#022 - Alien Nation 1.16 "Partners"
In this week's episode of "Alien Nation," Matt and guest character Theo Miles were former partners on the force, Matt & George are current partners on the force, and Susan & George are partners in the gestation of their baby...well, pod, for now (baby later). That's right, if you want to learn what it's like for a male Tenctonese to become pregnant, listen to our review of 1.16 "Partners." Stay tuned next week when we review the episode where George deals with the challenges of his pregnancy.
- What three marks does Nick have against this episode right away?
- How much did Nick's wife enjoy watching George have the alien equivalent of morning sickness & labor pains?
- What are some of Todd's theories as to how pregnancy could put George & Susan in biological sync?
- What issues did both co-hosts have with the guest character in this episode?
- In what ways did Todd feel like Matt finally "calmed down" in this episode?
- In what ways is a Tenctonese pod transferral similar to...and very different from...human pregnancy & labor?
- What three objects used during the pod transferral have been mentioned and/or shown in previous episodes?
- What disagreement did the producers & writers have, before this episode aired, about how viewers would respond to it?
- Which co-host had an issue with how fake some of the laughter sounded in this episode?
- What were some of the nitpicks about police work this week?
- Were there any contenders for the Albert Einstein Award this time?
- According to the "Alien Nation" press kit, what are some interesting things about actress Terri Treas (Cathy Frankel), and does sour milk have negative health effects on Tenctonese the way alcohol does on humans?
- And, what does one co-host mean when he says this episode is guilty of the "Up" effect?
Listen now for the answers to these and other laboring questions as we reminisce about..."Partners."
Please review us wherever you listen to podcasts. You can leave comments on individual episodes via the Spotify and GoodPods apps. Our e-mail address is [email protected].
Royalty-free music used in this episode comes from Pixabay.com.
Humans and aliens working together.
I really want to dig more into their culture.
It's a mirror up to humanity. Social commentary through
allegorical storytelling. Wild, angry old man opinions.
I couldn't be an old cop or two bum knees.
I prefer a season No I. Feel how are.
You how do I look season messing each other's hair and punching
in the stomach and aw guys. Sounds like another job for the
cat. Wrestling like 10 year olds in
the police station. This episode did not bother
delivering for us a red herring, The evil.
Wizard's girlfriend? What are you, a bug?
You guys are doing terrible stuff in our kitchen.
One nipple and a flap. My Ling Fong flap just dropped.
We're having a baby. Check George and me out.
Huh. We're going to have a baby like
something. The men at home are both like
holding their midsections. This is some naked lunch
nightmare fuel. The network looked at the first
cut of that and were freaked out.
Listener discretion is advised. Holy.
Crap, this is amazing. I had a blast.
I can't believe what I'm seeing. They totally stuck the landing.
This go is one of my all time favorite characters.
The show is going to go to places that I really enjoy.
Sour milk is a good thing to the tank the knees.
Stay tuned, listeners of Press Kit.
Yikes, Sykes. We're both fans of Star Trek.
Watching Alien Nation and we enjoy.
It I am one of your hosts, Todd, this is Nick.
This is the Alienating Ourselves podcast.
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 have partnerships
with them. I am one of your hosts, Todd.
If I were a cop just a few days away from retirement, I'm pretty
sure I would request desk duty for the remainder of my time.
It never goes well otherwise. And joining me, as always, is
one of my partners in podcasting.
It's Nick. Nick, how's it going?
It's going very well. If I had just a little bit of
time left on the force, that's when I would really shoot for
that one big score that would let me live the sweet life.
This is ruining my future police career, so let's get into it.
Today we're looking at Alien Nations episode 16 Partners,
which originally aired Monday night, February 12th, 1990.
This episode was directed by Stan Lathan, who also directed
15 With Wanda. There are a couple of
reminiscent bits. Stan seems to have a career with
lots of experience directing diverse and black casts.
He's done a lot of work for Dave Chappelle, and he did a 1987 TV
movie of Uncle Tom's Cabin with Deep Space 9's Avery Brooks as
Uncle Tom. She's just interesting.
I didn't even know they made that it was written.
This episode was written by David Garber and Bruce Kalish
who are partners and they've written a lot of Power Rangers
episodes but no additional Alien Nation content.
And they did collaborate on one of the last episodes of the
short lived Ottoman series in 1984.
So looking at tonight's episode, George witnesses a crime boss
murdering a goon in cold blood, but before he can testify he's
framed for stealing narcotics and the case is going to be
thrown out. Sykes old partner Miles shows up
at the station. He's not far from retirement and
the 2 old buddies are catching up as George is crashing and
burning. Meanwhile, the pod is about
ready to emerge. If you're just joining us and
you have no idea what that means, that's OK.
And that near emergence is going to lead to some comical moments,
some surprisingly serious moments.
So, Todd, what was your first impression of this episode?
So this is another one of this short series best episodes, but
I think it's one of my favorites almost entirely because the last
scene is it's the thing I remember the most about it and
it's the main redeeming quality episode.
So as usual, I like the alien culture and biology stuff that's
explored, but it is sometimes the cop stuff that drags it down
a little bit. And unfortunately, the more I
watch this episode, took notes on it, thought about it and
everything, the more this became a a sadly good example of that
problem. So still, still one of the best
episodes overall and still great scene at the end.
It's the other stuff that kind of gets in the way a little bit.
So what did you think? Well, this episode has three big
things in it that are kind of triggers for Nick.
You've got internal affairs that is just never fun.
You've got good guys getting in trouble.
It's like a whole phobia thing for me.
And you've got one of my favorite characters not in the
episode. So those are all marks against
it. But like you said before, in the
lead up to this, you said there were some good episodes coming,
and I think you're very right. This episode was great.
I know the scene you're talking about and oh, my gosh, if
anything, understated. So yeah, let's jump into some
sour milk positives. Yeah, I'll go first on this, but
I will say that the redhead that I live with only pays a little
bit of attention as I'm watching this show.
But she was very pleased with men experiencing labor pains and
possibly morning sickness. So George is synced up
psychically to Susan as Susan is getting ready for something kind
of like labor. So when she has cramps, George
has cramps. When she has pain, George has
pain. It's just naturally part of the
process. Yes, that sounds like they might
play it for jokes, and they do. But it's also this whole thing
where men are really trying to be these sympathetic characters
who are struggling with the process of a coming birth.
And the son, Buck, because he's in proximity, starts getting
sympathetic pains from George, who's getting them from Susan.
So now the men at home are both, like, holding their midsections,
dealing with all that. And she enjoyed that a lot.
She leaned over and enjoyed that quite a bit.
And there's other things that he does that we might mention
later. But yes.
What was your first sour milk? Well, first, before I get to
that, I, I like that Section 2 and I do have that on as one of
my several bullet points under Tanktonese biology and culture.
And yeah, I I couldn't help but wonder what made them In Sync.
I wonder if Tanktonese are mildly telepathic, if not
always, then at least under the the conditions of pregnancy.
Or was it more of like a pheromone thing?
Like when the woman becomes pregnant, she's, you know, emit
some kind of pheromone, the male picks up on it, and that's how
they they've come In Sync. Or is it pure instinct or
something that can't even be explained?
And then I was also wondering about Buck, too.
