Chad Kirchner (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Temporal Investigations Podcast. There's no theme song because this episode is jam-packed with Star Trek goodness. So

much so that I don't want to waste any time getting started. But I do need to introduce my guests first. we are going to do this because this is a this is for some reason

I don't know how we were able to manage to get this to work. There's probably a wormhole of of a bejor kind involved.

Erin Marquis (00:25)
Thank

Chad Kirchner (00:26)
Yes. Topical references. but we have seven time zones apart between our East Guest and our West Guest. I believe seven, maybe more. but coming to us all the way from the UK is Mr. Alex Goy, who is a automotive journalist, because these guys all are, content creator, and you may have seen

his work if you're not quite familiar maybe if you ever watched the carfection video series from back in the day excellent presentation excellent content x beautiful cinematography like genuinely top tier ace quality stuff i hope he's embarrassed by me expla talking about it that way

Alex (01:10)
I'm being

terribly British about this and going, oh no, don't be silly.

Chad Kirchner (01:13)
Yeah.

Alex (01:13)
But thank you very much, it's very kind, a pleasure to be here, sorry for living in a stupid time zone.

Chad Kirchner (01:18)
No, it's not the stupidest time zone.

James Riswick (01:20)
No, that's Newfoundland.

Alex (01:22)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (01:24)
Yes. Yes.

James Riswick (01:25)
Sorry, neutral land.

Chad Kirchner (01:27)
okay, we're just gonna throw this out there, 'cause James had to speak up. Now, from like again, like seven hours away, on the west coast of the United States. he's a Canadian by birth, but a American by current location.

Mr. James Wiswick. Sir Wiswick?

James Riswick (01:46)
Hello.

Chad Kirchner (01:46)
Wishwick? I could sound like a Sean Connery.

James Riswick (01:48)
No, it's it's reswick.

Chad Kirchner (01:52)
Who who in our little can we I ask everybody questions sort of beforehand, says that his favorite Star Trek series is Deep Space Nine. Alex also said his favorite series was Deep Space Nine. You're gonna notice a trend.

Alex (02:06)
think there's a theme coming.

Chad Kirchner (02:08)
You have a trend coming because returning to join us again is Ms. Aaron Markey, Detroit native, proponent of the Gordy Howe Bridge, and

Erin Marquis (02:19)
You

Chad Kirchner (02:21)
also a deep.

Welcome again, welcome back. Glad you're here.

Erin Marquis (02:25)
big time.

Glad to be here with you fellas. As always, the only

girl in the room full of automotive journalists. I'm used to it though.

Chad Kirchner (02:36)
I will

say, the more that I get to know all of you folks, the more I realize all of your partners are mostly into like Star Trek 2, which I think is is totally cool. that gives me

Alex (02:49)
On

my first date with my soon-to-be-wife, we came back to my house to watch Voyager. I think we kicked off halfway through. We were quite drunk and we thought, we're bonding over Star Trek, let's do that. It's great. I know, right? I know.

Chad Kirchner (02:56)
Like early Voyager, late Voyager was a new run of Voyager. Okay. Let's

Erin Marquis (03:04)
You old... You old romantic. My goodness.

Chad Kirchner (03:09)
Just just like Commander Chicote trying to woo

Alex (03:12)
you

Chad Kirchner (03:12)
seven of nine. what a bad relationship that was. So bad. And

Alex (03:16)
terrible. So bad.

James Riswick (03:18)
Always a good way to make yourself seem

very charismatic by bringing in Chicote in some way. And comparatively, you're gonna look good.

Chad Kirchner (03:25)
So so if

Alex (03:24)
Hahaha

Jonathan Gitlin (03:26)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (03:29)
Yeah, no, I have

Alex (03:29)
Yeah? Yeah? Fair.

Chad Kirchner (03:31)
it's it's hard to tell 'cause I have the lights off, but one of the Star Trek conventions I went to when I was quite young was in Cleveland and I have Robert Beltran's signature on both a t-shirt and a photo. So of all of the

Jonathan Gitlin (03:46)
That episode is

that episode is late enough that he just did not give a when you know.

Chad Kirchner (03:51)
No,

no, he didn't. I'm happy Seven found a more

Jonathan Gitlin (03:54)
Only it barely describes his acting.

Chad Kirchner (03:56)
I'm I'm I'm glad like one of the things I like about Picard is Seven got a I guess a redemption arc, I suppose.

Jonathan Gitlin (04:04)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (04:06)
would be the best way to describe it, where she's awesome. But I'm for not introducing my last person. He is an editor. I sometimes submit work to him. I need to follow up on an assignment I'm working on for him right now, for that for that matter.

he's an editor, automotive journalist, generally nice guy. I've gotta say that because he pays me.

Doctor Jonathan Gitlin, thank you for joining us. I I mentioned the PhDs in doctors when they're on here because I want it to sound like we have a very intelligent, well thought out podcast going on. When when

Andrew Thaler was on it's

Jonathan Gitlin (04:39)
Otherwise it just shows the viewer that anyone can get a PhD.

Chad Kirchner (04:43)
that's not entirely true. But when I had Andrew Thaler on here when we talked about he's an ocean, deep ocean guy and we talked about the one with the whales and I was like, I gotta mention you've got a PhD. It doesn't really matter

for what we're talking about, but like I'll have the educated podcast. Kinda like how Future Realm I had the most educated writers room when it came to like PhDs. Like this is gonna be that podcast for that. So

Aaron, last time we chatted, we talked about Deep Space Nine.

Erin Marquis (05:14)
Indeed.

Chad Kirchner (05:15)
in a very different kind of way, but in Deep Space Nine. Last week or last time this podcast aired, we talked about Starfleet Academy, which has the Deep Space Nine episode in the middle of it, where we ended up spending most of the episode talking about Deep Space Nine. So I figured it's finally time to sit and talk about Deep Space Nine. Yay! I know we're not gonna get all through this in one episode, listen, dear listener, but if you

are able to check out the video version on YouTube, you will see James is very well prepared for his Star Trek discussion. I'd show you my Star Trek uniform, it's hanging a little off camera, but he's got a deep space nine in the background. He should lead us off I feel like when did you sir when did you get into deep space nine? How did how did you when did you figure it out that the show was awesome and you wanted to watch it

James Riswick (06:04)
Well, I well, I guess I start ironically, I got into it because of s okay, so started watching Next Generation. Why did I start watching Next Generation? Fittingly, because of syndication. And that meant that it was on every day at six o'clock on Fox Buffalo, and I was able to watch it after school. I don't know why I started watching it. I just did. I really got into it. This probably would have been around the sixth.

season

Chad Kirchner (06:34)
Okay.

James Riswick (06:35)
of TNG or no it would have been fifth because I got into it and then the next year Deep Space Nine premiered and I was in it from the very beginning. So I watched every episode when it aired or shortly after having taped it beginning to end. Except for the Negus. First season the Negus I missed that one. That was the only one I missed. Took me years and before I would see it again or see it for the first time.

But I was there from the very beginning. I started the show so it was ninety three, so it would have been nine. And I was in the so I was a s right at the end of my sophomore year in high school. In that time I had moved from Canada to Indianapolis. I mean, this is like you know, the the profound years of growth and that shows in it for me. and and

Chad Kirchner (07:23)
So you s

James Riswick (07:24)
my my appreciation for it has only grown over time and yeah, it was it was, you know.

A a very

Chad Kirchner (07:31)
Well I mean

James Riswick (07:32)
big time show for me.

Chad Kirchner (07:34)
I mean it's objectively the best Star Trek series. Like, I think that we can have favorites. I think like Lower Decks gives a lot of mon you have Star Trek O Run for its money. I think Strange New Worlds can do that as well. But like I just think that it was at the very beginning of serialized television, which was weird and difficult and challenging for syndication. but like just had

talent and writing and the right mindset and just a kind of like this perfect storm of of of television kind of coming together. and yeah, I th I I I mean syndication I think is probably how we all have gotten into that. Alex, syndication in the UK, how did that work?

Alex (08:23)
well, it wasn't really syndication. So I got into it quite late, I think.

Jonathan Gitlin (08:27)
He's too young to know.

Alex (08:31)
So, but it used

Chad Kirchner (08:29)
it's like what twelve? Is that it?

Alex (08:34)
to be on BBC two twice a week. So I think it was Monday at 6pm and it was Tuesday at 6pm and Thursday at 6pm because Monday and Monday was Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Wednesday was The Simpsons and Friday was The Simpsons. So yeah, they, was Next Generation.

And then when the new ones started coming out, they'd sort of be slowly merged in. But when Voyager came out, there was a huge deal. They had this big kind of launch event on BBC two on a Sunday night, I think it was, and they showed Caretaker in its entirety. And was, was massive. But I kind of, got into it because it was, it was just, we had four channels and then five channels and we didn't have a satellite or anything like that at home.

So was like, that is the only way to get into it. And then obviously VHS has happened and things like that. But I never knew what series was what or what was going on. I knew all good things was the last Next Generation. And we always knew what the last ones were. But sometimes if they were between seasons or something like that, they'd just show another episode of Star Trek. And yeah, so I just kind of picked it up like that. Yeah, Next Generation was the first one.

And then, yeah, DS9 sort of followed. I think that took one of next generation slots. It also, the beep, my first.

Chad Kirchner (09:51)
Do you do you remember your I was gonna say, do you remember your first

like Deep Space Nine episode? Or like do you have an old one that sticks out

Alex (09:58)
No, I really don't.

Chad Kirchner (09:59)
and just kinda all is a blur?

Alex (10:01)
It's all a bit of a blur. I just remember it being more Star Trek. So was one of those kids who was like, just, like space things. Space things are good. like Star Trek became, Star Trek was a huge deal. And then one of my friends introduced me to Red Dwarf, which I became obsessive about. And then I kind of, anything with star in it, I'm a happy boy, basically.

And yeah, so TNG, just, remember bits of bits of TNG happening and then it's being enraptured by DS9. But the big thing was whenever there was like a half term or a holiday or something, I was shipped off to my dad's stepmom's place and there was a video library down the road. And one of the videos they had was three episodes of DS9 on a tape. And it was, I can't remember the ones either side, but it was the one where O'Brien is in prison for, in a mind prison for years. And he becomes like weirdly.

Chad Kirchner (10:50)
It's when O'Rion is treated poorly.

That's like every episode of D Space Nine.

Alex (10:53)
Yes, yes. How are

James Riswick (10:53)
O'Brien must suffer.

Alex (10:55)
we going to make Miles O'Brien have a bad day? Let's put him in mind prison. I remember that episode specifically,

Chad Kirchner (10:58)
Yes. Yep.

Alex (11:02)
because I think I must have watched it like a thousand times over the various weeks, because every time I'd go back to Grant's place, let's get that video out and it would keep me happy. Yeah, was just on the BBC. And then when streaming, when it came to Netflix, I sort of started watching it all. And now it's off Netflix and I haven't seen it in a while. Boom.

Chad Kirchner (11:22)
Physical media's coming back.

Alex (11:24)
yeah.

Chad Kirchner (11:24)
So

so Alex growing up, I grew up in a fairly rural area. So we didn't have cable T V. So it was just over the air stuff. So there were five or six channels. They weren't quite as, you know, BBC one through four or whatever. But

Alex (11:39)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (11:40)
I distinctly remember like getting the T V guide out and seeing when Star Trek would air in s in syndication. And a lot of times it was late at night. So I would be like

Alex (11:47)
Yep.

Chad Kirchner (11:48)
you could start watching after Friday night after the twelve or eleven thirty news and there'd be like four episodes on very

channels through about three or four in the morning. and that's how I would watch it. How I watch it on the weekends, which is great.

Alex (11:57)
Excellent. The BBC

had a habit of putting it on really late on a Friday night, so when me and my friend Phil would go out, we'd go back to my house, we'd be three sheets to the wind and then we'd watch Drunk Trek. So we had no idea what was going on. It was normally like early TNG with the horrible spandex uniforms and we just go, yeah, Drunk Trek, amazing. Yes, love a scant.

