#016 - Alien Nation 1.11 "Chains of Love"

0:02 Humans and aliens working together. I really want to dig more into their culture. It's a mirror up to humanity. Social commentary, Allegorical storytelling. Wild, angry old man opinions. And this is for adults. Odds in my podcast is current and hip. Oh debatable. It's. Just not funny. Really dumb and strange do. You know what means and tank to knees. Sork. It's a beautiful dress, Mrs. Francisco. Oh, thank you, Leonard. Love to paint you Mrs. Francisco. Why don't you paint the house for? Leonard Nimoy.

0:32 Fascinating. Leonard McCoy. I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer. Is the patriarchy of those those stifling me again? Yikes. Such a bumble, but. Another great performance by Eric per Point is George Francisco. Soar. George Francisco is one of my all time favorite characters. The show is going to go to places that I really enjoy. Sour milk is a good thing to the tanked knees. Soft with a subtle finish. This is a packed episode. Stay tuned listeners. We're both fans of Star Trek. Watching Alien Nation and we enjoy it.

0:58 I am one of your hosts, Todd. This is. This is the Alienating Ourselves podcast. Someone I respect give it a good review. I thought I reevaluate it. Greetings, humans and newcomers, and welcome back to Alienating Ourselves, the podcast where we examine sci-fi entertainment with a focus on aliens and the humans that they accidentally fall in love with. I am one of your hosts, Todd. I'm pretty sure there are some people in my life that probably think I should actually try a love potion, but the joke's on them.

1:27 I would still have to leave the house to meet someone. And joining me always is a guy who very likely wooed his wife through sheer likeability. It's Nick. Nick, how's it going? Is going well, great to be here. I can tell you all exclusively right here and now that I got my girl through trickery, cleverness and dissection and a combination of a Shakespearean plot and a teen romp from the 90s all rolled up and so great to be here. Before we proceed, I think we might have some listener e-mail we're going to look at.

2:04 Yes. So I believe I mentioned that the very end of the previous episode but we were running kind of long so we saved it for this time. And Full disclosure, it is from my Co host on my other podcast. It's from Preston but he wrote in to us to say happy holidays to our guides into the world of Alien Nation. I am a newcomer to the series and was wondering if there were holidays that the show didn't touch on that you guys would have liked to have seen just to see newcomers reaction to them. Also, do the show ever touch on what the newcomers think of yogurt?

2:38 It would seem like that would be interesting to explore. I must return to the end of month reconciliation and I hope you guys are having a wonderful recording. So he's asking about holidays that we didn't see. We definitely saw Halloween in one episode, but I'm not, I don't think they ever got around to a Christmas episode. And so, yeah, it would have been interesting to see how they would have handled Christmas or Easter. Let me see what else. I don't think we ever got a 4th of July. So yeah, practically.

3:10 Day of Descent was sort of like a combination Christmas, Thanksgiving, I guess, when you try and pinhole somebody else's culture into our structure. But yeah, that might be as far as they get with that. Yeah, yeah. And maybe 4th of July. I mean, really, I think the only one they truly addressed was Halloween, so just about anything would have been good. So really, what Christmas, Easter, 4th of July, those are the big ones. And like you said, one was kind of like a Thanksgiving type thing. So yeah, it would have been interesting to see their reaction to just about any of the other major holidays.

3:50 We can see if Stella Nights and Eastern Philosophy have any more religious stuff that comes up later with some sort of yearly celebration. That might be as far as we get. You remember the rest of the series better than I do, but that's all I remember. Yeah, and I've, I've already looked ahead at most of the episodes and I don't know, remember, I'll top my head any other holidays. And I think I kind of know why he's asking about yogurt because I'm not positive. I know yogurt is. Isn't it made from like fermenting milk or something like that?

4:24 It's got live cultures in it, but maybe it's because it's sort of plumpy dairy. I kind of wondered about newcomers and our food in general. That's not their food if it's not cooked meat. And we have a little bit of a precedent because Emily Francisco eats Halloween candy, so they must be OK with sweets in their palate. Yeah. So I'm going to guess that they can ingest yogurt without being disgusted. Yeah, I'm wondering if they can also eat nuts or beans. Well, there again, beans would have to be cooked, but nuts wouldn't, and nuts would be vegetable adjacent.

5:01 Yeah, Do they? Are they completely? Well, no. You thought Kathy might be a vegetarian, right? Yes, and in fact I think I was skimming through an episode the other day to find a clip for something and she does say that she is. Well now I can't remember if it was vegetarian or vegan, but definitely that she doesn't eat meat. But then we do see her eating a worm at one of the ceremonies in one of the more recent episodes. So. We're guessing she's not strict or she dabbles in bugs because she liked the grasshopper molay as well.

5:35 Yeah, yeah. And as much as they do eat meat, especially raw meat, maybe there are certain things that they do almost consider like vegetable adjacent. So maybe when she said she she doesn't eat meat, maybe yeah, she was talking about the big stuff like like pigs, cows, stuff like that. But then the like you said, the insects, maybe she makes an exception for. Yeah. So I do think that this is a good example, Andrew, of asking silly questions that are actually very, very quality questions that Todd and I could still talk about.

6:08 It's good stuff, man. Thanks for submitting that. Yeah, yeah, I think yeah. Oh, yeah. Just correct. It was. It was Preston, not Andrew. Preston, thank you. So we will get started in our episode for today, but everybody please feel free to write in with your comments, criticisms, suggestions, or really, really bizarre questions that might make Todd and I go off on a tangent that could just be fun. So let's get into it. Today we will be discussing Alienation Season 1, episode 11. Chains of Love originally aired November 27th, 1989.

6:46 George and Matter on the hunt for a lady newcomer who is big on the online dating scene. And there's nothing wrong with that unless your dates all turn up stabbed to death. Meanwhile, George struggles with creeping fears and doubts with his relationship at home. Susan Francisco is in a period of newcomer pregnancy when they put out a Risvidi hormone that makes them irresistible. So he's got to struggle with that. This was directed by Harry Longstreet, who's produced a season of the series fame, which is big in the 80s, as well as short lived but wonderful series Voyagers.

7:18 That I've already ranted it about to Todd and this is the first of three Alienation episodes that he directs. He also wrote two of the Alienation TV movies that we'll cover later. This episode's written by Andrew Schneider and Diane Froloff who have these two have written 7 episodes of the series and two of the TV movies and they Co write 1 I think TV movie with Harry Longstreet and his wife the director. So this is the third of their seven episodes that we've watched including the first cigar and three to Tango, which are pretty great.

7:53 So it seems like they're on a roll so far. What is your first take away initial reaction to this episode, Todd? Well, this is a very middle of the road episode for me. There's nothing frustrating enough to make it a bad or disappointing episode, but there's also nothing impressive enough to make it a lower level favorite either. In fact, when we get to our sour milk and saltwater sections, I really only have 4 bullet points for good stuff, and two of those came at the last second. And oddly enough, only one thing for bad stuff, which in a way is good, but again, for only having one bad thing, you would think the episode would be better.

8:36 And it's still kind of middle of the road, so it's it's just even enough to not have much to nitpick over. But I'm just not super blown away by it either. So how about you? Well, once again, I can't tell if the plot was obvious or if I cheated by watching it already years ago, but I still enjoyed it very much. Also, one of my triggers is couples fighting and we see that following questionable behavior by both Matt and George. But that didn't lessen my enjoyment. And there were some really creative writing choices in it, especially for 1989.

9:09 I think I I think I had maybe 2 positives and two negatives as well. But then I had just a pile of I have to mention this things. So I kind of threw them into those categories. But we can just trot right along. So looking at sour milk positives, Todd, what's your first one? OK, so my first one is the big one, but also not a huge surprise. This episode gives Eric Pierpoint new acting opportunities to show George turned on. Feeling guilty, feeling jealous, denying, feeling jealous, being disappointed when he meets in real life the woman in the Clara Bow photo that he was originally kind of, you know, just looking at the photo kind of almost turned him on in a way.