I can't help but wonder how is it just because he's male that
he becomes In Sync too, just like George did?
And if so, how young could you be and still become In Sync?
Or did it have something to do with the fact that Buck is older
as a as a teenager? He's kind of like on that
borderline of being adult, especially since Tincton he's
kind of aged differently than humans anyway.
So because Emily was not affected by any of this and I'm
wondering it was that because of her gender, her age, or a
combination of both. So so yeah, some some neat
little comedic moments that we're in here.
But it does raise some questions as much as it gives us answers.
Well, then maybe ETS like doing the heavy lifting where somebody
else in a different creative venture established aliens
forming A psychic physiological connection to other people, and
they don't even bother to explain a lot of that in detail
or justify it. Where do we just go along with
it? So yeah, I didn't think about
the logistics, but yeah. Yeah.
And so moving on to my first sour milk thing, I love that
Matt and George have now worked together long enough that Matt
trusts George, believes him and sticks up for him.
And especially when, and I believe you did mention
something about this during during the summary, but you
know, George kind of gets accused of something and, and
Matt just can't believe that George is guilty of it.
And, and I think it's great that they've come that far.
And I remember a few episodes back saying, I can't wait until
Matt calms down. I think he's finally calmed down
South. So, so yeah, I, I like the
progression that they've made. Well, but he was, I mean, he and
his old partner are practically wrestling like 10 year olds in
the police station. Like they had some great
chemistry. I don't know if those two actors
like hung out and worked on it, but it's just like you old son
of a gun, that kind of stuff, except dialed all the way up.
So like, they're messing each other's hair and punching in the
stomach and oh, Guy. And they, like, really, really
sold the connection. But yes, he didn't do those
things by himself, I guess. So yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, so the twist that comes
late in the episode, George has been framed for stealing
narcotics. And like you said, Matt goes
along with it and good for him because in the in the, I guess
pilot movie, when people are thinking newcomers turn into
bugs, Matt's like, you know, what are you a bug?
So I guess he's learned a little about his partner and he doesn't
just believe everything. So George does the math very
quickly and realizes the only person who could possibly be
framing him, the only person who handled the narcotics other than
him and weighed them on the scale and could have faked all
of that is Matt's buddy who's shown up in this episode so
close to retirement. Miles and Miles.
George confronts him about it right away.
They don't make it obvious on screen based on any like glance
or sinister music or anything. A lot of shows would play it
differently, but we can guess. I mean, if we're watching, it's
like it's not hidden. In fact, the first time it comes
up, Miles is like, I got to take the fall for this.
Maybe I did something wrong. I'm going to turn myself in.
And Matt is like, Nah, man, don't do that.
So he's really, but he never, never plays it as though he's
trying to hide anything until he gives it away, even if he's
like, hey, George, can you turn this evidence in for me?
So I expected Miles to be a more cartoonish villain.
And I feel like they did a really good job of making him
sympathetic. He's playing the character, not
evil so much as early Han Solo, like looking out for himself,
like Matt's saying, what's going to happen to George?
He's like, he'll be all right. He's not framing him for murder
or sitting in the chair. He's just going to lose his job,
his livelihood, be thrown off the force or something.
But he's like, hey, you know, it'll work out.
So yes, I I did like how that was played.
Yeah, it it does seem kind of obvious, like who else is there?
Because this episode did not bother delivering for us a red
herring. You know, it could be the old
partner, but it could be this other person.
No, it it's the old partner. Yeah, so.
So yeah, that was a little bit predictable that it would be
him. But yeah, I guess, you know,
there's only so much you can do in an episode.
Let me see. I love that Matt has finally
seen enough weird alien stuff that he stops interjecting that
everything is so weird because as he's witnessing this
transferral of the pod in the final episode, he's
understandably shocked. But instead, like old Matt would
have gone Oh my goodness, look at the thing coming out of your
stomach, your stomach is about to explode.
Oh no, he would like interject because everything would be so
strange and he couldn't accept that it was strange.
The new Matt just looks with his mouth wide open.
It's like, holy crap, this is amazing.
I can't believe what I'm seeing. But he still shuts up and just
watches it. So yeah, I again, I've been
waiting for this moment to Matt, for Matt to calm down, and he
finally did. And I'm enjoying Matt a little
bit better. He's still not perfect, but he
he's getting there. Well, mine is pretty similar
because the thing that they play up at first, it's just that Matt
is dealing with George saying and doing things that you would
normally expect a woman to do. And that's the entire bit.
And this is 1990, but it's still pretty much the late 80s.
So this is crazy for the time. But then they kind of switch it
up And when George essentially goes into labor because miles
away, Susan is going into labor. Matt, I really enjoyed that they
play it as though Matt is obviously the dad.
He's you know, he's got like his sleeves rolled up, he's pacing.
So when George tells him it's time in the in the station, Matt
is like he's up, he's moving around.
He like yells at the whole squad room as they're take he's taking
George out, like helping him out.
We're having a baby. So he just goes into like dad
mode. And that was it was adorable.
My last sour milk is really just that whole final scene.
So if you want to do that later for Physiology or you want to
get into it, you can. Well, yeah, so we can do some of
the Tanktonese biology and culture now and and if you want
us to take turns, we can't. I do have a a question part of
the way through here and I can't remember if I've asked this
before or not, but men apparently have a Ling pod flap
and I might be remembering that wrong.
I think Ling is somewhere in the name.
Yeah, but it has something to do with the the flap that the pod
goes in. Did I get the name of it wrong?
I think, I think that's right. I think it's like a kangaroo
pouch, but I think that's it, yeah.
And women release a pod from their navel.
And that is part that was kind of weird looking.
It did kind of look like her belly button was just kind of
exploding. So that was definitely
different. And then there are three things,
at least three things that have been mentioned in a previous
episode. I can't remember which one, but
they were talking about the different things that they would
need for whenever the pod transfer will happen.
And this is the episode where we see it happen.
And all three of these things have been mentioned before.
Do you want me to go ahead and describe them or do do you want
to take a turn to do that? Todd and I talk about the
coolest sci-fi when it makes you think in ways you've never
thought before, the stuff that's really inventive.
And I'll be honest with you all, the ending of this episode
should not have worked. It's way way more visceral than
I would have thought they could show on TVI am 90% sure I missed
this episode back in the day and then I came back the next Monday
to find George carrying the pot. Maybe my mom described it to me
or something. Maybe Georgia like preempted it
because they did stuff like that back then but they totally stuck
the landing. Human birth is a process that is
both terrifying and visceral and also somehow magical.
And you know what? We don't show that much on TV
either. So to try and show something
that has those elements and let the audience come away
heartwarming is, I don't know, it's not a fair test.
And I feel like somehow they pulled it off.
They went for creating something extremely alien, depicting the
sort of shocking elements that you might see in like a human
birth. But here I've been wondering
about humans and newcomers getting it on.
And after this, I'm like, there's a couple of things that
we definitely cannot do. So Matt, if Matt ends up hooking
up with Kathy or anybody, Yeah. Yeah.
Guys, I feel like we know conclusively, there are parts
that don't match up, and that's OK.
But I think the music helped in the scene and the acting.
But I honestly can't tell you why this final scene was sweet
instead of horrifying. Well done production team.
