#015 - Alien Nation 1.10 "The Game"

0:02 Humans and aliens working together.

0:03 I really want to dig more into their culture.

0:05 It's a mirror up to humanity. Social commentary through

0:08 allegorical storytelling. Wild angry old man opinions.

0:12 Therefore, a war or a tarantula. Thanks, Bob.

0:14 I'll stick to the cocktail when you.

0:16 Say some chicks love Star Trek. Stop talking to me, loser.

0:19 You'd like show them this little move that you learn.

0:20 It has both a wobble and a shimmy to it.

0:26 This is just the episode that keeps on giving.

0:29 You mean there's more to this? The show needs more cast.

0:31 I don't know if I can make a Long story short.

0:32 Nope. If Joe Crow ever hears this

0:34 episode and he's a ridiculous Manimal fan.

0:36 Joe Crow is the director of the American Sci-fi Classics track

0:40 at Dragon Con. Manimal, it's not your fight.

0:43 Partners, Partners. May we celebrate.

0:46 Liberation. Boy Francisco is one of my all

0:49 time favorite characters. This show is going to go to

0:51 places that I really enjoy. Sour milk is a good thing to the

0:54 tank the knees soft with a subtle finish.

0:56 This, it's a packed episode. Stay tuned, listeners, We're

0:59 both fans of Star Trek watching Alien Nation and we enjoy it.

1:02 I am one of your hosts, Todd, and this is Nick.

1:04 This is the Alienating Ourselves podcast.

1:08 Greetings humans and newcomers, and welcome back to Alienating

1:10 Ourselves, the podcast where we examine sci-fi entertainment

1:14 with a focus on aliens who actually survive because they

1:18 crashed to Earth. I am one of your hosts, Todd.

1:21 I like to play games, but I'm going to skip the particular

1:24 game in tonight's episode just in case.

1:26 Battery acid looks the same as saltwater.

1:29 And joining me, as always, is a guy who may have gotten me as a

1:31 Co host because of a bad roll of the dice.

1:35 Oh no. No.

1:37 It's Nick. Nick, how's it going?

1:39 It's going good, Todd. It's great to be here tonight.

1:42 Todd and I are going to continue alienating ourselves as we

1:45 explore Season 1, Episode 10, The Game, which first aired on

1:49 Monday night, November 20th, 1989.

1:52 It's a newcomer holiday called The Day of Descent, which

1:55 celebrates the anniversary of their ship's arrival on Earth,

1:58 as Todd said, as their ship's crash, arrival on Earth, and the

2:02 Tinctonies being freed from slavery.

2:04 It's been five years, and there's much to celebrate.

2:07 But on this particular day, we find George Francisco depressed

2:11 as our detectives discover clues that a deadly kind of gab

2:14 gambling from life aboard the ship may now be happening again

2:18 on Earth. This episode was directed by

2:21 David Carson. He directed Star Trek

2:23 Generations the movie, and he also directs the alienation

2:27 episode. Gimme Gimme it's #20 coming up

2:31 in a while. And he did one of the best Next

2:34 Generation episodes, 315 Yesterday's Enterprise, the year

2:38 after he directed this. So go David Carson.

2:42 This was written by Stephen Long Mitchell and Craig W Van Sickle,

2:45 who appear to be a writing team. They've written a lot of stuff

2:48 like that trippy Wizard of Oz for the sci-fi channel called

2:52 Tin Man. And their last writing credit

2:54 appears to be some episodes of Clone Wars series.

2:57 But they wrote 5 episodes of Alien Nation including this one

3:01 and 15 with Wanda, which was not exactly our favorite.

3:06 So I'm not going to list the others right now, but we'll see

3:09 if they're maturing with experience.

3:12 What was your first reaction to this episode, Todd?

3:14 What you know is funny, This part of my notes I barely had to

3:17 change from last week because basically I just recycled notes

3:20 from one week to another and then delete stuff and kind of

3:23 start over. So last week for that episode, I

3:26 said this is one of the best episodes so far, one of the best

3:29 of the whole series, and an amazing episode of science

3:32 fiction overall. So this week, all I had to do

3:34 was just change the wording to this.

3:36 This is the best episode so far. So yeah, this is the best

3:41 episode the series so far. I'll get into explaining a

3:44 little while later. And if anybody listened to last

3:47 week's episode, you know, I, I mentioned this episode several

3:51 times last week about how I was really excited about it because

3:53 I'd already looked ahead and I knew just how strong one

3:57 performance particularly, but all the performances in general

4:00 were this week and that I was really looking forward to

4:04 talking about it. And the weird thing is, the

4:06 first time I went through my notes, I really didn't have a

4:08 whole lot of good stuff or bad stuff.

4:11 But the things I did have were like big and broad and, and

4:15 almost all related. And only after doing a second

4:19 pass a day was I able to get 5 bullet points for each.

4:23 And, you know, have a little bit of variety in there.

4:26 But yeah, this is a great episode.

4:28 So what do you think? Well, I'm mostly going to let

4:31 you speak to the acting chops because I know you're going to

4:33 talk about some of the performance.

4:34 So I'm going to ramble on about world building this episode.

4:38 It was awesome for me because the last one and this one, they

4:42 both continue to flesh out character personalities,

4:44 rituals, the weird trappings of the world they live in.

4:48 We Star Wars fans don't have much for holidays.

4:51 We've got Empire Day, which you really shouldn't celebrate, and

4:54 we've got Life Day, which is good for family time, but mostly

4:57 just yelling at each other in Shree Wook.

4:59 But we've seen newcomer funerals in this show.

5:02 We've seen newcomer Halloween. We've seen Conception Party,

5:06 which is fun, but not as fun as it sounds.

5:08 And now we've got sort of a newcomer Thanksgiving or

5:11 possibly newcomer Hanukkah. I'm not going to do an elaborate

5:15 defense of that characterization, but it might

5:17 be appropriate. It's got a wealth of rich

5:19 detail. And I love that this episode had

5:22 such wonderful acting opportunities for Eric Pierpoint

5:24 and a habitual side character actor, Sam Anderson, but that it

5:28 also had all this other stuff going on that felt really real

5:31 and thought out. So very, very much enjoyed it.

5:34 I don't think I would say it's my favorite episode because the

5:37 last one had Terry trees, like, crossing her eyes at one point

5:41 and like, biting her bottom lips.

5:43 So it's going to be hard to beat.

5:45 But it's still, as far as drama goes, deep human drama.

5:51 Ironically, Yeah, this is pretty good writing.

5:54 Yeah. And, And when you say it like

5:56 that, I think if there's a difference between favorite and

6:00 best, then I think I might favor last week's episode a little bit

6:05 more because it had really great stuff, but then it also had some

6:08 bad stuff kind of dragging it down.

6:10 This week's episode, I think, had fewer weaknesses.

6:13 And then the stuff that is good is the kind of thing that is

6:16 more objective than subjective. Like surely anybody can watch,

6:22 you know, the performances in this and say, yeah, those are

6:24 good performances. So let's go into our our sour

6:27 milk positives, the things that we liked best.

6:30 What's your first one of those, Todd?

6:33 All right, since I've already been talking about it, I guess I

6:35 might as well start with this one.

6:36 And that is there are great performances all around.

6:40 Eric pair point is the best as George Francisco.

6:44 We have Andreas could Sulis is in here and he is great as Kulak

6:49 the the bad guy and the guy that plays Joe Comet, even though

6:54 it's a smaller role, he's giving it his all as well.

6:57 And for possibly obvious reasons.

7:00 I'll have more say about Andreas Katsulas later, just in case

7:05 it's not obvious there's a Babylon 5 connection there.

7:09 Yeah. But as far as Eric Pierpoint,

7:12 I've said before that George Francisco is one of my all time

7:15 favorite characters. And to a certain extent that's

7:18 because of the premise behind him, the writing that they give

7:22 him, but also the way Eric Pierpoint brings him to life.

7:26 And while that's true in all the episodes that we've had so far,

7:30 and I know all the episodes and TV movies that we still have to

7:32 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

7:41 a little while ago of some of his key scenes.

7:43 I mean, great Granny, he's great in every scene.

7:46 But early on in the episode, there's a nightmare that he has

7:48 and the way he wakes up from that totally freaked out, that's

7:51 done very well. There's a scene where he does

7:54 someday drinking during his work shift with one of his friends

7:59 from the ship because of something that's disturbing him.

8:01 There's a moment where he's not quite as freaked out, but he is

8:04 at his desk at work and a little bit stressed out, so much so

8:07 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

8:12 go home? And so the way he's a little bit

8:14 more subtle in that scene but still disturbed under the

8:17 surface is great. There are flashbacks with a

8:21 character name Rutra that we may talk about more later, and

8:25 particularly when George finds out Rutra's fate while they're

8:30 still on the ship in the flashback.

8:31 That is done particularly well admitting to Matt that he once

8:36 played this game that we're also talking about when he played

8:39 that game on the ship and, you know, he's just so traumatized

8:43 by it. That's an awesome scene.

8:45 I. Thought he had beaten it, but

8:48 he's he's out of control. It's an obsession.

8:52 You play the game, you face death over and over again and it

8:55 you become addicted, it controls you.

8:57 You have no choice too. You played the game.

9:00 Yes, yes, I played. They made me play.

9:06 I sat powerless, and I watched the other sky.

9:09 Verbally confronting Kulak in Tinkeda Knees in Grazer's

9:13 office. That's also great.

9:15 And that's great because it's a quieter scene, It's more

9:17 subdued. And I also like it because

9:20 Andreas Kasulas, while he does great in loud scenes, I think

9:24 he's really great. He's even better in scenes where

9:27 he whispers. Those are some of his best

9:29 scenes as your car in in Babylon 5.

9:31 And so he gets a chance to be a little bit quiet in that scene

9:34 in Grazer's office when they're spouting tick to knees, back and

9:37 forth to each other. My client is an honest citizen

9:40 who simply deserves justice. ORTE on Solovka Rovat.

9:45 Stangiev what pimirevs tipsy Cooper schpank Massa.

9:48 What's Sikalisipish? What's Jeffy TV?

9:53 Swavout is just pushing buttons. George, you're stronger.

9:56 Tune them out. Captain, our intention was

9:58 right. The location was wrong.

10:00 The nightclub is a rendezvous. He busts the spectators to the

10:03 game where people are murdered for their viewing pleasure.

10:05 Captain, this is slander. He is a murderer.

10:08 That is outrageous. Francisco Desist.

10:11 Favor of Sikandrud Sangya George, I will see you dead.

10:21 As of this moment you are both off this case.

10:24 Now get him out of here Sykes. Now George fuming at Matt's

10:27 apartment and admitting that Rutra was his brother.

10:30 And even though that's a very serious scene and George is just

10:34 supermasters. Also like a funny moment that

10:36 happens in there too. Playing the game against Kulak

10:40 at the very end. I mean, that is just like over

10:44 the top great acting from both of them.

10:47 And then thank goodness, there's another quiet scene at the very

10:51 end of the episode. In fact, I'm it's getting to the

10:54 point where I think this show, one of the things this show does

10:57 best is no matter what good and bad stuff might be mixed in in

11:02 the beginning, in the middle of the episode, the way they end

11:05 episodes is just amazing. And so there's this scene at the

11:09 end where there's this kind of a ritual or ceremony at their

11:12 house, just a cozy scene with family and friends and the way

11:16 that you can tell that George is so at peace in that final scene.

11:20 So those are the 9:00 that I picked out, but I think I did

11:24 that just by skimming. So I'm pretty sure I missed a

11:26 few. But yeah, Eric Pierpoint is just

11:29 absolutely amazing in this episode.

11:31 Well, and I like that when you're listing positives, I did

11:35 sort of the same thing you did. I have two discrete, simple,

11:39 basic, cool things that happen, but my other three positives are

11:43 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,

11:50 which is very similar. So I don't like it typically in

11:54 shows when writers will add a lifelong trauma to an

11:57 established character when we've never seen evidence of it

11:59 before. An example of this might be

12:02 Marty and Back to the Future too, when he can't stand being

12:04 called a chicken. But who watched him for an

12:06 entire movie? And he's kind of the perfect

12:07 person in that. But this episode, when we find

12:11 out that George has this deep trauma that he struggles with,

12:15 it's not like that. They write it very, very well.

12:18 We find out that George only gets the Tanktonese version of a

12:21 seasonal affective disorder during the day of descent

12:24 holidays every year. So they've seen it like the

12:27 family has seen it. And Susan can reference it.

12:31 But we, there's a reason we as viewers who just joined George

12:35 in his life like a few months ago, there's a reason for us not

12:39 having seen him dealing with depression before.

12:42 It's a seasonal depression and that works really well.

12:46 He struggles with anger and we've seen that in previous

12:49 episodes and he struggles with drinking and we've seen that in

12:53 previous episodes. And I like that they didn't make

12:57 him do anything that was really that out of character for

13:00 himself until the very end when it kind of culminates.