9:52 And so he has all these different acting opportunities because in most episodes, we see him being very by the book when it comes to his cop work. And we see him being a Family Guy and we see him being faithful and religious and then other times being angry. And so we've seen those sides of him. But this episode gives him all new angles to play. And again, Eric Pierrepoint, just, you know, it is totally on point for all of those different emotions and expressions and everything. So yeah, another great performance by Eric Kerr.

10:25 Point is George Francisco. Yeah, I think one of my epiphanies in the last episode was deciding that this was actually the Eric Kerr point show that George Francisco is the star and Matt is like a fun, rambly sidekick.

10:42 It's funny that that's your first one, because my first one is very similar, but it's about Kathy. Terry Trees has several things that she gets to do in this episode. I can't tell if she's figured out what her strength is or if it's the director, but she can say a lot by kind of fixing Matt with a little squinty stare. And she does this a few times and it doesn't just look like she's scrutinizing him, which is what it looks like when I'm squinting or or just that I need better glasses. But it looks like she's kind of got him figured out.

11:16 So this happens a few times because Matt makes really questionable choices. We also see a bit of what most couples go through when they don't have the same interest or tastes like You want to say, what's wrong with you for enjoying or not enjoying something? Kathy's a strong character. She doesn't need Matt, and she doesn't like, wait around for him or pine for him. She makes herself pretty open and available to him, and she speaks honestly, but if he's being abrasive, she sticks up for herself without going off on him.

11:44 Because of the culture and language barrier, the newcomers representing maybe English language learners can have a sort of innocence and a blunt way of speaking, and they can miss nuance and subtext, and she does that really well. And the language which she's like complaining about the Three Stooges and she says. I don't understand why anyone would hire them as carpenters. They're totally incompetent and they're destroying the house and the language. Do you know what Nick Nick Nick means? And Tank Deniz.

12:13 Trying to share something special with you. If you can't appreciate it, just forget it. I'm trying, Matt. It's just not funny. How can you say that's not funny? What's your idea? Funny. I rented a tape of Herbie the Love Bug. I thought that very funny with Dean Jones and Buddy Hatchett. Kirby the Lovebug. That's for kids. And this is for adults. I should have known from outer space. How can I expect you to have a sense of? Humor. I have a sense of humor. I just don't have your sense of humor. So I was, I was thrilled with all of that, even the bad stuff.

12:49 Yes. So that's also similar to my next one, which I said that I love how much Kathy finds Matt's Sardanac situation hilarious. Yeah. It's not. So in the episode we find out that a woman is drugging dudes with love potion and then appearing to them so they'll like her in spite of her appearance, and Matt stumbles in and is like an imprinted on Raptor. He's the first person that the love potion dude sees, so the guy locks on to her. So you're talking about the hallway scene when he follows Matt home like a puppy dog and Matt asks Kathy for help and advice in this difficult situation where someone's love potion?

13:30 I see he drank the Zardneck and you were the first person he saw.

13:38 What's so funny? Matt, he's perfect for you. He's exactly what you wanted. He's available. He'll laugh when you want him to. He's someone you can control. That's the heap for the help. Yeah, and she just laughs like crazy. And so it's great to see that too, because I think we might have seen a little bit of laughing from other characters. But Kathy, I think out of all the tinked knees, is the one that is in some ways almost the most human like. And so it's great to see her just just cackle at this.

14:11 I mean, she's having a good time. She's she is thoroughly amused by this. I try to. Avoid too much intimate contact if I were you. Night, Matt.

14:29 She's very attractive. She yeah, she cackle is an appropriate word. She goes into her apartment cackling. That's my 4th positive. And it's that when she first finds out that the guy is love potion for Matt, her initial response is outrage and offense. Like they've done this on purpose, like kids playing with drugs and it's reckless. And then when she figures out the situation, then she just, it cracks her up and she gets to kind of get back at him because he was not just dismissive of her and her sense of humor for not liking what he likes.

15:06 He was condescending about it. And she knows that with Sardinac, if you take it with someone, they will like the things you like and want to do the things you want to do. So she gets to say he's perfect for you. You can control him. He'll laugh at whatever you want, which is really, really great. But the other part of it is that he's saying, well, thanks a lot for the help. So she kind of gets serious, even though it's worse for us humans where she says a little seriously, you know, have you had sex with him?

15:38 And but she's be and Matt says no. And Marv, standing to the side, says not yet, not yet. Shut up then, she. Says then it's OK and he's like what's OK? And she says if you don't have sex with him or her in a month, it'll wear off. About a month. A month. But a month is still a really long time. Yeah. You've covered some of my positives there as well. That was a wonderful scene and it was great for death. All right, what's another one? All right, so let me skip. I'll skip to the 4th one since it's a little bit related, but I do like the way Matt makes up to Kathy right at the end of the episode because he does go to her with the Herbie the Love Bug tape.

16:20 I think it's a VCR tape and offers to watch it with her and she's like, I thought you didn't like it and he says. Someone I respect give it a good review. I thought I ought to re evaluate it. And that's great because those two little sentences is more articulate than Matt has been in the last 10 episodes. So I do like that he found a way of kind of sort of apologizing to Kathy, but without, you know, coming right and saying he was sorry. And it's clear that she accepted it from the look that she gives him right after that.

16:56 Yeah, and and I have that written down as a must mention it later, but the phrase it's, it got a good review from someone I respect so I thought I should re evaluate it. It's like a geek credo we should all follow now where it's like, you know what, maybe if you enjoy it this much, maybe I wasn't fair in my initial evaluation. I should be more open minded about that. And he's not. Neither of them is especially right. Herbie is really, really stupid. And I'm a fan of Herbie and I can watch more 3 Stooges than most people.

17:32 And Three Stooges is really, really stupid. So they pick two dumb things on purpose. But I agree with you, and it is worth noting in this scene as well, listeners, this is 1989. So when she puts in the videotape for him and he's bringing VHS tapes to her place because this is 10 years before we all started getting DVDs all the time, she says OK, and she puts it in her VCR, which is in a rolling cart with a little TV. And you got to understand in 1989, a few people had big TV's. They might host big sports event party, but the vast majority of us had these little TV's that you might think are a joke right now.

18:14 And her TV is very typical. A lot of us would have watched these movies and rewatched them on teeny tiny little boxes. So it's funny to me how small it is. It's normal at the time. My next is about something you already mentioned a little bit. So we have this gorgeous, glamorous newcomer, Clara Bo. We see a picture of, it's supposed to be a fax and a print out. It's a glossy photo of this very, very pretty newcomer lady. And George reacts to her immediately. He's kind of electrified by the sight of her.

18:49 While he's obsessed with his own wife's fidelity, he's kind of obsessed with this beautiful woman image. He tells Matt that she's like the newcomer equivalent of Helen of Troy. This is the face that launched 1000 ships. And I honestly didn't remember the episode that well. So I thought this was going to turn out to be a fake image entirely. Like we'll see a composite image today made-up of multiple people or something. But it turns out she's real and she's lovely. And we tracked down the lady whose image is being stolen and used and they bring her into the police station.

19:24 And this is what you already talked about. But she turns out to be the most vapid model, ranting and raving about how wonderful her career is right now. My agent said she's never seen a model take off like I have. You remember Christie Brinkley? She says I'll be bigger than she ever was. I did the sound of all Fall Line and the clients came to see the show. Calvin practically begged me to come back to New York. It was embarrassing. But where did you run away from? I get hassled all the time by man well.