It put a lot of other sci-fi to shame.
For lack of imagination or lack of guts.
Alienation went for it. Maybe This is why they were
cancelled. But gosh, this should have kept
them on the air too. Yeah.
So to finish out some of the elements of the scene, they
have, like I said, three things that came from a previous
episode. Something called binyon oil,
which apparently is just for the purpose of the prayer ritual at
the beginning. So it doesn't have anything, you
know, to do biologically with the process.
But charcoal powder causes the navel in the woman to close.
So they use that on Susan. And they just kind of had it in
a Ziploc bag. And then a mallet might be
needed to help crack the shell around the pot because
apparently even when you get the pot out, it still has a shell
around almost the way an egg does.
And sometimes a mallet is needed.
It wasn't needed in this case, though.
It was already kind of cracking on its own.
So George was able to just kind of get the the shell off by
hand. And then apparently the shell is
edible because he actually eats part of the shell and he didn't,
you know, make a whole meal off of it, just one little piece.
And I can't help but wonder if that does something like maybe
maybe by ingesting part of the shell it makes his body better
prepared to receive the pod or something, or to nourish it or
something. I can't help but wonder, is that
an optional thing or what? And then they can tell the
gender of the baby while it's still in pod form just by
looking at this, you know, just, you know, massive flesh that has
a little bit of a heartbeat and a tentacle sticking out of it.
It's somehow something there told them that it was a girl.
And then is it? Yeah.
Excuse me. It attaches itself to the man,
in this case George, via one nipple and a flap.
And so, you know, you know, you were talking about them showing
this on TV. And I mentioned in previous
episodes that one of my Christmas gifts from this past
Christmas was the Unofficial Companion for Alien Nation by Ed
Gross. And I admit I didn't do a good
job of reading this passage for this episode ahead of time, but
I did know that the very first paragraph in behind the scenes
kind of addresses some of the things that you're talking
about. So I'll just go ahead and read
the paragraph since I didn't have time to paraphrase it.
Partners was most memorable for the pod transfer Opine's
producer, Andrew Schneider. The network looked at the first
cut of that and were freaked out.
They thought people would turn off their TV sets.
We made a few trims, but not much.
Kenny Johnson really fought for this.
He said you guys are out of your mind.
This is why people will watch the show, even if some of them
are a little aghast, they'll ask, hey, did you see alienation
last night again? Not just to deal with another
culture, but another Physiology. And to see how they treat an
aspect of their childbirth is great.
I honestly, I wasn't, I wasn't even going to describe some of
it and you did a little bit. But ladies and gentlemen, I mean
it is the the Francisco family has gathered around and they are
in the full oh and ah state. And what is happening on screen
is if you had a young person in the room, a mother might scream
and cover their eyes like it. This is this is some naked lunch
nightmare fuel for us non non inducted randos.
My wife had left the room coincidentally before it came on
and I'm pretty sure she might have given me a what the hell.
But they are. I mean, this grown man is gently
caressing this tentacle coming out of his wife, and it's not.
Oh, no, I so yes, yes, I'm not surprised by that.
I'm glad you read that because it's I really don't know what
happened. I don't know how as much as got
on the air got on the air, but it is.
If you are a visceral fan of interesting effects, go ahead.
Fast forward to the end of this episode and just really blow
your mind. Remind yourself this came out 36
years ago in 1990. That can't be right. 123, geez.
But yes, check that out because it's crazy.
That does it for me for sour milk.
So if you want to go into salt water, we can.
Well, I have one more thing. So one of the things that I
wonder about when they show us some of these rituals, and
especially ones that have like all kinds of different parts
that they bring to it, all kinds of physical objects, either that
or special robes that they're supposed to wear or whatever.
It makes me wonder how much they were able to do this on the ship
because, you know, they, they were slaves on the ship and
they, I assume that some of their culture was probably held
back because of that. And so I can't help but wonder,
did the overseers give them a little bit of leeway when it
came to stuff like this? Was it like, OK, fine, let them
have some of their culture as long as they're doing the
workforce or something? Or did they have to reclaim
this, these pieces of their culture and their history, the
various rituals and traditions? Did they have to reclaim and
reestablish all that after they crashed and it came from long
ago? I can't help but wonder which is
the case. And as much as I love when they
explore the culture and history of the Tanktonese in this show,
that is one thing that does seem maybe a little bit out of sync
is the idea of did they get to do all this stuff when they were
on the ship or not? Well, you remember when George
is in jail, at least for one scene, and a tough guy is
getting on his case in jail because he doesn't like George
pacing. And George looks at him like in
the face and says plaintively like, hey, you know what, I'm
expecting. This helps.
Can you just give me a break? So he seems to have some kind of
expectation and maybe maybe because the overseers were
themselves tanked an ease that it's like they're not going to
have sympathy for life and death.
But oh, labor pains. Yeah, you step over here the
same way. I guess bank robbers would be
like, fine, let the pregnant lady go, you know, kind of
thing. But yeah, he seems, he seems to
think it. And we found out with the
previous episode with the Magic Box that the elders are
maintaining all of the rich cultural tradition knowledge
that they need and keep reminding everybody about it.
So yeah, although I don't know what happens if your kid halfway
across the ship has to go through, your teen has to go
through labor pains. Maybe it only effects Buck
because he's a teen and in proximity and blood related.
And if your kid is taken away from you and you're not seeing
them, they're not affected. But yeah, that'd be weird.
There'd be a lot of complications.
So now we can go into salt water, and mine might be a
little bit controversial because it might contradict what you
might have been talking about. And in fact, in The Alien
Nation, the official unofficial companion, the writer of the
episode also gives his own grade on the episode.
I didn't notice that before. And I think he had a he, he had
positive things to say about this too.
So maybe I'm alone when I have something negative.
But when Matt and Theo are reunited, some of the laughter
and reminiscing don't seem totally believable to me.
Umm, yeah. It's not that I don't believe
that they had a past, it's just that some of it comes off a
little bit disingenuous in the acting, like some of the
laughter seems fake. I've commented before that I'm
not usually not that picky of performances.
It has to be either really good or really bad for me to notice.
But every once in a while it can be just a little bit off and
I'll notice too. And especially when it comes to
either crying or laughing, I'm kind of sensitive to those two,
especially crying. There are some actors that are
great at like almost everything, but crying, I don't know.
Some of the laughing just seemed a little bit overdone.
Guess who blow. Your socks off.
I couldn't be an old cop with two bum knees.
I prefer a season old. Neil, how are you?
How do I look? Season Hey George Francisco,
want you to meet the guy who taught me everything I know
about being a cop, Theo Mile. And somebody had to break in the
room. The guys drew straws and I lost.
What are you doing around here? Hey, haven't you seen a memo?
But the mass drug crackdown? Memo 6 to 75 Yes, of course.
An interdivisional program to coordinate individual drug
arrests into a joint suit for prosecution.
Yeah, I've been popping into divisions all over town, getting
the best men, hitting the hottest leads.
Got a nice little one down here. You interested?
Hey, sounds like another job for the Oh you'll love this George.
This is great. I was still in uniform and I get
stuck for this guy in an alley. Big hotshot detective.
We had six arm punks cornered. Wait for back.
And they were ready to make a break when Sai start barking.
