SNW "Charades" Review

Welcome to another edition of Strange new Pod.

I'm your fleet admiral and host Julian Brown alongside the best bridge crew this side of the moon with strange energies.

We're not even at the crossover yet.

We're already making lower deck jokes, guys, it's happening because shit, let's go do sci-fi.

Shit.

That's right.

Uh Vice Admiral Eric is here.

He's back, he's back from the camping.

The camping thing, camping was fun.

Yes, it looks like you had fun.

You look, you look um warm in a good way.

Smelt and warm.

Yes.

Yes.

You look relaxed and vacationed, which is always relaxed.

Maybe not, maybe not.

It was 97 degrees here today, by the way.

But uh yeah, just don't make uh make sure you don't leave any ice cream crumbs on your ready room table, man.

Because I cream and cake.
That's even more Crum because my daughter had her birthday yesterday. My youngest two now that I can't believe I've known that human since birth. Yes, that's a thing messed up.

Yeah, that's messed up kids.

Commander Hawk is here and wants to speak to the manager about the lack of an umbrella in his cocktail and finally capture draft is here and he's just happy Captain Kirk wasn't there for that dinner.

Serving his toilet bowl. Ploy soup.
Welcome back. Welcome aboard. How we do it? Everybody doing. Doing fine.

I have to say that for the intros.
I don't think you can top the one about all the Vulcan coming to my learning part. I think you fixed like every year.
I'm waiting every sorry week.
I'm waiting.
I'm like, is he gonna uh I think that was the top but please prove me wrong. Damn guys.
All right.
Uh For Eric, I mean, any of you, you can fight for who's host.
I'm done.
I retire.
Uh I've peaked uh Lieutenant Commander MC.

She's currently in the room where it happened, the room where it happened, the room where it happened.

That's right.

I had to, she's seeing Hamilton right now.

I'm ridiculously jealous.

She's not giving away her shot.

Um But MC has a really cool blog post coming up about things that happened in this episode with pray and stuff.

So keep a look out for that.

It's going to be really good.

I also am going to be writing a blog post about things that happened in this episode.

So stay tuned for that.

There's gonna be a lot of blog posts I think because of events of this episode.

Speaking of this episode, this week, guess who's coming to dinner?

What happens when a shuttle accidentally Spock without his Vulcan DNA.

How does he cope on board, the enterprise, dealing with feeling the full brunt of human emotions for the first time?

And why is Sam Kirk such a messy eater? That's what I want to know.

And with the help of his mother, Amanda, how does Spock and to pring vial dinner go under the resentful eye of to P's mother to Pell, we're gonna break it all down.

But first Eric, we need to thank our amazing patron collective members at the ready room level and above indeed.

Uh Thank you to Jeff Reeve, Maria Gosset, Tala Jen Stein Tina Alexander, Joe Saito.

I don't even have to look at the first like three lines because it's, we've had them for such a long time.

Santo Nomo, Kara Kennedy Fernando Nogales SMK Laura Lindeman Colin Davidson, Alan Davis, Jess Michael Graham Emily and Travis Gilda Cassie.

The homework stealing Vulkan Maggie Lightle Wayne Ritz, Sco Arc, Sean Jay Howard Melani, UAA Matt Harker, Joshua Lewis Dave Willett, Terra Poin Slope 74 or Rude Parakeet Joshua Miller, Adam Sanders, Arian, uh lanky guy, Cynthia Marke and Wake Carl Ango Michael Quan TJ mayor Caitlin Elizabeth Dean Jim mcmahon, Jim mcmahon.

That sounds the chief Ernesto ca ca ca uh 3 17 and our newest collective member, Debra hu hu Hussy.

You see, let us know if you're in the chat, Deborah if we want to know how it's pronounced, we could always use the help.

Um.

Speaking of, uh it was late and I didn't get to put in the outline, but a a former patron has returned and we always love seeing former patrons return.

We understand sometimes your financial situation changes and you can't help out at the moment, but it's always awesome to see you come back.

So welcome back, Anna you.

It is great to have you back as Yeah, yeah, it is great to have you back as a patron.

Um Did you do the executive producers there?

I'll do you have cake mouth and a big thanks to our executive producers, Commander Chris Simon Steger and the Chief Ernesto Castan.

Thank you guys so much.
You freaking rock um News draft.
The first bit of news is all you.
Ok.
I'm gonna start with Sandri Comic Con because it's in one week.
We're gonna be here in San Diego.
I mean, I'm always here in San Diego but MC also, it's gonna be here in San Diego. Please come say hi.

Um I'll be on two panels, you know that find me around, try to find me around to be a lot of people, but now that there are no more actors San Diego, you know, you'll have more

time.

So please come hang the best actor at Comic Con is right here on this pod.

So, you know right there.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And uh yeah, give your time to the cos players and the comic book artists that are there and all the people working at Comic Con, it's going to be fun.

I promise it's going to be fun.

Uh, should I do the second bit of news?

Yeah.

Just why don't you take it?

So, since we're, since you're on the mic right now, hit it?

Yeah.

Ok.

So, I don't know, I'm not looking at the outline, so we are talking, we're gonna have a and sorry.

Ok.
Hold on.
Are you kidding me?
Wait, wait, I'm, I'm improvising. I know what I'm doing.
It's the companion.
Yeah.
OK.

I was.
Right.
Right.
So I don't know if you remember, but uh was it last year? It was last year?

I think it was last year. Last year.

Last year, I did a round table for uh the companion which is um an app and a website, everything Nerdy.

And uh they have a uh a show, it's not a show called The Green Room where uh they have this moment to talk with uh actors that made all fandom incredible.

For example, they did one with Amanda tapping from uh Stargate. That was incredible if you were there.

Uh She talked about mental health and they're gonna do one with the best El in Star Trek, Jonathan Franks.

Yes, Lela Reker is over there.

Uh We worked with them uh and there's gonna be an opportunity for one of our patron to actually meet Jonathan Frank.

So, yeah, that's super exciting.

Uh that uh that opportunity will be put into action, uh, for charity.

So it just a pretty small announcement.

I know that you can become a patron of, uh, strange you bought for $1 $1.

And, uh, the opportunity will be open to all of our patrons that want to bet on the seat that S and P got for these events.

Uh, there will be more information. It's really a soft, soft launch.

It will be announced on the Patreon tomorrow, but we are live today. So that's why we get a little bit of sneak peek.
Love it.
Love it.

And again, I think it's really important to note this is gonna be available to all our patrons.

We're not locking it at a certain level, right?
This is so if you want to join our patron, you have, this is a perfect time.

We don't plug it often, but this is a great time to Patreon dot com slash strange new pod just for a dollar.

You get put into this lottery to possibly get to an auction.
Sorry, auction.
So if you want to, yes, you will be able and all the money goes to charity. It is not in our pockets.
It all goes for a good cause.
Are we allowed to announce a charity?
I don't know.
Ok, we're gonna hold off on announcing the charity.
That's fair.
If you know Jonathan Franks, you'll guess the charity very, very fast there. It is.
Yep.
Cool.
That's super exciting news.

I'm super stoked for that.
Um I do want to leapfrog back to, to comic-con real quick.

Um because giraffe and MC are not, um they're gonna be away, they're gonna both be at comic-con and super busy.

We are not going to be live next week.

Ok.

We are gonna prerecord our review of episode 206.

It'll premiere at our normal pod time next week, 9 30 pm Eastern time and, um, just as a, as a, as a bonus because part of doing this show is you guys, we love you guys.

Um, for the audio version of the pod, I'm gonna go back and record your mail bag so you could still do the subspace to pull, you could still do the mail bag.

We're gonna still give you that experience as much as possible because our show is nothing without you guys and we want to try and keep that live aspect of it as much as possible.

I'll try and be there in the chat, um, next Thursday so you can still talk to us because, um, without any spoilers, I'm 99% sure we all adored next week's episode.

So, um, yeah, that was my, that was my, that's my all review of season six, season two of strange new worlds.

Um So yeah, I'll go back to make sure you get your mail bags in for that. Uh, still and then Fan Expo.
I know that you guys have been waiting ridiculously patiently.
That was not a great way to put it.

But um we did, we did get accredited for Fan Expo.

Uh We are gonna get press which means we are going to go full steam and trying to plan something for you guys.

I know it's a little bit late in the month to get something started for that.

But if you're in Canada, uh get your tickets to Fan Expo because we're gonna be there, we're gonna be doing a podcast uh and we'll be there all weekend.

So um get ready for Fan Expo, Toronto.

We can't wait if you order.

Uh This is Fan Expo, Canada, not Fanx Boat.

Toronto.

Toronto is a March uh event.

So um if you order before August, you get the early ticket price, which is a bit like quite a bit.

It's a good amount.

Yeah, it's a really good amount.

So August 24th to 27.

Yeah, make sure to get your tickets.

If you're coming.

We'll have more details as soon as we can about uh some kind of event that we're going to put on for everybody.

Stay tuned.
Uh draft.
You announce the companion.

This comes to something that we've been teasing for a few weeks and we are ridiculously excited to announce that as you can see, I am wearing the Heroes and Villain shirt I wore for episode 202.

We are very excited to announce that Strange new pod has partnered with heroes and villains.

It's super exciting.
Um, what does that mean for you guys?
Well, it means that you get some discounts which is really cool.
Um, 20% off your first order, we have a special code you can go use which is all

capitals. Strange.

This is us only so just be aware of that, but 20% off your first order and, and, uh, it's, it's awesome.

They make really cool shirts.

They've been releasing weekly Strange New World shirts.

They're really cool.

We're gonna be getting some stuff to model and show you, uh, over the next few weeks.

So be on the lookout for that.

But it's awesome.

Again, 20% off your first order at heroes and Villains dot com.

And that code is strange.

Ok.

Us only.

So, um, I love it.

I'm like, I'm, I know Jura is excited to get some shirts.

I, all the shirts.

Oh my God.

They have these sorry parenthesis.

But they have like these makeup bags and they're nerdy and I want one because I have, I can't get my warm makeup, like luggage when I go to Cannes using the plane.

So I, I want one, I want two of those at least.

And they have these like bags and they have these like little like sad Shell to put your, your, your pass for convention.

I know it's not made for that, but for me, it was something to put my badge during

convention was so cute and so nerdy and yeah, II, I have a cart that I'm not kidding. 15 items.

I have like three items in my cart right now because listen, not just their, and listen, we're not this part, we're not getting paid to say like they have other cool shit besides Star Trek.

Like all their Star Wars shit is really cool.
Like they have an awesome so shirt that I'm buying. Um It's awesome.
So we didn't just partner with anybody.

It's taken us three years to get another sponsor since we've had one back when we first started uh coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee in there and I tried to order it and it didn't exist anymore.

I know they were great.

I love that.

But yeah, so heroes and villains dot com, we're super excited to be partnered with them.

More details in a bit.

We'll have some stuff on social media as well.

I didn't do a stranger loop this week because we just have a lot to talk about with this one.

Let's get into it.

It's a review of episode 205 of strange new worlds charades.

Our order tonight will be Eric Hawk giraffe followed by myself.

No, no, because I have you first for the first part specifically I thought of you, don't you worry?

So a day in the life that episode starts with a personal log from chapel which I think is a first for her for the series, which is a cool way to start, uh which tells us she's applying for a two month fellowship studying archaeological, uh ancient, yeah, archaeological medicine, right?

Uh Sponsored by the Vulcan Science Academy.

Um We get another Roger Corby name dropped and I'm still wondering if we're actually gonna see him this season.

I kind of think we will.

Um And then we get a log from Spock, which is also nice who's taking therapies to better control his emotions?

Uh after his incident with the Gorn, he's also taken up cooking with pike, uh giving side eye to Sam Kirk about his messiness and is then given the news by taring that since they are in the Vulcan system, she's moved up their engagement dinner with Spock mentioning he's still not talking with his father, which is a nice way to bring this into Canon.

By the way, we know that there is a long period of time that they don't speak to each other.

Um How do we feel about the episode started with a day in the life of these?

So actually, I didn't have you first for that paragraph.

It's the next paragraph I have you in but I'm good going last for all the parts because.

Alright, so er what, what did you think about about this with um these two logs opening the episode?

I like seeing more of um Christine Chapel, um nurse Chapel because we don't get much of her.

So hearing her, you know, do a log is, is really nice.