19:53 Thank you, Miss Bovee. I'm sorry if we've caused you any inconvenience. You know, I don't think I've ever been in a police station before. Except for once in the South of France, I was with his count, with his Duke or something. Anyway, he was wild for me. We were in the hills above Monte Carlo. Thank you, Mitch Bopry. And George, the illusion, the lust, the passion, the fixation, it's all just destroyed. He's just sitting there like, I don't want to listen to this woman anymore. Finally gets her to leave and he says.

20:23 What a bumbo bimbo. And then, but I, I did like that. I think that there's a, there is not a primary plot line about fantasy and reality and lust and, you know, real connection, but they kind of sneak that in where it's like, you know, the the person you might think a lot of, if you actually ever met them, they're not that great. What's another you have? Okay, so the only one I have left is that it's good finding out that George and Susan had an arranged pairing but still fell in love anyway. And it also satisfies a little bit of curiosity I've had recently 'cause I've been thinking about.

21:05 I do like that we get so much of the culture of the tanked knees, but there's so many things that are involved. You know, like when they had the Benom ceremony and Albert was wearing the the white robes and everything, and they have candles for certain things. And then I know that there's another ceremony coming up where they have special materials that they have to use in that and they've got certain prayers and they've got such specific items within their culture. At the same time, they've also talked about being kind of drugged by this gas on the ship that kept them compliant and, and kind of under the control of the Cleveland Sun, the the overseers.

21:49 And so I've kind of been wondering how is it they have at the same time all of this freedom to have ceremonies and the materials needed to do these ceremonies while at the same time being so, so much under control. And my guess is there had to be some kind of compromise. Like I guess the overseers had to say, OK, yes, we these are cargo. That's how they referred to in the previous episode. These people are cargo. They are slave labor. But at the same time, if we push them too hard, you know, they they've got to have their rest, they've got to have their free time.

22:23 They got to have this, that and the other. And so I guess they gave them just enough latitude and somewhere along the way, I guess they also let them be married. But it also makes sense that some of these marriages were arranged and possibly forced. But it turns out that even though George and Susan might have been just like that, their their marriage was arranged, they were forced to to be together, they still fell in love anyway. And so that's just a a nice bit of trivia that is both reassuring about them as a couple and also makes a lot of sense in terms of how their life was on the ship.

22:58 Yeah, and he mentions a thing. I have the word further down in my document where he has a name for predestination. But George is very romantic about the idea that they don't date their newcomers. They sort of find each other through fate, and he thinks a lot of them believe in that. Although we've seen before that George has opinions about his race and that they don't all match up to his ideals. So I'm not sure how much that's at, but my next one is the dating profile. So we go to new mate in You mate, the dating service.

23:36 And this is Internet dating in 1989. So it's really interesting and cutting edge. And I think they might be doing things with computers and the Internet that weren't real yet, but they were like speculating about what it might be in 1995. So what I like about this is that we get to see a profile screen, and on the profile screen it mentions that one of the people I think our first murder victim, Emerson hit, it mentions his spotting pattern is back to Zoe and that he prefers pentazoid spotting pattern on newcomer heads.

24:11 His hobbies include Palach, which we saw in the first cigar episode, playing bassoon. He plays the bassoon and bacco, which might have been another sport that I think Buck heard about when he was in the get rich quick scheme that turned out badly. His favorite foods were crustaceans and spicy nematodes. Oh wow. So now Clara Bo's comprehensive data profile says that she has pentazoid spotting, which is what he was after, and her favorite foods are ferret and muskrat and they match up on spicy nematodes, and that she wants a guy who's musically inclined and he plays bassoon.

24:52 So they that worked out. She wasn't just randomly picking guys, she was looking for particular types. That was really interesting. My last positive is, well, it's essentially that the guy who is taking a love potion and is in love with Matt comes to the station. They bring him to the station once and it's very uncomfortable because he keeps mooning over Matt and trying to find out everything he can about him and he hates leaving. And of course, Matt is being teased by Dobbs. But then the guy comes back.

25:23 Matt comes back to the station and finds Marvin. He's waiting for him at his desk. Matt's freaking out. And Dobbs is, of course, right there, tongue in cheek, ready to make fun of him. I got to tell you, listeners, you may not understand the culture of 1989, but the word homophobia does not even begin to cut it. We were taught in schools and on TV overtly and subtly at that time that homosexuality was like an illness, that it had an infectious quality, that men needed to be, like, aggressively afraid of it.

25:55 And the attitudes and stuff were just extreme. So when I tell you that this bit with Matt and Marv was progressive, I can't even do it justice. Dobbs teasing him about it. The way he teases him about it is nothing. Dobbs teases him the same amount that someone might tease me if my wife came to see me at work and brought me a pie, like, oh, somebody got, that's it. 1989 Oh my goodness, it was very soft for 1989. What the hell are you doing here? I brought you a present. I don't want any presents.

26:28 You're a heartbreak of sites. There are guys you really bring out the color in your eyes. Dobbs, I'm warning you, you're out of here now. Can I watch you workout? I won't bother you. No. Oh, sites don't be so. Rough. On the guy here. So my last sour milk thing is that there is this scene where Matt essentially has a breakup scene with a man. Yeah. And he pulls Marv into an office and he lets him down easy. Which just staggered me that the writers did this. I didn't remember this scene at all as a kid, and I'm guessing it's because I didn't understand what was happening at the time.

27:09 But Matt does a textbook good breakup, I think about as well as you can. I don't know if Matt realizes that's what he's doing or if he accidentally fumbles his way through it. But first, he tells Marv what a great guy he is, that he's good looking. You know what, He's going to find somebody else really soon, but this is never going to work out. Marv says, hey, can we at least be friends? And he's like, no, we can't, but you're going to be OK. Marv says, you know, you've made it abundantly clear it's not going to work out.

27:35 And I can't say I'm happy about that, but I guess there's nothing I can do. And he leaves. So it is this, this respectful breakup between two men in 1989 on TV. That's just. It was shocking to me. So yes, that's my last class, Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is interesting that they at least address that, even if even if it's addressed as a weird situation, the fact that they're broaching it all, I guess. Yeah, it's kind of interesting. It's a weird dynamic. I would submit listeners that no one showed a guy break up on national television for a full 10 years after this scene.

28:14 I don't think it was done again that way for a long time. I can't prove it or back it up, but I'm going to pass so we can move into negatives well real quick. So you were you mentioned something called Thakazoid and for some. Reason. Yeah, and for some reason that sounds familiar to me too. Either I saw it not this time that I watched it, but maybe a previous time, or maybe I saw it in a different episode. But it seemed like I came across a geometrical term that did not sound familiar. And as somebody who's, you know, was into math, I majored in math and I kind of like geometry.

28:48 I don't think I've ever heard of Thakazoid. And while you were talking, I was trying to look it up and Google keeps wanting to say, did you mean trapezoid? I'm like, no, I meant Thakazoid. And I'm trying to spell it different ways and it is not finding it. So I'm guessing that is a made-up term. Oh yeah, specifically for Tankton E spot patterns and that it's not a a true human English term. Yeah, and we saw that. I can't remember what the primary plot was in the episode when Uncle Mudri is visiting and walks in the ocean and Buck comes clean about the accident where he accidentally like killed a gang member.

29:25 But the we found out there was a data file and all newcomers that had their spot patterns and had an index number, but it did not have a name for the pattern type. And it kind of makes sense that newcomers would have a name for it instead of saying you're an easy 7341695. But she's she's a pentazoid. We know Penta is 5, but it's just, you know, I guess the spots can kind of have five points ish, but they're none of them are pointy. But yeah, no idea. But it is consistent. So I think she likes factozoids.

