#015 - Alien Nation 1.10 "The Game"

0:02 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. Therefore, a war or a tarantula. Thanks, Bob. I'll stick to the cocktail when you. Say some chicks love Star Trek. Stop talking to me, loser. You'd like show them this little move that you learn. It has both a wobble and a shimmy to it.

0:26 This is just the episode that keeps on giving. You mean there's more to this? The show needs more cast. I don't know if I can make a Long story short. Nope. If Joe Crow ever hears this episode and he's a ridiculous Manimal fan. Joe Crow is the director of the American Sci-fi Classics track at Dragon Con. Manimal, it's not your fight. Partners, Partners. May we celebrate. Liberation. Boy Francisco is one of my all time favorite characters. This show is going to go to places that I really enjoy. Sour milk is a good thing to the tank the knees soft with a subtle finish.

0:56 This, it's 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, and this is Nick. This is the Alienating Ourselves podcast. Greetings humans and newcomers, and welcome back to Alienating Ourselves, the podcast where we examine sci-fi entertainment with a focus on aliens who actually survive because they crashed to Earth. I am one of your hosts, Todd. I like to play games, but I'm going to skip the particular game in tonight's episode just in case.

1:26 Battery acid looks the same as saltwater. And joining me, as always, is a guy who may have gotten me as a Co host because of a bad roll of the dice. Oh no. No. It's Nick. Nick, how's it going? It's going good, Todd. It's great to be here tonight. Todd and I are going to continue alienating ourselves as we explore Season 1, Episode 10, The Game, which first aired on Monday night, November 20th, 1989. It's a newcomer holiday called The Day of Descent, which celebrates the anniversary of their ship's arrival on Earth, as Todd said, as their ship's crash, arrival on Earth, and the Tinctonies being freed from slavery.

2:04 It's been five years, and there's much to celebrate. But on this particular day, we find George Francisco depressed as our detectives discover clues that a deadly kind of gab gambling from life aboard the ship may now be happening again on Earth. This episode was directed by David Carson. He directed Star Trek Generations the movie, and he also directs the alienation episode. Gimme Gimme it's #20 coming up in a while. And he did one of the best Next Generation episodes, 315 Yesterday's Enterprise, the year after he directed this.

2:40 So go David Carson. This was written by Stephen Long Mitchell and Craig W Van Sickle, who appear to be a writing team. They've written a lot of stuff like that trippy Wizard of Oz for the sci-fi channel called Tin Man. And their last writing credit appears to be some episodes of Clone Wars series. But they wrote 5 episodes of Alien Nation including this one and 15 with Wanda, which was not exactly our favorite. So I'm not going to list the others right now, but we'll see if they're maturing with experience.

3:12 What was your first reaction to this episode, Todd? What you know is funny, This part of my notes I barely had to change from last week because basically I just recycled notes from one week to another and then delete stuff and kind of start over. So last week for that episode, I said this is one of the best episodes so far, one of the best of the whole series, and an amazing episode of science fiction overall. So this week, all I had to do was just change the wording to this. This is the best episode so far.

3:39 So yeah, this is the best episode the series so far. I'll get into explaining a little while later. And if anybody listened to last week's episode, you know, I, I mentioned this episode several times last week about how I was really excited about it because I'd already looked ahead and I knew just how strong one performance particularly, but all the performances in general were this week and that I was really looking forward to talking about it. And the weird thing is, the first time I went through my notes, I really didn't have a whole lot of good stuff or bad stuff.

4:11 But the things I did have were like big and broad and, and almost all related. And only after doing a second pass a day was I able to get 5 bullet points for each. And, you know, have a little bit of variety in there. But yeah, this is a great episode. So what do you think? Well, I'm mostly going to let you speak to the acting chops because I know you're going to talk about some of the performance. So I'm going to ramble on about world building this episode. It was awesome for me because the last one and this one, they both continue to flesh out character personalities, rituals, the weird trappings of the world they live in.

4:48 We Star Wars fans don't have much for holidays. We've got Empire Day, which you really shouldn't celebrate, and we've got Life Day, which is good for family time, but mostly just yelling at each other in Shree Wook. But we've seen newcomer funerals in this show. We've seen newcomer Halloween. We've seen Conception Party, which is fun, but not as fun as it sounds. And now we've got sort of a newcomer Thanksgiving or possibly newcomer Hanukkah. I'm not going to do an elaborate defense of that characterization, but it might be appropriate.

5:18 It's got a wealth of rich detail. And I love that this episode had such wonderful acting opportunities for Eric Pierpoint and a habitual side character actor, Sam Anderson, but that it also had all this other stuff going on that felt really real and thought out. So very, very much enjoyed it. I don't think I would say it's my favorite episode because the last one had Terry trees, like, crossing her eyes at one point and like, biting her bottom lips. So it's going to be hard to beat. But it's still, as far as drama goes, deep human drama.

5:51 Ironically, Yeah, this is pretty good writing. Yeah. And, And when you say it like that, I think if there's a difference between favorite and best, then I think I might favor last week's episode a little bit more because it had really great stuff, but then it also had some bad stuff kind of dragging it down. This week's episode, I think, had fewer weaknesses. And then the stuff that is good is the kind of thing that is more objective than subjective. Like surely anybody can watch, you know, the performances in this and say, yeah, those are good performances.

6:25 So let's go into our our sour milk positives, the things that we liked best. What's your first one of those, Todd? All right, since I've already been talking about it, I guess I might as well start with this one. And that is there are great performances all around. Eric pair point is the best as George Francisco. We have Andreas could Sulis is in here and he is great as Kulak the the bad guy and the guy that plays Joe Comet, even though it's a smaller role, he's giving it his all as well. And for possibly obvious reasons.

7:00 I'll have more say about Andreas Katsulas later, just in case it's not obvious there's a Babylon 5 connection there. Yeah. But as far as Eric Pierpoint, I've said before that George Francisco is one of my all time favorite characters. And to a certain extent that's because of the premise behind him, the writing that they give him, but also the way Eric Pierpoint brings him to life. And while that's true in all the episodes that we've had so far, and I know all the episodes and TV movies that we still have to come so far, this is the one that shines the brightest.

7:37 And because of that, I actually did a little bit of a list just a little while ago of some of his key scenes. I mean, great Granny, he's great in every scene. But early on in the episode, there's a nightmare that he has and the way he wakes up from that totally freaked out, that's done very well. There's a scene where he does someday drinking during his work shift with one of his friends from the ship because of something that's disturbing him. There's a moment where he's not quite as freaked out, but he is at his desk at work and a little bit stressed out, so much so that Matt tells him, hey, why don't you go home?

8:09 And Matt and George is like, yeah, you're right, why don't I go home? And so the way he's a little bit more subtle in that scene but still disturbed under the surface is great. There are flashbacks with a character name Rutra that we may talk about more later, and particularly when George finds out Rutra's fate while they're still on the ship in the flashback. That is done particularly well admitting to Matt that he once played this game that we're also talking about when he played that game on the ship and, you know, he's just so traumatized by it.

8:43 That's an awesome scene. I. Thought he had beaten it, but he's he's out of control. It's an obsession. You play the game, you face death over and over again and it you become addicted, it controls you. You have no choice too. You played the game. Yes, yes, I played. They made me play. I sat powerless, and I watched the other sky. Verbally confronting Kulak in Tinkeda Knees in Grazer's office. That's also great. And that's great because it's a quieter scene, It's more subdued. And I also like it because Andreas Kasulas, while he does great in loud scenes, I think he's really great.

9:25 He's even better in scenes where he whispers. Those are some of his best scenes as your car in in Babylon 5. And so he gets a chance to be a little bit quiet in that scene in Grazer's office when they're spouting tick to knees, back and forth to each other. My client is an honest citizen who simply deserves justice. ORTE on Solovka Rovat. Stangiev what pimirevs tipsy Cooper schpank Massa. What's Sikalisipish? What's Jeffy TV? Swavout is just pushing buttons. George, you're stronger. Tune them out.

9:57 Captain, our intention was right. The location was wrong. The nightclub is a rendezvous. He busts the spectators to the game where people are murdered for their viewing pleasure. Captain, this is slander. He is a murderer. That is outrageous. Francisco Desist. Favor of Sikandrud Sangya George, I will see you dead.

10:21 As of this moment you are both off this case. Now get him out of here Sykes. Now George fuming at Matt's apartment and admitting that Rutra was his brother. And even though that's a very serious scene and George is just supermasters. Also like a funny moment that happens in there too. Playing the game against Kulak at the very end. I mean, that is just like over the top great acting from both of them. And then thank goodness, there's another quiet scene at the very end of the episode. In fact, I'm it's getting to the point where I think this show, one of the things this show does best is no matter what good and bad stuff might be mixed in in the beginning, in the middle of the episode, the way they end episodes is just amazing.

11:06 And so there's this scene at the end where there's this kind of a ritual or ceremony at their house, just a cozy scene with family and friends and the way that you can tell that George is so at peace in that final scene. So those are the 9:00 that I picked out, but I think I did that just by skimming. So I'm pretty sure I missed a few. But yeah, Eric Pierpoint is just absolutely amazing in this episode. Well, and I like that when you're listing positives, I did sort of the same thing you did. I have two discrete, simple, basic, cool things that happen, but my other three positives are really a sort of pattern in the writing or production.

11:47 And that's kind of what you did. So I'll jump to one of those, which is very similar. So I don't like it typically in shows when writers will add a lifelong trauma to an established character when we've never seen evidence of it before. An example of this might be Marty and Back to the Future too, when he can't stand being called a chicken. But who watched him for an entire movie? And he's kind of the perfect person in that. But this episode, when we find out that George has this deep trauma that he struggles with, it's not like that.

12:16 They write it very, very well. We find out that George only gets the Tanktonese version of a seasonal affective disorder during the day of descent holidays every year. So they've seen it like the family has seen it. And Susan can reference it. But we, there's a reason we as viewers who just joined George in his life like a few months ago, there's a reason for us not having seen him dealing with depression before. It's a seasonal depression and that works really well. He struggles with anger and we've seen that in previous episodes and he struggles with drinking and we've seen that in previous episodes.