Chad Kirchner (12:16)
Right. And scorts. Or it's yeah, and scants. Scants are great. Aaron knows my

Aaron knows my love of scants, correct? I've I've I've mentioned

Erin Marquis (12:26)
yes, we're big. We're big fans.

Chad Kirchner (12:29)
it many a times. Starfleet Academy brings back the scant, which is great. Aaron, I know we talked quite a bit about your favorite character the last time we chatted, but but how'd you get into Deep Space Nine?

Erin Marquis (12:41)
So I watched a little Star Trek as a kid. I didn't stay with it because like even like Voyager just wasn't my thing. Even in like seventh grade, I was like, this Chacote guy is kind of cringe. Then I met my my soon to be husband and we are current husband now. But back then it would take a few years. But when I met my husband, he was like, hey, let's watch some Star Trek. I'm like, man, I don't know.

so we started watching some syndicated stuff and I was like, no, this is now my personality. so it started, it started with TNG and then, then the, moved on to the harder stuff like DS nine. And, yeah, it's been, it's been like that for awhile. I think my very first episode is also that I saw was also one of my favorites, which is bar association. that, that got me hooked pretty quickly and you know,

in TNG, the Ferengi aren't, aren't, it's like, God, a Ferengi episode, but on DS9 it's like, yeah. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (13:47)
No, they have they have the electric whips and stuff.

Erin Marquis (13:51)
But like, I just love the Ferengi in DS9. So yeah, I, I caught on pretty quickly.

Chad Kirchner (13:57)
Yeah, they were supposed to be the bad guys. Like the Fungi were supposed

James Riswick (13:59)
Mm.

Chad Kirchner (13:59)
to be this this evil, you know, an early TNG kinda tries to make that work. But it it it didn't. It it it just didn't work. I don't it's boy,

Erin Marquis (14:09)
Boy, did it not. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (14:11)
did it not?

But Mr. Gitlin, Jonathan, sir, Deep Space Nine, hello,

Jonathan Gitlin (14:18)
Hello.

Chad Kirchner (14:20)
hello, greetings. do you remember your first deep space nine experience?

Jonathan Gitlin (14:25)
I do.

I do. So I'm because I'm older than Alex, I know that actually TNG didn't stop getting shown on BBC. It was shown on Sky, which 'cause we were fancy we had cable TV. So I would they showed I

Alex (14:36)
You fancy.

Jonathan Gitlin (14:37)
think they started in ninety two, and I believe 'cause obviously it started what in eighty nine here. So they basically showed the first three series and kind of I think they repeated them. So it was on Sky every day, so come home from school and watch it. And then season four was run.

as it aired and then DS9 showed up in the sky as well. So and because like Alex, I was a kid that liked space and stuff, you know, Hitchhiker Sky to the Galaxy got me when I was four or five. And ever since then anything that was science fiction, I guess, would work. my mum tried showing me like original TOS and of that, I think, 'cause it's not not that great. I do remember some episode where Bok gets like his sight taken away by some these weird sort of pancake looking amoeba

Things. I don't know. It was weird. I remember it scared me at the time. And then think it was quite dumb when I watched it again recently.

Chad Kirchner (15:28)
the ones on like the plant not like the plants or whatever, but Yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (15:32)
They're like fried eggs or something. I don't know. It was weird sort of early Star Trek body horror.

Chad Kirchner (15:34)
Yeah. I know which one you're talking about. I can't remember the name.

Alex (15:35)
the least threatening organism.

Jonathan Gitlin (15:40)
yeah, and but on my most couple of I've so I've rewatched this DS9 probably three or four times at this point. I think it's probably having gone through most of a whole a full rewatch, I'd say, other than lower decks is probably my favorite.

I mean I love T N G, but Yes Done tells longer stories. and

Chad Kirchner (15:58)
It it does.

Jonathan Gitlin (15:59)
Afrey Brooks is spectacular. And Louise Fletcher is such a good villain. Happy yes, it is.

Chad Kirchner (16:02)
Yes. So let's s Happy birthday. It's her birthday at the day that we're recording this,

I guess. so speaking of Avery Brooks captain, well, commander, because captains aren't put in charge of space stations un until they are.

Jonathan Gitlin (16:18)
He should have been a captain when they started.

Chad Kirchner (16:20)
They really. Yes.

James Riswick (16:20)
So if if I may, if we're wondering why he

was a commander and not a captain, the reason

Chad Kirchner (16:26)
Yes.

James Riswick (16:27)
was that character was thought of to be a much younger person originally. So into the fact that like Siddigelfadil was actually considered for the role. So that's how young they were thinking. So it would be a young father, like with a young son, and he'd be coming into this as like this it

So that's who they were thinking. That's who all the writers thought. That's what they were writing the show for. And then Avery comes in and is Avery Brooks and blows him away. And obviously, we're going with this guy. And so, but that's not who so that's one of the reasons. So they kept it a commander. And at from the very beginning, they thought this is a mistake. Like Ira Bear, the executive producer, later showrunner, was like, No, we need to make this guy. He's he's the captain. He's quite clearly like he has the gravity toss, and he's now he has the age.

to be a captain, but they didn't do it, and it really kind of it it kinda hampered one of the reasons that it kinda hampered Avery Brooks early on and just the the the public perception of it like well this guy's not a captain it so that that's that's one of the reasons he is a commander and when they gave him the captainship that was that was a that was a big deal along with letting him shave his head and have the goatee.

Chad Kirchner (17:38)
Well Yeah.

Well canonically like previous star base captains in in Star Trek

have all been either Commodores or commanders. So like it kind of fit that way, but man, like the the studio did Avery Brooks Dirty early on anyways, 'cause as a black man he couldn't be have the shaved head and the goatee. and then finally they let him have the shaved head and goatee. And man, you could just tell like the the the like he wasn't bad before, but like the real Avery magic I think came out then. Alex you were gonna you were gonna say something, I think

Alex (18:15)
Yeah, on the casting things, there was a thing that went round a while ago of like other people who auditioned for Cisco and the one that stuck out for me was Peter Capaldi. Doctor Who almost commanded Deep Space Nine and I love that. Yeah, well, he was not, he was brilliant.

Chad Kirchner (18:28)
I

Jonathan Gitlin (18:28)
Malcolm Tucker, you mean? He was wasted as Doctor Who. He w Like he could have

been great, but he was good as Malcolm Tu everyone was expecting Malcolm Tucker as the doctor that's not what we got.

Alex (18:40)
there's a line at the end of one of them. goes, have a lot of un-internalised anger, which I really liked. No, he was, imagine DS9 with Malcolm Tucker.

Chad Kirchner (18:50)
I have to admit that I'm not as well versed on Doctor Who as I should be. I I'm I'm I'm s I'm I I'm sorry, I don't okay Okay. Alright. I mean I know it's a f I know it's a failing on my part, but yeah, just not

James Riswick (18:54)
familiar with Trip Tucker. I'm sorry.

Alex (18:54)
Oh, that's, yeah, I'll just crack my knuckles and wheeze heavily. Oh, it's...

Chad Kirchner (19:05)
as not as versed as I tried a little bit of the Tenth Doctor initially, but I I need to give it time. I didn't give it time.

Alex (19:11)
Yeah, a lot of woo woo woo woo woo

Jonathan Gitlin (19:13)
North Americans don't know why's all gummage either, it turns out.

Chad Kirchner (19:16)
Yeah.

Alex (19:16)
yeah,

John Pertwee. But that's old Doctor Who, which is not great Doctor Who.

Jonathan Gitlin (19:18)
Tried mak tried making a Mosul Mosel Gummage reference yesterday

and Yeah. No. What? John Perwey's pretty good Doctor Who. I mean pretty classic Doctor. It's better than the ones

Alex (19:26)
Yeah, but it's still wobbly sets and...

Jonathan Gitlin (19:28)
that kid better than the first three.

Chad Kirchner (19:30)
Was Avery Brooks ever on Doctor Who?

Alex (19:32)
No, but

Jonathan Gitlin (19:33)
Yeah, don't think so.

Alex (19:35)
some Star Trek people have been on it, I think.

Chad Kirchner (19:36)
I gonna say there's

there has to be something, right? Like

Jonathan Gitlin (19:38)
It's

there's a well, there's a theory that Doctor Who is canon in Star Trek. Like mine canon, but

Alex (19:43)
Yes, and they were going to try and do a do

an Enterprise Doctor Who crossover or they were going to try and do something because they were both running

Jonathan Gitlin (19:50)
Thing is, it would end up being like the Traveller

and Wesley Crusher.

Chad Kirchner (19:55)
Yeah,

Jonathan Gitlin (19:55)
And then people would freak out.

Chad Kirchner (19:57)
well the w

Alex (19:57)
That would be brilliant.

Chad Kirchner (19:58)
well there's only so many I mean there's only so many British actors, so like eventually they all have to be Doctor Who, right? Right. And then they got Hollywood. And

Alex (20:05)
Yeah, and then they go to Hollywood.

Chad Kirchner (20:08)
then yeah, and then they're all villains, or apparently a lot of them are. Avery Brooks though. We s we started chatting about him. Best Captain or Bestus Best Captain?

Okay, so what is it okay no but Lemon I wanna ask everybody, but what is it what is it about Avery Brooks that like elevated that that role, that position, that like what what is his jeanise qua? Like what's this this what makes him special? Like not saying the other Star Trek captains are bad because there's a lot of good ones, but like what was his appeal? Anybody can start.

Alex (20:44)
I

think it's best summed up for me when he, like early in DS9's run, Q appears on the station and they have a sort of old school boxing, fisticuffs fight, and he properly sucker punches Q and Q looks at him incredulously and says, Picard never punched me. And he looks down and goes, I'm not Picard. And it's like, yeah.

Chad Kirchner (21:01)
The way that it's SP card is so great.

Alex (21:04)
And it's just like, right, okay, this guy, he...

He doesn't pull his punches. He's going to play dirty. He's going to think around problems. like, he clearly, he knows that he's, he's in a situation that perhaps wasn't expecting, you know, being a God and being next to the thing that leads to the other side of the universe. So he's kind of processing this having to be the strong leader, but also not really giving a crap about following the rules exactly.

Chad Kirchner (21:32)
Well if his character was supposed to be younger, he probably

Alex (21:35)
Mm.

Chad Kirchner (21:36)
didn't have a ton of experience. Like they were sending him to a backwater station in the middle of nowhere, you know, real dead end of the ne of the galaxy. and then just

Erin Marquis (21:46)
I'm

Chad Kirchner (21:47)
Yes.

Erin Marquis (21:48)
I'm gonna say I really love I Love that the very first thing that we learn about Commander Cisco is that he's not afraid to look at Jean-Luc Picard, you know the hero of the Federation it'd be like You know what man? I'm done talking to you like he really he really like he has a just like with the cue thing He has not just gravitas

gravitas and presence, but he stands up for himself in a way that you don't usually see from characters in these shows.

James Riswick (22:23)
Well talk

Chad Kirchner (22:23)
Yeah.

James Riswick (22:24)
about a talk about a ballsy way to sh start off your new show, right? Like bring in like the beloved guy of the last show and have the new guy not like him. And you're like, yeah, I kinda get it why he wouldn't like him, but dude, we know what Picard went through and you know, like, dude, he was the the Borg and that's not like he he didn't really do that, sir. but at the s you know, so I think that was a really ballsy way to d

To I remember at the time going like, I I don't know if I like this guy, he's being mean to Captain Picard. I I don't I d I

Jonathan Gitlin (22:58)
Okay.

James Riswick (22:58)
I changed, obviously. and I thought,

Jonathan Gitlin (23:01)
Yeah.