30:01 So George, when he makes up his own artificial dating profile later, he says that yeah, he has factozoid. We don't actually know for sure what he does have. Yeah. And I'm still trying to look it up because I, I didn't hear that. I didn't hear that middle T in there. I thought it. Was factozoid and you said? Factozoid. It's written on the screen in the. Scene Yeah. So I'm still trying to spell it different ways and it's still like I tried Factozoid spelled a different a certain way and it says these are results for Dakotazoid and I'm like Dakotazoid.

30:37 So yeah, it is not funny. All right. So yeah, we can. We can move on to saltwater now. Well, this is Harry Longstreet's first time directing an episode of Alien Nation and I'll go first because my first one is really dumb and strange. So I didn't look at the cinematographer of this episode, but something bothered me about the way it was shot. So I did my homework in a cinematography to make sure I made some sense and didn't just sound super hyper focused or completely crazy. Knock on wood, it could be called consistent framing.

31:09 That's a capital C, Capital F, where you shoot a scene from around the same place every time to make the viewer more comfortable in the space. Think about the Bridge of every Starship usually being shot from 1:00, general side of the bridge with a few exception shots. Or it could be the 180 rule where you as the director, you draw an invisible line between the two people talking and the most of the action. And you don't. You can go left, you can go right, you can close an in, but you don't go past that 180 line, that line stretching between them, behind them, because it disorients the viewer as to who's on the right and who's on the left.

31:46 But whatever it is, in every previous episode I believe I wasn't paying attention until now. Matt and Kathy's hallway designed so that Matt's door to his apartment is to the left in the foreground, and Kathy's door is to the right way in the background down the hall. There are only 2 doors on this whole hall in the apartment and they are at opposite ends of it, on opposite sides. But for this one episode, Matt's door is way down to the right and Kathy's door is a way forward to the left. They didn't like switch apartments.

32:28 They're just rotating the camera. So now we see the invisible 4th wall that usually the viewer in ATV show never sees at that other end of the hallway. But I found it very disruptive.

32:44 So I think it's just this one director. I, I don't know, I go back and look. I might find that they did it a few times, but the way that it's shot every episode, if you go to the apartment foreground left, you're going to Matt's door. And in this episode, Matt comes to Kathy's door a few times and it's it looks like where Kathy would go to his door. So it's just they kind of flipped it around. You can imagine if you saw the basement in That 70s Show, Foreman's basement, but from the other side where you're like looking past the stairs at the wall, we never see.

33:18 You'd be like wait, why do I see the back of the couch or the back of the couch in like 20 shows? You know it's just we always see it kind of from 1 angle. But thank you, that is my first saltwater negative and I had to look up stuff to understand what I was talking. About OK, All right. And you are concerned talking about hairstyles? See. So let me see. So my one and only nitpick, and I know it's unusual for me to only have one nitpick, is that Matt as usual makes everything about himself. So I hate the way he over acts or see me overreacts to Kathy not understanding 3 stooges and then insulting her for liking Herbie the love bug.

33:58 It's just a another moment of him being a caveman and you know making everything about himself and it's like you know. And especially for, you know, me being one of the hosts of the of discerning geeks portal. And we're also doing it here too, where we try to be very reasonable about other people's opinions. And even if we disagree, you know, to not insult those other opinions. I know in our two-part Star Trek episode, I have that that post episode gripes about Star Trek Picard season 3 and a few other things in Star Trek.

34:29 But even then I don't say and anybody who loves this show is crazy, you know, I don't I don't say that. And so it does rub me the wrong way when Matt, yes, makes it sound like Kathy is crazy for liking Herbie the love bug and not understanding 3 stews. I'm like, you know, you need, there's got to be a better way of saying this. And of course, he doesn't know it until the end of the episode. So yeah, that's my, oddly enough, my one and only nitpick of the whole episode. I did mention that in mine as well.

34:58 I think I kind of chalked it over to the Yikes Sykes section, which can grow into all the really weird choices he makes. But he is pretty abrasive and aggressive with her and he does other stuff in the episode as well that are just bizarre and over the top. So after she ticks him off, he did this in another episode where he's ticked off and he goes to work and he takes it with him and he has an attitude. So he goes and sees George, who's jealous of his wife and protective and concerned, and Matt gives him a horrible buddy advice.

35:27 I've done a terrible thing. Good. It's about time. I'm serious. I've betrayed Susan. I've betrayed her trust. I went through her purse. Oh my God. I thought she was with another man. You're a real ping pong, George. One minute you're hot after another woman, next minute you're worried your wife's sleeping around. Is she? No, what is important is this breach of faith. I didn't even trust my own wife. I know women. They'll lie, they'll cheat on you. I told you before you're jealous and you probably got good reason.

35:57 You should have given Susan a dose of sardinac. You're jealous. No, jealous. Jealous. No. And when he enters the scene, he's complaining about women drivers. Woman runs with life, almost hits me. She didn't even see me. Damien look, why did they let him drive? That is extreme misogyny when you're like looking down on the whole group of people. But it's not, it's not some of Matt's best moments and I don't think he carries the anti hero vibe as well as the writers would like. I think he just comes across as a jerk in those moments.

36:30 That's definitely one of my negatives.

36:34 I'm glad they expanded on Sardinac in this episode. The love potion that we saw in 15 with Wanda. But at the same time, it sounded really dangerous to me to just have it out there. So it worked for this episode's plot. But based on this episode's plot, you can make someone helplessly obsessed with you for a month by drugging them, or forever if you roof either drink and sleep with them. And that creates some serious concerns as far as I'm concerned.

37:04 I'm not sure what they're going to do with that. I think I only have a couple left and I can rattle them off. Let me see. I'm surprised. Ted, who we find out is the murderer and he's stalking people who are hooking up with the girl that he hooked up with and got love potion to because he's mad with love. I'm surprised Ted didn't attack them when they're going into her place instead of after they've hung out with her and they're coming out. And that we find out about this Rizvidi hormone that pregnant newcomer women are putting out that makes them irresistible to men, any men.

37:40 And I'm just wondering if we started bottling that yet because that that it would sell if we water that down as a perfume. Apparently it's just maybe the newcomers aren't thinking that way yet. Maybe that's just me raising raised in a capitalist society. But I also have to say, the way that the painters were leering, I would not have left my pregnant, amazing smelling wife alone with them either. They were like staring. It was creepy. That's a beautiful dress, Mrs. Francisco. Oh. Thank you, Leonard.

38:07 Did you know Leonard's an artist? He's very good. I'd. Love to paint you Mrs. Francisco. Oh, well, thank you, Leonard. Why don't you paint the house first, Leonard? It was like, yeah, we'll take good care of your wife, Mr. Francisco. Yeah, OK, Yeah, you, you guys are fired. I either I'll do the painting myself or or hire some women to do it or maybe some people to do it or yeah. Come back in three weeks, which doesn't. Smell like Yeah, you guys are out of here. OK. That does it for me for negatives.

38:40 OK, ready to connect the spots? All right. So I think I'm tangled up in movie similarities with this episode because it taps into some noir tropes and I didn't realize that until I had gotten a few. So my first one is that there's a movie called Laura from 19451944 by Otto Preminger. And if you haven't seen it listeners, I strongly recommend it. It's a wonderful movie. It just kind of pulls you in. It's black and white. It's very cool, but in it a cop sees a painting of a beautiful woman who has disappeared, and he becomes sort of obsessed with the painting and the girl, even though he hasn't met her.

39:18 And I felt like they were really doing some stuff with that, with George, with this picture of Clara Bo that he keeps looking at and looking at. Another one is Dressed to Kill, a 1980 suspense movie by De Palma. I don't love De Palma very much, but like Laura, it has a lot of Hitchcock style things in it without being done by Hitchcock and I won't give the twists away here, but suffice it to say it has some similar style with the unknown killer in the shadows brutally murdering people of a loose association for an unknown reason.

