We save everyone. Dom Bettinellli, Jimmy Akin, and Fr. Jason Tyler discuss this Prodigy episode, includng Wesley's self-sacrifice, how Gwyn and Dal are both maturing; and how Asencia and Ilthurian's future characters are shaped by their environment and choices.
Jimmy Akin Podcast
Brink (PRO) - The Secrets of Star Trek
The Secrets of Star Trek is brought to you by the Star Quest Production Network and is made possible by our many generous patrons. If you'd like to support the podcast, please visit sqpn.com/give. You're listening to the Secrets of Star Trek, where we discuss the hidden layers and deeper meanings on all of the Star Trek TV series, movies, and more. And today we're discussing the next episode of Star Trek Prodigy, called "brink." I'm Dom Betanelli and joining me today on the panel are Jimmy Akin. Hey Jimmy. Howdy Dom. And Father Jason Tyler. Hey Father. Hello. Folks, be sure to share the podcast with your friends. That's what helps us grow this community, reach more listeners. It's by you liking and sharing and rating and reviewing and letting other people know that that helps a lot. So we really do appreciate it when you let others know about the show. And speaking about the shows to let people know about, I want to tell you about another show on the Star Quest Network that I'm sure you'll enjoy called "The Secrets of Stargate," which you can find wherever fine podcasts are found, or at sqpn.com/stargate. So we are here to talk about "brink," which is we're getting in the home stretch of season two of Prodigy. So Jimmy, can you give us a recap what happens in "brink." This week, we get a flashback showing how Asencia captured Wesley Crusher months ago. Meanwhile, back in the present, Janeway sends Gwen and the kids on an undercover mission to solemn. This is because Gwen knows solemn better than anyone else, and the kids are non-star fleet, so they won't technically be breaking the prime directive. They're supposed to get intel on Asencia's weapons technology, and Gwen insists that they also rescue her father, the diviner, Il Theron, who Asencia took captive last episode. When they get to the planet, they meet the present day version of Asencia, who is actually helping Il Theron lead an uprising on the planet, and she hates her older self and hopes she never grows into her. Good Asencia then reveals that Bad Asencia has Wesley Crusher in captivity, and that he's the source of her advanced tech. So Gwen has the team split up. She and her group go to save Wesley while Dahl and another group go to save Il Theron. Dahl's group busts Sil Theron and a bunch of Valnecott dignitaries off of prison transport, and they leave go to Asencia with the dignitaries to continue the rebellion. Meanwhile, Gwen's team breaks into where Wesley is being held, and they free him from Bad Asencia's mind control, mind reading, torture, whatever device. He's delighted that they show up, and he reveals that he got captured by Asencia deliberately so that she developed the wormhole technology they need to get the protostar back to Tarzlamora. He also reveals that in his plan, Il Theron will overthrow Asencia and lead solemn into a brighter future. Unfortunately, his mind is still too fritzed from the whatever device to get them back to Voyager with his spacetime powers. He then realizes that he's not looking at the full group of kids. They didn't stay together, as in never separating the way he expected, and this is not part of the plan. So the future is now uncertain, and he didn't know what's going to happen next. Things look up when they see Dahl's group and Il Theron approaching them, but they're being held captive by a bunch of robots and bad Asencia. She glutes that if it wasn't for Gwen's ill-fated rescue attempt, she would never have learned that Il Theron would overthrow her. So to prevent that, she points a gun at him to kill him. But Gwen signals Dahl, who tosses a portable transporter device to Wesley, who activates it. Dahl yells to to beam up and Il Theron and Wesley are beamed back to Voyager, where Wesley tells Janeway that the kids are in jeopardy, and he says, "We're all in danger, and I don't know what happens next." The end. Father, your impression of this one? I really enjoyed this. It doesn't have the dramatic space battle scenes that we saw in Ascension, but we do have the drama of characters being captured, and the whole issue of Wesley being captured intentionally. I thought it was an interesting take on things, because it shows, on the one hand, his foreknowledge and his power as a traveler. But then we see the limits of that. When our heroes split up, and this is just a variable he's basically not accounted for, he doesn't know what's going to happen next. It's always good when you don't know how the story's going to end. You can make it more exciting for the rest of us. Jimmy, how about you? Yeah, I enjoyed this one. I also very much appreciated that Wesley got deliberately captured. That's nice and