#026 - Alien Nation 1.20 "Gimme Gimme"

0:01 Humans and aliens working together. I really want to dig more into their culture. It's a mirror up to humanity. Social commentary through allegorical storytelling. Wild, angry old man opinions. Car like this better than sex? Really. What? That's just an expression. Oh, and I don't know if I'm going off on a on a huge stage. You have. 3 pineapples won the lottery. Always an alien a sites. I know Star Trek. I'm all about Star Trek. I really did go off on a pitch. I don't know if I made a point there that is rambled.

0:32 You've been podcasting for six years now. I don't know if you've made a coherent point yet. Oh, it's just not great police work. You got the touch, Shay girl and foe. Fun. This is fun. I'm going to save the rest for later. George Francesco is one of my all time favorite characters. This show is going to go to places that I really enjoy. Sour milk is a good thing to the tank. Stay tuned listeners. Wheel Wheel of press kit. Yikes, Sykes. We're both fans of Star Trek. Watching Alien Nation and we enjoy.

0:59 It I am one of your hosts, Todd, this is Nick. This is the Alienating Ourselves podcast. I don't think this is better than sex. 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 almost pass out from toxic fumes given off by alien fabric production. I am one of your hosts, Todd. I have to wear a vest at my current job. I don't want to wear one anywhere else. And joining me, as always, is a guy who has invested in fabric ribbons to go on convention badges as a way of advertising this podcast.

1:34 It's Nick. Nick, how's it going? It's going so good, Todd, I am coming off the high of the three day weekend convention, Stellarfest, which happens down here north of Atlanta. It's much smaller convention than Dragon Con where Todd and I typically go every year. So Stellarfest is, I don't know, many hundreds of people instead of 10s of thousands, and it's a little bit more able to get in touch with smaller groups of people. But I did get a chance to do a ton of panels and one of them was my first ever Alien Nation panel.

2:09 So I represented, I kind of reintroduced the show and reminded people and I was so thrilled. I didn't know if anybody would show up. People show up based on interest, and people were interested, like Todd and me. It rang some bells. It reminded them something. So they came out to remember to talk. And you really want people to share in panels and hype up and say what they had for their own experiences and stuff. And some of them did. They were like, Oh my gosh, I remember that. I did actually argue with one nice lady about how many seasons there were.

2:40 She was just committed to there being 20, no, 22 seasons and not one. And I was uniquely aware of things about the show in this one particular case. So I I stopped arguing after a second. But it was great that they were passionate and what Todd's referring to. If you do attend Dragon Con or another convention, even professional conventions, people started this thing where they make their own little badge ribbons that you could stick to the bottom of them. I think originally legitimately just like speaker, it might say or something, but now people put things like Luke, I'm your father or you smell like a hamster.

3:18 Your father smelled of elderberries kind of things. And we just pass them around and share them. So I had this crazy idea with making one that's about Alien nation on the front, and I put a little sticker QR code to the podcast on the back. So Todd and I are advertising. We're out there. We're mostly just having fun still, and that's my whole purpose. But now people can join in if they so choose, and I'm letting people at conventions know about it. So fun. We'll have more of those badge ribbons to pass out a dragon con if you happen to find us, but that's the high that I'm on right now.

3:51 I'm trying to talk Todd into going to Stellarfest next year, so we'll see if we branch out, yes. Yeah, it does sound like fun. So I I might try. I don't know if I want to talk on any panels. I, I, you were telling me ahead of time that you kind of broke a record for how many panels you were on. I am still not a great public speaker. That's confirmed. I'm not even sure I'm that great in my own living room on podcasts. Definitely not. But at least I feel comfortable doing that. But in front of a group, people staring at me?

4:18 I don't know. I don't know if. I think, I don't know. One of the tricks is if I got you there and we did Alien Nation, you'd mostly be talking to me just in a room where there are other people standing around. Yeah. Yeah. And it gets easier that way. And it is at Dragon Con, Todd and I would be in a room, a panel with like more than 100 people. And here it's, you know, like 12. So it's a little bit less intimidating, but oh, OK. Yeah, this is this is kind of exciting. So tonight, looking on to what we're up to now, let's get into it.

4:53 We're looking at Alien Nations episode 20, Gimme Gimme, which originally aired on Monday night, April 9th, 1990. Director and writer is David Carson. Well, David Carson is the director and he also directed the excellent episode The Game which was a favorite. He directed 4 episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation including the truly excellent season 3 episode Yesterday's Enterprise and 4 episodes of Deep Space 9 including the pilot. He did some Smallville, the award-winning HBO series From the Earth to the Moon, which was a project of Tom Hanks after Apollo 13.

5:29 And this is another episode written by Schneider and Froloff, who have a great track record and will see us through with the last episode of the series and three of the TV movies. Even when they're not writing, they seem to be producing, which for this show I think means guiding the tone and content. So tonight on Alien Nation, George and Susan Francisco are at a presentation for potential investors in a new product called New NIT, like NU. And then the word NIT that's it's strong, it's stain resistant and reverse engineered from something on the ship.

6:01 They invest when the cloth is so strong that George isn't hurt by a stabby criminal with scissors. Even Captain Grazer invests, which sets a tone of conflict of interest and worry for the rest of the episode as the business gets shadier and shadier. Buck has a high school teacher who's inspiring him to care about several causes at once, including worker rights at the very same business. And there's a quickly a murder of one of the business owners. Noxious fumes, an illicit affair, A completely unconnected subplot where Matt and Albert figure out how to best spend lottery winnings.

6:35 All that and more. So what was your first take on this episode, Todd? Well, for some reason I was remembering this episode vaguely as maybe having approximately the same feel of the TV movies, especially since this is getting near the end of the season and I'm not sure exactly why I thought that. And when I did watch it again, I realized it's really, I don't know. For one thing, maybe I'm not remembering the TV movies as well, and maybe this is more similar to previous episodes than I thought as far as look and feel.

7:10 But it is an overall good episode at the same time, kind of middle of the road, similar to some of the ones we've had recently where nothing is massively bad about it, but also nothing massively good. I don't even feel that bad about saying that because later when I talk about some stuff from the unofficial companion opinion book, one person in there basically said the same thing there was kind of null the road. So it's fine. Nothing hugely wrong with it. Still pretty cool. And I guess we'll go in more detail about the good and bad stuff in a few minutes.

7:46 But yeah, unfortunately nothing spectacular to say one way or the other. How about you? Well, I like some of the messaging of this episode, although it's a mess until the end when they kind of straighten everything out. I feel like there were a couple of lessons and the execution was better than the actual sense of the script. So overall I liked it, but I get what you're saying. And as we're going through it and looking back on, I'm remembering what happened now. Like, wait, what happened then? Oh, is this the one with like the the truck accident or something?

8:21 So now I'm wondering if we're going to stumble upon more to it than I remember. But we can move into our sour milk. So what's, what's your first sour milk for this episode, Todd? This does have an overall good plot. I like the idea of an advanced Tynanese technology that can be used for everyday use, and it's a nice exploration of the good and bad things about money. So, so, yeah, I mean the premise, the premise kind of works. I, I think you may have said the opposite for me. I think you said that this is good in execution, but the script wasn't great.

8:56 Maybe I feel the opposite. There was a good premise and then the execution was maybe just a little bit. So so maybe that's why one way or another, this works out to be middle of the road because not quite everything is firing on all cylinders. But yeah, I, I think it's a good setup. And I think maybe that's also why I thought it was similar to the TV movies in that I was thinking that the concept was maybe a little bit grander than previous episodes. But again, I might have been thinking of something else because it's it's one of those episodes that kind of had potential for more, but it's just kind of OK.

9:33 Yeah, And I, I get deep into thinking about the execution. And sometimes I'll see a movie or show and I will see glimmers of maybe some brilliance in the screenplay, like somebody had a vision and and sometimes that translates even an alienation. And I'll be like, this is what they were going for. And sometimes it doesn't. And I'm like, oh, they had an idea and they didn't get to do it. So in this one, there's this unintentional message for just this episode that Matt Sykes is a sour puss. He tends to make his own bad luck, and he's one of those people that just, it seems to never work out for him, at least in the context of this episode.

