Speaker 1: Before we dive in, here's another show you can enjoy
Speaker 1: in the True Story FM Family of Entertainment podcast. Hey, hey, apes, Hey,
Speaker 1: you see that snickers over there?
Speaker 2: No one's looking.
Speaker 1: You should just take it.
Speaker 3: No, don't listen to him, my son, that would be stealing.
Speaker 3: And stealing is.
Speaker 4: A sin, Sinchman, it's a freaking snick as may you
Speaker 4: deserve to have it?
Speaker 1: Sinning really satisfies you.
Speaker 2: Repent my child.
Speaker 3: Virtue is the only real snack with saving for that
Speaker 3: candy body is merely a gateway to Nukeet dumas.
Speaker 2: Has this ever happened to you?
Speaker 4: Listening to the devil on one shoulder and an angel
Speaker 4: on the other, and you're not sure what to think?
Speaker 3: Then we're here to help.
Speaker 1: I'm Pete Wright and.
Speaker 4: I'm Tommy Mess and this season on all the Feelings,
Speaker 4: we're examining the seven deadly sins.
Speaker 3: You note, the fun ones.
Speaker 4: And the seven heavenly virtues.
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Speaker 3: way too much embarrassment, we take you on a thrilling
Speaker 3: journey through all the goods and the bads you hear
Speaker 3: about in church.
Speaker 4: But without all that pesky church stuff. So Come join
Speaker 4: us for All the Feelings Season nine, a sometimes funny
Speaker 4: podcast about being human.
Speaker 1: All the sins, all the virtues.
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Speaker 2: Game over.
Speaker 3: Horror movies get a bad rap. They're cheap thrills, mindless
Speaker 3: scre not cinema blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: But we here it sitting in the dark no better.
Speaker 1: We know that horror is more than just jump scares
Speaker 1: and chainsaws. It's a reflection of our deepest fears. Our
Speaker 1: anxieties are okay, and there's a lot of jump scares
Speaker 1: and chade sauce.
Speaker 4: Join us, Pete right, Tommy Met's the third, Kyle Wilson
Speaker 4: and Kenan ds as we cut into the dark heart
Speaker 4: of horror cinema.
Speaker 2: Every episode we explore a different facet of the genre,
Speaker 2: from survival horror to home invasions, from zombies to birds.
Speaker 2: We tickle the tropes, analyze the angles, and sharpen our
Speaker 2: own access.
Speaker 5: Along the way, we'll introduce you to the classics that
Speaker 5: shaped the genre than the modern masterpieces that are pushing
Speaker 5: the boundaries of terror Sitting in the.
Speaker 1: Dark is your guide to navigating the terrifying.
Speaker 4: Thrilling, and sometimes hilariously bad world of horror movies.
Speaker 2: We'll help you understand why we love to be scared
Speaker 2: and maybe even convert you into a horror fan yourself.
Speaker 2: So turn off the lights, close the basement door, enjoina.
Speaker 6: In, Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics.
Speaker 6: One thing we like to talk about is the idea
Speaker 6: of consequences that you know, it's great to see the
Speaker 6: fight scenes, but sometimes when we see people get wounded,
Speaker 6: we see people go through really traumatic stuff and they're
Speaker 6: sad for an episode, but then everything goes back to normal.
Speaker 6: It doesn't actually feel that realistic. Well Star Trek DS
Speaker 6: nine in one of the best episodes, well regarded within
Speaker 6: DS nine and by many people thought of in the
Speaker 6: top ten of all Star Trek episodes. In the episode
Speaker 6: Only a Paper Moon Season seven, episode ten, they actually
Speaker 6: really explore in some beautiful ways the effects of trauma,
Speaker 6: the effects of amputation, the effects of coming to terms
Speaker 6: with life after war and after a catastrophic injury. And
Speaker 6: we're talking about that here with my co host Riky Hayashi,
Speaker 6: and for folks, who aren't DS nine fans or just
Speaker 6: saw this episode many years ago. Don't worry, we'll be
Speaker 6: giving you a quick summary, but just jumping right in, Wreaky,
Speaker 6: this was an episode you had originally suggested. Tell us
Speaker 6: a little bit about why you want to talk about
Speaker 6: this episode.
Speaker 5: Any chance to.
Speaker 7: Talk about Star Trek.
Speaker 5: Yeah, is excellent for me if you listen to our
Speaker 5: episode on section thirty one the movie. Even though I
Speaker 5: hadn't personally watched the movie, I had just like the
Speaker 5: background information Star Trek, Like I just I know it
Speaker 5: all and so like I sometimes come off that way,
Speaker 5: I know as a know it all, like when I
Speaker 5: recite like episode.
