The Changeling (Star Trek TOS - S2E03)

[Hailing Frequencies Open]

This week on Treks and Tangents, our co-hosts tackle “The Changeling”, an episode featuring a homicidal floating space probe that somehow convinces Kirk to invite it aboard the Enterprise after it wipes out four billion people. What follows is a chaotic mess of bad science, killer robot logic, exploding computers, and Kirk desperately trying to out-argue what might be the galaxy’s angriest Roomba.

Along the way, the crew debates whether Nomad is terrifying or just deeply confused, questions why the Enterprise security team keeps charging at a murder machine one guy at a time, and watches Uhura get turned into a college freshman again after having her brain wiped. Brian spirals into increasingly passionate complaints about warp speed math and Vulcan mind melds with machines, while Jaci tries to survive one of the most confusing episodes of TOS so far.

[End Transmission]

Transcript

Intro/Turbolift Tease Recap

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Failing frequencies open and welcome aboard Treks and Tangents.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

I'm your co-host Brian. And I'm your co-host Jackie. I'm your Star Trek newbie who treks off on tangents.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

I'm your Star Trek expert who is here to get the tangents back on track. Each episode we watch and talk about a different Star Trek episode.

SPEAKER_03 0:26

And this week we watched Star Trek, the original series, season two, episode three, The Changeling.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome back, everyone, to another. I was gonna say fun episode.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Oh no, it was not fun.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

I think we both kind of are in agreement. This was kind of a slog to get through this week.

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Like last week was whoa, that went too fast, and now we're complaining, but please bring the other one back.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yeah, for all of our comments and all of my thoughts of season two really brings is the peak, I think, for the original series and brings the best episodes. Um man. Man. But anyway, uh don't forget to stick around at the end of this episode. We will discuss and reveal our Star Note bonus episode topic, which will be live over at our Patreon, free for everyone who follows patreon.com slash treks and tangents, where we take a deeper dive into one or two topics from this week's episode. Again, stick around till the end and we'll talk about what our topic will be. But enough about that. Let's talk about this week's banger of an episode. We'll start as we always do by revisiting our turbolift tees. That's where we get Jackie, the title of this week's episode, at the end of last week's episode. And Jackie, with no other information or context, tried to guess the plot of this week's episode. So, computer, what was Jackie's prediction last week?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Jackie's prediction last week was remember that distress call from last episode? We are going to that planet and happen to meet a new character, and Sulu is going to become friends with that person or animal. Who knows? And then we are going to help them, and then the Enterprise leaves.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

So, Jackie, how good do you think your prediction was for this episode?

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Well, these titles are terrible to begin with. Um, but I did get a a distress call and I included a Sulu. Ta-da!

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Okay, so yeah, they are responding to a distress signal. Kind of interesting. I think I made comment to it off mic that w your turbo lift tease prediction didn't address the idea that a changeling the most obvious was a shapeshifter.

SPEAKER_03 2:54

Well, that's because I didn't actually know exactly what it was. I had to do the research.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Do you know what a changeling is now? I'm looking at your notes, so Yes, I do. Do you? Go for it. Let's ignore the turboliftees. Let's give the grade based on uh research this week. What is a changeling, Jackie? Specifically, what is a changeling as it relates to this episode?

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Essentially, the changeling was how folklore explained disabilities and events born with defects. And so that was just how they dealt with it. And like this magical creature would take it on to a fairyland. I guess we can relate it to the episode because two broken parts actually become one, like it's the other side of that magical fairyland kind of so my research, because I looked it up as well just to get an idea, came to similar but slightly different results.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

It's from Irish folklore. And it just to simplify it, it's just when a demon, specifically depending on the source, a child demon, steals the spirit or the soul of a human child and uses that spirit of the child as a way to manifest and interact with our world. In a way, it's just kind of a metaphor for an evil spirit taking over a normal spirit. So it's still kind of a stretch.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Yes, and I did find an art piece of what you were explaining, and it's wild.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

What I

Initial Impressions

SPEAKER_01 4:36

think we've touched on it, but we'll just put it on the record. What did you think of the episode? I hated it. Hate's a strong word.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Why did you hate it?

SPEAKER_03 4:45

It was very hard for me to understand what I was watching. It's not a great episode. Like, I watched it three times. Like I always watch it generally when taking notes multiple times, but this time it took me forever because I had to make sure I got all the words.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

It's extremely problematic. It's okay, so it's a heavy dialogue, but in a sense, it can be boiled down to a very simple space probe gets hijacked and reprogrammed and is now completely, I wouldn't even say evil, but reprogrammed in a way that makes it very dangerous. Yes, but its function is malfunctioned. But beyond that, there's really not a lot of explanation that comes from it. They kind of go into how it ends up being reprogrammed. They don't get into how it suddenly is super powerful. This episode asks us to take and ignore a lot of leaps of faith to explain away some of what we're seeing and we're s and and to kind of distract us and direct our attention elsewhere in the episode. Ultimately, I don't think it pulls it off.

SPEAKER_03 5:58

Right. Like we have to think about this mystical alien, and then we're wandering in space. Yeah, and even like the Kirk assumes that this small person in this ship wants him to come aboard. And so he's like, Oh, we'll just have you come here.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Well, yeah, there and there's a lot of misdirection because it's uh oh, it's a ship and it's only a meter long, and then it turns out not to be a ship, and there is no biological being, it's just a mechanical probe, and it's from Earth, but oh, it's not from Earth, and how did Kirk's the one who made it? No, he's not the one who made it. And yeah, ultimately again, it's just kind of like, what are we doing? It at no point do you get to really invest, get invested in the plot because it just keeps changing and altering, and in the end, all we really have that is solid to latch on to is nomad probe bad.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

And a lot of people did.

SPEAKER_01 6:59

Yeah, four billion in that solar system.

SPEAKER_03 7:03

Yes, on top of those that he killed on Enterprise before Kirk got him to like stop.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

And potentially how many other solar systems and civilizations that we don't know about or will ever know about? Exactly. Insane. So yeah, yeah, I think we're both in agreement. Not gonna be a good episode to watch, but we'll try to make it as entertaining as we can.

SPEAKER_03 7:29

But maybe if you have that mechanical or even galactic thinking, you might enjoy it.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

No, no one's gonna enjoy this one. That's not true.