timey-wimey. I got captured so she could develop the technology that you're going to need to pull this off. It also meant a notable sacrifice on Wesley's part, because that whatever device he's in is not fun. He's been undergoing torture in order to get the pieces on the chessboard that the kids are going to need to use. However, he also failed to clarify exactly what he meant when he told them to stay together, and that causes the problem he's in now. Ambiguous dialogue that can be interpreted more than one way by the kids and is to create new plot complications. I also like how Young Asensia is good, and she's going to have a key part play going forward. It's also nice that Young Ilthron is good, and so I like all that. I also like that Jamila, the actress who plays Asensia... Jamila Jamila? Yeah. It's nice that she gets to play a good version of her character, finally, after being a villain for so long. She's got that British accent, so that makes her even better villain, because in American shows and movies, British villains are always better. I'm not sure why, but we've settled on that in America. Yeah, I liked this one. It's different from the last one. Had some issues, we'll get into that. But in general, we advanced things pretty well. The whole Wesley Crusher plot is very doctor who very... It's the sort of thing the doctor would have done, which is deliberately get caught and tortured, and give the technology to the bad guy because the bad guy is going to create the means of his own demise. We've seen that over and over and over again. In fact, it was not the plot of the most recent season of the 15th Doctor. He basically let the good guy win to his own demise as a result. I don't think maybe wasn't let him win, but in any case, I mean, let the bad guy win, but I don't think it was... He let him win. In any case, it's very doctor-who-ish. I appreciate the homage to the doctor. One of the things that gets me with the premise of this episode, they have to send the kids in because they're not Starfleet, which... True. They're also kids. Right. But also, they kind of are. They've been serving on a Starfleet ship. They're in the Starfleet Prep Academy. It's such a legalistic distinction, and at this point, why does the Prime Directive even matter in the sense of Solomon's declared war on the Federation? Yeah. Dom, have you ever considered that the Prime Directive may be morally indefensible and completely impractical? Yes. We have discussed that, actually, on this show in the past. It's become, as we all know, it's become the prop device. It's a script device we use whenever we need to have a bit of drama that we can wield. It's kind of a bit silly and invoke it here, but it's become very silly in general. And it seems it wasn't part of the idea, though, that the Federation didn't want to be seen as the one starting the war. They didn't want to fire the first shot, maybe, by having some Starfleet commandos say go down and do what the kids ultimately wind up doing. Yeah, although the Rev-1, but then get fired the first shot with any cursor. That's right. Yeah. The logical issue. But you're right. The whole point is, is we need to get the kids on to Tar-on to Solom. Yeah. And so we just create an easy way in a 20 minute, 21 minute episode to get him down there. I get that, but- I like Jenny comes line when he thinks he's being captured. Starfleet disavows us. Very much impossible. Don't shoot Starfleet disavows us. I know that's great. That is, yeah, that was very subtle. It is interesting the opening where we see the flashback, because since in the last episode, we saw Wesley had been captured. They couldn't show us him get captured because that would have ruined the surprise in that episode. So now we flashback to him getting captured. And when I first saw this, I said, oh, wow, that a bit of hubris on Wesley's part to just show up and think that he's going to be fine. He'll be able to just march right in. And she captures him right off the bat. Wow, let's probably go before the fall. Yeah, a sensea is so this flashback, they give us a start date, but then they helpfully tell us several months ago, right? Like good, because I have no idea what the start dates are at this point. But a sensea is doing some kind of experiments with time because, you know, it's key to the situation. And she saw something that made her want to figure out how to use time more effectively. And she's having a home improvement moment where she wants more power. And then Wesley shows up and warns her off it. So she zaps him and takes him prisoner. But it's, you know, it's it does come across as, you know, Wesley's being a bit hubristic. But then it's all really just part of his plan. And so it drives out. Yeah, I'm glad that it was not him just being stupid and walking into a trap. So for as far as Voyager goes, you know, Jellico's now on board with the Sensi's time technology is now a greater threat than anything. So we've got to put the whole