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| Sure he's a nutter, but Sarah Connor kicked his arse. | Good view of the back of Picard's head. | I like... armadillos! | Any relevance? |
| (more images below) | |||
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| Sure he's a nutter, but Sarah Connor kicked his arse. | Good view of the back of Picard's head. | I like... armadillos! | Any relevance? |
| (more images below) | |||
Overview: The Enterprise becomes enveloped by a void in space where the crew are tested by a powerful alien presence.
Writer: Jack B. Sowards
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Anon2: Yeah, and there was a guy with a skull.
Anon: This all had very little relation to the rest of the episode.
Anon2: It had a bit. There was a bit where Riker and Worf were on the Yamato where Riker goes, "At ease" or something like that. Then the other one who's opposite says it too. Other than that the relevance was fuck all.
Anon: Tell us about the card-count.
Anon2: Two apiece according to this.
Anon: We got the USS Yamato, Nagilum and...
Anon2: What did I get? Oh, the proper Auto-Destruct Sequence that we thought we got in a previous episode.
Anon: Yeah, we thought we saw it in the Bynars' episode but actually this was the proper one.
Anon2: Yeah, the guy that played Nagilum, Earl Boen, was the guy from Terminator 2 that ran the mental hospital where Sarah Connor was.
Anon: Bloody hell. I might remember that. Earl Boen, eh?
Anon2: Yeah. Was that the one where she has the thing stuck in his neck? The syringe of bleach?
Anon: Yeah I think so. I think it's that guy.
Anon2: Right, what can we say about this episode?
Anon: Well, we can say... was Geordi actually in it?
Anon2: Yeah, he came to the bridge. He couldn't understand why they weren't going anywhere. What was the crux of all this? This episode was about experimentation - whether it's right.
Anon: It's asking the question, if you're told that half your crew is going to die, do you kill everyone just to prevent someone from doing that.
Anon2: Well, actually no. When Riker and Worf were on the Yamato, they had a chance to leave them as well. It's about doing the right thing. Is it the right choice to do these things? People were being experimented on and they felt like rats in a maze. It was kind of like, in a way they were saying, "What would you sacrifice for knowledge? Is it fair to sacrifice beings for experiments?" I have a personal view on this and I'm not going to share it with you.
Anon: Nagilum is defined as the "absence of everything" which I take to meaning the same thing as Roy Keane's managerial skills.
Anon2: Well, yes. Roy Keane wanks his dog.
Anon: Apparently it's official.
Anon2: It was in The Sun!
Anon: Yeah. At the end of the day you have to believe everything you read in The Sun. Rupert Murdoch's always right.
Anon2: He wanks his dog, Keano!
Anon: With the amount of money I give to Rupert Murdoch every month through Sky TV, it's tragic. Nagilum also asks the crew to demonstrate the act of procreation.
Anon2: Having a fuck.
Anon: Yeah. If it wasn't for the fact that the only woman in the episode was Dr. Pulaski, it might have been worth watching.
Anon2: The thing is, Nagilum goes, "You're different from everyone else." He singles out Pulaski, but Troi was there too. I'd have been quite happy for Troi to get her tits out and have a fuck. I'm a little less inclined to see Pulaski have a fuck, frankly. Oh, and there was a proper good redshirt death too.
Anon: Pascal, I think his name was.
Anon2: Yeah, Pascal. He sounds French.
(Apparently the character was named Haskell. So we're deaf. So be it.
Anon: There was also the return of the one-button computer screen, which is actually smaller than my laptop.
Anon2: Well, the thing is they have this massive viewscreen on the bridge, a massive widescreen TV. I don't know, what is the desired size for a screen? 19 inches, 21 inches? I don't know.
Anon: Mine's a 17 inch, I think.
Anon2: Well, your average laptop for years was a 15 inch, wasn't it? At the end of the day, for this computer to be a personal thing, there has to be a minimum size.
Anon: Okay, keep on talking. I'm going for a piss.
(Anon leaves)
Anon2: Okay, I'm going to fuck with his head. I'm going to do a mad commentary while he's gone. It might have some semblance of normality, we'll see. There'll be something really bad for him to transcribe. Zim job nob lob quelch sib bla prok niob nab geb glib. Transcribe that, you cunt! (fart noise) Okay, so basically this was better than the last episode I'd say. My colleague is having a piss, so he's got no comment on that. Hey! Was it better than the last episode?
(Anon returns)
Anon: Yeah, I think so because it's not as cliched. It's trying to do some science-fiction.
Anon2: I think this goes back to what Roddenberry wanted people to think about. He wanted people to think about what they were doing, and what humanity really is. I think it's quite a good episode for that.