You started it. I'm just following the
detective's lead and. Dad didn't fool them long enough
for backups to arrive. Those idiots, they were more
afraid of dogs than cops. You'd.
Say, what do you say? Even on this bus, this guy never
changed. If it wasn't landing with you,
there was a lot of fertile soil to be off putting because these
two are more buddy buddy cops than I ever think I've seen
buddy buddy cops. I mean they really enforce the
We've laughed together, we've cried together, we've bled
together. Dang they this is like more than
a reunion movie. 2 old college buddies getting together and
talking about life. These guys thick as thieves,
man, they literally walk arm in arm, arm over shoulder through
the station together like best buds.
So yes, I bought all of it. I just hook, line and sinker.
I know what you mean about disingenuous laughing.
That just came up in some other show I was watching.
But yeah, these guys, I mean, it was obvious.
It was over the top. It was like extreme.
But I bought all of it, so yeah. OK, yeah, maybe it's just me
then. You said that The Who?
The director liked it. No, the the guy that wrote the
alienation, the unofficial companion.
He thought that it was believable.
Yeah, the two actors almost instantly make the audience
believe that these two have known each other for years.
So yeah, so he he would, he liked it.
He I'm kind of a pause. Yeah, yeah.
I don't know. I feel like they worked on their
rapport. So if it doesn't land with Utah,
then it might not land with a fraction of like the viewers.
Some of us might just be like, oh, come on.
But some of us are going to be like, I don't know, It's like
these guys, they really make time for them to party too.
Like if this was an episode of Law and Order or something, we
would see them together in the station like twice and that
would be it. But they have bum around time
together like four or five times in this episode.
So it's a big thing. My first saltwater negative in
the episode. You guys already know it's
coming. My big bitter negative.
So let's just get there. It's the casting, the who's in
the episode. So Kathy is not in this episode.
Terry Trees is missing. This is like that scene and with
honors where Brendan Fraser is told that because of his
choices, no matter what he does, he will not graduate, you
guessed it, with honors. But I also think the spiritual
aspect of this episode was so powerful and cool that they
should have ponied up the cash and had Albert the phenom in
this episode. And even though Uncle Moodri has
seemingly permanently skipped the the episode, he's he's not
coming back, it would have been cool to at least mention him in
some capacity because he was always so mysterious and
spiritual. So I feel like those were those
were some missed opportunities. Yeah, I always miss Miss Kathy.
I kind of noticed that she wasn't in this episode.
I don't know how she she could have fit in, but yeah, she
always makes the episode a little bit better.
Let me see. So another thing I have is just
a super minor nitpick, but I think that there's a character
called Pretty Boy Waylon and he's just like an informant or
something like that in a barbershop.
But he has a conspicuously looking fake mustache.
And there's A, and there's a reason that it looks so fake is
it's got to be fake because there's a moment where Theo goes
and very violently shaves 1/3 of the mustache off.
So of course it has to be fake unless they got a guy who really
grew A mustache. It's like, oh, we got to get
this scene in one tape. You know, it's a fake mustache
because a third of it goes away. So so yeah, it just super fake
looking, but that's. Zach Whelan, he's an informant.
And this is Damone from Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
He's a sleazebag guy that you don't like through that movie.
And I recognized him right away. But he is wearing the spirit
Halloween giant fake moustache in the Barber shop scene.
It's only uncovered. He's got the towel on his face
and they take that off. He's like, hey, I don't know
nothing about nothing. And then he's like putting
shaving cream on his face and it's all messy.
So it's like we only need it to be viable for a minute.
Yes, it is conspicuously large. That's not just you.
My last salt water is pretty simple as well.
And that is just that when the police are searching George's
house at one point, this is the most violent search and seizure
I've ever. Heard.
Oh yeah. It's like, I mean, secret police
do not search this violently. They go in the backroom and the
Franciscans sit on the couch, terrified.
We just hear breaking glass one after another.
There's more breaking glass. Foley artist is just going to
town somewhere. I just smash that, kick that in,
break another. It's like you guys are doing
terrible stuff in our kitchen. So yes.
What is this? I'm sure you've seen one before,
Detective. It's a search warrant.
I'll show you what is going on. Sorry.
We did everything we could. We brought Haney in.
He confirmed the amount counted as the bust.
Amount of what? Jack.
I think I stole drugs. My father's a police.
Everybody, just stay where you are.
This won't take long. Mingo, Franklin, start in the
kitchen and work your way back here.
Sit down, lady. Take it easy, everybody.
I know this is tough, but they have to search the house.
It's. We'll see, Mom.
I'm scared. Take it easy in there.
That might have been slightly over the top.
It was. It was pretty bad on its own.
But the rest of what I have, we have this segment that I'll
throw in sometimes when it's warranted, no pun intended.
And that is Yikes. Sykes, Yikes.
Yikes, Yikes, Mad Sykes. I hate these know it all muffin
heads who come from outer space. A Russian and a sponge head.
They're a boat in the middle of the ocean.
Why stop with running them back to slag town?
Why don't we just? Kill.
Them emotionally involved, it makes for bad police work.
George, what's that guy doing over there?
Quick guy. What was that name again?
Makes for bad police work. Bad police work.
Yikes, Yikes, Yikes. I'm Kathy Frankel.
Matt Sykes Yeah, I know. In your language.
Sykes means excrement and cranium.
Yikes, Yikes, Yikes, Yikes where we look at Matthew Sykes and his
unique choices in police work in almost shooting innocent people
and almost shooting himself and maybe his questionable Gary
Graham acting choices or the just the police work in the
episode. So we're going to talk a little
bit about some of the maybe they could have been done better
police and Matt choices in this. And my first one is this
confrontation in the warehouse. So Haney is the guy in the suit
and the ponytail and glasses, not sunglasses, glasses looks
vaguely familiar. You guys know him from Renegade?
He's a very recognizable Hawaiian dude.
But he manages to jump away behind something when the police
say Freeze is a terrible bust and he jumps in a car in the
warehouse. So he's circling the car around
inside the warehouse. It's not that big a warehouse,
apparently, if you can get into a car, I mean, you're good as
Scott free. The police are powerless.
They just stand around like, I don't know, man.
He's got a car. So at one end of the warehouse
are George and most of the people, and at the other end of
the warehouse are Sykes and Miles really in front of like
closed garage doors. The car starts heading toward
them. I think they have time for a
really bad feeling about this. And then once again, in Matt's
style, they just start unloading their guns on the windshield.
I tried to count. I couldn't get definitive proof
that he fires way too many rounds but they shoot the
windshield but feels like 50 times to no avail.
Jump out of the way just in time and he blasts through a door.
When they surrounded the warehouse.
There are no police officers in cars no one is ready to pursue.
It's just like, well Dang, I didn't know he'd drive away and
they're just shoot, maybe next time we'll get you.
So that was not that was not great.
I don't think it was great bullet control and I don't think
it was great planning ahead on that part.
Yeah, so that's one of my bullet points under bad police work,
too. So yeah, they start firing at
the car. And without getting too serious,
you know, there's something that has gone on the news in real
life at the time when we're recording kind of, you know, ice
related in Minnesota and, you know, some controversies over
firing into a windshield and everything.