10:14 And if you try and help him find happiness, you're probably going to sync right along with him. So I like that by the end of the episode, he does find happiness for himself. I like that he has interactions with Albert and Kathy and they're each trying to understand like what he thinks makes him happy, which we see very quickly. Those things that he says only make him sad. My example, so I'm not still just being vague. One of them is lottery tickets. He thinks they make him happy but they consistently make him sad.

10:45 Maybe getting the car of his dreams makes him sad and at one point getting a second job and he's like this is the worst thing ever. So everything Matt moves toward is like Oz is terrible. I like this because both Albert and Kathy are so sweet and genuine in their affection for him, but also their confusion about what it takes for the man to have joy in his life, how screwed up his priorities seem to be, and how it turns out that they're right and he's wrong. I like that when it turns out that he's wrong and he needs to pay more attention.

11:17 I really like the scene with Kathy as she reacts to his spiritual and intimate attitude toward the car. I don't know if you're going to talk more about the lottery, but Matt has lottery tickets. He's having a miserable time losing at them over and over again. Albert buys the last one off of him for fun since they're all losers. Matt doesn't care. And of course we the viewer know what happens. Albert is going to win what Matt keeps losing. He ends up buying Matt his dream car and he shows it to Matt, shows it to Kathy and he is like intimate with it.

11:50 He's spiritual with it. He's talking about how wonderful the car is, and Kathy is like, what? She doesn't understand his affection for this thing. I've never seen a car like this, is it yours? Yeah. Oh, what happened to your other one? Nothing. Then why do you need this one? Well, I don't need it. I want it. A car like this, it's better than sex. Really. That's just an expression. I guess that could have been the materialism, could have been what the whole episode is about, but it's not. I really like Albert's character moments.

12:24 Jeff Marcus is just the sweetest punch we can give the yeah, but Albert is just the best. One of the things that we've talked about over on the Discerning Geeks portal is how in some ways, we're all geeks about something. You know? We've come a long way in the last two or three decades as far as geeky stuff becoming more mainstream. In fact, when you look at the way the MCU is as successful as it is, in some ways geeky stuff has become the mainstream. But I remember in high school being a geek didn't feel good.

12:58 You know, it was, it was still a little bit in the age of, you know, geek versus jock type stuff. But one of my Co hosts over on Discerning Geeks portal, he used to say that we're all geeks about something. Even if you're into sports, you're geeky about that. If you're into cars, you're geeky about that. And so I'm sure that if Matt were a real person instead of a character, he would probably never admit this, but he is a geek. He's just a car geek and a sports geek. And we've seen a sports geekiness in a previous episode, the one where George wanted to coach baseball and and Matt knew all the stats and everything.

13:37 And then of course, in this episode, he knows all about cars. And so it it shows that we're all geeky about something. And you were talking about Stellarfest again. I can't remember if it was you or the host of Fandom Hybrid, but one of you posted on Facebook the map of the hotel where Stellarfest was at and how it was divided up into different rooms. And each room had a theme. And we were talking about a little bit before recording tonight, and you were saying that there was a Star Wars room, a Star Trek room, a Doctor Who room, and the several rooms that were miscellaneous.

14:10 And I know that they included things like your alienation panel and, and Hanukkah's MCU panels and stuff like that. And even within what would classically be called geeks, there are still sub geekinesses. Like, you know, I, if I, if I were to go to Stellarfest, I would probably want to go to the Star Trek room and the miscellaneous rooms. I would probably, maybe might be interested in maybe one or two panels at Star Wars. I would also be content to skip Star Wars because it hasn't been that good lately.

14:44 And Doctor Who, I could skip that all together. So even even within us geeks, there are sub geek categories. And I don't know if I've gone off on a huge tangent you have. But yeah, just to say that, yeah, I agree with you about about Matt's obsessions. It is interesting to see him, you know, have such passions about things. But in some ways, his fandom of these things can sometimes resemble our fandom of things and about how there can be within a fandom, there can be like warring factions. And we're kind of seeing a microcosm of that in this one person in that Matt loves this stuff and and it's not as good as he thinks either.

15:28 So I really did go off on a Ted. I don't know if I made a point there or that is rambled. You've been podcasting for six years now. I don't know if you've made a coherent point yet. My last point, I mean I've got a few others, but I'll jump to it, is essentially the same as what you're talking about. As a teacher, I appreciate them giving an honest talk about how expensive a free sports car ends up being. You're going to have to pay for maintenance and of course the thing breaks immediately. I don't typically love cars unless they're Deloreans or Batmobiles, but I like seeing what you're talking about, Todd.

16:01 It's people's childlike love for something. Fanaticism. Being a fan, I may not be into some of the things y'all are into, but one of the things I love about conventions is that I'm just excited about how excited other people are. So yeah, if if Todd and I met up at Stellarfest and I didn't really see him for most of the weekend because he was hanging around the Star Trek room most of the time. I do something similar at Dragon Con, where I almost entirely spend time between Atlanta. What is it? Not just sci-fi classics, but there's another one where it's like science fiction and fantasy and they're in the same hotel.

16:40 And I'll just kind of go back and forth between those two rooms for most of it because those are my favorite topics. There's a million other things at multiple hotels, but I get really happy in one area, so it doesn't matter. But if I don't, if he's happy, you know, it's like, oh, you go, man, I got to participate in Star Trek trivia and I came in late, but I won round 3 and unfortunately that made me qualify for the last round. And I was like, Oh no. And I oh, I lost so spectacularly listeners because what you're talking about, Todd, I know Star Trek.

17:13 I'm all about Star Trek unless it's a couple of things and I just don't know that much about Star Trek. So there were questions that I was like, what a lot of different special interests. I think I did OK ish. But if you really put me on the spot in like the final round, it's not going to be pretty. So Matt tells us that once he owns a car and once he gushes over it and he's a fan like all of us, then he tells us that he's going to have to pay for insurance. He's going to have to pay for storage.

17:45 And then when the car breaks, he's going to have to pay for maintenance. He still loves the car, but he's just slowly adding up all the stuff. But I like the rapture in his voice when Kathy asks, well, the mileage must be good. Then he's so happy. And he's like, oh, the mileage is terrible. He's happy about it at the time because he's just stoked to have the car. So as an adult, I'm coming up on 50 and well, Todd and I both are, but it's like I own way too many popcorn buckets listeners. And the Mandalorian and Grogu is coming out of the time of us recording this and they're going to have they have a popcorn bucket shaped like an ad at, I think with the Mandalorian climbing up the side spoilers popcorn bucket people.

18:26 And they got one just shaped like Grogu in his little floating thing. And you just fill the back up with, I have no space for these things. I got no more room for action figures and stuff. But I just, I love that they're making things that are so fun. So yes, I like his fanaticism. What else do you got? That sour milk? I like the police work is downplayed compared to the alien culture aspect because the, if I remember correctly, the last two episodes have been very matte focused. And one of those was also very police focused.

19:01 I think it was the previous one, the one right before this that was a little bit more spiritual, but it was still Matt centered. And so it's nice that we get back to alien stuff where George has more to do, where there's more about the Tanktonese. And usually when stuff is about the tanks and knees, it is about their culture, their religion, their biology, stuff like that. So it's also neat that it's still about alien stuff, but this time more about their science and technology. So yeah, I like that we kind of went a different direction with this episode, yeah.

19:32 It incorporated a lot of the parts of the show well, like if I was writing a spec script for Alien Nation and I was telling them you'll like this one. It has some stuff for Matt, some stuff for George, some stuff for Susan. I've got Albert doing a thing, Susan Kathy's doing a thing. Even Grazer has like a role in this. And it's going to involve technology from the ship and it's going to involve like different people that yeah, it's that's great. It involves the different parts. So I totally see that.

20:00 I'm going to say that I really like that there's a happy ending, and a lot of these episodes have happy endings, even if it's a sad episode like Night of Screams is. It doesn't really have a happy ending, but it makes us feel like it does because he comes home to his family and just hangs out warmly with them. So that tells us to feel OK at the end. But I'm good with that too. But this one, just spoiler alert, y'all. If you have a story that's about ecology, about the environment, about conservation, it's probably not going to have a happy ending because that's something we just all have to keep working at.

