#012 - Alien Nation 1.08 "Contact"

0:01 Humans and aliens working together I. Really want to dig more into their culture. It's a mirror up to humanity. Social commentary through allegorical storytelling. Wild, angry old man opinions. That sound is what his face looks. Like Werewolf in a girl's dormitory. Then I will eat your face. It's none of my beeswax. Not specifically, no. What accent is that? It's not like I could do a great British accent. Why? Do you think I have these outrageous accents? Man's wardrobe is all over the place. We'll.

0:31 See where we can? I'm not sure how it would go. It did not get steamier than them touching each other's underwear. George Francesco is one of my all time favorite characters. The show is going to go to places that I really enjoy. Sour. Milk is a good thing to the tank to knees. Soft with a subtle finish. This is a packed episode. Stay tuned listeners. We're both fans of Star Trek. Watching Alien Nation and we enjoy. It I am one of your hosts, Todd. This is Nick. This is the Alienating Ourselves podcast.

1:00 Greetings humans and newcomers, and welcome back to Alienating Ourselves, the podcast where we examine sci-fi entertainment with a focus on aliens and the humans that interact with them. I am one of your hosts, Todd. There aren't many photos of me growing up that I know of because my dad was never a camera savvy and my mom didn't take a lot of photos either, maybe partially because she would shoot laser beams out of her eyes at anyone who tried to take a picture of her. And joining me, as always, is a guy who took a picture of me and him at Dragon Todd without me even realizing it until I saw it on Facebook.

1:33 It's Nick. Nick, how's it going? Ha. Ha ha. It is going well. And I am a phone addict so I try and away everybody says hey, appreciate the moment. And then later on I'm like, get your phone out, man, take some pictures, make some memories. So there's cruel irony there. I want to enjoy those moments later. So yeah, this episode has some cool things in it about memories, but that's definitely not the theme and connection. And that's not the theme and stars. So let's get into it. Tonight as Todd and I continue alienating ourselves, we will explore Season 1, episode 8.

2:11 Contact originally aired November 6th, 1989. The murder of an astronomer leads Sykes and Francisco to the discovery of an extraterrestrial probe passing through the solar system. But is it friend or foe? Sykes relations with his newcomer neighbor Kathy develop. I'm doing air quotes Develop and George and Susan discuss having another baby. This episode was written by Joe Minoski, who wrote 35 episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation 4 episodes of G Space 9 and 36 episodes of Voyager, as well as one episode of Discovery in the Orville.

2:48 So he's a hit and miss guy. He can do some good stuff. He actually wrote the the episode of Next Generation Darmok, which is a fan favorite and kind of loopy. It's a wild story, but the execution was excellent. This is the only episode of Alien Nation that Joe wrote, and it's directed by John McPherson, who's done cinematography on The Incredible Hulk for 57 episodes. Amazing stories. And he directed one episode of Babylon 5. John McPherson directed the third episode of Babylon Five Season 4, entitled The Summoning.

3:24 Yeah, he, we directed this episode, Fountain of Youth, the first cigar about our police corruption scandals and two more that we haven't gotten to yet, Generation to generation and real men. So hopefully we like Joe McPherson. I like the Fountain of Youth episode and I like this one. OK, spoiler alert. So, you know, maybe John doing his thing will be a good thing. What did you think of this episode? This was a good episode overall, but it has some high peaks and some low valleys. It definitely has some flaws to keep it from being better, and it felt a little bit similar to the Takeover episode in that there was kind of 1 main worthy plot element but just had a lot of filler around it.

4:11 But in this one, a lot of that filler actually involves some emotionally satisfying moments that kind of raise it back up a bit. But on the other hand, when I watched it a few days ago, I guess I was in a really good mood or something because I was really impressed with the with the good part. And then when I re watched it today, I was still impressed by the good part, but then also a little bit more let down by the bad parts. And so it kind of even things out a little bit more. How about you? Well, comparing it to the takeover, I was bracing myself because that's not one of our favorites.

4:47 But no, it's a it's definitely a mixed bag. But even though it made me uncomfortable, the what was the father daughter episode that was so difficult. O15 with Wanda. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's 15 with Wanda. That one made me uncomfortable because of divorcees arguing, which is a trigger for Nick, But I don't think any of us need to experience divorcee arguing like to grow as people. This one has uncomfortable things in it that I think are valuable uncomfortable things. So I'm I didn't love watching parts of this, but I do think it was a good use of my time, those uncomfortable bits.

5:32 And there are plenty of things that we're just fine to watch. So yeah, overall I think it's it's a, it was a good time and I didn't resent their choices as much. There were terrible things for me. You want to start off, start us off with one of your positives. OK. Yeah. So now we'll go into the sour milk section for good stuff. And I've actually got six things. And the more I think about it, I might need to add a seven thing, but a few of them are kind of related. So I might be able to lump some together.

6:03 But going kind of chronologically, I would say that, well, first three of my good bullet points are quotes. And the first one happened somewhat early in the episode. They are investigating a murder scene where there's a possibility that a star map might have been on a table and then taken away. And that's, you know, forming like a a blank square where there's like a blood pattern around. And it's actually Matt that brings up something about a star map. And George says. How do you know about a star map?

6:34 Why do you think I'm a complete moron? I'm not complete, no. It's just that you never seem to show much interest in their natural sciences. I know about star maps, George. OK, what do you think? I'm a complete moron? I'm not complete, no. And I really chuckled out loud at the not complete no part because he didn't even say it in a way like he was picking on Matt he or gentle ribbing between friends or anything. He just said it so matter of factly and then just kind of moved on. It was just such dry whip that I loved it.

7:05 Now that you mention it, there's another time in this episode where he mentions that he doesn't think Matt is that smart. There's a pattern here with George Francisco. Yeah. I know I've heard George Lucas saying the reason Han Solo says parsecs for speed instead of a distance is because Han Solo isn't that smart. And maybe it's OK for our action heroes in the 80s who are human to, you know, not necessarily be the brightest guy in the room. So Matt shakes that off for the most part. But that scene was, he was like showing a higher level of education.

7:43 He starts talking about star charts and stuff. And it was, I mean, you brought it up. I've got to say, I don't think I have it listed, but this guy gets hit off camera and there's a blood splatter. And we just hear like a horror movie. Hey, what? Oh, no. And then we just see the desk and a blood splatter, which is a trope of mine that I just, I love every time I see it. But when they take the star chart away, it does it leaves this conspicuous big rectangle of not blood splatter.

8:11 It's like ha, there's a ha. It plays fine. I think listeners for viewing unless you're nitpicky, but it was, it was kind of funny to me. But yeah, that scene, my first positive is the Francisco's. We see them at home. This isn't connected to any of the primary plot, except that George has gotten whimsical thinking about star charts and he got to look through the telescope and think about things in outer space and even this sort of dreamy mental state. So Susan is trying to do work, the kids are both on their way out of the house for the weekend.

8:50 Buck is camping with friends and Emily's doing a weekend long sleepover apparently, and George is sitting shirtless under a reading lamp that turns out to be UV light. So I just, I like several things in this scene that happened kind of rapid fire. One of them is that Susan is so frustrated with her kid, he's asking mom, where's my such and such? And mom, where's my sleeping bag? It's in the hall closet. I looked, look again. It's there. I don't. See it? I found it. He does that to me one more time.

9:25 I'm going to peel a spot. Another is that we find out this reading lamp is AUV light and that apparently newcomers need to sit and get UV light. We did not know this before. And he's he's soaking up the rays. And it's not just George because Buck is about to run out the house with his friends and Susan is telling him her son, you need to get some UV before you go. And he's like, mom, I feel fine. And she's like, you'll need your energy. He's like, fine. So that's like that's news to me. I also get very down on Buck and we only see Buck and Emily for two seconds at this beginning part because they split.

10:04 But Buck has had a horrible Rd. He travels and apparently, at least for this episode, everything is great with Buck because young men who are hanging out with gangs in the streets do not go camping with buddies.

10:22 In the time between the last time we saw Buck 2 episodes ago and now, he has apparently moved on, done better, patched things up at school, made friends that are positive influences, and has such a good friendship he's going camping with them over the weekend and he's happy about it. So I'm fine with this. Let's just do a big hard turn positively. But that was really fun for me. So Susan wants alone time and George says hey. Don't worry, this weekend will just be for me and you. I'll open a tin of larvae.

10:57 Yeah, so that's my first one. Francis goes at home. Yeah, but you're right. I think this is the first that we get of the UV, but it's not the last. They'll have it in a few more episodes. My next one is another quote and then something that happens right after the quote. So this takes a little bit of setup. Kathy is trying to invite invite Matt to a party, and he's a little bit standoffish. And I don't know if he's still having a little bit of trouble with her being tanked and knees or not, or if he just doesn't like parties, but for whatever reason he's avoiding it.