And because of how fast the news cycle goes, it already feels
like a year ago when it's really just last month or like a month
and a half ago or something. But anyway, because of that, I
think we're all a little bit more savvy to the fact that that
any kind of law enforcement really shouldn't be firing into
a a windshield. It's not a good idea.
And granted, this might vary from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction, but it in some places downright illegal.
But yeah, they're just unloading their weapons.
So I have that in my notes. But one thing I don't even have
in my notes is I also noticed that the first few times they
fire, it's like you're looking, it's like the camera was inside
the car looking out the window and it looked like bullets were
bouncing off the hood. But then when the camera goes to
more of a front angle where you're seeing the front of the
car, then you're seeing all the bullet holes going through the
windshield. And despite all that, they're
not actually hitting him the the driver.
And so the driver still gets away anyway.
So what was really the point of firing if you're not going to
hit him? And why not try to fire at the
tires to give him a flat tire And he and then like I said at
the beginning, you're not really supposed to be doing any of that
anyway. And then I can also respond to
the whole searching thing too. Because I've also noticed in a
lot of movies and TV shows that when police go in and they are
doing some kind of search, sometimes they are just super
reckless about it. And they're just like going in
drawers and throwing stuff out. And I'm like, shouldn't you be
doing that at least a little bit more orderly?
Because let's say, for instance, you go to a thing that has
drawers in it and you just start throwing the stuff in the
drawers all over the place. Well, now you've got a floor
full of whatever was in the drawers.
What if you also need to search the floors or, or you know,
whatever else that stuff might have landed on?
You know why? Why don't you like pick
something, U look underneath it, put it back, go to something
else, look underneath it, put it back.
But no, that's not what they do. And now granted, a lot of this
takes place off camera because we're just kind of hearing sound
effects of glass breaking and stuff like that.
And I'm thinking, why do they have to break glass?
I mean, even when they found the stuff that was stashed, they
found it in a picture frame, which is kind of weird because
how these little pouches fit in something as flat as a picture
frame. But why do they have to break
the glass for that? They could have just flipped
over the picture frame and taken the back off.
But on top of that, as soon as these two cops are directed to
start searching, one of them immediately takes down a picture
frame off the wall that that's in between the two rooms.
And she doesn't like look behind it.
She actually takes it off the wall.
The weird thing is you can tell it is so flush against the wall
that there wouldn't be room to fit anything behind it anyway.
And then the weird thing is after she takes that down,
there's a picture right beside of it, but she doesn't take that
picture down. It's like, what is the rhyme or
reason to taking pictures off the wall for this search?
So all of that is very weird. It just, it's like nothing about
the search really makes sense except the the end result, which
is the only thing that the search is for.
So it's it's all done very strangely.
Yeah, that scene, I actually went back and rewound that scene
just to see if it was as conspicuous as I thought it was,
that Miles is going and planting evidence.
And it's so the way that they shoot it, like I said, there's
nothing obvious. It's only obvious if you take 2
seconds to think about it. But they come in the door and he
kind of brushes past the camera and he's out of frame, but he's
just walked back to the backroom to plant it.
When Sykes is freaking out about that the baby is on the way,
they're in the station. Like I said just before he
yells, we're having a baby to help George out.
My Ling pong flap just dropped, is that good?
If I can get to the ejection symbol quickly, it's the big
one. No, no, no.
We're. Biologically In Sync.
That's right. She knows.
Would you drive me to the center?
Me. Yes, Right.
Sure. Check George and me out, huh?
We're going to have a baby or something.
So far man, you're doing an excellent.
Job he's he's so flustered and he's not sure what he's supposed
to do he pulls his gun out of his unlocked drawer, his dust
drawer in the office realizes he doesn't need his gun, so of
course he throws it back into his unlocked drawer as they just
like that's not good, that's not great not.
Good enough, damn it. Not good enough.
But, you know, that's rough. Yeah, and I did.
I noticed that the mustache gentleman that you were talking
about, the informant in the barbershop, when they pull their
guns on him and he reaches for his gun, it's in a shoulder
harness. I'm wondering if in this show,
criminals are the only ones that have shoulder harness.
George is. George is too good to tuck his
in his belt, but we never seem to see him pulling it out of his
shoulder harness. He just has it in his hands
suddenly in those scenes. So yeah, they make a comment
about this guy maybe busting him for concealing A firearm.
So maybe only bad guys concealing their weapons use
shoulder harnesses in this fictional reality.
Yeah, And Speaking of continued bad use of guns, when Theo and
Matt go to takedown somebody named Haney, and I'll be honest,
I kind of forget why they're taking him down and what the big
deal is with him. But anyway, Theo immediately
points a gun in the guy's face, and then Matt immediately
punches him and doesn't use his fists.
He uses his elbow. He elbows the guy to the face,
and that's all this takes. They do not identify themselves
as police officers. They don't say he's under
arrest. They don't say what he's
arrested for. They just point a gun on his
face when he runs, he runs in a Matt's elbow and then there
cuffs on him and then they're laughing at each other.
It's like, hey, that that went pretty smoothly.
And it's like, yeah, comically smoothly.
So yeah, that was another weird scene.
And again, I think it's got to take a little bit more to just
wave a gun in somebody's face. Yeah, this is again, our our
ponytail glasses suit guy who I was the one who got away in the
car earlier. And their plan is he's coming
in, I guess, to the front desk of a hotel or something with
groceries. And Miles comes out with his gun
from the backroom. Like don't even think about it.
So he throws his groceries at Miles, which works wonderfully,
and he takes off running, which worked great.
If he had a car in that lobby, he'd have gotten away.
But yeah, Matt just, he stands up.
If you go back and watch the scene again, he walks past Matt
in his acid washed jeans reading the newspaper.
You can't see his face. You just see the newspaper.
So yes, he was ready for him and takes him out.
So the guy's on the ground. Matt's handcuffing him.
He looks back at his partner who had the groceries thrown at him,
who's eating out of the bag of chips that clearly belong to the
bad guy. And he's like, you doing OK?
And he's like, yeah, baby, I'm doing OK.
And Matt's on the floor with this guy.
Like they have another you son of a gun.
Just two buds having a great time.
They sure do make police work look fun.
Except for your pregnant partner being framed.
Other than that, it's fun. That does it for me for salt
water. You have anything else?
Well, just one more bad cop thing, and that is near the end.
Theo ran into gunfire while in a hallway, in a hallway where he
has nowhere else to run. La Graine.
There might have been, like, a door to the side to, you know, a
room or whatever. But when the bad guy pulls a
gun, Theo doesn't, like, duck into one of those rooms or go
back or try to take cover. He literally runs forward.
It's like, you know, you're going to get shot.
So I can't help but wonder, was he stupid?
Or in that moment, was he, you know, overwhelmed by guilt for
what he did to Matt and George? George particularly that he had
like a death wish and he was like sacrificing himself or
something, I don't know. But either way, he's a bad cop.
Well, let me ask you before I make a guess as to what was
happening in that scene right before that, he seems to have
pulled his gun on Matt for a second there.
So do you think he was really considering shooting Matt?
I don't know. I don't care if not.
And if not, why bother pointing the gun in his face?