20:35 It's like taxes. You just got to keep paying. Best case scenario. An ecology story has like responsible forward thinking at the end and this does that, but it also has a happy ending. The evil factory is going to become a good factory. I'll spare you guys and not give details. The obnoxious teacher is actually a clever and insightful social activist and an inspiring teacher. The obnoxious teen is now a right minded idealist. Matt's pretty happy. Albert's happy. George, Susan and Grazer's bad investments are going to turn out OK ish.

21:08 So they're happy. The gross couple having an affair is happy. The only ones not happy are the murderer who gets caught and the guy he murdered. His wife didn't love him and after he died in excruciating pain she was hooking up the very same day. But if you forget about him, it's a very happy ending, so I did appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that too. And in fact, that's a little bit related to my Next Hour Milk. Not necessarily about the ending, but about more, you know, good stuff along the way.

21:37 It's good to see Buck taking school and important issues so seriously. I know that sometimes we've picked on him a little bit for always chasing A cause and he's doing that again, but at least he is chasing positive causes. And does he get a little bit obsessed and does he sometimes get involved in for the wrong reasons or just via the wrong people? Maybe. Is it happening again? Maybe. Regardless he is trying to do the right thing. He also continues to be a great Big Brother to Vesna and sometimes it almost seems like he's being a better family member to Vesna then their parents are.

22:14 Now, that might just be coincidence because George and Susan usually have more stuff going on. They're the adults, they've got more plot in the story. They've got, you know, their various work responsibilities and things like that. It could also be that they're just simply trying to give bucks something to do. But I and I just thought of this like a minute or two ago, but I also can't help but wonder if there is something cultural about that where maybe in Tectonies society, the parents, you know, they obviously, you know, are both responsible for helping to give birth to the baby once it is born.

22:49 I can't help but wonder, are older siblings supposed to step in and do more? Maybe, maybe not. Like I said, it could just be total coincidence because of the the way things are on the show. And then another little aside because it is Buck related. This is our introduction to Buck's teacher, Marilyn. And I say introduction because she is in at least one more episode. I can't remember she's in any of the TV movies, but it might only be two sightings. I can't remember. But this is it's this is definitely not the end.

23:20 It's more than one episode at least. That's, I did not have her pegged for someone who'd ever show up again. So that's interesting. She's presented as kind of like, well, George is investing in a company and she's the one who comes along and makes you feel guilty for investing in the company after you've already done it. And I don't, they give us 'cause to be a little bit frustrated with her. And I don't know, they give you 'cause to kind of be worried that she has too strong a connection with their teenage son.

23:52 Just just hints that we could latch onto if we want to. There's nothing going on there. But we do come around to find out that she's a pretty decent person. And when they kind of accuse her of stuff like manipulating their kid, getting him riled up by something, misleading him, pushing her own agenda, which was not as big a thing for teachers in 1990 as it is now. But to accuse people of that when they do that, she mostly just smiles and stares. She mostly doesn't defend herself or go off or give a lot of rhetoric or anything.

24:26 You know, she mostly just says, you know, something very basic. But I'm, I'm glad she turned out to be a fairly decent person. I think Buck I've mentioned before in a couple of episodes he is a joiner and I'm trying to look up a good word for it. Another one is cause Hopper, but he is just Buck is at higher risk for anybody to say, hey, we're all doing this. Do you want in? Buck is like, not only do I want in, I'm going to be the best at it and like, oh gosh, calm down, man. So he's just so into the cause of the week and his teacher gives him plenty to be interested in.

25:03 My last sour milk for today is just that when we find out Matt is doing the lottery, he has a very, very smart partner. So George literally stands there and says how much money Matt has spent on lottery tickets in the short time he's known him. And they've known each other for at least a year. And he's like, in this amount of time, Matt has spent $750 on lottery tickets. And Matt is offended and he protests that George is forgetting the time that Matt won $25, as though that obviously makes it better instead of so obviously worse.

25:40 So I do like them doing that. I don't want to dash the hopes and dreams of lottery fans. And like Todd and I just said, I want you to enjoy what you enjoy while I enjoy the silly things I enjoy. But I don't need these popcorn buckets. But you know, he does not have fun scratching off losing lottery tickets. So I hope you do if you're big on that, because it is. It's you're not doing it for the money, but it's the dreams. The dreams. But yeah, I do like that. He did the math for us. That was pretty fun.

26:10 And that's it for me. So what else do you got in sour milk? OK, well, in about Marilyn Buck's teacher had forgotten this until just a few minutes ago, but I I have a feeling you're going to have a really good Star Trek alumni score in this episode. And I just now remember that she is part of that score because she was kind of like a minor role in one episode of Star Trek the Next Generation. It's the one where Deanna Troi temporarily loses her empathic ability, so I'm sure you'll have more to say about that later.

26:44 Let me see. Also, I can speed through this one because you've already kind of touched on about how this has a happy ending and everything. That was actually one of my bullet points too. I like how happy Sykes himself is at the end of this episode for giving a gift to Albert. We usually see Sykes being pretty self-centered, so the fact that he got joy and given a gift was a nice change of pace. And then the only other thing I have is is technically just a mention of biology and culture, and that is that the production of Nunit apparently doesn't bother the tincton knees.

27:17 And not only did the fumes from the production of it not bother them, they can't even smell them. Which is interesting, but also a little bit confusing because they've got such a keen sense of smell that you would actually, I think all their senses are pretty keen, if I remember correctly. So you think they would at least smell it even if it didn't offend them. But apparently they can't. They don't even recognize that there's anything to smell. So I thought that was a little bit odd, but at the very least notable too.

27:48 Yeah, like the gas. So if they lived on a planet without humans, they could make this material all they wanted. And the terrible thing about the substance that it creates, they don't talk about another, another ecological effect. It's that the gas that it generates is deadly to humans very quickly and pungent. So yes, if it's completely doesn't affect them at all and they go out of their way to show it being really, really yucky too. But yeah, it's ineffectual. They don't even sense it, which was different.

28:19 All right, well, let's look at salt water. I think I have more than you, so I'll start on that. But George and all the investors get a free vest made from new knit which is too strong to cut without a laser and which is stain resistant. And when they find out the company is sort of evil, George takes off the vest. And I feel like he kind of paid $10,000 for that vest. I mean, that's what he invested, no pun intended, but that's what he put in. And they give him like the free vest is like a show of thanks for being an investor.

28:54 I think he needs to keep it. And I mean, we know that it's knife proof because the guy stabs him with scissors and it doesn't go through the vest. That's what gets Grazer to go in. I'm going to bet it's bulletproof. Grazer should see if he can buy up all of the remaining display vests as the company is transitioning to its new purpose. So I think he has to get consent for that from like a higher up. They his guys can still wear bulletproof vests. He's just like, hey, puts a little vest on over it.

29:23 I'm just saying. And like his one little department has a sharp drop in bullet wounds and stuff. That would be great. But no, it's just like, you know what, it's morally wrong. Take them off like shoot, pick those up. I looked it up listeners Mink though almost everyone has stopped raising them to skin and turn into coats. You can still buy, sell, and trade mink coats second hand. There's no legal consequences currently, at least based on my 2 minute Internet search, and a lot of folks do. So as long as you're not breeding new minks, it is fine to buy, sell, trade used mink.

29:59 And if you're a crazy fan, you can find The Golden Girls episode where the ladies start raising minks in their garage, which just sounds unbelievable, but it's true. What's the salt water you have, Todd? Well, let me see. So my first one is that several characters in this episode really wear their emotions on their sleeves. For instance, at the party at the beginning of the episode, it is super obvious that Edgar Allan Poe is really upset. And it is so upset that you would think that anybody at that party should have been able to pick up on it.

30:35 Also, later when we see Mr. Alan Poe about to go for a swim, he isn't just like, you know, content or maybe slightly looking forward to it. He's practically beaming about the fact that he's about to take a dive in a swimming pool. And of course, it's got salt water in it. It's about to kill him. So it just seems weird that he's that happy about I mean, don't get me wrong, it's nice to go for a swim, but he's he's acting like he hasn't, you know, gone swimming before or or, you know, he's owned this pole.

