Temporal Culture War
Get in the Wiggly Ship, Tucker
[Music] Hello, and welcome to Temporal Culture War, where we dig into what the hell was going on in America in the early 2000s, while we watch one of television history's most maligned properties, Star Trek Enterprise. I'm Maddie Lipchansky. And I am Clayton Ashley. This week, it is episode five of season one of Enterprise, unexpected, and the week of October 17th, 2001. Um, so, there's actually not- there's actually kind of a weirdly, sorry, there's the noise of kittens. Uh, kind of a quiet week in America this time of year, weirdly. I mean, we are a couple weeks into the invasion of Afghanistan, which I think we forgot to mention. A couple weeks. A couple episodes ago. Uh, at this point, we are doing that. We've got a base in Uzbekistan, America does. So, the war going awesome and good, and looking like it's gonna be pretty short. Sorry, do you- do we already have that base, so we already built it this time? Oh, it's already- oh, we built at this- in October, 2001, we asked Uzbekistan if we could build a base there, and they said sure. Wow. So, that was this week. Real real-time strategy shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, we're- we're constructing more pylons to defeat, uh, all terrorism for all time, in a war that's looking like it'll last about a month or two. Yeah, real clear, uh, objective, they're just gonna go in, get that done, and there should be it. I think that's correct. Um, other things going on right now, uh, October 15th of 2001 is when- so the anthrax stuff is still going on. That's when Tom Dashall, in the, uh, Senate, the Democrat, received an anthrax letter, which was a huge deal because it made it to the government. Um, so everyone's still freaking out about that. The Commerce Department announced that, uh, that retail was the worst drop in nearly a decade, like people are afraid to leave their houses. Oh, right. And, um, Polaroid has filed for bankruptcy, which is, I don't know, it just feels like a real end of an era kind of thing. It's like the end of film as a thing. Doesn't it, it gets bought or comes back? It's right. Polaroid still exists, but it's filed for bankruptcy, sort of like, I feel like that era of the way we, we absorb or, you know, document our lives is changing deeply at the time. So this, this reminds me of something I guess I was not aware of is when exactly did the dot-com bubble burst? Has it yet? Uh, the first dot-com bubble burst, I believe in the, in '98 or '99. But the real, I thought like there was the big one that kind of caused a... Clayton? That's a great question. It caused an actual like downturn in the economy after Clinton. I thought it was, uh, March 10th, 2000 was when that really burst. That's, I thought it kind of happened before 9/11 and 9/11 wasn't the actual like reason reason the economy was kind of like, not super. Yeah, so like it was, it was that was already not doing great. I know there was a lot of, there was like a recession coming on anyways. And I think 9/11, uh, which we haven't talked about yet, um, and we'll never talk about. Uh, I think put a dent in like people going out and buying stuff because everyone was like, if you were, if you were John Cute Trucker, the enjoyer of Star Trek Enterprise who lives in Ames, Iowa. Um, or wherever we... I thought he was in the Sintralia, Kansas or something. Sintralia, Kansas, you're right. You're afraid to go to the Sintralia Mall because what if the Taliban is there? And that was, so like, as goes the Sintralia, Kansas, sharper image, so went the nation. And do you think there was a bit of a like, I don't know, really projecting a thought experiment here about how conservatives realizing they had so focused on a service and shopping economy? Yeah. But the second it was scary to go outside and shop. Mm-hmm. Well, they're like, oh no, wait a minute, actually, Bush is like, you got, you got a, his he said it's okay to shop there. I remember him being like, going on the TV and being like, you got a shop. If you don't shop, we're in trouble. We don't do anything else, right? Like, our economy. Yeah, we actually turned the entire economy into shopping. Uh-huh. Um, yeah, so that's going on right now. Um, what else is going on? Let's see, Mamma Mia has begun his Broadway run to get a feeling of what culture was doing elsewhere. Um, the sort of like soaring highs of the Abba musical, beginning its American Broadway run. Interesting. You ever seen Mamma Mia Clayton? I've seen the movie. You've seen the movie. Have you seen the second movie? No. Okay. I'm ashamed to say. It's okay. The second movie is not very good because they used all the good Abba songs in the first movie. Yeah. So they kind of like re-prize a couple. They did say Fernando for the second movie. And it's Alfred Molina playing the titular Fernando. Ooh. And they do sing Fernando about him. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. This is kind of outside the purview of the podcast, but I don't care. Um, because I'm fascinated by it. The Abba Mia movie, because everybody's drunk. Oh, yeah. Like, including the cameraman, like everybody's drunk on set. Like, they all just want a vacation. And they're just drunk. And they're dancing around drunk and they're singing drunk. It does have that energy, I guess. There's a thing about it now. Yeah. There's an after-credits scene where we're Donna and the dynamos, the band, that Meryl Streep, and Grissim Bransky, and a third actress who, I don't know her name, uh, their band. Uh, does Dancing Queen, I believe, at the end? I care what song they do, but they do a song. And Meryl Streep starts yelling at the camera. And then they all start dancing around. And then, uh, Colin Firth and Scarsgard and Pierce Brosnan come back out. And the six of them are dancing around. And it is like, you were the six drunkest people I've ever seen in my entire life. Like, they all look like they're about to get in a car accident. It's incredible. And I don't understand why that's in the movie. Um, because it's all they have. Yeah. A question for you and also the listener. Oh. In the Mamma Mia universe, does the band Abba exist? An age, an age old question. So like, yeah, because the first thought is right, it's a musical. So these people are just singing their hearts song, right? Like they're just whatever. So it just happens to be, to our eyes, the watchers. Um, you know, they're the music that happens to be Abba. But to which I counter, there's a scene where they're singing, I believe in the musical portion, they're singing "Dance and Queen". Um, what's her name? Seafried. And then a Seafried and her friends are singing "Dance and Queen". And in that sequence, they all pick up hair brushes and start singing into them. Like, they're microphones. Which is a thing you and your friends do to a song that exists. That's a strong argument. At first I thought there was like, it was, yeah, like you said, clearly obviously a musical in the sense of it's fictionalized. But the music is diegetic. Diegetic, right? Not, but yeah. But I do wonder if they're taking, what if the way that music is used is really to give the characters a way to express what they needed to say, because saying it was not enough? That's right. I mean, that's all musicals. That's also why apparently Lady Gaga thinks that Joker too is not a musical. Yeah, Lady Gaga said that. And also, I keep wanting to say Todd Haines, but it's not Todd Haines. It's the worst Todd of film. Todd Phillips. The bad. There's like three Todd's. You're right, actually. There's Haines. There's Phillips. And there's, um, Mr. Tar. What's his name? Todd Field. Sorry, Jesus. Um, the three Todd's of film. Todd Phillips ranks dead last with a bullet. Oh, yeah. Um, but Todd Phillips also said it's not a musical. It's just people experiencing this. This is clearly talking points to be fair now. I know. It's like we can't listen. There is a guy, the, the son of John Q truck of, of Centrelia, Kansas. John, John Q truck, Jr. Okay. Okay. Who's driving around Centrelia right now? Well, outside the dead mall with the clothes sharper image. And he's got a dead pull sticker on his car. And he loved Joker, the film Joker. He loved it was for him. He thinks, he thinks the clown prince of crime is so cool. And it's so actually very twisted. And it's not a comp movie because it's like it takes it seriously. And like, it's like so scary that there's a guy who thinks crime is funny. That guy cannot know it's a musical because that's gay. Is gay, is gay to sing your. Is gay to have a musical, but to feel your feelings so deeply that you sing them. What's the definition of being? That's the straightest thing you can do. Oh, wow. I'm confused here. No, no. Musical is gay. Okay. But feeling your feelings so much in the fiction of the thing someone is watching that everyone starts singing and dancing. That's normal and not a music. That's normal and straight and definitely not gay. Okay. I'm clear. That's just feelings. It's just feelings. Gay and potentially Jewish. So that's. Mommy. Here I go again. Yeah, the other big news item is that the Enron scandal has begun to break at this point. Oh, exciting. Which was, you know, I was like refreshing my memory. Speaking of the things we did to the economy for real. Yeah, that's a really good point. I mean, like, you know, there's, you could, you could go this. There's probably 45 podcasts just about the Enron scandal. But, you know, it was a bunch of big energy company. They committed a bunch of tax fraud. But also did terrible thing to people, I thought. Like in terms of like fucking with their electricity or not being reliable at all. Yes. It was a bad news. I think they would, the fraud got so bad that they would blame customers for the problems they were causing. So here's the thing. I basically, what I've learned from any time I, I learn a new fact about it. Is it always worse than you think? This is one of the scandals that is actually more corrupt than you assume. Yeah. I love also just, it's an incredible bit here. I remembered that there is a, there's a bit of their Wikipedia page called Jedi and Chuko. What? She was like, Chewbacca. In 1993 Enron established a joint venture in energy investment with CalPERS, the California State Pension Fund, called the Joint Energy Development Investments, or Jedi. Anyways, that was part of the big scandal, was that their dealings with Jedi and Chuko. And people's retirement funds. People's retirement