James Riswick (23:01)
you know, he kinda would look better if he was also bald. but you know, that was an early

Chad Kirchner (23:06)
Yeah, no. The studio had a problem had a problem with that. He definitely Yeah. No, please

Jonathan Gitlin (23:12)
So I've got a different answer to all of you. sorry. Carry on, Chad. Well,

it's 'cause you're all talking about characters of the k like aspects of the character, but for me I think and it's particularly from my last couple of rewatches, I think cemented why I like DS9 so much. and in Far Beyond the Stars, just that the acting, just Avery Brooks' acting, particularly in the latter half of this the the show, is so good. I mean sometimes he's chewing the scenery a lot, but you know, I like that. So

Chad Kirchner (23:38)
Yeah, he he does that.

James Riswick (23:40)
He

directed that.

Jonathan Gitlin (23:41)
I think it's Yes. I mean you can see

Chad Kirchner (23:44)
Yeah. I really want to do an ep

Jonathan Gitlin (23:46)
why his his Othello was apparently so good, which now I wish I'd seen 'cause that was here in DC. But

Chad Kirchner (23:49)
Yeah.

I really want to do an episode on Far Beyond the Stars, but I am not the right I'm circling my head on camera, basically. The the the right skin color, unfortunately, to to speak to it in yeah.

James Riswick (24:02)
That's why he directed it. They were like,

Well clearly the only person who has right to direct this is Avery Brooks. So they

Chad Kirchner (24:07)
Yeah. Yeah.

just full of charisma. And like you could see, like in some cases he was definitely scenery chewing. Sometimes you could tell he was having real

Jonathan Gitlin (24:17)
And also I love the

the relationship he has with Cyric Lofton and the him and you know, Cisco

Chad Kirchner (24:21)
Yes.

Jonathan Gitlin (24:22)
and Jake, I think is is also r you know, that's a it's a really wholesome father and son relationship on T V. So I like that too. Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (24:26)
Well, he wanted it. Like he wanted it to be wholesome wholesome. Like Avery Brooks

like, Look, we cannot I will not come onto this show

and repr in and do the stereotypical black father kind of role that you would see in TV in the eighties and nineties. He's like, I'm gonna be this wholesome father. I wanna set a good example for the people who are watching. I mean, so much so that one black woman that he's influenced ended up writing on Star Trek and wrote a Starfleet Academy episode about him. So you know like i it's it's it

Erin Marquis (24:57)
And

Chad Kirchner (24:57)
it clearly worked

Erin Marquis (24:59)
yeah, his, his portrayal of just like, and that's also why, Jake doesn't join star fleet because you can only join star fleet if you have daddy issues and, Jake

Chad Kirchner (25:08)
Yeah.

Erin Marquis (25:09)
doesn't have that. So he doesn't join. but I actually know several, several, guys here in Detroit who said that they have modeled their fatherhood after, after captain Cisco.

that they wanted to be that kind of father. So that representation really mattered a lot.

James Riswick (25:27)
I can I can concur with that and I can also share that my one of my son's two middle names is Benjamin. That is not a coincidence. My my neighbor

Chad Kirchner (25:34)
Yeah.

James Riswick (25:37)
whose son is named Benji, they they she asked me, is that a family name? and I go, No, it's a Star Trek captain.

Chad Kirchner (25:45)
Basically a family name. I think that

Alex (25:47)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (25:47)
I think that counts here. so he could cook

That clearly was important. we could do an entire episode on why cooking in Star Trek makes sense. It doesn't make sense 'cause they have food replicators. But he seemed to very much enjoy that process, which is something that Captain Pike does in Strange New Worlds. so he definitely kinda set the the bar, the trope for there. Cisco also committed quite a few war crimes, which would be an entire episode that we could talk about. So I'm

Jonathan Gitlin (26:20)
Excellent.

Chad Kirchner (26:21)
gonna kinda gloss over the war crimes.

times for the purpose of of this. what really

Alex (26:25)
What's a couple of war crimes between friends man?

Poisoning planets?

Erin Marquis (26:28)
As my favorite character would say,

Jonathan Gitlin (26:29)
Didn't Ard should do war crimes too?

Chad Kirchner (26:32)
Aaron.

Erin Marquis (26:33)
know, sacrificing his self-respect

James Riswick (26:34)
Archer, yeah.

Erin Marquis (26:36)
for the universe isn't such a small price to pay.

Chad Kirchner (26:39)
Yeah. Yeah.

Alex (26:41)
Yeah,

Jonathan Gitlin (26:41)
And I mean, you know Yeah, Archer did war

Alex (26:42)
Archer did a few war crimes as well.

Chad Kirchner (26:43)
Yeah, but it's you know.

Jonathan Gitlin (26:44)
crimes. Tuvics is a pretty big ethical you know. Nah we beg for your life, nah, we're just gonna kin you anyway.

Chad Kirchner (26:47)
Twovix is a real TVX is a real problem.

Yeah, we're gonna kill him anyways. W man, Voyager Voy They they they do, yeah. I mean Kor

Jonathan Gitlin (26:55)
Awfully captains have to have to make big decisions and sometimes, you know, there's no good choice. That's why the Kobayashi Maru exists.

Erin Marquis (27:02)
Mm.

Chad Kirchner (27:03)
correct. Yeah.

James Riswick (27:03)
I would say it was like so getting back like Avery Brooks. Like it's

it's he he has what like s Patrick Stewart and and Shatner had and Mulgrew. Like they are big. They and they talk

Alex (27:16)
Hmm.

James Riswick (27:17)
distinctively as well. And they can s say things that are somewhat ridiculous very seriously, and they take it seriously, and that

That's why Scott Bacula didn't work, 'cause he did not have the gravitas as a Starfleet captain.

Chad Kirchner (27:33)
Well the thing is Scott Bacula

Scott Bacula has Gravitas. That was the p that was my problem with it. Is is he has charisma. He was just written and directed poorly, if you ask me.

James Riswick (27:38)
But not in that way. Yeah, I don't know about that. but like

there the like that is the the Star Trek captain thing. And he he quite obviously has the ability to do that.

Erin Marquis (27:57)
He's

got that jazz singer, like he hits his consonants very hard, very clearly.

James Riswick (28:03)
Mm-hmm.

Erin Marquis (28:04)
It's like he speaks like someone who is a trained singer and he projects in that way. And also the quiet funniness of Avery Brooks. When characters are getting dressed down by him for doing something ridiculous, you kind of feel like you're in the principal's office and he can...

They don't give it to him enough, when he kind of has like a smirk on his face when he's screwing with Quark, it's just fantastic stuff. know, Bashir shows up in his room in the middle of night just being like, I have to get a shuttle, we got to go. And he's like, sure, take two. Like, I just love that.

Chad Kirchner (28:44)
Right.

James Riswick (28:44)
Ha ha ha.

Chad Kirchner (28:46)
I mean in the pilot speaking of you know, with with the Picard and and all of that. In the pilot when, Quark is in Odo's office with Cisco and 'cause cause Nog was just arrested. and Cork is just trying to like, we're gonna leave and get out of here and whatever and and and Avery Brooks is acting when he says that Cork's a community leader, like and the smirk that he kinda has on his face with it and it's so it's such a well acted

scene and then with Renee Oberginois being like just starting laughing is like no I don't know what this is but like after that that scene walks out and Odo's like no I'm starting to like this guy like it was such a great like Avery Brooks as Cisco scene for something very early in that episode. I think that that scene and the stuff with Picard I think are the two kind of for me the two big standout like

This is this is this is Avery Brooks at like his his best.

Erin Marquis (29:49)
And, and

as great as Avery Brooks is how great, just a character and a unique, the uniqueness of Odo in the, in the

Chad Kirchner (29:59)
Yeah.

Erin Marquis (30:00)
Star Trek canon. I really, one of the things I really appreciate about DS9 is that it is, these characters are really unique. You know, we've got, we've got a terrorist with PTSD. We've got a shapeshifter with this incredible sense of, of justice.

that it is just

Chad Kirchner (30:19)
Also a collaborator.

Erin Marquis (30:21)
also a collaborator. All constables are boneless, know?

Chad Kirchner (30:26)
They sure are.

Erin Marquis (30:28)
But like, especially

James Riswick (30:28)
Especially Odo.

Erin Marquis (30:30)
Odo. But the characters are not what you expect in a Star Trek show, it's just, and Odo exemplifies that completely.

Chad Kirchner (30:40)
So I know that two of you on here list Elam Garrick as your favorite Star Trek character. and

Erin Marquis (30:46)
Garik, Garik, Garik!

Chad Kirchner (30:50)
we should definitely explore some of that maybe here in a second. But like Garrick aside, who's the standout? Like who like we we've got Cisco, obviously, this very charismatic captain. We have the Mr. Gitlin, Doctor, sir.

Jonathan Gitlin (31:07)
I got one. Kai Wynne. Louise Fletcher. Kai Wynne. She because she is one

Chad Kirchner (31:10)
Yes. She is

Alex (31:10)
she's evil. She is just bad.

Jonathan Gitlin (31:15)
of the best villains on TV in anything. She just she's so

Chad Kirchner (31:17)
Yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (31:18)
good at it. She's so so evil. And she's played so well by Louise Fletcher that

Chad Kirchner (31:23)
Yeah,

like how did they get Louise Fletcher in that first season? Like like how? Like we're like

Jonathan Gitlin (31:27)
My child.

Chad Kirchner (31:29)
we're talking big name like a real proper big name star, to come on this little pokey sci fi show and just absolutely crush it. Even in that first season, like as soon as she comes into play after

Kayopaka dies, which is a very stupid way to die. or not die, I guess technically. she you know, she comes in, she's from a a a religious sect. I mean they're all religious sects, but like a very on the outs small, very th th just just not super influential, very I can't think of any words right now. y yes,

Jonathan Gitlin (32:08)
Like a marginalized fundamentalist hardline sect.

Chad Kirchner (32:11)
yes.

But she has aspirations of power and she's able to can

Jonathan Gitlin (32:14)
Kinda like the guys who've just been excommunicated.

Chad Kirchner (32:17)
Yeah, exactly.

Erin Marquis (32:17)
you

Chad Kirchner (32:18)
e exactly. Like

And and she has this aspirations of power and she wants to be the Kai and she wants to rule Bajar. And her ability to manipulate people very early on is so like the end of season one when she com convinces that the engineer that's kinda has a crush on on O'Brien to to try to kill the Vedic Braille like

Like it's so it's so good 'cause you're just like because because when when Kira walks up to her and says, You're gonna get a I hate you, you're gonna get away with this, basically. Like you know it. It's just it's so evil. It's just

James Riswick (33:02)
Well,

she's she's so quiet and patronizing and she just I mean, she and like Dolores Umbridge from Harry Potter, like I remember watching her that the whatever the Harry Potter movie she's in, it's like, my god, she's Kai Wynne. i it they're very similar. And actually, like Louise Fletcher in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, I I've seen that once, but I mean it's very s she sh she's she got that trope down, that's for sure.

Chad Kirchner (33:30)
Right.

Yeah. I mean, I I think that like the villains in Deep Space Nine, I think she is excellent. And actually I think Mark Olimo is Ducat is also an excellent villain. because sorry, I just got my own I got distracted on my own podcast. Who'd have thought that?

Erin Marquis (33:53)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (33:55)
but I think that like Ducat, I think his arc as well, like

He starts off kind of like, he's this big powerful Cardassian, but really isn't, like nobody likes him. but is able to kind of weasel his way into into power, and so much so that he sells out the Cardassians to the Dominion. but

Erin Marquis (34:12)
Thanks.

James Riswick (34:12)
Well

he's he's great because he thinks he's the star of the show. Both Mark Alamo and Gulducott think that they are. They act

Chad Kirchner (34:17)
Yes, yes. Yeah.

Erin Marquis (34:20)
Mm-hmm.

James Riswick (34:22)
as if they like the first credit is Mark Alamo, it's the first one. This

Chad Kirchner (34:25)
Yes.

James Riswick (34:26)
entire show is about Gulducott. He is no he would be so shocked if he saw it afterwards that he was it wasn't all about him.