13:03 So it's not like he descends into alcoholism, although this

13:07 is the first time that Matt seems to kind of notice that

13:09 he's drinking on duty. And he's sort of like, whoa.

13:13 But George didn't just go drink on duty to get drunk.

13:16 He, like, was seeing his friend and trying to talk about the

13:19 stuff. And they, like, each had a drink

13:21 as they're dealing with it and talking about it.

13:23 And it turned out to be very appropriate to the case.

13:26 George, what is wrong? You have something to drink.

13:30 Aren't you on duty? I'm just naked.

13:31 I always keep a little something.

13:34 Do you remember the way the bodies looked?

13:36 Why after they played, do you remember?

13:38 What are you doing this for, George?

13:40 Please get out of the past. Wasn't the hole burned all the

13:44 way through? I really have to go now, Sonya.

13:47 I can't. Wasn't the wound burned all the

13:49 way through? Yes, it was burned all the way

13:52 through. Why do we have to relive it?

13:55 Because I think I have just seen such a body.

13:57 So that meant a lot to me that it's, it seemed to be very

14:02 reasonable that he had a trauma that was just now coming up.

14:06 It was written really, really well.

14:08 When he drinks in the past, like in the episode the first cigar

14:11 with the IRS, it's also sort of like he's having, I think he

14:15 drank more in that. It's just so George isn't like

14:19 falling apart as a person. In fact, based on everything

14:22 that's happening, I think he's holding together pretty well

14:24 until the very end. He falls apart a lot more when

14:27 he's being hounded by the IRS than he does in this in Night of

14:31 the Screams. And you help me remember this

14:33 when you were just talking. There's a similar thing where

14:36 you have two different paths for investigation and George is

14:41 starting to pursue the cultural path and Matt is pursuing a very

14:47 straight police path. Matt, Matt is pretty sure the

14:51 people with a hole in their chest are mob hits.

14:53 And George is like, no, it's related to my culture and my

14:56 history. So they kind of go their

14:58 separate ways and meet back up. But in both of those, George is

15:02 getting so distraught based on his cultural experience that

15:07 Matt is has one of those, hey, man, maybe you should cut out

15:10 early head on home kind of moments, which is it is weird

15:14 because of the two, I think we've said in previous episodes,

15:18 George is clearly the better police officer.

15:22 Another thing that occurred to me while you were talking, I

15:24 hadn't thought about it before, but it's not just that I might

15:29 have said in a previous episode, George is stealing the show.

15:32 But the way that you're describing it, I really feel

15:35 like George is the hero of our show and Matt is the sidekick.

15:39 And I know that when they made big trouble in Little China,

15:42 that was Carpenter's idea, was to have the white guy be kind of

15:47 a bumbling sidekick and have the hero be the Chinese guy.

15:52 But we are so culturally biased in our country that I can watch

15:55 Jack Burton knock himself unconscious and I still assume

15:59 in my head that he is the hero, the random Rambo hero.

16:02 And even though Wang is beating up everyone and being awesome

16:06 consistently, I think he's the sidekick.

16:08 So it doesn't really just like this.

16:09 It doesn't take, but yes, now I'm realizing this is the George

16:12 Francisco show and Matt is along to help us process that.

16:21 That is my my first one to match up with yours.

16:24 What's your next sour malt positive?

16:26 So I feel that it's very profound that the game literally

16:30 would have killed George if their ship were not crashing to

16:34 Earth, because that's another one of the the main reveals that

16:37 that's given throughout this episode.

16:40 Then there was just one barrel left and it was pointed at me

16:45 and they were cheering. They were cheering for me to

16:49 die. And then the alarm sounded and

16:53 panic set in. There was no time to finish.

16:56 But they have descended, Begun. All the others had died.

17:01 Oh. Man.

17:07 It was my turn. It's not fair.

17:10 It should have been me. Why am I alive?

17:18 And unless there were multiple games going on at once, that

17:22 makes George unique out of 1/4 of a million people because,

17:27 yeah, there might have been other things going on the ship

17:29 that might have been endangering other people's lives.

17:31 I mean, they were slaves, so maybe was somebody was sick

17:34 because of bad conditions or maybe being worked too hard or

17:38 maybe somebody got tortured to death or something.

17:41 So there might have been other things going on.

17:44 But at least when it comes to this particular thing, it's very

17:47 unique because, you know, I don't know how long the crash

17:50 sequence was and how much chaos it caused.

17:53 That's one thing that they didn't show any of the

17:55 flashbacks, but to know that if the timing were off by just a

18:00 few minutes or maybe just a few seconds, that one more shot in

18:05 the game would have taken George.

18:07 But it was the crash that stopped it.

18:09 Like I said, that makes him very unique amongst the the quarter

18:13 of a million tank Deniz that crashed.

18:16 So it's kind of understandable that he would have survivor's

18:20 guilt just because of his situation to start with, just

18:23 the the pure psychology of it. But then you add to that how

18:26 unique it makes him. That's like a little extra salt

18:29 in the wound, pardon the pun. And.

18:34 And so, yeah, it's no wonder that he has trouble at the with

18:38 this particular holiday. And they do drop just enough

18:42 lines to make it obvious that, yeah, it's this time of year

18:46 that makes him grouchy. And this year is no different.

18:48 He's been like this before. So I'm glad that you kind of

18:50 emphasized it, that it's that that was written well to say,

18:55 OK, yeah, we're seeing it for the first time.

18:57 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

19:05 went over. So another one of mine having to

19:08 do with the writing is, I mean, you talked about how it

19:13 culminates in the end. We have a nice resolution, and

19:17 this is yet another wonderful resolution for the series where

19:21 we kind of bring everybody together.

19:23 So the writers had a really good thesis for this and they stuck

19:29 to it and it worked. I talked about this in our

19:32 Christmas episode last Christmas, where the writers had

19:36 this vision for, like, an overarching theme, and they came

19:39 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

19:46 on Matt's temples and says, may the earth stay firmly under your

19:49 feet. And Matt brushes him off.

19:52 Like, please stop touching me, my friend here.

19:54 It's not great. But the theme is about being

19:59 enslaved and in space or, you know, at sea, to put it

20:03 metaphorically. And the day celebrate they're

20:06 celebrating finds finding themselves free on solid ground.

20:11 So George and Tom's PTSD has them still at sea, especially

20:15 during the day of descent. And George plays with these

20:18 beads. He calls them Taras that Emily

20:21 gave him. We find out later Emily gave

20:23 them to him. And one is for water, one is for

20:26 air, several of the beads are for earth.

20:29 And he's playing with them. I, I didn't grow up knowing that

20:31 there was a word for this. You call it worrying something,

20:34 or you're just fidgeting with it anxiously, but he's worrying on

20:38 the beads. And they remind him not only

20:40 what he has to be thankful for. I'm saying this.

20:43 George doesn't say this, but they're reminding him of what he

20:46 has trouble remembering during the holidays.

20:48 And he does tell Matt, you know, kind of wistfully, how much it

20:51 means to him, how much the day means to his family.

20:54 He doesn't care for the day, but he likes seeing how happy his

20:58 family is. So he's separated from his

21:02 family over the holidays by his trauma.

21:05 And at the end, he seems to have closure as he goes through this

21:09 confrontation with the guy in a way that we don't usually get.

21:13 That kind of closure in real life, where you face the person

21:15 who really did wrong you, and you put their wrong right in

21:19 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.

21:27 His friend Tom is sitting there, literally out of it.

21:30 He is in a daze and George hands him the beads.

21:34 He puts them in his pocket or something.

21:36 Tom is still at sea. George is getting to a safe

21:40 place. And George says the thing to

21:43 Tom. May the earth be firmly under

21:46 your feet, which is there be thankful statement for being on

21:51 the ground. But it's also us as humans.

21:54 It's like trying to keep your feet on the ground, like feel

21:58 grounded. So then, like Todd said, they

22:01 end the episode with them sitting around the table having

22:03 this like Thanksgiving moment where they go around and each

22:05 say what they're thankful for. And George says that he's

22:10 thankful for in another, in addition to other things, his

22:14 liberation. So he's saying that he's free.

22:17 And then they all repeat liberation around the table.

22:20 So this is probably the end of a community prayer when you do it

22:24 and it's like, oh, it's so tight.

22:26 And it ends with the whole thing with a shot of Albert letting

22:29 his bird go, which is wonderful. But my thing for this is just

22:34 that the thesis works really well.

22:36 They come back to it well. The symbolism is all there.

22:39 And if you watch the episode and you miss all of that, I think

22:42 you're still getting it. In general, you don't have to

22:44 care what terrors are the beads. But the idea is we see his

22:48 entire journey to healing, even though his friend is still got a

22:52 ways to go. And that's like, that was great.

22:56 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in fact, you've already

22:58 touched on something that was going to be my last bullet

23:01 point. And I think I still want to be

23:02 last. So I'll.

23:03 I'll come back to it later. But in some episodes, you might

23:07 be lucky enough to get one big reveal.

23:10 This episode has three big reveals.

23:12 One big reveal is that George played the game.

23:16 Another reveal is that he would have lost had they not crashed.

23:19 And as if that wasn't enough, the other reveal is that the

23:22 other person who played the game, who died that that he was

23:26 so upset about happened to be his brother.

23:29 Krulak will slip up, just a matter of time.

23:31 And how many others will die while we wait?

23:33 How many other innocent pictures?

23:35 I will not let him kill. I will not let him kill like he

23:38 killed from truck. Damn it George, get a crack.

23:40 You got to stop blaming yourself because you survived, because

23:43 you got lucky. Lucky.

23:45 Rutra died. You couldn't save Rutra George.

23:48 He was a guy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

23:51 You're just another newcomer whose time had come.

23:54 Rutra wasn't just another newcomer, he was my brother.

24:00 I didn't know his family. Sorry.

24:03 Well, let's go. It's not your fight.

24:05 We're partners, George partners. We'll never know how much that

24:08 means to me. So Rutra was his brother, and

24:12 that's another great reveal. And it's like, this is just the

24:15 episode that keeps on giving. So yeah, that would be my third

24:19 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,

24:29 good stuff. It's not exactly good.

24:31 I mean, we're talking about trauma and torture.

24:34 It's good in the way that it is presented, though.

24:37 Yeah. Yeah.

24:38 And that that when they are on the ship being held in this cage

24:43 with diagonal bars, which is an interesting choice.

24:47 And and this other man is like grabbing on to George and like

24:52 almost nuzzling into his side. And George is saying, I'll

24:55 protect you. It's enough.

24:57 Like that plot by itself was enough.

25:00 And Matt is doing what we'd all do.

25:02 You know, it's not your fault, man.

25:03 It's not your fault, man, which isn't flippant, but it's trying

25:06 to say, you know, move on, let that go.

25:09 Stop trying to blame yourself. But then when George says that

25:13 this guy that we've seen flashbacks of already and stuff

25:16 was his brother, and we know how the Tanktonese are about their

25:20 family because they're so scattered based on the the

25:23 slavery process and how difficult the whole thing is.

25:27 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

25:35 that. Yeah.

25:36 That was an electric twist. Let me see.

25:39 I mentioned in a previous episode that I don't like it

25:42 when a plot is moved forward by characters not saying something

25:45 aloud, like keeping things of themselves, unnecessarily

25:50 elaborate misunderstandings, secrets.

25:53 If Todd and I just didn't passing say a small detail or

25:58 something that the whole thing would unravel.

26:00 So I really like in this episode that George, he just suddenly

26:04 tells Matt all about the game because it's a lead on the case

26:08 and he needs Matt's help solving the case.

26:12 So we could have had a protracted thing where George is

26:15 dealing with the whole thing on his own because he's traumatized

26:19 by it. And he's maybe there's shame

26:20 involved and stuff. No, he's like, OK, Matt.

26:23 So let me tell you, there was this game, you know, we sit

26:25 around, we take turns pushing the button.

26:28 One of us is going to die eventually.

26:30 Could have been me. And he just spells it out for

26:32 him because he needs him to help him look for salt water holes

26:35 burned in people. And it's clearly what's going

26:37 on. Matt doesn't necessarily agree

26:39 with him, but I like that George just spelled it out and a

26:43 similar thing happens later in the episode.

26:46 Like I said, in Night of Screams, they have two different

26:49 approaches to solving the crime. I think that's the one and they

26:53 come back together. I mentioned that already, but in

26:55 this one, George is going to pursue the game angle from his

26:59 ship experience while Matt is pursuing the mob hit angle that

27:04 yes, they're brutally murdered, but it's just a guy taking out

27:09 people that owe loan sharks money or something.

27:11 And in the process he gets a picture of the human he's been

27:15 tracking. Random mob enforcer loan shark

27:19 guy handing money to George's friend Tom, and he has this

27:26 picture clearly in an envelope. We see him back at the station

27:29 almost immediately, and he's looking at George nervously,

27:31 like he's got evidence that his friend is implicated.

27:35 This could have been protracted. Matt could have tried to keep it

27:38 from George. He literally just hands it to

27:39 him. Boom.