funds. But it was just like, they just had like everything, they just had their hands in like every possible pot. But that was, you know, that was just a big, a humongous publicly traded company going down. That was like a big spider web of a bunch of shit to make the economy horrible for a couple of years. Yeah. Then things got better later forever. And there was never, in 2001 they fixed the economy forever. By giving everybody a house. Yeah, yeah. Get to that, I guess. I mean, I don't think Enterprise reaches the housing crisis. They're long canceled by the time. Yeah, this is the build-up for it. I guess I was thinking more of the tax cuts. What we did to fix the economy. Sure. That's right. So in the world of music, not a huge change. I'm real by JLo. Still. Has reached the top of the charts. Right, yeah. After being number two. Replacing. Fallen, of course, now falling. It's finally happened. That's right. A big arrival is Iso, parentheses, H-O-V-A, by Jay-Z, has arrived in the charts. It's just huge news. Lower down, but not as high up, but important, culturally. And a chilling portent of things to come. Alien Ant farms, smooth criminal cover, and Nickelbacks. How you remind me are sort of like sneaking around. So like now, this sort of like new metal century has begun. So this is one I heard. I know about. Yeah. Because my eighth grade history teacher, who was also my like homeroom teacher for all three years of middle school, had the radio on during like quiet reading do your homework time. And this came on. I swear to God. Alien Ant. Reday. Alien Ant for him. This song. Yeah. Smooth criminal cover. Yeah. Yeah. It was inescapable for like a couple of months. As was the Nickelback song. It was just some real sort of like the product of a completely cashed culture. Yeah. Yeah. Like we're just at it. We're at a stuff. It's like we just got. There's like a guy with a, you know, 75 string bass and jeans the size of a circus 10. And he's here to play an old Michael Jackson song in a way that is worse. You know, like I think it's, I think, I think Alien Ant and Farm is like on the more reasonable end of this era of music. I don't know about that. I guess I'm not familiar enough with the rich. Yeah. They at least had some creative shit going on. Nickelback, obviously, is Nickelback. Yes. But this is when they begin their terrifying reign. Yeah. As Nickelback band. We all know and love the terrorized America. Michelle Branch coming up with everywhere. Oh, nice. Some great stuff. So like we're not, uh, public sparks is here. It's bad news. Uh, the music charts are starting to become like the bad in the way that the late 90s were bad into becoming bad in the way that the early 2000s were bad. Oh, yeah. The shift is happening. The shift. This is, they didn't have a word for it. The vibe is shifting. Uh, we're, you know, we're still dealing with music that was recorded pre 9/11. Right. So like things aren't really truly bad yet. Um, other cultural products, um, in New in theaters. Serendipity was new last week. Oh, the romantic comedy, uh, for the, that makes you go to the bad dessert place in Manhattan. Oh, to get the very expensive, uh, cold, hot chocolate or whatever. It's the sort of restaurant where you can get like a Sunday covered in like flakes of gold for $1,000. Oh, they made a, they made a movie out of the restaurant, which is pretty stupid. So it's weird to think that cause it's such a thing still in the last decade, even of New York City and decade before that when the internet drove these kind of like meme restaurants. Uh huh. But it's weird to think that they would make movies about New York cause it wasn't a big city. It was the big city and there was like, I don't know how many serendipities there were when they made the film serendipity. Sure. But by the time that I moved to Manhattan in 2008, there was like seven serendipities at that point. And they were like, it was like serendipity one, two, three, et cetera. Uh, probably the most exciting thing, the only like non cursed cultural item I could find is that we're in the second week of Mulholland Drive being in theaters. Neat. David Lynch's fucking masterpiece, in my opinion. So yeah, I remember seeing that and when I was looking through some of the top things and I'm like, wow, I can't believe this is top. And it was like, oh, if you limit it literally to like this one day and it was like weighing it against how many theaters it was in, it was nowhere near the top. Yeah, like it is number 15 theaters this week with a gross of $822,000, which is up 976% from its previous week's gross. Does it say how many theaters it was in? It was currently in 66 theaters. So not wide. Yeah. Not yet. Poor thing. I don't know when it gets wide. Um, still, still kicking around our friend. Oh, Corey Romano is its first week here. We talked about it last week, but I think we- Oh, I jumped the gun. We better jump the gun on quirky, but it's okay. The Princess Diaries still kicking around. American Pie II. My favorite movie, Rat Race. Oh, yes. I liked Rat Race. Yeah. Rat Race? Good. I think history will be kind to the film. Rat Race. We are somehow in the 22nd week of Mulholland Rouge being in theaters, which is crazy. Um. I also did open a latch on real