SPEAKER_03 7:40

I mean, I would like to know behind the scenes how they made the machine float around. I know I'm being naive, but I really want to know.

SPEAKER_01 7:49

We're gonna pause the episode right here. I'm gonna show Jackie exactly how this thing moved around. So you wouldn't even know. You wouldn't know if you were watching on a television screen from the 1960s, but for anyone who wants to go back and look, we're looking at the scene right after Nomad kills Scotty, and Nomad is making its way over to Spock's Science Terminal on the bridge. You can clearly see it is supported by a wire, and they are just moving. I'm sure it's like a boom arm, and they're just trying to move it as slowly as they can without jostling it. There's gonna be some other shots where it seems like the camera is glued to the side of Nomad, and so you get kind of like an over-the-shoulder, not quite first person perspective, but very close uh from Nomad as he moves through the hallways and and that perspective. At that point, they're just sticking it on the side of the camera and moving it along a camera track. I don't want to say it, but that's almost the only enjoyable parts of the episode to me are those kind of fun little camera shots where we kind of get to see a different perspective of the crew's reaction to seeing Nomad. That's it though. That's gonna be it for me. So thank you everyone for tuning in this week. We no, we'll go we'll we'll go through it. I don't know what else to say.

SPEAKER_03 9:18

Well, I mean, also like last week we were asking about Kirk being so quick to judge Apollo, and then this week Kirk is like going overboard to get everything to allow this bean onto the ship and help it communicate. Like they gave it access to everything on the ship. So that is also kind of opening up himself for attack, also.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Kind of hypocritical to and it's again it without it you don't have a good plot if you if you go a different route, the episode ends much more quickly. Yes, of course. But yeah, it's just I don't know. Why don't you

Treking Through the Episode

SPEAKER_01 10:03

walk us through the episode and we'll see if we can find some more entertaining parts to it? I'll just trip along.

SPEAKER_03 10:09

So as I did mention, we're trying to respond to the d the distress call that we received from the Malurians last week. We still haven't been able to contact them, and there is a Federation science team on the planet, and that doctor has a special beacon that should also be able to communicate. So why isn't anybody answering back to enterprise? And sadly, Spock has to let Kirk know that there will be no response, that all of his sensors are showing no life. And they I mean, he doesn't know how it happened. Like if it was a catastrophe, there would be radiation, there would be something, or a notice.

SPEAKER_01 10:55

Yeah, and so this is what we mentioned four billion life forms in this civilization absolutely just gone with no trace.

SPEAKER_03 11:07

It knocks Kirk to sit on Spox almost his lap. His little table. And I mean, I also kind of wonder why no one noticed. It took a whole week without anyone to say, I wonder what Jim is doing over there.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Yeah, I mean, there wouldn't at this point in Star Trek history, I don't know that in where this is located, I don't know that there would be a lot of starships in the area that would either would be around to notice or would have because we gotta imagine this isn't something that nomad took years to do. He blew into the system, decided that they needed to go away, and within probably a couple days at most, he's wiped out this entire civilization. It's this isn't gonna be something that spans multiple light years. This is gonna be at most four billion people spread across a couple planets.

SPEAKER_03 12:06

So while they are feeling the loss of four billion souls, Sulu has to interrupt them because the shields have lifted on their own and something is coming at them at high speed.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Very high speed, we'll get to in a minute.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

And it's like a bright green light. We like green light in this TV show. Green light is a big thing, and it's taken over the screen, and then there's like a giant attack. And I love when there's an attack because all the actors are jostling around, and when the bright light happens, no one is at like they're not the same. Sulu is stuck in position, and Scotty just sits there. He never raises his arm.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Yeah. I'll also give the I'm looking for kudos to give to the episode so that we're not just hammering on it too much. This is a good cold opening.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Overall. The fact that there's a little bit of a tease to the mystery, it doesn't give away everything. You have action. It's great. It suffers because then we come back from the opening credits that Jackie doesn't like because she doesn't like the woman who sings, and the attack is immediately over, and it's very calm. Where we get a captain's log, they're they're reacting to the attack, but it's not frantic in any way, so it's kind of a weird juxtaposition.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

Totally agree. And I also learned in my research that William Shatner actually does the opening monologue. I had no idea.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

How did you not know that?

SPEAKER_03 13:35

I have no idea.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

I've listened to this thing. Well, I am joining the music. Let me count it now. This is gonna be the 33rd time. It's not the th I'll give you credit. It's not the 33rd time. There's a couple early, early, early episodes where the opening is different. But yeah, that's that's Shatner giving.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

Well, I I figured it out because I was like, wait, that sounds familiar, because I was, you know, enjoying the music. And then I went and Googled it and I was like, oh.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah, okay, well, I'll spoil it for you. The next generation, Patrick Stewart does the ent the monologue. Oh, I'll be sure to know now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

Well, anyways, we're back on the bridge after that fun learning experience. And so when we left, all the lights went off. And now the lights are back on. And Spock is reporting that the shield absorbed the amount of 90 photon torpedoes.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Which is crap. This is the first instance of bad science. There's no way that the Enterprise could survive an attack of that magnitude. That is the equivalent of 90 ships shooting a photon torpedo at the Enterprise. No wonder they were like, whoa. Bad math. Lazy math on the part of the writers.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

They wanted to use a giant number and then have it only lose 20% of the ability to be a shield.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yeah, so at 90 photons uh we're gonna beat this horse to death, I know it. At 90 photon torpedo strength and only taking away 20% of the shields, that makes this enterprise nearly indestructible on a global scale of other attacks that they'll face. A fortress. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

But on the other side, Spock does say we only have the availability of four more attacks, or else we're gone.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

Because simple math, you can divide a hundred by twenty.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

So Spock needs to pinpoint the the source of this attack. Sulu is supposed to do evasive maneuvers, and our dear Ohura these two contact Starfleet Command and connect with like his log that the entire malurian race has been wiped out and Enterprise is under attack. A lot is going on. And then while all this is happening, Spock is reporting Spock is able to report the location and Sulu prepares to fire a torpedo wherever that location is. You know, they're waiting. And then send it out. Boom. But that thing that's attacking them absorbed the torpedo energy altogether.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

Yes, so if it absorbed all energy from the torpedo, there would be no energy left to create the blinding flash that they see on the view screen. Cause that is what it means to absorb the energy. Again, I'm gonna hammer the bad the the bad science in this episode. You could have said it was able to withstand the attack, you can say it survived the attack. You can't say it absorbed the energy when there's still energy being dissipated in the form of light.