27:40 Like, thank you. Just don't keep secrets from

27:44 each other. Just tell the other person the

27:46 thing and let's all move forward together.

27:49 And yes, it sets up a really cool scene where George has to

27:52 confront all this stuff. But I I really appreciated that

27:57 they did not drag those things out longer than they need to be.

28:00 People just share stuff with each other.

28:04 Yeah, in fact, secrets and involving others is is actually

28:09 related to my next two bullet points.

28:11 So I I kind of agree with you. And my next one is the 1st and I

28:15 think only little good thing all the rest of them were kind of

28:18 big. I love how Matt is not the least

28:22 bit angry later when he wakes up after George has knocked him out

28:26 and he has to catch up with George.

28:28 When he sees what George is doing, he gets it.

28:31 And he's a little bit worried that George is going to go, you

28:34 know, going to go through with it.

28:36 And so he's a little bit worried at that moment.

28:38 But otherwise, he understands what George has done and why he

28:42 needed to do it alone. And so he's not the least but

28:45 angry that that George knocked him out.

28:47 And so and I like that. Matt hurried over, even though

28:53 they really rushed through that, the whole thing where he goes to

28:56 George's house, asks Susan a question, looks at a file and

28:59 there's some kind of mention about some kind of like, shoe

29:02 print in there. He's like, Oh yeah, I know where

29:04 he's at. Matt, I've been trying to call

29:06 the precinct. Where's George?

29:08 I don't know. He ran out of here about 20

29:10 minutes ago. Damn.

29:11 Where'd he go? He wouldn't tell me he ran in

29:13 here. He tore open this police file

29:15 that was delivered earlier and then he left.

29:17 What is it? Bio Scan report Sid ran on some

29:21 evidence found on a victim's shoe.

29:23 Does it tell you where he went? I think so.

29:26 Why? I mean, that was really glossed

29:28 over, but still, he's in a rush to go and help out his partner.

29:32 And so I like how all of that played out.

29:35 Yeah. And my last two for this

29:37 section, or 2 1/2 are much shorter.

29:41 I like this. So the thing starts with a party

29:44 and Kathy is excited about Susan's food she's made for the

29:52 party because Tank Deniz eats such different things.

29:54 So Kathy tells Matt, you know, Susan's made this amazing

29:59 grasshopper molay. And we watched Susan enjoy

30:05 eating a worm on screen. It's not wiggly, but it didn't

30:09 look like a gummy either. Not sure.

30:11 In the last episode, I think we discover that Buck Sean 6, the

30:18 actor who plays Buck, has a gift for humor if he delivers

30:22 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

30:29 honored at a party and he's like, what do I do?

30:33 And Buck steps up and says that he's going to wash Albert's

30:38 feet, but he just like stares at him.

30:40 You're going to wash his feet. And he like walks away.

30:43 It's great in this one, as Matt is watching Susan enjoy eating

30:50 Grasshopper Molay, Buck steps up with a tray and in this stare

30:57 says therefore a worm or a tarantula meant and just like

31:00 stares at him. This is also the first time I

31:03 think that he says Matt's actual name.

31:06 Buck wasn't very nice to Matt in the pilot movie, so apparently

31:10 they have gotten to know each other over the course of the

31:13 last few episodes behind the scenes and Matt says.

31:16 Thanks Buck, I'll stick to the cocktail weenies.

31:18 This is my favorite thing that Buck has done, yet they still

31:20 don't. The writers don't know what to

31:22 do with this character because he's the wayward teen, so all we

31:25 get to see of him in this episode is what George refers to

31:29 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

31:37 things. And I think we've been talking

31:40 about how serious the episode is.

31:42 And the viewer is seeing all of this drama with people with

31:47 these funny heads on because they're aliens and drinking sour

31:51 milk instead of liquor. There are silly trappings.

31:56 And the writers in order to write just have to ignore that,

31:59 just like something involving Vulcans or by Grip Thar's Hammer

32:04 and just push forward with the drama.

32:06 And it works. But it's there's plenty of

32:10 goofiness going on. So I do like, I do like some of

32:15 those things. What's another positive you

32:17 have? All right, well, first, I have

32:21 several things to respond to in that one.

32:23 You probably thought that was a little one, but I actually have

32:25 several responses. In fact, I was, I was typing

32:27 someone out so I wouldn't forget.

32:28 So first, what you say about Buck and Matt.

32:32 Yeah, they, I mean, definitely does not have a connection with

32:37 Buck like he does with Emily. But there is a scene coming up,

32:42 and I think we have to wait a while because it might be as far

32:45 off as the first TV movie. But there is a scene that Buck

32:50 and Matt have together that is really great.

32:52 Just just a little bit of a dialogue where Buck says

32:56 something serious and Matt kind of defends George.

33:00 So I look forward to that scene whenever that's coming up.

33:03 You mentioned Buck and Sean 6 is acting.

33:07 When I was doing a little bit of research for for different

33:10 purpose, I noticed that Sean 6 does not have a whole lot of

33:13 acting credits. In fact, I think Alienation, the

33:16 TV show and the five TV movies is about half of his IMDb

33:20 credits. And so I guess maybe he didn't

33:23 stay in acting very long and I don't know if he got out of the

33:25 entertainment industry altogether, but it's not from

33:28 lack of skill or talent. He is good in the role and I

33:32 know we give Buck some crap, but it's mostly because this the

33:35 material he's given that kind of makes him one of the less

33:39 characters. At the same time, it the acting

33:42 isn't the problem, at least I don't think.

33:45 And then you talked a little bit about some of the food that was

33:48 served. So I know that we've seen stuff

33:51 like pork and raw frog and stuff like that.

33:55 And now on top of everything else, they're serving insects,

33:58 you know, worms and spiders and stuff.

34:00 And I'm wondering is there any meat that they won't eat?

34:03 It seems like they are not very. What's the right word?

34:07 Not discriminatory, that's not the right word, but it's just

34:09 they are extremely open minded about eating animals.

34:14 It also makes me wonder, did they have a whole lot of animals

34:17 on the ship? And if not, is that the reason

34:19 they eat animals so freely? Because it's like, oh, why we,

34:21 we finally have access to meat. We were meat.

34:24 We were eating slop on the, you know, like grain or something on

34:28 the ship. And so we finally have access to

34:30 meat. We're going to eat every meat

34:32 possible. And then lastly, Kathy really

34:35 downloads those worms. I could have sworn that she was

34:38 a vegetarian. Maybe bugs don't count.

34:42 Yeah, maybe not. Maybe it's kind of the way.

34:46 Yeah, maybe it's kind of the way some vegetarians will eat things

34:50 like eggs or other things that are like meat adjacent, but just

34:55 not the meat itself. So anyway, so yeah, those were

34:59 the little response I had of that.

35:01 And so my last bullet point for the good stuff.

35:05 And you've already kind of talked about it, so I apologize

35:08 if I'm repeating some things here.

35:10 But it's from that final scene of the episode where they're

35:14 doing that. I don't know if you want to call

35:16 it ritual or or ceremony, whatever, but where they're

35:19 talking about what they're beholding to, kind of the

35:21 equivalent of saying what you're thankful for at Thanksgiving.

35:25 And Emily says she's beholden to the earth for home, Buck for

35:30 freedom, Kathy for new friends. And of course, Matt is from

35:33 Earth, so he has to say something different.

35:35 And he, you know, is not super eloquent, but he he does an OK

35:38 job. And he just says, welcome to

35:39 Earth. You sure make things

35:40 interesting. And everybody laughs at that.

35:42 So that's a cool moment. And then Susan says for family

35:47 and to her husband, who can now celebrate the day of descent in

35:50 peace. And then George says for our new

35:53 life. And he then he elaborates a

35:55 little bit. You already mentioned the

35:56 liberation part. And my voice almost cracked when

35:59 I was talking about what Susan said.

36:01 And the weird thing is I've mentioned a few times that I

36:04 peeked ahead at future episodes. And so I did that about a week

36:07 or so ago. So I already watched this

36:09 episode a week or two ago. I watched it yesterday to take

36:12 notes, and I watched it again today to kind of flesh out the

36:15 notes. And the first two times, I don't

36:17 think what Susan said got to me. And today it got to me.

36:21 It actually choked me up. I actually shed some tears.

36:23 And when I was talking about just a second ago, I almost

36:26 choked up a little bit. And that's pretty profound

36:28 because because Matt does say at some point during the episode

36:32 you were keeping this secret from from Susan.

36:36 Why didn't you tell her? And Georgia says, how do you

36:39 discuss something like that? And so obviously it has happened

36:43 off camera, but he has had the conversation with her and she

36:47 has accepted it well and is glad that she's told him.

36:50 You mean that he's told her? And now she understands why he's

36:52 been a grouch every year around this time, and she is just

36:56 thankful that he can now celebrate in peace.

36:59 I am beholden to the earth for my family and for my husband,

37:03 who can now celebrate the day of descent in peace.

37:06 I am beholden to earth for our new life.

37:10 Long may we celebrate day of descent.

37:12 Long may we celebrate day of liberation.

37:16 Liberation. And I don't know why that got to

37:21 me that, that third time, but it, it did.

37:24 And now I'm not married and you are.

37:27 So you might be able to like, tell me whether this is a good

37:30 thing or not. Maybe it is stupid that George

37:33 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

37:42 and it's finally out there and that Susan accepted it.

37:46 And I love how strong their marriage is because of that.

37:49 As a critic of the show, I can say that we have plenty of

37:53 evidence from previously that the newcomers seem to have a lot

37:57 less hang ups than humans do about talking bluntly about

38:00 things. So the fact that he would keep

38:03 things back, I think is very human of him in the sense that

38:06 he would judge Matt for doing things like that.

38:09 It's very silly, trivial, emotional.

38:12 Come on, man, George is, he plays a lot of things kind of

38:16 like a really excellent dad. So when he has these

38:19 shortcomings, they're highlighted.

38:21 But as a married man, I can say that society tells us to wall

38:28 ourselves off from our spouse and not share details and that

38:33 they won't understand or that it's US versus them.

38:37 I get really sick of the US versus them TV shows because

38:40 that's an ongoing theme for decades now and it's just, it's

38:44 destructive. So I saw the moment you're

38:49 talking about and it does mean a lot.

38:50 And I'm glad that they had some evidence for us on screen that

38:54 that had happened off screen. So my other thing just about

38:58 marriage is the more you can share, the better.

39:01 You can't share everything and, and there's some things, I'll be

39:05 honest with you, Todd and I are Star Trek fans.

39:07 There are some things the women will hold up their hands and say

39:09 you do not need to share that. It might not be Star Trek, some

39:12 chicks love Star Trek. But just I think when I first

39:17 got married, I wanted to tell her every thought in my head and

39:19 I was very offended that she didn't want to hear every

39:22 thought in my head. But if something is significant,

39:25 if you can bring another person in with you, it just does more

39:31 for that relationship. So George knows that.

39:34 And as soon as he is healed enough to even be able to talk

39:37 to Susan about it, he tells Susan about it.

39:40 So yeah, that was an amazing thing.

39:42 I'm glad they put that in because it matters.

39:45 He, she could have just been like, I don't know why you're so

39:47 much better, but I'm glad. But another example of why this

39:50 show might have been ahead of its time in writing and stuff

39:52 because this is 89 and we had sitcom men versus women writing

39:57 for another 15 years. So that was that was great.

40:01 And in fact, you talked so much about the writing, I just kind

40:03 of thought of something else. You know, they could have shown

40:07 the scene of him revealing it to her, but that would have made

40:10 the the episode go on longer. And also it's not necessary and

40:16 maybe it was even strategic that they did it this way because in

40:18 a way that counts as the 4th reveal that, you know, he

40:23 finally talked to her about this.

40:26 And so I guess technically this episode has four big reveals.

40:30 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

40:35 been written well. But I think it's just as good

40:39 just having Susan make it obvious that now it's not a

40:43 secret anymore. So, and that is one of those

40:45 conversations that you cannot do in a few seconds, like when he

40:50 tells Matt, Matt is not his spouse.

40:52 Matt's not going to heal him and they're not going to hold each

40:55 other for hours and talk. So you would, if you put that

40:59 in, you would not do a great job with it probably in a couple of

41:03 minutes. And it might have been better to

41:05 do it this way where we have seen that they have connected

41:08 and come clean and had a long discussion.

41:11 And yeah, it was really good. Nice the way they did it.

41:14 My next positive, I guess my last one is that it's OK Emily

41:22 Francisco is played by Lauren Woodland, who is 12 years old.

41:26 And in a world where child actors can be iffy, she is

41:29 consistently great. You've mentioned that in past

41:31 episodes. So earlier we have this party

41:34 for Descent Day at the Francisco's house and she is

41:38 doing interpretive dance, standing on a table doing this

41:43 interpretive dance and little flowy outfit while Kathy walks

41:47 around the table interpreting for everybody.