Alex (34:35)
I mean,

Erin Marquis (34:35)
of

Alex (34:35)
the difference between him and and Wynne is like, Wynne is always very softly spoken. I think she raises her voice like once or twice ever. Ducat, he's so, he thinks so far ahead and is always so surprised whenever he's caught out that when you just see him lose his it's like, no, he's evil, but he's actually a bit dumb. And there's this sort

Chad Kirchner (34:56)
Yeah.

Alex (34:56)
of weird vulnerability to that of like, no, he is kind of just like us. And every now and then he breaks down various stories, whether they're true or not, who knows.

Like when he meets his daughter, whose name completely escapes me, Ziyal, there we are. He meets Ziyal and he

Chad Kirchner (35:09)
Xiao. Yeah, Tora Zial.

Jonathan Gitlin (35:10)
The L.

Erin Marquis (35:11)
God that was painful.

Alex (35:12)
was going to kill her, but then he's sort of found

Chad Kirchner (35:16)
Yeah.

Alex (35:16)
and they're like,

Erin Marquis (35:17)
Mm-hmm.

Alex (35:17)
actually no, I'm going to be a human about this. And he willingly destroys his life because there is, there's a little bit of soul in him, but he enjoys being the sort of larger than life while I'm the most powerful person ever.

Chad Kirchner (35:28)
Yeah,

I think that's part I think that's part of just the Cardassines in general, is to be a bit boisterous, a bit a bit scenery chewing. But then he takes that to to almost a twirling mustache villain kind of level. Yes, that's

Alex (35:44)
the Cardassians originally had moustaches, so it makes sense.

Erin Marquis (35:46)
Yes.

Chad Kirchner (35:47)
that's that's true. He did play an original Cardassian as well. He was. He was also the first Romulan on TNG.

Alex (35:50)
He was the Cardassian, well he was like the leader of them, yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (35:52)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. When they had the

Erin Marquis (35:53)
I always thought that, yeah.

I always thought that the, he saves the Al more because he was afraid of losing face in front of the people he thinks of as his enemies slash friends, because he always wants to impress the DS nine crew. some reason he

Chad Kirchner (36:10)
Yeah.

Erin Marquis (36:11)
has this hang up.

Alex (36:12)
Okay.

Erin Marquis (36:14)
it is specifically Kara. Yes.

James Riswick (36:12)
Kira. He wants to impress Kira specifically. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (36:13)
Lakira especially.

Alex (36:16)
yes.

Erin Marquis (36:19)
I was going to say the, the act.

the character I could watch all day, could like listen to her read the phone book. Judzia Dax. Here is somebody who she she wasn't really an actress to start with, but

Chad Kirchner (36:32)
She was a model.

Erin Marquis (36:33)
she she was a model, but she has she figured out these really subtle ways to be like, here I am the young woman Judzia. Now I'm Dax. Now I'm kind of a blend of the two. And she did it such in such a subtle and beautiful way that like

Every time I see her put her hands behind her back, I'm like, okay, so now she stacks when she's getting excited or ribbing Kira about a date. That's Judzia. And like you, you get a feel that there are two people, she's playing two characters, but she's synthesizing them in a way that doesn't make it, you know, intrusive. And I don't think she gets enough credit for that. I think she's, she's a unsung hero of DS9 in a way.

James Riswick (37:18)
Should they

it she took a long time to develop because the writers early on did not really know what to do with her, kind of like Counselor Troy on TNG. They didn't quite have like she's this old man, but like early on you kind of see her oscillate. They she she's kind of like this quiet ethereal presence early on. And but then like they figured out, wait, no, she needs to be swashbuckling. And once they

Chad Kirchner (37:42)
Yeah, yeah.

James Riswick (37:43)
figured out, like, Terry Farrell's actually really good, like.

is with comedy and we're gonna make you more roguish and Kurzani and s and she was like, Yes, that's great and the second they did that, there you go.

Chad Kirchner (37:57)
Yeah,

leaning into the Kurzan stuff I think really kinda helped.

James Riswick (38:00)
Yeah. But

Chad Kirchner (38:01)
I do like the writers weren't afraid to tackle the implications of a species like the churl early on. I mean the episode Dax where she's put on trial for, you know, the supposed murder of the the one planet, I forget which planet, like for like something that happened like two lives ahead before or no when Kurzan was sleeping with whatever that dude's wife is that first season.

Erin Marquis (38:25)
Yeah.

James Riswick (38:26)
Iliana Tundro

Erin Marquis (38:28)
you

Chad Kirchner (38:27)
Yes. Yes.

and you know the exploring like well what does that mean? Like I I think they I think they they came around to writing well for decks, a lot faster than they did for for Troy. I don't know if they ever came around really t to

Erin Marquis (38:45)
No.

Chad Kirchner (38:45)
to Troy. Yeah. Yeah.

James Riswick (38:46)
Once they realized Troy was funny, then she could be. Jerry Taylor

Erin Marquis (38:50)
And it was the same

James Riswick (38:51)
did that.

Erin Marquis (38:51)
Yeah,

it was the same thing with Bashir too that the first season holy they're like, no, he's so bad

Chad Kirchner (38:56)
Bashir was so cringe.

James Riswick (38:59)
but

okay, so that's that's great that you say that, Aaron, because that was on purpose. So this is this is

Erin Marquis (39:05)
to be cringy.

James Riswick (39:05)
kind of like early why Deep Space Nine is different. Because because of both like we're gonna keep people are gonna develop. They're not just fully baked and they Riker will be the same now

Alex (39:16)
Mm.

James Riswick (39:16)
and as he will be in three seasons.

Erin Marquis (39:18)
Mm-hmm.

James Riswick (39:19)
they thought we don't want him to be like likable. At the end of the first season, the studio said people hate this guy. And like Miles

O'Brien clearly hates him. Cisco

Erin Marquis (39:29)
Mm-hmm.

James Riswick (39:29)
does not like the guy. You don't like the guy. Let's get rid of him. They're like, no, that's the point. We've Michael Piller, who was then in charge, said like, no, that's what we're trying to do. We're like, we're try he's a young,

Jonathan Gitlin (39:39)
Yeah.

James Riswick (39:39)
obnoxious young guy. We want him to change and grow as the show goes on. And yeah.

Erin Marquis (39:45)
And he totally does, like he gets

PTSD, know, Garrett gives him his daddy card halfway through. It's awesome.

Chad Kirchner (39:52)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alex (39:53)
He gets stolen for a

Chad Kirchner (39:55)
He does.

Alex (39:56)
bit. Stolen for

Erin Marquis (39:56)
Yeah. very good.

Jonathan Gitlin (39:57)
Thank you.

Alex (39:58)
a short spell, but I like the

Chad Kirchner (39:59)
There don't

Alex (40:00)
fact they eventually gave him his Dax.

Erin Marquis (40:02)
Mm-hmm.

Chad Kirchner (40:03)
Yeah,

wrong one. But

Alex (40:08)
I mean,

they did do JEDZIA DIRTY in the end. I know there were reasons for it, but it's like...

Chad Kirchner (40:11)
Th they did and it's yeah, yeah.

Erin Marquis (40:14)
Okay.

We all know who Bashir should have ended up with. Okay.

Chad Kirchner (40:17)
Yeah, Elon

Garrick, which he did he does ultimately in in

Alex (40:19)
Yes, he does.

Chad Kirchner (40:20)
Lower Decks. So yeah,

James Riswick (40:21)
version in the multiverse.

Chad Kirchner (40:22)
at least the multiverse version does.

Erin Marquis (40:22)
If Rick Berman wasn't a,

wasn't such a coward, we could have had it in the, in the late nineties. He has a lot to answer for, let's say.

Chad Kirchner (40:27)
Well Rick Merman has a lot of issues. He

he he he does. Nana Visitor was definitely one of my first crushes as Karen Arius. I don't know about the rest of you. Like I know some people were all about Terry Farrell's dacks, but I'll I'll take a Bijan with a phaser any day.

Alex (40:47)
I mean, Mirror Universe, Kira, definitely Young Alex had some feelings.

Chad Kirchner (40:51)
don't

I like that Mirror Universe Cure was like in love with herself. Like I love

Alex (40:58)
Mmm.

Chad Kirchner (40:59)
kind of the way they played that and the way that Mirror Garrick was like, what do you get for the person who has everything? Like and yeah, yeah.

Erin Marquis (41:06)
And you can see Nana visitor having a freaking blast playing horny

evil version of her character. I just love that because, you know, female characters on Star Trek, we talk about, you know, Diana and like, they can be kind of, you know, just background. this, they're not, they don't have the focus, but she...

Chad Kirchner (41:29)
They have soft focus in TOS, actually.

Erin Marquis (41:32)
But she's a character that refuses to be quiet, refuses to be in the background, is active and is ready to fight for what's right and is a spitfire. Like she is just such a breath of fresh air when it comes to female Trek characters. I just love Kira.

Chad Kirchner (41:50)
Well

and her arc. Her arc of not

James Riswick (41:53)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (41:53)
you know, not wanting

Erin Marquis (41:53)
great art.

Chad Kirchner (41:54)
to be on Deep Space Nine, not wanting to be there, not believing in Starfleet, calling Cisco the devil. Yes, just being angry. And then she ends up on

Erin Marquis (41:58)
Just being angry from the years of horror she's been through, like justified,

but directionless anger that makes so much sense for her character and like, great.

Chad Kirchner (42:08)
Yeah, and then she ends up

she ends up liberating Cardassia from the Dominion. Wearing a Starfleet

James Riswick (42:13)
Wearing a Starfleet uniform.

Alex (42:14)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (42:15)
uniform. Which honestly that does a lot for me as well. I don't know if it's a haircut or whatever, but Yes, yes.

Erin Marquis (42:19)
with the Kunti Bar. We love it.

Chad Kirchner (42:21)
Eren's on board. Aaron understands. Yes, yes. The w The wartime grays is No, no, no.

Alex (42:22)
I mean, also, she was wearing the best Starfleet uniform because the Grey Shoulders, the first contact came out, you got the best enterprise and you've got these uniforms that are just... Yeah,

Erin Marquis (42:25)
Yes.

Exactly, James.

Jonathan Gitlin (42:34)
No,

Alex (42:35)
it's the best enterprise. the Maroon Monster, yeah. sorry, it's a uniform.

Chad Kirchner (42:35)
You you and me are coming back to this in a future episode. The the fat one is the best one. I'm sorry. That's the But

Jonathan Gitlin (42:35)
no. I'm gonna leave this I'm gonna leave this podcast if you don't stop him.

Erin Marquis (42:39)
Hahaha!

Jonathan Gitlin (42:44)
Day. It's the day.

Erin Marquis (42:46)
Thanks.

James Riswick (42:50)
I would

just to talk on speak on like you you asked us to pull out our favorite characters and Kira is

Chad Kirchner (42:56)
Yeah.

James Riswick (42:56)
my favorite character and she's my favorite character on Star Trek.

Chad Kirchner (42:59)
Okay.

Erin Marquis (43:00)
Mm-hmm.

James Riswick (43:01)
except for maybe like you know like r random jokey people you know over time. But like because of that arc, like beginning to end, like

is she's a fully formed character, as you said, like she does not want to be there. She has just kicked off the Kardashian. She's done some shit. And now sh now this Federation's here and I have to work with them. I don't want like what and then to go through it all and yeah, as you said, she liberates the people who who had her who pillaged her land and now is wearing the uniform of them and the final shot of the show is she with the commanders with the with the captain's son.

in the window and that's the final thing we see. You know.

Chad Kirchner (43:45)
Yep. Until lower decks.

James Riswick (43:48)
Yeah. And

Erin Marquis (43:48)
Right.

James Riswick (43:49)
you know, she's it I I see like I I'm able to divorce actors from characters. I have a harder

Chad Kirchner (43:56)
Right.

James Riswick (43:57)
time with her. Cause like she

Erin Marquis (43:58)
Thank

James Riswick (43:58)
even just the way she like like watching her in the What You Leave Behind documentary. One, I always think her she looks weird with the with the human nose. I'm like what what happened to you? That seems strange.

Chad Kirchner (44:08)
Yes. Yeah.