SPEAKER_03 16:50

Well, he does ask Spock if something's wrong with his instruments. But Spock is very very stuck that he his instruments are perfectly working. And then finally, Kirk does a Hail Mary and has both the translating computers and Ohura open all channels to try and talk to this thing that's attacking them, saying that they are friend we are friendly, we are from the Federation, don't kill us. We don't want to kill you, we just want to chat. Let's learn about each other. Then we learn that Spock has not only found where the source is, he also knows how big this thing is, which is actually very small. 500 kilometers and one meter long. Right. And it's a bit cylindrical.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yeah, so it's not big at all.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

And Scotty wants to know what intelligent life form can live in something that small.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

And I want to know how something that small can have enough energy to send out these giant plasma balls that are so powerful they're equal to 90 photon torpedoes.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

His friend Apollo is helping him.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

There we go. Or um Borloch from the Corbomite maneuver.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Yeah, friends all around. Yeah. We'll talk about him. We'll talk about Borlock next episode in Mirror Mirror briefly.

SPEAKER_03 18:19

But we do have to remember that intelligence comes in all sizes. So it could be a small intelligent being. And finally, the craft starts sending some kind of message to Enterprise, but we have to figure out a way to translate it because it's a code. And thankfully, Ahura has been able to remember an old interplanetary code that no one really uses anymore.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Right. The fallback explanation to this thing is really old and from Earth.

SPEAKER_03 18:51

And it is asking for repeat. So Kirk then has to repeat everything he just said, and then the craft again responds with another kind of code, but it's a mathematical equation that then has to be deciphered. Oh my gosh. Kirk's like, here is our translating computer. Please take all of our English and learn at your pace. And then they sit there and the computers blow up.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Right, because as we will learn, nomad is extremely advanced and pulls the data from the computer faster than the computer can send it out, which overloads and burns out the computer. Or at least the station, the science station.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

And interestingly, Spock does say the word nomad like as a question, but Kirk doesn't hear him, at least when I was watching it. And he is really invested in talking with the bean that he thinks is in the ship because the bean has asked him to come aboard, and Kirk's like, uh, we can't really do that because I'm tall and you're little.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

And why would this thing think that they can fit on is it a miscommunication and a mistranslation? I think so. Cause we're gonna assume that nomad is not stupid enough to think that they're gonna beam over and be inside of him as a probe.

SPEAKER_03 20:12

Right, because Nomad only said, Can you leave your ship? He didn't say come on over. So Kirk just decides that he's going to bring beam Nomad onto the Enterprise. That's it. At least no more attacks will happen, and we'll figure out what happens. And of course, Scotty is highly against this. But oh well. So now we're in the transportation room, and they all have run down because they want to see what they just, you know, invited on. And they all stare in like awe at this metal weird machine.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

And they don't realize it's a machine right away. They have to come to that conclusion within this scene of S I think it's Spock who points out that I don't think there's anything inside of it, Captain. I think it's just a machine. It's my he says it's my observation or my his opinion. His opinion that it's a machine, because he gets questioned on it. Then no man doesn't know what an opinion is. Right. The rest of this episode is going to be a lot of dialogue back and forth of the stereotype human conversing with machine and the language barrier between the logic of a machine versus human. So we're gonna gloss over a lot of the dialogue.

SPEAKER_03 21:31

All that Nomad wants is to know the point of origin and to read the star charts of all these units in front of him.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And boy howdy, what a dumb idea is it to begin. At this point, you've pretty much figured out. You don't know the motive, but you figured out that this thing is what has killed four billion people in this star system. But now let's give it a map to our star system. And they do have a brief conversation of. Well, if we only show him a limited star chart, he won't be able to triangulate it back to Earth. Come on, guys.

SPEAKER_03 22:06

I mean, because they they he keeps asking probing questions, uh-huh. And they give it up.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

No, we're not gonna let that pun slide probing questions.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

We do have to remember that pro Nomad that we talked about earlier, like it keeps coming up underneath. So we keep moving on, and again, Kirk assumes that this m being that they have is just stationary, and he says, I will be right back with the star charts. And that's when you learn that nomad can not only talk, but it can also move.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Yeah, and I think this was kind of the big aha moment reveal, at least from a special effects perspective for the episode is look, we can make this thing move around and appear like it's floating. Yes, they did a good job. And then fine. Okay, cheesy late 60s sci-fi applause. I was surprised. Applause, happy to do it. I also think Kirk is not only thinking it can't move around, but he doesn't want it to move around. I would not want it to move around my ship. And so I think he was going to get the star charts because he was expecting the ins this entire meeting to take place in the transporter room, and Nomad himself is like, nah, I'll just follow you. I can move, and they don't object.

SPEAKER_03 23:32

No, which is already accepting nomad all of his directions, showing, you know, weakness in essence. So they've moved to this new location, which we learn later on, is called an auxiliary control room. And this is where Kirk has brought up the star chart, and of course, there's our beautiful solar system, and Nomad scans all the stuff, all the bells and whistles going off. And then it says Kirk. Kirk is the creator, and yes. Then it asks its fun like Kirk wants to know what its function is because Nomad must realize that something in its makeup recognizes the name Kirk, and while it's reading the history, this being apologizes for the sterilization procedure it tried to do on the enterprise. Huh? What do you mean? And McCoy is still fixed on what is your function. And then Nomad asks if McCoy, this unit, is your unit, meaning Kirk, the creator. And then we learn more that nomad is very specific in individuals as units. They have to be a set a certain design. It's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:53

Yeah, basically, Nomad reveals that his overall programming mission is to not only to seek out life that is perfect, but to eradicate and destroy, in his terms, sterilize any life forms that is determined by him to be imperfect and flawed, which now we instantly it's the revelation that, yeah, this is what killed four billion people in the star system. And also, you guys are in danger too, because you're all human, except for a couple Vulcan Spock, and you're gonna die. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