Um Seeing the day to day and seeing a downtime of the starship is always interesting because it always seems to be high alert whenever you get an episode.

Um That being said, I don't like the Spock and Chapel relationship.

So the awkwardness between them is just like, uh cool.

Um Let's see.

Um I love to bring though, so every time she goes on screen and she just steals it from me, um I, I love that relationship and I love that we know where it's going.

So I don't know.

Um I, I just, I, I think it's nice seeing Chappel doing just regular stuff like she's applying for things that she wants and it's nice to know more about her because we don't know anything about her.

Like we haven't, we actually get to see her practicing medicine a little bit in this episode even though it does have to do with Spock, right?

Like it's still you get to see her doing craft, even her hanging out with people was nice to see, like just seeing people, like hang out together was nice.

Yeah, I did like the intro in that uh especially like, you know, they had an amazing, like, galactic shot and, you know, that kind of sweeps in over the planets that focused on Chapel and that, and I thought, OK, we're getting a chapel episode.

Uh This is good and she's doing a routine and that I love the montage and that, you know what, she's basically repeating the fundamentals of uh of archaeological medicine and that for in preparation for the interview process.

And that, but it montages from her, you know, in Sick Bay to a, to the boxing ring and finally drinks with the gals at, at the end of the day.

Um Yeah, but you could see it was leading into another, yeah.

Spock and Chapel episode and that, yeah, I've not been, I've not been enthused about the relationship either.

Um, just because it's been so they, they take a lot of time and devoting.

It also feels like they're throwing it in our face.

It's so much a lot, you know, and I like the, I like the Spock Chapel relationship.

I'm, I'm a hopeless romantic so I love their, like, I, I love shipping people and I love that shit, but I am just like over being, having Spock thrown in my face.

That's what I'm like, sorry.
And the awkwardness in the shuttle ride was just unbearable.

Um But it was actually a really good montage and intro into it and really set up the stakes.

Well, indeed, I mean, I was super excited by to hear uh Christine Chappelle Log.

I was like, yes, finally off, you know, uh should have been craving for her to do something like her job.

Oh, no.

Be here, do awesome science stuff, you know, sci-fi shit.

I don't know.

So I was like super excited for that when it opened on that.

I was like, yes.

Uh the thing like when you see the everyday life, I'm just like, listen, there are so many people on that ship that I never fucking see.

Can we not put me in the worst situation possible? Is that an awkward elevator?
Like I wanna be here, I wanna be here.
I, I wanna be here.

They don't even talk, they just look at each other.

I'm like, oh you have 10 episodes, you have like 10 been less than 10 hours.

Like dude do something else, do something else, do something else.

Like I love the scenes at the bar better because first of all, you see the, the the set is that the first time we seen the brand new set, it's so good.

I think it is.
Yeah.
So yeah, I wanna see the set.
I wanna look at all like the lamps and stuff.
I want to see them having fun.
I don't know, I wanna see quarters.
We've seen literally only spa quarters and pice quarters until now. Like we've glanced at quarters, but that's all like I wanna see.

That was kind of like uh the other thing is that I watched this episode when literally I had 100 people telling me you're gonna fucking hate it.

And I didn't know why.
So I went in like bracing like you can't imagine with a knot in my throat. So, yeah.
Um that, that, that's it after like, until when do we go?

Yeah, that and I was like, I like the fact that it was linking to like previous episodes we see him like working with on like getting therapy and being able, like to, you know, have a better control of how he feels.

And I mean, we've all been here, go to therapy. Therapy is very good.

Have your own little moment to know how you're gonna be able like to take care of things.

And I like to see that, you know, it's growing and that was something good.

That's something we didn't know about spark that he had all these little techniques that he would do every day to just make sure that he was not going to lose his shit too bad.

The episode after that, just tell us the opposite.

But I thought that was a great like reference because we see him play music so much into us, you know, and it's like, oh, now I want to rewatch this piece.

That was exactly what I was expecting from strange new world to have this little moment.

I was like, I want to rewatch Charlie X.

Now you see him sing and like play music and see, you know, if it became something else, if it's still that stuff like this.

So, yeah, I mean, I was like, uh like, OK, it was not bad, right? Um I love, I love seeing Chapel's Log.
I like to see her work.

I love seeing her interact with because this is now the second time that we've got some interaction with them and it was so good.

Like, that was one of the very good things about the premiere.

And, you know, even if it was a little bit in this, like, I, I liked seeing their, their working relationship and there's more of that later.

I actually don't know if we'll end up talking about it.

I'll put it in my final thoughts if we do.

Um um Listen, like I, I sometimes can definitely be a cannon stickler, right?

Um There's some things that I absolutely care about and there's some things that II I don't care about, but like Spock not speaking to Sari is a big deal.

So like when he specifically says that to, to pray, I'm like, ok, good. Like they're getting that out of the way.
It's a throwaway line, it works.
It lets us know they're on bad terms still and I, I appreciate it.

So that is good.

Um Let's keep talking about this before the, the credits roll.

Spock's pilot uh Spock pile a shuttle for chapel, right?

Who's studying one of the moons in the Vulcan system that used to be home to an ancient civilization called the Kiko.

Um which I thought for a while was spelled like Kirk, which it's not. But, uh, that's who they are.

But the strange anomaly that is on the mood leads to a shuttle incident and Spock wakes up in Sick Bay without his Vulcan DNA.

What did you think about this?
I mean, so I watched this with my, with my kids and they thought it was hilarious.
This is a trope that happens so often in sci-fi and comedies and so many things where

they're just like, oh, I've forgotten one part of me or something like that and it leads to their self discovery of what it means to be, you know, that part of them or, you know, both parts and um you know, it, it was fine.

It's, it's the trope that happens a lot.
But I thought, I thought Ethan discovering it was fucking hilarious.

Like, like the comedy chops of this cast in this episode, like they knocked it out of the park.

I did not expect it like they.

But um I know I know there are issues with this um with this trope, it there always has and honestly, um I'm not one to speak of it because it doesn't affect me.

So I, I can't, I, I wouldn't be the person that would understand it. Like I try and I, I see the point of view but I can't speak to it. That's why I'm gonna leave it.
So our later host.

Yes.

Fair, Fair Hawk.

Um Same.

It's like, I kind of felt the same.

Like it was, it's that initial discovery of, of his uh you know, and, and later on Ethan Peck nails the comedy element of it.

But again, they're kind of dipping into this.
Well, that's always been kind of problematic.
It goes back to like faces in uh Voyager.
Um maybe a little two vics.
I don't know.
But yeah, I'm not really the person to speak on this, you know, because like I speak

about in this house are talking about two vics at the chat later.
I'm like you're just trying to, you're just trying to get me going.
It's Yeah, yeah, yeah, they will always I guess on with two vics.
Um I I think, I think we really just need to open the floor to giraffe on this one. Yeah, go ahead.

So actually let me let me put what I put. Well, yeah, because you were gone.

So we're talking about we're talking about the shuttle accident and Spock waking up with no no issue, right?

Um I mean without his Vulcan DNA um I thought originally that you posted this, you didn't, I think you may have only sent it to me and a handful of people but you sent a really good video privately to us about why this is an issue because listen, like I'll be the first to admit like I didn't see it the first time I watched it, I see it now and I think you explain it beautifully and it makes a lot of sense.

Um But about why this is an issue.

I want to give you kind of the room to talk, talk about this more in depth because I think it is really important.

Yeah.
So first of all, it's an issue because Star Trek did that like 25 years ago.
Like, can we move on please?
I think everybody has seen Faces in Voyager, which is such a bad episode.
I like it's such a bad take, but I'm gonna say that at least faces takes it seriously.

You know, it's a, it's an episode that wants to have, that wants to show that it's a struggle for the character that there's a deep reflection that it's not easy and it's not funny.

The primary charade is that on top of this? They make it funny.

And I was like, oh boy, oh boy.

So OK, I'm gonna address like comments because like, everybody's been blowing up my DM.

So I know it's Star Trek.
I know Vulcans don't exist.

I know that most probably Vulcan DNA has different uh proteins or whatever, like building blocks.

So we have AC TG, right?
Maybe the volcano bxfy, you know, and so they're totally different building blocks.

Um So that the, the what you face, the the aliens were like, we're gonna take care of like we like getting out these weird building blocks that the other one doesn't have, ok.

Sure.

Let's say that.

But Vulcans don't exist.

Unfortunately, I'm ready for first contact because we need, we all need to stop with all this bullshit.

So don't exist.

And Star Trek is um ac not a criticism, but it's a mirror to our society and it speaks about our struggle and our problems and our vision of the world and how people walk through the world right now.

And you can't really keep talking about Spock being of two races or two species if you want.

And then to totally say, oh, we never thought it was biracial like, dude, what?

No, yes, like sure biracial um biracial audience will identify with Spock because he goes through a lot of struggle that biracial people go through and for and he is technically of two cultures and of two races.

I know he's also quoted like, I know a lot of people recognize um themselves um in, for example, the idea that is on the autism spectrum or that is transgender, like I know a lot of different fan identifying themselves to spark and that's great.

I'm not saying that is only one thing but is that also like two things can be true. Three things can be true also.

And the big problem with me for me in that episode is that it's perpetrating a trope that associates culture and DNA and that is a dangerous trope nowadays.

It's a very, very dangerous ID.
The fact that a lot of people are just totally oblivious to.

That shows you how ingrained and internalized that ID is for so many people that the way you act comes from your DNA, which is not true.

Like I actually did a DNA test.

I don't know if you guys did a DNA test.

Ok.

Do you know how much is my French percentage?

28?

I am four person French.

OK.

Because my is mostly Italian because my mother is from Corsica and, and then I'm like a bunch of like, I'm like 37 person Italian.

Do I strike you as an Italian?
No, because my DNA, the way you talk is very Italian. That's the Corsican thing.
That's the thing.
I'm totally French like you can say that much.

No, you are, you are very French and you know, I relate to spark also because I grew up in France and I grew up with a French mother and I grew up in a French culture looking the way I look and the way I look comes from my DNA.

I mean, except that I'm amazing, like hair and I'm amazing makeup and these like

fashion choices.

But you know, that's things I've learned.

Um And the thing is that Napoleon is we call it the cousin.

I'm the cousin in my home.

My grandmother had a bust of Napoleon in her kitchen.

I'm not kidding.

I just, I just want to bounce off what you're saying.

Real quick because do you look Italian?

No.

And you're more Italian than French, right.

Um, I am 44.8% Greek and I don't look Greek at all unless I do and tell me I'm wrong.

I don't know.

I'm also 38.8 British and Irish and I feel like that's what I look like more, but I've never been like, well, exactly.

And that's the thing and that's the thing. And that's my big problem.
Like you, for example, let's take prodigy. We also like prodigy.

Uh What's the name of the episode where doll is having like uh what? Sorry?
Masquerade.
Yeah, I was gonna say masquerade incredible ha.

Um where he has like these experiments on his DNA and he exploits traits, like physical traits.

You see him physically changing and then having these new abilities, like cling on strength and like Vulcan telepathy and so on here.

The thing is that there is the DNA, the Vulcan DNA of Spock and he's just human. I don't understand what is the other half of his DNA?
Like, did they take Chapel's DNA?
So now the brothers and sisters, like what?

Uh but like, let's forget this, let's say it's techno bubble DNA thing that don't exist and Star Trek should do better on science because this is, you know, important.

They, they could do better on science. They should.

But let's say that OK, they, they'll play K DNA and make up stuff and he just looks like himself.

We follow the ears and the eyebrows.

Ok.

He still, himself, he didn't lose his memory.

That was previous episodes.

Right?

He still remember who he is.

He still remembers his freaking education.

Like you don't forget your, like, everything you've learned because none of it is in your DNA.

Maybe.
Now you can eat cilantro.
I mean, apparently you can eat bacon or whatever. But, uh, actually you don't forget who you are.

Tara.
I need to know if you eat bacon too. Put that in the chat, please.
I'm about what you asked me earlier. I'm curious.

So my, my big problem is that in that episode, they're saying that Spock being able to control himself, even though he says at the beginning of the episode that he's controlling himself because he's using the therapy technique that Mbenga I taught him two episodes ago and now he can't do it anymore.

He doesn't remember the tradition of his people.

He does.

He's not able to talk with his normal accent.

You think that if like tomorrow you, you, you half my DNA, I'm not gonna have a stupid French accent.