39:53 Sea of Love with Pacino and Ellen Barkin about a killer finding victims through single at singles ads came out two months before this episode. So I can't say it's an inspiration necessarily, but it was definitely in some of the public consciousness when they saw this. Those are my movie connections. I've got some casting, but do you have anything you wanted to bring up? Yeah, so I've got a connection to bring up too, but I'll actually save that for just a few minutes. I know you usually have a lot of casting.

40:25 It's actually quite a bit in this one, but let me possibly steal this one from you. Although you might have a ton more on this person. But Ted Raimi plays Johnny Appleseed, who is the, I guess consultant is what you might call him at the dating agency. And Ted Raimi frequently works with his brother, famous director Sam Raimi, who's done, I think he did the Evil Dead series and then also the early Spider Man movies. And Ted Ramey was also Jaxer in Xena Warrior Princess. And that's the main reason I wanted to bring that up, because I wanted to make sure I got in the Xena Warrior Princess mention, because I know that Joanna would be mad at me if I didn't.

41:11 Finally, a significant Xena Warrior Princess reference. Did you know Jaxer appeared in 42 episodes of Xena 43? If you count archive footage in a Season 6 episode, that's third place in number of appearances, behind Gabrielle and Xena herself. Xena Warrior Princess lasted six seasons for a total of 134 episodes, which is one season or 24 episodes more than Babylon 5. This show in at least seven awards, including an Emmy for music. Com Wait, what's happening? Can you hear me? Is it bad distortion?

41:48 Are you kidding me? Is the Patriot arc of Bozos stifling me again?

41:58 Yeah, Ted. Ted is a legend. If you guys don't know Ted Ramey, you've seen him already and he's when he shows up, it's just, oh hey, there's Ted. My first one will be Jenny Moffett. Little Jenny Moffett who turns out to be embroiled at the center of everything. She hasn't done a lot, but she was Snow White in the 1st 6 episodes of ATV show called The Charmings, which was a wonderful high concept series that got retooled after one season and then cancelled because they just couldn't make it work. Think of it kind of like Once Upon a Time, but a first draft.

42:32 So you've got a sitcom, except the sitcom is the fairy tale creatures and characters. I liked it very much but Caitlin. Jenny Moffett. She got recast after season 1 but she was the original Snow White. Marvin, the guy who is interested in Sykes, played by a guy named SA Griffin, and he's done lots of random stuff. He was in Misfits of Science. I didn't draw the connection. There are a couple of people in this episode for Misfits of Science, but I have to mention him because SA Griffin also has a tiny part.

43:05 And my friend Anthony's favorite thing ever, Battle Beyond the Stars, which is Star Wars RIP off. That's also obviously a take off of The Magnificent 7. If you can believe, there's not much on Emma Bovary now, Teddy Wilson, Dr. Roscoe Brennan, our coroner. This is his second appearance and I just want to tell our listeners this is the final time we're going to see Doctor Roscoe Brennan. He just did 2 episodes. The man was in a little bit of everything, but he actually died the year after this episode came out.

43:39 Not that young, he had been in a lot up until then. Yeah, I noticed that too, that he was like, like you say, in a little bit of everything. And I thought that that continued and I thought maybe he was even in a Babylon 5 episode, but I must be thinking of somebody else because like you said, he didn't sadly passed away. So yeah, I saw. I must be thinking of somebody else. Now, Ted Healy, who turns out to be our killer, is played by a guy named Jeffrey Nordling, and he was in lots of random stuff, time tracks and a single episode of Deep Space 9.

44:12 Bless him, because I was running low on Star Trek alumni Leonard the Painter, who I just said was leering at our beloved Miss Francisco. He was in The Outsiders. His name's Darren Dalton. He's AI. Don't know. Gosh, what's the tight, tall, strong brick of a man? Squinty eyes. Richard Gere Stare and it doesn't matter that much that you're in The Outsiders, except that means you know several successful actors including like Tom Cruise. Well, Darren Dalton wrote, produced and acted with his pal from The Outsider, C Thomas Howell in The Day the Earth Stopped, which is what the Internet calls a mock Buster.

44:52 It's a take off of not just The Day the Earth is Still, but the remake they made in 2008. But if you guys haven't seen the remake they made in 2008, that movie is polished garbage. So I may need to give this stinker a chance. Then again, he also Darren Dalton also made Invasion of the Pod People and Transmorphs so maybe I don't need to give it another chance. These are the extra movies you see thrown into cheap DVD multipacks. You already mentioned the wonderful Ted Ramey, but Ralph Emerson Bennett Lis is the actor and he only has 22 credits.

45:31 The thing that jumped out to me was that he was in the 1982 teen romp Zapped with Scott Baio, where a guy can use a telekinesis to pop open blouses and lift skirts, and it's exactly as fun as it sounds, especially if you're 15.

45:49 We also, you know, this kind of bothers me, but there's a guy named Tom Zimmerel. He plays Daniel Webster, and we never see him. We just hear his disembodied voices. Kathy introduces him in the background in the apartment. He didn't even poke his head around the corner. But Tom, this disembodied voice, he acted. He stopped acting in 91 and picked it up again 23 years later in 2014. Since then, he's been kind of successful making a few Hallmark Christmas movies, being in them. I mean, now there is a character named Roland in the extended credits.

46:24 I was digging deep at this point, and I don't even remember anybody in this named Roland. So I have no idea who this could be. He could have walked up to the snack cart that Ted Healey was running, or he could have been the background of the dating service or something. But Roland, I thought I should mention this guy Kurt Verber shot because he quit acting quickly and he moved into the art department where he worked on such projects as Independence Day, Green Mile and one of Todd's favourites, The West Wing.

46:53 Even though I really don't know who Roland was in this episode, but he's art department all the way. He did lots of great art departments. There is an uncredited detective. You could tell I dug deep and I just, this is what got me caught up before we recorded and I disappeared. Because his name is Bob Harps. And Bob Harks has never done anything that his family would recognize him in, I don't think. But every scene where you've got a bunch of people. So like if there's a scene in the theater and you've got 20 people in the seats, they throw Bob in one of those seats.

47:28 If there's a jury, if there's a stadium, Bob is in the background. So this man has managed to be in two. Planet of the Apes, Diamonds Are Forever, West, World Shaft, The Sting, Chinatown, Young Frankenstein, 5 Episodes of Kolchak, 48 Hours, Blue Thunder, Flashdance, Scarface, Splash, Fletch, Die Hard, Robin Hood, Men in Tights, and Forrest Gump. And I know what you're thinking, but was he in a Herbie movie? Yes, he was. Herbie Rides Again, 1974. In fact, if it was made between 1970 and 74, I think Bob was in it.

48:01 They seem to throw him into everything that that part of the credits just goes on endlessly. Oh yeah, and he was an uncredited priest in Star Trek The Next Generations Times, Arrow Part 2 and 2 episodes of Deep Space 9. Thank goodness. Oh, and the last three things he did before he stopped acting were the last three Alienation TV movies in 9596 and 97. What a life. The only other person in here is John Meese, who plays a character I don't remember at all named Lance. Lott is uncredited and he did an episode of X-Files, but I don't know who this Lancelot guy was where he showed up, and that does it for me for connecting the spots.

48:45 OK. All right. So somewhere along the way there you mentioned time tracks, which is one of those things that has fallen into obscurity. I would not be surprised if it is not available anywhere out there or if it is it's probably for free and very low resolution on YouTube. But that is one of only four TV series that were on the PTN network, the pseudo quasi half existent network that included Babylon 5. Those were two of the only shows on there with the other two being Kung Fu. The legend continues in point man.