31:07 He probably swims every day or something, but he's acting like he's never done it before. He's just that happy about it. And then later after Poe gets killed by the the salt water and his wife is crying over his death, it's pretty obvious that she's faking. So. So yeah, everybody is kind of super obvious with their emotions in this episode. I guess I knew it was going to happen. We all know we haven't had a real reference to salt water affecting the newcomers like acid in several episodes. But for old hats like Todd and me, it's like the guy's going toward the pool and he's way too happy.

31:45 I kind of felt like I knew this is going, but at the same time my brain was saying this has got to be the worst way to try and murder someone. Like how much salt does it take to turn a pool into a salt water pool? And how much time and effort and manpower carrying sacks of salt and it's all going to settle at the bottom, man, You got to stir that up. And and what if he dipped a toe in and the jig is up? And even then it's like the most obvious murder weapon. I mean, you could have just stolen the car and hit him with it and it would have been much easier.

32:17 But anyway, anyway, it was really good for like sweeps week. But yeah, that was salt water pool. The old salt water, the old acid pool gig gimmick. Yeah, that's my next. So your your salt water was salt water. That's nice, man. Oh yeah. My second one is the seemingly sleazy human company man named Lee and the victim's wife Rita are really stupid and obnoxious to hook up the day after her husband is found dead and they're in the pool where he was found dead topless. Especially knowing that they lied about both their alibis because they were hooking up at the time that someone salted the pool.

33:06 So they're just really dumb and they used another one of my pet peeves. This defensive argument, it just drives me crazy. This is the do you really think I'd be stupid enough to do this thing that makes me look extremely guilty if I really was guilty? I hate that in top stories. I hate the you think I'd you gonna be dumb enough to carry the murder weapon around with? I mean, yes, I think you're dumb. And Sharon Stone does the same thing in Basic Instinct. Her first alibi for not being the murderer is that she wrote about the murder in her book.

33:43 So clearly she couldn't kill someone in the same way because it would implicate her. And I'm like, yeah, you're dumb. Why? Why is he why do you think that defends you? But they try it in this and they're like, yeah, I guess so. Obviously I'm innocent. I'd be really dumb. Really. In the movie and in this episode, the police seem to be completely foiled by this argument. They're like, yeah, no one would be idiot enough to hook up in the very pool. They just murdered their husband the same day. I guess you're off the hook.

34:13 So it just, I don't know, it's the tone drives me crazy.

34:18 Yeah, they actually use that trope a little bit in a recent episode of High Potential, which is a really good cop show on on ABC. And it's more of a detective show. And it's where a woman, she's not even a detective, but she gets hired by the police as a consultant because she's kind of a super genius. And there is a trope in that episode of somebody kind of playing that it's like, how stupid would I be? Or I wouldn't do this to my own, you know, in my own business place of business or whatever.

34:52 And sure enough, he was guilty or whatever. But that show is so smart, not just about a smart person, but so smartly written that they found a creative way of doing it. So even though it's the trope you're talking about, it didn't feel trophy when they did it. It actually felt like an interesting twist, but here maybe not so much. Sometimes it's the writing. I I mean, I didn't think it was obnoxious when I watched Basic Instinct. I just, you know, I feel like the two idiots making out in the pool are just idiots.

35:23 It's not like obviously we're innocent, officer. No one could be this big a moron. Like, yeah, so when Matt is frustrated with these lottery tickets, and like I said, he gives the last one to Albert, Albert buys it from him for a buck or 5 bucks, and then Albert wins thousands of dollars. The writers needed Matt to have somebody to commiserate with, and they didn't want to do George because he wouldn't have understood or he would have been on Albert's side. And they didn't want to do Grazer because that's not their dynamic.

35:56 And they got rid of Dobbs. So there's this new cop in the station. His name's Phil and they should have cut him. He's bugging me, Albert. Damn, what's Albert? He went to collect his money. Money. What money? 3 pineapples. He won the lottery. It's always an alien, a Sykes. Commiserating with Matt is his only reason to live. He's also there so he can offer Matt a second job opportunity to help him realize the burden of owning something big and fancy, like a boat or a car. He's like you. Will you come work at the second job I work at?

36:34 Because Phil also has a big stupid thing. He has a boat. I'm just jealous. Boat owners, I'm not knocking you, but. But I like where they took it. But this guy feels really out of place. Like they crammed a desk in for him where 1 does not go. They acted like he's been there the whole time when he definitely has not. And then the second job just sort of gets shrugged off because Matt's busy. Like he goes and he shows it this whole second job and that's like, oh, wait, I gotta go. Yeah, this is not going to work out.

37:05 It's lame. The uniform is mandatory at this job, so what's even the point? Phil and Mr. Elias, a dude having a fit and the loading dock, we're all just to give Matt a chance to be like, yeah, no. You have to wear the uniforms. Oh. Yeah, they're real sticklers about that. Anybody to talk to around him? Well, the boss goes home around midnight. There is Bernard. He does inventory. He's not real social.

37:38 Mr. Elias, this is my friend, Detective Sykes. He's interested in a job. Phil, last night you missed clock box #4 again. You are sleeping. Oh, Oh no, Mr. Elias, the the key must have must have jammed. Phil, Phil, don't lie to me, OK? I give this man your job. He's a great kidder. I'm not kidding, Phil. Tonight you sleep the loading dock OK. No, Mr. Mr. Elias, I am a security guard, not a janitor. Don't argue with me, OK? And Dobbs totally could have done this. You know what? Zapeda could have done this.

38:15 We just met her and she's going to be back. So I don't know why they had to bring in Phil. But yeah, that's it for me. For salt water. I have like a brief Yikes Sykes, but what else do you got? So actually my second bullet point is ideally similar to my first one. So let me try to distinguish them a little bit. So in my first one, I talked about everybody kind of wearing their emotions on their sleeves. It's not that anyone was acting badly, they just weren't subtle. So we're still good performances.

38:47 This is nobody was doing a good job of hiding it. But my second bullet point is that there is just a lot of overacting in the episode and particularly from somebody I think you may have just been talking about Sergeant Phil's boss at his security job, Mr. Elias. Yeah, yeah, I don't remember exactly. I'm watching the episode now and it just had that scene because I had on mute, I I couldn't hear his voice. But if I remember correctly, it's either his accent that's over the top or just his volume or his inflection.

39:19 There's just something about that that is over the top. And I'll have something to say about him later because he's more than just an actor. He's also a writer and a producer. And so it could be that he didn't dive, you know, head first into the acting aspect of his career. And so. Yeah, and in this little brief appearance he makes, he's he's a bit over the top. And maybe some of the other performances are a bit over the top here and there. So yeah, overall there's just not a lot of subtlety in this episode.

39:52 Well, my last 1 is really just that when George is in this, they're working through this whole factory final scene and. Cyril hits George over the head and leaves him to die in the flaming factory, and Matt catches Cyril climbing out a window. Matt says, excuse me and hit Cyril in the face of the briefcase, which sends Cyril cartwheeling down more than 20 stairs, which could have easily killed him, which is just it's just not great police work.

40:29 You know, we we tend to frown on that in the force. But yeah, there could have been a better way to take that person down. And that does it for me for. Yeah, salt water. There's some salty things in this episode. So I think we're ready for connecting the spots. All right, well, mostly in this one. I don't have any real world connections for the ecology angle or the maybe you shouldn't invest in things that aren't tried or check out the factory first. But there are several notable appearances, a few David E Kelley connections that I'm not going to list at the time.

41:05 A few from the show Sledgehammer Man from Atlantis, which is a favorite of one of the show runners because they've mentioned it before and it's been playing in the background in one episode. I didn't even know about that Patrick Duffy show until I think I was looking it up for this Mantis, a favorite of mine more Doogie Howser. So like sleepy Phil, that guy that I didn't especially like coming in. He's in Quantum Leap. His name's Alan Fudge in real life, and he is also in a forgotten movie that I like very, very much called My Demon Lover, which is just.