11:30 Along the way. When Matt and George are doing their police investigation, they go to a private club. The guy at the front desk is kind of prejudice against George. And so they go out of the club, they're having a discussion. Matt is kind of repulsed by the guy in the club and everything and he says something, I can't remember exactly what he says to George, but George's response to him is. Matt, you are better than they are. But I just liked it. That was kind of George's explanation for why, even though Matt has had his moments of racism and getting on George's nerves and stuff, that George still sees Matt differently from everyone else.

12:13 And it's right after that moment that Matt goes over to a payphone, kind of quaint, and leaves a message on an answer machine kind of quake for Kathy saying that, yes, he will come to her party tonight. So. So yeah, that whole scene I like. I like it enough that I hate now that I can't remember better what led up to that one quote. I've got the whole setup for you here. So this is probably my favorite moment in the episode. And it's another one of those things that stuck with me 30 years later. As a young man, I saw this and it resonated with me and maybe it planted a seed for later because we live in a time where people will, they might call you out on crossing a line or something.

12:56 And and how people respond to that can be a pretty big deal. And we see Matt respond very badly to himself being called out. I remembered that you're worth it really, really clearly. So I was pleased when it came up. But the setup, Matt has already gotten frustrated with George at not standing up to the coroner in a previous scene. This is a new coroner. George just essentially walks away. This guy wouldn't even look at him in that scene. It was very over the top, like he was he might glance and then he would only answer questions if Matt said them.

13:29 So George is like, you know, was the time of death and he doesn't say anything and Matt says what's going on? What was the time of death? And the guy answers him is weird but and Matt gets on to him. Look, you're some kind of purist or something, that's your business, but you better keep it at home because I don't like it in my face. I am what I am, a human being believes in maintaining the integrity of our planet. And he brushes it off. But now here's this concierge. Here's a whole other thing I'm going to talk about.

13:56 But the so outside, they're talking as they walk away, mass criticizing him. He says you just stood there. You just stood there. There is no sense in getting upset with stupid people. It is a waste of energy and you just reduce yourself to their level. Yeah, I'll remember that next time you jump down my throat for telling a spudge. Head joke. I am harder on you not because you are particularly smart, because I am forced to associate with you on a daily basis. Oh. Thanks. Matt, you are better than they are.

14:24 You're worth it. This is a big deal, even without the other line that we're talking about. Just because we have these conversations all the time now where someone is saying terrible things or dumb things, Should you speak up? Should you bother? And people disagree about it? Matt gets in the concierge's face and goes off and does all this stuff. But you know, we disagree societally, you know, do you walk away from an idiot or do you confront them? And I think both answers are kind of true. Like the concierge type is counting on people to uncomfortably leap.

15:01 So when you do make a scene, it frustrates them. It frustrates them severely because they expect you to just take it and walk away. So there is some value in being obnoxious and making a scene. I can't stand it. It makes me feel ill to think about making a scene, but there's some value in it. But George is right, too. And then George, like, gets real. It's weird, but you can tell in the scene he kind of stops and he steps up. And Todd and I talk all the time about how great Eric Pierpoint is, but he switches, like, almost into like, this familial tone.

15:34 And he says Matt. And they're right next to each other. Matt, you are better than they are. You're worth it. And they don't say anything else. He doesn't explain it like I did, you know, But I thought about that. It stuck with me. I did not have this recorded on videotape, so I haven't seen it since 1989. But the idea that when a person tells you off, some people tell everybody off. But when a person tells you off, if they are your friend, if you think they have value and they go out of their way to talk to you, not to the other person, that's their friend behind your back, not to other people, but they tell you, that thing you said bothered me, that thing you said isn't cool, That thing you said you shouldn't do.

16:20 They're kind of saying that you're worth their time and energy and it's a compliment. But you'll see people, we get very sensitive and I didn't do anything wrong and, you know, defensive. But I think this planted the seed in me that you could not just react defensively. Instead, you could see it, George. I had it modeled for me, a caring person in another group who tells me not to say slurs or inappropriate jokes. And it's not because they're killing all the fun. It's because it hurts their feelings.

16:53 It matters to them, and I matter too. So that was really cool for me. And we got to get both of us a positive in there at the same time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think Matt, I think he's probably right. Matt is worth it because Matt is this weird mix. And we've talked about it before about how it can be frustrating at times and impressive at other times when he will step up for George or his daughter and how much he likes Emily. And he also seems to respect Susan. And granted, a lot of the stuff about the Tanktonese still either confuse him or that repulses him or or annoys him or or whatever.

17:31 And he, he shows a lot of frustration to George, but then he does stick up for him and he does kind of learn and he his edges are softening a little bit. And so I think George is right. Matt has the capacity to learn when a lot of other people are just damaged goods. You meet a concierge who's a snob and part of a restricted club. You can tell them off, but you don't care about them. They're not your friend. They don't deserve the effort, so they're off. Of course, you just be like you're being a jerk and walk away.

18:04 You don't have to be like, let me explain to you why what you're doing is wrong. Take the time. What's your next positive? You got another quote. Let me see. I do have another quote, but I'm kind of going chronologically. So the next thing is that Susan and George start talking about having another child. And this is good for several reasons. I don't want to go into too much detail because I don't want to spoil stuff that might come in the future, but just the fact that they're even thinking about another child does lead to some great moments and, and whole episodes that come later.

18:40 And so I, I do like that. I also like their reasoning in that for one thing, and I'm kind of mixing in something that I'm that I've had in my miscellaneous too. We do find out that Tynanese apparently have a finite number of reproductive cycles and Susan has three left. So yes, part of it is kind of like a timing issue. But the other thing is that they've accepted Earth as their home. And as much as there are people that are prejudice against them, and as much as it's not like, you know, their old home, they also remind us at times, including this episode, that they basically grew up on a slave ship.

19:19 And yes, with all of our issues, our planet is still better than being slaves and they still have appreciation for this planet. And as a symbolic act, they feel like having a child on this world will help the whole family and kind of join them to this world. And so I like that on like a deeper philosophical level and also mixing in the biological and the psychological and everything. It's really good. Like I said, I love for. I love what it means for the future too. Do you have another part of that quote that you're trying not to say, so it won't be a spoiler?

19:55 She says something to George that kind of says something about the future. Oh no, my next quote is a comedic quote that comes. OK, well, I'm gonna say it, but it's just. OK. So. So listeners, yeah, if you have no idea, you know what they say lots of things, like I just said about UV light that may come up or may not. So this could have been a throwaway weird line, and Todd might have enough recollection to know that it's not. But Susan, she kind of pitches the idea and she expects George to be like, you're crazy because they've not been doing a great job with Buck.

20:27 Parenting has not been easy with his cop life. But and with their background, they've made a big deal out of that. But instead of shaking it off, George is immediately receptive. He thinks about it, he's surprised, and he's like, he's saying the positives. So she switches and she starts saying the negatives, like, maybe I'm just forgetting how hard it was. And then Susan is saying all those sleepless nights. And don't forget the incubation time you'll have to put in with the pod. Oh yeah. You don't know what that means, but it's just one of those those lines in this episode.

21:00 It's just a line that is like, huh, they are weird. They're different than us. But yes, if you do remember later episodes, you're like, oh, and and she does conclude with one of the things we keep bringing up where she says, Celine, what a decision. That's once again, you have doubled one of mine. So it is still your turn time. Oh, my goodness. OK, All right, well, so back around to another quote, but this time it's comedic quote. So there's a guy in this that I, I don't know, I kind of lose track of some of the police stuff.

21:32 I kind of toned that out. They're doing this police investigation and there's a guy who, I don't know if they're thinking he's a suspect or a witness or what. But in order to try to squeeze information out of them, they have one of their moments where despite all their bickering, George and Matt still technically work well as partner sometime. So they come up with this idea that they're going to go and act like George is absolutely bananas. He is just losing his mind and wants to attack this guy, but that Matt is holding him back.

22:05 And so he's trying to that Matt is trying to say, hey, I'm the more reasonable one. If you have information, contact us. And so in the midst of George acting like just total berserk, like a barbarian, there's one moment that he says. Somebody called Tower from this office 30 minutes before he was killed. That's somebody. Was healed. You can't do this. Get him away from me. George, there's already one guy in a wheelchair because you it's not right 1st. It'll break your leg. It wasn't me. And then I will eat your face.

22:38 And then I will eat your face and. Even even Matt is a little caught off guard by that one. And later as they're walking out, Matt is like, eat your face. I think he was kind of amused by that. So yeah, I just, I love that moment. It made me giggle out loud both times that I watched the episode. Yeah, that was a good cop, insane alien cop. They were like playing. And George slams his first on the table and cracks it and it's like a stone desk or something. And both of them, all three of them kind of like stop and look like whoa.

23:16 But yes, I don't have that one. But it was definitely a cool moment. That's probably in my we have to talk about this. But yeah, good cop, crazy cop. It was also weird because in every other show I've seen where they do good cop, bad cop, or he's out of control, man, you better tell him, man, the person comes clean. But in this one, they scare the guy and he just keeps saying, I don't know, I don't know. And then Matt is like, OK, well, here's my card, call me later. And then he like, drags George out.