41:50 And there were alarms of warning throughout the ship, and much

41:54 talk of our forced landing. A new beginning was at hand, and

41:59 as the great craft descended to its place of rest, new vistas

42:03 opened up. Our eyes filled with wonder, and

42:06 we pledged to embrace all Earth beings as our friends forever.

42:12 And then Emily says, and this is what I've learned since we were

42:16 released from quarantine. I don't know.

42:22 I don't know if the writers wrote that or somebody said, and

42:26 look, Lauren, you're you're this newcomer kid.

42:30 You're standing on a table entertaining people in your

42:32 home. And probably this little girl

42:35 actress has tap and dance experience and you're like,

42:40 you'd like show them this little move that you learn.

42:42 It's great. So yes, I think that does it for

42:47 sour milk. Yeah, same for me.

42:50 So we're ready to move into salt water, which is our bad stuff.

42:54 Do you want to start? Do you want to have anything?

42:58 Yeah, I definitely have some stuff.

42:59 I only had three things at first, but then I worked in 2

43:02 little nitpicks to to flesh things out.

43:05 So my first little nitpick, you know, we often talk about the

43:08 bad police work. There's a small example of it

43:12 this time. Matt and George are, you know,

43:15 accidentally misdirected. They think they're doing a sting

43:18 on the the game that George played.

43:22 And it turns out it's a cover. It's an oil wrestling match.

43:27 And but when Matt goes in, in order to get everybody's

43:31 attention, he fires his gun up in the air.

43:34 And I'm like, surely you were truly, you were not allowed to

43:37 do that. And I mean, I don't know if this

43:40 place was one level, but if there is a second level that I

43:43 mean, he could be shooting up the floor and like hitting

43:46 somebody up above. I mean, just it in either way,

43:49 you're doing damage and there are probably rules about

43:51 actually using your weapon. He's just way too eager to fire

43:55 that thing off for any reason. So because this is not the first

44:00 time he's done that. I mean he does it in the very

44:02 first episode and I granted there outside, but still those

44:05 bullets are going to come down and I think he shot up at the

44:08 ceiling in at least one other episode.

44:10 He needs to stop shooting the thing.

44:12 So yeah, bad police work that's continuing our occasional

44:15 segment called Yikes Sykes about Sykes questionable police work.

44:20 I will piggyback off of what you're saying and just suggest

44:24 that George has some pretty questionable police work in this

44:27 episode. I, I think the 80s cop is

44:32 completely vindicated if they catch the bad guy and no one

44:36 cares how they do it and if they like put their head through a

44:39 plate glass window or something, as long as they have evidence.

44:43 But if they don't, we get to see Matt and George actually being

44:47 in trouble and having the guy lawyer up and list all the

44:51 things that they're going to sue the police station over.

44:56 That was interesting. But I I do think with George,

44:59 this is hard for me to come up with negatives as well.

45:02 Once you get started, it's easy to just start nitpicking stuff.

45:05 So I did have some fun with that.

45:07 And I hope they walk into the police station with George,

45:11 Kulak and Tom, all unbuttoned shirts, George's gun drawn, the

45:16 purple wet and crying, Tom catatonic.

45:21 That is some questionable police work.

45:24 We know that Kulak lawyers up. So I like to imagine that his

45:27 lawyer just gives up because Kulak won't stop crying at this

45:30 point. And they check out the crime

45:32 scene. And they're like, why is there a

45:34 bullet hole in this chair? Detective Francisco, why'd you

45:36 discharge your weapon? Oh, that's right.

45:39 Yeah. Oh, he did that.

45:41 But is it, You know, we've got evidence this time, so all will

45:44 be forgiven. But yes, I was fine with it.

45:47 But if you do want to talk about like questionable police work,

45:51 Sykes is constantly trigger happy and this is some of the

45:54 weirdest stuff George has done. Once you take a step back and

45:57 look at it, what's another negative you've got?

46:00 So now moving into the the bigger stuff.

46:03 And in fact, I've got 3 and one of them is just a nitpick, but

46:07 all three are related to the whole Russian roulette thing.

46:10 And so first, it bugs me that the game really is just an alien

46:14 version of Russian roulette. And I'm not an expert on on

46:19 Russian roulette. I vaguely remember as a kid, my

46:21 parents telling me that somebody somewhere, I can't remember if

46:24 it was somebody like like a friend of the family or, or an

46:28 acquaintance, or, but somehow they knew as somebody who had

46:32 actually killed themselves through Russian roulette.

46:36 And so I get the impression that you, you take a gun that has a,

46:39 a, the spinning barrel, you put one bullet in, you spin it, and

46:43 then you point it at yourself and pull a trigger and see if

46:46 you get lucky if, if it's one of the empty chambers.

46:50 And so here we get like a cylinder, almost like the the

46:53 thing in a, in a gun, except it's got little things that go

46:56 up and down and of course shoot salt water, which the the tanked

47:00 knees are sensitive to. So there's the obvious

47:03 possibility of death. I get that.

47:05 And there's the psychology going on because you do have the

47:08 option of press another button where you just die instantly and

47:11 basically you just tap out of the game.

47:13 But otherwise that's it. It really is too similar to

47:17 Russian Roulette and it kind of reminds me of a trope that isn't

47:21 a lot of sci-fi fantasy. It might even be in some action

47:25 or horror movies. The underground fighting ring

47:28 trope, and this is kind of similar to that.

47:32 But in this there's no skill, no strategy involved.

47:35 It really is just random chance and maybe a little bit of

47:39 willpower. I guess I would have liked it if

47:41 there were just a little bit of strategy or skill involved, just

47:45 because I prefer that type of game.

47:47 But in addition to that, it also makes it weird that the friend

47:53 Tom Edison, that he is like the champion at the game when really

47:57 all he's doing is just getting lucky over and over again.

48:00 And even his luck has got around because he's not doing anything

48:03 that anybody else is doing. Except, you know, maybe having

48:06 the willpower to keep playing the game instead of tapping out.

48:09 But he could get shot just as just as easily.

48:12 Unless, of course, Kulak is stacking the game somehow.

48:15 He could be rigging it, but otherwise Tom Edison is just

48:20 getting lucky. So it's all the the luck and

48:22 lack of skill and strategy in the game that kind of bugs me.

48:26 I wish the the game itself were different and granted, it leads

48:31 to a lot of storytelling, I get that.

48:34 But I just I still wish there was more to the game itself.

48:38 Yeah, one of mine is kind of about that too.

48:42 It isn't really a game. It's strapping 2 people down and

48:47 one of them is going to die and you it gives you an opportunity

48:51 to gamble on who will randomly die, but it is completely

48:54 random, which is not a great thing to gamble on either.

48:58 It bothered me because the slaves are property on the ship

49:02 and that seems like a really terrible game to play if they're

49:08 worth anything. Like if you're going to pick a

49:10 sadistic game to play, one that is just killing your, destroying

49:15 your property seems like a really dumb game to play.

49:19 So that was one of my negatives. And you're right.

49:22 I mean, they're pretending, they're pretending that there is

49:26 skill involved, like you're playing live or die hands of

49:32 blackjack or something. And you really do at least make

49:36 a decision about hitting or staying.

49:40 But in this, no, you're not really doing anything.

49:42 You hit the button and maybe there's a psychological

49:44 component, but you're hitting the button every time.

49:47 Everybody's hitting the button every time.

49:49 If you don't have to hit the button for you, it doesn't

49:50 really change. So I don't know if any fans here

49:54 have played Candyland, but Candyland does not have dice.

49:58 It has a deck of cards that you shuffle and the cards, you flip

50:02 them over and they have a color on them and you move to that

50:06 color square. And I played this enough time.

50:09 I loved it as a kid, but as an adult it really started to

50:11 bother me because I realized that once you shuffled the cards

50:14 and turned them face down and decided who went first, the game

50:17 was already over because the players weren't actually doing

50:20 anything. They were just flipping over the

50:23 cards and finding out who the cards had already decided was

50:26 going to get to the end first. Based on each color turn, I

50:30 started dividing the stacks into separate stacks just to provide

50:33 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

50:39 different outcome. Why is the guy a champion?

50:43 Because it serves the plot and chance.

50:45 That's it. My next negative is that the

50:50 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

51:01 hanging around together, and Kathy's there.

51:04 And I think I might have seen this episode enough as a kid to

51:08 remember a lot of the series like this, that for some reason

51:12 you just have lots of quality time with the Franciscos and

51:14 Kathy and like, and Matt and they're all just hanging out.

51:18 I don't think that's going to be typical, but I think I latched

51:20 on to it. So just pretty similar, I guess.

51:24 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

51:32 to release the salt but not into the water stream.

51:36 And on top of that how did he also rig it to release the water

51:40 canister last on cool lock? We don't see any of that and it

51:45 makes me wonder did he do anything?

51:46 What I guess there may have been like a switch or maybe like he

51:52 didn't totally lock the the salt down or something.

51:55 I just, I don't know what he did.

51:58 And if they had made it obvious, then we wouldn't have been

52:03 surprised as to what he was doing.

52:05 And so I guess it was one of those necessities that we not

52:09 see how he tampered with the device so that we weren't sure

52:13 exactly what he was doing. Was George really truly playing

52:16 the game? And he rigged it.

52:17 But how how did what did he do? How did he do it so fast?

52:22 It's just, like I said, to a certain extent weird that we

52:26 don't see it, but I can also understand how it's like a

52:29 literary device that you can't show it or else you take away

52:32 the element of surprise. But but by not doing it, it

52:36 defies logic. And I'm a logical person, so it

52:39 just, I don't know that that part always bugs me a little

52:42 bit, even if it should. Well, the idea they never

52:46 suggested the idea that the game was rigged.

52:49 And if the game was rigged, just like I was trying to make it

52:52 less raw chance with Candy Land, that might help the story some.

52:58 There are roulette holes where they we've seen in movies.

53:02 Casablanca is a great example where they have some way of

53:06 rigging the game to help someone win if they want or to keep them

53:09 from winning if they don't want. So likewise, it makes a lot more

53:14 sense if the people, the people running the game on the ship and

53:18 now on Earth, can secretly choose a winner.

53:22 It might screw up the gambling, but I don't know why.

53:26 But yeah, that would make sense. But based on what we see, it is

53:32 presented to me that George didn't rig it at all.

53:35 And it really is just luck that it got down to Kulak for the

53:40 last shot and he was definitely going to get killed.

53:43 And As for the salt thing, they show us, George, lock the water

53:47 into place and lock the salt into place.

53:49 So the idea that while he's moving around the table, he does

53:53 some sleight of hand and unlocks the salt, just, yeah, like you

53:58 said, it, it serves the plot. That part didn't bother me, but

54:01 I don't think he did anything to make it work out perfectly.

54:05 I think he could have blasted the guy with water on his first

54:10 turn or something. I don't know, and hope that that

54:13 would still have an emotional impact.

54:14 But yeah. Yeah, right.

54:17 My other short 1 is just that this episode has 2 seconds of

54:20 Jill. Jill is Emily's little friend

54:23 and I find it shameful. I mean, I'm glad they paid this

54:26 actress to come in and help us with our world building.

54:29 They've done this to Dobbs a couple of times.

54:31 They've done it to Burns, the skeezy reporter, a couple of

54:34 times where he's just around for no reason but to make the world

54:38 feel real. Usually, if they pay Grazer to

54:41 be in the episode, they pay Grazer to talk.

54:43 But Jill, we haven't seen her forever and here she is.

54:47 She walks down the stairs with Emily.

54:49 She's there in the house, and they don't give that little girl

54:52 a single line. I honestly, the way she came

54:56 down the stairs and they start to speak about having one

54:58 honored person they pick every year.

55:00 I thought it was going to be Jill.

55:02 I genuinely, I was like, well, she's right there.

55:07 She's a good friend of Emily's. You know, maybe it should have

55:11 been. But yes, shameful. 2 seconds of

55:14 Jill. Yeah.

55:15 And she is on the sofa when Emily is doing the interpretive

55:18 dance. But yeah, you're right.

55:20 No lines at all. And it's kind of weird when she

55:23 does come down the stairs because because when she does

55:26 come down the stairs with Emily, the family is like blocking her

55:29 path shows. So she's standing there as if

55:31 she's part of the family, which looks kind of weird.

55:34 And you can and you can tell the young actress is trying to be

55:37 part of the scene because she's kind of like looking up at

55:40 George as he's talking and she's looking around and she's it's

55:43 like she's moving ahead because in such a way she's like, OK, I

55:46 don't have any lines, but somebody noticed me.

55:50 So, yeah, it, it sucks that she's not in it more.

55:54 And, you know, you mentioned that maybe she could have been

55:56 the, the dork, which is a weird name for the, the, I don't know

56:01 what you call it, but the special person.

56:04 And it makes me wonder, what did they do the previous four years

56:08 Did was there anybody else that George worked with that could

56:11 have been OK? Or why not Susan?