quick. You said Princess Diaries. Is that like the Disney movie? Yes. Yeah. The Anne Hathaway. Turns out she's a princess. Yes. Okay. My sister loved that movie. Yeah. It's pretty good. It's got Julie Andrews in it also. Um, as like the queen of whatever the fuck country. Nope. Maybe she runs the castle. I can't remember. I've seen that movie on the sequel. They're pretty good. Pretty good. So that's movies and TV. Nothing fancy. Friends the West Wing E.R. Law and Order. Oh boy. Everybody loves writing. Now we're into the real. I'm trying not to go into like editing at these episodes and reliving them. Yeah. But just the idea that they made that non-canonical 9/11 episode. It's so funny. It's. Um. Still there's some, this is a, you really start to see the beginnings of a weird reality television actually. Number 28 in the television rankings is The Weakest Link. Okay. Yeah. The adaptation of the British show and then something called Surviving Gilligan. Now hold on. The Weakest Link was the one with the mean host. Yes. She would insult people. Yeah. I feel like that was on Sundays and we would catch that at the grandparents after supper. Yes. I'm sorry. Surviving Gilligan was, I'm confusing what something else was a documentary. Okay. Sorry. But like, um, you know, I feel like The Weakest Link and who wants to be a millionaire and all these things were like the beginning of. Yeah. We were like, there were game shows obviously, but they were like, something more. Something more. Yeah. Almost to like, it's not scheduled viewing, Destiny. Yeah. Like appointment television. The television. 'Cause we did watch Millionaire and then I think that's also kind of how we got to Weakest Link. Yeah. What is, sorry. I'm just seeing something in the, in the, in the ratings here. It is called 60 Minutes 2, which I think is the 60 Minutes. They aired on Wednesdays. Um, I don't know if they still do that. 'Cause I don't watch CBS, but that they, they sat down one day. They're like, we want to do more. And they're like, we've announced, we, but we called it 60 Minutes. We sequel. We called it 60 Minutes. How can we add more to it? 60 Minutes 2. The long awaited sequel to the show 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes. 60 Minutes 2. Like 61 Minutes. 61. Um, so that's, that's our, that's our life here. That's culture. That's what it was. That's what it was like to be alive. Still in our houses, not shopping, watching. Yeah. We're terrified. We will not go to the Centralia, Kansas, uh, Brookstone, or the Taco Bell. Such a shame. Uh, unless, of course, George Bush wants us to go there. And then I'm going to go there and bravely. Yeah, once he tells us. Talk to us about, uh, the, the episode of Star Trek Enterprise. Yeah, let's talk about Star Trek because there's actually stuff to talk about. Yeah. Genuinely this week. Yeah. Um, yeah. Like, uh, maybe the first truly interesting episode of the show. Yes, that you could see a very good similar plot on the original series, the Enterprise. Yeah. It felt like a pretty good Voyager episode. Yeah. Like. So buckle in because we get right away naked archer showering. Yeah. Um. With some incredible CGI work. And at first I was just like, is this just a fun silly little joke for the intro? Yeah. Is that all they're doing here? Are we doing cold opens? Like a sitcom? It's just like a little life on a Star Trek and get a little silly sometimes. Life on a Star Trek. That's what I call the shit. But I love it. I call it a Star Trek. Yeah. I mean, they're on. In a lot of ways, they're on a Star Trek. Yeah. Why doesn't he want to ever say that? Point that out. I believe, I feel like someone says it at one point. What's his name? Like, okay. I keep wanting to say Zephoth people rocks. That's not his name. Fucking. Is that from Cochran? Is that from Cochran? In, uh, fucking, uh, the movie verse content. I think he says, you must be on some kind of Star Trek. I'm not joking. I think he says it. I really watched it. How would I have not been like losing my mind over that? Oh man. Like, I think he's the first person in Star Trek canon to say the word Star Trek. Good. He deserves it. And then we get right back to a scene that they, I feel like they keep drawing on this well of, to pull doesn't like human food. And to pull eats weird and like, I don't know. But it's just to get to another glitch going on in the enterprise, which is, it's a pull just wants a LaCroix and tries to get some. It makes sludge. And it makes this black sludge. And they just, the only thing is that you have a shower stops working. Oh. And the, when the water starts floating everywhere. Like some of the worst like screensaver ass CGI I've ever seen. Sure. But an incredible thing happens is the water's going everywhere, but the shower is still pointing downwards. So the water coming into the shower is going down and then floating away. Oh, okay. Okay. And I'm like, I feel, I feel like you should have just turned the shower and the scene off and have the CGI water go all over the place. Yeah, I can. That's what I would have done. Yeah. If I were effects directing the episode. There was something funny about the fact that it was just like, oh, I've been an Airbnb with that shower for a second. Yeah. But