James Riswick (44:11)
but she's she had like

as an actress she comes across with the same energy as Kira and it's yeah, she's she's really cool. I I'm sad she doesn't do more. Like I'm shocked that she hasn't I I I worry that Star Trek Pigeonholder typecaster. But

Chad Kirchner (44:28)
I think you can do that. It can kind of be a James Bondish

kind of thing. Like once you play a pretty pivotal role in Star Trek, it's hard to I mean like Patrick Stewart was able to do it, you know?

James Riswick (44:37)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (44:38)
and a couple others as well. I mean Jonathan Frakes has become actually a lot of Star Trek people have become very prolific directors. yeah.

James Riswick (44:45)
Mm. It's 'cause they were allowed to be. They

had the unique o opportun and Frakes was the trailblazer for that, but

Chad Kirchner (44:51)
Yeah.

James Riswick (44:51)
they Robert Duncan McNeil and so did Yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (44:53)
They're making I mean when you're making twenty six episodes. Yeah, you're making t

Chad Kirchner (44:56)
Yeah,

precisely. And and Robert

McNeil, like he when he directs like I saw a photo of him recently directing the episode of Enterprise, and he was doing it in his full Voyager uniform. So like

Alex (45:05)
Nice.

Chad Kirchner (45:06)
he would do so it's I

Jonathan Gitlin (45:08)
He talks

a lot about that in the early ep early episodes of that of of the podcast that he does with Garrett Wayne. the Delta Flies. Hm.

Chad Kirchner (45:14)
yeah, the the Delta Flyers, yeah. Yeah.

Erin Marquis (45:18)
So

can we talk

about Garrick now?

James Riswick (45:18)
Roxanne Dawson does

too.

Chad Kirchner (45:20)
Yeah, we should spend a few minutes talking about Elon Garrick. plain simple Taylor, plain simple Garrick, also a very interesting plot line, a very interesting arc, because we don't really know why he's exiled. I don't even know if we fully realize why he was exiled, other than he did something that anabane didn't like.

Erin Marquis (45:41)
So

I read the book that

Jonathan Gitlin (45:43)
That

Erin Marquis (45:44)
Andrew Robinson wrote and I told Chad about it on the last episode I was on and I said, yeah, but he explains it in the book and then you said, if you believe it. And that messed me up for a

Alex (45:58)
Hahaha

Chad Kirchner (45:57)
Yeah.

Erin Marquis (45:59)
while. I was like, damn it.

Chad Kirchner (46:02)
Yeah.

Erin Marquis (46:04)
I'm like, of course he's probably freaking out.

Jonathan Gitlin (46:04)
He's not really a reliable narrator.

Erin Marquis (46:07)
No.

Chad Kirchner (46:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Erin Marquis (46:08)
I was

so excited to learn the truth and then I just realized that I am just as starry-eyed as Bashir, I suppose.

Chad Kirchner (46:15)
Yeah. My f

my favorite I and I mentioned this Aaron when we did the link will be the show notes. but

One of my favorite bits with Garrick in just not knowing things is when he blows up his own shop and he's in the infirmary and Sisko and Odo are trying to help him and he's like, well Kira wants me dead like just p you know passing on this whatever and Bashir asks him if he's heard about the the the the the story of the the boy who cried wolf and Bashir explains the plot and is like,

He's a clever lad for, you know, because he's lonely and he's figured out how to get people to show up and then he mentions how the the wolf gobbles him up at the end. He's that's not really s appropriate for children. And basically Bashir is like, you know, once you if you all you tell are lies, then people are never gonna believe you. And and his retort to that, so so on character for him, is no, the the the moral of that story is never tell the same lie twice.

And like it just encapsulates so much of like that. Or when he's on the runabout with Worf talking about wanting to be in Starfleet and he says he says lying is a skill just like anything else and you gotta stay diligent with the practice.

Erin Marquis (47:36)
No, I mean, he's only in like 30 episodes, but what what an impact that character makes? Ever every time he shows up. It's it's fantastic. He just I love I love the Cardassian the way because they are so They're they're not open outsiders. They talk to everyone like they're idiots and and he does such a good job at that he has the Cardassian way of talking of almost like

I pity you at all times for not being Cardassian and being perfect. Even while still kind of being rejected from his own people, he's like, of course you're pathetic for not being Cardassian. And of course, my very favorite episode is The Wire. They give him so many closeups, so much acting. He rocks in that episode. Just absolutely chews up every scene, just giving him.

of space to work and Andrew Robinson knocks it out of the park because he was so, so grateful to be doing a character that wasn't a bad guy. That wasn't, or just wasn't just like a total bad guy. was, he had been pigeonholed into villains and he wanted somebody with a little bit more, more going on. And that's where even he wrote a whole book because he had a character that he could work on in different levels. And that's just, it comes through so well.

Chad Kirchner (48:59)
Alex talked to me about Elon Garrick.

Alex (49:02)
It's well, was sort of back up what Erin said, like so few episodes yet so much impact every time he's on the screen. You know that he's saying and doing something, but he's also surveilling the room. He's surveilling everything around him. He knows what's going on or how he can get out of it and how he can fix the situation. And he doesn't really care whether other people know. He just knows that this is the way to do it. And he's got this this past.

that is sort of explained and sort of not. And there is that case of, never tell the same lie twice. But it's how he deals with people and how he, you know, it's the, again, the point of, you know, treating everybody like they're a bit dim, but also, you know, I'm just a simple tailor. So I can do your shows. But the fact he then learned to be a tailor in order to pull off this ruse,

Chad Kirchner (49:48)
He does, yeah.

Alex (49:49)
it's commitment to a bit. I've been exiled. I can't be a spy, but I can sort of be a spy and sort of be used by my people.

Chad Kirchner (49:56)
And when he

Erin Marquis (49:56)
And he is

actually a pretty good tailor, he admits.

Chad Kirchner (49:58)
Yeah, and when he comes back when

Alex (49:58)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (49:59)
he comes back from from that first counter with Tain and he's like after he blew up his shop, he's like the the tragedy is I was actually a pretty good tailor.

Jonathan Gitlin (50:06)
Okay.

Chad Kirchner (50:08)
And

Alex (50:08)
Hmm. And

it's the episode where he turns off his sort of make-happy drug. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (50:13)
Yeah, that's that's the one Aaron was talking about, the wire, yeah.

Alex (50:17)
And it's like, this is a person who's, he's a bit of comic relief and you know there's something else going on, but this is also a person who is deep, deep trauma and genuinely hates his life.

and would do anything just to stay normal, just to keep existing because that's what he was taught to do. And then at the very end of it, or halfway through, he's like, actually, I'm done with this. Like you people disgust me. Everything is terrible about this place. I hate everything about it. So I just want to go. Let me be. Let me be in pain. Let me suffer because I deserve to suffer because something has happened in my past. I've done terrible things and I'm wrecked with guilt. And now I can't go back home. So I can't be where I'm happy and safe.

I'm just in misery land. Let me go. And then at the other end of it, he's like, OK, maybe these people might not be the worst. Like, that's, that's, I love that. And also, he's just a cheeky dickhead. If he was in

Erin Marquis (51:11)
Yeah.

Alex (51:12)
a pub in London and started doing stuff like that, he'd either end up under a table having the crap kicked out of him, or he'd be everyone's best mate by the end of the night. And either

Chad Kirchner (51:22)
Yeah.

Alex (51:22)
way, he'd get all your wallets.

Chad Kirchner (51:25)
He he would, he would. I I think though, going back, James, when you were talking about Bashir, Acidic and like his his evolution as a character, like I think we see a lot of that through Garrick. Because Garrick's always the one that points out how naive and kinda how young he is and then as the period series prog series progresses, he's the one that's like, no, you've picked up, you've learned, you've caught up, you're you're you're

it's you can see the growth almost of of that character through of Bashir through what the way Garrett kind of interacts with him and

Alex (52:02)
I also,

James Riswick (52:02)
You

Alex (52:03)
I also, I'm

James Riswick (52:03)
can really

Alex (52:03)
very lucky to have a friend who reminds me a lot of him just because he has that similar, he has that similar grin where he's like, I know more than you do and I'm

Erin Marquis (52:11)
Yeah.

Alex (52:12)
just going to play this situation and play the, I mean, he's an but everyone's got one of those friends, right? And it's like, I see a lot of Garak in him. And

Chad Kirchner (52:22)
Ha ha.

Alex (52:22)
he, no, he hasn't, you know, done war crimes, but well.

Erin Marquis (52:26)
Well, you know of.

Chad Kirchner (52:26)
No well, that we know of. We

we we didn't we know he liked a good interrogation.

Erin Marquis (52:31)
So

one of the best Garrick scenes I think is when Enab Brim Tane is dying and Enab Brim Tane says, are we alone? And he looks over at Bashir and he goes, yep. Like this is something

Alex (52:44)
Thank

Erin Marquis (52:45)
he wants Bashir to see. He wants Bashir to see something real. And like that's such a moment. Like they've created these two characters and that moment is just so moving to me.

Chad Kirchner (52:57)
What I think about that scene though too, and then we'll we'll move on, I promise, is it is a moment of vulnerability, but I still don't know if like that scene was genuine. Like I I know what Anabron was thinking through his n you know, cloudy mind of nearly dying, but like

Erin Marquis (53:16)
Why do you do this to me, Chadley?

Alex (53:18)
Hehehehehe

Chad Kirchner (53:18)
I

no, but like like the

ideas we're supposed to take away that yes, that's the finally the moment that Anabrin admits that Garek is his that it's the son. But I still don't think it's cut and dry when you walk away from that scene. Or am I crazy? Jonathan, am I crazy?

Jonathan Gitlin (53:33)
I think he's I think it's pretty cut and dry, but that's just me. Always look for the I like I think it's a family.

Chad Kirchner (53:35)
Yeah. Okay. I'm pretty crazy.

James Riswick (53:40)
I do love though, one of the things just briefly, since it's about Bashir and you're mentioning that.

Chad Kirchner (53:42)
Yeah. Yep.

James Riswick (53:45)
I like what by the way, if you ever do the uniform episode, I want to be on that. Because I love

Chad Kirchner (53:50)
Okay.

James Riswick (53:51)
my favorite thing. You want to talk about continuity and why the show was different. Bashir, they figured out, well, Bashir disappeared at some point and got replaced. But it happened here. Well, we had that uniform change production-wise. So Bashir in jail is wearing the old uniform.

Changeling Bashir's wearing the new one. We gotta do it. I love that from a production standpoint, you don't actually see stuff that often, like them acknowledging that hey, our uniforms changed.

Chad Kirchner (54:22)
Just don't

Erin Marquis (54:22)
I didn't even

realize that. That's amazing.

Chad Kirchner (54:24)
just don't

just don't overthink it though because

Alex (54:25)
It's a really nice point.

Chad Kirchner (54:27)
Bashir Changeling also saved Cisco's life during as a doctor. So like, I mean, if you're a sleeper if

James Riswick (54:32)
As a doctor, yeah, it is kind of weird. Yeah. There's a good

Chad Kirchner (54:37)
if you're a sleeper agent, like, you know, whatever. But there's some Yeah.

James Riswick (54:40)
He would have had to learn, right? If you're gonna do it, you can't just

look like the guy. He went to changeling a solid medical school. He crammed. It's very imp it's it's that's a that's

Chad Kirchner (54:48)
Right.

James Riswick (54:51)
an impressive terrorist changeling right there.

Erin Marquis (54:54)
Yeah, Beshear was second in his class. That's hard to pull off.

Chad Kirchner (54:57)
Yeah. and he was genetically modified.

James Riswick (54:59)
Well, it's a

little easier if you're genetically engineered.

Erin Marquis (55:03)
Yeah, but if you're changeling it's not.

James Riswick (55:05)
well sure. Yeah. He he

Chad Kirchner (55:05)
yeah, the link.

James Riswick (55:06)
finished first in changeling solid medical school.