Speaker 8: Titles and stuff.
Speaker 5: That's just like it is my most nerdy passion. Like
Speaker 5: I think I like Star Wars the franchise better, but
Speaker 5: Star Trek is where I love to get into, just
Speaker 5: like the fandom of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 6: No, that totally makes sense, And yeah, I love Star Trek.
Speaker 6: I think I've said before. I know I've said before
Speaker 6: many times that my mother showing me Star Trek and
Speaker 6: asking me ethical questions about it as a kid was
Speaker 6: really the birthplace of this podcast, as well as so
Speaker 6: many of my sort of issues in interests and love
Speaker 6: when it comes to how all this plays out. And
Speaker 6: so let me give kind of a brief summary of
Speaker 6: this episode. So this is set in the last season
Speaker 6: of d S nine. Forgive spoilers for a twenty year
Speaker 6: old show at thirty year or show. At this point,
Speaker 6: we are deep into the Dominion War and one of
Speaker 6: the characters who has gone off to war is Nog.
Speaker 6: Nog is a Ferengi. He is the son of Ram,
Speaker 6: who is the brother of Cork, the person who runs
Speaker 6: the casino and restaurant and all that and bar at
Speaker 6: d S nine. Now, Who's a character was originally introduced
Speaker 6: to us as a haha, look at how sexist and
Speaker 6: terrible and awful Farrangie men are, and has gone through
Speaker 6: an incredible evolution to the point where he became a
Speaker 6: member of starfleet and a member of the military and
Speaker 6: went off to war and has now come back to war,
Speaker 6: come back from the war badly injured. He had lost
Speaker 6: a leg and has now a prosthetic leg, a bioprosthetic leg,
Speaker 6: but still a story that I is a person who
Speaker 6: lost my leg amputated very much relate to and I'll
Speaker 6: get to that, and everyone around him is ready to
Speaker 6: just sort of like celebrate the hero and move on,
Speaker 6: and he's not. He is still in a place of
Speaker 6: deep trauma about all of this, and he winds up
Speaker 6: finding that the only place he feels safe and comfortable
Speaker 6: is the Holideck, and specifically a Holidec program that's been
Speaker 6: running called where it's basically about the golden age of Vegas,
Speaker 6: the kind of days of like Frankie Sinatra and all
Speaker 6: the crooners, the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, and they've invented
Speaker 6: a character who's very much part of that brat pack
Speaker 6: era called Vic Fontaine, and Nog basically spends a lot
Speaker 6: of his time with Vic, working with him, like helping
Speaker 6: him to rebuild his casino, and there's a lot of
Speaker 6: debate about like is this good for him or bad
Speaker 6: for him? And you know, eventually it shows that like, yes,
Speaker 6: actually this is very healing for him and helped with
Speaker 6: his trauma until it gets to a point where he's
Speaker 6: kind of stuck there and it's gone from being helping
Speaker 6: to enabling, and.
Speaker 1: Vic vad and himself is the one.
Speaker 6: Who kind of helps to push Nog back out into
Speaker 6: the world and goes out into the world. And while
Speaker 6: the idea that PTSD is all solved in one episode
Speaker 6: is kind of ridiculous, it is still one of the
Speaker 6: only real treatments of this that I've seen, especially in
Speaker 6: a show that isn't thought of as like super dark
Speaker 6: and gritty, but you know, more like a Star Trek show.
Speaker 6: And so, yeah, there's just a lot to talk about.
Speaker 6: But is that Riki? Did I cover a motion of
Speaker 6: the major plot points. We'll get into more of the
Speaker 6: details as we go on, for sure.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll just go over you mentioned it was season
Speaker 5: seven h SO ten. The story is by David Mack
Speaker 5: and John Jay Ordover. The teleplay I meaning kind of
Speaker 5: like the final script was by Ronald D. Moore, who
Speaker 5: is like the architect of Deep Space nine in a
Speaker 5: lot of ways, and as directed by Anson Williams. The
Speaker 5: previous episode right where you mentioned Nog was injured, is
Speaker 5: also one of the best in Deep Space nine, dealing
Speaker 5: with like the realities of war, the siege of Ar
Speaker 5: five five eight. We see Nog go from kind of
Speaker 5: wide eyed and excited to then like being scared, and
Speaker 5: then finally like in the end, just injured and broken
Speaker 5: and in that moment, I believe when he's like waiting
Speaker 5: for surgery or something like that, like he's on a
Speaker 5: surgical bed or something, he's listening to Vic Fontaine's music.