the, so okay. We get to the two people black goosene and it turns out in, I think one of the first, again, scenes where I'm like, yeah, this is some good start track. Yeah. Is that like trying to figure out what, what is going on vis-a-vis the like ship that's following them and their way what's basically like blow up our engines and see if something appears in the exhaust. Yeah. And they try that out. It works. They start rolling coal in space. Yeah. To see what's going on back there. They find the ship, they ask them what's going on, their ship engines broken. So they get right to it. Trip has got to go over there, but he's got to do a three hour compression first. Three compression. Yeah. And this is another thing I just really generally like about this episode, which is these are aliens that are different and require you to like adapt to their environment. And alien baby. They are alien. Their ship is weird inside. It is weird inside. It has grass growing on the floor and walls. Yeah. Uh, it, it, they also, okay, they give them the like, to build up to like how weird it is. The decompression chamber is like scary and he's very nervous and they gas them. It looks like they're gas again. They're gas again. And they're like, and they're like, and they're like, our quarter keeps going over. It's like, Hey, man, breathe normal. Just breathe in the gas. And he's like, it hurts and like, it'll stop hurting if you keep doing it. Right. Right. Which is horrifying. Yeah. Just to be told this and, and you don't know how trustworthy these aliens are. Yeah. And I do remember watching this the first time. I didn't really know where this was going to go as far as like, are these a threat these aliens and it definitely plays it that way. Yeah. So he gets on and they start doing another thing I like where the, the camera is like wobbling and the voice, the voices are getting slowed down to like actually give us the perception. This is disorienting and hard to adapt to. Yeah. The ship is weird. It's weird in there. It's strange. It's kind of. It's a wacky atmosphere inside of it. I thought it, I actually wrote down it first. I thought it was a shag carpet, but they do explain. It's literally grass. I mean, there's probably physically a shag carpet. It probably was. I don't know. It didn't look much like turf. So. Yeah. Well, they didn't have the real turf yet. Turf back then. Was like concrete. Basically, like it was not. Astro turf was like not pleasant to feel, it did not feel good. I didn't like many sports. So the real grass or whatever like came about like the mid 2000s, I feel fake grass. The real fake grass. That's like the nice turf. So the spaceship. Yeah. It looks very different from any other we've seen grass on the floor and walls, just tubes hanging everywhere. Oh, we also see I just not really ever explained, but a window, aquarium full of eels. Yeah. That was cool. They're just eels. They're just the ships eel. The eel tank. I mean, listen, Star Trek ships have a fucking whale tank on them. I know. I liked it. It wasn't explained. It wasn't explained. The aliens also look pretty alien. It's like more prosthetics than usual. Yeah. We have the trademark ridges, but at least we also have a full like scaly skin. Like a skin thing, they got like weird eyes, like there's more, there's like a small, they managed, they did some design work on the ship and the aliens to make them feel like they are different. A greater degree alien than almost any other typical Star Trek alien. Yes, which is why, of course, you never see them ever again. Of course. And why they've never been like the problem with the prequel things that you can't go and insert these guys into other scenes, unless you're insane. So like, yeah, we met these aliens like on our first ever trip. And then never saw them again. Well, okay. They're weird. We get to it. They have some high tech stuff. Yeah. But they're also a little clueless. Sometimes. Yes. Like, yes. They're like, all right, shit broke and broke your ship. And we don't know how to fix it. And can you having never ever seen this engine before fix it for us? Yeah. So he's always nice to have a man around. So he tried, he just insists, I'm going to fix it right now. You're telling me to sleep. I don't care. He tries to fix it. Yeah. He's getting really panicky, I'm feverish. He calls his archer dad and is like, let me go home. But he orders him to nap. He naps and he wakes up and he's fine. Yes. What we get from there is kind of like what this episode is really focused on. Which is his relationship with the female, I guess, in this alien species. We'll get to that. And they pretty quickly fix the engine. And so we're on to what I was kind of hinting at, their advanced holographic room. Yeah. And of course, this is a huge thing in TNG. And I guess in all the all the 90s episodes series, but it was not a thing in the original Star Trek. Like, it is a very advanced technology and kind of inexplicable that this little mystery aliens have it and never appear. Yeah. Well, it's fine. I don't think too hard about it now. And in the hologram room, they, she shows off her sort of hollow deck, a sort of hollow gram deck. We see her home city and then they get right off to a rowboat