49:25 I've never heard of point man. So Speaking of Babylon 5. So we we've already talked about a little bit before we've got that one scene where there watching the Three Stooges, Matt is laughing like crazy and Kathy is not getting it and she's asking questions. And that feels very reminiscent of a scene in very early Babylon 5. It might have been in like the first or second episode where Garibaldi has like two or three of his favorite things in the universe and one of them is like lightly implied to be sex.

50:01 But apparently another one is Duck Dodger cartoons and near the end of that episode he is watching a cartoon. And he is, he wanted to share that with the hot telepath who is on the station. But it turns out he ends up sharing that with Dylan, the Menbari ambassador. And she does not get it. And they're eating popcorn. And at one point, she asked him a question. And even worse than Matt, when she asked him this question, Garibaldi doesn't answer the question. He just continues to laugh and points at the screen.

50:32 And it's like, could you at least answer her question? And so it felt very similar to this scene with Matt and Kathy. And at least Matt did answer the question, even if he kind of lost his temper and wasn't happy that she was asking so many questions and didn't get it. But yeah, there were definite similarities between the two scenes. And yeah. And did you say that you were done with connecting? The spots done with connecting the spots. So then I also have Dobbs, watch Dobbs watch. Dobbs is in fact in this episode just enough to make fun of Matt for the Sardanac situation and his involvement is spread out over 2 scenes in the police station and in the second scene I think he only gets 2 lines.

51:17 Missing completely from the episode are Emily, Captain Grazer, Albert, Jill and Burns. And barely in the episode is Buck. He is only in one scene, barely raises his head. He's like trying to listen to music and do his homework. And his dad is grilling him with questions. And so he has his head down most of the time. I don't know if he ever does look up. And I think he even puts his earphones off of only one ear. So. So yeah, he's in one scene, being very distracted in that scene. And so that's it for Dobbs.

51:53 Watch Dobbs. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I think the writers, I mean, I'm very sad to think that we might not see Dobbs after this episode, but I feel like the writers really love Emily, and they squeeze her in as much as they can. So when she's not in it, it's like, I don't know, maybe she had to do school that week and Buck barely had anything to do, like you said. So I think we are ready for the Albert Einstein Awards, which is complicated this week. Yeah, it is. Do you have the full list? Because I've got 7 contenders.

52:30 I think so. So I'll, I'll read off the contenders. There's Alex. Now when I say contenders, I, I don't know if these are oddball names or if they're just regular names. Some of these are pretty obvious. The others, you might have more homework than I do because I intentionally try to avoid looking them up. But there's Alex Bell, who is a murder victim from last week. And when I say last week, I mean, it's mentioned in this episode this last week in terms of story time, Johnny Appleseed, who is the consultant at new mate Clara Bo, who is a participant at new new mate Jenny Moffett, who's Claire's maid.

53:08 You know, allegedly there's a little bit of shenanigans going on there. Ted Healey, someone who dated Clara Bo, Daniel Webster, Kathy's date and Marvin Garden's the Clarebo date that sees Matt first after taking Sardinet. So are those the same 7 that you have? I've got additionally the the credits mentioned Lancelot, although we never see Lancelot. Middle initial E. Yeah, right. Is your name. My name is Sir Lancelot of Camelot. And the first victim is Ralph Emerson. Oh, OK. Yes. And listeners, Ralph Emerson is a famous writer and abolitionist.

53:59 Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster you already mentioned, but there are some weird ones in here. So like you mentioned Jenny Moffett, and I could not find a Jenny Moffett. Does that name mean anything to you? No. Yeah, I, I'm pretty sure that that's just a name. And I, I search a little bit. I, I have no problem hunting. The other thing I will say occasionally Todd will do this thing where he digs deeper or he makes a guess or someone has a unique first name and he thinks maybe this is their last name.

54:30 And I don't usually partake in that. Except the painter at the house, his first name was Leonard, and I was wondering if his last name was Da Vinci. But it doesn't make any sense for immigration people to name you something based on what turns out to be your gifts or line of work necessarily. But who knows? That was just me doing that thing that you do. Well, all right, so so that would work out with him being a painter. I didn't even think about that. The first thing that came to my mind going towards Star Trek would be either the actor Leonard Nimoy.

55:07 Fascinating. Or the character Leonard McCoy. I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer. Yeah, but we will never know and there are a couple of others. So when George makes a fake profile on Newmate, he uses the name George Drum. That sounded weird to me, so I looked it up and there isn't a famous George Drum, but there is a famous drum manufacturer. There are two big manufacturers and one of them is George Way Drums, so there could be a joke there I'm not sure about. And the last one is we find out that Clara Bo isn't a a real person.

55:47 She's a fictional person that Jenny has made using a picture of this other woman that they tracked down. And that woman is Emma Bovary. And I only know who this is because my AP English teacher made me read it for an ongoing project. And this is the novel Madame Bovary by Gustav Lubert, about a woman who is never satisfied with what she has to the point of ruin, which is very poignant to the journey that Jenny goes on, but that's Emma Bovary. Yeah, I missed her, so I'm glad you picked that up. Oh, and Ted Healey, did you look up who?

56:23 Do you know who this is? No, but it sounds familiar. Well, but no, intentionally did not look it up. Irony. No, I would never have guessed Ted Healey was the highest paid vaudevillian in the 20s. Which doesn't seem that important, except he created the Three Stooges. Oh, OK. Yeah, so the chances of it being an accident are pretty slim. I don't think he can win because neither of us had ever heard of him. And Clara Bow is a famous silent film actress. I did know that one. And for you younger listeners, there is a song by Taylor Swift called Clara Bow about her, which means that Todd's in my podcast is current and hip debatable.

57:06 Just heads up on that. So yeah, I don't know if you have an opinion on this because based on the ones that we know that we would recognize without research, it'd probably be Alex Bell or Johnny Appleseed or Daniel Webster or Marvin Gardens. Marv is a pretty big deal in this episode, so it might need to be Marvin Gardens. What do you think? I miss Alex Bell. At first you, I apologize. Maybe you did explain this and I was looking at my notes and maybe didn't hear you, but I assume Alex Bell is short for Alexander Graham Bell and I just now you thought of that.

57:42 So that one is maybe a little bit too subtle. I totally miss the Ralph Emerson. Johnny Appleseed I know is a very recognizable name. The thing is, I don't know exactly what that story is. So even though, yeah, I recognize the name, it's in my head because of, you know, cultural consciousness. For some reason, I don't know the details behind it. The others sounded familiar, but I didn't know Daniel Webster would be a good one because I assume that's like Webster is in Webster's dictionary. But my.

58:11 Story called The Devil and Daniel Webster. Oh, OK. All right. But yeah. So then my vote does go to Marvin Gardens because in all of these other examples, it's basically just a famous person's name that is put on a regular person's name. But the interesting thing about Marvin Gardens is, is if it is what I think it is, it's a reference to one of the properties on the Monopoly game board. Yeah. And so it's interesting because it's actually referring to a place rather than a person. But because Marvin is also the name of a person, it can go both ways.

58:49 And so yeah, that is where my vote goes. Yeah, I I agree. So Marv and Marv does a lot in this episode. He he does a lot of heavy lifting acting wise too. So yeah, definitely our winner of the Albert Einstein Award this week is Marvin Gardens. Yay. We move on to I have to talk about this. Is there anything that you just you had to talk about? Not necessarily have to, but I did kind of list the tectonies facts that we learned this week. 1 is one that you've already mentioned that there's a hormone for pregnant women called Rasvidi hormone and it makes men go wild.

59:26 There's another mention of getting natural UV. Oh, and also for all their cultural differences is it is, excuse me. It is interesting to see Jenny be self-conscious about her appearance, particularly her burns, the way a human would be. And then one that I didn't have written down until just a few minutes ago was that we also see a double knife meant to stab both hearts of a tanked knees simultaneously. Yeah, that was an interesting choice, and they didn't go out of their way too much to explain it, but those of us watching the show since the beginning were like.