protostar back to Tarsal morthing on the shelf until we deal with a sensea and the time tech. So that so they send them off to after solemn and send them undercover, which is kind of weird because they're instantly recognizable. Like when they be like, I could get Gwen kind of blending in. Yeah. But the rest of them do not blend. Well, they don't, but they do give them an invisibility shield, which they say is like a portable cloaking device. And so they're supposed to stay under that. But of course, they're not gonna. Right? That wasn't doing by that one, because it doesn't mask sound. And like, there's this bubble traveling around. And like you would, you would bump into people would walk right into you. You know, they wouldn't they wouldn't know to avoid you. It's just. Yeah. But it was also like, again, I've said this last episode, checkups cloaking device, because you know that it has to fail at some point, so that they can be easy. You know, what would have been better is the cloaking device, the personal cloaking device that they had in Star Trek insurrection, where data is individually cloaked. Right. Yeah, which they had that technology by that time. No, so. But I mentioned before how Miguel resigns from Starfleet to join them so that you can, you know, not via the prime director by doing it, because then she gives the reasoning because Wesley said we need to stay together, which conveniently reminds us that Wesley told them all to stay together when they don't. So they, they, they do beam down and they encounter the young Asancia when they go to ill Thoron's house. I do like this. And you mentioned assuming in your overall question, this idea that the younger versions of our enemies from last season and the season two are the good guys that yeah, so youth and innocence go together and old Asian corruption go together. So what does that say about us? I'm still young at heart, but it is interesting to, you know, that people are not intrinsically evil or even intrinsically good in the sense of the, you know, that we only do. We are oriented to toward one of the other from our creation or that sort of thing, but that. Oh, so you're not a Calvinist. Exactly. So, but it's our choices and the circumstances we live through that guide us on a path. And so we see that, you know, Asancia of the, the young Asancia has not gone through the same things that the older Asancia has and made the same choices. It's not really of the bad Asancia is not really the victim of her circumstances, but she's made choices that have led her to become the way she is. And same thing with the diviner who made choices based on the circumstances he was in that led him to become who he was. And so I thought, I like that they're kind of playing that out here. That is a very good message to, I mean, I don't love message shows, but you don't, but it's an intrinsic message that they're showing here, which is that we are the products of our choices and our circumstances. And circumstances, that's right. I do like that. One thing that I like speaking of character choices is, and I mentioned this last episode, is Dao has grown remarkably. So he, in this episode, Gwen is team leader and he just take, he just takes a backseat and lets her run the show and does not try to force himself into situations. He respects her judgment. There's this moment where they've learned they're down there in part to get ill through on, and then they learn about Wesley. And it's like, we don't have time to sit to get both of them. So what are, which one are we going to save? And Gwen's solution is we split up and save them both. And Dao's like, okay, and she assigns him to lead one team. She takes the other team. I thought it was interesting that they, that she swapped who was, who was going to get which target, because you'd think she's most interested in her dad. And so she would lead the team to get ill through on. But instead, she assigns Dao to do that, which is, I think, good, so that you're not too close to the situation of the team you're on. You'll get better decision making that way. And it, which is, I don't, they didn't have her say this. They didn't explore why she did this. But it's better to have some degree of distance from the target that you're trying to rescue in order to think of the best way to rescue the target and not have your emotions competed, which would be a real mature and intelligent thing to do. Also, it's a big sign of her trust in West, in a Dao, that she assigns him to go get her dad. Yeah, they've really developed in their their connection between each other has really developed mature maturity. We've used that several times, but it is true. I'm really enjoying in this season better than I did last season, especially at this point in the season. I mean, last season was fine, but I really feel like this this season really has been better written. The characters are better, unless annoyed by the dumb things that they decide to do at