for some reason. She's like, let me show you my boat. Let me show my boat. Um, kind of get a little date like. Yeah. It becomes very, very date like on the boat and she touches his face. Right. And a little, it makes a little sparky and they, oh, yes, it gets very sensual with the little very sensual very quickly. Oh, because I, I, I didn't mention it because she's feeding him jelly water and I love the little detail. She just like, we were trying to make you water. This is the best we could do. Yeah. And she's got a weird bowl full of jelly and I'm like, again, they're very advanced, but they have a hard time making liquid water. Okay. And then of course we naturally immediately go to a boat in a lake of water. Hologram water. Okay. Don't think too hard about it. They also recently, uh, about, there's like four months ago now me and my partner, Jaya, we're in Japan and our first day there, it was very hot out and we stopped at a, there's like soda machines in like every corner. We stopped at a soda machine to get some water. And the water that Jaya got was jelly in the bottle and it was incredible. So I'm just, I'm imagining, I, I like experientially, I know what's happened to trip, which is like jelly water kicks ass. Yeah. I guess it's making him a little horny. Well, but every time she feeds in one of these jelly cubes, you know, given a little jolt, uh, in this very, it's very also just a sensual way to give somebody jelly cubes, but oh yeah. I mean, like do not have forks on your planet to fix is he so weak he can't feed himself, but you know, whatever. Don't think about it. So it really escalates on the boat when she's like, I want to play a game. And again, there's never, it's not like, I shouldn't have given it that come hither attitude. It's just like, you want to play a game and yeah, a norm of really, we are definitely what I would describe as a game. You know, when you, when you're like, Hey Clayton, do you want to play a game? And you're like, yeah, I love board games. Awesome. I've got a weird nineties dish full of goo and you put your hands in the goo and I put my hands in the goo. And then that means I can see your memories. You know what game? Yeah. Game is like a game where we read each other's minds. Yeah. I was under the impression of game is when you put little pips on a board and you guess what color is there. So by the way, this is how we make each other bright. That's right. But I'm not going to mention that part of it because it's not important. No, no, but in the, in this revealing of what's going on here to others minds, he says about the alien, you find me attractive. Yeah. So again, they're being very clear and she says, you like it when other people find you attractive, don't you, which is like the horniest fucking thing to say in this scenario. Yeah, like not even though like you find me attractive, but like, yeah, it's, it's definitely communicating. Like, I think it's, it's actually doing a pretty good job here of yeah, they, they weirdly had pretty good chemistry. Like you do forget for a moment that she looked, she looked like a fish and that she did describe this as a game. But the way it escalates in this way, it's, it is like it's, I, I kind of like how again, it's adding to this. They are this different. They can accept that maybe the reason it's, she doesn't say this as they just think it's very typical. Of course, you'd know that sticking your hand in the goo is sure. Yeah. I mean, I guess it is a game and as much as many people refer to a lot of sex as play. Yeah. Yeah. You can get there with that. Yeah. But also like she mentioned something about like how like their species has like a sensor, a sensory thing where you can like sense other people's thoughts. Right. And she's like, hey, without whatever the, the, the flubody organ that we have, like, how do you know what other people are thinking? He's like, uh, by the right, the words and actions and just, it's wild. Yeah, we get by. And I guess you're right. That then like, take your hands in the goop is why she's like, we'll do this and see what it feels like. So you don't need the goop if you do it goopless. It feels like her. She's like, our side of the goop, but you'd, and it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. They're like full of water. It's fine. Um, so he's done. He goes back home to a ship and we get a scene for Malcolm and him just like, it would be so cool if there was a deck with holograms, yes, imagine what we could get up to on such a hollow deck and then, and then trip media was like, yeah, but I don't know how well it would be at making people, which like their immediate first thought is like using it to have sex. Yes. They definitely. Which to be straight there to be fair, you know, T and G doesn't really broach that too much, but these days, not a voyager is like, this is for sex. This is for sex. What we do with it is for sex. Of course it is. Unless we want to write Geordia terrible plot line. Oh my God. Um, it's not even, that's like, that's not even sex, it's like in cell longing. I know. Oh. Oh. So we get to, uh, in this conversation, you notice this something, uh, somewhat bomb punish. That was wrist. Yeah, he goes to the doctor and we get to the, again, the