Chad Kirchner (55:09)
Yeah, the the link solves all

Alex (55:11)
Maybe

inside his Bashir suit was just mostly brain. Just full of lots of brain.

Erin Marquis (55:15)
you

Chad Kirchner (55:15)
It could be. I mean we really don't know like

Picard kind of talks about what's inside changelings because they started to get kinda human stuff. That's very weird. I don't want to talk about Picard.

Erin Marquis (55:26)
you

Chad Kirchner (55:26)
but let's talk about specific episodes. We're gonna do this kind of in not really a lightning round, but like I'm gonna ask each of you what your favorite episode is. and we'll talk about it for a briefly. To make this slightly more fun though, we're gonna do this as a draft. Which means you can't pick

Erin Marquis (55:43)
Mm-hmm

Chad Kirchner (55:44)
what somebody else picked. according to random dot org.

Alex Goy. You're up first.

Alex (55:51)
crikey. So I have loads

and I was going through things earlier. I think the one that it might not necessarily be the best, but it's the one I remember watching quite vividly. And it's the past tense duo where they go back in time and Cisco becomes Gabriel Bell for the sake of preserving the timeline.

Chad Kirchner (56:10)
yes yes

Alex (56:13)
I remember it really vividly and really fondly. mean, there are so many more brilliant ones and I know someone else is going to mention one, I do really like. But that one just holds a special place in my heart because again, you get to see like the worst of 21st century humanity. How did they let it get like this? Well, close, yeah.

Chad Kirchner (56:32)
You do. If you look outside, you can sell.

Alex (56:36)
San Francisco, bit dodgy. bit closer than you think, mates. And...

Like the way different people are treated in society, so obviously Jadzia is the beautiful one who is then sort of whisked away and treated incredibly. And then the two guys who are just in the street basically wearing pajamas are

Chad Kirchner (56:55)
Yes.

Alex (56:57)
taken and put in a hellhole. And then this like self-governing society and they, everything that they have, everything that Starfleet has trained them for and kind of given them.

is put to the very very test because they can't interfere with the past they also have to be nice to people but they have to survive and they have to have a handle on where they are and then you know the the way that they cisco kind of takes up the mantle of bell because he died base yeah

Chad Kirchner (57:26)
Which is the most like tropiest star f sci-fi trope

ever. Like you kind of see it coming. You're like, no. Gabriel Bell's gonna show up and he's gonna die. Because you c because because you you have to. You have you like you have

Alex (57:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (57:38)
to do that. But no, like a real like the more you watch that, like currently, like we just passed the anniversary

Alex (57:45)
it's...

Chad Kirchner (57:45)
of when it is, you're like, there's a lot of stuff in there that's that's

Jonathan Gitlin (57:49)
no it's September. I just l I looked it up this morning. It's September the first to the third. Well they changed the

Alex (57:51)
Is it September this year? chronic heat. mean, yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (57:55)
date though, didn't they? They

Chad Kirchner (57:57)
Yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (57:58)
moved the date around because of the temporal war I think in Enterprise, I believe.

Chad Kirchner (58:01)
Yeah, there's there's some c just like con is not nineteen ninety

six anymore. It's it's whatever, it's complicated.

James Riswick (58:07)
Yeah, they they

they in they f in Strange New Worlds they mentioned how some temporal Cold Warist changed

Chad Kirchner (58:15)
Yeah.

James Riswick (58:16)
this and delayed the eugenics wars from ninety six to later to explain that.

Chad Kirchner (58:23)
It's it's fine. It's it's

Jonathan Gitlin (58:23)
So the bell rights were supposed to be twenty

twenty four. So September first to the third.

Alex (58:26)
Mm.

James Riswick (58:26)
That's still happening.

Chad Kirchner (58:26)
Yeah. It's it's wibbly wobbly. It's

Alex (58:30)
Wibbly wobbly. If you look at it from a non-linear,

Chad Kirchner (58:30)
wibbly wobbly, timey whimey.

Alex (58:32)
non-subjective point of view, time's just a big ball of... it's a big ball of wibbly wobbly, timey wimey... stuff.

Chad Kirchner (58:37)
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

you know, James, you were talking about continuity. the episode where they go back to Earth the Ferengi go back to Earth during

Alex (58:47)
Ugh.

Chad Kirchner (58:48)
Roswell. it's funny 'cause Nogus yeah,

Jonathan Gitlin (58:50)
That's on Little Green Men, that's on my list.

Chad Kirchner (58:52)
Little Green Men Yes. but like Little

James Riswick (58:53)
Doesn't this guy look like Captain Cisco?

Chad Kirchner (58:57)
Green like in Little Green Men,

Nog has is going through some Starfleet history stuff and comes across Belle and is like this looks a lot like Commanders or a lot like Captain Zisco, doesn't it? And then Quark is like, all humans look the same. Like it's

James Riswick (59:10)
Ha ha ha.

Chad Kirchner (59:10)
it's it's just it's it's racist but like also funny. Like because Frank here kind of racist. Jonathan Gitlin. They are.

James Riswick (59:18)
And humans are racist to Ferengi. I will

say that Captain Captain Cisco, for all his merits, kinda r and well, Wharf is very feracist towards Ferengi.

Chad Kirchner (59:27)
Warf Wharf is very War Warf is also

Erin Marquis (59:27)
I mean, there's a lot

Jonathan Gitlin (59:29)
Wolf

Erin Marquis (59:29)
of racism in Star Trek.

Jonathan Gitlin (59:29)
is t Wolf is Wolf is but bad

Chad Kirchner (59:29)
a

Jonathan Gitlin (59:32)
person in a lot of ways. He's like he goes

Chad Kirchner (59:33)
Yeah, Worf is a terrible father.

Jonathan Gitlin (59:35)
to MISA and helps the terrorists. I mean, he's a dad to Alexander. He's not really yeah, I'm sorry. Like the whole

Chad Kirchner (59:38)
Yes. Yes.

Jonathan Gitlin (59:45)
like

Alex (59:44)
He's a

genuine... He's also terrible at fighting people. Because I know

Jonathan Gitlin (59:49)
Mm-hmm.

Alex (59:49)
the thing on TNG was like, big strong Klingon being defeated by things. But

Chad Kirchner (59:51)
yeah, that's the trope. Like, hey, we gotta throw him around. Yeah.

Alex (59:54)
actually, it's like, he's just at his job. And his job is be a Klingon.

Chad Kirchner (59:57)
And then and then one empty c

and then an empty storage container breaks his back and

Alex (1:00:02)
Yep.

Chad Kirchner (1:00:02)
you know.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:00:02)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:00:03)
Yeah. but this isn't a hate on Wharf thing. No, Worf did appear in D S nine

Jonathan Gitlin (1:00:06)
All right.

Chad Kirchner (1:00:07)
and Wharf is probably the most prolific, like, appearance character, Michael Dorn. So

Jonathan Gitlin (1:00:11)
Yeah. Probably.

James Riswick (1:00:12)
And and he was like

they they wanted so they wanted the studio wanted someone to to ju you know spruce up Deep Space Nine. They kind of they kind of were they kind of resented it. The writers didn't like, well we're we're doing this Dominion thing, but now you want us to do Klingons. But okay, we'll just go with it, because that's what they always did. They were put in a box and okay, we're gonna deal with it. And if they were I mean, it's he's the the character who makes the most sense to

Chad Kirchner (1:00:36)
Yeah.

James Riswick (1:00:37)
join them because he's

He's an outsider. He fits on like Jordy is not gonna fit on Deep Space Nine, right? but they were able to do so much with him. And the

Chad Kirchner (1:00:47)
Yeah.

James Riswick (1:00:47)
fact that he could be not a great father, like let's let's be like it's from a storytelling perspective, it's good. Because it he wasn't like perfect man. He did

Chad Kirchner (1:00:57)
Sure, yeah, it's

James Riswick (1:00:58)
they called out that like, yeah, you shipped your son back off to Belarus. Like what with grandpa? What are you doing?

Chad Kirchner (1:01:04)
Yeah.

James Riswick (1:01:05)
And

Alexander, who I guess Klingons grow very quickly, even like three quarter

Jonathan Gitlin (1:01:11)
Yeah.

James Riswick (1:01:11)
Klingons, shows up and's like, Yeah, dad, you suck. I'm gonna be a a goofball here on on the the retaran and

Chad Kirchner (1:01:22)
Yeah. Well and Garon

and Garon's such a great guest character too. I think I think Warfleads the way to getting in a lot of Garon stuff and

James Riswick (1:01:29)
well the the other

great thing is like Wharf, it's it it really shows because once on TNG he was always like a a person who was like, I'm not really with I I don't belong here, I'm Klingon in a human world. And they kind of touched on it like he's also apart from Klingons. But on Deep Space Nine, it became very clear that he's not much of a cling he doesn't really know how to be a Klingon. He knows how to like

a textbook Klingon. I know all

Chad Kirchner (1:01:55)
Yeah.

James Riswick (1:01:55)
the rituals and I know what this is and this is honorable and this is not honorable. And Martok shows up and he is the best Klingon

Chad Kirchner (1:02:01)
Yeah.

James Riswick (1:02:02)
ever. And he's like, chill dude. Like Gaiden

Chad Kirchner (1:02:04)
Well, I mean

James Riswick (1:02:05)
was like, I know plenty of Klingons who laugh. You don't. And you see that.

Chad Kirchner (1:02:08)
Yeah. Well and Jitzia was a better Klingon

than than he was. Yeah, Jitzia was, like through

James Riswick (1:02:14)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:02:15)
her curson. yeah, so this I mean like I think Wharf opens the door for a lot of interesting stories that they do end up telling. and bringing in characters like Martha, who is absolutely excellent. when I see him in other things I'm like, why do you have two eyes? You shouldn't have two eyes. even though like he has two eyes at the very beginning, obviously. But

Gitlin, what's your fave?

Jonathan Gitlin (1:02:39)
He has two eyes in

he has two eyes in Babylon five as well. Isn't that the same action?

Chad Kirchner (1:02:44)
Yes. It is, yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:02:47)
but we won't.

James Riswick (1:02:47)
He was I didn't

know he was on Babylon five.

Chad Kirchner (1:02:50)
Also another good series. No, I'm pretty sure it's

Jonathan Gitlin (1:02:50)
I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure he is in a son having a t anyway, back to DS9.

okay, I'm gonna say Honor Among Thieves, which I think is actually a better travails of of Miles O'Brien episode than well no, it's d is it well, I prefer it to the one where he's in mind prison. but when he goes undercover

Chad Kirchner (1:03:10)
Yeah, yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:03:11)
with the Orion syndicate, and he has to portray Boothby and at the end he ends up with Boothby's cat. So

Chad Kirchner (1:03:17)
Yeah, he ends

up he ends up being like sympathetic to the syndicate and Yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:03:24)
And I f it's funny because now

James Riswick (1:03:24)
Interesting choice.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:03:25)
with lower decks, you see like the the you

James Riswick (1:03:25)
Interesting choice.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:03:27)
actually see the Orion syndicate from a totally diff different angle. Because because

Chad Kirchner (1:03:31)
You you do, yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:03:33)
the Mistress of the Winter Constellation obviously is well was part of it.

Chad Kirchner (1:03:37)
Yeah. Well and I think that what I like about how Lower Decks handled the Orions too is is we looked at like well what happens when you have an Orion that doesn't want to be a a a pirate,

Jonathan Gitlin (1:03:46)
Uh-huh.

Chad Kirchner (1:03:46)
you know, with with with Tandy. And I think like in Starfleet Academy you have can't remember his name off the top of my head, but the Cleon who wants to be a doctor. Like well you can't have a society that's all pirates. You can't have a society that's all warriors. Like let's talk about

Jonathan Gitlin (1:04:01)
The in fact the episode with the

D S nine episode with the Klingon lawyer where

James Riswick (1:04:06)
Yeah, yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:04:06)
Yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:04:07)
is a great exploration of that. And like looking at, you know, the non warrior Klingons and where they get their honour from.