this point, they're making mature decisions that are based on logic. Now, it turns out that Queen's decision here turns out not to work out because it's wrong at least fault. Right, right. And she's gonna, you know, take the blame on herself, but but it also is true. Sometimes you make the best decision you can with the understanding of the circumstances you're in at the time. And you do and you do you can and it's not really your fault. It's just the way it is. And that's kind of where she is in this. And I think that's fine. I do like that. At first, I thought we were gonna have a classic train heist, you know, where they have to board the train while it's, you know, going at speed. And we've seen this in many science fiction things, whether it's a firefly or Star Wars or whatever. But nope. In fact, it's surprisingly easy how they get either on off the train and the council members and rescue them. I was like, wow, that was surprisingly easy. What are they going to do now to pick up the rest of the time of the episode? And so we saw, but I thought that was an interesting decision to make to make to make that less of the plot. You know, we have these two, these two, the split plot. And then we just kind of kept that one quickly so we could concentrate on the other one. So I thought that was interesting. One thing that I thought was a bit problematic. I mean, it didn't ruin the show for me or anything, which I really enjoyed. But at the end, where, so they have this one personal site transporter device with them. Instead of giving one to each of the kids, right, which is dumb. And and and and that creates a moment where they split up the teams and Dallas like, we only have one transporter device. And she's like, Oh, we can hit your right home with Wesley because he's got those space time powers. And I thought, Oh, well, that's nice. You know, you know, it's still stupid that each kid doesn't have their own transporter as well as transporters for the targets they're getting. But didn't they say something though about only being able to use the transporter once without being detected. Yeah, but if they had multiple once the first one was used, the others would be I don't know. Yeah, it's still hard to still, even if even if they know how do they know where the other people are? Yeah, you know, if one kid beams up, okay, we just got a blip. But that didn't tell you where everybody is or how many there are. But then at the end, Gwen as as a sense, he has holding a gun on him and pointing the gun at ill throw on Gwen has this line that she uses to cryptically signal down to use the transporter device. And I'm thinking that line is way too cryptic. I'm afraid I don't remember what it was, but it I don't see how he could possibly have deduced through the transporter device to Wesley wait for him to activate it and then yell to to beam up. So it's kind of over complicated. Also, if this is like some unusual device, how do you know Wesley's even going to recognize it, you know, to activate it? And then there's the to beam up issue. And I've kind of thought about that. How does how is how is the automatic device going to know which to and why to. And that's that's my other question. But I can kind of get that based on the fact that they're they're surrounded by their enemies. And maybe you don't want to bring the enemies up to the ship with you. So you can't in unless you can stop and give a list of names. You know, still, I think this is a flaw in the writing because if there's an AI that's apparently determined and who to beam up, it ought to be able to identify who's who's who needs to be beamed up here. And even if you even if it just took all of the biological life forms, it will take a sense you up with you and you've got your enemy in your control. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, even if they're armed, you can, you know, the transport is usually disarmed. Yeah, people in the the weapons and that sort of stuff. Yeah, that was a bit of a fly. I was thinking the same thing to you like what why to why why send Wesley in ill thrown of all of all people? I mean, I get getting Wesley off the board so that a sense you can't continue to use him. Well, because she's about to kill ill, Theron, which will further cause damage to the timeline because Wesley says he needs to take over it after she falls from power. Sure. Okay, I get that. But not that yeah, but nobody else. That was yeah, I think that was a bit odd. I mean, the non diegetic reason is so that the kids are still stuck on the planet next episode. We got we got to solve that situation. That's true. That's true. You know, the other thing was Wesley's decision to give a sense. This information, this destructive information that allows her to build a this time tack and this fleet of ships purely to get her to develop the wormhole tech that they need to get to put a start at Tyros Almora, which will undo this whole timeline. Yeah. And it's like, it's that's