other other, the doctor. My man. He's here. My man flocks. He flocks his hair. Well, real real plot, which is trip is pregnant. Yeah. A thing that you find out 26 minutes into the episode, but like it gets through a lot of episode before it's like, yeah, I was surprised. I had a memory of it becoming like the first 10 minutes. Yeah, exactly. But no, they draw out what the title is really about, which is that is, that bump is a nipple and, uh, you sir are pregnant. Congratulations, as he says. And then they say some confusing stuff where they're like, oh, all the genetic material is from the mother. Yes. And the males carry the baby. Yeah. And I was like, would you've just described is so like male and female quotes, right? If we're talking about like sex in nature, right, for reproduction. That's not what that, it can't possibly be that. Yeah. Like what you mean is that like anyone can carry the material and that she's the father. Mm hmm. And like gender clearly doesn't, sex doesn't even function the way that we think it does with the species, but the episode instead is like, it makes Tucker start acting like a lady. I know. And I was like, of course, that's where they go because the idea that like there might be some complex thoughts to have about gender is not a show, a thing the show is going to do in, well, that will upset John Cute Rock. Yeah, exactly. Um, but yeah, so we get the like, don't worry. It's not yours, yours, basically, um, but you basically had an experience with like a nicer version of the face hugger from alien where you're just like gestating this thing. But I actually really kind of like to polls, um, snarkiness in this. She's like, you were there three days and couldn't restrain yourself. She later says, you could have met her holographic parents first. I believe that's what most species do or some something. And then, uh, one thing a diplomat learns is not to stick their fingers where they don't belong. That's like, uh, where is this to pull Ben? Yeah, like she gets, yeah, she's got some, she got some dunks ready to go. We get him like promising like, don't tell anyone about this. Yeah. Like he's too embarrassed, uh, and Archer does a, like a smirk of like, don't worry. I won't tell him. And then he's like, don't tell anyone now. Where's my mumu to wear for the rest of this episode? So he's getting, you know, paranoid about people looking in them, weird and, um, he's getting really hungry, um, he snaps at one of the engineers for like someone could hurt their fingers. Yeah. Like in this one little crevasse in the engine room for the OSHA violation for the OSHA violation. Which I was like, I did not remember that, but exactly what we're saying. They're like, oh, he's getting emotional. Yeah. He's got lady hormones despite him being described by flocks as the father. It's fine. It's fine. Whatever. Whatever. Yeah. And then so he's immediately paranoid that to pull is the one who's blabbed. Yes. Um, he keeps growing nipples and he finds out that, you know, we might not find these. Oh, I, we never said the name of them. The zerilians. The zerilians. It was also very confusing. Is that one of the zerilians was named Trinnall and that's really close to to Paul. Yeah. Like you're in, guys, you're in charge of the names. You can pick them. It's not like you were out with your friend John and met a guy named Jake and like you're not in control of that. It's like you wrote the name Trinnall down and then you're like, we're in a scene where we're going to say Trinnall into Paul a bunch of times. Great stuff. They're worried. They're not going to find them. You might have to take that you carry this, uh, this baby to term and what comes after. Oh no. Who knows? To which he responds, uh, I never had any intention of becoming a working mother. He's, he's really freaking out here about post natal care and, and, and all these things. But again, okay, we keep getting these things about like, congratulations, you're the first interspecies pregnancy involving a human. Yeah. Like on the bright side. Pretty cool. So to escalate this, and I think again, kind of a good way, fun way, they find the, they think they fund their zerilians, but they actually find a clean up and battle cruiser. Yeah. And I'll admit, I liked seeing the old classic, you know, battle cruiser. Yeah, same. It was, it was a neat thing. It was like, yeah, we're in the universe now. This is just, you know, what could happen. And of course, the zerilians are in the Klingons wake. The Klingons are mad at everyone. They're mad at the enterprise first where they shoot and they're mad once they discover the zerilians are there because Archer really thought you could talk to them about this. Yeah. And they're like, don't call me, don't ever talk to me. Don't speak to me. Lose this number. We're Klingons. We don't want to speak to you. Yeah. We barely want to speak to each other. To pull saves the day with some diplomacy. Yeah. Call back to the first, you know, she explains like, did you see the first episode of the series? Yeah. It's all about Klingons. She reminds the Klingons and the viewer that probably, of the entire plot of the first episode of the show, which I, of course, already forgotten because they really didn't care