41:38 Oh, God. It's like it's it's really, really stupid. That was made for you to discover on home video rental at the height of those times and just be like, what is this? But I loved it. Kim Braden is Marilyn Houston. And this. Yeah, I think this is the person you're talking about, maybe the teacher. Yeah. So Kim Braden is actually married to the guy who directed this episode, David Carson. And yeah, so she's just a very pretty red headed lady. And you're right, she's the Ensign in the the Lost episode of TNG.

42:18 But it's funny because she's in Star Trek Generations, the crossover movie in the Nexus, playing Picard's imaginary wife. Oh yeah. Yeah, I mean, I, you know, it's like, oh, OK, there were other contenders they could have brought in, but no, they just said we'll pick an entirely new woman that you like this actress from one episode way back when, We'll reuse her. And you know who directed Star Trek Generations? That's right. It's David Carson again, the director of this episode. He's not just favoring his wife.

42:50 Kim Braden has done, like, a lot of stuff. She's very successful. So I think she was doing him a favor more than vice versa. But she will, like you said, she'll return in the last episode. Green eyes and Joseph Calley is Lee Smith. And I really just want to mention that he's in that show that I keep bringing up that I intend to make Todd watch at some point called Something is out there exclamation point. I want you to do 1 because I think I know one of the ones you might do. Yeah, and I apologize beforehand.

43:23 I said I had two. I actually have three. But what I have to say about him might not be as in depth as what you have to say about him. So if one of us beats the other, you know, we can supplement. So the first one is, of course, Armand Shimmerman, who plays serial Roman in this. Yeah. So the reason I want to bring him up was because he does play Cork on Star Trek Deep Space 9. And I just remember this few minutes ago, I think he also played the principal in at least one season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, if not all three seasons that they were in high school.

43:57 Yeah. And another thing I want to mention is I've recently started listening to the Delta Flyers podcast where Garrett Wong and Robert Duncan Monique McNeil 2 actors from Star Trek Voyager. I've only started listening to the podcast now, but apparently their first seven seasons were the two of them re watching their own show Star Trek Voyager. And then I think they did one or two seasons where they did miscellaneous Star Trek stuff. But they have started re watching Star Trek Deep Space 9 and I didn't pick up on it right away, but I think I started listening to them when they were doing either season 4 or season 5.

44:34 And I think they're either still in season 5 or or maybe season 6 I I can't remember. No, I'm pretty sure it's season 5. They haven't gotten to season 6 yet, but anyway, that is a really good podcast. It's the two of them, but then also Armand Shimmerman and Terry Farrell, who played Cork and Dax in in Deep space 9. They trade off episodes and every once in a while they'll both be in an episode together. So it's either three or four of them who are on this podcast and it's it's a really good podcast.

45:07 In fact, they take about an hour, hour and a half, sometimes even 2 hours to talk about a single episode of Star Trek D Space 9. So they really analyze it and that's just their free material. Apparently they give you even more conversation about an episode on their Patreon if you're willing to pay a few dollars. So I mean they really get deep into it and of course they get really good with behind the scenes information. But the weird thing is that they are also super objective because, you know, obviously they were, you know, they're involved in Star Trek and two of them were in Deep Space 9 specifically.

45:45 But Robert Duncan McNeil is also a producer and director and possibly a writer. And so he's able to talk about how, you know, I like this camera shot, but I didn't like this camera shot. And they should have done a Dolly here. They should have focused more on character moments here. The the special effects weren't good enough here. They were better here, you know, that type of thing. And the others are a little bit critical too. In fact, sometimes Arm and Shimmerman will get a little bit critical, but in a very objective and very polite way, sometimes about his own performance, sometimes about others.

46:18 And he'll say as respectfully as possible, I think this part, this director of this actor should have chosen differently. But he won't say it in an offensive way or trashing anybody. He's just like, you know, that wasn't the best moment. They could have picked something better or done a second take or something like that. So it's it's very interesting. And also Armand Schumerman, when he's on that podcast, he also does nomenclature isn't the right word. It's whatever the study of words is. Etymology.

46:47 And he'll basically take the title of the episode and then break apart each word in the episode. And what the not scientific, but basically the origins of each word in the title. And so he gets analytical where I think Garrett Wong does a haiku, Robert Duncan McNeil does a Limerick, and I can't remember what Terry Farrell does. I think she might do a poem. But they each do this kind of like either artistic or analytical thing at the beginning of each episode. They also do birthday shout outs before they get into the the meat of the episode where they're actually talking about the the Deep Space 9 episode.

47:22 But yeah, it's a it's a really good podcast, so I would recommend it to everybody. Well, that So you're saying we need to be more out there and creative and bizarre in some of our editions? Oh well, no, no. But we can't, we can't copy them. So haikus are off the table. But you know, yeah, we weren't shopping, man. Yeah, haikus. Anyway. Armand Shimmerman is a funny guy and he's in What the Bleep Do We Know, which is sort of a fiction and sort of a documentary and it's fun to see him sometimes out of the makeup.

47:55 But he was very easy to spot in the makeup. And I don't think it was just because I was looking for him. But he is a Ferengi in the first season of Next Generation when they were horrible and hunched over and ridiculous and and then he's a Ferengi again shortly later is slightly better. So he gets to keep improving over time before he kind of masters the craft. There is a guy named David Selberg who plays Edgar Allan Poe and he's in the pilot for Voyager as well. He's in Enterprise and he's 2 separate characters on TNG.

48:29 He's the guy. He's a tall lanky guy so he lends himself well to probably play aliens and stuff. But he's the tall, lanky, handsome fellow in the fedora who gets shot in the famous season 1 episode The Big Goodbye and Next Generation. Very. I think he's a historian or something, but his wife Rita Allen Poe, which I think is also a play on words. She is in the video game Star Trek away team, which I do not count toward the score, but she is in an episode of Voyager. She's in Babylon 5 episode. Season 2 Episode 2 is Elizabeth Sheridan.

49:07 So that's probably why you remember 155 episodes of Square 1 television slash Math Net as Sergeant Kate Monday. For those of you who used to watch or be forced to watch Math, Net and Square 1 educational TV for kids in the 80s was just usually so typically horrible that This is why we have fond memories of a few shows. It's just because they were watchable and we were forced to watch. So like The Electric Company is the best thing ever just because it was so much better than the other stuff. In this case, it's Dragnet, except with math.

49:40 So Rita Allen Poe was our guide for so many episodes of these episodes. I never would have spotted her. But yeah, I'm shocked to discover this is one of the places she went. Michael Zand is Mr. Elias, and like you mentioned, he'll be back in Dark Horizon. Interesting dude in a very different role. He's not going to not going to see Mr. Elias again. Bob Miner is a cop. He's another stuntman, stunt coordinator turned actor. He's done a lot of cool stuff from both Blaculas back in the 70s through a Fast and the Furious movie.

50:14 He was also in the Practice Deep Space 9, Buck Rogers, Wonder Woman, Spider Man TV show, the original 1975 Rollerball with original movie Matt Sykes, James Caan Fun. And he was in several exploitation films in the 70s like Foxy Brown, Switchblade Sisters and Delinquent Schoolgirls, which I'd like to check out for the sake of research. When you finish this episode, Lance Nichols plays a delivery man and he has a ton of credits, mostly in my blind spot. So they may be shows you all watch. And I don't fan Forstick, the 2014, 2015 Fantastic Four movie.

50:53 This is very questionable. One episode of West Wing, one episode of Buffy practice pick up fences. He's coming up on 50 years of very steady work, this random delivery guy. So yeah, and that's it for me for connecting the spots. OK, so my two others were the ones that you mentioned Misses Allen Poe. Now I'm not sure you mentioned the actresses name though. It's Beverly Leach and I didn't realize that that was her name until I looked it up for tonight. But yes, she played Elizabeth Sheridan. And in case you're warning who that is, that is the sister of Captain John Sheridan.

51:29 Bruce Box Lightner played John Sheridan, and he came in Season 2 to become the new captain of Babylon 5. And I won't say anything more about that in case he's a spoiler, but he's kind of not so sure about his position. It's very different from his previous work as a Starship captain. So he's not exactly thrilled about it. And Elizabeth is his sister who comes to visit the station to give him a message from his his wife, who passed away years ago. And because apparently his sister and his wife were best friends at at one time.