23:51 Yeah, yeah. Which is like, that's not usually how you play good cop, bad cop. It works for the rest of the plot, but yeah. And here's my card. George was very proud of himself. He was like, you know, I thought it was very menacing. So they are they're they're a fun team. My next sour milk is that the second scene with Kathy Matt has. We've already seen them folding laundry together and accidentally touching each other's underwear because this episode is written by 7th graders sometimes. But so they're all embarrassed and but he's.

24:28 And so in this scene, he's got this trunk that he's had delivered from his uncle, his mysterious aloof uncle that has died far away and he hasn't seen him in years. And he's angry about the trunk. He doesn't want to open the trunk. And all the tank denizes are cut off from most of their memories and they definitely don't have a trunk full of memories. So they're all enchanted with the mystery trunk. Albert's enchanted, George's enchanted. And when Kathy sees it in the hallway, she's enchanted. And Matt hates the trunk because he he feels like it ended badly with his uncle and he doesn't want to think about it or open it.

25:02 So we see it in the police station and him being frustrated with newcomer curiosity. Now we see him and Kathy carrying it down the hall to his his apartment. This woman has a bag of groceries. This is 89, so it's still a big paper bag of groceries. And she in one hand and she has her end of the trunk held very casually in the other hand. She strolls down their hallway is a big trunk. It is big enough to hold a human body and it looks like a leather and wood and and metal. Well, Matt is struggling both hands on the trunk, walking bow leg and huffing and puffing, carrying his end as she just kind of strolls of they get to his door and he's like I can take it from here.

25:47 I really I can take it from really it's fine. So clearly she's pushing her help on him, but he opens the door and she's like, let me just get it inside. And she picks up her in and just drags it right inside. It's like no big deal at all. But she, of course, starts asking him what's in it as well. And he, like you said, he's not great with newcomers. Sometimes. He's not full Archie Bunker, but he's still pretty prejudice. And he says something about what is it with you people, you know, why are you all so nosy or something like that?

26:19 And she says, oh, she, she always kind of laughs off the things that he says that aren't great, even when they're to her. And she says, it's none of my beeswax. And then she tells him, what does that mean, by the way? Beeswax. So this is a positive for me just because I think Kathy is adorable. But she does say this thing about how he says she's lucky not to have her head filled with pop culture references or something like that or cultural things. And, and she says maybe not. She says she'd like to fit in more.

26:51 And it might have helped help her fit in more, which I'm only realizing now as we're talking about. It plays into the fact that she's having this party later because the whole party point of the party, we find out, is that she wants to fit in interconnected with the writing. That's that quality stuff. What's your next one? I've only got 1 left. Small and stupid. Well, first, that was a good scene and it was funny and yeah, I noticed how she had so much more strength than he did and everything. And so that, that was neat.

27:20 But I was a little bit triggered at the end when she does pick it up at 1 end and then drags it across the floor inside. Because I'm thinking, OK, I hope he he does not have hardwood floors because she could be scratching up his hardwood floors. I. Can handle it. Myself. Oh no, no, no problem, I. I'll just get this inside.

27:46 In my own house, I don't even have hardwood floors. I've just got carpet and vinyl. So it even, it even bothered me. I was just like, oh, she's scratching up his floors. But anyway, talking about Kathy, the two of mine that are pretty short and related, so I'll lump them together. It's a great scene between Matt and Kathy when they're looking at photos that he does get out of the trunk. I don't know if we've explained it so far. You might have said it in the summary, but Matt, when he had issues with his dad, who was kind of an alcoholic, he sometimes stayed with his uncle.

28:18 He loved his uncle, but then his uncle was a type to not stay put for too long. So he got some kind of job that took him away. And so Matt had to go back with his dad, which is one reason why Matt is kind of grumpy about even getting this trunk because he kind of resents his uncle, but his uncle has left him in his will, this trunk that's full of photos and other things things. So they start going through the photos and it actually gets Matt pretty emotional, more emotional than we've seen him before.

28:46 And so I do like those vulnerable moments. I like that he's sharing them with Kathy. This is ridiculous after all these years. I live with my Uncle Jack. Off and on. Never. My old man got out of line, but old Jack was a sailor. One day he took off. I never forgave him for leaving me behind. I never called, never answered any of his letters. What a dumb kid, wish I could have said goodbye. And then, of course, we're reminded again that Kathy has even worse memories because she grew up on a slave ship.

29:22 And if she apparently didn't know her parents, so at least not after age 10. And so she takes them outside and starts pointing the constellations and says those are my family photos. See that constellation? Orion. That's my father standing watch, protecting me when I was too exhausted to move. And that one. Cassiopeia, the Queen. My mother with the dignity that no one could take away from her. The swan, Forget what it's called. That's me when I was still a girl, before I was taken away from the people I loved.

30:04 These are my old photographs. Then the part that this is kind of related and a bit of spoiler for the thing that happens at the very end is I love that Matt gave Kathy the telescope that was in his uncle's trunk. Yeah, and he says that his uncle would have given it to her if he'd been alive. That was nice. There were some things in this. Again, I haven't been charting directors and writers, but I looked these up and I'm kind of glad because the writing had some clever connections in it, this idea of looking up stars and of memories.

30:40 And he has this moment with her. And you brought it up and I'm scanning to see if I was going to talk about it. And apparently I haven't written down it anywhere here, that this is maybe some of the best acting that Gary Graham has done. And I mean, he just, when he goes to her party and it goes badly and he comes back and opens the trunk, he has this emotional moment. He doesn't cry. He just looks like he could cry. And he's kind of feeling really low. And that actually helps him open the trunk because I guess he's lost a little bit.

31:14 But it's just, it was acted really well. We've already seen Kathy do a really good job of acting well. Terry Treece. But Terry Graham is so high and low. Yeah, this is some of his best stuff. I mentioned in the last episode that I like a good resolution. And between this episode and the last episode, you can see any burgeoning writers who might hear this. There's a trick, and I didn't realize it. If you aren't sure how to end your story in a poignant way, just have a side thing that isn't related.

31:48 That shows characters doing well. And it's like loosely connected in themes, but it doesn't necessarily have to tie everything up in a bow. So the last episode, George is just happy home with Susan and kind of overcoming fear and seeing things differently. And in this episode, Matt is and Kathy are sort of connecting and he's kind of getting over some of his past stuff. But I mean doesn't doesn't resolve anything with the a story, but it's just kind of I like that resolution. That was a good happy.

32:19 My last positive is stupid and small, but as we will get into when we connect the spots in a couple of sections, I get deep into looking people up and I might say more about this guy. He's done a few things, but the actor who plays the racist concierge in all of his credits, There is a horror movie, horror movie, a goofy scary movie that I found in public domain, and one of those big boxes that just has like 30 movies in it that are all kind of garbagey movies. And it's become one of my favorites.

32:58 I think it's like Swedish or Swiss, black and white, poorly dubbed, and it is called Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory. Wow. What? Whoa. OK. That happened to me one time in college. Yes, yes. And not as scandalous as it sounds, everybody, but unfortunately, but it's fairly innocent and family friendly except for, you know, people being killed by a werewolf. But I this guy, I'm looking him up and he's listed to the credits just as concierge. So I don't expect to find anything, man. And I'm like, whoa, that was the headmaster from Werewolf and a Girl, Stormont.

33:41 Sorry, 1961. So Nick's brain exploded. That was one of my favorite things in here. Wow, werewolf in a girl's dormitory. OK. Yes yes there I've recently gotten rid of that multi pack. Y'all don't need it. You can find it on YouTube right now if you live that kind of life, but I got rid of my pack not because I can watch it on YouTube, but because I I found a Blu-ray of it because that's that's the way I live. But yeah, that guy he has an interesting career and I'll circle back to him. But that was one of my my happiest moments and looking through this episode, you never know.

34:18 All right, so my last sour milk thing. We've kind of talked around great moments, great acting moments, quotes, stuff like that. But there's kind of like this central plot line to the episode in that somebody was killed, and it has something to do with astronomy and a signal or no, excuse me, not a signal, but something that has been detected out in space. And there's some suspicion that it might even be another alien ship out there. And so there's this controversy over whether a signal should be sent to try to attract this ship because it's what if it's the wrong kind of ship?

34:54 And that has actually been discussed before. I think, if I remember correctly, all the way back in the pilot when Matt and Kathy were talking about, well, you know, what if another ship is out there and wouldn't they want to look for their cargo and stuff like that? And Kathy, I can't remember if she acts like she's never thought about it before or she has, but she's trying not to. But she's like, yeah, there could be something out there, you know, theoretically. And it kind of, you know, makes her afraid.

35:22 And it's just something that Matt kind of finds as an oddity. So there's this whole thing about whether this signal should be sent and does it get sent? And if it did get sent, did it get sent in time? And if so, who might discover it and stuff like that. And I like the fact that the that we are reexamining that since it was something that was mentioned in the pilot like that it's a, a main subplot in this episode. In fact, it's kind of the the point of the episode to a certain extent. And without giving too much away, it's not the last we'll hear about signals.