1:00:04 Oh. You don't see a lot of those. I have to mention. The show starts and toward the end we hear it again with this pop song that Jenny Moffett likes to play in the background during her dates. It sounds like a 50's pop song and it's all in Tank Deniz. The only word I think I can make out is Sork, and it's kind of like do the Mashed potato, do the jerk, do the such and such kind of dance song. Except sort. Have some more tea. If you can get an audio of that, man, I just, I tried a little bit. I looked around the Internet and I couldn't find anything in isolation.

1:00:50 But I love that they went to the trouble to record a pop song in Tanked and Knees. If you find out in your research that it's totally in English and I just have bad hearing, I don't know if I want you to tell me. I think Gary Graham read in the script that his character loves the Three Stooges and as an actor he went out of his way to learn 3 Stooges bits because he doesn't just do like the he does like the whole hand over the top boing Ding things and stuff. So he really got into it. I'm not saying that that was rewarded, but I think Gary Graham tried very hard.

1:01:29 I want to say that I like the Herbie movies very much. They do not hold up for adults. Y'all don't have to watch them but I've seen them all. Not counting the two reboots that I know of. And in the 80s when magic adventures for children were limited and there weren't a lot of cars that were alive. Kirby was the bomb on Disney Sunday night. George and Susan having strong opinions on Sardanac was really really cool. So I think you mentioned it before, but Matt asking them if they did it is a pretty reasonable question.

1:02:00 After 15 with Wanda kind of makes it sound like all newcomers did it like as part of their marriage or mating ritual, they just obviously are going to take the formula together. And George is like, it's none of your business. And then you like stares at him and says no. But it turns out there's a whole back story the writers came up with for this and that was really cool. So it sounds like most newcomers do take Sardinac, and that the Franciscos are a little bit unique, which to me would mean that infidelity among newcomers must be pretty rare because they're all on the juice.

1:02:41 Although Kathy obviously has a negative opinion of it because she feels like it's making someone someone else's slave. She hasn't even had this conversation with the Francisco. So maybe a lot of educated newcomers dislike the idea of Sardanac. Oh, I mentioned George thinking that the tank Deniz don't search for mates. They feel a sense of predestination that he calls Roka. The subtitles say ROWKAH Roka. I missed that one. He asks where Susan is and when Buck is shrugging him off, he says we need a new harness for the pod.

1:03:18 Maybe she went shopping and Buck says she already ordered it. Well, I do remember enough of what's coming to know what they're talking about. But the fact that they just throw out in this episode the phrase, we need a new harness for the pod. Yeah.

1:03:34 The listener is like, wait what? What? You mentioned Buck and what he's doing, but I just love that Buck is studying. He seems in good spirits. George doesn't seem to notice. But when Buck stands up, gets his books and leaves the room, he stops and turns and touches his father's temple affectionately, the way they do with like 2 of their fingers. I thought that was really cool. Matt says that Claribo is obviously a Black Widow. And George says Claribo is not an arachnid. He doesn't understand. Oh, and I thought that it was really cool.

1:04:05 So we think that Jenny Moffett, who is disfigured, is looking for love. We think she's desperate for human connection. But George essentially points out to her, she used the love potion on the first guy, who's a handsome guy, Ted. And she's like, why did you keep going after Ted? And she says he wasn't enough. So she wasn't just looking for love or physical touch. She was actually still a pretty shallow person who wanted to feel that feeling again, where lots of people wanted her and thought she looked amazing.

1:04:35 So that was an interesting twist for me. Yeah. Oh, and you might like this. But when Ted is shot at the end and they check and he's still alive, Matt calls for backup. He says when William 152. I went back to the Night of screams to see if he used the same radio call sign and he does so for you trivia heads. I think Matt and George are car 52. Oh, all right. OK. Yeah, Susan, you had mentioned to me that Susan and George, I think Susan calls George Nemu sometimes. So this is the first time I heard it.

1:05:11 I had not noticed it before, but now that I was paying attention, I noticed her calling in Nemu. And yeah, you already mentioned that. So that does it for I have to mention this so we can move on to our scores. I talked a bunch so you want to go first. Yeah. So, yeah, one other thing. It wasn't in my notes, but something I just thought of. And in fact it was. It's kind of in that same scene where I mentioned the thing about the double knife and you said that the the guy gets shot, but when the guy is using that double knife, he does actually stab George in the shoulder.

1:05:45 And George doesn't seem that bothered by it. And in fact, he goes home. In fact, when Matt calls for the ambulance, he doesn't call for extra any extra first aid for George. And when George goes home and Susan sees the blood on his on his shirt, she's alarmed and he's like, it's no big deal. So I'm wondering if the tank Deniz do not have that much important going on in their shoulder area if somehow the the blade very much missed, you know, every single nerve, every single muscle, it is there a gap in there.

1:06:19 You know what's going on with their with their anatomy in their shoulder that he can take a stab wound and it be nothing. So. I thought, yeah, yeah, I had not noticed that, but you're right. He, he is. They're really injured in that scuffle. George is lying there, incapacitated for the most part. So it didn't occur to me that then he just goes home and has a a sweet moment with his wife. Yikes. George is tough. Right, so now I'm done. So what is your score for this episode, Todd? How do you rank this?

1:06:53 So like I said, kind of middle of the road, I'm going to give this AB. And I mean, I really kind of summed it up in the beginning. There's nothing frustrating. There's nothing super bad that that brings it down. It's in fact, this is the first episode where I've only had one nitpick, but there's just not enough super impressive stuff to make up for that. And so yeah, it's just the middle of the road. B Nothing, nothing usually wrong, nothing hugely amazing. So it right in the middle. How about you?

1:07:23 I like this episode very much, not just because there was lots of Kathy, but there was by bringing back Sardonak, by adding biology to the newcomer pregnancy cycle, and with the guys trying to not be jerks to their ladies while hunting down a noir Dame. There's a lot of good stuff in there that I enjoyed. I also give it an STA score for how many Star Trek alumni are in it, and this was Slim Pickens, man. Grazer wasn't in this one. Burns wasn't in this one. I was really left with Matt, George and Susan as my base, three of Star Trek alumni and Ted Healey.

1:07:59 Jeffrey Nordling was in Deep Space 9 and that brought me up to four. I really didn't think I would find anybody until I positively scoured the credits and found this invisible extra who's in everything, Bob Hart bringing me up to five. So this has a very low SDA score of five. I guess that supports your middle of the road estimation. I liked it, but this episode is just OK. Yeah. It doesn't have enough Star Trek alone.

1:08:27 So we are what you wanted to say this next part, You take it, man. Yeah. So I didn't realize this until earlier, but this is episode 11 of the series and there are 22 episodes in the one and sadly only season of the show, which means we're at the halfway point. So I was wondering if maybe we should do like a little bit of halftime show, like a little bit of halfway evaluation and say, how do we like the first season and what are we hoping for or expecting in the second-half of the season? Do you have anything you want to start with?

1:09:03 Or since it's my idea, do you want me to go first? I will say that when we watched the movie, which I think I saw once a long time ago, so I was seeing with adult eyes with James Caan and Mandy Patinkin, and I hadn't realized how much race was involved. And Matt Sykes, the character grows over the course of the movie and he's not quite as much of A bigot. And then the series starts and he backtracks and he's a super bigot all over again. And I lost a lot of heart because I did not remember it that way.

1:09:36 Well, as we watch these episodes, I felt like they started out with so much race and so much connotation that I was still going to enjoy it. But I was in way over my head. Like I had no idea how much the show is actually going to keep being about that. But I do feel like it eased off after three episodes and the pilot in the 1st 2:00 and it started to have prejudice in episodes, but every episode was not centered around prejudice. And I think that that has been borne out. I think the show Matt is still not great at times.