52:06 And so she comes to station to visit him. And I won't say anything spoiler about what happens, but let's just say something kind of big and shocking and monumental happens in that particular episode. And so not only could the viewer possibly be shocked by what happens if they don't know it ahead of time, but the character John Sheridan is kind of shocked. So there is one scene after that shocking thing happens where he's talking to to Lizzie and he's like, yeah, I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

52:35 And, and she's like, well, was it what was going on though? Was it this or was it that? And he's like, I don't know. So yeah, she's only in that one episode. But it does make for some interesting scenes. And then Michael Zand, who played Mr. Elias, the security guards boss that I was talking about earlier, I kind of mentioned that he was in more than just acting. Yes, he does show up in an Alienation TV movie later, but he also wrote 11 episodes of Silk Stockings. He wrote 12 episodes of Pacific Blue and produced 18 episodes of Pacific Blue.

53:15 And if you're wondering what is Pacific Blue, that is the Bike cop TV show from the late 90s that I watched almost entirely because of an actress named Paula Tricky. It was the 90s. I was a teenager in my early 20s, so you can probably workout why I liked Paula Tricky. So yeah, I just thought I'd elaborate a little bit on Michael Zand. And then did you say you were done with connecting the spots? I am. OK, so the only other thing I have is that Matt's hat is back. Uh. Oh. And more specifically, it's the hat from one of the earlier, very early episodes of the show where he wore a hat.

53:55 And I don't know how you describe it, but it's almost like a gentleman's hat that you would think would be worn with either a suit or an overcoat. But of course, he's just wearing his normal, you know, jeans and T-shirt, and so it doesn't really match everything else. But, you know, he's wearing it anyway because I don't know, he's just, I guess just has a thing for hats. There again I was watching one of the myth Busters. I'm blanking on his name, but the one with well, they both have glasses anyway.

54:25 The one of the two myth Busters who's more outgoing. Adam Savage. He has his own YouTube channel and there was an episode recently where he was touring. I don't know if it was Skywalker Ranch or Ware, but it was some kind of studio where there was a lot of Star Wars stuff and the. I'm black on everybody's name tonight. But the the director of Iron Man One and Two, who is also an actor who also played Happy Hogan in the MCU movies. Jon Favreau. Jon Favreau. Yeah. He, you know, he's involved in Star Wars now and he was giving that guy a tour of everything.

54:59 And the myth Buster was wearing a hat. And I was like, OK, so it's not just Matt Sykes. It's also one of the myth Busters. So I guess sometimes people really do wear formal hats with informal clothing. Well, and I still have my theory that the SEC set designer put a big hat rack in the corner of the character's apartment, and now Gary Graham playfully grabs a hat off of it without permission at random. That's still what I think the case is. And because it explains his myriad strange hat choice. And they're like the one person is saying to the other, I didn't think he was actually going to wear that, that little baseball cap in this episode.

55:41 I don't know. Gary has it on. Just let him wear it. When we get to the Albert Einstein Award, I tried really hard, listeners, I wanted to dig up something on some of these names. But we got a Smith, we got an Elias, we got Cyril Roman. And I try, there's nothing there. So you really are left with the pose, Edgar Allan Poe and Rita Allan Poe. And I think her name is a play on reading and Edgar Allan Poe novel read and Allan Poe Oh. OK. Yeah, I didn't think about that. But I could just be reaching there.

56:12 So I'm afraid our default winner is Edgar Allan Poe, the guy who died by swimming pool. Yay Edgar Allan Poe. Yeah, yeah. And you know, me, I I intentionally don't research these because I want to pick whatever is the most obvious. And yeah, there's nothing more obvious than him. So if you dug and couldn't find anything, then yeah, that's the default winner. They haven't been trying that hard with these. In some episodes they're more generous, but a few episodes do not have a lot to go on. So we are up to I have to talk about this.

56:48 I think I have a few more than you do, so maybe I'll do like 3 short ones for everyone. You do, but go for it. Oh, I thought this was really weird. Why does Matt have a picture of a Corvette framed in his desk? For one thing, it's kind of quaint that he's using one of those clear plastic box frames that were popular in the 90s. I think I had some of those myself. But if he went to the trouble of framing it at all, why is it in a drawer inside of his desk instead of on top of his desk? It's like a dirty magazine.

57:25 You know, some men, they're keeping the Bible in their desk drawer. We already, I think, figured out that Matt has a car magazine in there and a dirty magazine in there from the kid little brother episode. Well, we're never going to see that poor kid again. Maybe he's better off. But yeah, so Matt keeps his framed car picture in there to pull out every now and then. Go. Yeah, that's the stuff right there. I'm glad you spotted that. I did not catch that at all. When investors get their free new knit vest, it comes in the colour of the Caves of Tankton.

57:56 That was just a weird choice. You see colour better than I. I don't see colour very well. Listeners, what do you remember? What colour those look like to you, Todd? Oh, the vest. Yeah. I thought they were kind of a gold colour. And I was thinking about that a little bit earlier. I I couldn't help but wonder if they chose that color because of the obvious connotation of gold being like wealth. And this was about, this whole episode was about money and riches and, you know, investment and stuff like that.

58:26 And so it makes sense that they make it a color that reflects the type of thing that would either represent money, wealth or investment. I'd say as good a guess as any. I couldn't tell you I I would have guessed coral or something. But yeah, when he gets it, they say in tanktonese fusala nuslifa, which means we're in good health, the Franciscos. So they invest big in this company and they start fantasizing about how they'd spend all the money they'll make from the investment. George dreams of having AUV room.

59:02 We found out in previous episodes that newcomers need AUV bath frequently. It affects your energy level. Susan wants something called an adiash wheel because Vesna likes to climb so much. She orders one for $700.00 and we see a big box delivered with the name of the product on the side and a rough drawn image that looks like an adiash wheel is essentially an oversized gerbil wheel for tectonies. Toddlers of. I think that's supposed to make us laugh, listeners, but maybe I'm biased and even though that sounds dehumanizing, put your kid to giant hamster wheel.

59:43 Maybe a giant hamster wheel is just what these ridiculous little ball of energy toddlers need. Maybe we've been close. She likes to climb to get her a giant gerbil wheel. And there's an extra shout out to the customer in this episode. I like Kathy's outfit. I'm sorry, the costumer Kathy's outfit. Buck had a button up shirt with some weird choices that I think worked. I I'm sorry this isn't a visual medium y'all because I want to show you these, but it is. It's like when you try and design slightly future outfits just in the very, very near future and you want to do something kind of quirky and outfit.

1:00:22 Kathy's outfit was just smashing for the late 80s. But Buck has a shirt that is just not quite our shirt. And at the investors meeting Susan wore this low cut red dress with almost a lady vampire collar. So that was kind of awesome. Do you got another one? Yeah. Now you reminded me something that is actually not about this episode, but about I think it's the previous one. Yeah, I think it's I think it's the episode right before this. So it's the episode where something happens to Matt and the Franciscos and Kathy are getting the news about it.

1:00:59 And we see the outfits that Susan and Kathy are wearing. And I kind of remember them being a little bit bizarre too. It was like this weird mix of late 80s pretend mid 90s and alien. It was just kind of bizarre fashions that they were wearing. So I know that's about another episode, so I'm delve into that too much. But but yeah, what you what you said happened to make me remember what I was noticing in the previous episode. Yeah. So bouncing back to this one, this might be kind of related to what you're just talking about with the the hamster wheel.

1:01:34 Albert is super easy to please because he considers scratching a lottery ticket so much fun that he saves 1/3 of it from later. And I'm like, it's just scratching a ticket. It only takes a few seconds and you're getting so much joy that you're like, I want that one second to come an hour or two from now. It's just weird, but also oddly refreshing for a character like Albert. Yeah, well, and I mean, Matt is claiming that he is getting joy out of scratching tickets and not just the the winning or losing because clearly he's losing.