bringsmanship. I mean, that is that is again, worthy of the doctor like one wrong step. And this goes wrong, which it has. It could potentially destroy this timeline, you know, destroy everything. Which maybe leads to yeah, this is as serious and dangerous as he said earlier in the earlier episode. And let's use. Oh, go ahead, Father. Well, he said earlier on something like basically all the other travelers had given up on this universe or whatever, right? That that's how bad the situation was. So I guess it's bad enough that he decides to take this really desperate move of getting himself captured and all the stuff that comes from that. Yeah, he's definitely, you know, he's doing what Mr Spock referred to as cowboy diplomacy here. But he there's a dialogue problem, which and dialogue problems are not a big deal because they can fix them with the line of dialogue if they chose to. But unless Wesley's played another mind game on us, he told us before there is only one timeline where we survive. There's one set of things that has to happen. He's looked at all the other possibilities and none of them work. And now we're not in that scenario. So we should be in a doomed situation at this point, either that or he was wrong about there being only one way to fix this. In fact, he says we're on the future is uncertain. I am lost. And so in a way, he's saying, this is one of the versions of the timeline that I didn't anticipate that I didn't see, which in a situation where you have every possible timeline from every possible decision in all of those intervening moments, I can't imagine how you would be able to see them all. But in this case, we have to wave a hand and accept it. But it is interesting, this whole like, I told you not to separate. I thought you meant team spirit. I thought that was funny. And yeah, I mean, well, if you meant like physically stay in the same place at all times. Yeah, never be out of each other's presence. That's what you should have said. Yeah, which they have been out of each other's presence last episode. They were all over the place. Exactly. So how would that if they had known that in taking it seriously, how would that have affected all the intervening actions that they took harder for the writers? Certainly would have made, you know, to be inside the story, it would have made them probably lose the battle against the ship last episode that maybe this was meant to be this way. See, any other notes on this one, Father? No, actually, as much as I enjoyed this, I did not take many notes. And so don't have anything else to add on this. I did enjoy, by the way, the puppetry of the guard that they knocked out that was kind of fun. But that was one thing I just thought of. Jimmy, how about you? Any other further notes on this one? The only thing I had was when they first beam down to the planet and they're walking around under the invisibility cloak, Jankham trips and falls on the ground. And he like trips on a rock and falls on the ground and like part of him pokes out of the invisibility shield and stuff and he gets back up. And that just struck me because I had, for the first time in 20 years, I actually, I was stepping over a barrier in a parking lot a few weeks ago and tripped and went down and, you know, braced myself with my hands, especially my right arm. And while my right arm was sore for, it's still a little sore. But man, it was sore for a week afterwards. And so as soon as I saw Jankham go down, it's like, oh, that can be very painful. But the two mitigating factors, one, he's a lot shorter than I am. And two, he's got a metal right arm. Comes in handy for all sorts of things. Yeah. And he's young and bounces back. We're old and we do not bounce anymore. So yes, thank you. All right. So that should do it for this time. We do want to take a moment now to thank our patrons to make it possible for us to create the secrets of Star Trek, including Lenny B, Rachel F, David K, Sean S, and Jason G. They're generous donations at SQPN.com/give make it possible for us to continue the suits of Star Trek and all the shows at Star Quest. And you can join them by visiting SQPN.com/give. So that's it from this for us this time. We would love to know what you think of break. You can comment on the show at SQPN.com/track or Facebook page Facebook.com/Starquistsmedia. Send an email to Trek@SQPN.com. Visit our Discord community at SQPN.com/discord or watch us on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/Starquistsmedia and leave a comment there after liking and subscribing. We'll be back next time when we'll be discussing the next episode of Prodigy Called Touch of Grey. Until then, Jimmy Yakin, thank you for joining me in sharing the secrets of Star Trek. Thank you and live long and prosper. Father Jason Tyler, thank you as well. Thanks, Dom. And once again, I'm Dom Betanelli. Thank you for listening to the Secrets of Star Trek on Star Quest. And remember, we save everyone. [MUSIC PLAYING]