Speaker 8: I think is the.
Speaker 5: Connection to why he ends up retreating into the hollow
Speaker 5: suite world of the Las Vegas Casino.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very much so.
Speaker 6: And let me just talk about the character of Nog
Speaker 6: himself for a minute, because I think the fact that
Speaker 6: it is Nog who goes through all this is very
Speaker 6: important because, as I said, Nag was a really presented
Speaker 6: as comic relief and as a reminder that the Ferengi
Speaker 6: are different and weird and bad and frankly, it's not
Speaker 6: my or I think a lot of people's favorite part
Speaker 6: of episode of the early parts of d S nine
Speaker 6: because you know, in a TV tactic that star Trek
Speaker 6: was by no means unique in that was done all
Speaker 6: the time. There's a lot of like, we're going to
Speaker 6: have a character be super sexist and super awful, but
Speaker 6: don't worry about it because we're doing it to mock him.
Speaker 6: And and but yeah, he is the Fngi traditional Ferengi male.
Speaker 6: If you don't know, there are species that believes that
Speaker 6: like men are the only ones out in socith they're
Speaker 6: very much kind of like supposed to be like nineteenth
Speaker 6: century robber barons of American capitalism, but taken to an
Speaker 6: anthic stream. So women are supposed to stay home and
Speaker 6: never go out in public and never talk to anyone.
Speaker 1: Uh, they're you.
Speaker 8: Know, aren't allowed to wear clothes clothes exactly.
Speaker 6: And and he's just really part of the show is
Speaker 6: but the Frangie having to live in community with everyone else.
Speaker 6: It's about everyone living in community with everyone else. And
Speaker 6: he responds really badly to it. And over the years
Speaker 6: they've given him more and more to do and allowed
Speaker 6: him to become part of Starfleet and that he kind
Speaker 6: of wanted to go into Starfleet Command. He's the first Fengi.
Speaker 1: To do so.
Speaker 6: I would say Star Trek loves the first. So we've
Speaker 6: had so many characters who were the first of their
Speaker 6: race to do warfing, which is definitely pretty good. Yeah, Wharf,
Speaker 6: I think the Trill was like one of the first
Speaker 6: Trills to go into Star Trek, you know, I think
Speaker 6: Balana from Beijor.
Speaker 1: We had a lot of these kind of things, and
Speaker 1: he gets that kind of arc.
Speaker 6: But he's always still It's always still a little o
Speaker 6: haha this, you know, among other things. Nog is a
Speaker 6: very short character. He's played by Aaron Eisenberg, who has
Speaker 6: sadly passed away. But it was a very good actor,
Speaker 6: especially in this issue in this episode, and he was
Speaker 6: someone who had kidney problems as a teenager and that
Speaker 6: stopped his growth at five foot so.
Speaker 1: But he really makes that an important part of the character.
Speaker 1: And in this.
Speaker 6: I think the fact that it was Nag means so
Speaker 6: much because part of the issue I think that happens
Speaker 6: is that by joining Starfleet, remember everyone around him had said,
Speaker 6: don't do this, this is a wrong idea, this is terrible,
Speaker 6: And I think that definitely adds to the feelings he's
Speaker 6: going through, because you know, when you're the person who
Speaker 6: says I can do something that everyone else says you
Speaker 6: shouldn't do, and you can't do, and then you wind
Speaker 6: up doing it and something terrible happens, that only adds,
Speaker 6: I think, in a lot of ways to the trauma
Speaker 6: of it and the feeling of like, did I make
Speaker 6: a terrible mistake?
Speaker 1: And why you know the world wasn't as safe for
Speaker 1: me as I thought it was.
Speaker 6: Because I think, as you kind of mentioned, he's kind
Speaker 6: of wide eyed and innocent, and he says that he
Speaker 6: definitely has a sense of like, I'm watching this trauma
Speaker 6: happening to other people, but I had that kind of
Speaker 6: like young person invincibility feeling like that it could never
Speaker 6: happen to me. And I think the fact that it's
Speaker 6: him and that he's a Ferengi and they's so out
Speaker 6: of his element means a lot in terms of why
Speaker 6: he then after this accident, after this war wound, needs
Speaker 6: to kind of go back and do kind of the
Speaker 6: cocoon of his own making of like this is my
Speaker 6: safe place.
Speaker 5: Yeah, nog to me like this whole show. You know.