Yes, I will because it's not in my DNA.
You know, and that's the thing and you can turn that as many ways you want. You can turn that as like it's Star Trek.
It's make believe they're trying to say something.
Yeah.
OK.

The problem is that they're, they're perpetrating an ID that is very dangerous for people like me, that I can't be French because I don't look French and the number of time in my life that people will tell me, oh, you're not from here.

Where are you from? I'm like down the street.

You know, because what they expect my physical traits to be are associated to what they expect my culture to be.

It is true for a lot of people I won't say, but it's not true for biracial people.

We are racially ambiguous for many of us and depending on where we were educated, one of our culture is going to be stronger than the other.

II, I do believe this is true for a lot of people, not everybody because you know, humans are incredible.

But for me, I'm like, definitely French French, you know, French, French, French, French put that on a T shirt and smoke it.

But if I have kids here, they'll be, I, I fight the Americanness with all my might but they'll be American because that's their freaking culture because they were born here and then what we, they're gonna measure their DNA and say no, no, you're not American.

You're Italian like clearly, you're Italian and now we're gonna split your DNA and you're gonna be all Italian and you're gonna speak like a caricature of Italian people.

No, no.

And it is very important to recognize that people will educate us, the people around us.

Made us who we are.

All DNA is not responsible for much like we decide ourselves, we are influenced by the people around us.

The education of Amanda has more to do with whose park is than it freaking Vulcan DNA.

And again, it's all fun and it's all like, you know, comedy.
But for a lot of us, it raises like daily question of people questioning who we are. And no, I am not my DNA.
No, I am the education of my mother.
I am the education of the people around me.
I am my own decisions.
And if you change my DNA, I will still be me.

And the other thing if tomorrow I wake up all white or all black, I hope that everybody is gonna freak the fuck out more than all this moron on the enterprise because they're

like, no, he's alive and you don't know that is OK.

Like there's just a lack of reaction that is worrisome for me because that means that wait a minute, you, everybody would be cool if like I just took my other off and then be just one thing.

And everybody was like, oh she's funnier when she speaks only French.

Like what that, you know, it, it asks for me some question that are very important in my definition of my identity.

And you'll see on Twitter, a lot of people were pissed.

A lot of people were pissed because a lot of people are like, I'm way more than my DNA.

Every single one of us are way more than our DNA.

And it is sad that Star Trek still does that they could have done the same episode, the same episode, like questions and I love them for trying to question the culture of Spock.

We filed the DNA thing and they would have been 100%. Right.
Interesting and relevant.
Damn, it's true.

Right.

I mean, there's been a lot of bad science throughout the century and that regarding like DNA and like predicted behavior and that there was this book, like you, you know, decades ago, The Criminal Man by Cesar Lambros, uh in which he tried to categorize criminal behavior and that by basically just race and DNA and you know, that those aspects are just ingrained somehow in that and it's junk science, you know, it's like, it's up there with phrenology and that, you know, basically measuring the, you know, the, the, the head and that, you know, determining how, like intelligence by that.

Yeah.
Oh, it's absolutely phrenology.
So, so, you know, I'm obsessed with phrenology.

Like I literally will rift every single phrenology book I can find because this is because again, this is something that's so relevant to me for people that will judge me for the

way I look culturally and phrenology is so crazy.

And on the other hand, you see that it's something that is still very ingrained in a lot of people because you're gonna look at like the review, go see other reviews for that episode, go see other podcasts and go see podcasts that have biracial people on the pod and people or people of color or people of like different ethnicity or adopted because I, I don't speak of that.

It's not my, my experience of life but you can be adapted in another, in a family that is not your race.

Then what what happens?

You have a DNA and a totally different culture.

Oh my God, what is Star Trek gonna do about this?

Like and, and these people were hurt because again, it's not such a, just a joke.

It's perpetrating a trope that is hurtful to a lot of people and re fucking whack go, go read about this.

I I will always remember the Simpsons, you know, reference to it and not, you know, Mr Burns not measuring like that little thing.

He's like you have the brain of a common stage coach driver. Yeah.

And it was used for racism widely like, you know, the Asians are like their eyes like the close or this far, the African have like the nose that far away, that flat.

And that was a way to judge people ability to think and people ability to be cultured.

That's what we see in this episode.

Loki and uh something I wanna address.

Yes, the writer is biracial, one of the writer is biracial and that's the other thing, you can be biracial, you can be multiracial and have very different experience of life.

Very, very, very different experience of life.

Some biracial people are white passing and I can tell you they have a different woke up life than I do.

I have straight like I don't have straight hair but you know, I don't have um ethnic hair and I have a different experience as a biracial woman than biracial.

My bi friend that is also Somalian French and has the kinkiest hair possible and colorism is very, very in, in the biracial communities, not community, but because we suffer from that, we were the light, we are the light skins.

And if you look a lot of actors that are black are biracial and light skinned until now.

Now there's like more Fa Hollywood for hiring actresses that are, that have darker skin.

But the biracial women, especially white and black have really suffer suffered from that.

We, I mean, especially in American story.

I'm not gonna speak a lot of this because I'm not American but the biracial kid in the US for a very long time.

Like during slavery, racial white and black, we're product of rape and we don't have the same experience and the same walk on life compared to I think she, the writer is um white and Asian, right?

Uh Filipino American, Filipino American and you know that can mean like Italian and like behind American, you have so many questions.

So that's the thing. They are biracial.

People are not one people, we're not, we're a, a mix of people and you're going to have people that are going to be biracial but have only one culture because both of their parents, even if they're from different race are from the same culture.

You can even like, you can't even look at just Filipino people. They're not just Filipino, they're Spanish and like Japanese Chinese. Like we're, we're a mix.
Yeah.
And, and so that's the thing.

It's like when people come at me and it's like, but the writer is biracial, I can bet you all my life that that woman didn't walk her life like I'm walking mine just because she's biracial and maybe, you know, i it took me time to interrogate all this.

We don't question our identity and target.

I get our place in the world at the same, at the same path pace at the same moment in our life for the same reason, like for me, it was coming to America and facing the most brutal racism I've ever faced in my life.

I'm not going to say France is not racist.
France is very racist but my homegrown racism, I grew up with it. I know it, you know, like I know how to deal with it here.
I was like, oh my God, people are gonna shoot me.
What do you mean?

And that sparked like, really reflecting on this and it was, there was a time in my life where I fought faces was the shit because it was talking about biracial people and I was like, holy shit.

That's bad.

That's bad.

And now I have the growth enough to be being Klingon doesn't mean she's violent.

It's, she's violent because she's been taught to be violent.

It's not the same fucking thing.

And yeah, you know, we're not one people sorry about that.

No.

Fair.

And um listen, I'm really glad that we talked after that episode.

I'm glad you showed me your video because I think sometimes you and I text, yes, Draff and I text a lot.

Um and I don't always get like the point of what you're trying to say all the fucking time and the video really helped me and, and listen, like I could just not say how I feel about the beginning of it, out of respect for you, but like also out of respect for me, like, listen, I have to look at it from like my point of view too.

And I did enjoy this episode and I, and I also know and I know, I know, I know, I know you did.

I know you did.

So I'm going to go from, from kind of I'm gonna, I'm gonna bounce on what Eric said um prodigy, we talked about prodigy and how it's like been an awakening for, for our kids, right?

And because of Koby Ashi for whatever reason, Cecily, because Spock's awesome has lashed onto Spock.

So she watched the screener with us and absolutely just like, adored this.

So it was like super fun watching this with her and like super fun seeing her reaction to Spock waking up and being like, what the fuck, like, you know, her giggle is infectious.

So I, I thought it was hilarious but I, I don't want to take away a single thing of what you just said because I think it is really important and I'm glad that we had the conversation.

Um But II I do have a story about my daughter but there's a point later that we're gonna get to where it's more.

Yeah.

Um Let's keep going because first contact.

Sure kind of it was weird.

Uh on board the the shuttle which Laon and number one are inspecting.

It seems the Kiko left a calling card which actually looked like um a little bit like discovery 32nd century tech.

It looked really cool.

Um They bring it back to who is able to help open up a channel to Yellow who Pike explains Spock's situation to uh yellow and, and this, this, I guess they are like no species, very advanced, uh very matter of fact, right?

Uh Yellow tells him very matter of factly that a Medi was made no further contact is necessary.

Hangs up.
Um What do we think about the advanced nature of the Koans and, and their attitude

here, Eric, I fucking love this scene. I thought it was so funny.

Um I love when people think that they're so, this makes me think of when being in being a colored person, when people think that they're so above me that they just were like, you know, what, whatever we're done and then they just sort of like shoot you off.

That's what this felt like.
So it made me laugh from a painful point of my life.

But um it, it's, it's we said earlier that the comedic chops of these people were really on display in this episode.

And the joy of seeing pike and una being like, oh first contact and then just getting shut down was so funny.

It killed me, like not to mention the design of yellow and everything on the bridge. Like everything just looked brighter in this episode.
You know, it's a lighter episode.
So everything looks brighter in saturation as well.

So Spike's hair is lower though.
It's not as high peak hasn't peaked.

It, it peaks in ebbs and flows this episode, not as high, it's not the importance of this episode.

Um That being said, I think this, this scene was hilarious. I loved it.
Uh uh Kind of same.

Well, the uh the when the, when yellow, which sounds like the customer service like A I but would be like at the head of some like big corporation on the phone, um, mentions about repairing, you know, Spock and that based on, you know, that they found human DNA in both of them and that, and decided just to go and reminded me of, um, the, the cage and that, and the, when the, the Tos didn't know how to put me in it together because they'd never seen a human before.

So I was like, ok, it feels like a no sense. Right.

But I did love the abrupt this and that, you know, the way they just like, you know, what they call it.

Reparations have been made.

I thought it was reparations at first it was like, but yeah, I don't know if that's why, that's why like, uh subtitles are very important because I watch it because I was like, oh, ok, that's not what they were saying.

Oh, you're good.
But I did find it funny how abruptly they were cut off by this, by this species. Oh, first contact.
Goodbye.
Yeah.
Yeah, I, I love yellow.
I love that.

Like, uh, yellow is clearly the customer service of, uh subspace uh transport and the yellow has something else to do and yellow doesn't want to talk to pike because uh yellow just is done.

Um, is it working?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's working.
So, what do you want from me? It was not working, it's working. What do you want?

So, it was like giving that and again, that's the main problem in that episode. That, that scene was fucking hilarious.

But when you think about what they're talking about, you're like, holy shit. Fuck.

What like and Eric, I want to ask you because Eric Summers has a point about this in the chat.

I want to get your opinion on this.

I wonder if this was an attempt to show the racism in the health care industry with the aliens attempt to quote fix Spock.

I didn't think that this way like that's, I, I, first of all, I was already so pissed by that time of the episode that I was like, you know, I'm like trying to dissociate the, the, the PC I thought of like everything like to just watch the episode.

Um No, I think it's just like a little bit, made me think that a bit of the 10 or like just like doing the shit and they're like, you're so little, I don't even see you.

And it's also the idea that all concepts of races and who we are are very foreign to people from another culture.

And I thought that was kind of interesting.

Um The problem is that it's absolutely fine for the people in enterprise also, which is weird.

Um But I like the fact that OK, you have like this culture that doesn't know that makes people can exist well, then do something with that fucking premise because that's interesting.

Um I really like, like that you just like call her back and then we just give up and we're done.

Um and see the problem with like subtitles uh and one and one for him to say uh yellow says one was damaged but contained mixed, mixed instruction with the idea that they didn't know how to fix it because the instruction were all over the place in their perception of it.

And when I watched it with no subtitle, I heard one was damaged by containing mixed instruction and I was like, what the fuck?

Yikes paramount the subtitles of the screeners, please subtitles begging you, begging you.

Uh And, and I like the fact of, but then like you have this and like I think says to there's

nothing technically wrong with you.

Yes, there's something profoundly technically wrong with him right now, man.

I know he's walking and he's like breathing and he's not dead.

But goddamn can everybody freak the fuck out or tell me more?

Like this is actually the, like the place that I had the biggest issue with the episode when he says that I'm like, why are you the chief medical officer making that statement?

And the captain who doesn't have any kind of medical training except probably like basic CPR and like emergency, you know, whatever is the one who's worried who's like, uh I'll let you make that decision because you're my CMO but like take it easy dude, like, I don't know that was like, take your leg under you I was like, you have no clue what the fuck they did to him.