But good thing Spock is starting to research that earlier probe from Earth on these computers. I don't know why they have Spock like hunched and draped over these computers now. It's really weird looking.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

The computers don't have screens, so they notice that. So they have to look through these viewfinders to look at all of this data that's being processed. We talked about it at a earlier episode. It's like the microfiche readers, but instead of a screen, they're looking into this little peephole to look at all this data. Again, okay. It's it's just what they decided to do with the technology that they knew and the imaginations that they had. I mean, it's definitely creative, but I would need like a neck massage after work. But as Spock is researching all of this, he quickly interrupts Kirk from going down this dialogue path of Kirk was very close to revealing, like, I don't know who the hell you're talking about. Sure, I'm the cre you know, revealing that he is not the creator, that he's human and all this. Spock quickly interrupts him and goes, uh, we need to go talk. Let's just let's get out of earshot.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Right. He was just testing you, nomad. And then nomad now alludes to an accident. So, oh, that was very smart of my creator to test me. And we're in the hallway conference room now, like in the hallway, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are now discussing what Spock found, and again that probe nomad. And though we thought it was destroyed by a meteor, which it was, but we don't know how it was able to put itself back together and now kill things. Because Kirk remembers in the academy it was supposed to be a peaceful mission, and then he walks back into the control room. What? So Kirk has led a lamb to slaughter. He just leaves this lovely crew member sing to like babysit nomad, and he's curious, and we learn that he's a lieutenant, and he's looking closer and closer at nomad, and then like bells and whistles start to whirl, and then again he apologizes for disturbing him. And while that is happening, Ohura calls and asks for a checkup, and he's like, I'll check in. Uh we only see like the regular damage we noticed earlier, but that's it. And then she still goes, anything else, and starts singing. While he his back is turned because he's checking the indicators, Nomad has now heard Ohura with her beautiful singing, and he does not know what that is, so it just lifts up and leaves the room.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Yeah, to seek out the source of the singing. We never get a reason why it's drawn to it.

SPEAKER_03 28:35

He didn't underst it didn't understand the emotion. I don't think he understood the emotion that music brings to a person.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

He obviously doesn't. I I guess it's uh the singing and the the unknown aspect of it is enough to trigger whatever programming is inside of Nomad to go investigate to determine if this is perfect life or something that needs sterilization.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

Right. Now we're back in the conference room and they're still discussing this probe, and we learned that it was created by a very, very intelligent scientist, but he was super erratic, and he wanted to create a perfect machine that could do what it wants, like for a very specific project. And this probe was designed to seek out new life.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah, and to explore the galaxy and was designed to be autonomous. It was designed to function on its own, think on its own, not need continual input to carry out its mission.

SPEAKER_03 29:43

And we learned the scientist's name is Jackson Roykirk. So, of course, Captain Kirk founds out his name next to the scientist's name. Could there be something confused?

SPEAKER_01 29:56

Well, and that's the prevailing theory that Spock puts forth is if this probe was indeed damaged by a meteor strike and its memory banks are damaged, it likely is confusing its memory of its creator, Jackson Roy Kirk, with Captain James T. Kirk.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

And we also see a picture of the nomad, and it's very cylindrical in shape.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

And we see on the show, nomad is bulky and and a completely different configuration than the original blueprints that they have on file. Meaning deepening the mystery, why is it changed, why is it adapted, why is it modified itself, and how is it done so?

SPEAKER_03 30:40

And what is this other it keeps mentioning? Right. So on the bridge, we see that Nomad has finally made its way up and he found Uhura and it like is going to check her out because she's just doing her job. And Scotty whispers to Kirk that Nomad is there, which you know Kirk and everyone is starting to run to the bridge, and Nomad is asking Uhura what type of communication is that that you are doing, and she's like, I was singing, and then he's then she says it's music, and Nomad still doesn't understand what music is, and then he just like puts a light on her, stunning her, and starts scanning her.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Yeah, like Men in Black style, where it's just I'm gonna extract all your memories.

SPEAKER_03 31:29

Insanity, like this is the first thing that the first time we've seen this weird happening. So finally Kirk is there, Scotty has jumped from his seat to keep them from getting harmed, and then Sue was able to grab Uhura from the light, big chaos, and Scotty has been electrocuted, essentially killing him.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Yeah, when Scotty goes to grab Nomad, Nomad basically fires off this defensive pulse and kills him dead at his feet.

SPEAKER_03 32:03

And Kirk has to remember to hold his emotion.

SPEAKER_01 32:08

So that could be very I would imagine that'd be very hard. Right, because again, they've got they're in this position where they've got this extremely deadly machine floating about with unknown motives and not logical, or at least a thought process that they can easily predict. And so, as upset as Kirk is over the assault on one crew member and the murder of a second crew member, if he blows it and drops his act that tips off nomad that he's no longer the creator, who knows what nomad's gonna do? Well, I mean, we all know what he's gonna do, but O'Hara is blank-faced.

SPEAKER_03 32:53

It no emotion, nomad culture defective. While he was scanning her, it unsettled him. That's like uh an emotion. When they started this storyline, it really upset me because it's adding more like human thought into this machine.

SPEAKER_01 33:09

Well, and so also have to question this isn't the first life form well, this isn't the first life form that nomad would have encountered. Right. This wouldn't have been, I imagine, the first time nomad has directly absorbed the knowledge and memories of a life form to calculate if they're in need of sterilization, quote unquote. And so we know of one for sure, but we have to take a guess and assume that there are multiple life forms that he has done this to. So it just seems kind of weird that you're so confused and it's disturbing nomad to absorb memories and thoughts from a biological life form, chaotic as it is, that you would still be so disturbed if you've done this multiple times.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Right. But then it asks the creator if the unit Scott, if he needs it to be repaired. What? And McCoy is like, yes, I can't do anything. If it's gonna happen, let's do it. And instead of like thinking, he just says, Oh, let's educate this machine on the human body.

SPEAKER_01 34:19

Yeah, let's give it more information about how it can sterilize us.

SPEAKER_03 34:24

And the brain scan of Scotty.

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Yeah, the full because it was McCoy starts going off about all these different medical topics that they're gonna need to feed into nomad so that it can have the knowledge to fix Scotty. I mean, I get it. You're desperate, your friend is dead, and you have a very powerful machine that you think you can control with the right line of dialogue and input, but still, guys, you're feeding it too much, you're letting it get away with too much.