I I I don't know. And if he did, it would just
make things worse because he got kind of lucky being able to
frame somebody for the drugs. But how is he going to get out
of murder? It just, I don't, I don't think
it would have worked. So yeah, I don't know.
So Matt has told him that he's on to him and he's kind of told
him, you know, what do you even want me to do?
And he's got an attitude. But he goes with him on this
bust and I'm going to make up my head cannon that like I said, I
did a Han Solo comparison where you have different grades of bad
guy. And Theo Miles has been able to
explain away in his head every bad choice he's made so far.
Being corrupt, taking a bribe from the mob, framing George
because technically he wasn't pulling the trigger on anybody.
But if he's going to keep his money and get away Scott free,
he's really going to have to get rid of Matt.
And I think he's telling himself this is the next logical step
and he can't seem to do it. So my guess is when he decides
not to shoot Matt and that guy pops up, he kind of just goes
super cop. Like, I've got nothing to lose.
I don't think he was fully just like committing suicide, but oh
fine, I'm doing this instead. I'm saving your life and maybe
I'll take him out. And it is what it is.
So yeah, a little reckless there.
But that's that's my version of events.
I think they don't really tell us that.
I don't know, I kind of like your, your theory.
Yeah, I don't, I don't think he would be stupid enough to kill
Matt, but I don't think he could actually do it either.
So I don't know. From their conversations, they
they made it clear that he's a little bit cowboyish.
So yeah, maybe adrenaline just got the best of them and that's
why he rushed the bad guy. Well, and the reason Matt is a
ridiculous cop, they suggest that it's because he's been
copying this dude. This guy's saying I'm the one
who taught you to do this, to do this.
So Matt's street smarts and attitude about everything is
really borrowed from this guy. This is his personal hero.
So, yeah, the the part of Matt that jumps through the window
instead of opening it, that's totally this guy, except for his
bad knees. I didn't want to tell you.
I mean, I guess it's related to this moment, but when he's
reminiscing with Matt and he's like, you know, you've, you've
known me through. No, he tells him catching up
that he's got no money after two bad marriages that busted the
bank or something like that. But then he says that Matt was
his best man at his third wedding.
So I'm wondering if Miles is still married and they never
mentioned it because he only says 2 bad marriages that went
bust. So maybe another reason he
wasn't that anxious to commit suicide necessarily.
He may have a wife at home, we just never mentioned it in the
episode. Yeah, that's yeah.
That's me reading way too much into clues.
Are you ready for connecting the spots?
I'm ready for you to do connecting the spots.
Honestly, I don't have anything this time.
Well, in connecting the spots, sometimes I will go through
interesting casting and who's been in what, and sometimes I
will try and we will look at any kind of connection to the
movies, to previous episodes, maybe to something in the real
world. And there are a few things in
this, partly just because it touches on pregnancy.
So there's a scene where George is sitting in the station and
his hand is up under his shirt and he's massaging his nipples
and Matt walks up and is like, what the hell?
And he's sort of like, you need to go do that in the bathroom or
something. And George is a little bit
offended. Like I'm, I felt like this might
be a very kind of gentle reference to the debate about
women breastfeeding in public and how some people, the way
that Matt, that he responded to Matt trying to shame him for
doing something natural and healthy.
We have this conversation like, hey, can't you just go do that
somewhere else? You're grossing me out.
And it's one of those things that comes up.
So this comment may contain content that is not suitable for
some listeners. Listener discretion is advised.
The pod comes out of Susan with a sort of shell on it that Todd
mentioned. And when George breaks, he
breaks off a piece of it and he eats it and Matt reacts.
But like you said, he doesn't. Oh, no, what are you doing,
George? He just, we see him like, make
this face, like, what in the world?
And we aren't sure if it's biological or if it's ceremonial
or both. But I thought this could be a
reference to how some people, this is not an ancient human
tradition. It's been misconstrued,
according to the Internet, as being one, but some people since
the 70s have suggested that there are unproven benefits to
eating the placenta after a baby is born.
It's definitely enough for me though.
You could do this in different ways.
And although George takes that small bite like a ritual, no one
else does, and the family just clears the rest away.
But it's done in a few different ways.
And it, yeah, it's rich in this vitamin and that one.
But what they'll actually do is they'll dry it and put it in a
powdered pill form. Yes, and the the nice young lady
who lives with me said that they will put it into like a smoothie
or shake as well. Not a chance in hell.
Yeah. And the the Internet claims that
the little bit of vitamins that it does have in it seems to be
just partially diminished by either of those processes.
But that could be a reference to that the eating some part of it.
Animals tend to eat the placenta, but human beings do
not. And she also says cats do Thank
you. Buck massages George's temples
during the pod passing process. And this is very reminiscent of
the way George massages Buster Keaton's temples in the episode
15 with Wanda. So that was kind of cool where
it's like they never mention it. They don't describe it, but it's
like this grown man that is struggling with his Physiology,
George just suddenly stands behind him and starts rubbing
his scalp. And we as the viewer are like,
what is happening? So in this episode, George is
doing his Lamaze breathing and Buck just starts rubbing his
father's head, which is like, oh, that's a callback.
The newcomer lawyer Anderson. I had to try and figure out who
all these names were. But Anderson, he finds out that
George is expecting. He says, congratulations, I
didn't know you and Susan were pregnant, which to me felt like
a nod to that thing some of us humans do where the husband will
say we're pregnant or we're expecting, although it's clearly
more true for newcomers than it is for us.
When George says he's due to receive a pod any day now, the
new the newcomer lawyer says you'll look great, which is
which is something that we might say to pregnant women or you
might hear women say to each other.
But yes, it's just it's strange that it's like George is just
getting ready for the pod. But the guys like, oh, you know,
you're in great shape to George. And the last part of that is
that Peter Fonda is supposedly leading the workout video that
George is watching. We don't see it.
It does sound a little bit like Peter Fonda.
The Internet says that Peter Fonda never made any workout
videos. So I believe this is a joking
reference to his sister Jane, who made 22 in the 80s and 90s
and sort of created both the industry of workout videos,
which at one point were the top selling VHS tape in the world,
and the industry of like a famous person using their fame
and sort of doing this health thing, personality thing.
So yes, that I just exercised with me and Peter Fonda was
like, that was interesting. The rest of mine are about
casting. I think I've already mentioned a
couple. So I don't think there's that
much here. But our officer, Theo Miles, I
don't know if he looked familiar to you, man, but he's been in a
few different things. He was in a movie that I love
and most people haven't heard of called Don Juan DeMarco.
If you want to learn how to be romantic, gentlemen and ladies,
Don Juan DeMarco, 1994, Johnny Depp.
Gilbert Lewis is in that one. Detective Miles.
He's also a police detective in Candy Man 1992, a couple of
years after that. He has that detective look about
it. But the thing that he touches my
heart most closely is that Gilbert Lewis was the first king
of cartoons on Pee Wee's Playhouse.
So if he looked vaguely familiar to interview Pee Wee fans, yes,
he's he was in the whole first season.
He's a very good guy. Zach Whalen, we mentioned the
guy with the mustache, so I don't have to go back to him.
But there's an actor named Tony Rizzoli, and he plays the evil
human lawyer wearing a earring and that with a ponytail.