The other thing that it was weird to me is like when they say uh two beings were present, they did not match.

Well, they're space faring entity.

They don't know.

There are different races of like species of things that's like, I don't know.

But I was like, OK, whatever, like sure I'm gonna, but I love yellow.

I, I loved uh how they call the cup.

The I don't remember the name of the name of the Allen.

Yeah.

Um Yeah, it me up customer service from space.

They're literally, they're literally the opposite of uh we'd like to speak to you about your car's extended warranty like they don't want to speak to you.

They're just like, no, your warranty off like they were like trying to like fix their tunnel and then these idiots came and poked at it and I, and I have to say 100% the very first thing I thought of, of them being this advanced and stuff was a species 10 C like a lot of species 10 C stuff in this episode like they just don't give a fuck.

Um Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just, I'm gonna say something about health care.

So every time I go to health care, it's like always a thing because they want to know my race and when I tell them, well, I'm white and black, they tell me, you can choose only one box.

And I'm like, how do I do that?

Yeah.

And then they like, can we put other?

And I was like, I'm not other so I'm other because if I cannot choose two boxes, I cannot see what I am.

And when I say, and when I ask, so can I choose just white?

And they're like uh and then you have a box sometimes you just African American.

And I'm like, I'm not African American.

There are all the black people, you know, these are in your medical forms, in the States, our medical forms are so fucking archaic.

It's disgusting.

So I put it up here.

It's illegal in France also.

It's illegal in France.

Yeah, but for example, African Americans have a tendency to have high blood pressure, you know, apparently that's what I was told in health care.

I have high blood pressure.

She's hilarious but they, they put you on list to you like to like check you for like a different thing depending on like what boxes you cut you, you choose, which is insane.

And so most of the time I'm just other and I'm like, so like, what, how does that impact me?

Like, I don't know, I'm not other so yeah, fun fact about he, he was health care. Indeed.
Um I said what I was saying, interrupting draft a couple of times so I'll move on.

Um Spock being told we just touched on this and being like, he's stuck for this for now, but you're also clear for duty was a weird move.

Um That, that hit hard with me like you brought it up and I was gonna bring it up in here.

Like I hated that, like, I, I enjoyed this episode but I really hated that.

He was like, there's nothing wrong with you.

Like, dude, like, of course, of course, there is like, this is like major fucking trauma like the fuck.

It's just that, that's true.
But I, I don't understand how, how Pike has the bigger reaction to this.

I just, it boggles my mind and I, and I wish that Pike had like overridden a me, it was like, dude, no, keep him in sick bay.

Like figure this out. This is like ship priority.

But you don't know what like he, he would not have been used if they rewrote his whole DNA, he wouldn't know how to, I, I don't understand why, why would he not go out there?

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We know that Spock has his heart on the other side, right? Uh From Kelvin verse like he has a volcano heart.

So on the right and under his liver like and in Kelvin verse, he actually gets stabbed like, oh it's just like I almost got stabbed in the heart.

And so basically the guy wakes up with like a different set of organs, a different ability to breathe and different, like a different everything and he's just like, sure I'm hungry and I was like legend.

So let's, let's go off on that because other than Invega making not the greatest medical decision in the world.

Um uh he does go off and have, you know, some, some time as a human, he spends the time laughing at the bar with friends getting to experience a sweet, sweet taste of bacon, bacon and uh comes close to beating the living shit out of Sam Kirk uh for the mess that he left.

Um I think it's more the mustache honestly and flirts with LA an inadvertently after getting into some trouble over almost killing Sam Kirk.

Um What do we think about Ethan Peck's acting in these scenes, Eric? Um It's amazing.
I, I'm gonna go off the manga thing.
I think it's really weird that he didn't have him come and check up on him. So, dude, he should have been attached at the hip.

Yeah, exactly.

Um I'm gonna go off that we, we, we said enough of it but um this montage was fucking hilarious.

I love how extreme Ethan Peck went for each little thing he's experiencing.

That's new.

Like the laughter was so hard hitting and so uncomfortable.

Like when we started doing it, when I was watching it with Kari, she was just sitting there like, oh And I was like, I understand job.

That is too much.

That's too much laughter for this joke.

Um, the bacon part.

I mean, can we blame him for eating that much bacon if he had to suppress the smell and taste the bacon?

I, I can, I understand, um, when in the opening montage, when we saw Sam Kirk making a mess and was cleaning it and he, you know, he was wiping off crumbs onto

the floor which, you know, bothered me.

Um, I understood when he got angry at Sam Kirk because my kids leave plates everywhere and I fucking hate it.

I hate it so much.

I hate it so much.

Um There are plates on this little table that I used to paint models.

Why are the plates there?

Those aren't mine.

Why do the amount of times that I yelled at him, my kids today for leaving their shit around.

I feel you.
I feel you.
I stepped on a floor today.
Why was it on the floor?
I'm your, I'm your kids.
That's what I do.
I'm Sam Kirk like 1000 person.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
I mean it is not going anywhere.
Like why are we in the like, what do we have to do?
Like what is happening?
Why didn't he just put it just to put something else that I'm enjoying. I'm talking to the captain by an a in space.

I'm not gonna be, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna do my briefing because I need to clean up because that motherfucker over there is having a mental breakdown.

I like, I am sorry.

That's fair back there is not real like, you know, energy um the, the lawn and um and Spock talk was so funny when he started getting horny and I was just like, oh my God, it is happening.

She just like, no, no, I did something bad like his, his, he's so funny. He was so funny this episode.
He did, he did a good job.

Yeah, same like, you know, despite like, you know, the concept and the writing and everything and that pat had a great time doing this episode, you know, because it really gave him an opportunity to expand, you know, beyond the character and that and do something different, you know, and he took full advantage of it.

I loved him vocalizing every emotion that he had felt.

Um my favorite like to the I'm hungry like I say that all the time as soon as I feel hungry, I'm going to say it, everybody needs to know because I'm going to be a bitch.

So you need to know why I'm being mean.
I'm hungry, hungry and it's like, I'll get you some food. I am grateful that you care.

And then that freak out he had and that uh in the, in, in front of pike and then, and that about the upcoming uh dinner, you know, the, the rehearsal dinner for the wedding and that, and basically you know, this is a big deal.

Yeah.
So despite that Ethan Peck shined in this episode, giraffe.

If peg is like the MVP of that fucking franchise, he's so like the moment where he wakes up and goes like, what the fuck I even, I was mad.

I was like, oh my God, that is so hilarious that, that was the way he acts like every single 13 year old I know is incredible.

And I think that's how I'm gonna choose to watch that episode is that he's not being

DNA recons reconstruct or whatever is 13 in his head. And then everything makes sense.
It's just himself, but he's 13.
Doesn't know what his mother is telling him.

Doesn't remember how to do, shit, doesn't want to do, shit gets pissed. Horny, lazy laughs, awkwardly.
Doesn't remember how to speak with his own voice.
13 year old boy.

And I can tell you it's never cold also.

It's not cold, not cold, not cold.

I like.

So II, I really liked the, like, different bits I thought were making a lot of sense.

Like the fact that Spock is pissed at the crumbs and then even when he's human, he's still pissed at it.

I mean, it was like, yeah, absolutely.
If you're like, that kind of like my husband is like this, that's not genetic.
It's because he's been broken by his mother.
Most people.
Like, um, it's true.
It's true.
So, even if you change his DNA, he's going to have the same problem and I like that. I like the fact that his reaction to the thing was different.
I like the fact that he's horny because so fucking hilarious.
It goes like after LA you're like, really like, I mean, I see it but like that's a dangerous

move man.
Like she got Jim Kirk feelings right now, like that's dangerous. These women can break your neck like really?
You're gonna go for it.
The audacity.

Um And then the bacon thing, the bacon thing as much as the scene was hilarious because I love bacon and you know, everybody loves bacon, I suppose Spock is vegetarian by choice.

He's not vegetarian.
He's vegetarian by culture.
He's not vegetarian by DNA again.
And you know, I know that he couldn't smell before.
So for me, I took it.
Oh, now he can't smell.
So he sees that bacon smells very good and that's why you want to eat bacon. I mean, again, my husband said I'm talking about a lot about that guy today. Um and um has he ever made an official cameo on the pod?
Like has he been on the podcast?
I don't know.
He's somewhere, I don't know where he is most of the time.
I don't know where he is.
It's fine.
Um So uh he's a vegetarian.
He's been a vegetarian for like, I don't know, 30 years or something.

That's 25 years or something like that.

And when I cook meat, like, roasted chicken or cook bacon, he's like, but he's not, he's not gonna eat it.

It's, it's not because he made that choice.

And for him it's a value and you, he doesn't want to eat anything that's been killed and, you know, fair enough and I respect his value.

So I don't offer him like meat and I was just like, they know he's vegetarian.

We know he's vegetarian because like, and it's by culture Paul speaks about it, you know, and he speaks about it in strange new world in the first season also.

And I was just like, I don't know, that was a bit weird to me, but sure, why not? Why not?

And I love the thing that we'll go back to the, the nasal suppressant that has to invent basically because she's dying on that freaking ship.

And I, I really like that.

But I have a question.

Why is he not accustomed to human scent?

His mother is human?

I suppose they didn't block his scent when he was a little boy.

So that's the sense of his mother.

I don't know.

That seems weird to me that I was like, that's such a imagine Amanda having her own son having something in his nose to not smell her.

Like that'd be like, it's, yeah, he's not offended by Amanda's scent on that because as a baby, he probably like, you know, bonded to her with that then he's accustomed to human scent.

No.
No, that's the idea.

That's a good point.
But, I don't know.
Anyway, that was just like, I was like poor woman, that poor woman. Um, I was in stitches with the Sam Kirk stuff.
I was dying like I just, I loved it.

Um, as far as the bacon bit, I think, like going off what you were saying, draft, like him being a 13 year old boy, I'll actually, I'll, I'll, I'll revert, I'll, I'll talk about this as being a Jew and being a 13 year old boy who's trying to fast right during Yom Kippur, right?

Um When I was a 13 year old boy and if we're thinking of him, that's kind of his emotional level at this point in the episode.

Uh I definitely snuck in during high holiday, uh high holiday services into the synagogue kitchen and found whatever food I could and ate it even though I was supposed to be fasting.

So I get Spock having a bit of a cheat day when he smells bacon for the first time. I'll allow it.

Um I love bacon and uh I like cheating on Yum Kippur because I'm a horrible, horrible Jew.

Um But that's on me.

No, I Ethan Peck just destroyed these scenes with his acting.

It was just brilliant.

I loved it.

But see the wall makes more sense if you just, oh 100% and he a human and then you're like, oh, yeah, like I'll buy it.

I'll buy that.

By the way, I have to, I'm just going to, I'm told, because I worked with Matthew on one question that he asked via me that I asked to even pick vim on that precise topic.

So I don't know when he's gonna air, he told me, um, but I'm very, very happy.

I can't say anything but, like, go listen to it. I was named dropped in Matthew.

If you're listening, I know we talked before the season started about you coming on for one of these episodes, you're overdue.

So let's make it happen.

Um Where are we?

I can't, I, I did it after a song called Amanda, but I forget the name of the band.

It's a good band.

Um I got a song, I got a song quote for this headline.

I can't wait another day.

Amanda.

Amanda Grayson played by the Amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing.

By the way, everyone on this podcast and everyone literally on the Discord has the hots for her.

So we're gonna get that out of the way right now.

Yes, she's hot.

She's beautiful.

We're getting that out of the way played by the Amazing Mia Kirchner makes her return to Trek once again, cementing for all those people that say differently.

Fuck you.
By the way, the connection to disco as well.
Uh Seeing that Spock is wearing a beanie looking at you do sisters.
She tells him to take that hat off.
Um Realizing that they can't postpone the vial dinner anymore.
Amanda decides not only teach him everything he needs to explore but also train him to

use some of his human characteristics that she never taught him. Um Also aura made the best Vulcan on the crew.

I'm just saying out of the person people that told him how to speak like Vulcan, she did a good job.

Um What do we think about Amanda's return, Eric?

I love Mia Kirchner.

I know we, I said that already, but she's amazing.

She was amazing when we saw her on Disco and I remember was it before we, this, we saw the screeners.

We were like, I hope she comes back. Oh Yeah, we've been saying it.
Yeah, for sure, for a while.
Right.