35:56 Yeah, and it was a cool, shocking moment in, like the ticking timer in the sci-fi action adventure where the probe that may be an unmanned probe but came from the direction the exact trajectory that their ship was heading in. So wherever it was supposed to arrive is hypothetically now sending something back looking for them. And now it's behind the sun. So they have to wait until it's out from behind the sun, and then they'll only have a few minutes to send a message, maybe a little while. But the guy is essentially threatening the woman's life to send the message as soon as it clears the sun.

36:40 Then gunplay starts and he runs over and hit send and then he's killed and it says that it sent 4 seconds too early and the lady's like it was probably lost. And George is like probably. And she's like probably more like the screen is like 4 seconds. So, you know, it's going through space and who knows? But yeah, I, I would bring this up later as well, But just to go ahead and get into it, just generally, we live in a time where the idea, I mean, most of us on Earth either don't care about outer space and aliens, or we think it would be really cool to cross that line.

37:18 And I know smarter people, maybe Sagan, maybe Arthur C Clarke have kind of talked about what typically happens when a advanced civilization encounters a less advanced civilization. It doesn't usually go well for the less advanced civilization. We would hope that they would be evolved to a place where it would be good for us. But But this episode kind of asks a different question. Because with the newcomers on Earth, the world out there, the only thing we know about it, the only thing we know is that there are aliens and that there might be some hostile forces.

37:53 So in this world, George is like, don't be so fast to communicate with probes that go by. It can be a really terrible deal. They could come back and just try and enslave all the newcomers again. And we find out that twist at the end that the message, the overseer guy, he turns out to be an overseer. He flashes the viewer his wrist tattoo he's trying to send says that the two 2200 and 50,000 slaves are ready to be taken again, in addition to another 4 billion slaves. So he's saying you can enslave the entire planet.

38:28 So that's shocking and A twist, but I thought about that just in terms of forget about newcomers and alien nation. We ourselves, if we see a similar situation where a probe is going through our solar system and we have 1/2 an hour to send it a signal like look over here, should we? And I mean, I would, I don't mean to make it a ridiculous question. Nick is always in the hit send button, but just the idea that you are alone in the woods and you're flagging down a car so you don't know who's in that car.

39:08 So it is a this show makes it clearly more menacing. But I mean, we're not necessarily safe out here. So the implications of waving at a passing probe are pretty big deal, even outside of the fictional narrative. So that it did make me think about that, definitely. Speaking of signals to or from outer space and the potential dangers either way, Season 1 of the new Apple TV show Pluribus just recently concluded and Todd said he'd recommend it. He said some scenes are paced terribly slow and the main character can be a little abrasive at times, has too much of A potty mouth and kind of forgot something important there for a while that the audience definitely remembered.

39:54 But on the good side, he said, it has a brilliant premise, is a very unique spin on the post apocalypse sub genre, has amazing performances, is quirky when it needs to be and keeps you thinking in between episodes. While we're throwing out random TV recommendations from 2025, I've binge watched The Hunting Wives on Netflix three times already, and I'm going to do it again. All right, so I think that's it for sour milk, you know, So we'll move on to the saltwater section where we talk about the bad stuff.

40:26 Let me let me kick this off because my I have 3 and they're dumb. My short My first one is that the episode starts with a shot of this satellite in space. And it is a terrible shot and I'm not picky, but it's a composite shot of a satellite in space. And they've got, I don't know, planets in the background, moon, something It does not hold up. And this is, I don't know, more than 12 years after Star Wars came out. I was kind of wondering when I saw it if they could have done better, like literally with a model on a stick held up in front of the night sky.

41:04 But that's my first negative is to a new viewer watching this episode, if it starts with this one shot of the satellite in space, you're going to be like, whoa, that looks taped onto the film. Well, so my first one is actually very similar to yours. In fact, I might need to clarify it further because in my notes I just say the opening scene felt cheesy and dated, like a scene from a cheap B movie. But I am not referring to the satellite shot. I'm referring to what happened afterwards when you have the two people in a lightly wood panel room and they're having some kind of argument and the one guy's glasses are super big.

41:45 And there's the the the thing that you described earlier where there's this confrontation off screen and somebody yells and all of a sudden you just see a blood splatter it. But you see what what's actually happening where you don't see it happens off screen. You just see the blood splatter. All of that felt cheesy and dated to me so. Yeah. Yeah, that's my first one. I don't get tired of the I think if I made a horror movie, it would always have people die the same way. And instead of just like, because this is arterial spray, it is like you've spritzed a water gun that kind of like does a little splash little droplets across the desk.

42:27 I would just have people turn and scream no. And then the camera moves to the side and a techie would just like toss a bucket of fake blood splash. How did you even do that? I don't know what it was, but it was bad. But we do find out how this person, Doctor Tower is killed is he was punched in the face. We don't see him get punched in the face. We figure out it's, I think Doctor Sergius or Sergius later. I'm not even sure that man's a real doctor, but the overseer. But we did not have a lot of evidence before.

43:09 Now that a newcomer, we know they're very strong, but the idea that they can literally just punch your face in at any moment, like that's a that's a game changer. I think George should be taking Taekwondo or something. He could like, kick people 20 feet away. But yeah, that's AII was fine with that scene more than the other. But yeah. Or maybe I was still thinking about how bad the satellite looked that I didn't notice. But I will say my wife has been watching a lot of Columbo and Murder She Wrote, and it felt very much like an 80s, you know, like, hey, you can't come in here.

43:47 What are you trying to, no, wait, you know, dead off camera. So yeah, my, my first, my second negative is the person that the victim was arguing with is Doctor Carl Peterson. We've seen him previously in the Fountain of Youth episode. He had almost no lines in that. He was a newcomer here. He's a human and he, I think Joe Solis or Joe Polis. But Doctor Carl Peterson is doing an accent in this. Yes. Oh, you've got this one. Yes, it's my big but not the same for last. Go for it though. Well, OK, so listeners, I'm not sure how many of you are going to feel bad about this because I wasn't sure if I was being crazy.

44:32 I actually asked my wife like, is it just me or is he trying to do like a weird accent? And she listened for a second and she's like, oh, he's OK, He's British. And then I'm like, I didn't say anything. I just let her keep listening. And then she's like, no.

44:49 Wait a minute. Maybe so. I think, I think this actor is trying to do because he's supposed to be an astronomer. So or, or whatever a more scientific name for an astronomer is. But he I think he's trying to be Swiss, maybe Swiss German. But what he's doing is an, an American accent with a little bit of a word at the end of the word, like at the end of the sentence. Like that's like it's slightly German. I guess it was weird. So whatever he was doing, it does not work. Yeah, so in my notes I have.

45:33 What accent is that? Is he supposed to be 3/4 British, 1/8 German and one 8th 8th Dutch? Not specifically, no. Yeah, it is mostly British, but just not that great. And like you say, it comes and goes. It is is ridiculous. And it's not like I could do a great British accent. That's confirmed. But I'm also not a professional actor, and I've got a little bit more about that in the connecting the spot section because he's the only actor that I really drilled down on and mostly for this reason. But yeah, I that was distracting.

46:06 And I am usually pretty forgiving of acting. It's one of those things that I usually don't notice unless it's unusually good or unusually bad. Kind of like background music. Same thing. It has to be really good or really bad for me to notice. If it's anywhere in between, it just kind of seeps into the background of my brain. I I couldn't help it with with this guy. That was weird. He should have probably just gone with an American accent. He's 90% American accent now. Yeah, I can do accents and impressions pretty well.

46:37 They wouldn't be accurate at all, but for an American audience I can do it. But if if Todd and I were doing a scene right now and he told me to do a small French accent, don't be too obvious with it, and I'm like, well, we'll see where we can. I'm not sure how it will go. Why do you think I have this outrageous accent? But I try, and he's like even less, even less. I'm like, well, we will see where we can go. Oh, that's it. You're just kind of making your words funny. Yeah. That was great. So do you have another negative?

47:09 Yes, so I've still got 4 because I actually added one a little while ago. Or more like 3 1/2 because we already covered 1/2 of 1. So this week's latest installment of Matt Sykes wardrobe spaghetti. This week he's wearing a Plaid jacket. And you can correct me if I'm wrong, it might be a tweed jacket with sleeves pulled up. And I was like, is it Miami Vice day at work? I mean, Matt's wardrobe is all over the place. One episode he might be wearing a really sloppy, baggy tank top. He might be wearing a very formal hat.

47:44 He might wear the formal hat with the tank top. And then this episode, he's wearing a Plaid jacket. It's just, it's weird. It's it's almost like, let's just see what Matt can wear this week and see if he can pull it off. It's weird. Now he's not in it at every scene. Like I think, I think the episodes where he does the the tank top, I'm not sure he's in a tank top in every scene. But in the episode where he does the hat, a hat keeps showing up every scene. There's another one where he wears a certain baseball cap and that's in every scene.