56:14 Is there anybody that she's worked with or known or anybody

56:17 from a neighborhood or something that that could have been their

56:20 their, their dork in the past? How is it that that all of a

56:25 sudden Matt is better than all of their previous choices?

56:30 Well, we do find out that it could be a random critter

56:34 because they like all Earth's creatures.

56:36 So yeah, they might have had one of Mudri's goats the past year,

56:41 but but then there again, they sure do gnaw down on some meat.

56:45 So it's like, yeah, they they take care of their creatures.

56:47 But if that pigeon comes around and they're hungry enough,

56:50 they'll probably eat that pigeon.

56:51 So. Oh, I forgot you brought up

56:53 meat. And we started postulating on

56:55 what their relationship with animals are.

56:58 So if if they are all raw meat eaters and you have levels of

57:05 newcomer on board the ship in the power structure, then the

57:10 higher quality food would go to the overseers and to the

57:16 overseer work crew like Kulak. And the idea is that then in my

57:22 mind the people like George and Susan would get the worst

57:27 leftovers from animal parts. So that might facilitate them

57:32 having in a special affinity for more fresh raw meat, more nice

57:38 cuts of meat, different parts of animals instead of just the feet

57:42 every single time. Something.

57:43 I don't know, you made me think of that.

57:47 It just makes me wonder, did they actually have like a farm

57:49 on the ship or or did they pick up animals at different planets

57:53 along the way? I feel like if a writer gets a

57:56 chance, the writers care about ideas like that.

57:59 If it ever serves a plot, they will go into it.

58:02 I think the version of the ship that we're presented with, maybe

58:06 like Star Trek, all of the products before the replicator

58:09 are just, you imagine like some version of rations.

58:12 So everything is in ammo boxes, like everything is sealed.

58:17 They're like little packs of something processed.

58:20 But that's just the way that the ship I think has been presented

58:23 to us so far. I'd love it if it was like a

58:25 rendezvous with Rama kind of big world traveling ship with all of

58:29 this life in sections of it, but it was much more bleak than that

58:32 with what we've seen so far. My last negative.

58:36 I've only noticed this because we dissect episodes.

58:39 We mentioned previously that there's this scene where George

58:43 tells Matt that Rutra was his brother and Matt is shocked and

58:48 Matt offers George milk. George throws it, which is just

58:51 shocking. George, have a slug of milk.

58:56 Thank. You essentially, George is going

58:59 to go off after this guy and he's really upset.

59:02 And Matt is saying, hey, man, we're partners.

59:04 We're partners. And George is saying that means

59:07 a lot to me. And then George punches him out

59:10 and leaves, which we found out before.

59:12 I think there was a newcomer in a previous episode who hit a guy

59:14 so hard in the face, his face exploded.

59:17 And that was just like a hit man who's going around punching

59:20 people's heads off off screen, off screen 80s, but just a blood

59:25 splatter. And it's like, oh, he just hit

59:26 somebody really hard. So George hitting Matt

59:29 unconscious is like, oh, gosh, I can't believe the headache he'd

59:33 have. But Matt wakes up, it's dark.

59:35 It's like hours later. And he runs over to George's

59:38 place and sees Susan. And Susan tells him that like, I

59:43 guess evidence came and then George took off.

59:45 It doesn't make sense that George punches Matt out before

59:51 he knows where to go. So he literally, in the story,

59:55 punches Matt out and then goes home and then yeah, yeah.

1:00:00 And then gets evidence and takes off.

1:00:03 The only it should have evidence should have come to Matt's

1:00:06 apartment and then George punches him out and goes.

1:00:10 But when you do it this way, it doesn't really make any sense

1:00:13 except. To give us the viewer, maybe

1:00:17 another moment for Matt to talk to Susan, which is always great,

1:00:20 but to for him for her to tell him that he is exactly 20

1:00:26 minutes behind George. Whereas if he was unconscious

1:00:29 and waking up, we don't know how many hours he's behind George.

1:00:32 But other than that, this doesn't.

1:00:34 If you are tearing this episode apart piece by piece, you might

1:00:39 discover this. It doesn't really matter in the

1:00:41 context. I wouldn't have noticed it until

1:00:43 I thought about it. But now I'm like, wait, why did

1:00:44 you put somebody out and run off on your partner before you know

1:00:49 where you're going? Doesn't work.

1:00:51 So but but see that one piece of evidence couldn't have come

1:00:54 sooner or they already would have known the right location.

1:00:56 So it had to come last. But they were kicked off the

1:01:00 case so they couldn't have it when they went to to Matt's

1:01:03 apartment. So it's something that George

1:01:05 had to get later, which means George probably went to the

1:01:08 station, maybe stole the evidence, then went home,

1:01:12 probably just to tell Susan that he was going to be out later to

1:01:17 make up some excuse. And then for some weird reason,

1:01:20 I guess, left the evidence at home and then went.

1:01:24 And so, yeah, there's all kinds of things in the timing that,

1:01:28 yeah, don't make sense. And like you said it, they got

1:01:30 to do something to serve the plot and they got to have some

1:01:33 way for Matt to catch up. And at that point, the details

1:01:37 don't matter. So you just get people where

1:01:39 they need to be when they need to be there.

1:01:41 So the detail oriented part of me yet is bugged by certain

1:01:45 things like that. And Speaking of being bugged by

1:01:48 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

1:01:56 you're talking about. In the scene where George Matt's

1:01:59 knocks Matt out, the sound effect is not well synced to the

1:02:03 motion. Oh, and I didn't even notice it

1:02:07 the first two times, but I noticed it the the third time.

1:02:11 You kind of hear the sound effect before he would have made

1:02:13 contact. So that's a really super minor

1:02:16 nitpick. But then here's my other

1:02:18 nitpick, which goes back to the Russian roulette machine.

1:02:21 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

1:02:27 the episode prop department. Make sure that thing is centered

1:02:31 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

1:02:41 was distracted when you asked me a question a minute ago is

1:02:43 because I was actually watching one of the scenes that had the

1:02:47 machine running. And maybe that was shot early in

1:02:49 the episode or early in the the production cycle when.

1:02:52 Maybe it was fine and then maybe somebody bumped the table or

1:02:56 something during shooting and maybe that messes up or

1:02:59 something. But The thing is not quite

1:03:01 centered on the table. So as it spins, it kind of has a

1:03:04 shimmy to it and then the table isn't quite stable and so it has

1:03:08 a little bit of a wall is every time that thing spins, it's like

1:03:11 just going. Blue.

1:03:14 So yeah, I, I wish that the prop department had tightened that

1:03:18 thing up and made sure that it was totally centered and the

1:03:20 table wasn't shaking. And so that little bit of

1:03:22 wobble, yeah, just, I don't know, just one of those little

1:03:25 nitpicky things that bugs me, like the makeup not always being

1:03:30 right. I'm really happy that I haven't

1:03:32 noticed this one. Yeah.

1:03:33 So yes, you could have that, because I've noticed that before

1:03:38 too in previous viewings. I'm like, why is the thing

1:03:41 bobbly? Why is it not centered?

1:03:43 So yeah, I've noticed it before and was looking for it this time

1:03:46 already. So yeah, once you're watching

1:03:48 for it. Yeah, Yep, Yep.

1:03:50 So we'll move on to connecting the spots, which is our section

1:03:53 for drawing connections between this episode and other episodes

1:03:57 or maybe even other series. I'll do Dobbswatch and you will

1:04:02 probably have a Star Trek count, and I actually have a Babylon 5

1:04:07 count this time. So do you want to start or do

1:04:09 you want me to go? Yeah, let me start because I

1:04:12 have a a other show connection and I don't always get to do

1:04:17 those. Sometimes I'll see some

1:04:19 parallels and I'll be like, this is like what happened another

1:04:21 one. So this is a generational thing.

1:04:24 I think Todd and I might be a little young for this

1:04:27 demographic. That sentence isn't going to

1:04:29 happen as often as it should anymore.

1:04:31 But if you were born before a certain point, this episode I

1:04:36 think would have really triggered a memory for you

1:04:39 because of a very well known movie called The Deer Hunter

1:04:44 which came out in 1978 about Vietnam and PTSD starring De

1:04:48 Niro, Christopher Walken and Meryl Streep and many others.

1:04:52 The Christopher Walken's character is a victim of forced

1:04:56 POW Russian Roulette and he ends up losing himself to the game

1:05:00 years after he's freed as his friend, played by De Niro, tries

1:05:05 to help him break free of it. I do not recommend the movie

1:05:08 unless you are a fan of gritty war trauma pictures.

1:05:12 If you are, If you love the human drama, I mean.

1:05:14 Well, to be fair about anything with Meryl Streep, you're going

1:05:18 to be pleased that you saw it. But this episode has a better

1:05:22 message in my opinion, about justice and survival.

1:05:28 Nick likes escapism and happy endings, while The Deer Hunter,

1:05:31 like Lord of the Rings, shows that some veterans have an

1:05:34 impossible struggle ahead of them when they try and return to

1:05:36 civilian life after PTSD. Christopher Walken is the guy

1:05:40 who is one of the friends and he is in the Vietnam War with De

1:05:44 Niro. And you, you find him just like

1:05:48 Tom in this episode back in the game.

1:05:51 He's free. He doesn't have to do it

1:05:53 anymore. You don't have to do that

1:05:54 anymore. Man.

1:05:54 That was something bad that happened to us.

1:05:56 But. He.

1:05:59 He's like addicted to it now. So it's not even about the money

1:06:03 or the gambling. It's like he's he's stuck in the

1:06:06 trauma of it. And there's a chance that this

1:06:09 episode was just written by somebody like me who was forced

1:06:12 to watch The Deer Hunter at a formative age and said I would

1:06:15 like to do that with a slightly happier ending.

1:06:17 I'd like someone to have closure instead of just being bummed

1:06:19 out. What's 1 of the I think you

1:06:22 should jump into your big movie show connection, man.

1:06:26 If you wanted to say more about our main guest star or if we're

1:06:30 just going to talk about several people.

1:06:33 Yeah. Well, first by The Deer Hunter,

1:06:35 I'm not an expert on that movie. And so I'm not sure exactly what

1:06:39 happens in it. As you just explain, it does

1:06:41 have something to do with with trauma for veterans and stuff

1:06:44 like that. So you might be able to correct

1:06:48 me if I'm wrong on any of this. But like something like 2025

1:06:53 years ago, I worked on a like ultra low budget short film.

1:06:57 It was we were just doing it for for fun and experience because

1:07:02 somebody went to high school with his original career choice

1:07:05 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

1:07:14 in it. And there was an actor in that,

1:07:16 that if I remember correctly, somebody said that he was either

1:07:21 like the inspiration for Deer Hunter or maybe just one of many

1:07:27 inspirations. Like, I don't know if he was

1:07:28 just the one guy or if he was one of many, many who went

1:07:32 through the same thing. But in some way, shape or form,

1:07:35 I think that one guy was somehow related to the concept in Deer

1:07:40 Hunter. And so I don't know if he was,

1:07:42 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

1:07:50 briefly be associated with somebody who may have had a

1:07:52 connection to that movie. OK wow, that was vague and

1:07:56 barely relevant. I am your father's brothers,

1:08:00 nephews, cousins, former roommate.

1:08:03 What's that make us? Absolutely nothing.

1:08:06 Yeah, and this is when Todd and I talk about Russian roulette.

1:08:10 I think the reason Americans know about Russian roulette may

1:08:12 be 90% The Deer Hunter, but it's one of those public

1:08:16 consciousness things that no one relates that.

1:08:18 Like they don't tell you the history of a movie they saw in

1:08:21 the 70s. But Deer Hunter won like

1:08:23 multiple Academy Awards, including best pictures.

1:08:26 So a bunch of Americans saw a big thing to do with Russian

1:08:31 roulette in 1978 and that informed them for the future.

1:08:36 So yeah, moving on to what you were talking about, South, I

1:08:39 have a Babylon 5 count now. It's not that high, it's only 5.

1:08:43 And at first I thought it was 6, but then I realized I was off by

1:08:46 1. So you usually do a base count

1:08:49 for Star Trek? My base count is 2.

1:08:53 Gary Graham, who of course is Matt, played brooder A Cycor

1:08:58 official in a flashback memory. First officer John Matheson in

1:09:03 one episode of Crusade. If that's not Babylon 5 itself

1:09:07 but it is the short lived Babylon 5 spin off.

1:09:12 And that crusade episode was called the Path of Sorrows.

1:09:15 So Gary Graham is in that briefly and I had to re watch it

1:09:19 either today or yesterday in order to to know what part he

1:09:22 played Eric Pierrepoint who plays George.

1:09:26 He also played a guy named Daniel and I don't even know if

1:09:30 his name is said on screen but he is in one episode of Babylon

1:09:34 5. It's the season 4 finale called

1:09:38 The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, and I don't know if I can

1:09:42 make a Long story short. Nope.

1:09:44 But originally the show was supposed to run five seasons.

1:09:48 Then they were in danger of not getting the fifth season.

