Out of Contreks

OOC Special 5: Picard, Season 2

In this lengthy, free-wheeling conversation, Ryan and Brady go deep on Season 2 of Star Trek Picard -- a mixed bag of a season that featured the good (time travel fun), the bad (more awful trauma plotting), and, most importantly, the Q.

Here is a link to the Star Trek timeline we discuss at length in the episode.

Ep. 82: ”Drive” (VOY S7E03)

Ryan and Brady dig into a real mixed bag of an episode, swerving between the joyous highs of a race through space and the dreadful valleys of Tom and B'Elanna's relationship problems. Along the way, they get into some Star Wars prequel talk, comment on the episode's fashionable outfits, and muse about how much of the takeaway from the episode was strictly intended.

Ep. 81: ”Fallen Hero” (ENT S1E23)

Sorry for the slightly later in the day post, listeners. At the time of posting, Ryan has COVID, and his brain fog caused him to forget that today was a new episode day. Anyway, enjoy this pre-Ryan-has-COVID recording about yet another Enterprise episode, with a good guest star performance and... also some other stuff happens. Look, is the lack of detail in this description due to Ryan's brain fog preventing him from remembering what was discussed in this Brady-edited episode, or was this Season 1 outing of Enterprise just not that memorable? Either way, Ryan and Brady got together for a good talk!

Ep. 80: ”Peak Performance” (TNG S2E21)

Ryan and Brady's first lovefest in a while sees them lavishing praise on this low-stakes Season Two TNG episode. Topics include an Armin Shimmerman sighting, Michael Dorn appreciation, that feeling when the A plot and the B plot are both great and work together, and our ongoing discussion of Pulaski's robo-racism.

OOC Special 4: Discovery, Season 4

Ryan and Brady kick off what is shaping up to be quite the year of specials with a long conversation about the recently-completed Star Trek Discovery Season 4. Buckle in for lengthy discussions of tighter plotting, sentient computers, and, most of all, the show's increased reliance on trauma as its primary form of character development.

Here's a link to the article we talked about on the show, The Case Against the Trauma Plot.

Ep. 79: ”Skin of Evil” (TNG S1E23)

It's time for, qualitatively, what is probably one of the worst Star Trek episodes ever made. Ryan and Brady dive into a cool-looking villain, a dumb-looking funeral, and the unreal amount of standing around in a small patch of sand that is Skin of Evil, TNG's farewell to Tasha Yar.

Ep. 78: ”Bound” (ENT S4E17)

Ryan here to offer up a mea culpa: I accidentally identify this episode as the final episode of Enterprise before the series finale. I correct myself by the end, but we do talk about it under my incorrect assumption for a while.

Anyway, once we get past that, we discuss Enterprise's weird relationship with sex, the crew's weird relationship with... slavery, I guess?, and we also talk about the original series movies for a while because Bound is not a very good episode.

Ep. 77: ”The Aenar” (ENT S4E14)

Ryan and Brady watch a pretty good episode of Enterprise, bolstered by the first appearance (on our show, not on Enterprise itself) of Jeffrey Combs's Thy'lek Shran. We talk about how much we like Combs, cool antenna creature effects, and we say the phrase "Hot Worms" a lot. It makes sense in the episode, we promise.

Ep. 76: ”Into the Forest I Go” (DIS S1E09)

In this episode of Discovery, Ryan and Brady try to focus on the positive, including Jason Isaacs' performance, the cool sci-fi element of the episode's main plot and how, even though we don't recommend it, watching Discovery Season 1 is actually more enjoyable if you do it a second time.

Ep. 75: ”Sacred Ground” (VOY S3E07)

Ryan and Brady discuss an important canonical revelation in this otherwise pretty dismal Season 3 Voyager episode: the discovery of a heretofore undocumented tribble in the Voyager sickbay. Listen in for details, and also hear us compare this episode to Contact and talk about how patronizing irreligious people can be when they're trying to describe the value of faith.