Anon: Even so, it does demonstrate how much the series gets better after Roddenberry dies.
Anon2: He's not died at this stage, has he?
Anon: No, he dies between seasons 3 and 4, I think.
Anon2: Ah, okay.
Anon: But he's stopped writing by this stage. When Roddenberry dies, it starts to get into some level of story arcs.
Anon2: Was he not keen on story arcs? The only story arcs I can think of were fairly sparse. There was The Borg one.
Anon: That hasn't even started yet.
Anon2: Yeah, as far as Next Gen goes, they didn't have many. They had Q, The Borg, Ferengi, Rommies. But it's not like DS9.
Anon: No, it's not like DS9 that had loads of them.
Anon2: And we don't have to mention the "V" word.
Anon: No that was shocking. Never install the "V Chip."
Anon2: Right, the only other thing I pointed out was that O'Brien turns up, and he's just sort of there.
Anon: He gets called "Lieutenant" in this episode.
Anon2: Does he? I didn't notice that. Essentially, O'Brien's just the transporter chief. Now, bear in mind that this starship is probably spending 99.9% of its time going from one place to another, where the transporter chief isn't required. What does he do the rest of the time? Does he tug on his nads or what? I probably would. I'd be bored stiff and having a wank. Maybe two a day. At least two a day. Nah, three a day in fact. Morning, noon and night.
Anon: Every day?!
Anon2: Yeah, every day. You've got to keep them clean.
Anon: Empty your sack. Well, there's not much more to say about this episode. I though it was better than the last episode. Still a bit ropey though.
Anon2: Yeah, but you have to ask the question, how can you define how good an episode is? By the nature of what it's trying to say? By the action? By the acting? There's different aspects.
Anon: I try to define it by enjoyability.
Anon2: This episode just toddled along.
Anon: Still, it was significantly better than Angel One and When The Bough Breaks. One of the good things about going through these episodes is that for some of these episodes, I will never have any reason to watch them again in the rest of my life and I'll be quite thankful for that fact.
Anon2: Well, before we started doing this, we decided it a while before. I didn't think there's going to be some shit episodes and some great episodes. I just wanted to watch Trek again. I've been surprised actually, about how critical I've been, but that's only because we're doing these commentaries. If we were just watching them and not doing the commentaries, I don't think I'd have been half as critical.
Anon: At the same time, though, we may have started watching an episode and said, "This one's shit" and gone onto the next one. This is giving us a purpose to watching some of the ropey episodes.
Anon2: Yeah. These commentaries, you can argue they're a bit tongue in cheek.
Anon: They keep us awake though, don't they.
Anon2: Yeah, they keep us awake. They don't keep Bowdy awake though! He snoozed after 5 minutes of the two episodes he did.
Anon: Anyway, Bowdy, you're still welcome back any time. Bring on A Matter of Honor or The Measure of a Man.
Anon2: Yeah, but no drinking!
Anon: Of course, we never drink while we're watching these(!) We're stone cold sober drinking bottles of rum. What's the point of this episode title, anyway? Is it just some arty-farty bullshit? They couldn't think of a good title, so they came up with this?
Anon2: No, this was actually an animal experimentation reference. You can experiment on an animal, but it can't tell you whether it wasnts to be experimented on.
Anon: Okay.
Anon2: That's where it stems from. That's why I didn't comment on that. This is why ethics committees exist for animal experimentation.
Anon: They also exist for Film Studies, randomly enough.
Anon2: Yeah, it's something important. An animal can't tell you if it wants to be experimented on. You might do it if you're in that line of work, though.
Anon: So, the next episode is Elementary, Dear Data.
Anon2: I'm probably going to enjoy that.
Anon: Yeah, comparatively it should be fun.
Anon2: I do enjoy Data-specific episodes. The guy, he does reasonable acting.
Anon: What, Brent?
Anon2: Yeah, Brent Spiner.
Anon: He's even good in Independence Day. Or in the South Park movie as Conan O'Brien.
Anon2: He's one of those actors that doesn't take himself too seriously. The way he's approached Data... it's a difficult role to pull off episode after episode... he really keeps the character alive.
Anon: Sure. Leonard Nimoy basically went through a breakdown when playing Spock. From being so emotionless all the time. Anyway, next one is Elementary, Dear Data. We'll be seeing you soon.
Anon2: Yeah, we might have a curry inbetween.
Anon: Oh yeah!
- Anon & Anon2, 19-Sep-2009
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| Quality redshirt. | Fight! | We found it in the end. | Definitely very little relevance. |