48:17 This time I think it's just one scene, but it was still noticeable. No, yeah, I think the jacket stood out to me because, and it did, it rang of Miami Vice because he had a shirt on under it that wasn't buttoned, but I think the shirt was a collar like a oh gosh, turtleneck, but not a turtleneck sweater, like a turtleneck shirt under this jacket. So that did kind of feel Miami Vicy to me. So yes, yes, it jumped out. I don't know, maybe Gary Graham is saying he's trying to find a style for Sykes and they try stuff.

48:53 George is always dressed professionally and that's their dynamic is where George looks professional and Matt looks more casual, sloppy. But they're definitely trying some stuff. So in another scene, I did notice Matt is dressed in blue jeans and a tucked in short sleeve Hawaiian shirt, which kind of reminded me of Magnum PII asked my wife is that does that look like Magnum Pi to you? And she said yes, except Magnum Pi jeans are much tighter.

49:25 But yes, he's they're definitely the idea of having both those outfits in one episode. Somebody on that show is trying some stuff. It can be Gary Graham or it is a costumer. But the episode with the hat was like, it was like a midlife crisis hat. He was going through something and and yeah, he's just suddenly wearing like a a tank top and nothing else, like top and the hat, like, OK, all right, my next negative. So the episode description, which I already read out, it got me hyped. It says that Sykes relationship with his newcomer neighbor Kathy will develop.

50:04 And I'm like, oh, what does that mean? And like I mentioned, we've already seen them folding their underwear together and, and things like their relationship does not develop in this episode. They have some heart to heart moments, but they've had heart to heart moments in at least two other episodes. The only thing I can think of is that when he does go to her party and it's uncomfortable and we may talk about the party more later, but when he goes, when they're talking about afterward, he does say he kind of felt like he was on show, like see Kathy's human boyfriend.

50:41 So he had never referred to himself that way. And she doesn't exactly. Oh, date. He doesn't say boyfriend. He says date Kathy's human date. So that was that was something. She doesn't argue. So I guess. But other than that, I was like waiting for any. We don't get hand holding. I thought she might for a second there. But yeah, these kids are taking it slow. My third negative is just that I thought something was going to happen and it did not get steamier than them touching each other's underwear while folding.

51:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah. But talking about about Matt's clothes, he does dress better around Kathy because I'm playing it in the background. And now granted, she shows up to his door. So he was already wearing this, but he was wearing a blue, a blue shirt with a normal collar and it looks like they're little heart symbols in it or something. So granted, he's already wearing that, but then there's a scene at the end of the episode where I think he's wearing more of a grayish kind of button up shirt and he's.

51:41 So he actually looks like he's trying to dress better when he's around Kathy. Yeah. Which leads. Teamed up for the party too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which leads me to another one of my bad stuff things. I like Kathy, but she's got crappy taste in human men, both in terms of possible romance and friends. Because I I can see what Matt might see in her. I've still failed to see what she might see in him. And then when Matt does go to the party, some of the humans that she's hanging around with aren't that great, and she even kind of admits it later that some of her friends aren't that great.

52:21 Well, so I I had suggested before that some of the draw of Matt Sykes, some of what makes him attractive is that he's around.

52:34 Well, yeah. Yeah, so, well, and I think that might, I might have another point for that argument in this episode, because I get the impression the people who are at the party are the people that Kathy encounters. She literally invited everybody she runs into. So we got a cross section, you know, none of the people who wouldn't come because they don't like newcomers or they can't stand humans entirely. But everybody who seemed a little bit open minded and a little bit open with the idea of a party that was mixed shows up and they're not a great cross section of people.

53:10 And I think that that's her life. I think Matt is one of the greatest people she meets. You need to get out more. Man, you can do better than him, can't you? This man is totally insane. You can do better than this, please. There are other fish in the sea, but he's not the one you're looking for. He is not a dashing gentleman based on today's beauty standards. But I do, man. I think in 1989, you know, there there were, Tom Selleck was already round, so that's a point against him. But Gary Graham was he, He was a handsome gentleman for 1989, for the most part.

53:44 That's just my opinion. I don't have any other negatives except in my Yikes Sykes section where I look at how many times Sykes almost shoots an innocent person. Yikes, Yikes, Yikes. I hate these know it all muffin heads who come from outer space. A Russian and a sponge head. They're a boat in the middle of the ocean. Why stop with running the black, the slag down? Why don't we just come you? Are emotionally involved. It makes for bad police work. Doing over there. What? Was that name again? Makes for bad police work.

54:19 Bad police work. Yikes. Yikes. Yikes. I'm Kathy Frankel. Yeah, I know. In your language, Sykes means excrement and cranium.

54:31 Big Yikes. Bad sex. Yikes, Sykes, Sykes. I don't think he almost shot anybody innocent this time when they did their good cop, bad alien cop that they storm in like crazy children on caffeine and and sugar. But they did not have guns drawn. So that's a point for them. It did occur to me that Matt is getting into a habit of grabbing people by their collars and like throwing them against something. It's like, which is kind of like Christian Bale's bat voice. It's not bad until you experience it multiple times and then you start noticing it.

55:07 So in this one, he grabs at least two guys by the front of their shirt like a hey, I'm going to tell you something right now. And it's starting to be like a standard tough cop move.

55:21 All right. So that's you may need to go through a few negatives. Yeah, just a few. So following up on the party. At the party, Matt is so offended by the word turt that somebody throws out at him, but he still doesn't think there's anything wrong with calling somebody slag or sponge head. And so as much as Matt is developing some ways, he's still a little bit of a barbarian in other ways. And it seemed like the whole slang thing just has not sunk in with him yet. Also, I want to revisit the whole thing about the the egghead with the huge glasses and the bad accent.

55:55 Another moment is his spoiler, his death scene when he is strangled by that tank Deniz. He has his weirdest look on his face and granted he is being strangled. So maybe people that are being strangled will have his weird looks on their face, but his is just especially weird and not in a good way. It I mean, I know that this is an audio only podcast, so you can't see it, but the the look on his face would kind of match this sound.

56:25 That's that sound is what his face looks like. And then then the tank thing is pushes him up against the wall and then snaps his neck and he's got this weirdest look on his face. Like, instead of him being just killed, he has his look on his face, like, oh, I've just been killed. It's like, no, you should just be dead. Your eyes should be closed. You should be slumping or something. Instead he has this weird I've just been killed face. So yeah, I don't know what was going on with the performance here.

56:55 I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it's bad directing, bad acting. I don't know if this guy wasn't taking it seriously because maybe he doesn't do science fiction often. I don't know. I'm not sure Joe Polis is a great actor because he did that other episode entirely in makeup and didn't say very much. But I only know that he was making a silly face because I happened to pause it while I was typing something. And I looked up at the street and he was like smiling, really strangled. But it the scene did kind of mess with me.

57:28 I mean, he wasn't really smiling. What was happening was he was making crazy faces, just all kinds of I'm being strangled to death right now faces. And that just happened to be it for a half second. But the other thing is this guy, our newcomer, who is a bad guy and the murderer through the whole episode, can lift him up, of course, like Darth Vader, because he's super strong. And he did punch the other guy in the face and explode his head. So now I'm thinking if he can pick a dude up by the throat and just break his neck with one hand like he does with poor Doctor Carl Peterson, this is probably what his mode method of murder should be.

58:09 Because it's far less messy than the blood splatter. Oh yeah. So once we realize he can just snap next, he should really refrain from the explosive face punch. I mean, walk up to the guy, you know, break his neck, throw him down some stairs. Who knows, maybe people will misconstrue it, but punching him in the face and having it explode everywhere might be. Yeah, you did some good radioacting, man. That was good. Stuff. And then my last thing is that Matt's got this huge chest. Are not chest a trunk.

58:54 And all it's guided is just photos and a telescope. And as the episode was playing, I kind of remembered from previous watches that, yeah, I think he does get a telescope in in the box. But then he gets the telescope out and gives it to Kathy. And it's this little tiny telescope. And I was expecting something more impressive because I thought that his uncle was really into looking at the stars and everything. And I'm looking at this telescope and I'm like, isn't that the kind of telescope that you spy your neighbors with, not looking at stars with?

59:23 I prefer a good set of binoculars when I spy on my neighbors. You get a wider field of view in better depth perception than with a telescope. I was expecting something a little bit bigger, but there again, I'm not an expert on telescopes. The production value they could just afford the starter telescope. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, when he does say look at those stars a little bit closer, I did think to myself, when she looks through there, what she's going to see are the exact stars she's already seeing, just slightly closer.

59:51 Yeah, Yeah. I think, I think it had some books in it, some papers. It's probably all his life's possessions, maybe. And it's not very much because he was a sailor, so it's like his end table. But he made sure that the coat was in it for Matt. I like that because it was a weird, strange detail. But yeah, not a lot in there to be super heavy and mysterious. Yeah. All right. So if we're both done with salt water, we'll move on to connecting the spots. Let me see, do you want to get us started there or do you want me to?