1:02:12 And Albert really is like, you're right, the anticipation, the excitement, this is great. Which only makes it worse for Matt because clearly he's not having fun. And Albert is a pineapple, a Peach and a banana. Where'd you win? Nothing, Albert, Nothing at all. Sergeant Sykes, could I do 1? Albert they don't give these away for free. Oh, I'll pay for it. To waste the money. Please. Do you insist? If he insists, huh? Just don't blame me. You're just throwing away your money, Albert. One pineapple, 2 pineapples.

1:02:56 What are you doing? Go on. This is fun. I'm going to save the rest for later. You start to get this theme idea that Albert is making his own joy and finding it and Matt cannot be happy even if you give him what he wants. So that's just an example of that. It's like, Oh my gosh, I scratched 2 off. This is great. I'm saving it for later. Just lives in a happy world. Albert does of the car that Matt is mooning over is a 63 split window vet. The IMDb is full of people telling what kind of car or gun you see on screen, which I typically find pretty dull.

1:03:30 I mentioned this car because while listing its virtues, Matt mentions that it has pause attraction. And if any of you remember My Cousin Vinny, you know that you can't get pause attraction on the Buick Sky Lock. So that was really great that it has pause attraction.

1:03:47 This episode mentions multiple facts of previously established Tanktonese lore. The coroner reminds the viewers at home that salt waters like acid and newcomers, just in case they didn't know. And they skipped to this one. It's been a while since that came up, like I said. So previously, we found out that newcomers have better hearing and vision and smell. That came up all the way back in the pilot movie. So in this one, Matt tells George to trust his sense of smell for a change, and that's what you were talking about, Todd.

1:04:15 Whereas the roles are reversed. And we found out earlier that tanktonese are bred to adapt in multiple types of atmospheres, so they don't reference that specifically. But we can see how the nauseous fumes don't affect the newcomers at all while they're deadly to humans. So there are just some biological differences. There are two subtle race comment references that I caught in this episode, which is standard for the first 3 episodes, but they haven't happened as much since then. When Albert says he already spent his lottery winnings, Phil, our useless cop that's been added just for this episode, tells Sykes.

1:04:50 You give them a little money and they spend it right away and Matt replies by looking him in the eye and asking who the other one is. Where Matt is suspicious of the human woman who married the scientist Edgar Allan Poe. And George kind of accuses Matt thinking she's in it for the money because they're a mixed race couple. And neither of those little bits of line is developed Any. It's just like a moment. So the idea, you know, like, why would this woman be with this scientist guy? And it's like, hey, you know what?

1:05:29 They could. She could like him for who he is, not just because he's wealthy. I mean, the fact that he's a newcomer. Yeah. So they're just one and done's near the finale. A semi truck full of the factories toxic waste is in a crash completely by accident. OK, It has nothing to do with the plot. It's just a convenient way for moving the plot along. So we have to find this out. It's just like, oh, you know what, It's really nice that there happened to be a semi crash out of the blue because that drove the plot back over to the factory.

1:06:00 But that was that was nice. And you know, it gave us a big scene of a crime kind of thing. Big accident shirtless Sykes soaks his shirt in to breathe fumes through, which I heard about when I was like really young. So I appreciate them adding that in. That was cool to see in action. They're like, I think a fireman came to our elementary school and told us, you know, if there's smoke in the house, you could like get cloth wet and try and breathe through the wet cloth and it might make it not, not as bad for you to be breathing the smoke.

1:06:31 There are not as many shirtless men in this show as there are in like season 1 Star Trek with shirtless Captain Kirk. But I feel like it is happening a little frequently. They mentioned holes in the ozone layer and the the Montreal Protocol was ratified by every country in 1987. In the real world, the only treaty ratified by every country, which that's just a weird sentence to read, but I read it. It eliminated 99% of ozone depleting substances like CFCS, chlorofluorocarbons. We're seeing a lot of progress in 2025 projected to close all holes in the ozone layer by 2066, even over Antarctica, but most of the rest of the world as early as 2040.

1:07:14 I did not know that. I looked it up for this. That's interesting. So here's your ecology facts. I don't know if we've Todd, did we say what ended up happening with the money in the car? Did we give that twist away? Maybe not directly. Do you want to go ahead and tell them what happens with the money in the car? Because I thought it was just wonderful. Yeah. So we kind of implied a little bit about how it's a happy episode and Matt does something nice. Basically what he does is he sells the car and then uses that money to get a whole bunch of trees for Albert to plant wherever he wants to plant them.

1:07:46 Yeah, Albert's obsessed with trees, and I think he tells Matt that he would have spent the money on trees at one point. And Matt is just like, that's not what makes you happy. Cool things like cars make you happy. And there's a part of us that says that he's right, stuff does. But then Matt tries out the idea, you know, that like doing something for somebody else makes you happy, which worked for Albert when you got in the car. But it's like, it's awesome. It's really awesome. And we as the viewer, they made it easier for us because we found out how much upkeep all of the having the car would mean and how expensive it would be for Matt to have that gift.

1:08:25 Whereas Matt is saying that the money that he spent not only pays for the trees, but it pays for the guys to plant them. So at that point, you know, they're good. I mean, I'm not going to talk about like, you know, the wildfires of California or them needing to be water and stuff. But the idea is you're not going to have to pay maintenance and upkeep. Plant those trees anywhere you want, Albert. And it's a self-sustaining thing that's just good and happy and brings joy. So I think Matt found out something really cool.

1:08:53 I really do believe that that was a nice message at the end. So yes, awesome. Are we all good? Yes, I've got a little bit more. I've got the usual stuff from the Unofficial Companion. Yeah, a book that I got for Christmas. It's about alienation. And there's nothing too spectacular about this particular episode, so I'll mostly be skimming it. In this, producer Andrew Schneider said that they wanted to do an ecological show, and he also describes this as a lighter episode, which I guess to a certain extent it is because there is some comedy in it.

1:09:29 Co story editor Craig Van Sick. He actually disagrees. He said that they tended to go darker. Let me see. I guess his disagreement was that he thought that more of the episodes were darker, but that they were starting to get fluffy and some alarm bells were going off. And so, yeah, he describes this as being not one of his favorites. Then story editor Stephen Mitchell said that for the most part, Andy and Diane stuff was lighter. He said our stuff, and I think he's referring to himself and Craig Van Sickle, who usually work together, was a little bit darker, and Tom's stuff fell in the middle.

1:10:10 On the one hand, I think that was one of the strengths of Alienation. When you tuned in, you weren't sure what you're going to see, sort of what they did on Magnum Pi. You didn't know if they were going to have an intense show, a light show, a straight Pi show. It's too bad we didn't get to go on with that creative team. And that was the end of that quote. Let me see. Producer Tom Shahack, he pointed out that oh, so originally there was a concept conceived by Diane, which is kind of weird because this is a dark concept that she came up with, even though she's been described as being one of the ones that usually comes up with the light and fluffy stuff.

1:10:50 But she had an idea for a factory for newcomers who were known to have eaten the dead on the Starship and that they were basically responsible for getting rid of the waste and that they would be, you know, hated by other people. And they were basically just be looked down upon for being associated with garbage waste, stuff like that. And I can't, he doesn't spell it out super clearly, but I get the feeling the studio didn't like it because he said originally was a fascinating idea, but the sensors, the networks and all kind of kinds of forces kind of got in the way.

1:11:30 And he said that stuff went away. And so he said, wait, that they could have done some really interesting things. And then he kind of implies that one of the TV movies that's coming up gets back to darker elements, including possibly either this concept or something similar to it. Then actor Gary Graham, he had forgotten how funny this episode was. He said that sometimes the show was walking a tightrope between drama and comedy. Let me see. And then Eric Pierpoint, he doesn't have too much to say about it, but he does mention how it is a reflection of how sometimes you can have, you know, financial troubles in real life.

1:12:13 And he kind of implied that he had some of his own at one time that didn't kill him, but it kind of damaged his financial, you know, stability, at least for a little while until he got back on track. He mentioned the gaudy colors. So you were asking about the color of the vest. And he thought it was interesting that it was kind of a gaudy color and that sometimes the tinctonies tended to gravitate toward, you know, things that might be either gaudy or plain where, you know, you know, not the same kind of colorful things that humans might gravitate toward.