He works for the crime boss. I noticed that you had pointed
this out in a previous episode. I didn't notice that He has the
button up shirt that has the weird tips on the collar of the
button up shirt that I think are a future aspect.
So yeah, they're not giving up on that.
The newcomer lawyer did not. I mean, the same cost humor, but
they said no, no, the human has it.
He doesn't Interesting. This guy was, he had one small
part in Babylon Five and one small part in Deep Space 9, Tony
Rizzoli. So yeah, that was just that
human lawyer who's like surprised how good they're
hearing is. Now we got this internal affairs
dude that shows up and Terry Beaver is Sergeant Dustin
Baxley. And his whole job is to stand
around looking mean and angry and like he doesn't care about
your feelings. So he really nailed the internal
affairs thing. I only bring him up because he
played a newcomer cop in the pilot movie for Alienation.
So go, Terry, thanks for coming back.
You've had the mask head thing on and not so he's played both
sides there. Let me see.
I mentioned Haney is our friend from Renegade.
There's a couple people in this from the show Renegade, which I
will spare you all going off on, but I've got a whole spiel now.
There is an officer in the background when George is
showing off how good his hearing is, and he says what officers
are saying 50 feet away in the station through glass.
And he says Officer Rankin. And it's this white guy who
looks kind of like Frank Oz. He's thin and balding, and he
just seems kindly down at the other end of the station.
Well, the non speaking role, officer Rankin, is actually Art
Seidel, the production manager for the show.
They just slapped a uniform on Art and said, hey, stand over
there, do this part. Really guys?
Yeah, go ahead, Art. It'll be great.
So that's kind of nice. I'm almost there.
Gary Morgan is Scotty Garrison, the newcomer victim at the
beginning that we see for five seconds before he gets shot.
And I only mentioned him because he has some of the weirdest
casting. He was in Logan's Run, he was in
Pete's Dragon, he's in Gremlins 2, and he also did a bunch of
stunts, but no apparent like meaningful stuff.
And nobody, no other casting. So that's it for connecting the
spots. All right.
And I do have some things that you kind of brought up that I
did see from the unauthorized guy, but we can do that in the
miscellaneous section. So for the Albert Einstein
award, isn't there really only one contender?
And even then, I'm not even sure it's a funny name.
Yes. Yeah.
So Bud Anderson. Yes, Bud.
Anderson, did you, you usually have a policy of not looking
anything up. Did you look this guy up?
No. Well, the Internet, faithful
listeners, the Internet suggests that Bud Anderson might be the
name of a World War 2 flying ace.
But yes, this episode gave us nothing.
And I tend to side with Todd that look, if you're not going
to go the extra mile and give us something, we shouldn't be
expected to research them. So since you couldn't even let
Albert be in this episode, I think, I think they're going
home empty handed tonight. I think we have no recipient.
We're in default. Oh, OK.
Yeah. No award given.
This is a first, ladies and gentlemen, but I'm sorry, I need
a little more. All right, be different.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. His name is just a little too
normal. Yeah, he's just Bud.
Yeah. So we are ready for I have to
talk about this, anything leftover that we have not
mentioned that we just got to get out there.
All right, well let me see. So while you were were talking,
I was looking up the unauthorized guide and there is
a little bit here from Eric Pierpoint.
He talks about how when he and Michelle Scarebelli did these
scenes as husband and wife, he said that they felt very close.
Not, I don't think he necessarily means in a romantic
way or anything, but apparently there was enough of a
partnership between them as actors that they did feel very
close. Here's a quote where he said, as
a male, you're saying this is going to come out and attach
itself to my nipple, get out of here, I'm not doing this.
But then he goes on to say that as more of it happened, the more
it kind of made a little bit more sense being an alien thing.
Also, they gave him directions when it came to eating the
shell. They said eat this part, it's
made of chocolate, Don't eat this part, it's made of bitter
wax. Well, he grabbed the wrong one
and he ate the wax 1 and it almost made him gag.
And then you mentioned the whole thing about some people or
animals eating the placenta. There's actually part of his
quote in here about German Shepherds.
When they give birth to their puppies, they eat the placenta.
And then let me see, there was one other thing in here.
Yeah. So this is from Stephen
Mitchell, the story editor. He says the effects were feature
quality and superb. It was so interesting and so
bizarre. It may be a little gross, but
who cares? It's effective.
That was another example of the show going to the edge
successfully. And of course, there he's
referring about the special effects that brought the pod to
life. Well, I mean, there are a couple
of things. Everyone sitting at the table
and the Francisco family together while the men are going
through cramps. I noticed that Buck, George and
Susan all are drinking something out of a glass that looks a
little bit like mango juice, sort of that brownish rusty
orange. I don't think it was V8, but it
could have been. But I mean, in on the set, I
have no idea what newcomers are supposed to be drinking.
You know, they drink sour milk, but they they haven't really
told us a lot of other stuff. But there is a blue milk carton
on the table and it's hard to read on the DVD, but I think it
is labeled bile. They mentioned in a previous
episode that they drink bile. And Emily, the cup in front of
her has something really dark in it, like grape juice.
So I think that's what she's drinking and they've gone.
Yeah, I noticed that too. Yeah.
Oh well, the Peter Fonda workout video that I mentioned before, I
forgot to say. He pushes play again and we can
hear possibly Peter Fonda saying into the inner folds of the Ling
pod flaps. We're going to work your sack to
the left 234 to the right 234. Never have to say Ouch if you
work to stretch your pouch. So in this reality, Peter Fonda
is not only making workout videos, but he's making them
tailored to newcomer men, which is just awesome.
Todd said he didn't think about this until after he and Nick
recorded, But maybe it's not the human Peter Fonda who's doing
the video. Maybe it's a Tanktonese newcomer
who was given the name Peter Fonda in quarantine.
I don't feel like they've done this before, but they try to do
a running gag where George is still mispronouncing things like
he did maybe in the pilot movie. So he he feels like officers now
that he's been accused of being taking narcotics.
On the take or something that the officers are giving him the
cold soldier and Matt has to correct him and and there's
another one of those too, but he says knock him dead is another
useful expression. Put it in your book.
And George has a book he's scribbling idioms in and he says
it's a little violent, but it has a nice Ding to it.
And Matt says ring the place where they have the pod is an
ejection center and it's done up like the jungle.
And the guy says we also have Oasis and Great Plains
available. There is a trained squirrel in
this room that Matt is feeding. And This is why I said that I
needed to go back and like re watch episodes, I think because
it just my brain did not it did not pick up on the fact that
Gary Graham is like literally like half petting and not very
well. It's still a squirrel y'all, but
feeding this weird tame squirrel.
And George goes over and picks up a butterfly.
So I don't know what they're pumping into the air in this
room that makes the animals docile.
This, the drug that George is accused of taking is Jack.
And I don't even think they said what it was the first time I
watched this. But Jack is the drug, the street
name for Jonathan, not Jonathan. Jonathan that we saw mentioned
in the episode, the first cigar. And in the first cigar, an ounce
was worth 300 bucks. But in this episode it's super
concentrated. So now 88 oz is like 300,000
bucks. We aren't told what the drug is,
but I I think the little blue Baggies came out before Breaking
Bad. And Haney says it's pure and it
can be cut 1000 times. And you had mentioned before and
I would have noticed it if you hadn't mentioned that George's
tank to knees name is Stonya. And in one of his really
depressed moments, Susan calls him that.