12:55 And I like that they didn't make him do anything that was really that out of character for himself until the very end when it kind of culminates. So it's not like he descends into alcoholism, although this is the first time that Matt seems to kind of notice that he's drinking on duty. And he's sort of like, whoa. But George didn't just go drink on duty to get drunk. He, like, was seeing his friend and trying to talk about the stuff. And they, like, each had a drink as they're dealing with it and talking about it.

13:23 And it turned out to be very appropriate to the case. George, what is wrong? You have something to drink. Aren't you on duty? I'm just naked. I always keep a little something. Do you remember the way the bodies looked? Why after they played, do you remember? What are you doing this for, George? Please get out of the past. Wasn't the hole burned all the way through? I really have to go now, Sonya. I can't. Wasn't the wound burned all the way through? Yes, it was burned all the way through. Why do we have to relive it?

13:55 Because I think I have just seen such a body. So that meant a lot to me that it's, it seemed to be very reasonable that he had a trauma that was just now coming up. It was written really, really well. When he drinks in the past, like in the episode the first cigar with the IRS, it's also sort of like he's having, I think he drank more in that. It's just so George isn't like falling apart as a person. In fact, based on everything that's happening, I think he's holding together pretty well until the very end.

14:26 He falls apart a lot more when he's being hounded by the IRS than he does in this in Night of the Screams. And you help me remember this when you were just talking. There's a similar thing where you have two different paths for investigation and George is starting to pursue the cultural path and Matt is pursuing a very straight police path. Matt, Matt is pretty sure the people with a hole in their chest are mob hits. And George is like, no, it's related to my culture and my history. So they kind of go their separate ways and meet back up.

15:00 But in both of those, George is getting so distraught based on his cultural experience that Matt is has one of those, hey, man, maybe you should cut out early head on home kind of moments, which is it is weird because of the two, I think we've said in previous episodes, George is clearly the better police officer. Another thing that occurred to me while you were talking, I hadn't thought about it before, but it's not just that I might have said in a previous episode, George is stealing the show.

15:32 But the way that you're describing it, I really feel like George is the hero of our show and Matt is the sidekick. And I know that when they made big trouble in Little China, that was Carpenter's idea, was to have the white guy be kind of a bumbling sidekick and have the hero be the Chinese guy. But we are so culturally biased in our country that I can watch Jack Burton knock himself unconscious and I still assume in my head that he is the hero, the random Rambo hero. And even though Wang is beating up everyone and being awesome consistently, I think he's the sidekick.

16:08 So it doesn't really just like this. It doesn't take, but yes, now I'm realizing this is the George Francisco show and Matt is along to help us process that. That is my my first one to match up with yours. What's your next sour malt positive? So I feel that it's very profound that the game literally would have killed George if their ship were not crashing to Earth, because that's another one of the the main reveals that that's given throughout this episode. Then there was just one barrel left and it was pointed at me and they were cheering.

16:47 They were cheering for me to die. And then the alarm sounded and panic set in. There was no time to finish. But they have descended, Begun. All the others had died. Oh. Man. It was my turn. It's not fair. It should have been me. Why am I alive?

17:18 And unless there were multiple games going on at once, that makes George unique out of 1/4 of a million people because, yeah, there might have been other things going on the ship that might have been endangering other people's lives. I mean, they were slaves, so maybe was somebody was sick because of bad conditions or maybe being worked too hard or maybe somebody got tortured to death or something. So there might have been other things going on. But at least when it comes to this particular thing, it's very unique because, you know, I don't know how long the crash sequence was and how much chaos it caused.

17:53 That's one thing that they didn't show any of the flashbacks, but to know that if the timing were off by just a few minutes or maybe just a few seconds, that one more shot in the game would have taken George. But it was the crash that stopped it. Like I said, that makes him very unique amongst the the quarter of a million tank Deniz that crashed. So it's kind of understandable that he would have survivor's guilt just because of his situation to start with, just the the pure psychology of it. But then you add to that how unique it makes him.

18:27 That's like a little extra salt in the wound, pardon the pun. And. And so, yeah, it's no wonder that he has trouble at the with this particular holiday. And they do drop just enough lines to make it obvious that, yeah, it's this time of year that makes him grouchy. And this year is no different. He's been like this before. So I'm glad that you kind of emphasized it, that it's that that was written well to say, OK, yeah, we're seeing it for the first time. But this is a A5 or six year thing for him.

19:01 Yeah, so and I have a few things that matched up with what you went over. So another one of mine having to do with the writing is, I mean, you talked about how it culminates in the end. We have a nice resolution, and this is yet another wonderful resolution for the series where we kind of bring everybody together. So the writers had a really good thesis for this and they stuck to it and it worked. I talked about this in our Christmas episode last Christmas, where the writers had this vision for, like, an overarching theme, and they came back to it with success instead of just annoying us with it.

19:42 So Albert walks up to Matt at the beginning and puts his palms on Matt's temples and says, may the earth stay firmly under your feet. And Matt brushes him off. Like, please stop touching me, my friend here. It's not great. But the theme is about being enslaved and in space or, you know, at sea, to put it metaphorically. And the day celebrate they're celebrating finds finding themselves free on solid ground. So George and Tom's PTSD has them still at sea, especially during the day of descent. And George plays with these beads.

20:19 He calls them Taras that Emily gave him. We find out later Emily gave them to him. And one is for water, one is for air, several of the beads are for earth. And he's playing with them. I, I didn't grow up knowing that there was a word for this. You call it worrying something, or you're just fidgeting with it anxiously, but he's worrying on the beads. And they remind him not only what he has to be thankful for. I'm saying this. George doesn't say this, but they're reminding him of what he has trouble remembering during the holidays.

20:48 And he does tell Matt, you know, kind of wistfully, how much it means to him, how much the day means to his family. He doesn't care for the day, but he likes seeing how happy his family is. So he's separated from his family over the holidays by his trauma. And at the end, he seems to have closure as he goes through this confrontation with the guy in a way that we don't usually get. That kind of closure in real life, where you face the person who really did wrong you, and you put their wrong right in their face and rub their nose in it like a dog.

21:22 And then he kind of walks away, freed from it with closure. His friend Tom is sitting there, literally out of it. He is in a daze and George hands him the beads. He puts them in his pocket or something. Tom is still at sea. George is getting to a safe place. And George says the thing to Tom. May the earth be firmly under your feet, which is there be thankful statement for being on the ground. But it's also us as humans. It's like trying to keep your feet on the ground, like feel grounded. So then, like Todd said, they end the episode with them sitting around the table having this like Thanksgiving moment where they go around and each say what they're thankful for.

22:08 And George says that he's thankful for in another, in addition to other things, his liberation. So he's saying that he's free. And then they all repeat liberation around the table. So this is probably the end of a community prayer when you do it and it's like, oh, it's so tight. And it ends with the whole thing with a shot of Albert letting his bird go, which is wonderful. But my thing for this is just that the thesis works really well. They come back to it well. The symbolism is all there. And if you watch the episode and you miss all of that, I think you're still getting it.

22:43 In general, you don't have to care what terrors are the beads. But the idea is we see his entire journey to healing, even though his friend is still got a ways to go. And that's like, that was great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in fact, you've already touched on something that was going to be my last bullet point. And I think I still want to be last. So I'll. I'll come back to it later. But in some episodes, you might be lucky enough to get one big reveal. This episode has three big reveals. One big reveal is that George played the game.

23:16 Another reveal is that he would have lost had they not crashed. And as if that wasn't enough, the other reveal is that the other person who played the game, who died that that he was so upset about happened to be his brother. Krulak will slip up, just a matter of time. And how many others will die while we wait? How many other innocent pictures? I will not let him kill. I will not let him kill like he killed from truck. Damn it George, get a crack. You got to stop blaming yourself because you survived, because you got lucky.

23:44 Lucky. Rutra died. You couldn't save Rutra George. He was a guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. You're just another newcomer whose time had come. Rutra wasn't just another newcomer, he was my brother. I didn't know his family. Sorry. Well, let's go. It's not your fight. We're partners, George partners. We'll never know how much that means to me. So Rutra was his brother, and that's another great reveal. And it's like, this is just the episode that keeps on giving. So yeah, that would be my third big thing is that there are three big reveals in this.

24:24 And so this episode is just loaded with, I was about to say, good stuff. It's not exactly good. I mean, we're talking about trauma and torture. It's good in the way that it is presented, though. Yeah. Yeah. And that that when they are on the ship being held in this cage with diagonal bars, which is an interesting choice. And and this other man is like grabbing on to George and like almost nuzzling into his side. And George is saying, I'll protect you. It's enough. Like that plot by itself was enough.

25:00 And Matt is doing what we'd all do. You know, it's not your fault, man. It's not your fault, man, which isn't flippant, but it's trying to say, you know, move on, let that go. Stop trying to blame yourself. But then when George says that this guy that we've seen flashbacks of already and stuff was his brother, and we know how the Tanktonese are about their family because they're so scattered based on the the slavery process and how difficult the whole thing is. Even Matt is like, whoa. Oh, OK, that does change things.

25:32 I'm sorry, I did not. We're all kind of staggered by that. Yeah. That was an electric twist. Let me see. I mentioned in a previous episode that I don't like it when a plot is moved forward by characters not saying something aloud, like keeping things of themselves, unnecessarily elaborate misunderstandings, secrets. If Todd and I just didn't passing say a small detail or something that the whole thing would unravel. So I really like in this episode that George, he just suddenly tells Matt all about the game because it's a lead on the case and he needs Matt's help solving the case.

26:12 So we could have had a protracted thing where George is dealing with the whole thing on his own because he's traumatized by it. And he's maybe there's shame involved and stuff. No, he's like, OK, Matt. So let me tell you, there was this game, you know, we sit around, we take turns pushing the button. One of us is going to die eventually. Could have been me. And he just spells it out for him because he needs him to help him look for salt water holes burned in people. And it's clearly what's going on.