1:00:22 Yeah, so we have a series of astronomers in here. And Doctor Tower is the main guy who gets his face punched in at the beginning. So he doesn't have a whole lot to do, but he is. And he he comes very late in the credits, so I didn't look him up until the last minute. But Donald Hutton Cotton is he was in an episode of Dark shadows. He was in the movie Invaders from Mars 1986, which I wouldn't mention except I distinctly remember several of our other cast members are in that movie from a previous episode.

1:00:58 We looked it up. It might be Eric pair point is in that, but Donald Hutton also did quantum leap Dances with wolves. Cheers and cheers I mentioned previously. Like I said, this is the second episode with Joe Polis, Dr. Carl Peterson in it. So the two, these two guys know each other. They were in Cheers together probably. And and Donald Houghton, Professor Tower is only in this episode for a minute. He was monk #1 in the pilot episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9. So yeah, that was I didn't notice him in the credits until the very end, but he he dies and we are referred immediately to his assistant doctor Marissa Myers.

1:01:45 This is a strange character because she doesn't actually do much. She kind of shows them around the lab and tells us a little about herself, but it doesn't matter to the episode. But she is 80s cute like crazy. If you were like me into semi nerdy girls with glasses and Janine from Ghostbusters hair or something. And, and this actress is named Annabelle Gurwitch. And Annabelle Gurwitch is odd if you look her up. So I'm not going to do her justice because her credits are strange. I'm not sure what her deal is.

1:02:19 She is a successful writer and producer and that's why it disappears from IMDb. So she's got several books that sound like they're just comedic books, but she was in an episode of Boston Legal. We have our continuing theme of people in David E Kelly shows that are stolen from Alien Nation. Annabelle Gurwitch wrote an episode of Thundercats in 1985. Oh, wow, Thunder, Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats. You know, it's just people. We we all have a journey, man. And she has it's a unique story. So yes, a writer early on, I don't I get the impression that she she's kind of bebopping around the industry and she knows people who will be like, Hey, Annabelle, you want to be in this episode.

1:03:08 So she's not trying really hard to get work like alienation. She's around and they're like Annabelle, you can do a part here and she's like, sure, I'll do it. So she's just very personable, but she's not trying to make a living with that at all. And I'm not sure, but I think she might be. There's a couple people that have a a Seinfeld note and it might be her that she was a character in Seinfeld who's like friends with Marisa Tomei and she got Annabelle Gurwitch's character goes into a coma and George or Jerry is like trying to get Marisa Tomei's phone number out of her in a coma or something.

1:03:46 Which is completely justifiable. You have got to get me Marisa Tomei's phone number again. Not acting work. I think she's just around and they're like Annabelle. You want to play the lady who's on screen for a minute and then you're in a coma hassling you in Seinfeld? I find her adorable in this episode, but she's she's barely in it and in her scenes she doesn't have that much to do except be curious and excited about the stars and then gently menaced. Yeah, she looked familiar to me too. And I looked through her IMDb and nothing really stood out.

1:04:17 I mean, she's one of those actress that's in like 1 of everything. But I also noticed that there was a section of her IMDb profile for, like you said, other different aspects of being behind the scenes, but then also a whole section of her as herself instead of being as an actress. And so I think she also did some hosting gigs, and one of them that she did for more than one episode was Dinner and a movie, which I vaguely remember as being something that was on like either TBS, TNT, USA, something like that.

1:04:46 TBS is the right recipe for a great Friday night dinner and a movie. America's number one Friday night cable show, and now the Superstation takes you behind the scenes with your favorite hosts, Paul and Annabelle. What makes me really happy is to be a part of something. To be cooking. My first feeling was to cast the part of Annabelle as a sock. Annabelle came into one of the auditions and she blew the sock puppets away. Great. Going to take your fish.

1:05:15 Come on, you got it. There's got to be something on television and wear that. Something on television. Dinner and a movie. Delicious television. Friday nights only on TBS. And I thought OK maybe that's where I remember her from. But then I think it says she was only in 4 episodes of even that. So I'm not sure where it is. I think I've seen her from before, or if, like I said, she's been in so many other things that it's just like somehow it seeped into my brain that she's was recognizable because of the breadth of thing that that she's been in, not necessarily the depth of things.

1:05:52 You know, now that you mentioned that, I would bet you I'm the same and I remember her from dinner and a movie. And since it was only 4 episodes, I would also bet you that that that weird syndication thing where they were trying to push that show and you and I and A lot of America saw the same 4 promos a million times. There were a bunch of episodes that she didn't do. They either never got made or we didn't see those. IMDb might have her episode count wrong. According to Wikipedia, Annabelle Gurwitch was a Co host of Dinner in a Movie for six years from 1996 to 2002.

1:06:30 So my first one is about Joel Polis. The guy would plays the egghead with big glasses. He's a Caltech guy. In the episode, it was also mentioned by the character we just mentioned, the the Annabeth Gurwitch character. She says that Carl Peterson is on the Interplanetary Interest Committee, which I thought was kind of a weird name for a committee. But anyway, Joel is also one of those actors who's been in one or two episodes of almost everything and let me see. So I read it a little bit of his profile on IMDb.

1:07:04 It says he caught the acting bug as freshman year, I assume of college when he was cast in the school's production of West Side Story. He then received, Oh no, I was like, I guess that was high school then because he then received a scholarship to join the Summer Theatre Festival on a European Tour performing in England, Germany and the Edinburgh Theater Festival. So that must have been why he picked up these accents. But part of the reason I was looking this up in the 1st place because I was trying to figure out, did he spend some time overseas and that's where he thought he picked up the accents but didn't.

1:07:41 And then let me see, it says something about his extensive theatre credits. And I won't list all of them, but one of them is Old Globe Theatre. And if that is what I think it is, then that's the Shakespeare Theatre in London, or at least somewhere in England. Because I, I mean, I know that there's the Globe Theatre in London. I've actually been to that a few times. But Old Globe Theatre, I don't know if that's supposed to be somewhere else. But anyway, so he probably performed in England with English people and heard the English accent and maybe even temporarily picked up an English accent.

1:08:13 But in this episode he did not use his best English accent. The board is adamant they do not want to go public yet. I'm sorry. You're going to have to cancel it. You'll get the recognition you deserve. Just be patient. I really must insist, Marissa. I want you to know the board thinks very highly of your work, and so do I. We're going to continue you're stipend. My organization is a lobbying group for Space Research. I know just about everybody in the field. It's a terrible loss. You can't do this.

1:08:42 Get him away from me. It wasn't me. Please. I made the call, but I didn't kill him. I called to see how he was doing. We were friends. I called him all the time. Check with the phone company. But that was the whole reason I was looking up his his profile was to try to figure out, OK, has he been around British people before? That sounds like legit theater experience. So maybe I'm wrong about Joe. Maybe he he's, you know what he's doing. Such an accurate Nope. Swiss gentle Swedish accent? Debatable that you and me and our American ears trained to hear ridiculous caricature aren't realizing how accurate it is or something.

1:09:22 It's definitely a null for me though, so if you're hearing this Joe, I apologize. You're the real deal. I had no idea. Well, and that that. Yeah, that actually reminds me of something else I want to say because like I said, I usually don't pick on acting very much. And so another thing I usually say when I do end up picking on acting is that it's entirely possible that he is great in everything else that he does. This may have just been a bad day at the office. Also, in my head cannon now I kind of am wondering if he was not in a whole lot of science fiction, does he maybe not take science fiction very seriously?

1:09:57 And it could be that he was in this thing where it's like, oh, everybody's got weird heads and I'm going to be strangled by a guy with a wrist tattoo and it's a bunch of aliens. And maybe he's just not into that kind of thing, and maybe he just decided to phone it in or something. I had mentioned in the previous episode that he was in that he plays Gary in three episodes of Cheers. And maybe Joe thinks that if he does an American accent, even if he's wearing glasses and you say he's a scientist, he's still going to come across as a Gary, the kind of guy who would own a bar in Boston.

1:10:28 So he needed to do something to see more like a professor and astronomer. But yes, he was. Joe was in Stargate Atlantis, Agents of SHIELD, He was Fuchs in the the thing. He was in an episode of Voyager, Star Trek Voyager. And the new thing that I found out about him from the IMDb this time I had to drill down, but he was in an episode of Seinfeld. I don't usually bring up Seinfeld this much, but he is a pivotal character. He's the guy who sees George Costanza eating shrimp at a board meeting and says, hey, Costanza, the ocean called.

1:11:03 They're running out of shrimp. And it's a major motivating factor in the episode. So that is Joe Polis. He has a small part, but it's significant. I'm glad you looked into that because that's interesting. So Matt goes to this party at Susan's and it's horrible. And I'm going to bring it up more later, but there's a dude who comes up and goes off on Matt about police brutality. He's human, he's with a newcomer girl who disappears out of the the screen like immediately, and he's credited as Bob but we never hear his name.