1:10:15 Like in this episode I mentioned way too misogynistic, shockingly so. But he's not like that in every scene. He's not like that to the point that you really want him fired from the show. At least I don't I don't know top. You might be able to take leave, but I have like the general direction that the show has gone in and I have enjoyed the way that the characters have evolved. I've enjoyed a lot of the things I remembered from before. They are as rich or as fun as I had thought they would be. So that's awesome.

1:10:47 What about you? Yeah, so I am definitely enjoying it so far. I am glad that some of the best episodes we did get in this first half. You know, I was a little bit worried that it would take too long for the show to to slowly develop, especially since one or two of the not stellar episodes we did get very early on. But one of the things I've noticed from reviewing the first half the season now, but also sneaking some peeks at the second-half the season is that the entire season has kind of like an interspersed good episodes and lackluster episodes.

1:11:26 So it's not like it's a constant ramping where it just keeps getting better and better and better and better. It's like a constant give and take, which technically is kind of consistent with TV in the 80s and 90s. And we, you know, we've talked a little bit before about our love of Star Trek and Star Trek The Next Generation is definitely one of those shows where you could have an absolutely stellar classic episode one week and then a stinker the next one. And then go right back to a stellar and then maybe somewhere along the way have an average or above average but not quite seller episode and then a lackluster episode.

1:11:56 So it keeps the quality keeps going up and down. And I've definitely noticed that so far. But I do still like the show. 1 of the things that has impressed me even more than I already knew it would was just how great Eric Pierpoint is in his performance in a lot of episodes. And one of the things that I'm a little bit disappointed by though, is plot wise. I was kind of hoping that some of those episodes or some of those episodes that I remember because of certain key scenes, I was kind of hoping the episodes would be great overall when maybe more times than I would like, we kind of get an episode that's like lacklustre a little bit along the way and then all of a sudden in the last scene or two, they hit you with some really super memorable moments.

1:12:44 Also overall, I wish there was less police work and more tinctonies cultural stuff, but they do kind of intersperse it. I can't help but wonder if that was kind of like the intention all along or if they kind of had to do it because this was on Fox in the early days. And in order to get your science fiction, kind of like the way you kind of have to give a dog a heartworm pill wrapped up in cheese. I wonder if the police work is the cheese when what we really need is the the science fictiony stuff and that's the pill.

1:13:21 Yeah. So so yeah, I do have a mix of emotions about things, but overall it's still positive and I do still love the show overall. And this is reinforcing my opinion that George Francisco is one of my all time favorite characters. I do just wish that Matt were less frustrating along the way, that he would grow and change more quickly, and that instead of like getting a great episode one week and the lackluster one the next week and back and forth. I wish there was more of a building effect. But yeah, overall I'm still very glad that we are reviewing this show and I'm still enjoying.

1:14:01 Yeah, for those of you with a racist in your life that you haven't cast off, that you're trying to work on them and whittle them down and hopefully you have hope and you're not just putting up endlessly with a toxic person. Matt is supposed to be that person that you like slowly deal with. And they're not hopeless and hateful. They're just nice and kind with horrible habits and ugly things will just jump out of their mouths sometimes. And you're like, you can't say that. And they'll be like, oh, shoot, right, can't say that.

1:14:31 Bang. Like I said earlier, I think what comes across instead is we all want him to just be a good guy. We don't want him to be an evolving, improving racist. So when he does those bits in the script, I think it's more frustrating than anything. Or like, you know, why do they let women drive? It's you're not accomplishing, I think what they set out to accomplish. But what do you, what do you anticipate for the rest of our for the second-half of this venture? What are you looking forward to or expecting or hoping for?

1:15:09 Change or stay the same or what? Well, like I said in my sneak peek, I've already noticed that the quality goes up and down. In fact, there's a really weird episode that I just barely skimmed through before that I remember hardly any at all. That is, oddly enough the next to last episode of the season. A little bit before that, there are a couple episodes, a couple of other episodes that I just barely skimmed through, so I still don't totally know what they're about. But two of the best episodes of the season and similar to one that we've already reviewed, an episode that I would consider just a great episode of science fiction and great episode of storytelling in general.

1:15:54 We've still got two of those episodes coming, and I thought that they were coming really soon, but unfortunately we do have a few more in between. So I really look forward to those. But those are something like 3-4 or five episodes away. OK, So, yeah, I mean, we've already had the episode where there's kind of like the impregnation of Susan. So that we, I mean, I don't think it's a huge spoiler to say that there is a baby coming. I mean, why else would they do that unless there was a miscarriage?

1:16:26 And I'll go ahead and give that much away and say there's not a miscarriage. That would be very unhappy and depressing. So there is a baby coming at some point, and that's the good stuff. So yeah, I can't wait until those episodes. Yeah, I'm getting deeper and deeper into what I expected, which is to say a lack of memories. I know one thing that's coming to do with the baby, and they alluded to it in this episode. I think I remember the cliffhanger at the end of the series that you've alluded to, and I feel like I've seen the first TV movie multiple times.

1:17:07 I think I got that on VHS tape. But I am going to guess that the vast majority of what's coming is going to completely surprise me. I think you're right. I got into this pretty sure that I liked Matt Sykes, that I liked the Francisco family very much, even Uncle Moodri, and even Buck to some degree. He's a lot less obnoxious than I thought he was but and that I loved Kathy. But I have found that you're right and that it's not just a matter of liking the Francisco's adult me is just blown away by what Eric pair point gets to do with this part.

1:17:44 So like Kathy is good and Susan is good, but Eric Pierpoint gets this range of emotions and these things that he gets to do. So it is fun to see him make those decisions and I'm enjoying that a lot. So we will see. Yeah, yeah. And those two episodes that I'm saying that are coming, that are really stellar, the odd thing is they're right back-to-back. I thought they would be spread out a little bit more, but they're not. Are either of those written by the Schneider Froelov duo, do you think? Yes, the second of the two is yes.

1:18:21 Yeah, so they are. The two of them are pretty good at writing new lore and biology and culture as though it's very authentic. It just sounds right. So when they say that there's a a hormone that affects them in this way, we as the viewer just like, yeah, yeah, that matches up. So. So yes, that's good. I'm glad. I'll look forward to that and I am. Todd is a little bit aware of what's coming. He has a better memory of these. He listened watch them more than I did in the past. I hadn't seen them since 1989, the episodes, maybe one of them, but I can't remember which.

1:19:02 So a few things stuck out to me, and you're looking ahead at a few of them, and I haven't done that at all. So we're going to bring those two different kind of viewpoints in as we explore. So that's going to continue to be kind of interesting, and it'll help that you kind of have a little bit of that insight going over the next few episodes. So we're ready to move forward. Yep. All right, listeners coming up next time on Alienating ourselves, Nick and Todd explore episode 12, The Red Room. Break in at a behavioral lab and a series of execution style murders dredges up buried memories for Francisco.

1:19:40 That's right, more buried memories for Francisco. I'd be frustrated if we didn't all enjoy the last couple batches of buried memories for Francisco. So I'm up for this. Let's go and join us next week as we find out what 1989 writers think a behavioral lab is. I know something about behavior professionally, so I'm kind of curious about that myself. So Todd and I will help you find those answers. You come join us next time. I continue to be Nick. I'm Todd. Thank you for joining us. We'd love to see some reviews wherever you listen to podcasts.

1:20:13 If you love us, like us, or can barely tolerate us, please give us five stars. If you really hate us, please give us four stars. If you give us three stars or lower, you 2 will fall in love with the next person you see, whether you like it or not. As always, may all your milk be as fresh or as sour as you prefer it to be. And the next time you meet someone online, maybe get to know them a little better first before you drink their tea. Have a great week. Goodnight everybody.