1:12:49 And then he kind of agreed with some of the others that this was a middle of the road episode. Well, and I found out recently, just by accident, that Eric Pierpoint is a published author. He has 2 completely unrelated historical fiction books he's written for young adults. And I'm honestly, I'm not sure. I may be the kind of person who's a big enough fan to, like, pick up the one that's available at my local library and check it out. But yeah, that's just cool. There is one fun piece of trivia for this episode before you do the next segment, and it's just that there was a show I was too young to see called Route 66.

1:13:31 And in Route 66, it was about two guys traveling the countryside and a Corvette. And when Sykes and Kathy start driving in his new Corvette, they start playing a little bit of the song of Route 66, the theme song. It's spiritual. I have always dreamed of having this car now. Here it is. Come on, I'll take you for a ride. OK?

1:13:58 Not many cars had bucket seats back in 63. Or a cluster dash. Listen to that engine.

1:14:12 What was that? Who? Nothing, you just have to get used to clutch.

1:14:19 Sounds like your U joint went out. Oh. Geez. Matt, I don't think this is better than sex. The people watching who are Route 66 fans were like, oh, I see what you're doing there. This is an Easter egg for a niche niche group. Yeah, I didn't realize that that the piece of music did kind of stand out as being different from everything else, but I didn't know what it came from. OK, so the last thing I have is wheel of press kit and I will spin the wheel 6. OK, paragraphs one to four and the last paragraph OK.

1:15:00 So from the press kit that came out to help advertise the show when it first premiered in the 80s, I have the profile for Jeff Marcus, who plays Albert Einstein. Jeff Marcus plays Albert Einstein, an introverted Police Department maintenance man who is very simple and sometimes a bit slow. And then a quote from Jeff Albert has a vulnerability about him that I enjoy working with. I think everybody has this trait in common, but Albert hasn't been told enough to conceal it. And that's the end of that quote.

1:15:36 Jeff has played several characters who aren't necessarily considered the norm. In the theater production of The Boys Next Door, he had the opportunity to be on the other side. His character had the responsibility of caring for five mentally challenged men. I had to change a word there. While preparing for this role, Jeff spent a great deal of time working with mentally handicapped patients. I found this back to a quote. I found the experience very rewarding and moving more than anything. These people want to give and receive love much the same way Albert does.

1:16:13 And then last paragraph. Albert is really the child in me who knows when no when to flash a warm smile and project that lovable side to get attention. He just has a harder time pulling it off with that oversized alien head. Well, and if you guys don't know from a previous episode, Jeff Marcus has some unique acting credits. So like he's he's a depressed patient in the background in the original, not the original, the first Lindsay Lohan, Freaky Friday with Jamie Lee Curtis. They just did a sequel.

1:16:46 So he was just a guy over to the side in that. I love these people without their weird alien head on like in other things. But he also for some reason is a voice character actor in Frozen, like the 20131 German dignitary just over the side. So I love that Albert from Alien Nation isn't that. It's great.

1:17:08 And then I went ahead and spun the wheel again. And so the next item comes from the Alien Times, the quasi fake newspaper. It's just a one page kind of fake newspaper. Some of it is actual information about the show itself, like when it premieres, and then some of it is kind of like in universe jokes. And one of these is an article. And now, granted, it's only three paragraphs long, but still. I must have had this one on the list for a while because I do have bullet points to kind of paraphrase it.

1:17:40 The article was written by Milwaukee, obviously. Yeah, obviously. I take Denise writer play on words of Milwaukee. Milwaukee. Is it Wisconsin? Maybe Milwaukee or either Wisconsin or Minnesota. I don't know. I'm blanking on everything tonight. Wow, what's your damage tonight, Grandpa? I thought you told me one time that you're actually good at geography. But anyway, it talks about how George was the first officer to be promoted to Detective 3rd grade. I see. I've got in my bullet point that Michael Miami was the head of the National Bureau of Newcomer Affairs and said that Georgia's promotion was signed, that the LAPD was bending to pressure by the NBNA, the National Bureau of, of Newcomer Affairs.

1:18:32 And then there's a quote by Captain Grazer. And so maybe I should just read this. Let me see, Captain. OK, Grazer emphasized. We make no promotions except those warranted by outstanding conduct above and beyond the Call of Duty. So, yeah, this continues to be a neat little piece of memorabilia. I don't know if they do these press kits nowadays, but it's kind of neat to see if they went to the trouble of, you know, both advertising the show but also being created by by making stuff that is like quasi in universe.

1:19:06 Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I've looked up press kits a little bit since you've gotten into it. That's, and I mean for our, for our five listeners in Wisconsin, we know where Milwaukee is, I promise you guys. But yes, that's awesome.

1:19:24 So are we ready to score this episode? Yep. All right. Well, blisters. I usually give 2 scores. I give a watch and skip score and I give ASTA score for how many Star Trek alumni I managed to spot doing pretty well for this one because it starts off with a base four. I've got Sykes Mr. and misses Francisco in every episode but Grazer's in this one. So we're starting strong. And then I've got the legend himself, Arm and Shimmerman Quark bringing us up to 5. Beverly Leach, as we said, that makes 6.

1:19:56 And then we've got Bob Miner, David Selberg and Kim Braden. So this episode has 9 which is. I think time for the highest score we've had so far. I don't think we've ever crossed the 9 threshold into 10. So excellent score in terms of Star Trek alumni, and I think you kind of called that last week. But in terms of watch and skip, I don't think you need to watch it for the cleverness of the detectives or for the twists and turns of the mystery. But yeah, I think y'all need to watch this episode to see all the characters dealing with labor issues and environmentalism, investing, lottery, upkeeping luxury items.

1:20:36 When your former gang member son goes from criminal to socially conscious so quickly that he's annoying like both his parents are like, I just want to make money and he's like, we've got to save the environment. I do. I think this is an episode you cannot skip. I think you're going to need to see all these characters doing these fun, strange, weird things. What about you, Todd? How do you score this episode? Probably not a huge surprise, but I give this one AB kind of like I said at the outset, you know, nothing hugely bad, nothing hugely good.

1:21:07 So it is middle of the road and even some of the producers and stars, he said this kind of middle of the road episode. So I think everybody agrees. So that's not bad. I think the only thing that's disappointing about it is I could have sworn that this was a better episode. So it's still fine. I was just thinking this was like more top tier and I was wrong, but at least it's not bad either. So yeah, yeah, it's a beat. Well if y'all don't know, in like the 80s and 90s you'd get a lot more credit as far as critics go if you had like an ecological message.

1:21:46 So if they weren't all shunning this show and about to cancel it anyway, this would be the Emmy winning episode just because it had an ecology thing. That's just my opinion. Like I think Captain Planet won multiple Emmys and I liked it OK, but that cartoon was like middle of the road at best, but it was just like they were so proud of it for having a good message. I think that's how Whoopi Goldberg E got it is from Captain Planet. But yeah, so B. So we are ready to move on. Y'all coming up next time on alienating ourselves.

1:22:20 Join us as we explore alienations episode 21. The touch you got, The touch you got the Kathy finds a boy she knew from the ship, but she suspects he has been abused. I know I said they were getting formulaic exploring Matt's and George's past traumas each week, but it sounds like next week we're switching to the trauma of the pretty neighbor. And the cherry on top is possible references to child abuse. So come on back next time to see how Todd and I can put a fun spin on that when we inevitably once again succeed in alienating ourselves.

1:22:54 I continue to be Nick. I'm Todd, thank you for investing your time in listening to us and we hope we made you feel like you just won the lottery. We'd love to see some reviews wherever you listen to podcasts. If you love us, like us, or easily get distracted by stains in your human made clothes while listening to us, please give us five stars. If listening to us is like the the auditory equivalent of inhaling toxic fumes, please give us four stars. If you give us three stars or lower, everything you'll ever invest money in will prove to be unhealthy, if not fatal to all mankind.

1:23:27 As always, may all your milk be as fresh or as sour as you prefer it to be. And since some caustic liquids are transparent and some toxic fumes are invisible, always dip a toe in first before diving into a pool and have a gas mask handy whenever you dinner. And Alien Factory have a great week. That's just good advice. Good night everybody.