26:37 Matt doesn't necessarily agree with him, but I like that George just spelled it out and a similar thing happens later in the episode. Like I said, in Night of Screams, they have two different approaches to solving the crime. I think that's the one and they come back together. I mentioned that already, but in this one, George is going to pursue the game angle from his ship experience while Matt is pursuing the mob hit angle that yes, they're brutally murdered, but it's just a guy taking out people that owe loan sharks money or something.

27:11 And in the process he gets a picture of the human he's been tracking. Random mob enforcer loan shark guy handing money to George's friend Tom, and he has this picture clearly in an envelope. We see him back at the station almost immediately, and he's looking at George nervously, like he's got evidence that his friend is implicated. This could have been protracted. Matt could have tried to keep it from George. He literally just hands it to him. Boom. Like, thank you. Just don't keep secrets from each other.

27:45 Just tell the other person the thing and let's all move forward together. And yes, it sets up a really cool scene where George has to confront all this stuff. But I I really appreciated that they did not drag those things out longer than they need to be. People just share stuff with each other.

28:04 Yeah, in fact, secrets and involving others is is actually related to my next two bullet points. So I I kind of agree with you. And my next one is the 1st and I think only little good thing all the rest of them were kind of big. I love how Matt is not the least bit angry later when he wakes up after George has knocked him out and he has to catch up with George. When he sees what George is doing, he gets it. And he's a little bit worried that George is going to go, you know, going to go through with it.

28:36 And so he's a little bit worried at that moment. But otherwise, he understands what George has done and why he needed to do it alone. And so he's not the least but angry that that George knocked him out. And so and I like that. Matt hurried over, even though they really rushed through that, the whole thing where he goes to George's house, asks Susan a question, looks at a file and there's some kind of mention about some kind of like, shoe print in there. He's like, Oh yeah, I know where he's at.

29:04 Matt, I've been trying to call the precinct. Where's George? I don't know. He ran out of here about 20 minutes ago. Damn. Where'd he go? He wouldn't tell me he ran in here. He tore open this police file that was delivered earlier and then he left. What is it? Bio Scan report Sid ran on some evidence found on a victim's shoe. Does it tell you where he went? I think so. Why? I mean, that was really glossed over, but still, he's in a rush to go and help out his partner. And so I like how all of that played out.

29:35 Yeah. And my last two for this section, or 2 1/2 are much shorter. I like this. So the thing starts with a party and Kathy is excited about Susan's food she's made for the party because Tank Deniz eats such different things. So Kathy tells Matt, you know, Susan's made this amazing grasshopper molay. And we watched Susan enjoy eating a worm on screen. It's not wiggly, but it didn't look like a gummy either. Not sure. In the last episode, I think we discover that Buck Sean 6, the actor who plays Buck, has a gift for humor if he delivers ridiculous lines and a flat tone of voice and stares.

30:25 He did this in the last episode when the chief is going to be honored at a party and he's like, what do I do? And Buck steps up and says that he's going to wash Albert's feet, but he just like stares at him. You're going to wash his feet. And he like walks away. It's great in this one, as Matt is watching Susan enjoy eating Grasshopper Molay, Buck steps up with a tray and in this stare says therefore a worm or a tarantula meant and just like stares at him. This is also the first time I think that he says Matt's actual name.

31:06 Buck wasn't very nice to Matt in the pilot movie, so apparently they have gotten to know each other over the course of the last few episodes behind the scenes and Matt says. Thanks Buck, I'll stick to the cocktail weenies. This is my favorite thing that Buck has done, yet they still don't. The writers don't know what to do with this character because he's the wayward teen, so all we get to see of him in this episode is what George refers to later, that he really seems to be enjoying the holiday.

31:31 But he's he is cracking me up with his flat delivery of these things. And I think we've been talking about how serious the episode is. And the viewer is seeing all of this drama with people with these funny heads on because they're aliens and drinking sour milk instead of liquor. There are silly trappings. And the writers in order to write just have to ignore that, just like something involving Vulcans or by Grip Thar's Hammer and just push forward with the drama. And it works. But it's there's plenty of goofiness going on.

32:12 So I do like, I do like some of those things. What's another positive you have? All right, well, first, I have several things to respond to in that one. You probably thought that was a little one, but I actually have several responses. In fact, I was, I was typing someone out so I wouldn't forget. So first, what you say about Buck and Matt. Yeah, they, I mean, definitely does not have a connection with Buck like he does with Emily. But there is a scene coming up, and I think we have to wait a while because it might be as far off as the first TV movie.

32:47 But there is a scene that Buck and Matt have together that is really great. Just just a little bit of a dialogue where Buck says something serious and Matt kind of defends George. So I look forward to that scene whenever that's coming up. You mentioned Buck and Sean 6 is acting. When I was doing a little bit of research for for different purpose, I noticed that Sean 6 does not have a whole lot of acting credits. In fact, I think Alienation, the TV show and the five TV movies is about half of his IMDb credits.

33:21 And so I guess maybe he didn't stay in acting very long and I don't know if he got out of the entertainment industry altogether, but it's not from lack of skill or talent. He is good in the role and I know we give Buck some crap, but it's mostly because this the material he's given that kind of makes him one of the less characters. At the same time, it the acting isn't the problem, at least I don't think. And then you talked a little bit about some of the food that was served. So I know that we've seen stuff like pork and raw frog and stuff like that.

33:55 And now on top of everything else, they're serving insects, you know, worms and spiders and stuff. And I'm wondering is there any meat that they won't eat? It seems like they are not very. What's the right word? Not discriminatory, that's not the right word, but it's just they are extremely open minded about eating animals. It also makes me wonder, did they have a whole lot of animals on the ship? And if not, is that the reason they eat animals so freely? Because it's like, oh, why we, we finally have access to meat.

34:23 We were meat. We were eating slop on the, you know, like grain or something on the ship. And so we finally have access to meat. We're going to eat every meat possible. And then lastly, Kathy really downloads those worms. I could have sworn that she was a vegetarian. Maybe bugs don't count. Yeah, maybe not. Maybe it's kind of the way. Yeah, maybe it's kind of the way some vegetarians will eat things like eggs or other things that are like meat adjacent, but just not the meat itself. So anyway, so yeah, those were the little response I had of that.

35:01 And so my last bullet point for the good stuff. And you've already kind of talked about it, so I apologize if I'm repeating some things here. But it's from that final scene of the episode where they're doing that. I don't know if you want to call it ritual or or ceremony, whatever, but where they're talking about what they're beholding to, kind of the equivalent of saying what you're thankful for at Thanksgiving. And Emily says she's beholden to the earth for home, Buck for freedom, Kathy for new friends.

35:31 And of course, Matt is from Earth, so he has to say something different. And he, you know, is not super eloquent, but he he does an OK job. And he just says, welcome to Earth. You sure make things interesting. And everybody laughs at that. So that's a cool moment. And then Susan says for family and to her husband, who can now celebrate the day of descent in peace. And then George says for our new life. And he then he elaborates a little bit. You already mentioned the liberation part. And my voice almost cracked when I was talking about what Susan said.

36:01 And the weird thing is I've mentioned a few times that I peeked ahead at future episodes. And so I did that about a week or so ago. So I already watched this episode a week or two ago. I watched it yesterday to take notes, and I watched it again today to kind of flesh out the notes. And the first two times, I don't think what Susan said got to me. And today it got to me. It actually choked me up. I actually shed some tears. And when I was talking about just a second ago, I almost choked up a little bit.

36:27 And that's pretty profound because because Matt does say at some point during the episode you were keeping this secret from from Susan. Why didn't you tell her? And Georgia says, how do you discuss something like that? And so obviously it has happened off camera, but he has had the conversation with her and she has accepted it well and is glad that she's told him. You mean that he's told her? And now she understands why he's been a grouch every year around this time, and she is just thankful that he can now celebrate in peace.

36:59 I am beholden to the earth for my family and for my husband, who can now celebrate the day of descent in peace. I am beholden to earth for our new life. Long may we celebrate day of descent. Long may we celebrate day of liberation. Liberation. And I don't know why that got to me that, that third time, but it, it did. And now I'm not married and you are. So you might be able to like, tell me whether this is a good thing or not. Maybe it is stupid that George did not tell her sooner, and maybe he he should have.

37:37 But from my perspective, I'm just glad that he finally did and it's finally out there and that Susan accepted it. And I love how strong their marriage is because of that. As a critic of the show, I can say that we have plenty of evidence from previously that the newcomers seem to have a lot less hang ups than humans do about talking bluntly about things. So the fact that he would keep things back, I think is very human of him in the sense that he would judge Matt for doing things like that. It's very silly, trivial, emotional.

38:12 Come on, man, George is, he plays a lot of things kind of like a really excellent dad. So when he has these shortcomings, they're highlighted. But as a married man, I can say that society tells us to wall ourselves off from our spouse and not share details and that they won't understand or that it's US versus them. I get really sick of the US versus them TV shows because that's an ongoing theme for decades now and it's just, it's destructive. So I saw the moment you're talking about and it does mean a lot.

38:50 And I'm glad that they had some evidence for us on screen that that had happened off screen. So my other thing just about marriage is the more you can share, the better. You can't share everything and, and there's some things, I'll be honest with you, Todd and I are Star Trek fans. There are some things the women will hold up their hands and say you do not need to share that. It might not be Star Trek, some chicks love Star Trek. But just I think when I first got married, I wanted to tell her every thought in my head and I was very offended that she didn't want to hear every thought in my head.

39:23 But if something is significant, if you can bring another person in with you, it just does more for that relationship. So George knows that. And as soon as he is healed enough to even be able to talk to Susan about it, he tells Susan about it. So yeah, that was an amazing thing. I'm glad they put that in because it matters. He, she could have just been like, I don't know why you're so much better, but I'm glad. But another example of why this show might have been ahead of its time in writing and stuff because this is 89 and we had sitcom men versus women writing for another 15 years.

39:58 So that was that was great. And in fact, you talked so much about the writing, I just kind of thought of something else. You know, they could have shown the scene of him revealing it to her, but that would have made the the episode go on longer. And also it's not necessary and maybe it was even strategic that they did it this way because in a way that counts as the 4th reveal that, you know, he finally talked to her about this. And so I guess technically this episode has four big reveals. And so I, I kind of like the way it was handled.