SPEAKER_03 34:58

And it still talks poorly about these units that is owned by its creator. He even calls Scotty primitive and still unperfect. But Kirk says he serves me well, fix it. And they go to the sick bay and try to repair Scotty. So in the sick bay, Scotty is on the table, he is dead as a doornail, Nurse Chapel, even tries the herb panels and no screens, no anything. And the next thing we hear there's a heartbeat, and nomad has magically returned Scotty to a whole human.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

No idea how. Never get that explanation. Never get a chance to I mean, you gotta think that the bio bed is recording what is going on. So what uh whatever nomad is doing, there has to be a record of what he does, but we never get to explore it to exploit for future use.

SPEAKER_03 35:56

Yeah, Kirk just says, McCoy will tell you what happened, and then Kirk takes Nomad over to where O'Hora is, and she's in another room, still blank-faced, and Kirk has says, Well, fix her. And Nomad's like, Well, sorry, I wiped her brain, and excuse me? But then Spock's like, oh, well, if if we just wiped her brain and she has no brain damage, we'll just re-educate her.

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Yeah, so of all the plot lines in this episode, I think this is what I have the most problem with.

SPEAKER_03 36:34

Oh my god, yes. The making her look like a child.

SPEAKER_01 36:38

Well, even taking that out of it, and yes, it is. I I think it's a poor way to portray the character, one. Two, it's bad science, again. Let's even assume that everyone who has uttered the words we've wiped her memories and we've basically emptied her mind. Let's ball per because obviously none of that is real because she knows Swahili. She knows Swahili. Within like hours, they've like taught her to read up to whatever um what was first grade. What was first grade, but then at the end She was in college. She was in college, so over the course of a day, we've re-educated her, her learning or reading comprehension to a college level. So it's it can't it's not just a complete wipe. Let's pretend that they're all mistaken and they're or they're misspeaking or they're exaggerating what they're saying, and it's just a brief bout of selective amnesia to a degree. But even so, they could have eliminated this whole story process and just said it's selective amnesia with a little bit of rest and a little bit of time off, she'll be able to slowly recoup her memories.

SPEAKER_03 37:58

I think they added this storyline to try to keep it more family. Like, let's keep watching. Like, this isn't just machinery.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

I think they needed some kind of filler plot to keep the pacing moving so that it's not just us chasing nomad around the ship watching him create havoc.

SPEAKER_03 38:23

True. So McCoy is unable to control his anger. We already learned earlier that Nomad thinks it's he is irrational, but Kirk says leave him alone. Spock must again interrupt him and remind Kirk that perhaps Nomad should wait elsewhere. And then we have like a sidebar where Spock and McCoy are chatting, and Spock's like, sorry, I interrupted you. Like, okay, he's never apologized before. So now we're, I think, in the conference room. I think we're back there. Because we don't really know.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03 38:59

And Spock is sitting with Nomad and waiting. Just waiting. And then Kirk like runs in and is like, what's happening? You're supposed to be analyzing this guy. And Nomad refuses to put his screens down. So Kirk again has to demand that it put its screens down so the unit Spock can analyze it.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Yeah. And it's it's kind of funny because if you your attention's drawn to Kirk and Nomad is the as the ones giving the dialogue, but if you look beyond them to Spock, Spock is following each one with his head. He's physically turning his head and half turning in his chair to look at each one as they're talking, like he's following the a ping-pong ball between the two of them.

SPEAKER_03 39:47

I do like how Spock responds in this episode. He's you can definitely see he's trying to understand this illogical, logical thinking being. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Yeah, he it definitely shows Spock having this native curiosity. And while he recognizes the danger and he recognizes ultimately what the mission is, he's as a side quest, he's definitely trying to understand as much as he can about nomad.

SPEAKER_03 40:19

Oh yes. I love it when he says, I have a hypothesis, and I must figure it out.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

So then we jump back to the sick bay, and this is where we have the biggest interaction of Uhura post-mind wipe with Nurse Chapel and the whole trying to get her to be re-educated and relearn how to read. And so Nurse Chapel is having her read children's books about dogs and colors and balls, and there's supposed to be this little comical moment at the end where she's reading out loud and she gets to the word blue, and she's sounding it out hooked on phonic style, Star Trek version, and she's like bluey, and they're all kind of laughing at her and smiling at her, and they find it amusing instead of concerning. And I mean, I think they I think the show is supposed to impart that Uhura is out of the woods as far as being in danger, and she will regain all of her memories and be back to normal after a period of time, and that's why there's a lack of concern. It just sticks out like a sore thumb. But this is also the part where she reverts back to speaking Swahili, which kind of undermines the whole part about having all of her memories erased. Hey, do a deeper dive. There's lots of people who have commented on this section of the episode talking about how because English is a second language to Uhura, when someone suffers a mental trauma, whether it's physical or mental, and they have to relearn language, they're going to revert back to their natural language instead of their second language, even if their second language is spoken more than their original native language. Fascinating deeper dive. But we're not going to cover it in detail and give it the justice that it deserves here.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

And then we jump back to the conference room, and still Spock is like on this quest to figure out more because he only has a little bit of information. He says that he's learned about this other, there was an accident, but he doesn't know what happened and who is the other, and why is Nomad like this now?

SPEAKER_01 42:34

And so for the sake of time, walking you listeners through the next step of the episode, Spock decides that he wants to do a mind meld with the machine. Okay. Risky. Or just stupid. Stupid, bad science. I mean.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Your first officer is gonna connect mentally with a machine?