1:09:50 So JMS shot the series finale as the last episode of season 4.

1:09:57 Then TNT said, hey, we'll sweep in and we'll give you a fifth

1:10:00 season. And so then he saved the series

1:10:02 finale. And so they had to reshoot a new

1:10:05 season finale for season 4 since the series finale would be

1:10:09 pushed to a season later. And that is that episode.

1:10:14 And what he did was he did a a, a vignette of scenes that I

1:10:18 think were like 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years and a million

1:10:21 years in the future. And Daniel was the name of a bad

1:10:25 guy scientist from I think 500 years in the future.

1:10:31 So Eric Pierrepoint, wasn't that one episode Battle on five.

1:10:34 Jeff Doucet, who plays Burns occasionally in Alien Nation.

1:10:39 He played second man in the TV movie Babylon 5, River of Souls,

1:10:43 so just barely. But Burns was not in this

1:10:47 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.

1:10:54 Joel Swetow or Sweetow or Sweetow or Swetow.

1:10:58 I don't know how to pronounce that last name.

1:11:00 He played Joe Comet in this episode, and he also played an

1:11:04 annoying Lorkhan named Ris in one episode of Crusade, and that

1:11:10 episode was the Rules of the Game.

1:11:13 This role that he had in Alien Nation I think is only his third

1:11:17 credit on IMDb, so this was pretty early in his career.

1:11:21 But he's also one of those people who's been in one of

1:11:23 almost anything, including Deep Space 9, Star Trek The Next

1:11:28 Generation, Stargate SG-1, Star Trek Enterprise, and The

1:11:32 Orville. And he also did voices in

1:11:35 several Star Trek video games. 4th is Maggie Egan.

1:11:40 She plays Alva Edison in this episode of Alienation.

1:11:45 She actually plays the wife of Joe Cometh, not the wife of

1:11:48 Thomas Edison. Joe's a good man, but he

1:11:52 gambles. He's lost on rent money more

1:11:55 than once. I'm not supposed to know, but

1:11:57 you hear things from the other wives anyway.

1:12:00 When he loses, he borrows money from the local money broker.

1:12:04 He's been coming around looking for him.

1:12:07 And she also played ISN reporter Jane in 10 episodes of Babylon

1:12:11 Five and three of Crusade. And 1st, I'll say I'm really

1:12:16 impressed with her ability to act sad or to cry that was

1:12:21 called for in this episode. And she also did excellent in

1:12:25 Babylon 5 and in Crusade. Even though she's not in it that

1:12:29 often. She's in it spread out through

1:12:31 enough episodes and in enough key scenes, including one where

1:12:35 she has to kind of be, you know, move to tears.

1:12:38 Even though she's a professional ISM reporter.

1:12:40 There's actually a scenario one episode that is actually moving

1:12:44 enough to where even though she's on air and reporting the

1:12:47 news it, she is moved by it. I want to welcome back our

1:12:51 viewers. We've been gone a long time.

1:12:55 Over a year since ISN was captured by elite forces, Over a

1:13:00 year since martial law was declared.

1:13:02 Many of us and our associates at other networks were imprisoned,

1:13:07 interrogated, even killed. And so she did great in all the

1:13:11 scenes. And oddly enough, she and I are

1:13:15 actually friends on Facebook. And I admit, we don't really

1:13:18 interact much. But, you know, I noticed that

1:13:21 there are some people that I've met at conventions who

1:13:24 apparently, somewhere along the way, have actually friended a

1:13:27 few people involved in Babylon 5.

1:13:28 Like, I know a few people have actually friended a Peter

1:13:34 Jarrett jurisic who plays Lando on Babylon 5 and and I've never

1:13:39 really had the nerve to send a friend request to an actor just

1:13:43 because I like him in the show. But somewhere along the way,

1:13:46 years ago, I think this was like something like 15 or 20 years

1:13:49 ago, I said something about Babylon 5.

1:13:51 And somehow Maggie Egan saw it and she actually sent me a

1:13:54 friend request. And then I actually did meet her

1:13:57 and chatted with her very briefly way back in 2014, I

1:14:01 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

1:14:09 being Facebook friends is there was one time where I can't

1:14:13 remember if she mentioned it or I mentioned it, but somehow the

1:14:15 topic of alienation came up and she mentioned that she was in an

1:14:19 episode of Alienation, which led me to say, hey, that's one of my

1:14:23 favorite shows. And George Francis Cisco is one

1:14:26 of my favorite characters. And therefore Eric Pierpoint is

1:14:29 one of my favorite sci-fi actors or something.

1:14:31 And apparently she is friends on Facebook with Eric Pierpoint.

1:14:34 And he saw the comment and responded to me.

1:14:38 And so if I said what I think I said in that comment chain, then

1:14:44 Eric Pierpoint knows that he is one of my that his character is

1:14:49 one of my favorite characters, and he's one of my favorite

1:14:50 sci-fi actors because of that character.

1:14:53 That's awesome. So sorry for that overly long

1:14:56 explanation. But then last, you mean there's

1:14:58 more to this? Stop.

1:15:00 Stop talking to me, loser. This is taking too long.

1:15:03 I need chocolate. And this goes on and on and back

1:15:05 and forth. You know, this really could have

1:15:07 been covered in an e-mail is Andreas Kasulis, who plays

1:15:11 Kulak. You mean kulak?

1:15:13 And according to IMDb he has the last name Scar Hand.

1:15:16 And of course, he played Jakar for all five seasons of Babylon

1:15:21 5, plus the TV movies The Gathering which is their pilot,

1:15:25 and Legend of the Rangers, which was meant to be like the pilot

1:15:30 episode for a new spinoff. If that spin off had gotten

1:15:33 picked up, Legend, Legend of the Rangers would have been the name

1:15:37 of the whole show, and the name of that particular episode would

1:15:40 have been to Live and Die in Starlight.

1:15:42 And Andreas Katsulas is of course also known for playing

1:15:46 the Romulan Tamaloc in 4 episodes of Star Trek The Next

1:15:50 Generation. Those 4 episodes are The Enemy

1:15:53 and The Defector both from season 3, Future Imperfect from

1:15:57 season 4, and All Good Things which is the series the overall

1:16:02 series finale at the end of season 7.

1:16:06 He's also famous for playing the one armed man in the movie The

1:16:10 Fugitive, and I didn't realize this until I looked at IMDb

1:16:12 today, but his name in that movie is Frederick Sykes.

1:16:17 Sykes. Yeah.

1:16:18 So he had the last name Sykes there, and it was spelled with

1:16:21 AY. So I think that matches the

1:16:22 spelling from the Alien Nation theatrical movie.

1:16:26 This. Is taking too.

1:16:28 Long He also played Mr. Bartlett in three episodes of Max Hedrum

1:16:31 and only had vague memories of watching Max Hedrum, and he also

1:16:35 played Vissian Captain Drenik in one episode of Star Trek

1:16:39 Enterprise. OK, stop talking.

1:16:40 But my favorite role is Jakar, as far as I'm concerned.

1:16:44 Jakar, Ambassador Jakar from is the best fictional character in

1:16:49 the history of fictional characters.

1:16:55 Well, let me start by restating some of the things you've

1:16:59 already said. If any of you haven't watched

1:17:02 Babylon 5 yet, Todd isn't entirely making it up.

1:17:05 It really is pretty great, especially Jakar.

1:17:08 I think if you have, if you do watch a little bit of Babylon 5,

1:17:13 it's kind of hard to recognize Andreas Kassilis at first

1:17:17 because he has more makeup than possibly anybody.

1:17:22 He has got an elaborate head on, an elaborate face, a lot of

1:17:27 paint and contact lenses. I think this guy is like a

1:17:32 Shakespearean actor. Well, Todd mentioned previously

1:17:35 the ability to act while you're big and melodramatic, but also

1:17:39 to whisper. So I've only seen, I'm an

1:17:43 amateur, I think I've only seen like three seasons of Babylon 5,

1:17:47 barely scratching the surface. But Jakar's jumps out at you.

1:17:51 Just a couple of his little things that he's done.

1:17:54 They stick with you. He's definitely, you're going to

1:17:57 like him. And I do want to mention you

1:18:00 already brought up his roles, Andreas Koslis's appearances in

1:18:04 Star Trek franchise editions. But Star Trek doesn't usually

1:18:09 have a lot of repeat bad guys, maybe 2 appearances of hairy mud

1:18:15 or a particular for Rengi or something.

1:18:19 The exception to that would be Deep Space 9 who has like 3 big

1:18:22 mustache twirlers appear throughout.

1:18:25 But you know, Cesca in Voyager shows up a few times and she's

1:18:30 not that great. But Next Generation Tomaloch

1:18:34 Andres Kasilas Romulan commander, is a pretty great

1:18:40 repeat bad guy. So, Captain.

1:18:42 How long shall we stare at each other across the neutral zone?

1:18:47 He's such a good bad guy that you think that he's around a lot

1:18:50 more than he is. He has four episodes, which is a

1:18:53 ton for someone showing backup on Star Trek.

1:18:57 That just doesn't happen except for people who are there every

1:19:01 week. Or queue everybody else maybe

1:19:04 twice if you're lucky. But Tomaloch shows up enough

1:19:06 that if they are in a hologram or something that's not real and

1:19:13 there's a fake bad guy, it's it's Tom a lot.

1:19:15 So he again in thick makeup. The Romulans the next generation

1:19:19 for some reason have like these big eyebrow muscles or

1:19:21 something. But he does really good acting

1:19:24 through makeup. He's a very cool bad guy to

1:19:26 watch. He seems like menacing.

1:19:29 I think they use that when they cast him in the fugitive as

1:19:31 well. So I definitely want to mention

1:19:33 that I was a fraction as excited as Todd was when I found out he

1:19:37 was in this episode. That some fun to look forward

1:19:39 to. Yeah.

1:19:41 And not only does he have a ton of makeup to act through as

1:19:44 Jakar, he does a great job doing it Because, you know, I've

1:19:48 always heard that when you have that much makeup on, you have to

1:19:51 express yourself twice as much as you normally would to kind of

1:19:54 get those expressions past the makeup.

1:19:56 And he does it. But then he also knows when to

1:19:59 be subtle to. Like I said, some of his best

1:20:01 scenes in Babylon Five are when he's whispering instead of

1:20:04 yelling or even talking. Normal.

1:20:06 And not only that, but the makeup actually made him feel

1:20:10 better, like he actually preferred it.

1:20:12 He he said it it, the makeup and the costume made him feel sexy.

1:20:17 And I hope, and I'm not going to get this quote completely right,

1:20:20 I'm going to censor it a little bit and hopefully I'm not

1:20:22 misrepresenting or miss misremembering or

1:20:25 misrepresenting something he said.

1:20:27 But I could have sworn that somewhere in the behind the

1:20:30 scenes writing of J Michael Straczynski, he said that

1:20:33 Andreas Kasulas one time said that in any other role, I'm a GD

1:20:38 Greek. But when I'm in the Jakar makeup

1:20:40 and costume, I feel like a Greek God.

1:20:45 Yeah, Yeah. I think sometimes you can't tell

1:20:49 how awesome an actor is just based on the characters they

1:20:52 play. But he has to be a really fun

1:20:55 guy to know. So.

1:20:56 Yeah, Another one. There's this character actor

1:21:01 named Sam Anderson who plays the side guy you've seen in a

1:21:05 million parts. He usually looks a little

1:21:08 uncomfortable, maybe a little uptight in this.

1:21:11 He's Thomas Edison underneath his makeup.

1:21:15 He's George's friend, Tom and Sam Anderson.

1:21:21 You might know him from Forrest Gump.

1:21:23 He's the principal. Is there a Mr. Gump?

1:21:26 Miss Gump? He's let me see.

1:21:31 He's a significant character in the new Kathy Bates Matlock that

1:21:34 I haven't seen yet. He's been in Boston Legal, Ally

1:21:38 Mcbeal, Boston Common, a lot of David E Kelly stuff, Briscoe

1:21:41 County Junior X-Files Airplane 2.

1:21:44 He's, which is one of my favorites, Critters 2.

1:21:50 If you all don't know, listeners, if you're going to

1:21:52 watch a Critters movie, Critters 2 is the best.

1:21:55 You heard it here 1st. And he is in the Star Trek The

1:21:58 Next Generation episode, The Royale, which is one of the ones

1:22:02 from early in the series that Nick defends as the uptight

1:22:05 assistant manager of the hotel and space.

1:22:09 That is even better than it sounds.

1:22:11 But yeah, I'm glad that Sam Anderson got a chance to do a

1:22:15 very heavy roll with this, and I like him and Eric Pierpoint

1:22:21 standing in a darkened kitchen sipping sour milk like 2

1:22:24 traumatized men trying to just support each other in a

1:22:28 difficult time. But that was a cool part for

1:22:31 him. Billy Ray Sharkey is the loan

1:22:36 shark dude. Dion Flack.

1:22:39 We don't really even need to talk about him.