40:32 I'm, I'm sure that if they had shown the scene, it would have been written well. But I think it's just as good just having Susan make it obvious that now it's not a secret anymore. So, and that is one of those conversations that you cannot do in a few seconds, like when he tells Matt, Matt is not his spouse. Matt's not going to heal him and they're not going to hold each other for hours and talk. So you would, if you put that in, you would not do a great job with it probably in a couple of minutes.

41:03 And it might have been better to do it this way where we have seen that they have connected and come clean and had a long discussion. And yeah, it was really good. Nice the way they did it. My next positive, I guess my last one is that it's OK Emily Francisco is played by Lauren Woodland, who is 12 years old. And in a world where child actors can be iffy, she is consistently great. You've mentioned that in past episodes. So earlier we have this party for Descent Day at the Francisco's house and she is doing interpretive dance, standing on a table doing this interpretive dance and little flowy outfit while Kathy walks around the table interpreting for everybody.

41:50 And there were alarms of warning throughout the ship, and much talk of our forced landing. A new beginning was at hand, and as the great craft descended to its place of rest, new vistas opened up. Our eyes filled with wonder, and we pledged to embrace all Earth beings as our friends forever. And then Emily says, and this is what I've learned since we were released from quarantine. I don't know. I don't know if the writers wrote that or somebody said, and look, Lauren, you're you're this newcomer kid.

42:30 You're standing on a table entertaining people in your home. And probably this little girl actress has tap and dance experience and you're like, you'd like show them this little move that you learn. It's great. So yes, I think that does it for sour milk. Yeah, same for me. So we're ready to move into salt water, which is our bad stuff. Do you want to start? Do you want to have anything? Yeah, I definitely have some stuff. I only had three things at first, but then I worked in 2 little nitpicks to to flesh things out.

43:05 So my first little nitpick, you know, we often talk about the bad police work. There's a small example of it this time. Matt and George are, you know, accidentally misdirected. They think they're doing a sting on the the game that George played. And it turns out it's a cover. It's an oil wrestling match. And but when Matt goes in, in order to get everybody's attention, he fires his gun up in the air. And I'm like, surely you were truly, you were not allowed to do that. And I mean, I don't know if this place was one level, but if there is a second level that I mean, he could be shooting up the floor and like hitting somebody up above.

43:47 I mean, just it in either way, you're doing damage and there are probably rules about actually using your weapon. He's just way too eager to fire that thing off for any reason. So because this is not the first time he's done that. I mean he does it in the very first episode and I granted there outside, but still those bullets are going to come down and I think he shot up at the ceiling in at least one other episode. He needs to stop shooting the thing. So yeah, bad police work that's continuing our occasional segment called Yikes Sykes about Sykes questionable police work.

44:20 I will piggyback off of what you're saying and just suggest that George has some pretty questionable police work in this episode. I, I think the 80s cop is completely vindicated if they catch the bad guy and no one cares how they do it and if they like put their head through a plate glass window or something, as long as they have evidence. But if they don't, we get to see Matt and George actually being in trouble and having the guy lawyer up and list all the things that they're going to sue the police station over.

44:56 That was interesting. But I I do think with George, this is hard for me to come up with negatives as well. Once you get started, it's easy to just start nitpicking stuff. So I did have some fun with that. And I hope they walk into the police station with George, Kulak and Tom, all unbuttoned shirts, George's gun drawn, the purple wet and crying, Tom catatonic. That is some questionable police work. We know that Kulak lawyers up. So I like to imagine that his lawyer just gives up because Kulak won't stop crying at this point.

45:30 And they check out the crime scene. And they're like, why is there a bullet hole in this chair? Detective Francisco, why'd you discharge your weapon? Oh, that's right. Yeah. Oh, he did that. But is it, You know, we've got evidence this time, so all will be forgiven. But yes, I was fine with it. But if you do want to talk about like questionable police work, Sykes is constantly trigger happy and this is some of the weirdest stuff George has done. Once you take a step back and look at it, what's another negative you've got?

46:00 So now moving into the the bigger stuff. And in fact, I've got 3 and one of them is just a nitpick, but all three are related to the whole Russian roulette thing. And so first, it bugs me that the game really is just an alien version of Russian roulette. And I'm not an expert on on Russian roulette. I vaguely remember as a kid, my parents telling me that somebody somewhere, I can't remember if it was somebody like like a friend of the family or, or an acquaintance, or, but somehow they knew as somebody who had actually killed themselves through Russian roulette.

46:36 And so I get the impression that you, you take a gun that has a, a, the spinning barrel, you put one bullet in, you spin it, and then you point it at yourself and pull a trigger and see if you get lucky if, if it's one of the empty chambers. And so here we get like a cylinder, almost like the the thing in a, in a gun, except it's got little things that go up and down and of course shoot salt water, which the the tanked knees are sensitive to. So there's the obvious possibility of death. I get that.

47:05 And there's the psychology going on because you do have the option of press another button where you just die instantly and basically you just tap out of the game. But otherwise that's it. It really is too similar to Russian Roulette and it kind of reminds me of a trope that isn't a lot of sci-fi fantasy. It might even be in some action or horror movies. The underground fighting ring trope, and this is kind of similar to that. But in this there's no skill, no strategy involved. It really is just random chance and maybe a little bit of willpower.

47:39 I guess I would have liked it if there were just a little bit of strategy or skill involved, just because I prefer that type of game. But in addition to that, it also makes it weird that the friend Tom Edison, that he is like the champion at the game when really all he's doing is just getting lucky over and over again. And even his luck has got around because he's not doing anything that anybody else is doing. Except, you know, maybe having the willpower to keep playing the game instead of tapping out.

48:09 But he could get shot just as just as easily. Unless, of course, Kulak is stacking the game somehow. He could be rigging it, but otherwise Tom Edison is just getting lucky. So it's all the the luck and lack of skill and strategy in the game that kind of bugs me. I wish the the game itself were different and granted, it leads to a lot of storytelling, I get that. But I just I still wish there was more to the game itself. Yeah, one of mine is kind of about that too. It isn't really a game. It's strapping 2 people down and one of them is going to die and you it gives you an opportunity to gamble on who will randomly die, but it is completely random, which is not a great thing to gamble on either.

48:58 It bothered me because the slaves are property on the ship and that seems like a really terrible game to play if they're worth anything. Like if you're going to pick a sadistic game to play, one that is just killing your, destroying your property seems like a really dumb game to play. So that was one of my negatives. And you're right. I mean, they're pretending, they're pretending that there is skill involved, like you're playing live or die hands of blackjack or something. And you really do at least make a decision about hitting or staying.

49:40 But in this, no, you're not really doing anything. You hit the button and maybe there's a psychological component, but you're hitting the button every time. Everybody's hitting the button every time. If you don't have to hit the button for you, it doesn't really change. So I don't know if any fans here have played Candyland, but Candyland does not have dice. It has a deck of cards that you shuffle and the cards, you flip them over and they have a color on them and you move to that color square. And I played this enough time.

50:09 I loved it as a kid, but as an adult it really started to bother me because I realized that once you shuffled the cards and turned them face down and decided who went first, the game was already over because the players weren't actually doing anything. They were just flipping over the cards and finding out who the cards had already decided was going to get to the end first. Based on each color turn, I started dividing the stacks into separate stacks just to provide a little bit of choice and to mix it up some.

50:36 But it's just like in this, there is no chance of a different outcome. Why is the guy a champion? Because it serves the plot and chance. That's it. My next negative is that the show needs more Kathy. There was some Kathy in it, but

50:57 I do think this episode had two scenes with everybody kind of hanging around together, and Kathy's there. And I think I might have seen this episode enough as a kid to remember a lot of the series like this, that for some reason you just have lots of quality time with the Franciscos and Kathy and like, and Matt and they're all just hanging out. I don't think that's going to be typical, but I think I latched on to it. So just pretty similar, I guess. What else do you got? OK, so still about the game.

51:28 It's not obvious how it is. George rigged the game so fast to release the salt but not into the water stream. And on top of that how did he also rig it to release the water canister last on cool lock? We don't see any of that and it makes me wonder did he do anything? What I guess there may have been like a switch or maybe like he didn't totally lock the the salt down or something. I just, I don't know what he did. And if they had made it obvious, then we wouldn't have been surprised as to what he was doing.

52:05 And so I guess it was one of those necessities that we not see how he tampered with the device so that we weren't sure exactly what he was doing. Was George really truly playing the game? And he rigged it. But how how did what did he do? How did he do it so fast? It's just, like I said, to a certain extent weird that we don't see it, but I can also understand how it's like a literary device that you can't show it or else you take away the element of surprise. But but by not doing it, it defies logic.

52:37 And I'm a logical person, so it just, I don't know that that part always bugs me a little bit, even if it should. Well, the idea they never suggested the idea that the game was rigged. And if the game was rigged, just like I was trying to make it less raw chance with Candy Land, that might help the story some. There are roulette holes where they we've seen in movies. Casablanca is a great example where they have some way of rigging the game to help someone win if they want or to keep them from winning if they don't want.

53:11 So likewise, it makes a lot more sense if the people, the people running the game on the ship and now on Earth, can secretly choose a winner. It might screw up the gambling, but I don't know why. But yeah, that would make sense. But based on what we see, it is presented to me that George didn't rig it at all. And it really is just luck that it got down to Kulak for the last shot and he was definitely going to get killed. And As for the salt thing, they show us, George, lock the water into place and lock the salt into place.

53:49 So the idea that while he's moving around the table, he does some sleight of hand and unlocks the salt, just, yeah, like you said, it, it serves the plot. That part didn't bother me, but I don't think he did anything to make it work out perfectly. I think he could have blasted the guy with water on his first turn or something. I don't know, and hope that that would still have an emotional impact. But yeah. Yeah, right. My other short 1 is just that this episode has 2 seconds of Jill. Jill is Emily's little friend and I find it shameful.