Yeah.
So the fact that she came back was wonderful and she fits so well.
And um I love her portrayal of Amanda Grayson.
There's like a, there's an air of it feels like she's royal but like generous at the same time. Um which is, which is great.

Um The, the Tu or beanie that Spock wears looks like it came out of roots from Eaton Center that they just took that one day and put like a logo and they put, it looks exactly like a I have.

So um that made me laugh the, the whole um the idea that uh Amanda had to really teach him how to be how to teach his human side, which is lying.

I thought it was a little, a weird way of saying that I don't know why it just hit me a little weird.

Um And I'll tell you a story about again.

I said, I, me and my daughter, my eldest daughter watched this episode later and she had questions about this.

Um and we'll get there, but all in all she was amazing seeing her back.

Um The fact that she, we got some more back story about this Amanda Grayson or I guess Amanda Grayson in general.

I don't know why I said this one about how she had to hide or how she had to um fit in Vulcan culture, you know, when she did tea ceremony, she was like, I had to hide my emotions or hide my pain.

And I was like, there's so many layers in what she just said there and it's heartbreaking and, and, and, you know, it shows how resilient she was to live in this different society that, you know, other than what she, you know, grew up in.

Nice, same Mia Kirchner.

We've known her since the nineties.

Um You know, uh Yeah, in exotica, a gos exotica.

Uh Then the word, she was fantastic.

Fucking amazing in the L word.

Yeah.

Uh And her returning is a man who grays him is just the, it's the best part of this episode I think.

Um as the only person who can help Spock in this particular situation that they're inventing.

Um I came up with a movie analogy about this section. I'll, I'll talk about it a little later.

But, um yeah, I mean, like she was someone who fell in love with the Vulcan, you know, uh who happened to be the ambassador of earth and that things were expected of her living on Vulcan and, and, you know, uh it was, it had to have been like, just hell for her and that, and yet, but she adapted it and this is why she's here.

She's like, son, I put up with these people for so long. I, I know exactly what you gotta do.

Uh, the bit with the, the, the teapot was great.

He touches us like, ah, and she's just like, makes a little tiny smirk and then just pours it.

Uh, loved her in this episode.

Draft.

Praise Amanda.

Oh, my God.

I wanted to see her so bad, so bad.

First of all, because, oh my God, she's so beautiful.

Second.

I love every single thing.

She wears every single thing in all franchises and all movies and always like, oh, she's so classy.

She's so beautiful and like, she, like, when you watch Disco also and like her relationship with her son, it's so beautiful.

It's so complicated.
Like you can never forget, um, uh, spark crying about his mother in T Os.

And you're like, I never, I never told my mother, I love her and he cries and you're like, see, see, like I, I'm, I'm always happy to see her and uh I like that we explore for Spock because apparently we have to speak only about Spock.

So you know what we're doing.

But I like when we explore different kind of relationship, like son, mother is an interesting relationship.

Um And like the sibling relationship we explored.
So, yeah.
you know, I'm like, I was happy to see her.
I I love how Amanda, I mean, I have many questions about Amanda because again, like

it's not now, right?

She has to become an immigrant.

I am an immigrant, been an immigrant for like 20 years.

And yeah, you have to fit in like, you know, you respect like the local culture but then fuck also about like not having your own culture.

Like that's ridiculous that you can't, you can't be yourself. Like if Sari marries her, he knows she's a human.

He doesn't expect like how can you expect from somebody from another culture to be entirely of your culture then just marry inside your own culture?

Like what do you want?

Like my husband again, my God uh doesn't expect me to be fully American like he knows there are things that I just don't comprehend or like that I refuse to do or refuse to.

I I'm not gonna go do like July 4th.

Like why would I do that?

Like, I don't, I don't even do Bastille Day, tomorrow, Bastille Day.

Uh So, you know, um Yeah, it was just, I was so happy to see her, but then there are many things that are cony, like she taught that guy, like she's his mother.

Like, how can he, how can she be so cool that he doesn't remember or doesn't know how to do the thing that she taught him and the thing with the pain and the was really a beautiful metaphor of like all the shitty thing you have to do that are contrary to your culture.

Um But that you do for the piece of the situation, you know, because that's easier to do that than to fight or that's easier to do that and having a little bit of fitting in and sometimes you just want to fit in because you're fucking tired of always being the other, right?

And the line is like, what is it about pain?
I don't remember the line.
Um When you live on Vulcan, you learn to, you learn to go through line to end your pain

or something like that.
And I was like, damn, it's a great line. No, and that was perfectly good.

Um I'm just, again, I'm a bit, I hope my mother would freak out way more if something like this happened to me and we'd be like, we're not doing this shit, we're not doing the thing, we're not doing the, the ball and she's coming on the under her.

He was so hurt that he couldn't come on Vulcan and they're just cool with it. They're just like, oh no, it's hurt, it's super hurt, but we're gonna do it anyway. Yeah.
Yeah, I didn't like that.

Um I don't know what else to say.
You guys all hit on the head like I fucking love Mir Kirchner.
I have watched the L Word with two different ex-girlfriends.
Funny enough, never watched it with Karen.
Um But I, I love the L Word.
It's amazing.
Um And I love her in it and when she got cast as Amanda in Discovery, I, I lost my shit. I was so excited so to see Mary Kirchner, I hope this isn't a one off.
I hope she's back many more times.
As long as she is on was so happy to see her.
Um The reaction was weird as fuck.
I would just be like, no, it's done.
We're not doing this thing.
Um Fuck off.

I don't care who you are and I don't care what like, you know, relationship your husband has with my husband.

Like we're, we're not, we're not doing this right now.

Um Because Sall and Sara are apparently buddy, buddy.

Um I want to see.

Yeah.

Right.

Because they're two different, they're two very different people.

Um Anyway, I love Amanda.

I'm so happy she's back.

Um I'm going to quickly burn through trivia because we still have a lot to get to and we are running very late tonight.

Um for good reason.
So trivia, we have two winners guys.
We only got two people that answer trivia this week.
I don't know if I'm making them too hard if I'm making them too hard. Tell me I'll tone him down a little bit.
Um But our winners from episodes 303 and 304.

Trivia are our very own executive producer, Chris Commander Chris Congrats and also Adam Sanders, the answers were Chris answered them on Discord in like the best way with like pictures.

It was great.
A vega colony for where the enterprise was headed.
And I actually don't remember what the other trivia question was, but it was a good one. So yeah, those are our winners.

We will get in touch with you where to send you your hammer stickers.

Remember if you answer trivia and you haven't gotten one of these yet, you're getting these stickers.

So answer answer trivia.

Speaking of our question this week, doesn't, I mean, I, I don't care, I don't have to read the question.

Who wants to read the trivia question? Oh, I could read that.
Do it hog hit it.
Yeah, we just pull it up here.

So the question this week in the T OS episode, what are little girls made of? What did Christine Chap?
How sorry, how did Christine Chapel describe Roger Corby in deed?
And that is a bit of a hard one.

You have to do a little bit of research, but you could find, like, do I know that I remember the scene very clearly.

I know the word. I don't think I do.

You don't need, it doesn't need to be the exact quote you can give me like the word right or a word.

That's like it.
I will accept it.
You can email us at trivia at strange pod dot com. DM.
Me or DM our socials with the answer.

Let's play some charades. Ok.

Uh To bring beams aboard uh ahead of her parents annoyed as we've never maybe like, ever seen a Vulcan be annoyed with her mother or just in general.

Um maybe not in general but very annoyed because of this Spock makes.

And I think this is me personally the mistake of not filling to bring in on the situation.

Thoughts Eric, what a terrible idea.

Like this is the person you're supposed to marry and you just, this is, this is a major thing that has happened to you and you just leave them out.

I know people are stressed and you wanna, you know, you, you don't wanna burden them, but this by not telling her that's way more of a burden like, but it's just, it, it's insane to me that he did that to her.

Yeah, I agree the same.
But also I liked how empathetic Spock was towards her.

She was more concerned about her and the situation and what she was going through and she was kind of responding in kind to it and not even managing to crack a joke at one point which almost blew Spock's cover.

That was amazing. That was good.

Uh But yeah, it was an insane decision on his part and that because like, he was reacting, I guess, more to, like, you know, being more emotional as a human than that to where it's like, I don't want to put more stress on her because she's already stressed out, you know, she totally waved off the whole like, formality and that when she first beamed to board and that it's like, I'm tired.

It's like deray always, you know, never part, it's like, fuck off enough.
I, I've been dealing with my mother for three days and not just forget it. Uh But still terrible decision on his part.
I love to prank.

I think she is the best writing of a legacy character that they've given us so far. Uh Especially because they have nothing on tire.

Let's be honest, like they have a time and we see she's a badass and she's very smart and she knows what she's up.

And I like the fact that you can recognize this in her when you can't recognize the spark of T US in here.

Like you can't, I don't see him and he's a pretty terrible fucking person.
Like right now, like let's be honest, the way he's treating to praying is fucking horrible.

Like you should not treat the woman in your life like Spock is doing, this is absolutely out of line.

Like we know he's actually excited about seeing her at the beginning of the episode.

Like saying, yeah, say it in this like, I mean, we've seen them sleep together like they have a close relationship and like she, she talks to him and like she, she's annoyed by her mother and we know from a um that she is going and he knows he knows so because it's her, when that happens that she's going through a lot of bullshit on Vulcan, a lot of like derogatory things of judgment of racism because she wants to marry Spock.

The fact that Spock doesn't trust her because that's it.
He doesn't trust her.
They can be like, oh she's stressed and she doesn't want to put your brother. No, no, no, you're married.

You know, when you have stuff like that happening to you, you say that to your significant other because they're gonna be that person that are gonna have your fucking back.

And if they're not, then they should not be, if you're significant of her move on. The fact that he does that again.
If you think that he's a 13 year old boy, it makes sense, ok?

You know, but it's still writing in the fact that like she can be trusted or that she's not mature enough or that she's not smart enough or that she would not be empathetic enough.

And everything that strange noma has showed us is that tipping is smart, is empathetic and will care for what is going on and will be his greatest ally.

The fact that Spock doesn't know that shows how willing to bring is gonna be to murder him because I would because that's how the fuck you're sleeping with me.

You're making me like cross the fucking space with like your goddamn brother in tall to save your goddamn life.

You get me in bed.

And then when something happens like this, you don't tell me, you fuck you, fuck me over in front of my parents and then what?

You sleep with the nurse, dude, you'd be on Reddit the next day and, and I agree with literally everything you just said except for this isn't like this isn't like how Spock is.

I think this is exactly who the Spock that we know we've known for the past 55 years. Spock.
And who, who said it in, in the chat?
Stress free case Spock is like his dad and he keeps too much to himself.

Spock has made it some life decision to just not share shit with anybody, his family, his closest friend, he doesn't know he has a sister, a half brother until they're in a fucking prison cell together.

Spock is a fucking idiot and yes, beef Loma 100%.
He's being a fucking Ross, he's being an idiot.
That's a friend's reference for those who haven't watched Friends.

Um This is, this is Spock's Mo and, and by the end of this episode, if you don't fully understand like giraffe just said this, this is just like, so mind boggling to me why to praying makes him fight to the death.

I mean, it's all laid out.

I'm talking with my hands so much right now because it's just like this is so it's the Greek is the like this is so Spock and it's just like you could almost say that this is the beginning of Spock being a fucking idiot for like the entirety of his life until he dies.

And then I think after he dies, he starts sharing a little no, even after he dies, he doesn't

tell Kirk that he has a half brother who's a homicidal maniac.

So think about it also like if that's the last moment they see each other until time, you imagine that dude just like, like never talk to me again and then shows up like, oh I need to fuck you because I'm gonna die, right?

Yeah, I would make him fight to the death too.

So as much as, as much as, yeah, as, as much as it's infuriating, right?

And you're like, what the fuck are you doing?

Of course you tell her I love the writing of this because it it sets up a time more and it's very just who the fuck Spock is.

Um Anyway, I love II, I loved that.
He didn't tell her for canonical reasons.

Um to Pearl and Sat arrive or is it Vette or Sall Sall Vet, I think, arrive at Pike's Quarters for dinner.

Um What do we think about this entire sequence including to bring his parents and Tory's disc track on Spock and his house Eric.

Uh it's a vet on, oh it is, it is.

OK.

So I, I blame Im DB if I'm wrong.