James Riswick (1:04:14)
But

and he's great because he actually, even though he's a lawyer, he still sees it as battle. Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:04:19)
He does, yeah.

And like and leads him right into leads Worf right into punching him too. Like you you know it's gonna happen. Like you 'cause you cause Worf will just take the bait. You know Worf will take the bait. Mr. Ruswick Sir

James Riswick (1:04:36)
Okay, well I I'm kind of shocked that the episodes were are our popular episodes are have been left on the table here. So I was I was

Chad Kirchner (1:04:43)
Everybody on here is cultured. They're trying to be cultured and not talk about in the pale moonlight.

James Riswick (1:04:47)
yeah, which I have yeah, I have a great Ron

Alex (1:04:49)
Hehehehehe

James Riswick (1:04:51)
Moore thing about that. eventually when we talk about that.

Chad Kirchner (1:04:55)
Yeah.

James Riswick (1:04:55)
but I actually in true Deep Space Nine fashion, I'm not gonna pick one episode, but rather a block of three.

Chad Kirchner (1:05:01)
Okay.

James Riswick (1:05:02)
And it will not be one towards the end, it's actually the very first.

Block that they did. It's the beginning of the second season, so it's Homecoming

Chad Kirchner (1:05:09)
Circle and

James Riswick (1:05:10)
Circle and Siege, all in the very Michael Pillar, the at the front of the names. And I think this is like first season Deep Space Nine, there's not a lot to work with there. The emissary's great. You get the duet with Kira and the Cardassian guy, and then the final episode in the middle, you can skip it. But the first

Though that is Deep Space Nine right there, because that was like, hey, we're gonna do three episodes. What? You mean the second episode won't it'll just be and now the continuation, not and now the conclusion? This was like we're gonna do a continuous storyline. We're really gonna dig into where we are with these Bajorans. Further it's the first time I think is the they forget about it, but Dax seems like our Dax in that episode. She's kind of snippy.

And sarcastic to Kira. She's a bit roguish. We see her taking advantage of her former like Tarius's pilot skills. So like there's so there's a lot of great Kira things in there, and you have two Oscar winning actors, Fred J Franklin Gello would l win it after, but still, like in that episode, he was he was not credited in that.

Chad Kirchner (1:06:23)
Yeah. He was uncredited. Yeah, he's uncredited

in all of them, yeah. Yep.

James Riswick (1:06:28)
And he wanted to do it for his kids. He's not

credited because he said like I didn't want to like draw too much like neg like I didn't want to like overshadow the episode.

Chad Kirchner (1:06:38)
Right.

James Riswick (1:06:38)
Like people know I who I am, it's fine.

Chad Kirchner (1:06:40)
Yeah.

James Riswick (1:06:42)
but like they like it's huge. Like that that entire arc you have this great Bajoran hero, and he's apparently not really that much of a hero, but it's the idea of him,

Chad Kirchner (1:06:51)
Yeah, he he killed a Cardassian that was taking a bath.

James Riswick (1:06:54)
yeah.

And it's the idea of him, and it's that that's what they need, and ultimately that's not what they get. Instead,

Chad Kirchner (1:07:01)
Yeah.

James Riswick (1:07:01)
they get Kai Wynn. And it's it's so imp that is so important both for the format of the show, what it would become, and you can see just everything that's will happen from both a production standpoint and a character standpoint is right there. That's right.

Chad Kirchner (1:07:20)
That arc should have that arc should have had

a happy ending and it didn't. And that

James Riswick (1:07:25)
And that's deep space nine.

Chad Kirchner (1:07:26)
says his sign, yeah. One one hundred percent. there's one really creepy part in that very first episode of that series of the three episode series when when Kira asks O'Brien how she looks. And he's like, No man here could resist you. I'm like, cringe. but like a real great, like, you know, Major and you know

Jonathan Gitlin (1:07:47)
Are you gonna do an episode

on the on the DS nine polycule?

Chad Kirchner (1:07:53)
We should. Aaron, hello. Greetings. Favorite episode.

Erin Marquis (1:07:58)
Hi. Hello.

Chad Kirchner (1:08:00)
I know you kinda said the wire earlier. You're probably just gonna say the wire, aren't you? Okay.

Erin Marquis (1:08:03)
Yeah. I mean,

it's it also has one of my favorite moments of physical comedy in DS9 when Garrick is drinking at Quirks and Bashir takes the bottle away, puts it behind his back, wiggles it and Quirk comes and grabs the bottle before they can before, you know, Garrick can grab it. I love that. Just a little funny scene. I also, of course, love Bar Association.

I also, love, I will say one of my favorite things about DS9 is that at the end of it, the people who saved the universe or saved the galaxy are the barmaid and the mechanic. Two normal, they're not mega geniuses who can rattle off all of this, you know, sci-fi, you know, gobbledygook. It's two normal people who do something extraordinary.

And quark too, like they find this bravery in themselves they didn't know they had. And that's freaking awesome. I love that about DS9.

Chad Kirchner (1:09:14)
Cork comes around.

As as problematic as I think the pro the Frengi are, both on on purpose and also just because of the time, Quark really has like Quark and the Ferengies in Deep Space Nine really I think set a pretty good bar in terms of like look, we're trying to be more well fleshed out characters with with with real motivations and real like it's not we're not two dimensional like we maybe have been previously. Yeah, there's growth.

Erin Marquis (1:09:43)
There's growth. There's

everybody, every, and it's not just growth for the, for the main characters, everybody grows. And that's just why it's such a remarkable show in the Star Trek canon.

Chad Kirchner (1:09:54)
And speaking of growth, this this Star Trek, this tiered deep chase nine, was the beginning of a growth trajectory for a Mr. Ronald D. Moore, who went on to do Battlestar Galactica, the remake. he's doing For All Mankind and also Star City. And

I know there's a lot of people who have for all mankind opinions on on here. but but James, explain to me this this trajectory of Ronald Moore. and what do you see like also talk about like what do you see in some of the other stuff that you maybe he picked

James Riswick (1:10:37)
Sure.

Chad Kirchner (1:10:38)
up from Dew Space Nine.

James Riswick (1:10:39)
So I mean Ron Moore became most known for Battlestar Galactica because he was the showrunner and the creator for that. But I mean, it came because of Star Trek. So he worked at Star Trek for a decade. He came on, he was the at the very beginning, he was the product of Star Trek's unique opportun so opportun Star Trek would bring in unsolicited scripts from anybody.

So everybody here could have just sent in a script to Star Trek. And that was Michael Piller's like role. So he was a showrunner starting in the third season of TNG. He created Deep Space Nine and Voyager along with others. and so Ron Moore sent in a spec script. He was about to join the Navy. And a week before he was about to go, you know, ship off or join the Navy, he got

his his spec script accepted and the rest is history. He was on he wrote Generations, he wrote First Contact, but he went he was on Deep Space Nine starting well right after TNG ended. So he started probably the third season. so a couple of illustrative things about where how Battlestar came from with him and Deep Space Nine. So this one of his fellow writers, David Weddell, talked about how

There's an episode called god, the little ship one. Where the the it's kind of a jokey episode and the one little ship. So the

Chad Kirchner (1:12:13)
with the s the small runabout. Yeah. Yeah, one of those ships.

James Riswick (1:12:17)
it gets shrunken down to size and but meanwhile the Dominion have invaded the Defiant and are taking it over. And so it's kind of this jokey episode. And so what Ron Moore had written was you're gonna have this ensign here.

And Chief O'Brien is gonna say, Don't worry, Ensign, everything's gonna be okay. And then a gem had dar blows her brains out. That's the way it was written, and Ron Moore really wanted to fight for this. This was important, this was what needed to happen. And I don't disagree. I think that's not really the tenor of this particular episode.

Chad Kirchner (1:12:51)
Sure.

James Riswick (1:12:52)
So they but he really fought for that and Weddle said like that's kinda the beginning of Battlestar Galactica 'cause that's absolutely something that would have happened on on Battlestar.

Chad Kirchner (1:13:01)
Well, and for all mankind, I mean a trope on for all mankind is sort of the randomness of death.

James Riswick (1:13:09)
Yeah. And so

and then the other thing is so after DS Night ends, he goes to Voyager because it was just it was safe for him. I I he felt comfortable. Meanwhile, his writing partner was Brandon Braga. And he he wrote with TNG with him and they wrote the two movies together. And so Brandon Braga at this point was now show running Voyager and they were buddies. Hope here, come over, help me. The problem was that

Ron Moore came in thinking, this show's not very good, I need to fix it. And surely Brandon Braga would also welcome me to try and fix this. And he had this idea of, well, like thinking of Voyager, well, like, how many shuttles do you still have left? Or like, how many people are left? And like, like you're running out of stuff. Isn't this gonna be become difficult? And like, is Captain Janeway gonna be the captain for eight

Years for eight until she's eighty? Like this is gonna be a generation ship. Are really? Where Kim's gonna be an ensign forever? Haha well he was in Essen forever 'cause the writer staff hated Kim as a character and took it out on him.

Chad Kirchner (1:14:15)
Except for that

time he was a lieutenant in an Elmir. Yeah, when Yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:14:16)
Yeah, but you saw what happened when he didn't become an ensign and he tried to destroy the entire multiverse.

James Riswick (1:14:19)
Yeah. So

so Ron Moore came in thinking, I I have all of these ideas. They're gonna like th this needs to be grimmer. They're on this voyage. It's like Stick's gonna stick with them. And he wanted to make it more like Deep Space Nine. Brandon Braga says no, he really dug in and like, No, I'm the one in charge. He has since said, That was wrong. I should have listened to him, the show would have been a lot better had we done that. but that was that was the beginning of Battlestar because

That that idea Battlestar Galactica is there alone and they need to survive. And what we're if we lose stuff, we're we're out of stuff. We don't we don't have it anymore. And that was his idea, Voyager. So it that that's where Battlestar come from. the other thing I would point out is for all mankind is you know, you can see lots of Star Trek things in there. But one thing you did mention was the show Outlander, which was this

kinda lady romance historical novel series. And

Jonathan Gitlin (1:15:22)
Not the

James Riswick (1:15:23)
but

Jonathan Gitlin (1:15:23)
not the movie on Jupiter.

James Riswick (1:15:27)
No, Outlander is the the Scottish woman who or they goes back in time and falls in love with a Scott the Scottish guy in the 18th

Jonathan Gitlin (1:15:34)
Well I don't know.

James Riswick (1:15:35)
century and yeah. So that show was showrunners, so it's effectively a science fiction concept in that she goes back in time and can change history. That's a science fiction concept, so they got Ron Moore, science fiction writer, to do it. Ira Bear, the showrunner for Deep Space Nine, is involved in the first.

Two seasons of that show. And I remember watching that show going, all the Scottish stuff. There's entire scenes in like like giant halls where everybody's just speaking Gaelic. No, there's there's just and you're just seeing how it, and I'm like, my God, this is a Klingon episode. And you see, because Ron Moore wrote so many of those Klingon episodes. The modern Klingons is all Ron Moore, and it's right there.

I don't know if he studied Scott Scottish history in order to bring it into Klingons or what, but it that that is a Scottish show and you actually do see a lot of that in that show too.

Chad Kirchner (1:16:36)
Star Trek has a weird Jonathan, we newsflash we have a a background chat that we can do or while recording in case somebody's recording goes crap. And he mentioned that Chuck has a very bad history with No, that Chuck has a very

Jonathan Gitlin (1:16:48)
I didn't want to interrupt. Delete the wife.

James Riswick (1:16:50)
yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:16:51)
bad history of of Scottish, but mostly Irish episodes and anything Gaelic. yeah, yeah. yeah. I mean

There's this modern truck really does, I think I mean Scotty in Strange New Worlds finally is a Scotsman. Like it's it's really it it really shouldn't have taken this long. And Khan was actually, you know, not a white dude. So, I see a lot of

Jonathan Gitlin (1:17:19)
The other day,

another fellow automotive journalist that most of us know, went off on a rant about why he thought that that TNG was stupid because Picard shouldn't have been played by an English actor because he was French. I I just listened and didn't really engage

Chad Kirchner (1:17:31)
I mean

Jonathan Gitlin (1:17:32)
'cause I didn't think there was any I th you know what? Let it out. Let it out.