54:24 I mean, I'm glad they paid this actress to come in and help us with our world building. They've done this to Dobbs a couple of times. They've done it to Burns, the skeezy reporter, a couple of times where he's just around for no reason but to make the world feel real. Usually, if they pay Grazer to be in the episode, they pay Grazer to talk. But Jill, we haven't seen her forever and here she is. She walks down the stairs with Emily. She's there in the house, and they don't give that little girl a single line.

54:53 I honestly, the way she came down the stairs and they start to speak about having one honored person they pick every year. I thought it was going to be Jill. I genuinely, I was like, well, she's right there. She's a good friend of Emily's. You know, maybe it should have been. But yes, shameful. 2 seconds of Jill. Yeah. And she is on the sofa when Emily is doing the interpretive dance. But yeah, you're right. No lines at all. And it's kind of weird when she does come down the stairs because because when she does come down the stairs with Emily, the family is like blocking her path shows.

55:29 So she's standing there as if she's part of the family, which looks kind of weird. And you can and you can tell the young actress is trying to be part of the scene because she's kind of like looking up at George as he's talking and she's looking around and she's it's like she's moving ahead because in such a way she's like, OK, I don't have any lines, but somebody noticed me. So, yeah, it, it sucks that she's not in it more. And, you know, you mentioned that maybe she could have been the, the dork, which is a weird name for the, the, I don't know what you call it, but the special person.

56:04 And it makes me wonder, what did they do the previous four years Did was there anybody else that George worked with that could have been OK? Or why not Susan? Is there anybody that she's worked with or known or anybody from a neighborhood or something that that could have been their their, their dork in the past? How is it that that all of a sudden Matt is better than all of their previous choices?

56:30 Well, we do find out that it could be a random critter because they like all Earth's creatures. So yeah, they might have had one of Mudri's goats the past year, but but then there again, they sure do gnaw down on some meat. So it's like, yeah, they they take care of their creatures. But if that pigeon comes around and they're hungry enough, they'll probably eat that pigeon. So. Oh, I forgot you brought up meat. And we started postulating on what their relationship with animals are. So if if they are all raw meat eaters and you have levels of newcomer on board the ship in the power structure, then the higher quality food would go to the overseers and to the overseer work crew like Kulak.

57:19 And the idea is that then in my mind the people like George and Susan would get the worst leftovers from animal parts. So that might facilitate them having in a special affinity for more fresh raw meat, more nice cuts of meat, different parts of animals instead of just the feet every single time. Something. I don't know, you made me think of that. It just makes me wonder, did they actually have like a farm on the ship or or did they pick up animals at different planets along the way? I feel like if a writer gets a chance, the writers care about ideas like that.

57:59 If it ever serves a plot, they will go into it. I think the version of the ship that we're presented with, maybe like Star Trek, all of the products before the replicator are just, you imagine like some version of rations. So everything is in ammo boxes, like everything is sealed. They're like little packs of something processed. But that's just the way that the ship I think has been presented to us so far. I'd love it if it was like a rendezvous with Rama kind of big world traveling ship with all of this life in sections of it, but it was much more bleak than that with what we've seen so far.

58:35 My last negative. I've only noticed this because we dissect episodes. We mentioned previously that there's this scene where George tells Matt that Rutra was his brother and Matt is shocked and Matt offers George milk. George throws it, which is just shocking. George, have a slug of milk.

58:56 Thank. You essentially, George is going to go off after this guy and he's really upset. And Matt is saying, hey, man, we're partners. We're partners. And George is saying that means a lot to me. And then George punches him out and leaves, which we found out before. I think there was a newcomer in a previous episode who hit a guy so hard in the face, his face exploded. And that was just like a hit man who's going around punching people's heads off off screen, off screen 80s, but just a blood splatter.

59:25 And it's like, oh, he just hit somebody really hard. So George hitting Matt unconscious is like, oh, gosh, I can't believe the headache he'd have. But Matt wakes up, it's dark. It's like hours later. And he runs over to George's place and sees Susan. And Susan tells him that like, I guess evidence came and then George took off. It doesn't make sense that George punches Matt out before he knows where to go. So he literally, in the story, punches Matt out and then goes home and then yeah, yeah. And then gets evidence and takes off.

1:00:03 The only it should have evidence should have come to Matt's apartment and then George punches him out and goes. But when you do it this way, it doesn't really make any sense except. To give us the viewer, maybe another moment for Matt to talk to Susan, which is always great, but to for him for her to tell him that he is exactly 20 minutes behind George. Whereas if he was unconscious and waking up, we don't know how many hours he's behind George. But other than that, this doesn't. If you are tearing this episode apart piece by piece, you might discover this.

1:00:39 It doesn't really matter in the context. I wouldn't have noticed it until I thought about it. But now I'm like, wait, why did you put somebody out and run off on your partner before you know where you're going? Doesn't work. So but but see that one piece of evidence couldn't have come sooner or they already would have known the right location. So it had to come last. But they were kicked off the case so they couldn't have it when they went to to Matt's apartment. So it's something that George had to get later, which means George probably went to the station, maybe stole the evidence, then went home, probably just to tell Susan that he was going to be out later to make up some excuse.

1:01:18 And then for some weird reason, I guess, left the evidence at home and then went. And so, yeah, there's all kinds of things in the timing that, yeah, don't make sense. And like you said it, they got to do something to serve the plot and they got to have some way for Matt to catch up. And at that point, the details don't matter. So you just get people where they need to be when they need to be there. So the detail oriented part of me yet is bugged by certain things like that. And Speaking of being bugged by minor things, my last two things are super nitpicks.

1:01:52 In fact, I'll skip over to my last one since I relate to what you're talking about. In the scene where George Matt's knocks Matt out, the sound effect is not well synced to the motion. Oh, and I didn't even notice it the first two times, but I noticed it the the third time. You kind of hear the sound effect before he would have made contact. So that's a really super minor nitpick. But then here's my other nitpick, which goes back to the Russian roulette machine. It has both a wobble and a shimmy to it.

1:02:24 And I'm like, Oh my goodness, this is like the central prop of the episode prop department. Make sure that thing is centered and make sure the table isn't going to be removed.

1:02:38 And I'm not sure it's in every scene, but part of the reason I was distracted when you asked me a question a minute ago is because I was actually watching one of the scenes that had the machine running. And maybe that was shot early in the episode or early in the the production cycle when. Maybe it was fine and then maybe somebody bumped the table or something during shooting and maybe that messes up or something. But The thing is not quite centered on the table. So as it spins, it kind of has a shimmy to it and then the table isn't quite stable and so it has a little bit of a wall is every time that thing spins, it's like just going.

1:03:12 Blue. So yeah, I, I wish that the prop department had tightened that thing up and made sure that it was totally centered and the table wasn't shaking. And so that little bit of wobble, yeah, just, I don't know, just one of those little nitpicky things that bugs me, like the makeup not always being right. I'm really happy that I haven't noticed this one. Yeah. So yes, you could have that, because I've noticed that before too in previous viewings. I'm like, why is the thing bobbly? Why is it not centered?

1:03:43 So yeah, I've noticed it before and was looking for it this time already. So yeah, once you're watching for it. Yeah, Yep, Yep. So we'll move on to connecting the spots, which is our section for drawing connections between this episode and other episodes or maybe even other series. I'll do Dobbswatch and you will probably have a Star Trek count, and I actually have a Babylon 5 count this time. So do you want to start or do you want me to go? Yeah, let me start because I have a a other show connection and I don't always get to do those.

1:04:18 Sometimes I'll see some parallels and I'll be like, this is like what happened another one. So this is a generational thing. I think Todd and I might be a little young for this demographic. That sentence isn't going to happen as often as it should anymore. But if you were born before a certain point, this episode I think would have really triggered a memory for you because of a very well known movie called The Deer Hunter which came out in 1978 about Vietnam and PTSD starring De Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep and many others.

1:04:52 The Christopher Walken's character is a victim of forced POW Russian Roulette and he ends up losing himself to the game years after he's freed as his friend, played by De Niro, tries to help him break free of it. I do not recommend the movie unless you are a fan of gritty war trauma pictures. If you are, If you love the human drama, I mean. Well, to be fair about anything with Meryl Streep, you're going to be pleased that you saw it. But this episode has a better message in my opinion, about justice and survival.

1:05:28 Nick likes escapism and happy endings, while The Deer Hunter, like Lord of the Rings, shows that some veterans have an impossible struggle ahead of them when they try and return to civilian life after PTSD. Christopher Walken is the guy who is one of the friends and he is in the Vietnam War with De Niro. And you, you find him just like Tom in this episode back in the game. He's free. He doesn't have to do it anymore. You don't have to do that anymore. Man. That was something bad that happened to us.

1:05:56 But. He. He's like addicted to it now. So it's not even about the money or the gambling. It's like he's he's stuck in the trauma of it. And there's a chance that this episode was just written by somebody like me who was forced to watch The Deer Hunter at a formative age and said I would like to do that with a slightly happier ending. I'd like someone to have closure instead of just being bummed out. What's 1 of the I think you should jump into your big movie show connection, man. If you wanted to say more about our main guest star or if we're just going to talk about several people.

1:06:33 Yeah. Well, first by The Deer Hunter, I'm not an expert on that movie. And so I'm not sure exactly what happens in it. As you just explain, it does have something to do with with trauma for veterans and stuff like that. So you might be able to correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. But like something like 2025 years ago, I worked on a like ultra low budget short film. It was we were just doing it for for fun and experience because somebody went to high school with his original career choice was to try to produce movies here locally in North Carolina.

1:07:10 And he was trying to, you know, get some people he knew involved in it. And there was an actor in that, that if I remember correctly, somebody said that he was either like the inspiration for Deer Hunter or maybe just one of many inspirations. Like, I don't know if he was just the one guy or if he was one of many, many who went through the same thing. But in some way, shape or form, I think that one guy was somehow related to the concept in Deer Hunter. And so I don't know if he was, like I said, the guy or just one of many.