1:11:36 This is Stuart Franklin, and Stuart Franklin has done Quantum Leap and for some reason a few of these actors have been in Freddy's nightmares, which was just a bad anthology show. But sorry, it's my opinion. I know him because he played Styles in the sequel to Teen Wolf, Teen Wolf 2. So they clearly cast him in this just because he seems like a overconfident punk and he does pull that off very well. So he gets on Sykes nerves not just because he calls him names, but because he seems like he's just a dumb kid.

1:12:11 He's like really full of himself. But yes, that's Stuart. You got somebody else you wanted to talk about. Well, the only thing I have left in this section is Dobbs Watch. So in this week's installment of Dobbs Watch there is no Dobbs. Also, there's no Captain and no Jill. Albert does have two scenes and I think I only noticed the second one. Like the. I mean of course I noticed that first time around, I just didn't write in my notes correctly. I think I had him at 1 scene and then later I realized it was 2.

1:12:44 Burns is in this for only one scene, and I think Buck and Emily get only one or two scenes each. And the more I think about it, the more I think it really is just one scene each. And the only reason I'm having my doubts and maybe it's two scenes is because I might be mixing this up with a future episode because I I like this episode, the one after it so much that I did look ahead a little bit. And so I might be getting their number of appearances mixed up with a different episode, but it might be 1 each.

1:13:14 So we we sometimes talk about how we can't get quite the full cast all the time, partially for narrative reasons, writing reasons, budgetary reasons. And this was definitely a Cathy heavy heavy episode. And so I think that's why we couldn't have everybody too much. But it is also weird how sometimes they'll go to the trouble of putting some of the tanked knees characters in makeup for just one scene each. The murderer Sergius from Jeffrey Josephson. He's been in a million things through the 80s.

1:13:44 Everything you'd expect, but nothing that stood out to me. But the concierge that I mentioned from Werewolf and a Girls Dormitory, he was in Babylon 5 for two episodes, has a character named Varn. That's for you, Todd. He's in Knight Rider V Galactica, 1980, Battlestar Galactica, 3 episodes of Wonder Woman. I think he's good at looking like a tall, thin German dude. And he was in one episode of Crusade, the Babylon 5 spin off. Am I right? Todd? Is that a spin off? Yes, right. That's Kurt Lowens.

1:14:16 Yeah. So I liked him for the one movie that's obscure and I didn't recognize him from any of these. I've seen a lot of the old Wonder Woman series, but he's a nice background character. But yeah, he's got a pretty good pedigree for Babylon 5 South. At the party, there is a guy named Jerry, and Jerry is he is balding on the front half of his head. And I mentioned this listeners only because this party is weird. The vibe is weird. These are not racist people. These are people who are. I don't have a good vocabulary for it.

1:14:54 Let me say that the party is racially charged without being racist. It is conspicuously open minded in this sort of other way. So Jerry walks up to us and he has painted newcomer spots on the front half of his head. Yeah. And Kathy and I believe he's in what may be traditional newcomer clothes. It's a little bit more like a smock of some kind. So he is clearly trying to, I don't even know what you call it, embrace someone else's culture as a sign of community, which can come across as gross. I've seen different people do it in different ways, but it's never come across that great.

1:15:44 And he's deep in that. So Jerry is a strange over the top character and you're not supposed to like him very much. He's a busy guy, OK. He was in Quantum Leap and Alf, and he's the second person in just this cast who was in My Sister Sam. He's in X-Files season 5 in the episode Faliadu, which I would call my boss, is a giant bug or someone in the office maybe a giant bug this John Apicella. And the weird thing, he just in 1991, just in that one year, John Apicella was in Seinfeld, Twin Peaks, Father Dowling, LA Law and the movie Point Break.

1:16:23 He's just a interesting faced guy. They were, like, throwing into stuff. Yeah. So people who watch this episode, when you get to the coroner who was treating George Francisco really terribly, he may look familiar. He was a poker player on the riverboat in Maverick, but he's also in Goonies as Dana's dad. Oh, gosh. Kiwi Kwan, who's done really well in Everything Everywhere All at Once right now. So yeah, he's he's going to look familiar. He's done a few different things. And he was in an episode of Babylon 5.

1:16:55 Michael Paul Chan as Mr. Kim. OK Vincent Liar plays somebody named Doctor Morales who maybe was in the background or was cut. You can't find him online. I told Todd before this episode that I kind of fell down rabbit holes. So he's online instead under the name Vince Tranquina and he's another Freddy's Nightmares guy. And he was in the the Nintendo movie The Wizard. And I don't know if I just never looked it up before, but Burns the skeezy reporter Jeff Doucet was in the Babylon 5 movie River of Souls and he was in for me, Darkwing Duck and Batman the Animated Series.

1:17:37 But the weirdest one man is this. Jerry at the party introduces his friend John, who is a composer and he's brilliant. And this character John says one word. He he calls Jerry a name like Barone or something. And he walks away or he stands there for a second and and Jerry talks. Then Jerry leaves. John asks Matt what he does for a living. Matt says he's a cop. And John says oh, and turns and walks away. So he says maybe, what do you do, barone? And oh, this is Alexis Arquette, This is Patricia, Rosanna and David's sister.

1:18:19 And before transitioning, this was the person that this is the rabbit hole I fell down. So I'm I'm trying to also say it in a way that's nice. This is the person I'm just now realizing he's in. They were in The Wedding Singer as George, the person dressed as Boy George, singing You Don't Really Want to Hurt Me, which is very, very funny. And I've never seen blended also by Adam Sandler, but apparently Alexis Arquette shows up in that as well, playing Georgina as a kind of meta joke because of The Wedding Singer.

1:18:52 But also, this is the person that bursts out of the bathroom in Pulp Fiction and fires a bunch of shots at Vincent and Jules. It's this one person, and I had no idea they were all the same person. So yes, this is Alexis Arquette. And I will say from the credits, not IMDb, nowhere else but the credits at the end of the episode. Apparently John's last name is Barrymore. So yes, Composer. That's it for me for connecting the spots, but I was shocked to find out that this is this tiny little part was Alexis Arquette.

1:19:31 Okay, yeah, that's interesting. All right, well, I think we'll move on to the Albert Einstein Award. And this one is a little bit tricky because we did have the pink Deniz guy who was an overseer. So he was a Clizon Sun and I don't remember his name ever being mentioned. If I if it was, I just miss it. So maybe you have that. And even if you do, it might not be a weird name. So the only one I have in my notes is that one of those people at the party pointed out somebody who was off screen and said, hey, there's Bill Shakespeare.

1:20:04 And then they go off and talk to Bill Shakespeare, who is of course, William Shakespeare. So that's the only one I have. You might have a better one. Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. The evil doctor newcomer who punches people in the face and kills them. His name, they say it at least once. He introduces himself at the end to the lady he's pushing to send a message. His name is Sergius Frome, and I looked it up just in case. I know Ethan Frome is a famous book, but Sergius, I don't believe that means anything.

1:20:39 So I think your gut instinct on that was correct. John, the composer, his full name is John Barrymore, but they never say it in the episode. John Barrymore is Drew Barrymore's grandfather and a very famous actor. So I think we're going to have to give this to Bill Shakespeare, which is funny to me because John's last name isn't on screen, but Bill in his entirety is not a he's not a real person in the episode. Is that Bill Shakespeare over there? So yeah, he's a guy we never actually see, but there is a Bill Shakespeare walking around the world of alien nations somewhere.

1:21:17 And I've said this before in a previous episode, but if you've got a character who is being given a human name of Sergius Frome, just how hard to pronounce was his Tinctonies name? I mean, some of these human names are not any any better, any clearer, any easier to spell or pronounce or whatever. So yeah, I don't know. I don't know why the aliens just couldn't keep their own name. It's weird. Yeah, there isn't. The show seems very well thought out, so the idea that they don't care doesn't add up.

1:21:51 I'm sure there was thinking behind it. You mentioned this for someone else with a very strange last name previously that it's like, that's what this was, Wanda. I don't remember what Wanda's last name was, but it was like a more elaborate name. And it's like, that's what they gave you. I don't know, Ken Diffsky or something, but it's like, really. Sergius Frome seems like a weird one to pull out of your hat. Yeah, they're just reaching. What do you got for I have to talk about this? Just a few things because we covered a few other things.

1:22:23 Umm, like the corner being racist. You talked about the UV radiation. I already mentioned the finite number of reproductive cycles. So one thing that I thought was weird was why would a personal package for Matt, especially 1, so big, go to the police station rather than his home address? That, that was weird. I, I, I didn't understand that. And I, I know that, you know, practically speaking, that scene, for whatever reason, needed to be at the police station and they needed to establish that he was getting a trunk from his uncle.