SPEAKER_01 42:57

Right. It it makes little sense. It makes little sense to me. Again, we've already established that the Vulcan mind meld involves pressure points on the biological body that you are trying to meld with. And using those pressure points as a way to control tons of things, tons of vital signs in the person that you're trying to mind meld with. That doesn't work for a machine. So looking beyond that and leaning into the mind meld aspect of Vulcan mind melds have a level of telepathy. Again, can you telepathically communicate with a machine? I don't know. But in any case, he does the mind meld, and we get another long drawn out scene of Leonard Nimoy fantastic acting as he mind melds with Nomad, and where he just kind of is verbalizing the thoughts and feelings and Scenes that he gets from Nomad, but we learn Nomad was in fact struck by a meteor while in deep space, severely damaging but not destroying him. Depending on how you interpret the messages that Spock is spitting out, it may not have even been a meteor, it may have just been this other alien probe that connected with it. But in any case, at some point while damaged, either by meteor or by this other probe that called itself Tan Roo, Tanro integrates itself and fixes up Nomad, and that's why it looks different than the original blueprints. And that's where Nomad not only gets all of its upgrades to launch these giant plasma balls out to sterilize the Enterprise and other planets, but also merging its original programming to seek out intelligent life forms, higher life forms, but also merging with the programming of Tanru, which was to seek out and sterilize soil samples. So their two missions get merged together and perverted and twisted, so that this new mission is going to be to seek out intelligent life, perfect life, and if not found, to sterilize it. We never learn who Tan Roo is, we never learn what alien race sent out this probe. And again, as I mentioned, you don't even know if it was a meteor that damaged Nomad in the beginning, or if it was Tan Roo that collided with him. You assume that the two of them merged together, but it's also not really clear. Did Tan Roo just upgrade Nomad and go about its way? Is there another probe out there that is another half of Nomad that's wandering around? That could be an interesting future episode. Again, if you can assume this is an interesting episode. But after we get all of this information that Spock verbalizes from the mind meld, Spock breaks physical contact with Nomad and tries to. You can tell Spock is, I think, trying to break the connection between the two, and he's unable to do so. He's almost overpowered by Nomad. Kirk has to like shout at Nomad and use his fake credentials as the creator to get Nomad to stop the mind meld and to break the connection itself, which it does. It recognizes Kirk and complies, but Spock is obviously disoriented. You know, it took a big toll out of him to do this mind meld.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

Well, Kirk had to like take him into the hallway, literally divide them. And then this is also where we only hear about this theory of the changeling. The only time. And Kirk just explains them about fairies taking over human baby identities. And then we pop over to engineering. And Nomad has broken through this giant security brig where he was put and kills the security team that was guarding him. And then it goes directly to engineering and tells Scotty how poor his system is, and he'll just upgrade it and starts messing with it.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Yeah, again, we th I think this is a filler for the episode to kind of stretch it out so that it doesn't run short on time. But yeah, again, Nomad is uh acting so irrationally. He I mean, he kills people, then he shows up and he's like, Well, I'm gonna fix your ship. But if the ship is inefficient, that's a sign that the people on the ship are inefficient, non-perfect life forms, and they need to be sterilized. But in any case, he then basically starts to create do all these upgrades to the ship. He starts accelerating the ship into warp speed. They go past warp eight, which is not supposed to happen. That's kind of the fastest warp that the ship is meant to do in emergencies. That's an interesting number to stop at. Yes. And then, of course, Kirk has to show up and once again has to flash his creator credentials and say, I'm the creator, I'm your creator. My ship cannot handle the stress that you're putting it under. I understand that you've increased the efficiency of the engines. That didn't increase the efficiency of the rest of the ship. I need you to stop. And he does.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

But also Kirk lets his emotion through, and he tells Nomad that he also is a biological unit. And then Nomad is like WTF and like begins to re-evaluate. And this is like Spock's like, uh, that was probably a wrong move there, buddy.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

Yeah, so uh final straw, nomad, knock it off. But he doesn't. No, this very much flips a switch inside nomad and nomad very much is now just, oh, you're not the creator. Okay. Well, now I need to go and gather more information to re-evaluate what I know. And again, Nomad just starts wandering the ship, looking up information to learn about the enterprise and the humans on board.

SPEAKER_03 49:29

And sooner or later it'll realize they're all imperfect and biological and sterilization. Now, while Nomad is trying to figure out he's it's re-evaluating everything, he just like kills all the security officers that try to control it, and then he goes directly into Sick Bay where McCoy has called for an emergency, but Nomad went to Stick Bay to learn about Kirk's medical history. Right. Like, excuse me? But Nurse Chapel was injured, only shocked. She wasn't harmed, just a little flick. But wouldn't Nomad be more quote unquote angry with this interference than earlier?

SPEAKER_01 50:16

Yeah, I don't really I mean the only th the only difference like because he's now killed four security officers in the episode up to this point. The only thing I can think of is n the security guards in each instance use their phasers to fire on nomad, which was ineffective. And so Nomad met Deadly Force with Deadly Force. I don't imagine Nurse Chapel would have whipped out a phaser and shot Nomad to try to stop him from getting the personnel files of Kirk, but Scotty also didn't fire a phaser either. So Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 50:52

And Ahura was only singing.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Right. So all it comes down to is the four security officers that died didn't have as strong negotiating contracts with the show. And so being that they're not named characters, they had to die.

SPEAKER_03 51:08

So now Nomad is very aware that his creator is not only not perfect, it is not this Kirk. And so now Kirk tells Scotty to grab the anti-gravs and meet in engineering. So please educate us on these anti-gravs.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Anti-grav units, just by what they end up being used for, is they attach them to the side of nomad. I don't necessarily think that they disable nomads' propulsion systems and why it can levitate and so forth, but all I think it does is it creates an anti-gravity field or a zero gravity field around nomad so that it and it nomad no longer has any mass or weight, so they can easily more easily carry him where they need him to go.

SPEAKER_03 51:56

Well, that makes sense. A space transport system.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Yeah. And you'll see later in other Star Trek series, they have literally they look like the orange carts at Costco, but they have no wheels, they're anti-grav units, and so they can carry all this mass and you can push it because there's no friction. Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 52:16

So they are now an engineering, the manual controls are not working. Ah, chaos. And Nomad is there, and Kirk has to confront him and make it realize that it is trying to justify that it's doing its function, but Kirk is answering again, probing questions, and getting the answer that nomad gives, you know, yes, I'm supposed to look for perfection that I sterilize if it's not like all of these things, and then he flips it on nomad and is like, you've made all these errors, and your final error was this is a giant biological unit, and you missed it.