She usually calls him George, but she also calls him Nemu
which I think is his pet name like twice.
Yeah, I think we talked about that before is she usually calls
him that, but I could have sworn he called her that maybe just
once. And so I think it is a term of
endearment that can be used by either gender.
Yeah, I think I'm not positive. Like sweetheart or something.
Yeah, OK. Well, anything else?
Are we ready to move on to score?
The only thing I have left is Wheel of Press Kit and I'm not
going to keep explaining every week what Wheel of Press Kit is.
You'll just have to to keep up or, or check out some of our
previous episodes. So I'll give a couple spins of
the wheel and see what little bits of trivia we can come up
with. All right, so this comes from
the Terry Trees profile. Oh.
That's a nice concept. Yeah.
No, she she wasn't in this episode, but we'll still learn
some about the actress. So although she is very
intellectual, Kathy is emotionally impoverished.
She's had very few romantic experiences.
When she encounters Detective Matt Sykes across the hall of
her apartment building, she has no perception of what it really
means to have a relationship. She is someone who is very
bright yet so naive. Terry comment and for some
reason that sounds familiar did did I read that last week and I
don't. Think so I think I keep calling
her naive but OK. Yeah, OK.
And then let me see. So 12345. 6 Is that all you're
going to say about Terry or you got more about?
Terry No, I've still got a little bit more.
I had to count the paragraphs. OK, so Terry considers the role
of Kathy Frankel her most challenging to date.
Since Kathy is an alien, there are so many character parameters
and I have to constantly use my imagination as well as all the
tools that I've learned to make this character believable and
real. But it's a lot of fun because
you don't have any boundaries. And then at the time that the
press kit came out, when the show was out, it said Terry
lives in Malibu, CA with her husband, Fred Gerber, who is the
producer of the AB series China Beach.
So that's a little bit of trivia on Terry trees and I'll roll the
wheel one more time. So this comes from the the quasi
fake newspaper that came at the very front of the press kit.
So this is at the very bottom corner of this fake newspaper.
It says Harvard study indicates no significant sour milk health
risk to newcomers. And this is from wire reports.
And some of these other articles that I'll eventually be reading
are apparently written by Tank Deniz because they have weird
names, but this one doesn't have a weird name.
So from September 14th, researcher research performed by
doctors in a one year study at Harvard indicate that spoiled
milk, which has the the same effect on newcomers as alcohol
does on human humans, causes no significant health problems in
newcomers. So where they can get drunk on
this sour milk? Apparently they don't have like
a version of alcoholism or where, you know, nowadays, you
know, doctors will say, you know, it's not good to drink
beer or wine or, or you know, any or any other kind of liquor
or anything. Apparently it doesn't have any
any issues to newcomers. It's not like destroying their
liver or something. No, no, apparently not.
I think we've seen at least one sour milk drunk in the street,
but yeah, maybe he does not have liver cancer or anything like
that. Yeah, apparently all the all the
results are are short term for drinking sour milk.
Excellent. So that's it for Wheel of Press
Kit. Excellent.
I want to tell our listeners at home that I've been watching the
extended library of Terry Trees. And right now, for at least the
moment, you too can watch Death Stalker Three on YouTube for
free, starring Terry Trees as the evil wizard's girlfriend.
And she has a lot of time in this and she's she's funny.
So yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't exactly recommend the
movie, but I had a blast. So yes.
You can also watch it with the Mystery Science Theatre game.
So we can move on to score. I always give a Star Trek alumni
score and this episode has a base for with Sykes, Mr. and Mr.
Mr. and Misses Francisco and Captain Grazer being in almost
every episode. Plus this one has that slimeball
lawyer human guy who's been in Deep Space 9, like I said.
So we're still hanging out at our lowest score possible for
multiple episodes A5, which is just not great.
But I also rate episodes on a watch skip basis.
And you, you definitely need to watch this episode to set up the
pregnant man in future episodes. And because like Todd and I have
already said that that last scene is, I mean, if you don't
love it, you're going to be scarred for life.
But at least it'll get you talking about the series.
So Oh my goodness, I guess you could skip to the last 20
minutes, 10 minutes, 8 minutes. But what an 8 minutes.
And because it's well written and because it may be the
weirdest thing you ever see on this show, at least.
What was your score, Todd? I kind of explained this at the
very beginning, and I don't want to go into a full explanation
what I mean by this, but I think this is one of those episodes
that has the Up effect and that is in reference to the Pixar
movie Up. I, I could be totally wrong
about this, but my going theory is that if you ask most people
what they remember about Up, it's three main things.
It's something that happened at the very beginning, something
that happens not long after that, and then like a cute thing
that happened somewhere in the middle.
But they probably don't remember as well the plot or the villain
or some of the weird things that happened in the movie.
And I admit I haven't watched it up in forever, so I don't
remember everything either. But it's one of those things
where I think a lot of times when people have fond memories
of something, they're remembering a specific one or
two things, and then they're almost kind of forgetting about
everything else. I wanted so badly to give this
episode a higher grade, but I think I was basically
remembering the transfer of the pod and kind of forgetting about
everything else. And now that I've watched the
episode a time or two and I've analyzed it more, sadly there's
more cop stuff and more matte stuff and not enough alien stuff
and George stuff, and that does bring it down.
So as much as I wanted to give this an A minus, maybe even an
A, it's kind of AB plus. But if there's any consolation,
it's my highest B plus and it was almost an A minus so.
You know, there is a trick with movies and shows where you end
on a really amazing scene and it like tricks our brains into
feeling like we had an amazing time as we leave the theater and
do you if you have a really powerful awesome song.
The movie Sleepwalkers, which is a Stephen King adaptation, ends
with this really spooky music by Enya as cats walk away from a
house through fog. And your brain says that was a
good movie. It was not a good movie.
So, you know, this episode has such a strong ending that I
guess I can see your point. Whoo.
Then they do sometimes this show has, like, it has some really
powerful last moments. So yeah, I guess that's a fair
determination. So coming up next time on
alienating ourselves, join us as we explore Alienations episode
17. It's going to be called Real
Men. Sykes and Francisco investigate
possible steroid dealings at a gym, and George must reconcile
his and humanity's conceptions of manhood while he himself is
pregnant. So we are just going to slide
from race right over to peer pressure and toxic masculinity.
Join us next week if we find out that's hilarious, or if we see
George beating up jerks while rocking a baby bump.
Either way, that could be pretty fun.
Join us for all that and more next time on alienating
ourselves. I continue to be Nick.
I'm Todd. Thank you for tuning in and
listening to us. We'd love to see more reviews
wherever you listen to podcasts. If you love us, like us, or can
barely tolerate us, please give us five stars.
If you wouldn't even trust us with Binion oil, charcoal
powder, and a mallet, please give us four stars.
If you give us three stars or lower, your car will breakdown
on the way to the birthing center and you'll have to
transfer your pod while on the side of a noisy Hwy. with cars
honking on at you as day pass. As always, may all your milk be
as fresh or as sour as you prefer it to be.
But if you're the type that prefers sour milk, remember to
wait until after the baby is born.
Have a great week. Good night everybody.
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