1:22:59 And so they just mixed the two. But, you know, I, I can't help it. I'm a nitpicky person, logically speaking, that crossed my mind. Why is he getting it there? Yeah, I have a couple of weird things to bring up here. They have this Space Telescope that the story kind of centers around, and it was put into orbit in 1991. I don't think they name it. They just call it the Space Telescope. It's a satellite that is also a telescope. And she says it's giving us these great images. And here's one of Saturn.

1:23:30 And George, look extremely at the picture of Saturn. Well, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched in April of 1990. So this is taking place and filmed before that, but maybe they had already heard about us in the process of launching a really nice telescope. So that might have been formed that writing. George has super reading. We find out in this episode. Newcomers can read super fast. At least George can. And Matt has like phone logs and he's like, this is going to take forever to look through.

1:24:02 And George is like, here, let me see that. Matt's like, are you kidding me? And he's like Paige, Paige flip, Paige flip. So yes, we find out now George and possibly all newcomers can read super fast. They're adding to their superpowers just like any any hero show. So I'm fine with that. And finally, when the evil overseer Sergius from is having our sweet Doctor Meyer send the transmission to the probe, we do find out. And the reason he kills Carl the doctor, the not so nice guy, Doctor Who's a purist, is because that guy can read the message and he doesn't tell us what it says.

1:24:44 He almost does when he's choked to death. But we find out from George, the guy kills the doctor and drops him there with the message in his hand. Like he leaves him with this piece of paper that says what the evil plan is. Oh, I didn't notice that. Yeah, so the so Matt and George come in and they pick up this piece of paper. It's a photocopy. Can you read it? It's a techni's binary code. The overseers used ownership. Like a Morse code. Yes, we use something like it to type messages to each other.

1:25:17 It's all syntax things. It's again 7th grade writing. It's if Todd and I sat down, we started mashing, you know, like not dollar sign, that would be too obvious, but like a parenthesis, star, colon, period, comma, and that's all it is. But the message reads. We survive A cargo of 250,000 awaits your arrival. Leukemia plus an additional 4 billion more, and it's followed by a set of celestial. Coordinates. Coordinates. Earth coordinates. Matt, it's what I thought, that probe they're trying to contact.

1:25:56 That probe 4 billion more slaves the entire planet. So it has that twist at the end and then they rush over to the other scene. Meanwhile, this guy's trying to get her to send the message and she's like, I'll have to call, you know, Doctor so and so and double check it. And he crushes the phone in his super strong hand and says, you know, there's no time, send the message. So she turns to her computer and he says, like, access the transmitter or are you already accessing the transmitter? Yes. So we get a half second glimpse of her computer screen.

1:26:33 They threw something together for this scene because she's on a menu screen and I wrote this menu down. The menu options on her computer screen are one, Receive message, 2 transmit message, 3 Edit message, 4 System setup, and five exit system. So she's just on the the screen that I could have made with my friends in 1989 in 6th grade. It's like, I don't know, they're going to send something into outer space. What would that menu look like? Just make some stuff up. Yeah. That was really, really nice.

1:27:09 And that takes her to what looks like an early e-mail screen where she can just type something in and she copies his syntax Nonsense. That's not nearly enough information because they can't possibly type newcomer script or ones and zeros and enough combinations to make it make sense. I really had to talk about that. That was great.

1:27:31 That is it for me, for I have to talk about this. All right, so I've got two things left. 1 is pretty quick. The Kleezon sun in this episode is not trying very hard to cover his wrist tattoo. I'm thinking he should at least be wearing a watch because he is wearing long sleeves, but that's not enough. Anytime he lists his arms it is pretty obvious. And I can't remember the the first scene where it's revealed, but he does something and we're like, oh, oh, this is one of those guys. So yeah, this is how I thought a lot more of the show would go where we would just be like, you know, they're one of the overseers, you know, and that would be happening all the time.

1:28:08 So I would think Matt and George would just be like shaking hands with everybody and quickly checking their wrist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. And then the other thing is that Kathy reminds us that kids were removed from their parents at age 10 and sometimes taken to other workstations, other ships or other worlds. And if that's the case, I wonder how hard it was to reconnect Buck with his parents after the crash landing, and also how many families might still be split apart. And I also wonder would that make a lot of Tectonies orphans at the moment?

1:28:45 And I also wonder, are there still parents looking for their kids or kids looking looking for their parents or certain family members thinking other family members are dead or something. I just wonder how how much effort they went to to reconnect and did it work and they did they get around to everybody before they let people out of quarantine? We got the impression that that timeline works really clearly for Emily, but it was always a little bit sketchy for Buck. And we hypothesize that one of the reasons he has a huge chip on his shoulder is because he was subjected to that too early separation from his parents.

1:29:26 But I don't know that they've tried very hard to make the math make sense. Very good questions. Yep, Yep. I do like her, you know, bringing that up again, and it might, maybe it was just me, but I kind of wondered if she was implying that she might have actually had a child herself that was taken away. Oh. Well, it just it, she did not give us enough for that. But it was something in the tone that she used when she said something like that, that I, I kind of, we, you know, we already sort of had a loose end where the George might have had another child.

1:30:00 Or if that was Buck they were talking about, maybe I was looking for it. I don't know. Yeah, I did wonder that. But then we find out later she's definitely talking about not getting to see her parents again. So that's just. Huh, interesting. I hadn't thought about that. All right. So I guess we'll move on to ratings. So I usually score these. I give 2 scores, a watch or skip score and an STA Star Trek alumni score. And I was worried. I was worried about this episode. As Todd mentioned, we did not have a lot of the regulars, like the Chief Poor, didn't get to see Dobbs, no Uncle Moodri, which brings down our Star Trek score.

1:30:42 So we always get Susan, George and Matt, and that's a nice base of three. And I was, I was afraid we're going to have like 4 for a while. Like I said, Professor Tower was in the first episode of Deep Space 9 as a side character, so he brought us up to four, and that might have been our lowest score yet for an episode. But then talking about it, I remembered that Joe Polis, Dr. Carl Peterson, I didn't think about him because we already mentioned him in another episode, but he was in Voyager. So that brings us up to five.

1:31:13 I think 5 is the lowest score we've had, but we've had it for several episodes, so it's OK. So episode's OK for Star Trek alumni, but I'm starting to get anxious. I want to see more people on a rate skip basis. I like to watch all of these in order because I haven't seen them in decades, literally. But I can understand some viewers might be like, I don't have time for all that, you know, maybe I can just watch the good episodes. Well, I feel like you got to watch this episode. The plot is excellent for the overall series.

1:31:41 This does have kind of a return to the racial atmosphere tone that we had in the pilot movie in the first couple episodes. So it gets uncomfortable. That party's uncomfortable, but it was kind of a good growth uncomfortable. And like I said before, this is some of Gary Graham's best acting. So I definitely think you need to watch it. You definitely need to watch it for the the You're Worth it exchange between him and George, which like I said, was a formative memory for me. But yes, definitely don't skip this episode.

1:32:10 Yeah, I would definitely agree. And I give a letter grade and unfortunately my letter grade actually changed since a few days ago. Like I said, I might have been in a good mood when I watched a few days ago and really focused on the good parts and thought that that made the episode better. When I was skimming through it again the day I realized, OK, the good parts are definitely good, but maybe not that good. And the problems with the episode do drag it down a little bit more. So I ended up lowering it from AB plus to AB and it must have already been on the borderline anyway because I really only had to adjust one one out of my 5 categories by one number.

1:32:45 And that was enough to bring it down from B plus to B. So it was kind of already on the borderline anyway. So that's so let's yeah. Yeah, yeah, a pretty good episode overall. Yeah, let's let's look ahead to what's coming up for us. So coming up next time on Alienating ourselves, join us as we explore Season 1 Episode 9, Three to Tango, a series of murders of Benaum. You've watched the next episode. How do they say that? Bennom. Bennom A series of murders of Bennom, a rare kind of tinctenes needed for catalyzing reproduction, raises fears that purists are trying to stop the tinctenes from breeding.

1:33:27 Francisco asks Albert to be the Bennom for his and Susan's next child. So we've got Matt and Kathy dragging their feet. Meanwhile, the Franciscos are making Albert their doula, and that could be a good excuse to see him outside the station. So that's good. And we've got a purist plot. So we're going to see to keep people from breeding because apparently they need to. That's why it's three to tango. I'm putting it all together. Join us next week and we will see how the plot plays out. And if I realize the fun all over again as Todd and I continue alienating ourselves, I continue to be Nick.

1:34:08 I'm Todd. Thank you for joining us. We'd love to see some reviews wherever you listen to podcasts. If you love us, like us, or can barely tolerate us, please give us five stars. If you really hate us, please give us four stars. If you give us three stars or lower, you too will be strangled for having a bad British accent.

1:34:29 As always, may all your milk be as fresh or as sour as you prefer it to be. And just because an attractive alien invites you to a party doesn't mean you should try to look and act like her. Don't be that guy. Until next time, keep looking up at the stars. Our future alien overlords might be out there, and the way things are going, it might be a step up. Have a great week. Good night everybody.