quantum level,

but I don't think that's like

Sidey: Yeah.

But this time next

year,

I so this to me is the strongest possible Recommend,

Reegs: strong

recommend.

Cris: Yeah. 8.9 out of nine.

Dan: The real McCoy.