1:22:41 I would skip him over He's in War Games and Dukes of Hazzard.

1:22:44 Except I had to bring him up because he is in both Ottoman

1:22:49 and Manimal and I just don't know anyone else who managed to

1:22:53 be in both Ottoman and Manimal. 2 shocking high concept cool

1:22:58 shows that were immediately cancelled in the 80s.

1:23:03 And if Joe Crow ever hears this episode, he's a ridiculous

1:23:06 Animal fan. Joe Crow is the director of the

1:23:09 American Sci-fi Classics track at Dragon Con.

1:23:12 Billy Ray Sharkey is not a major character, he just does a bit.

1:23:16 Into it. I did want to note with Molly

1:23:18 Egan, as you mentioned her, that she's in Allie Mcbeal as a

1:23:22 random person on a jury and she is in Quantum Leap and I tried

1:23:27 to look up where but it didn't. I didn't remember that episode

1:23:29 at all. And Moonlighting and Sliders as

1:23:32 well. So yeah, she sounds like a

1:23:34 really interesting person. Craig Richard Nelson is the

1:23:38 attorney who shows up at the station with Kulak to tell the

1:23:41 police everything they've done wrong and that he's suing the

1:23:43 force. And he is in Voyager.

1:23:46 As Todd mentioned, he's also in Next Generation.

1:23:49 There's an episode a lot of people think that Kirk was an

1:23:52 insane womanizer. And I maintain this is all a

1:23:55 public madness misunderstanding, but Riker and the Next

1:23:58 Generation really is a bit of a womanizer.

1:24:01 He he has that aspect of our imagined Kirk about him.

1:24:05 So he's he's playing the field man.

1:24:07 He hooks up with a lot of ladies and in one episode is entirely

1:24:10 about this point of view. He said, she said, who's telling

1:24:14 the truth? Murder investigation where it

1:24:17 sounds like Riker has hooked up with this scientist girlfriend

1:24:22 and then didn't wife and didn't like the guy hassling him and

1:24:26 blew up the guy and he's on trial for blowing up the

1:24:29 scientist who really is dead. And we have to exonerate Riker

1:24:33 by the end. Well, the inspector who is a

1:24:37 tall, brooding, serious man, but you can't tell how furrowed his

1:24:40 brow is because he has a fake alien brow stuck on front of his

1:24:43 brow. Inspector Craig, I believe

1:24:46 that's the same attorney, that's Craig, Richard Nelson.

1:24:49 So he's just a tall, imposing, serious looking guy who got to

1:24:53 be in this episode. I'm not going to tell you

1:24:56 everything somebody does in Star Trek unless I think it's a

1:24:58 standout thing. And that stood out to me.

1:25:01 Unfortunately, Alva Edison, Isabelle Wolfe, I don't think

1:25:05 that she did anything that really jumped out at me.

1:25:08 A lot of these characters, I'm not listening, listening because

1:25:10 they didn't do things in the sci-fi fantasy escapist genre.

1:25:14 She was on an episode of TJ Hooker with Bill Shatner, but

1:25:18 I'm just not going to count that.

1:25:20 I'm sorry, Isabel. If you try and look her up, her

1:25:22 name is spelled a couple of different ways.

1:25:23 It might take you a minute. Oh, and actually I'm glad you

1:25:26 said Alva Edison because in my notes I actually had that as who

1:25:29 Maggie Egan was playing. So if I said that earlier, I

1:25:32 messed up. Yeah.

1:25:33 She's actually playing Joe Comet's wife.

1:25:36 And I don't know if she had a first name.

1:25:37 Just Misses Comet. Yeah, she's.

1:25:39 Yeah, it says Misses Comet. Yeah.

1:25:41 So I might have messed up earlier.

1:25:42 Nah, they'll figure it out. And finally, Martin Volinsky,

1:25:46 he's listed as, like, cop, I think in the credits, but I

1:25:51 think I know who he was because there's one cop who gets to say

1:25:54 something when they bust the. What did you call it?

1:25:57 It's like a mud wrestling thing. Y'all heard it year first.

1:26:02 Yeah, oil wrestling. Maybe it's sweeps week, but that

1:26:05 really did happen on screen. The cop busts in and like, asks

1:26:08 Psych Sykes what's going on or something like that.

1:26:11 He gets this one line. I think Martin is one of the

1:26:15 soldiers in the background of the dystopian future we see in

1:26:19 the pilot episode for Star Trek The Next Generation.

1:26:22 And Martin is also interesting because he's yet another

1:26:25 stuntman. I think there are a lot of side

1:26:28 actors and characters in Enemy in Alien Nation that are

1:26:32 stuntmen, stunt people, and they will throw them in a costume and

1:26:37 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

1:26:44 work. He's just stuntman and some

1:26:45 things, but he is a precision driver in Mission Impossible 2

1:26:48 and 3, two Transformers movies and Girl Bust Busters from 2016,

1:26:53 which Nick likes more than some people do.

1:26:56 But I thought that was really interesting.

1:26:57 So he has some some unique credits.

1:27:00 Martin Volinsky as cop with one line and that does it for my

1:27:04 connecting the spots. OK, so the only thing I have

1:27:08 left is Dobbs watch. And yes, Dobbs is in this

1:27:13 episode and he excuse me, he even has a few small lines

1:27:17 spread throughout at least three scenes.

1:27:19 I counted 3 and then I kind of lost count.

1:27:21 So there might have been a fourth or fifth.

1:27:23 But yeah, he is given a little bit to do not much.

1:27:26 Most of it is interaction with Albert, regarding Albert having

1:27:31 the the pigeon as his as his dork.

1:27:34 And then I did also have Jill lumped in with DOB's watch.

1:27:39 But you already talked about that, about how, yeah, this is

1:27:41 one of those few times that she's in episode, but she has no

1:27:45 lots. Well, we are ready for the

1:27:47 Albert Einstein Award. And I think I know which way

1:27:49 this is going to go. Listeners, I tried really hard

1:27:52 to find some significance to the name Joe Comet.

1:27:55 And I think the immigration people were just lazy and gave

1:27:58 him the last name Comet because he's an alien.

1:28:01 There is a magician, comedian with that name currently who's

1:28:04 going to screw up your Internet search if you're trying to find

1:28:08 a Joe Comet famous person or a Joseph Comet.

1:28:11 I try to dig deep on this. There is a cognac named Comte

1:28:16 Joseph, COMTE Joseph. I look for Joseph Comet

1:28:22 possibilities. But I believe we only have

1:28:26 really in this episode, the option.

1:28:29 I think our winner is probably going to be the combo of Thomas

1:28:33 and Alva Edison. Now, I don't know if you caught

1:28:36 the significance of did you catch the significance of her

1:28:39 name, Todd? I didn't at first.

1:28:42 I did have to look that up. And I know I've said before that

1:28:46 I don't usually look things up. I want it to be obvious in order

1:28:50 to to know whether it counts or not.

1:28:52 And that's why I did not look up Joe comment.

1:28:54 But since, like you said, they come as a pair, I did look it

1:28:57 up. So yeah, I do know, and it's not

1:28:59 what I expected. Well, it didn't.

1:29:04 All Matt knew was that he was introduced to George's friend

1:29:09 Tom, and he says, let me guess, Edison.

1:29:12 And it really doesn't make sense in the context except that

1:29:16 George introduces his friends Thomas and Alva and the people

1:29:21 who D properly know their history would know Thomas, Alva,

1:29:24 Edison as his whole name. So I think we are going to

1:29:28 probably give the award to the two of them is our first ever

1:29:31 couple theme. Yeah.

1:29:34 Because I was thinking Alva may have been the name of Edison's

1:29:38 real life wife. But I think I think his wife's

1:29:40 name is Mary or something like that.

1:29:42 Yeah. Yeah.

1:29:43 That's what I Yeah, like he said is his middle name.

1:29:45 Yeah. Which is just that's creative.

1:29:48 They were married when they got off the ship.

1:29:50 So I think we are ready to move on to.

1:29:53 I have to talk about this. Yeah, I don't have much.

1:29:57 Sometimes I cover the Tinktonese facts and you might be able to

1:29:59 elaborate on some of these. I just have brief stuff.

1:30:02 So obviously this is all about the Day of Descent holiday and

1:30:05 it's meant to celebrate the crashing of their ship and the

1:30:07 liberation from their overseers. We've mentioned a few times the

1:30:11 dork and there's actually a click pronounced beforehand and

1:30:14 it's actually it actually translates to Revered 1 and

1:30:19 somebody who has chosen to receive favors for a few days as

1:30:23 thanks for for basically hosting the aliens after their crash.

1:30:28 They also have something that is, let me say that the dork, I

1:30:33 love that, and I wasn't sure where I could put that in, but I

1:30:36 think we could have a segment in the show for the biggest dork of

1:30:40 an episode. You're podcasting with him.

1:30:42 Oh yeah, yeah, who is the MVP of an episode like Albert in the

1:30:46 takeover episode? Oh, if that's what you mean,

1:30:49 never mind. But yes, loved the whole dork

1:30:52 thing. Sykes is a dork.

1:30:53 He's not sure about that. In the 1980s, listeners, if

1:30:57 you're too young to remember, dork literally meant it was a

1:31:01 little bit more negative. It wasn't just like Dopey.

1:31:05 It had more of a connotation like Schlong.

1:31:09 So yeah, he's like when Sykes is like, I'm your dork.

1:31:13 It was it was different in 1989. What's your next thing?

1:31:17 So similar to rosary beads, they have something called Terra's,

1:31:21 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

1:31:30 is the like scientific name, I guess, for the Earth.

1:31:34 And he said that one of them represents air, 1 represents

1:31:37 water, and there are several for the land.

1:31:39 And so I wish that they had dug a little deeper.

1:31:42 I wanted to know, OK, if there are several for the land, is

1:31:45 each one for like a different continent, a different country,

1:31:47 a different city or a different aspect of the land?

1:31:50 Like maybe 1 is for stone, one is for like a plant life or

1:31:54 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.

1:32:00 And then lastly, there is the game itself.

1:32:03 And something that is interesting but also frustrating

1:32:06 is the fact that I don't think they gave a name for the game.

1:32:09 It's just of the game. Yeah, that's true.

1:32:12 So I have, I think, just things that happen in the episode that

1:32:17 I really wanted us to at least acknowledge.

1:32:20 We meet Joe Comet as a gambling addict playing dice in the

1:32:24 streets. And when I say dice, I mean

1:32:26 alien dice or future dice because they're primary colored

1:32:30 cubes. But he's completely unaffiliated

1:32:33 with the game on the ship that we find out Tom and George are

1:32:36 familiar with, at least as far as we know.

1:32:39 I was wondering if it's possible that Kulak was using a loan

1:32:42 sharking business to identify newcomers with a tendency to

1:32:46 gamble, which would kind of pay off because he liked having

1:32:49 contestants with a weird gambling attitude.

1:32:52 Susan refers to their son Buck, and she's saying George, you're

1:32:56 always so grumpy at this time of year.

1:32:59 Emily's happy. I'm happy, she says she calls.

1:33:04 Even Buck the alien without a cause is happy.

1:33:08 Yeah. So the the Francisco's are

1:33:11 catching up on culture. If they've watched James Dean

1:33:13 movies, we never get to see George's Tri deck VCR, three

1:33:19 tapes at once. That is madness.

1:33:22 So I can only imagine. And what would be the point of

1:33:25 that? They get a gift from the

1:33:27 Edison's that looks complicated, like a musical instrument.

1:33:30 They don't say what it is. They just say that it's

1:33:32 expensive. So I'm kind of curious what that

1:33:34 was. But it's got, it's got all these

1:33:36 little tubes and pipes on it. So I assume it's a instrument,

1:33:40 but it could just as easily be a little candle holder or

1:33:42 something. I don't know.

1:33:43 Thomas Edison, when George says, you know that it's expensive, he

1:33:46 says money must be business must be going well.

1:33:50 And Thomas Edison rubs his fingers together next to his

1:33:53 right ear, like his forefingers, and says, you know, I've just

1:33:58 been lucky lately, which I don't think as a human gesture.

1:34:04 I think it's they to me. They were implying that was a

1:34:08 Tank Deniz gesture for luck or something because it was kind of

1:34:11 weird, but I thought it was for money.

1:34:15 Yeah, it might be. Yeah.

1:34:17 It just, I don't know. It was weird to me.

1:34:19 So I'm not sure when Matt guesses Tom's last name as well.

1:34:25 I already talked about, but Tom thinks it's because Matt has

1:34:29 heard that he has a store that sells lighting and lighting

1:34:33 fixtures, so he doesn't know he's named after Thomas Edison,

1:34:38 the famous guy, or the irony that he himself owns a store

1:34:42 that sells lighting fixtures. He's like, oh, you must know my

1:34:45 last name because I own a lighting store and you've heard

1:34:48 of it. There are Mylar balloons at the

1:34:51 party and some of the Mylar balloons have black with

1:34:54 Tanktonese writing on them, but some of them have the color and

1:34:59 pattern of a newcomer head like Peach skin tone with spots which

1:35:04 is both cool and insane. They use them.