Chad Kirchner (1:17:35)
I mean okay. I mean okay.

Like it's funny. I think it's kinda funny, but like

James Riswick (1:17:43)
I just always thought was weird they just didn't change his name. Like once they cast Siddig Alphadil as Doctor Amaros, they changed his name to Bashir. They they changed it.

Alex (1:17:53)
Have you ever heard

James Doohan speak in his actual accent?

Jonathan Gitlin (1:17:59)
Think so.

Alex (1:18:00)
it's

really weird

James Riswick (1:18:00)
I don't think so.

Alex (1:18:01)
because he's not Scottish, he's Canadian. And so when I learnt this

Chad Kirchner (1:18:01)
Right. Yeah. Yeah, it's Canadian.

James Riswick (1:18:05)
yeah, I'm old Canadian.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:18:05)
Yeah.

Alex (1:18:07)
I was like, I'm just going to go to YouTube and it's just, it's really odd because that guy you know from the little box in the corner that speaks in a sort of Scottish brogue, no, not at all. If you haven't done it, look it up, it's Good weird, but

Chad Kirchner (1:18:23)
I speaking

Alex (1:18:24)
weird.

Chad Kirchner (1:18:25)
when you when you see Alexander El City in in Game of Thrones, they're just like Dr. Pashir like I can't unsee Doctor Pashir even though his character is much more of a a badass there.

I see a lot of like the latest season Strange New World or not Strange New Worlds, for all mankind, there's a a thing that very very much looks like the Deep Space Nine Promenade. Like like I call it the Promenade. Like it is the Promenade.

James Riswick (1:18:47)
Yes Yes Yes

Jonathan Gitlin (1:18:48)
Uh-huh.

Chad Kirchner (1:18:51)
Like it is so obviously that. and it's i

James Riswick (1:18:55)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:18:56)
you see those little things again, sort of like throughout Ron Moore and you're you're like,

James Riswick (1:18:58)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And he's

not even that involved in the show anymore.

Chad Kirchner (1:19:03)
No, no. I really like the first season of Star City. I have no spoilers here, and this is obviously not a Star City podcast, but speaking of villains, that that one's got a really good one. Yes, she is yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:19:17)
Anna Maxwell Martin, yes. She plays Ludmilla, the KGB head colonel. And yeah, she

that it's a slightly different kind of like she makes your skin crawl in a way that I don't think Kai Wyn did. 'cause that character has a much

Chad Kirchner (1:19:30)
No, both made my skin both

Jonathan Gitlin (1:19:32)
bigger body count.

Chad Kirchner (1:19:33)
Yes, my c my skin still crawls. But it's for you know, it it you get angry at kind of different reasons. So I think that that's

probably a good place to stop, in that Star Trek was Deep Space Nine was like the first real kind of serialized television in general. you know. Like it is weird that it was in syndication because Alex you were talking about kind of missing certain episodes. I had missed the search part one and part two, which is where they introduced the Defiant. Like I I kept trying to watch it, trying to watch it and trying to watch it. I ended up having to buy it on VHS to get it. but you know

It's just crazy. So, let's w we're gonna wrap this up. Erin, really quick, thanks for coming on. I'm glad that you could join us. Unless she's already disconnected. She may have already muted and walked away from her computer. which apparently she has. she's she's the editora Jalopnik. I write for her sometimes. She's great. And you should listen to the last episode that she was on on here. we talked a lot about w we

Alex (1:20:40)
was amazing. I listened

to it on a drive back from a shoot

Chad Kirchner (1:20:42)
Yeah.

Alex (1:20:43)
and I was like, I know these people, this is excellent. And it was a love letter to William Garrick and it made me very, very happy.

Chad Kirchner (1:20:48)
you

you're very kind. we also talk about some fanfiction, which is a w a wild

Alex (1:20:54)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:20:54)
kind of category.

Erin Marquis (1:20:55)
back.

Chad Kirchner (1:20:57)
hi, hello. I was just saying thanks for being on.

Erin Marquis (1:21:00)
yeah, sorry

about that. was just, I just had to answer a call, but I'm back. Sorry.

Chad Kirchner (1:21:04)
okay. I thought you were gone gone, so I said goodbye for you. No, and Alex was

Erin Marquis (1:21:07)
I'm sorry, yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:21:09)
just singing your praises on the last episode you were on on us with with us, so

Erin Marquis (1:21:14)
what a darling man he is, and all of you.

Alex (1:21:16)
It was excellent. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Chad Kirchner (1:21:18)
other than Jalopnik, is

Erin Marquis (1:21:18)
very soon.

Chad Kirchner (1:21:19)
there anything you wanna talk about quick, Aaron?

Erin Marquis (1:21:21)
No,

all I do is gelopnik. That's all I ever do anymore. Yep,

Chad Kirchner (1:21:27)
Well, you just got back from Finland, so that was probably fun.

Erin Marquis (1:21:31)
look for my review of the electric C class coming up.

Chad Kirchner (1:21:37)
James, sir, I hope you enjoyed your time here. Where where can people find you?

James Riswick (1:21:42)
I I I could just keep

on keep on talking about D you know, we we didn't we didn't we just you know mentioned in the pale moonlight and and

Chad Kirchner (1:21:50)
yeah, no, that's an episode like in itself. Like like there's the war crimes

episode that we're gonna do and like that's gonna be part of it.

James Riswick (1:21:58)
Yeah. No, this is this yeah. I I've I've recently been on a Star Trek podcast. That's like the most exciting thing I've done. So that's yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:22:06)
Okay.

Well

Alex Aside from being aside from being the scheduler for Richard Hammond or his public or his public or his publicist.

Alex (1:22:13)
I mean, I... Well, no, that's not quite the job. No, sorry. Yeah.

I work for Drive Tribe now. No, I'm definitely not.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:22:23)
And not Izzy Hammond's agent. Please do not send requests to Alex.

Alex (1:22:28)
I'm

Chad Kirchner (1:22:28)
Ha ha.

Alex (1:22:28)
not anyone's agent. No, I work for Drive Tribe now, so I make films with them and write lots of scripts and make lots of phone calls and have wine every evening now. And it's very fun and I love it. And I didn't think I'd be able to...

make films about cars for a job again. So very jazzed to do that. I am also quietly amazed that none of us has mentioned Move Along Home, but there's a whole episode in that.

Chad Kirchner (1:22:53)
yeah, that's yeah,

yeah, Al

Erin Marquis (1:22:55)
worst of the worst.

James Riswick (1:22:56)
Not

considered the worst episode according to IMDV voters. It's number five.

Alex (1:23:00)
I mean, they might be correct,

Chad Kirchner (1:23:00)
Ha ha.

Alex (1:23:01)
because it is utter dog-cock, but…

Erin Marquis (1:23:02)
I think so, yeah. It is.

We should do our favorite worst episodes. I'll just go with the best of the worst and the great.

Chad Kirchner (1:23:07)
yeah, the best of the worst. Like I mean we gotta do that.

Alex (1:23:07)
Yeah. yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:23:10)
Like I like I mean, the beauty of like the twenty six episode runs of Star Trek is like you'd have really good episodes and you'd have really bad episodes and I love them all the same. It's the mid episodes that you're like

Like what those are the worst. Like the ones you are just straight up forgettable. yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I'll have drive child links to stuff in the show notes as well. Jonathan Gitland, sir, before before you're off to cover some Tesla stuff, have anything you wanna pimp pimp plug?

Jonathan Gitlin (1:23:42)
Yeah. no, other than I was technical,

that's where people can find me. Like James, I've also been

Chad Kirchner (1:23:47)
It's good site, you should go read it.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:23:49)
on a Star Trek podcast recently.

Chad Kirchner (1:23:52)
Yeah. Thank you all for coming on. I really appreciate

Jonathan Gitlin (1:23:55)
Thanks having me.

Chad Kirchner (1:23:56)
it. Hope it wasn't too traumatic for any of you. And I still

Alex (1:24:00)
It was excellent. Everything I dreamed and more.

Chad Kirchner (1:24:02)
don't

James Riswick (1:24:03)
Should have been twice as long.

Chad Kirchner (1:24:05)
it will be next time, I promise. We'll we'll yes, have an intermission in between. And then and then and then have Magella Barrett

Alex (1:24:10)
Yes, I need more wine.

Erin Marquis (1:24:11)
But I've never...

Chad Kirchner (1:24:13)
come on and be like, previously on this podcast.

Erin Marquis (1:24:18)
Jonathan, by the way, really have admired your work for many years. So it was very...

Jonathan Gitlin (1:24:23)
Really? dear. I'm sorry. Thank

you though.

Chad Kirchner (1:24:25)
Ha

ha ha.

Alex (1:24:26)
See, you might be an American citizen, but you're still British.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:24:29)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:24:30)
You're still very British

Erin Marquis (1:24:30)
Yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:24:32)
now.

Erin Marquis (1:24:34)
So it was really, really nice to meet you as well. Hello.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:24:36)
Yeah, likewise, hello. I've

Chad Kirchner (1:24:38)
Well we'll

we'll do this again for sure.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:24:38)
followed you for a long time

too.

Alex (1:24:42)
On the internet, on the internet!

Chad Kirchner (1:24:42)
Whoa.

Erin Marquis (1:24:44)
yeah, not not like not in the streets of Detroit. Yeah, that's good. That's good.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:24:45)
Yes. Not not in a creepy way.

Chad Kirchner (1:24:46)
The answer. Right. Right.

So, if you like this episode, like, you know, like, subscribe, do all that jazz. the best thing you can do to support it is to tell people about it. We do have a Patreon, but like really just tell people to listen to this. It'll be fun. And then more people will come on when they know that people listen to this. So

Until next time, I don't have a sign out yet again. How what would Cisco what would Cisco say? You betrayed your uniform. I don't think that's

Jonathan Gitlin (1:25:16)
Let's play ball.

Chad Kirchner (1:25:17)
let's play yes, let's play ball. we gotta talk about baseball too. my gosh. So much more, so much more to

Erin Marquis (1:25:20)
Hell yeah, the Niners!

Chad Kirchner (1:25:23)
talk about. But we'll

James Riswick (1:25:24)
More run, more stuff, yeah.

Chad Kirchner (1:25:25)
we'll we'll do that next time for sure. Goodbye.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:25:27)
The fact that Matt Grodinchick

was a professional baseball player and then they have him be like the worst person

Chad Kirchner (1:25:31)
Had yeah

Jonathan Gitlin (1:25:32)
on the team.

Chad Kirchner (1:25:33)
Yeah, he had to play

James Riswick (1:25:33)
You have to play left handed.

Chad Kirchner (1:25:34)
Yeah, he had to play left handed. Yep.

Alex (1:25:35)
Chad, I've got one for you. I've got one

for you for this one. Release docking clamps.

Chad Kirchner (1:25:40)
Yeah, release docking clamps. And then and then and then we didn't even talk about

Jonathan Gitlin (1:25:41)
Thank you that there you go. Play ball would be a better intro.

James Riswick (1:25:41)
Mm.

Erin Marquis (1:25:42)
Yeah, there you go.

Alex (1:25:45)
Haha!

Chad Kirchner (1:25:46)
the and we didn't even talk about the theme song, which has a horn section that goes way harder than it needs to. At at just keep going order.

James Riswick (1:25:50)
Just keep just keep going around the station, man. Just keep going.

Jonathan Gitlin (1:25:53)
huh, yep.

James Riswick (1:25:54)
Just keep going.

Erin Marquis (1:25:55)
Pretend to be in a maze, you're a maze of the pylons.

Chad Kirchner (1:25:59)
All right. Thanks. Thanks all for being on. Thanks everybody for listening.

Erin Marquis (1:26:02)
Great seeing you guys.

Alex (1:26:04)
Bye.