1:07:46 But but yeah, a long time ago, I happened to, you know, just briefly be associated with somebody who may have had a connection to that movie. OK wow, that was vague and barely relevant. I am your father's brothers, nephews, cousins, former roommate. What's that make us? Absolutely nothing. Yeah, and this is when Todd and I talk about Russian roulette. I think the reason Americans know about Russian roulette may be 90% The Deer Hunter, but it's one of those public consciousness things that no one relates that.

1:08:18 Like they don't tell you the history of a movie they saw in the 70s. But Deer Hunter won like multiple Academy Awards, including best pictures. So a bunch of Americans saw a big thing to do with Russian roulette in 1978 and that informed them for the future. So yeah, moving on to what you were talking about, South, I have a Babylon 5 count now. It's not that high, it's only 5. And at first I thought it was 6, but then I realized I was off by 1. So you usually do a base count for Star Trek? My base count is 2.

1:08:53 Gary Graham, who of course is Matt, played brooder A Cycor official in a flashback memory. First officer John Matheson in one episode of Crusade. If that's not Babylon 5 itself but it is the short lived Babylon 5 spin off. And that crusade episode was called the Path of Sorrows. So Gary Graham is in that briefly and I had to re watch it either today or yesterday in order to to know what part he played Eric Pierrepoint who plays George. He also played a guy named Daniel and I don't even know if his name is said on screen but he is in one episode of Babylon 5.

1:09:34 It's the season 4 finale called The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, and I don't know if I can make a Long story short. Nope. But originally the show was supposed to run five seasons. Then they were in danger of not getting the fifth season. So JMS shot the series finale as the last episode of season 4. Then TNT said, hey, we'll sweep in and we'll give you a fifth season. And so then he saved the series finale. And so they had to reshoot a new season finale for season 4 since the series finale would be pushed to a season later.

1:10:11 And that is that episode. And what he did was he did a a, a vignette of scenes that I think were like 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years and a million years in the future. And Daniel was the name of a bad guy scientist from I think 500 years in the future. So Eric Pierrepoint, wasn't that one episode Battle on five. Jeff Doucet, who plays Burns occasionally in Alien Nation. He played second man in the TV movie Babylon 5, River of Souls, so just barely. But Burns was not in this episode, so he's the one that does not count.

1:10:50 So that's my base count of two, but there are three others. Joel Swetow or Sweetow or Sweetow or Swetow. I don't know how to pronounce that last name. He played Joe Comet in this episode, and he also played an annoying Lorkhan named Ris in one episode of Crusade, and that episode was the Rules of the Game. This role that he had in Alien Nation I think is only his third credit on IMDb, so this was pretty early in his career. But he's also one of those people who's been in one of almost anything, including Deep Space 9, Star Trek The Next Generation, Stargate SG-1, Star Trek Enterprise, and The Orville.

1:11:33 And he also did voices in several Star Trek video games. 4th is Maggie Egan. She plays Alva Edison in this episode of Alienation. She actually plays the wife of Joe Cometh, not the wife of Thomas Edison. Joe's a good man, but he gambles. He's lost on rent money more than once. I'm not supposed to know, but you hear things from the other wives anyway. When he loses, he borrows money from the local money broker. He's been coming around looking for him. And she also played ISN reporter Jane in 10 episodes of Babylon Five and three of Crusade.

1:12:14 And 1st, I'll say I'm really impressed with her ability to act sad or to cry that was called for in this episode. And she also did excellent in Babylon 5 and in Crusade. Even though she's not in it that often. She's in it spread out through enough episodes and in enough key scenes, including one where she has to kind of be, you know, move to tears. Even though she's a professional ISM reporter. There's actually a scenario one episode that is actually moving enough to where even though she's on air and reporting the news it, she is moved by it.

1:12:49 I want to welcome back our viewers. We've been gone a long time. Over a year since ISN was captured by elite forces, Over a year since martial law was declared. Many of us and our associates at other networks were imprisoned, interrogated, even killed. And so she did great in all the scenes. And oddly enough, she and I are actually friends on Facebook. And I admit, we don't really interact much. But, you know, I noticed that there are some people that I've met at conventions who apparently, somewhere along the way, have actually friended a few people involved in Babylon 5.

1:13:28 Like, I know a few people have actually friended a Peter Jarrett jurisic who plays Lando on Babylon 5 and and I've never really had the nerve to send a friend request to an actor just because I like him in the show. But somewhere along the way, years ago, I think this was like something like 15 or 20 years ago, I said something about Babylon 5. And somehow Maggie Egan saw it and she actually sent me a friend request. And then I actually did meet her and chatted with her very briefly way back in 2014, I think it was January 2014 at a convention in Texas.

1:14:05 But one of the cool things that happened because of she and I being Facebook friends is there was one time where I can't remember if she mentioned it or I mentioned it, but somehow the topic of alienation came up and she mentioned that she was in an episode of Alienation, which led me to say, hey, that's one of my favorite shows. And George Francis Cisco is one of my favorite characters. And therefore Eric Pierpoint is one of my favorite sci-fi actors or something. And apparently she is friends on Facebook with Eric Pierpoint.

1:14:34 And he saw the comment and responded to me. And so if I said what I think I said in that comment chain, then Eric Pierpoint knows that he is one of my that his character is one of my favorite characters, and he's one of my favorite sci-fi actors because of that character. That's awesome. So sorry for that overly long explanation. But then last, you mean there's more to this? Stop. Stop talking to me, loser. This is taking too long. I need chocolate. And this goes on and on and back and forth. You know, this really could have been covered in an e-mail is Andreas Kasulis, who plays Kulak.

1:15:12 You mean kulak? And according to IMDb he has the last name Scar Hand. And of course, he played Jakar for all five seasons of Babylon 5, plus the TV movies The Gathering which is their pilot, and Legend of the Rangers, which was meant to be like the pilot episode for a new spinoff. If that spin off had gotten picked up, Legend, Legend of the Rangers would have been the name of the whole show, and the name of that particular episode would have been to Live and Die in Starlight. And Andreas Katsulas is of course also known for playing the Romulan Tamaloc in 4 episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation.

1:15:51 Those 4 episodes are The Enemy and The Defector both from season 3, Future Imperfect from season 4, and All Good Things which is the series the overall series finale at the end of season 7. He's also famous for playing the one armed man in the movie The Fugitive, and I didn't realize this until I looked at IMDb today, but his name in that movie is Frederick Sykes. Sykes. Yeah. So he had the last name Sykes there, and it was spelled with AY. So I think that matches the spelling from the Alien Nation theatrical movie.

1:16:26 This. Is taking too. Long He also played Mr. Bartlett in three episodes of Max Hedrum and only had vague memories of watching Max Hedrum, and he also played Vissian Captain Drenik in one episode of Star Trek Enterprise. OK, stop talking. But my favorite role is Jakar, as far as I'm concerned. Jakar, Ambassador Jakar from is the best fictional character in the history of fictional characters.

1:16:55 Well, let me start by restating some of the things you've already said. If any of you haven't watched Babylon 5 yet, Todd isn't entirely making it up. It really is pretty great, especially Jakar. I think if you have, if you do watch a little bit of Babylon 5, it's kind of hard to recognize Andreas Kassilis at first because he has more makeup than possibly anybody. He has got an elaborate head on, an elaborate face, a lot of paint and contact lenses. I think this guy is like a Shakespearean actor.

1:17:33 Well, Todd mentioned previously the ability to act while you're big and melodramatic, but also to whisper. So I've only seen, I'm an amateur, I think I've only seen like three seasons of Babylon 5, barely scratching the surface. But Jakar's jumps out at you. Just a couple of his little things that he's done. They stick with you. He's definitely, you're going to like him. And I do want to mention you already brought up his roles, Andreas Koslis's appearances in Star Trek franchise editions. But Star Trek doesn't usually have a lot of repeat bad guys, maybe 2 appearances of hairy mud or a particular for Rengi or something.

1:18:19 The exception to that would be Deep Space 9 who has like 3 big mustache twirlers appear throughout. But you know, Cesca in Voyager shows up a few times and she's not that great. But Next Generation Tomaloch Andres Kasilas Romulan commander, is a pretty great repeat bad guy. So, Captain. How long shall we stare at each other across the neutral zone? He's such a good bad guy that you think that he's around a lot more than he is. He has four episodes, which is a ton for someone showing backup on Star Trek.

1:18:57 That just doesn't happen except for people who are there every week. Or queue everybody else maybe twice if you're lucky. But Tomaloch shows up enough that if they are in a hologram or something that's not real and there's a fake bad guy, it's it's Tom a lot. So he again in thick makeup. The Romulans the next generation for some reason have like these big eyebrow muscles or something. But he does really good acting through makeup. He's a very cool bad guy to watch. He seems like menacing. I think they use that when they cast him in the fugitive as well.

1:19:31 So I definitely want to mention that I was a fraction as excited as Todd was when I found out he was in this episode. That some fun to look forward to. Yeah. And not only does he have a ton of makeup to act through as Jakar, he does a great job doing it Because, you know, I've always heard that when you have that much makeup on, you have to express yourself twice as much as you normally would to kind of get those expressions past the makeup. And he does it. But then he also knows when to be subtle to.

1:19:59 Like I said, some of his best scenes in Babylon Five are when he's whispering instead of yelling or even talking. Normal. And not only that, but the makeup actually made him feel better, like he actually preferred it. He he said it it, the makeup and the costume made him feel sexy. And I hope, and I'm not going to get this quote completely right, I'm going to censor it a little bit and hopefully I'm not misrepresenting or miss misremembering or misrepresenting something he said. But I could have sworn that somewhere in the behind the scenes writing of J Michael Straczynski, he said that Andreas Kasulas one time said that in any other role, I'm a GD Greek.

1:20:38 But when I'm in the Jakar makeup and costume, I feel like a Greek God.

1:20:45 Yeah, Yeah. I think sometimes you can't tell how awesome an actor is just based on the characters they play. But he has to be a really fun guy to know. So. Yeah, Another one. There's this character actor named Sam Anderson who plays the side guy you've seen in a million parts. He usually looks a little uncomfortable, maybe a little uptight in this. He's Thomas Edison underneath his makeup. He's George's friend, Tom and Sam Anderson. You might know him from Forrest Gump. He's the principal. Is there a Mr. Gump?