1:35:08 Oh my gosh, man, that is worth a rewatch because I don't know how

1:35:12 hard it is to make Mylar balloons with whatever you want

1:35:15 on them, but that is an excellent prop just to I don't

1:35:20 know that the idea that newcomers would have their their

1:35:23 head tone on balloons. It kind of makes sense for

1:35:27 someone making an alienation party in a human, but newcomers

1:35:32 doing it is like crazy. Matt likes to call the police

1:35:37 Captain Brian, and I think that this is because we established

1:35:41 early in the series that Brian Grazer is younger than Sykes and

1:35:45 was promoted over him when Sykes could have been promoted to

1:35:48 captain. But they cast a guy they like,

1:35:51 went out of their way to cast a guy who's not only younger

1:35:53 looking than Gary Graham, but is like a foot shorter than him.

1:35:57 So he just seems like kind of a kid around him.

1:35:59 So there's a scene where George and Matt come into the station

1:36:03 and Matt says hi Brian and walks by him and the captain has this

1:36:09 weird look on his face like he was going to say something to

1:36:11 him. And I thought he was just

1:36:12 annoyed that Matt keeps calling him Brian for whatever reason.

1:36:17 I rewound and I had to watch this scene again.

1:36:21 Sykes gooses Captain Grazer as he walks by.

1:36:24 Yeah, that's why Grazer has this look on his face because Sykes

1:36:29 is like, goosed him. Hey, Brian.

1:36:32 And he's like, so yeah, I missed that the first time.

1:36:36 That is a crazy detail they put in.

1:36:40 Was that a thing in the 80s and 90s?

1:36:42 Because I don't know if people do that now.

1:36:49 I was 12. So no, not that I know of.

1:36:52 I would not know. Maybe it's like wet willies or

1:36:59 something. You know, it's like how men

1:37:01 tease each other in a professional environment.

1:37:03 Really depends on the area. And some things that are cool

1:37:07 and one police station are not cool in another.

1:37:12 But there is a scene, a moment where Captain Grazer is talking

1:37:18 about Descent day, but he calls it decent day.

1:37:22 And Matt corrects him and says it's descent day.

1:37:25 And George looks over at him like, proudly, like, oh, it's so

1:37:28 nice you corrected him. You care.

1:37:30 Although Matt kind of makes a dumb face back.

1:37:32 And I'm like, yeah, yeah, I care.

1:37:33 Whatever. We see the game played and the

1:37:39 reveal that it's Thomas Edison playing.

1:37:41 We don't know that George's friend has been pulled back into

1:37:44 the life until this scene where somebody beats somebody else who

1:37:48 dies brutally and and then Kulak comes up and puts his hand on a

1:37:53 guy's shoulder and says good job and take Deniz or something.

1:37:56 And we don't know who it is because we're not seeing their

1:37:58 face. And then the camera turns around

1:38:00 and shows us that it's Tom, George's friend.

1:38:02 Oh, no. Except if you're paying

1:38:04 attention In the episode, we find out that Tom's Tank Deniz

1:38:08 name is Vono, and we don't see subtitles for what Kulak says to

1:38:14 the winner that we haven't seen yet.

1:38:16 But he puts his hand on his shoulder and says something that

1:38:20 ends with Vono, which you assume is like, good job, Vono.

1:38:24 So if you're paying attention, like, Oh my gosh, that's Tom

1:38:27 before the camera even turns around.

1:38:30 That's not a nitpick so much as I think clever writing.

1:38:32 I think it was cool that they did it that way.

1:38:34 You feel for a second like you speak the language.

1:38:38 Brian Grazer mentions the NAL, the Newcomer Advocacy League

1:38:43 breathing down his neck. I don't think we've heard that

1:38:47 group named before complaining about people dying and newcomers

1:38:51 dying and the police not doing enough.

1:38:53 And we'll see if that comes up again.

1:38:55 And I my last one I wanted to mention is that Duloc isn't an

1:38:59 overseer. He's just an enabled sadist who

1:39:02 was on the ship who the overseers were letting him have

1:39:06 a position of authority and torment people.

1:39:08 This is I think the first like overseer in training or overseer

1:39:12 lackey that we've seen on board the ship.

1:39:16 So maybe the riders are realizing they can't just slap a

1:39:19 tattoo on every bad guy and that is it for me for OK.

1:39:24 Yeah. And what you just mentioned was

1:39:27 going to be one of my bullet points because I wasn't totally

1:39:30 sure if he was pleased on soon or not, because they never

1:39:33 bother showing the, the tattoos and kind of him running the game

1:39:37 doesn't seem like a, a high enough position to, to be

1:39:40 somebody who's in, you know, in charge of, of everybody.

1:39:44 And so I got the feeling he wasn't.

1:39:46 But George does make one reference to the Cleezon soon at

1:39:49 some point. And so, yeah, I, I wasn't sure

1:39:52 if Kulak was one or like you said, just working for, for

1:39:55 them. So I'm glad that you clarified

1:39:57 that. But the other thing about Kulak

1:39:59 is his name, because Kulak sounds like a Tank Deniz name.

1:40:05 But I don't think they ever give him an earth name.

1:40:08 Also in IMDb it does say that his last name is Scar Hand and I

1:40:14 don't think that's ever mentioned in the episode.

1:40:16 So I can't help but wonder is that just a like a nickname or a

1:40:20 descriptor that they threw in the credits just to so that he

1:40:24 would have a last name? But somehow it never made it

1:40:26 into the script. So I'm not sure what's going on

1:40:28 with his name. Is it is it really cool like

1:40:32 scar hand, which which would insinuate that he had the scar

1:40:36 before they even landed? I don't.

1:40:41 So I don't know what's going on with his name.

1:40:43 Maybe he insisted on not getting an earth name that would kind of

1:40:47 match with his personality. But then I'm not sure why he

1:40:50 would get, you know, except scar hand.

1:40:52 I don't know. So it's that's interesting about

1:40:57 his name. And then Speaking of Tanktonese

1:41:00 words, I apologize if we've mentioned this before.

1:41:02 We might have because it has popped up before.

1:41:05 But there is a point where George is having the dream when

1:41:09 he wakes up, Susan refers to him as Nemu.

1:41:12 She's referred to him as that before, but that is not his

1:41:15 first name. It's Tanya, which is mentioned

1:41:18 several times by by Kulak and I am not positive, but I think he

1:41:23 has referred to her as Nemu. So I think Neemu is just like a

1:41:27 term of endearment. And then the last thing I'll

1:41:30 mention is something I've already said before, which is

1:41:33 that the whole Russian roulette game thing is an interesting

1:41:38 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

1:41:45 the end of the episode or else my not so great outro at the end

1:41:49 will not make sense. Well there is a single moment

1:41:54 where George says something to Kulak like he was taking

1:42:00 advantage of the overseers doing something or he was helping the

1:42:03 overseers do something. He says it in a way that

1:42:06 suggested to me that Kulak wasn't himself an overseer.

1:42:10 But it is. It's a tiny line and I what

1:42:12 you're talking about where we have a newcomer who never takes

1:42:16 on or uses their immigration human name, maybe some of the

1:42:21 people in power or something. But there's no, I don't know.

1:42:24 There's it does it sounds like something he just kept.

1:42:27 We've had another character do that.

1:42:29 I think a couple of them where they're just going around with

1:42:32 Tank Deniz names they're going by.

1:42:36 So yeah, that's that is something they've chosen to do

1:42:39 as a writing choice. But yeah.

1:42:41 Are we ready to go to school? Yeah.

1:42:43 Yep, I'm ready. All right, well, I will start us

1:42:45 off. You've already mentioned the

1:42:47 Babylon 5 count. So when I score these episodes,

1:42:50 I usually give it two kinds of rating.

1:42:53 I give it a sort of skip or watch rating because some people

1:42:58 are not completionists like me and they've got a lot going on

1:43:00 and they don't want to watch every single episode.

1:43:04 So do I need to watch this one? And clearly you need to watch

1:43:07 this one. As Todd said, you need to watch

1:43:10 it for the performances. I'd have the world building with

1:43:12 the Day of Descent, more about life on the ship and Earth.

1:43:14 I'm all about the rituals and culture, and this episode has a

1:43:17 bunch. I like seeing a man brag about

1:43:20 his VCR. Two older friends standing in a

1:43:23 darkened kitchen away from the party, sipping their sour milk

1:43:25 and reflecting on past drama. I also rate it on Asta.

1:43:30 Score on how many Star Trek alumni managed to squeeze into

1:43:34 this. I'm not going to count the

1:43:36 director. Oh man, I should though for a

1:43:38 really high score. But the director did direct

1:43:41 multiple episodes, good episodes of Next Generation and a whole

1:43:45 Star Trek movie. But the actors sticking to my

1:43:48 theme. My base score for this episode

1:43:50 is 4 with Matt Sykes, George Francisco, Susan Francisco, and

1:43:54 Captain Grazer all in this episode.

1:43:56 And they're All Star Trek alumni.

1:43:58 But then you've got our big MVP, Andreas Katsilis in this

1:44:02 episode, Thomas Edison, Joe Comet, the attorney I mentioned

1:44:09 and the stuntman, precision driver cop in the strip club.

1:44:14 That is a lot of Star Trek alumni.

1:44:16 That is ASTA score of 9. I believe it is a record for

1:44:21 this series so far, not even counting the director.

1:44:25 Maybe there's a connection there.

1:44:26 So yes, this this gets really, I said before it might not be my

1:44:31 highest personal favorite episode, but it definitely gets

1:44:34 the highest score I've given to 1 yet.

1:44:36 So well done the game. Yeah.

1:44:39 OK, so looking at how long this episode is, I apologize.

1:44:43 I think I hugged the mic two or three times.

1:44:46 Understatement of the century. There's just a lot to say about

1:44:48 this episode and I was kind of excited about it, so I apologize

1:44:51 if I went on too long. Not good enough, damn it, not

1:44:54 good enough. But because of everything that I

1:44:57 had to say and that you had to say that that was just so great

1:45:01 about this episode, I do give it an A, maybe not an A+ because

1:45:05 I'm still kind of thinking that an A+ might be ahead at some

1:45:09 point. So I'm kind of reserving the A+.

1:45:11 But this is the highest score so far.

1:45:14 It doesn't have quite as much social commentary as the pilot

1:45:17 or as much sci-fi content and allegorical storytelling as our

1:45:21 previous episode 3 to Tango. Those two episodes I gave vary

1:45:25 firm a minuses, but this wins because of the power of the

1:45:29 performances plus a little boost from the guest casting.

1:45:34 And you know, the performances have to be that good for that to

1:45:37 be the determining factor because usually I don't

1:45:40 concentrate that much on performances.

1:45:42 I don't often give something a super high score just because of

1:45:46 the performances. But this is kind of an exception

1:45:49 because they they really were that good.

1:45:51 So, yeah, for those of you that don't know, Todd is very stingy

1:45:56 with his high marks. So in order to get an A, you

1:45:59 have to go way above and beyond. So that's that is significant.

1:46:05 Coming up next time on alienating ourselves, Todd and I

1:46:09 explore episode 11, Chains of Love.

1:46:12 Oh, La La Sykes and Francisco are hot on the trail of a

1:46:15 newcomer woman whose dates have a habit of turning up dead.

1:46:20 Meanwhile, George is struggling with paranoia that Susan could

1:46:24 be unfaithful. If you like your romance with a

1:46:27 hint of danger, Danger's my middle name, TuneIn.

1:46:30 Next week, as Todd and I get to the heart of this sultry mystery

1:46:34 and continue alienating ourselves, I continue to be

1:46:37 Nick. I'm Todd.

1:46:38 Thank you for joining us. We do have one listener e-mail,

1:46:43 but because this episode is running so long, maybe we should

1:46:46 save it for next time. But.

1:46:49 But thank you very much to Preston for sending that in.

1:46:52 And in case you recognize the name, yes, that's my Co host

1:46:54 from another podcast. So but an e-mail is an e-mail.

1:47:00 But if you would like to send us an e-mail, our e-mail address is

1:47:04 [email protected] and we will read it on the air.

1:47:08 We made us save it for an episode that's a little shorter.

1:47:10 We'd love to see some reviews wherever you listen to podcasts.

1:47:13 If you love us, like us, or can barely tolerate us, please give

1:47:16 us five stars. If you really hate us, please

1:47:18 give us four stars. If you give those three stars

1:47:21 are lower, you will lose your next game.

1:47:24 And if the stakes are super high, that's not our fault

1:47:26 either. As always, may all your milk be

1:47:29 as fresh or as sour as you prefer it to be.

1:47:31 And the next time you stumble onto a totally normal,

1:47:34 completely overdone, super cliche underground fighting

1:47:38 ring, just remember it could be worse.

1:47:41 Have a great week. Good night everybody.