SPEAKER_01 53:02

Yeah. So pointing out all these errors, specifically not recognizing that Kirk is not Roy Kirk, the creator, recognizing that Kirk is a biological unit, not a machine, like Nomad assumed. All these other creatures are biological units, not puppets of Kirk the creator. So here we have another example of Kirk trying to outsmart a machine to short circuit itself. But yeah, Kirk basically, besides trying to short circuit it, Kirk is telling it, you've made all these mistakes, you are not perfect, therefore your programming says you have to sterilize yourself.

SPEAKER_03 53:47

And then it gets crazy because now it's overriding and analyzing everything that happens. So Kirk and Spock use these anti-gravs and move nomad to the transportation room. So when Nomad eventually does execute his sterilization, hopefully they would have beamed him far enough into the galaxy that it's just like a firework.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Yeah. And of course, Nomad explodes, we get the dazzling space image of it exploding.

SPEAKER_03 54:22

Yes, and also Spock does say that Kirk used a dazzling display of logic later on the bridge. Right. But then Kirk's like, wait, how could you be surprised? I mean, I am Kirk. But then Spock, like, does he still I think he has like nagging thoughts. He's like, I wish we could have figured out, you know, what the benefit nomad could have been. But oh well. Like it was a waste of knowledge, I think.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Sure. And again, kind of leading to an open-ended cliffhanger of, wouldn't it be cool if we ever found out what the other is? Tonroo? Tanroo is and what aliens sent him, or even just, hey, yeah, no, it turns out the two of them did smack into each other in deep space and they helped each other. And while Nomad had this negative effect but was able to continue on, Tanroo was altered in the opposite way. But fan fiction for another day.

SPEAKER_03 55:27

And while they're chatting, McCoy interrupts and announces that O'Hora has reached college level learning and will be back to work in just after a week later. And so yay. But then Kirk automatically goes to joking about, oh, I had a son, you know, because Nomad called me its mother. And as its mother, he I was proud, you know, how well he's he tries to make a joke about being proud of his son, the doctor, because Nomad brought Scotty back to life. And it's just awkward.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

Yeah, it's one of those episodes where the the end line I don't think doesn't really land quite as well. So, but that's the episode. Roll credits. So,

Final Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Jackie, what did you think? What are your final thoughts about season two, episode three, The Changeling?

SPEAKER_03 56:20

Overall, I mean, yes, I always change my opinion after we discuss it. So I think I kind of earned a bit more credit after learning more about it. But as a lay person watching it for the first time, it would have been very tough to continue.

SPEAKER_01 56:38

Alright. Yeah, and my opinion isn't really going to change that much after going through it again. It's not a fun episode, ultimately. Interesting concept, sure, but execution-wise, it's a lot of just watching a probe wander around the enterprise causing havoc. There's too many plot holes that they leave unexplored that would have enriched the episode, and they rely too much on just the plot of a illogical crazy machine, and how do they deal with it? So ultimately, I'm not a fan of the episode.

SPEAKER_03 57:20

And none of the characters cross over. Like, I noticed that usually they like communicate and it has like more interaction. And here, Spock was very, I'm gonna do my mind meld and do this. Kirk was very, I'm a captain, I will lead. McCoy is like, this is half it was very sectioned.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

I agree, which I think hurts it. Yes. In the end. Before we get to our final quotes or our favorite quotes to the episode as a reminder, we'll post our bonus Star Note episode over on our Patreon, patreon.com slash treks and tangents. Free for everyone who follows the Patreon. And I think the topic this week that we're gonna dive into, or at least we'll start to dive into before we go off on a huge tangent, is gonna be Did Kirk defeat Nomad with logic or human unpredictability? So join us over on our Patreon and listen along after this episode to see what our thoughts are on that topic. But to round out our thoughts to the episode and our watching of the episode, Jackie, what is gonna be your favorite quote from this episode?

SPEAKER_03 58:29

I chose the quote, that unit is defective, its thinking is chaotic, absorbing it unsettled me. That unit is a woman, a mass of conflicting impulses, and that's when Nomad and Spock are talking about the unit Uhura, and it's like you just wiped this bean because you had no idea what you took in. Like you reacted impulsively instead of logically.

SPEAKER_01 58:57

Okay. I didn't find the episode to be that quotable. I went with Nomad, just one of his basic robotic lines of non-sequitur, your facts are uncoordinated. I think it was most apparent when they first meet in the transporter room and they're trying to communicate back and forth, and Nomad is struggling to understand. I just thought it was cute. 1960s sci-fi. This is a robot repeating lines over and over again. Other than that, I don't really like any of the dialogue in the episode. It's not funny, it's not engaging, so kind of a flop when it comes to a quote from me this week.

Tribble Tidbits

SPEAKER_01 59:38

But those are gonna be our final impressions, and we'll just kind of transition over to our triple tidbits or our interesting facts to the episode. And why do we call them triple tidbits, Jackie?

SPEAKER_03 59:50

Because they are the best.

SPEAKER_01 59:52

No one has explained to Jackie what a tribble really is. We haven't gotten to that episode yet. They're fun. They are adorable. They are fun, they are adorable, they can also be the exact opposite. First airing, September 29, 1967. This is regrettably gonna be the first use of Scotty's famous catchphrase, giving them all we've got. Oh my gosh. When trying to explain the engines. I think it's used when they're, if I recall correctly, it's first used when they're trying to evade the giant balls of plasma at the very beginning, but I could be 100% wrong. But in any case, it's gonna be the first episode. He really says that from now on? It's good it it's a very famous pop culture reference. Along with his I, you know, instead of yes. On the same level of McCoy saying, damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a blank or Scott or Spock saying live long and prosper. It's in the same wheelhouse.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:54

Uh, and just again, there's no real fun facts to the episode that I want to cover. There's just a couple more bad science, bad faith moments that I'll touch on that we didn't get to in the episode. If you look at the math in the very beginning, when they're under attack from Nomad and they're shooting at Nomad, Nomad is described as being 90,000 kilometers away from the Enterprise where there's balls of plasma are launching. But they also say those balls of plasma are traveling at warp 15. So when Nomad fires these things, they should be fired and hitting the Enterprise instantaneously. There would be no time to watch this thing approach the Enterprise. Again, could have been simply fixed by changing the numbers and not having it move so fast, but they were lazy. Also of note, when a Vulcan mind melds with another subject, the Vulcan gets all this information and all of these thoughts and feelings, but it's a two-way street. The subject also gets a part of the Vulcan. So, as Spock is getting all of the backstory of Nomad with the meteor and the other probe, Nomad should have been picking up from Spock that Kirk was not the creator and all of the other deception, and so Nomad should have been clued off at that moment that something was amiss. But in any case, just some bad faith moments, some bad science moments. That's gonna wrap up the triple tidbits this week.