Um um First off, I love that they cast two expanse actors as to bring his mom and dad like that's, that's amazing.

Um Any time I see uh these two people or any, any expand actor show up in other sci-fi makes me happy.

Um That being said, this whole sequence made me so uncomfortable because it feels like me going you when you're dating someone who's white and their parents don't like non white people, you know, and that's what this felt like the whole time.

I was like, this gave me so many.

Let's I want you to meet my parents vibes and then go into their house and be like, oh fuck they don't like me for, is it because I'm a boy or something or is it because I'm not, I, I dated a Chinese girl in high school and I met her parents and this was like the exact.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it felt real.

And II, I assume the, the, the Phil Phil American writer probably felt the same way, like during that, because it felt very, um authentic.

The, the whole sequence was hard to like, it was, it was painful because they just kept on, like, hitting, like, tearing him down and him not being able to suppress his emotions was heartbreaking.

Like, II, I understood why he had to yell into that pillow. Uh Fuck uh er it was a towel.

Uh But to see tip, I don't know if we said this later, tiring sort of came to his defense at the end.

He's like, you know, mother, you don't have to add something in at this point. We're done.
You just have to say that we're done.
I was like, fuck, this is why you're amazing.

You're amazing, Tira. And he did all that to her.

Um Man, the, the, the man the woman playing to brings mother to was brutal like it was like she was like, it was glass every time just cutting.

Oh man Iii I it hurts to watch it but it was done really well, like really well.
Yeah.
Uh Yeah, it was at this point in the episode, I realized what they were going for with this.

They're doing, they were doing a remake of the Bird Cage, the old Robin Williams Nathan Lane film.

I think it's a play that movie and the French play 1978.

It was, the movie was, it was the movie first or the play first?

It was a play first.

Then they made a French movie and then he went to the U si think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But it's the idea of being something you're not for the sake of the conservative parents of the bride that you're marrying and that, and it's like, ok, I get it now.

Um Yeah, it was awkward and jeez, like I, is that a great, is that a good example of a Vulcan?

That's just like, completely like, you know. Hm.

Yeah, he love pikes like d and that until the, my wife reminded him that, you know, we don't like it and that because it's not traditionally a and just deferring, deferring, deferring.

I've never seen that like with, with any Polk represented in Star Trek before. Like someone just like with no kind of free will.
Yeah.
No backbone.

Right.
Yeah.
Maybe it's just easier for you.

Yeah.

I, I really love the father.

It cracked me up so much.

Uh And again, see there was like so many nuggets where like they were like almost, right?

The fact that pike was human can make perfect bulk food.

See, they were like things and I was just like, uh see it but use it if you want to criticize this like, nurture rich cultures, you know, like that, that what you can do because you learned it or what you can do because that's your DNA, like use the things around, use the things around you spins around you.

Um I, I like the fact that we see that basically you have different Vulcans, like very often the Vulcans are like, always the same, they all like this, they have the same way of thinking.

But you see that she's being a jerk.

The father is like, I don't really care like, you know, um I'm just a bit like, I think there's like too many um representation of Indian parents that refuse, that their daughter marry in another race.

I know that's something that exists a lot. But I know that it's to do.

There are people that are open minded also and I'm like, is there like, again the same thing?

But like now they, they're Vulcan but they're still all from Indian uh ethnicity also. I'm just like, I was a bit like, hey, I don't know how I feel about this.

Like, it was a little bit too much, you know, it was a bit like, I love, she's amazing but there were like too many parallels.

I was like, I got those parallels as well.
Like um to brings parents reminded me very much of um Kamala's parents and Marvel. Like I kept thinking, oh, it's Kamala's parents.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I saw that already.

I'm like, is that it was a bit easy?

You know what I mean?

And I'm like, I would have wished for something else but, you know what, at that point it was already done with that.

So, I don't know.

Um But yeah, the, the, the parents like were very interesting and there were so many lot missed opportunity in this conversation.

So, so, so, so so many that could have made that episode, a great episode in the question of race and biracial and acceptance and feeding in.

And there was like so many missed moments where I was like, oh yeah, I mean, that could have said something.

The is the only one that actually fucking says something and she gets the Shaff for it from, from Spock.

It's like she is the only one that like has her head on her fucking shoulder and the rest they all act like pike tries to help so much pike.

Pike tries to help so much as in any way that he can.

He was such, everybody's talking about how good he was as like a background character in this scene and he's just, he was just sipping the boy MC is correcting me uh to does not get the shaft at the end of this episode.

That's right.

No vigorous shafting um There and I know we didn't speak about something but can we address the fucking prosthetic ears?

I was so shocked by this.
I was like hot take.
Hot take.
But what can exist in Star Trek?

Like there are races that exist in Star Trek. Right.

They don't exist now, but they exist for them masquerading as another race by painting your face or gluing ears.

A race that exists.
It's not ok.
It's not ok.
It was very uncomfortable.
It was very uncomfortable and I know you're gonna be, oh, but he's Vulcan. Well, no, he's not right now.

They made a point that he's not Vulcan now.

And I'm just like I was thinking, if I was in that situation, if I suddenly was white, would I paint my face to make sure that people think that I am who I am?

I fucking, wouldn't, I fucking wouldn't I about my dead fucking buddy?

Um Because I find it like, very questionable and it made me very uncomfortable, very, very uncomfortable and the fact that like, everybody's like, oh, it's such a good idea, giraffe, we're gonna paint you black.

Like, uh I'm just, they had so many excuses to not have this thing happen. I, I just think that it's again masquerading as a race physically.
Ok.

Can I counter that with them over the past 55 years in Star Trek every single time they beam down into a planet and have to surgically alter themselves to be Romulans or Klingons or Vulcans.

Is that right?

Yeah, they do it in like the first season, but it's for like, it, it, then I have a, like, why, why didn't they do that?

What did they glue it because, because said specifically, if she's able to figure this out

and be able to cure you, it may interfere with that. So we can't do that.
I don't know.

I, I'm, I'm uncomfortable with that and I think I'm more uncomfortable with that than in like every other thing you talked about because he is Vulkan and he's masquerading as his own culture when he's been saying for like a wall episode that he cannot even remember how to make tea because it's in DNA is DNA.

You learn how to make tea from, you know, your DNA coding.

But like, I don't know that whole thing, like made me uncomfortable to be honest, like when they show up with the prostate year, I was like, please do not do that, please do not do that, please do not do that.

Um But yeah, I didn't like it at all and if he, they had do it, they had done it in a way. I think his final monologue would have been way better.
Like I MC we need to rewrite that episode.
Like I know you do that.

It's savable.
Like there are many good things in it.
There are many, many good things but like, like, I don't know, it made me uncomfortable. I don't say I'm right.
I just say that you feel is important.
I don't agree with you but how you feel is totally important and I totally understand it.

Like it went over my head the first time I watched it and then when you talked about it in the chat and I was like, I can't not see it, but now every time I watch it, it hit differently than when they do.

Like, the genetic thing, like to go on a planet and be, like, undercover. It, that's worse.
Right.

Because you're completely faking who, I don't know.

But this one really hit in another way like it.

But is that maybe because of how you already felt about the episode?

Which I think makes perfect sense because they made it, oh, that's the other thing they made that episode about race, right?

The other episode when they go on and stuff, it's not about race. It's about like spies or romance or fucking over people.

Like, I don't know, like it's not about, but that episode is specifically talking about that and then you're already in that mindset.

So when they go there, you're already on the mindset that they're masquerading as another race.

And I was like, I, I'm comfortable with this and I do think it's because of that when they do the DNA, the DNA thing in a, it's like sci-fi shit.

You know, MC does have a great answer to this though.

The, the best answer they already said he was in a horrible shuttle accident, just bandage his fucking head, just bandage his fucking head or keep rocking the beanie because he, he he says, like my eyebrows got the n or something and I can see that.

Yeah, I don't know.
It was weird to me, to be honest.
Um I loved to ring's dad so much.
I loved that he loved the food and I love that.

I just, I loved him and I, I have to say I just, I adored Pike this entire episode from the minute that to Pearl starts distracting Spock about like who he is and being a disgrace to, to his family and Vulkan and Pike just like the amount of bourbon that Pike drank in this episode.

I mean, there should be a fucking drinking contest.

Um I know that like I know that there's maybe the, the argument for Tarell being the, the evil mother-in-law trope.

But I, the, the way that I keep seeing this episode and keep watching this is again, I, I feel like this season of Stranger World has been connecting to enterprise a lot, right?

Like there's, this is only maybe not even 100 years, maybe 100 years or so after enterprise, there is still hard core inherent racism towards humans on Vulcan.

And from everything I gathered from this episode to Pearl is one of those people like she does not like humans.

She has, she does probably doesn't agree with the Federation and, and Vulcan's, you know, sharing so much with humanity during the times of enterprise.

I think a lot of that is still there and I think that's very well represented here. I really, I really like that.

Um The disc track is just freaking brutal and I do love that to pring despite being completely screwed over in this episode, tries as hard as she can to stick up for Spock.

So um let's see.

Where are we chapel?

Yes.

During all of this chapel goes through the portal with aura and Ortegas right to call out the Kans and get things set, right?

Um Thought thoughts on the sequence and chappe revealing her, her true feelings for Spock Eric visually.

I thought this was amazing.
I thought it was gorgeous.
The, the set that they were on in this, in that inner space area was gorgeous.
Um It, it, it was, it was gorgeous.
It blows my mind.
Um The, the scene was, it was all right.
I guess it, it was, it was awkward.
It felt awkward when, when she was talking about her feelings and then they're like,

come on, tell us, tell us how you love him and I'm like, oh fuck, I don't like this. It ii I didn't like it.
Yeah.

Um I did like the build up into it where it's like, it's like if it wasn't the fact that she was, you know, doing this all for Spock and that this would have been kind of a great chapel episode and that, you know, it's like going through the heart of that corridor and be an alien species.

And that after being turned down by the, you know, Vulcan, well, actually was, she turned down at this point by the Vulcans, at this point in the episode, she had not been turned down yet.

She said they would look at her stuff. She's prepping.
Right.
Yeah.

This could, you know, this could have been a great plot, like, kind of tying all that if they had been it out, but she was there pursuing it for Spock.

Um I enjoyed that.

This was like an away mission with like Chappel and Okra and you know, sorry.

Ok.

Yes.

Um I was enjoying it, you know, and then, you know, it got into that part.

It's like, you know, it's like say it, say it, say yes.

The most awkward scene in disco ever say yes, I didn't want to remember that scene but I do.

No, I do, I do.
Please say yes, say yes, say yes. Hockey.

You good. I'm good.

Um OK, so I was here for, for trip during the this because first of all, she's doing science stuff and I was like, that's what I wanna see too bad.

It's for but, you know, at this point, beggars can be choosers.

So I'm like, sure like I'll, I'll take it, I'll take it.

Um She's the only one that takes the situation seriously.

Yeah, she is the only one that is like this is not right and she says it so many times when everybody's like, and she's like, it's not right.

That is not right is broken. This is not how it should be. This is not him.
It should not be like this. He's broken.

He's like, this is not good.
And like, she works her ass off trying to fix that when everybody's like, kind of taking it.

Like, not like a joke but like, like it took me like two weeks, you know, like, like it's like, yeah, it's a thing now.

Like what?

Um so I, I really like Chapel and I was really into, you know, I love when the ladies get the shuttle and go on an expedition.

I fucking love it.
Like lower light signal every single day.
Let's go.
And um so they take that, that, that, that shuttle.

Are we going all the way there? Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Yeah.

We, we, first of all, it's beautiful.

Oh my God, like the air uh walls.

Incredible.

It's so good.

And there's this scene where they're like, oh my God say say it, say it.

And I'm just like, what is that?

The mean girls?

Like did I thought it was so that she made them turn around?

It's like, dude, let's be, let's be, let's be real.

These aliens that are talking to her, they're like customer service, they don't give a fuck that you're in love with her.

You say I'm his doctor. Like I will trust my doctor.

To explain anything that's going on with my health better than my, again him, my husband, how many time I name dropped him today?

Too much.
Way too much like he even know where he is.
I don't know where he is.
You love him, you love him, love him, love him, he loves me.

He can explain what's going on with my DNA.
No, he cannot.
And that's the thing that I was like, oh my God again, such a missed fucking opportunity. Like Chapo could have been that bad ass woman in stem that.
I've been asking for 16 episodes, 15 episodes.
And the, I'm his doctor.
I've been working on a cure because you messed up.
I know all this about this DNA structure.