1:21:26 Miss Gump? He's let me see. He's a significant character in the new Kathy Bates Matlock that I haven't seen yet. He's been in Boston Legal, Ally Mcbeal, Boston Common, a lot of David E Kelly stuff, Briscoe County Junior X-Files Airplane 2. He's, which is one of my favorites, Critters 2. If you all don't know, listeners, if you're going to watch a Critters movie, Critters 2 is the best. You heard it here 1st. And he is in the Star Trek The Next Generation episode, The Royale, which is one of the ones from early in the series that Nick defends as the uptight assistant manager of the hotel and space.

1:22:09 That is even better than it sounds. But yeah, I'm glad that Sam Anderson got a chance to do a very heavy roll with this, and I like him and Eric Pierpoint standing in a darkened kitchen sipping sour milk like 2 traumatized men trying to just support each other in a difficult time. But that was a cool part for him. Billy Ray Sharkey is the loan shark dude. Dion Flack. We don't really even need to talk about him. I would skip him over He's in War Games and Dukes of Hazzard. Except I had to bring him up because he is in both Ottoman and Manimal and I just don't know anyone else who managed to be in both Ottoman and Manimal.

1:22:56 2 shocking high concept cool shows that were immediately cancelled in the 80s. And if Joe Crow ever hears this episode, he's a ridiculous Animal fan. Joe Crow is the director of the American Sci-fi Classics track at Dragon Con. Billy Ray Sharkey is not a major character, he just does a bit. Into it. I did want to note with Molly Egan, as you mentioned her, that she's in Allie Mcbeal as a random person on a jury and she is in Quantum Leap and I tried to look up where but it didn't. I didn't remember that episode at all.

1:23:30 And Moonlighting and Sliders as well. So yeah, she sounds like a really interesting person. Craig Richard Nelson is the attorney who shows up at the station with Kulak to tell the police everything they've done wrong and that he's suing the force. And he is in Voyager. As Todd mentioned, he's also in Next Generation. There's an episode a lot of people think that Kirk was an insane womanizer. And I maintain this is all a public madness misunderstanding, but Riker and the Next Generation really is a bit of a womanizer.

1:24:01 He he has that aspect of our imagined Kirk about him. So he's he's playing the field man. He hooks up with a lot of ladies and in one episode is entirely about this point of view. He said, she said, who's telling the truth? Murder investigation where it sounds like Riker has hooked up with this scientist girlfriend and then didn't wife and didn't like the guy hassling him and blew up the guy and he's on trial for blowing up the scientist who really is dead. And we have to exonerate Riker by the end.

1:24:34 Well, the inspector who is a tall, brooding, serious man, but you can't tell how furrowed his brow is because he has a fake alien brow stuck on front of his brow. Inspector Craig, I believe that's the same attorney, that's Craig, Richard Nelson. So he's just a tall, imposing, serious looking guy who got to be in this episode. I'm not going to tell you everything somebody does in Star Trek unless I think it's a standout thing. And that stood out to me. Unfortunately, Alva Edison, Isabelle Wolfe, I don't think that she did anything that really jumped out at me.

1:25:08 A lot of these characters, I'm not listening, listening because they didn't do things in the sci-fi fantasy escapist genre. She was on an episode of TJ Hooker with Bill Shatner, but I'm just not going to count that. I'm sorry, Isabel. If you try and look her up, her name is spelled a couple of different ways. It might take you a minute. Oh, and actually I'm glad you said Alva Edison because in my notes I actually had that as who Maggie Egan was playing. So if I said that earlier, I messed up. Yeah.

1:25:33 She's actually playing Joe Comet's wife. And I don't know if she had a first name. Just Misses Comet. Yeah, she's. Yeah, it says Misses Comet. Yeah. So I might have messed up earlier. Nah, they'll figure it out. And finally, Martin Volinsky, he's listed as, like, cop, I think in the credits, but I think I know who he was because there's one cop who gets to say something when they bust the. What did you call it? It's like a mud wrestling thing. Y'all heard it year first. Yeah, oil wrestling. Maybe it's sweeps week, but that really did happen on screen.

1:26:07 The cop busts in and like, asks Psych Sykes what's going on or something like that. He gets this one line. I think Martin is one of the soldiers in the background of the dystopian future we see in the pilot episode for Star Trek The Next Generation. And Martin is also interesting because he's yet another stuntman. I think there are a lot of side actors and characters in Enemy in Alien Nation that are stuntmen, stunt people, and they will throw them in a costume and give them a line or two or just have them in the background.

1:26:40 Martin is a precision driver. That's some of his best stunt work. He's just stuntman and some things, but he is a precision driver in Mission Impossible 2 and 3, two Transformers movies and Girl Bust Busters from 2016, which Nick likes more than some people do. But I thought that was really interesting. So he has some some unique credits. Martin Volinsky as cop with one line and that does it for my connecting the spots. OK, so the only thing I have left is Dobbs watch. And yes, Dobbs is in this episode and he excuse me, he even has a few small lines spread throughout at least three scenes.

1:27:19 I counted 3 and then I kind of lost count. So there might have been a fourth or fifth. But yeah, he is given a little bit to do not much. Most of it is interaction with Albert, regarding Albert having the the pigeon as his as his dork. And then I did also have Jill lumped in with DOB's watch. But you already talked about that, about how, yeah, this is one of those few times that she's in episode, but she has no lots. Well, we are ready for the Albert Einstein Award. And I think I know which way this is going to go.

1:27:50 Listeners, I tried really hard to find some significance to the name Joe Comet. And I think the immigration people were just lazy and gave him the last name Comet because he's an alien. There is a magician, comedian with that name currently who's going to screw up your Internet search if you're trying to find a Joe Comet famous person or a Joseph Comet. I try to dig deep on this. There is a cognac named Comte Joseph, COMTE Joseph. I look for Joseph Comet possibilities. But I believe we only have really in this episode, the option.

1:28:29 I think our winner is probably going to be the combo of Thomas and Alva Edison. Now, I don't know if you caught the significance of did you catch the significance of her name, Todd? I didn't at first. I did have to look that up. And I know I've said before that I don't usually look things up. I want it to be obvious in order to to know whether it counts or not. And that's why I did not look up Joe comment. But since, like you said, they come as a pair, I did look it up. So yeah, I do know, and it's not what I expected.

1:29:01 Well, it didn't. All Matt knew was that he was introduced to George's friend Tom, and he says, let me guess, Edison. And it really doesn't make sense in the context except that George introduces his friends Thomas and Alva and the people who D properly know their history would know Thomas, Alva, Edison as his whole name. So I think we are going to probably give the award to the two of them is our first ever couple theme. Yeah. Because I was thinking Alva may have been the name of Edison's real life wife.

1:29:38 But I think I think his wife's name is Mary or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I Yeah, like he said is his middle name. Yeah. Which is just that's creative. They were married when they got off the ship. So I think we are ready to move on to. I have to talk about this. Yeah, I don't have much. Sometimes I cover the Tinktonese facts and you might be able to elaborate on some of these. I just have brief stuff. So obviously this is all about the Day of Descent holiday and it's meant to celebrate the crashing of their ship and the liberation from their overseers.

1:30:09 We've mentioned a few times the dork and there's actually a click pronounced beforehand and it's actually it actually translates to Revered 1 and somebody who has chosen to receive favors for a few days as thanks for for basically hosting the aliens after their crash. They also have something that is, let me say that the dork, I love that, and I wasn't sure where I could put that in, but I think we could have a segment in the show for the biggest dork of an episode. You're podcasting with him. Oh yeah, yeah, who is the MVP of an episode like Albert in the takeover episode?

1:30:47 Oh, if that's what you mean, never mind. But yes, loved the whole dork thing. Sykes is a dork. He's not sure about that. In the 1980s, listeners, if you're too young to remember, dork literally meant it was a little bit more negative. It wasn't just like Dopey. It had more of a connotation like Schlong. So yeah, he's like when Sykes is like, I'm your dork. It was it was different in 1989. What's your next thing? So similar to rosary beads, they have something called Terra's, which really do just like look like a series of beads.

1:31:24 And Terra's is kind of like the scientific or Terra not plural is the like scientific name, I guess, for the Earth. And he said that one of them represents air, 1 represents water, and there are several for the land. And so I wish that they had dug a little deeper. I wanted to know, OK, if there are several for the land, is each one for like a different continent, a different country, a different city or a different aspect of the land? Like maybe 1 is for stone, one is for like a plant life or something, you know, how how are there multiple for the land?

1:31:57 So I wish we'd gotten a little bit more about that. And then lastly, there is the game itself. And something that is interesting but also frustrating is the fact that I don't think they gave a name for the game. It's just of the game. Yeah, that's true. So I have, I think, just things that happen in the episode that I really wanted us to at least acknowledge. We meet Joe Comet as a gambling addict playing dice in the streets. And when I say dice, I mean alien dice or future dice because they're primary colored cubes.

1:32:31 But he's completely unaffiliated with the game on the ship that we find out Tom and George are familiar with, at least as far as we know. I was wondering if it's possible that Kulak was using a loan sharking business to identify newcomers with a tendency to gamble, which would kind of pay off because he liked having contestants with a weird gambling attitude. Susan refers to their son Buck, and she's saying George, you're always so grumpy at this time of year. Emily's happy. I'm happy, she says she calls.

1:33:04 Even Buck the alien without a cause is happy. Yeah. So the the Francisco's are catching up on culture. If they've watched James Dean movies, we never get to see George's Tri deck VCR, three tapes at once. That is madness. So I can only imagine. And what would be the point of that? They get a gift from the Edison's that looks complicated, like a musical instrument. They don't say what it is. They just say that it's expensive. So I'm kind of curious what that was. But it's got, it's got all these little tubes and pipes on it.

1:33:38 So I assume it's a instrument, but it could just as easily be a little candle holder or something. I don't know. Thomas Edison, when George says, you know that it's expensive, he says money must be business must be going well. And Thomas Edison rubs his fingers together next to his right ear, like his forefingers, and says, you know, I've just been lucky lately, which I don't think as a human gesture. I think it's they to me. They were implying that was a Tank Deniz gesture for luck or something because it was kind of weird, but I thought it was for money.