Episode Ranking

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

And I think we'll have a very quick episode ranking. You already know mine. So this is going to be where we assign the episode a rank based on Starfleet ranks, uh, where we decide what rank this episode is gonna hold on our crew for our fictitious starship for the season. A higher Starfleet rank means we were not only more entertained by the episode, but we find the episode to be a more valuable member of our crew. And a lower rank is the opposite. We found the episode less entertaining, and the episode is a more disposable member of our crew. Quickly to run through the ranking system, we have our bottom enlisted ranks, ensign, lieutenant junior grade, and lieutenant, all of which we can have an unlimited number of. And then we have our officers ranking Lieutenant Commander, seven. Commander, we can have five, we can have one captain, and we can have one admiral. If none of that makes sense, we will post a graphical representation on our Patreon, free for everyone to view. Wednesday, the day after this episode goes live. Patreon.com slash treks and tangents, another reason to follow along on our Patreon. Jackie, for your starship this season, the USS Lumaria. That's not it, is it?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:46

Luminaria.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:47

I got it written down somewhere. The USS Luminaria. Yes, add the whimsy.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:54

What rank are you going to assign this episode?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:57

Well, first I need to uh promote my poor Apollo character. Okay. I'm moving that episode from last week up to Lieutenant Junior grade because I cannot have it sitting in the ensign section with this episode. Okay. They cannot be friends.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:16

Alright, so we'll get a promotion for last week's episode, which means this week you give it a rank of Ensign.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:24

I mean, it's like 1.5.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:28

It's a one for me. Okay. Well, for my Starship this season, the USS Comet, it's gonna be the same. It's gonna be an ensign. It's not an entertaining episode. I was not entertained by it. It doesn't have any lasting impact on Star Trek lore. It is a very disposable episode. Really, at the end of the day, all that was entertaining, I liked the opening because I thought that structure was great. I liked the use of the camera angle so that we could kind of get the over-the-shoulder almost first person of following nomad around the ship and seeing the other crew members react to it. Outside of that, it's not a compelling story, it's not anything special. Ensign for me. Jackie, go ahead and guess what the IMDB rating is for the Changeling. Keep in mind it's skewed.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:19

It's not similar to our ranking system. A nine is gonna be the outstanding perfect episode, an eight is gonna be a better than average, a seven is going to be average, six is gonna be people don't like it. Anything lower than a six is gonna be garbage.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:36

I don't think everyone would not like this. So I can't just like throw it in the trash. So I'm going to guess it was given a between a between a six and a seven in rating.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

Okay. As of this recording on IMDB, the changeling is sitting at a seven point six. See, I told you. So this is a very average ranking. It ranks higher than Who Mourns for Adonis. That's interesting. Again, Adonius is sitting at 7.1. So yeah, it's interesting. I don't really know why people are so drawn to this episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:19

But well, like I said, at least from what as an outsider and a layman, I've always had a different view of those that enjoy this type of TV. So that could be the switch

Turbolift Tease

SPEAKER_03 1:06:34

up.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

Well, we'll be back next week to trek through another episode, but before we go, we'll give our turbo lift tease. This is where Jackie gives her elevator pitch to what she thinks the plot of next week's episode is going to be based solely on the name of the episode and no other information or context. Jackie, next week's episode is entitled Mirror Mirror.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:58

While we're out and about, we find this mirror, and we're able to go through it into another ripple in time. I mean, it might just be in the future or super in the in the past. It is like a random decision.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:16

And tune in next week to see if Jackie's prediction is correct. Tune in next week for this extremely iconic episode of Star Trek. If you want more show information, you can find and directly support our podcast on Patreon. Again, patreon.com slash treks and tangents. As mentioned, we post our Star Note bonus episodes every week alongside our main podcast episode. We post a graphical representation of the episode rankings every Wednesday. Again, all free for those who follow the podcast. For our supporters of the podcast, once a month we dive into Star Trek the Animated series. We have all of our test episodes we recorded to prepare for this podcast where we talked about Stargate SG1 and Fringe for a little bit. And we're looking to add some other things. I really do want to kind of jumpstart a book club for Star Trek books. I think we should look at redoing or revisiting some other sci-fi movies that we can dive into and talk about. Maybe I just dive into some classic sci-fi that we don't have Jackie trying to explain, and we can just approach it from the nerd side. Jackie is nodding her head enthusiastically where she says, Yeah, I don't want to watch more Star Trek. So it's not that. But join us over there again, patreon.com slash treks and tangents, the best way to support our podcast. You can also follow us on X at Trex underscore tangents. We're on Instagram and Blue Sky at Trexintangents. Jackie, where can people find you? And what are you up to?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:56

I'm pretty slow lately, but I am on Instagram as Jaboomj I B B O O M. I post content about my music. I play the Tua. And I mean fashion, disability, advocacy.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

I have a whole lot going on, so check it out. Alright, you can watch me stream a variety of video games over at twitch.tv slash piratepoundtown. On YouTube, I post video game content and other random stuff at PiratePoundtown. Also on YouTube, coin collecting and hobby content at pirate treasure hunting. I post socially on Blue Sky at Pirate Poundtown. And I can also be found on Instagram under Pineapple Cannibal because Instagram likes to ban pirate usernames. Also, don't forget, I never throw this in, you can always email the show, Trexandangents at gmail.com. Any feedback, thoughts, just write into the show to say hello. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, comment. Love to engage with comments, love to see people post what their rankings are, love to see what people's headcanons are, see what people agree with, see where people think we got something wrong. This is Star Trek, this is sci-fi. Nothing is written in stone. Always happy to engage in conversation about other people's theories. That is absolutely fun. So please engage with the show, comment, like, subscribe, and share. We love it. Links to all social media mentioned can be found in the episode description. Thank you everyone for tuning in to this episode. We hope you had fun like we did, and we will see you all next week.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:36

Keep your dazzling logic on display. End transmission.