I'll know all that and that is who I am and she's like prepping for that internship like clone, clone and these aliens should be respecting that because they seem to be more like technology inclined, you know, than like it's great.

And I was like, oh my God, this is one, the scene, the scene was cheesy. Second.
It was like, you don't do that in a fucking wormhole.
Like what are you doing?

You know, and bring it's just a missed opportunity again. Um Love Spackle again.
I ship them whatever.
I'm flawed, but I hated the scene too.

It was dumb.
I hate, I hated that they made her turn around like this was good until it wasn't. But I do love the aliens.
I thought it was beautiful.
I love how they talk too.

They're just like, so matter of fact, it is like speaking to a chat bot when you're on the customer service phone.

Like it's exactly what it is.

So, I, I love that but it was, it was cheesy.

Um Chappel does come back and reintroduces Spock's DNA.

We get a scene, I think MC is gonna like that.

I brought this up uh very reminiscent of that from Trek 09 where the Vulcan Science Academy talks about Spock's handicap being his mother.

It's, I think almost word for word actually.

Um Spock staunchly defends his mother in just a beautiful scene.

Thoughts on this, Eric.

I loved it.

I love that scene in, in Trek 09.

So when they did a sort of mini homage to it here, I was like, yeah, and of course, like to someone's mom, fuck you god damn.

Um This does remind me of uh this, this is the part I'm gonna tell my story about uh Kati.

Um She doesn't really watch strange new worlds because it doesn't have Jane Way and she wants to see Jane Way.

So um so hashtag save Star Trek prodigy.

Um and we watched this episode today and at the end of it, um like she loved it, she thought it was funny, but at the end, she was like, it's weird that Spock had to hide that, you know, half of him.

And this was like, she's my daughter's biracial.
So this, she, she said to me it's weird that he had to hide half of him. Like, it, it's weird that because it's all of him, that's what she said. She said that's all of him.

It's not like he's missing something like, even for someone so young to realize that here. And it was, it, it was awesome.

It, it started a conversation about her being um biracial and it was not something I expected um in this episode so that I, I appreciate and that, you know, Chappel defending him before, in that little scene that II I forgot to mention it earlier.

Um and then him defending his mom, like the human part of him, like it, it, it, you know, brought back so many feelings and the fact that my daughter connected to it too like that she's the both sides of her are her.

It's, it, I know I loved it.

I thought that was great.

Yeah.

Uh Same.

It was definitely a homage to on nine and that, you know, it's like, it's as soon as they started attacking the mother, that's always been his trigger point, right?

You know, it was a trigger point in, you know, for the Science Academy and when there, when they turned it down and that um and yeah, and it was great that they actually, you know, kind of turned to her directly and that and addressed us to her instead of, yeah, I love it.

I didn't see the reference to 09 at all.

But like, he's a mama's boy, he's a mama's boy in like every series like you love his mom like good.

Uh um, but I don't know, I was conflicted about that. Um, defending his mother.

They were like a few points that again, if they had been changed would have, make more sense.

Uh Especially when he says like a human has done like, I've done the tea like and so on.

Like along, I was like, boy, even if you didn't have like your DNA change, he would still be a human also.

You know, it's not like just now that you're only human, you are a human all the fucking time.

And see that was one of these missed opportunity. I felt that, you know, he got the thing from Chapel.

They could have like done some like, you know, Jumbo mango like magic and he had like his ear back and you know, it was not the processing anymore and it was like, and he could have said, yeah, human made this tea because I'm a human also.

And then damn, you have it, you know, it's a beautiful message.

It shows that he has understand he has understood that he is Vulcan and he is human even if he didn't grow up in a human culture of his mother because he grew up on Vulcan that is still who he is.

She gave him many things, even if he doesn't realize it, you know, and if they want to, like, just come and like, count your chromosomes, then, yeah, you're both, you know, I love the fact that she shares uh a memory with him of herself being um being cast away, being, you know, not accepted and the moment where she sees him accepted and I think it's a moment also where she chooses to not to like not educate him in a human way also and just educate him on only a Vulcan way.

And my parents made that choice.

My father wanted me to be French because he wanted me to go through less bullshit that he had to do.

And so I didn't know my father's language.

I was not educated in his culture because they wanted me to be French and I am 100% culturally French.

But then still people don't see me as French.

And we come back to like the problem with that.

But I thought it was beautiful that if he was defending his mother, I really like this insight into Amanda's on why she didn't give him more of her culture because she wanted him to go through less bullshit that she had to go through.

And I know it's a choice that many immigrants parents do.

And, and like you see me, many people who don't speak the language of their parents because the parents were like, you're going to speak English or you're going to speak

French because like that people won't question who you are, jokes on you.

People always question who the fuck we are because they associate culture and DNA.

And we come back to the problem with that episode again.

But um I, I thought it was really beautiful because I remember when I was old enough to realize the struggle that my parents had to go through as an a mixed couple.

Uh thinking that as a kid, I, I couldn't comprehend.
And then as an adult, I was like, that was a lot of bullshit.

So I love the fact that she feels that her son has gone out of the sphere of influence of his father enough that she can hi into his life and into his, helping him identify and helping him know who he is.

And I think it's beautiful.

I wish somebody would have done that for me.

I want to be adopted by Amanda.

You know, it's like in the spider verse when she's like, please adopt me that fame.

I was like, please adopt me.

Yeah.

Um I love the scene and I love that he sticks up for her because it's, it's very much the same thing.

And I think it is again, word for word from 09 the way that to or to words it.

Um And I am a mama's boy because my mom, my mom died when I was five and there's not a day I don't think about her.

And I remember this specifically because the first time I ever got suspended from school is because some poor kid decided to make your mama joke to me and I kicked him under a foosball table and destroyed him.

Um, not saying that violence is ok, but your mama joke sent me off and that kid paid for it.

So I respect Spock sticking up for his mother.

I stick up for my mother even though she's been gone for ages. Um I adored this scene.

You know why I don't stick up for my mother because you come at my mother, you're gonna have to deal with her and she's way more terrifying than I am.

Yeah.

Um So to pring we, we come back around to, to pring very much in the right here, by the way, tell Spock how much they've been through and still he doesn't tell her about what the fuck happened to him.

Feeling slated.
She decides to take time away from Spock.

Honestly, probably maybe second to last time they see each other because something's got to happen with Cyb.

Um possibly leading to the events of a time thoughts. Uh did something else need to happen?
Yes or no.
What do you think about this, Eric?

I hope this is not the last time we see her, but I don't blame her if she doesn't want to see Spock again.

Like, let's be honest.
Yeah, it was terrible to her.
Um That being said, I, I feel like there has to be something before a mock time.
I don't, I don't know, I feel like his chapel and Spock aren't gonna last, obviously. Right?
Um And I, there has to be a reason why Spock goes back to her, like for a mock time.

Like he can, he can, it would be so weird if he was just like, like what dress it, I'm gonna die.

Let's go fuck booty call.
But I, but then again, I could see him doing that too.

So I, I know, I hope, I hope it's not, it's obviously something's going to happen and it's not the last time we'll see her in that because, you know, she didn't say the engagement's off and that I never ever want to see you again.

She said we need a break from each other, you know. Um we were on a break, we were on a break.
Yes.
Is exactly, this is literally her friends right now.

It really is.
But no, it's like she, she's like, I need a break, but the engagement is still on there.

And so I think we're gonna see her again and I believe Spock is going to either, you know, maybe try and smooth things over or he's gonna do something that's even dumber than that.

But like the fact that the engagement lasted like another, what, seven years in the timeline?

Seven or eight. Right.
Yeah.
Seven or eight. Yeah.

Yeah.
Why, why didn't she just dump him? Yeah.

Well, we know why she's not dumping him, explaining that episode that there's a lot of repercussion for, like, a lot more than for Spock.

Like, very obviously she is gambling a lot on that marriage. Like, her father wants it, but she's clearly in love with Spock. She really do love him and she wants that marriage.
Like it's not a forced marriage.

But um it's explained that she would be cast away.

She would be Shaun that she would be regarded as a woman with no logic and so on and so on.

And, and when you know all this and Spock knows all that because of Spock and you're like, dude, what you're doing is bullshit and more power to keep praying to be like, fuck you.

I'm out.
Uh Very good for her to be honest.

Um And we know she's going to face a lot of repercussion because now they're engaged, right?

Because it went well, we know they get married because in a time sparks Mr Spock. Who is she?
She's beautiful.
She is my wife.

That's why I cannot see because she doesn't recognize her in the US.
You remember?
So they do get married like, I mean, it's not like something weird looking thing. You get married, right?
No, you're absolutely right.
Shit.

So, and other like if you watch a time because I watch a time because like, why the fuck, why not?

You know, um when you were watching time, when Spock is in his quarter and is starting to have his who comes to get in his room to bring him food and when she get out because he kicks her out, then uh Bone says like still after all this time.

And so something clearly fucking happens that Spock goes and marries Tira and then when he goes into his pond bar and Chappel shows up, he's like, fuck you, you get out and you get out with your damn soup and then contacts tire.

So I wonder if there's not gonna be like a Richard Kirby situation or something like that.

I mean, we know that they're gonna, that's not gonna stand and that most probably what I think is that Chappel is gonna break his heart so bad or he's gonna be so is gonna eat so much shit that even he cannot like back off and he's gonna marry her.

But we know that much.

That's what we know from mama, they're married and when Chappel shows up, it's like, absolutely not.

Um I said everything I wanted to say at the top of the episode about to bring and Spock like to bring ends up in that end of this episode completely in the right.

Spock's a douche.

But we already knew that it's just very Spock.

He's an idiot.

Um You know why he's a douche because he doesn't have a in his life.

Look in the Kse ache, tell you.

Um So we see Chappe doesn't get into the fellowship, which is BS by the way.

Um But does get a really awesome final word in against that Snooty Vulcan at the Vulcan Science Academy, which is awesome.

Um Informing him that she worked with an ancient species to perform an ancient medical practice.

Uh She then after saying fuck you to him, basically meet Spock at his quarters who just broke up or is on a break with a pring and Spall becomes spa Eric.

I love the sequence where she dresses down that Vulcan.
It was such a good, good sequence and I was like good, good on you like damn.

Right.
You did do some awesome science things recently.
Um But then the, the Spock and Chapel like that scene. I, I don't like it.
I again, I don't, I don't ship these two.

So seeing, seeing it and Spock just broke up with the, it just broke up like they, they literally went and watched friends be like, oh yeah, Ross just broke up with Rachel and then went and fucked the girl at the club.

It's like the same exact thing.
It takes a special kind of douche.

Well, Ross is a douche, but it also tells you how much you have in that relationship because like if you're able to do that, that relationship really didn't mean anything to you anything at all.

Because, like, even if you're just friends, like it hurts or even if, like, you're mad at the person, like, there's, there's an emotional attachment that you need to get rid of and like to go back in right away.

It's just like, and another thing he knows Chappel likes him.
He knows that and you don't do that with people who like you because that's messy. That's messy as fuck, like better anyway.
Well, here we go.
This is what they were building towards.
So now it's here.
So yeah, I haven't seen the next episode yet.
So, you know, but where could this go and no place good.
Well, we know it doesn't go anywhere fucking good, right?
For sure.

And yeah, Spock is a, is a douche bag like he just literally took a break. You know, they said let's take a break.
Not, I don't want to see you again.
I don't want you out of my life.

I need, just got engaged.

I need a break and it's like, ok, it's like that that happened because he's what he's tired of suppressing that emotion now.

Ok, here we go.

I mean, that's a perfect excuse, babe, I'm tired, I'm tired, I'm tired.

I want to smell basil.

I want to get my sex on that scene.

Like I love Chappel, like standing up to the VSA.

I loved it.

I was like, yes gave me more and then you have that scene in the end and I'm like, you were so close and you know what more part to go get that piece of ass like, right?

Like, but as a woman, I know that dude just had his engagement deal. Just had massive trauma, massive trauma.
Yes.
Like they messed with his DNA.

Not once twice.
He had like to go through all that shit. He's already kind of unstable.
That's why he's like on therapy.

His mom was here, he got engaged, the woman he got engaged to told him like we need a, we need to take time the day of their engagement and you go in and you make

out of him again.
That takes a special kind of douche back to do that.
I am sorry, you can be horny all you want.
You need to have fucking morals when it came to dealing with people.