about that plot and did a ton of other things before they got to that plot. And they're like, all Klingons, oh, this one man, and he's like, fine, I will do you a favor to not kill you. But what's great is that that's not still quite enough to get what they want. So Tucker has to get in there and be like, they got a sweet hologram. You might like that. Yeah. And imagine the kind of sex you could be having. And that's still not enough. So they're like, we have a, you know, there's a, there's a kid involved and they laugh at him and they're like, you got one of their females pregnant. And he shows the prosthetic, which I guess this is maybe only the second time we've seen it. This, this is the first time they keep it. It's under a moon mood like the whole time. Yeah. Okay. This is the big reveal. And it's definitely more alien than I think they, I felt like they've been implying. Yeah. It looks wacky. But then they laugh at him because he's pretty, the Klingons understand this. It's very funny that this man is pregnant. Yeah. Every, every single alien species in the universe has the same conception of gender as human beings from the 1960s, which I think is cool. Yeah. They make the trade, the, the Klingons say the deaths repaid. And that's pretty much it, except, oh, we had to get the line at the very end. Well, they had to get the baby out of talkers. Oh, sorry. They, they, they kind of breeze through that. They're like, they're like, oh, we can, it's still removable. Yeah. No worries. And we'll live just fine. Yeah. Thank you. I take it out. Yeah. It was a funny thing is, as I saw, I went to the TV tropes for this episode and they had to point out that this still does the like, good girls don't get abortions thing, where he is consistently like, I'll only get rid of this thing if it won't hurt it. Yeah. They got to have that trope in there. I have to, and again, we are, we are appeasing at the, we're at the shrine of John truck. Mm hmm. You cannot turn him off the show. No. Like he is, yeah, he's at the sharper image. He's buying the little, the little television that they use to the handheld television. Getting upgrade. You can handle television. He's watching it. He's at the Cinnabon. Doing a shopping. Doing a shopping to defeat the Taliban. And if there's an abortion, you know, he's going to switch it to, I don't know, football. If, if a space Kentucky in a dude gets, gets an abortion, that's right. He's not going to watch it anymore. But to pull has to say, this is the first recorded male being pregnant, which at the time was not true, but no, they don't, they, they avoided at least being somewhat declarative by having that early thing about like, you're the first inner species pregnancy. Yes. But they got the last line in the show has to be like the first pregnant male. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, here's the thing. I feel like this show out of all the tracks is like so committed to not being like, have any like progressive ideals that I'm sort of like, whatever on it, but it's also like, I think even at the time, even if it was next gen, I think they would have said the same thing. I think that's fair. I think it is, I think it's easy to forget the sort of like massively sort of queer phobic milieu of the time. And even things that were like ostensibly like progressive, all it was was like, maybe you shouldn't murder gay people. Yeah. The idea of a trans person was like, outside the scope of even what would be considered a thing that you could even talk about outside of like a sex worker being killed in SV or something. Yeah. So like the idea of them like having to explain that on the show would be just like unheard of. Yeah. So I'm not, I'm not faulting the show for like the atmosphere we all lived in at the time. Sure. But also stupid and wrong. This is what we consider a good episode of the show. That was a good, that was the first much, much like, you know what, almost an identical fashion as, as, as Tripp was the first ever man to get pregnant, this was the first ever good episode of Enterprise in as much as it really, it kind of wasn't. But I'm saying that because that's, that's what I got because we've had to watch for real bottom of the barrel, real clunkers are like looking forward to this one. I know. And I mean, it, it didn't like disappoint me on that respect. Yeah. Like it definitely again had some things to chew in, but we're probably, we're back in the wilds I think until we know that Shran episode is coming. I'm saying we got, we're, we are two episodes from our friend, Shran. All right. Oh, next week is a weird one. Oh, baby. Okay. I'll like that foreshadowing. Next one is weird. At least it's a really, really, really strange one that is directed by LaVar Burton. Oh, I love that they, that was the one way it felt like they would bring in old characters is let them direct an episode. I love this. Yeah. And it's, but like the way they met, they let Bill Shattner direct the movie about finding and killing God or finding and arguing with God and singing row, row, row, your boat around a campfire. Yeah. Let actors direct. Yeah. Yeah. TV's episodes at least. But yeah, this has been another episode. See you in another two weeks. Bye. a. (light music)