1:34:15 Yeah, it might be. Yeah. It just, I don't know. It was weird to me. So I'm not sure when Matt guesses Tom's last name as well. I already talked about, but Tom thinks it's because Matt has heard that he has a store that sells lighting and lighting fixtures, so he doesn't know he's named after Thomas Edison, the famous guy, or the irony that he himself owns a store that sells lighting fixtures. He's like, oh, you must know my last name because I own a lighting store and you've heard of it. There are Mylar balloons at the party and some of the Mylar balloons have black with Tanktonese writing on them, but some of them have the color and pattern of a newcomer head like Peach skin tone with spots which is both cool and insane.

1:35:06 They use them. Oh my gosh, man, that is worth a rewatch because I don't know how hard it is to make Mylar balloons with whatever you want on them, but that is an excellent prop just to I don't know that the idea that newcomers would have their their head tone on balloons. It kind of makes sense for someone making an alienation party in a human, but newcomers doing it is like crazy. Matt likes to call the police Captain Brian, and I think that this is because we established early in the series that Brian Grazer is younger than Sykes and was promoted over him when Sykes could have been promoted to captain.

1:35:48 But they cast a guy they like, went out of their way to cast a guy who's not only younger looking than Gary Graham, but is like a foot shorter than him. So he just seems like kind of a kid around him. So there's a scene where George and Matt come into the station and Matt says hi Brian and walks by him and the captain has this weird look on his face like he was going to say something to him. And I thought he was just annoyed that Matt keeps calling him Brian for whatever reason. I rewound and I had to watch this scene again.

1:36:21 Sykes gooses Captain Grazer as he walks by. Yeah, that's why Grazer has this look on his face because Sykes is like, goosed him. Hey, Brian. And he's like, so yeah, I missed that the first time. That is a crazy detail they put in. Was that a thing in the 80s and 90s? Because I don't know if people do that now.

1:36:49 I was 12. So no, not that I know of. I would not know. Maybe it's like wet willies or something. You know, it's like how men tease each other in a professional environment. Really depends on the area. And some things that are cool and one police station are not cool in another. But there is a scene, a moment where Captain Grazer is talking about Descent day, but he calls it decent day. And Matt corrects him and says it's descent day. And George looks over at him like, proudly, like, oh, it's so nice you corrected him.

1:37:29 You care. Although Matt kind of makes a dumb face back. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I care. Whatever. We see the game played and the reveal that it's Thomas Edison playing. We don't know that George's friend has been pulled back into the life until this scene where somebody beats somebody else who dies brutally and and then Kulak comes up and puts his hand on a guy's shoulder and says good job and take Deniz or something. And we don't know who it is because we're not seeing their face. And then the camera turns around and shows us that it's Tom, George's friend.

1:38:02 Oh, no. Except if you're paying attention In the episode, we find out that Tom's Tank Deniz name is Vono, and we don't see subtitles for what Kulak says to the winner that we haven't seen yet. But he puts his hand on his shoulder and says something that ends with Vono, which you assume is like, good job, Vono. So if you're paying attention, like, Oh my gosh, that's Tom before the camera even turns around. That's not a nitpick so much as I think clever writing. I think it was cool that they did it that way.

1:38:34 You feel for a second like you speak the language. Brian Grazer mentions the NAL, the Newcomer Advocacy League breathing down his neck. I don't think we've heard that group named before complaining about people dying and newcomers dying and the police not doing enough. And we'll see if that comes up again. And I my last one I wanted to mention is that Duloc isn't an overseer. He's just an enabled sadist who was on the ship who the overseers were letting him have a position of authority and torment people.

1:39:08 This is I think the first like overseer in training or overseer lackey that we've seen on board the ship. So maybe the riders are realizing they can't just slap a tattoo on every bad guy and that is it for me for OK. Yeah. And what you just mentioned was going to be one of my bullet points because I wasn't totally sure if he was pleased on soon or not, because they never bother showing the, the tattoos and kind of him running the game doesn't seem like a, a high enough position to, to be somebody who's in, you know, in charge of, of everybody.

1:39:44 And so I got the feeling he wasn't. But George does make one reference to the Cleezon soon at some point. And so, yeah, I, I wasn't sure if Kulak was one or like you said, just working for, for them. So I'm glad that you clarified that. But the other thing about Kulak is his name, because Kulak sounds like a Tank Deniz name. But I don't think they ever give him an earth name. Also in IMDb it does say that his last name is Scar Hand and I don't think that's ever mentioned in the episode. So I can't help but wonder is that just a like a nickname or a descriptor that they threw in the credits just to so that he would have a last name?

1:40:25 But somehow it never made it into the script. So I'm not sure what's going on with his name. Is it is it really cool like scar hand, which which would insinuate that he had the scar before they even landed? I don't. So I don't know what's going on with his name. Maybe he insisted on not getting an earth name that would kind of match with his personality. But then I'm not sure why he would get, you know, except scar hand. I don't know. So it's that's interesting about his name. And then Speaking of Tanktonese words, I apologize if we've mentioned this before.

1:41:02 We might have because it has popped up before. But there is a point where George is having the dream when he wakes up, Susan refers to him as Nemu. She's referred to him as that before, but that is not his first name. It's Tanya, which is mentioned several times by by Kulak and I am not positive, but I think he has referred to her as Nemu. So I think Neemu is just like a term of endearment. And then the last thing I'll mention is something I've already said before, which is that the whole Russian roulette game thing is an interesting twist on the secret underground fighting ring trope.

1:41:43 And I know I've said it before, but I need to re emphasize it at the end of the episode or else my not so great outro at the end will not make sense. Well there is a single moment where George says something to Kulak like he was taking advantage of the overseers doing something or he was helping the overseers do something. He says it in a way that suggested to me that Kulak wasn't himself an overseer. But it is. It's a tiny line and I what you're talking about where we have a newcomer who never takes on or uses their immigration human name, maybe some of the people in power or something.

1:42:23 But there's no, I don't know. There's it does it sounds like something he just kept. We've had another character do that. I think a couple of them where they're just going around with Tank Deniz names they're going by. So yeah, that's that is something they've chosen to do as a writing choice. But yeah. Are we ready to go to school? Yeah. Yep, I'm ready. All right, well, I will start us off. You've already mentioned the Babylon 5 count. So when I score these episodes, I usually give it two kinds of rating.

1:42:53 I give it a sort of skip or watch rating because some people are not completionists like me and they've got a lot going on and they don't want to watch every single episode. So do I need to watch this one? And clearly you need to watch this one. As Todd said, you need to watch it for the performances. I'd have the world building with the Day of Descent, more about life on the ship and Earth. I'm all about the rituals and culture, and this episode has a bunch. I like seeing a man brag about his VCR.

1:43:20 Two older friends standing in a darkened kitchen away from the party, sipping their sour milk and reflecting on past drama. I also rate it on Asta. Score on how many Star Trek alumni managed to squeeze into this. I'm not going to count the director. Oh man, I should though for a really high score. But the director did direct multiple episodes, good episodes of Next Generation and a whole Star Trek movie. But the actors sticking to my theme. My base score for this episode is 4 with Matt Sykes, George Francisco, Susan Francisco, and Captain Grazer all in this episode.

1:43:56 And they're All Star Trek alumni. But then you've got our big MVP, Andreas Katsilis in this episode, Thomas Edison, Joe Comet, the attorney I mentioned and the stuntman, precision driver cop in the strip club. That is a lot of Star Trek alumni. That is ASTA score of 9. I believe it is a record for this series so far, not even counting the director. Maybe there's a connection there. So yes, this this gets really, I said before it might not be my highest personal favorite episode, but it definitely gets the highest score I've given to 1 yet.

1:44:36 So well done the game. Yeah. OK, so looking at how long this episode is, I apologize. I think I hugged the mic two or three times. Understatement of the century. There's just a lot to say about this episode and I was kind of excited about it, so I apologize if I went on too long. Not good enough, damn it, not good enough. But because of everything that I had to say and that you had to say that that was just so great about this episode, I do give it an A, maybe not an A+ because I'm still kind of thinking that an A+ might be ahead at some point.

1:45:09 So I'm kind of reserving the A+. But this is the highest score so far. It doesn't have quite as much social commentary as the pilot or as much sci-fi content and allegorical storytelling as our previous episode 3 to Tango. Those two episodes I gave vary firm a minuses, but this wins because of the power of the performances plus a little boost from the guest casting. And you know, the performances have to be that good for that to be the determining factor because usually I don't concentrate that much on performances.

1:45:42 I don't often give something a super high score just because of the performances. But this is kind of an exception because they they really were that good. So, yeah, for those of you that don't know, Todd is very stingy with his high marks. So in order to get an A, you have to go way above and beyond. So that's that is significant. Coming up next time on alienating ourselves, Todd and I explore episode 11, Chains of Love. Oh, La La Sykes and Francisco are hot on the trail of a newcomer woman whose dates have a habit of turning up dead.

1:46:20 Meanwhile, George is struggling with paranoia that Susan could be unfaithful. If you like your romance with a hint of danger, Danger's my middle name, TuneIn. Next week, as Todd and I get to the heart of this sultry mystery and continue alienating ourselves, I continue to be Nick. I'm Todd. Thank you for joining us. We do have one listener e-mail, but because this episode is running so long, maybe we should save it for next time. But. But thank you very much to Preston for sending that in. And in case you recognize the name, yes, that's my Co host from another podcast.

1:46:57 So but an e-mail is an e-mail. But if you would like to send us an e-mail, our e-mail address is [email protected] and we will read it on the air. We made us save it for an episode that's a little shorter. 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 those three stars are lower, you will lose your next game. And if the stakes are super high, that's not our fault either.

1:47:27 As always, may all your milk be as fresh or as sour as you prefer it to be. And the next time you stumble onto a totally normal, completely overdone, super cliche underground fighting ring, just remember it could be worse. Have a great week. Good night everybody.