Like people are not things and sometimes they're in a situation where they're not well mentally because they're going through a lot of shit and you can get in them pants very easily because you're gonna be the savior and you're gonna be the person that is here to not do that.

This is not right because he's not in a state that he can actually make decision that makes sense for him.

Um I will argue that both of them are not in good mental states. Right.
Right.
So how many times do you?

I mean, listen, I went to boarding school so there's just lots of fucking around and making bad decisions, especially when bad shit happened.

So like I get it Spock just had this bullshit happen to him.

His fiance is done with him for the moment.

Chappell just got not in that uh fellowship basically, I think for being human honestly.

So she's in a shitty mental spot.

So yeah, they, they, they had a pity fuck.

And it obviously turns into more um It's not good decision making on either of them, but we know what ends up happening and here it is.

So we will see where it goes.

Um Mental health and Star Trek never well represented um final thoughts if any barely talked about pike and he was so good in this even though he didn't all the background, like all the casts that did like reaction shots to Spock being crazy.

Amazing.
All of them.
They, they Oh yeah.
Yeah, that's it.
No, no, I thought I will never rewatch that episode. That is for sure.
Thank God for what 206, which is a great episode. So hang in there.
Uh We should just get to it.
Oh no, sorry hok please.

If it would have just been me on my own watching this without, you know, anything else like just outside of any sort of sphere of influence and that, you know, II I would have enjoyed it.

I was enjoying it.
There was a lot about that.

I, I enjoyed but then, like, you know, reading like what, like talking with giraffe and not about it.

And it's like you just, the points just start to click down and down and down and that, and it's like, it's like, how can you vicariously enjoy something and that, and you know, when it's, when it's hurting when it's like, somebody is like, looking at it and saying this is the worst thing I've ever seen a year worth.

Listen, you can enjoy like eating meat even if it kills animals. That's true.
You can do two things.

I, I just, you know, and that's why we need more diverse voices in podcast also and in the media and in all that because again, if they could have gone thousands of way that would not have and, and, and say the same thing and yeah, again, listen to Peck interview with, uh, I'm curious.

Yeah, apparently he's on seventh rule right now talking about this episode. So I don't know.
Let's rate this one out of 10 burn blisters giraffe.
You are up first because we always go in reverse order.

Um, I don't know, to be honest, I don't, I, I have no idea.
I, everything was very good except the main thing of the story.

So how do you like, I would say a minus 10, but then the acting was the best one they ever gave us the costumes were exceptional.

But does that counterpoint the fact that it makes my life as a human more complicated every day?

I don't think it does.

So I'm out like, no, but everybody I worked on, it was pretty good.

You did a good job but you made my life a little bit more racist.

So uh yeah, uh like I'm gonna give a points for production and for direction.

Uh editing is great.

It looked good.

Acting was great.

But costumes, costumes, oh which brings outfit.

Come on.

Hashtag give Bernard and at me, come on, even the makeup were amazing but I mean story and that I got it.

I'd say five and those, those points are going for like, you know, basically just acting production direction.

Fair check.
Give us your ratings too.

I only see one right now, Eric.

Um You know what, I watched this with my daughter, we had a great time watching it and it, we had a discussion about her um her being biracial by the end of it.

Like I thought that her realizing like her coming in the her realizing that she's not just half Filipino or just half Dutch German was a good conversation that came out of this.

So I'm gonna give this episode an eight because it brought out good things for my daughter.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Uh Over on the youtube they are coming in.
I'm gonna read M C's first uh fart noise out of 10 is M CS rating.
I love it.
She's out, she's out.
She's Tara in 8.5.
Eric just wants to say Nay's music was also great.
It was as always Michael Kwang gives this a six.
No funny scoring method.
It looked like Star Trek agree on exceptional costumes.
Agree in acting.
It was very majority American take on race and genetics.
A Yeah.
A shared fate.
7.5 out of 10 root parakeets, seven out of 10 muscle spasms.
Eric summers 6.5 at best, probably hovering around a five right now for me again. Um Not to piggyback off what Eric said.

Um I will go off what Hawk said, like I enjoyed it for what it is and for being an episode of Trek.

And um I think this is the right way saying in draft, you could tell me if I'm wrong, but I also enjoy it because we had this fucking conversation like I'm tired of having this fucking conversation, but I'm happy for having the conversation with you and watching your video and then talking about it after I got it, gave me a perspective that I didn't get out of it.

So I appreciate that.

I have to say that a lot of podcasts have reached out to me privately to discuss this to be able to review the episode.

So it's great in a way.

But let's be honest, we're a fraction of the fandom like go on Twitter and look and everybody's like, and again, it's a great episode on everything else.

I loved every single thing.
I love them and I love tipping.

I loved everything else except for that thing in the plot, which is so big that it's complicated.

But, yeah, I, it, it was a beautiful episode.

It's really nice.

I want them to do more about culture in Spock.

Yeah.

Just do it better.

But I'm going to go with Eric.

I'm an eight on this one.

It was, it was very good and I any, any time and I am, it's funny that I'm gonna say this because I am going to literally write an article saying I have had enough of Spock.

But any time that she gets to watch Spock and like, enjoy it, that makes me happy because I want her to keep watching more Star Trek.

So it here he wants me to start strange new worlds with her.
I'm like, yeah, I wish she would watch every single episode with me.

Like I try to sit her down and be like, hey Strange New Worlds is on Spock's in it like you should watch it.

Um It hasn't worked yet but we're getting there, we're getting there. Good parenting.
Trying.
Thank you.

Uh Let's get to the subspace to pull and mail bag, sir.
Who wants us to poll this week?
Who hasn't taken?
We asked Check Twitter what they thought of episode 205. Charades.

And this is what they had to say.
42% said dazzling display of logic.
28% said most logical 3% said illogical and 27% said sad, highly illogical. Oh, I don't know why.
It's a sad, sad day.
That was supposed to be.
That.
That's ok.
So, er, er, so that means that Hawk, you are on the first mail bags, please.

So, Haven wrote, it's no secret how much I love Jess Bush playing Chappel over the last year and a half to see her in the spotlight, feels like it was showcasing her.

But also at the same time, I can see it as a tribute to Majel Roddenberry as I could see a lot of the original Chappelle Chapel in her today.

But I also thought this might have been her season finale as she just, uh she got accepted by the VS A for that mission.

Glad to see she will still be around rating 7.75.

Also, this episode gives massive conversion therapy issues which should never be a topic in 1966 or 2023 or any time in between.

Yeah, see people are going to read a lot of issues compared like depending on their walk of life.

And believe me, there's no really good way to see that main plot, uh, draft. You take Eric the Reds, please.
Eric the Red and, um, wrote, why is the fifth episode of strange new world. Always the Spock Channa agains episode.

I love the B plot of Chappel trying to find a solution showing Jess Bush.

Bush's range as well as discovering contacting a new species, species species.

Sorry, even though we didn't learn much about them.

True.

The A plot with spark was me, feels like they were trying to go for Spock a 2.0 but I didn't feel like it landed quite well.

Probably would give this one a 6.5 at best.
Alrighty and Ec the chief wrote, I'll have to speak for the minority. I love this episode.
The fields were nice but I wanted more comedy.
I like Ethan Spock exploring his emotional human side.
Sets the stage for Nimoy's more.
Vulcan Spock.

Vulcans are jerks, change my mind.

I mean you're not wrong about Vulcans being jerks like, yeah.

Uh Can you read, write your tattoos, please?

Uh Where are we Eric Gregers tattoo wrote Spock's mom is gorgeous.

His friend's fight for him was great, silly, fun and sweet, sweet and simple, sweet and simple love it.

Uh Ha with Anson Rose, please.

And Roe Aon wrote, I really disliked Sweet's episode because the writing felt so I felt like I had turned on any sitcom from the early two thousands.

They're not wrong.
Spock's plot made me cringe so hard.

I finished the episode on mute and I disliked Torill essentially being the evil Wocmil, the woman woman of color.

Oh, ok.
Which is a really uncomfortable trope to be using in 2023.
The humor feels like an episode of the Big Bang Theory.
And Spock is the joke.
Nice draft.
You take Professor Time Travelers, please.
I'm only the romulans today.
Yeah.
Pro Time traveler wrote Mail Bag.
My first ever when I first saw Chapel and Spock Kiss in the previews.
I thought it might be a Pon red and to be honest now, I kind of wish it was Spock. Not wanting to go through Pon would naturally go to Amang for some sort of medical

solution only for the side effect of site solution to cause the unpredictable behavior we see throughout the episode.

I like that episode a lot we could do, we should do that.

It would get them away from the more offensive Vulcan dina stuff and a from the Spock for the Spock Chapel stuff to feel less like conscious infidelity.

Indeed.

Yum Yum Pod wrote, I found this episode to be pretty lame and I wasn't a fan of it.

Overall, I'm just so tired of Spock stories at this point.

It's been over 50 years of seeing the character damn right to be explored and I get very little out of it now.

Hence I enjoy the stuff happening with the other characters in the episode.

Something about the writing in this one went into turbo cringe dialogue mode that made me want to stop at several points.

But Sam Kirk has finally returned and that almost redeems the episode's tired sitcom humor, Huray for more Sam Kirk in being meaner than I am.

Yeah.
Yum Yum Pod Trademark.
Tm Eric.
You take Fes, please.
Jeff wrote, I'm getting tired of seeing Chappel as a vehicle to Spock. Give her some chapel stories, please.
I like seeing Ethan Peck's Range as human.
But this one is more of a my than a hit for me.
Indeed.
Hawks with Collins, please.
So Colin D wrote, I'm just going with what I liked.

The acting.
Ethan and Jess were superb.
Master class and subtlety.
Anson is so good as the comic foil seeing Amanda Yay to know.
Yeah, we didn't talk about, oh, we didn't even talk about that.
It was such a fucking mistake.
It was so stupid.
Yeah.
The comedy of Spock's friends teaching him how to be his old self problematic. But they were very funny in their, their antics.
At least there is enough discussion about the problem.
So I don't wanna add anything.
I will probably, I probably will in spoiler talk.
I enjoyed parts of this seven out of 10.
Very nice giraffe with Jay Woodman's please.
Jay Woodman wrote.

This episode was problematic because there was a major plot issue, an advanced species that thought it was acceptable to edit out half of Spock's DNA and didn't see a problem with the result.

Then they had a childish response about a complaint window when confronted with this, this their egregious mistake, it was hard to swallow.

Left me disappointed and not a good message from Star Trek in 2023. Indeed.
And I will take it home with Tara's mail bag tonight.
First I get the limerick charades.

A shuttle crash leads to an altered Spock.

He's now 100% human emotions no longer blocked the new version super in the bacon.

But the pring feels a bit forsaken.

Then mom teaches that acceptance can be one's hardest stumbling block.

There were so many things wrong with this episode, but I still truly enjoyed watching it because Ethan Peck looked like he was having a fantastic time.

Jess Bush is very lovable and the romance in romantic in me loves the Chapel Spock Ship.

Well said, Tara, well said and well done everyone for this podcast, even though we don't always agree all the time.

That's one of the best parts about this episode. We can have amazing conversations like this.
I love you all for that with that.
I will say we're doing a late night happy hour. Oh my God.

I forgot we're doing happy hour directly follow this podcast.
So for Patriots at the lounge level and above it's, it's a night cap. It's a late night night cap.
Let it be a long one.
We did.
We did.
I dude, we've turned into the long form though.
We have become a long form podcast.
Sisters inspired us what could we say?
Uh they know this, they know this.

But uh yeah, just also seeing uh you guys again and doing the pod and also just a reminder, heroes and villains, our new partner 20% off your first order with the code strange at heroes and villains dot com.

That is in the US only remember we are not live next week.

We will have a 9 30 pm Eastern premier time.

Send in your mail bags though and all that and find giraffe at MC at Comic Con.

Yeah, and keep an eye on the Patreon.

We're going to advertise the uh meeting right.

Very, very soon, very soon.

So for Hawk for Eric for giraffe, I am Julian and I will say live long and prosper Ma Good night.

Thanks for beaming into our podcast today.

If you want to keep the hailing frequencies open, you can subscribe on Apple and Google podcasts, youtube and Spotify.

Like what you hear, put in a good word with Star Fleet and leave us a five star review.