Speaker 5: I could go on and on about why I love
Speaker 5: Deep Space nine. One of the reasons is the redemption
Speaker 5: of the Faringi race. They are introduced in Star Trek
Speaker 5: the Next Generation, and like a lot of alien races
Speaker 5: in Star Trek, they quickly became a mono culture caricature.
Speaker 8: Right.
Speaker 5: Klingons are all about honor, Romulans are all about treachery.
Speaker 5: The Faringi are all about profit right, and like they
Speaker 5: have a society, societal religion almost I guess where they
Speaker 5: base everything around the rules of acquisition. You may have heard,
Speaker 5: you know, there's a numbered like two hundred or something,
Speaker 5: two hundred and fifty rules of Acquisition that they all
Speaker 5: adhere to, and they're like little little Quippi sayings about
Speaker 5: how to make money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's basically their bible.
Speaker 6: If you think about how someone will be like well,
Speaker 6: Luke sixteen forty two says, you know, they do that
Speaker 6: with the rules of acquisition.
Speaker 5: And Nog and his father Ram both break away from
Speaker 5: this profit based mentality. Ram joins the engineering staff. I
Speaker 5: mean it becomes an engineer on the station.
Speaker 8: He said.
Speaker 5: You know, Nog joins Starfleet and ultimately becomes a soldier
Speaker 5: in this case because they're at war with the Dominion.
Speaker 5: And that's very important because again, like the not every
Speaker 5: Feringhi should just be about profit, right, Not every Klingon
Speaker 5: should be a warrior in a real, more realistic setting.
Speaker 5: And these are shorthands that the show develops so that we,
Speaker 5: you know, we have something to lean on. But when
Speaker 5: you have the time to develop a character like this,
Speaker 5: it's it's really so.
Speaker 8: So much better.
Speaker 6: Well, and that's why, And it's funny. I remember watching
Speaker 6: this episode mostly being stuck, struck by the trauma and
Speaker 6: the amputation aspects of it all also, and we're gonna
Speaker 6: get to that. We have a lot to say about that,
Speaker 6: but just going a little deeper on this because I
Speaker 6: really noticed it on this watch through that I did
Speaker 6: last night. I think, given everything we've just said, it
Speaker 6: is so interesting that what Noog does. You know, again,
Speaker 6: it's all this fictional world where it doesn't actually matter.
Speaker 6: But in the fictional world, they've created the idea that
Speaker 6: Vic Fontein is struggling with his finances yea, and Nog
Speaker 6: winds up helping him with that and coming up with
Speaker 6: actually all of these profit laiden plans, and Spacilli says
Speaker 6: at one point when Vic says like, are you you know,
Speaker 6: are you sure you're gonna be good enough to take
Speaker 6: over the books? And he says, I'm a frangie, It's
Speaker 6: in my blood. And that line hit me so hard
Speaker 6: because I do think that is off and a strong
Speaker 6: trauma response, especially after you know, trying to leave, like
Speaker 6: you know, what your your your family taught you, or
Speaker 6: what your culture taught you, and you've gone out into
Speaker 6: the world and something bad has happened. Often part of
Speaker 6: the first response can be Okay, let me let me
Speaker 6: go back, let me let me go back to where
Speaker 6: everything was safe.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's just they don't.
Speaker 6: Lampshade that that I'm taking a small little tidbit and
Speaker 6: reading a lot into it, But it felt like it
Speaker 6: was very intentional to have that little moment of part
Speaker 6: of his response to all this is going back to
Speaker 6: being a frangie in that kind of a way. And
Speaker 6: to be clear, he doesn't go back to any of
Speaker 6: the sexism or any of awful stuff, but just that
Speaker 6: idea of like I'm a frangie, im good at profit
Speaker 6: becomes a big part of his his like comfort zone.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I found it a good way to utilize
Speaker 5: that monoculture trait, right. It It is still when you
Speaker 5: think about it, kind of ridiculous, right, But if you
Speaker 5: have that upbringing, he at least was like exposed to
Speaker 5: enough things. And I think that's what they're saying, is
Speaker 5: like it's not racially in their blood, Yeah, but that
Speaker 5: he grew up in this culture that magnified profit.
Speaker 8: To this degree.
Speaker 5: So being put in this situation, even though it's nineteen
Speaker 5: fifties Las Vegas Earth simulation, he understands, you know, the basics.
Speaker 8: Of what to do right.
Speaker 6: And I think it's also a nice statement again on this,
Speaker 6: because I think you're right the monoculture ideas are not
Speaker 6: very realistic. But also then the idea of I will
Speaker 6: reject my monoculture and so my whole culture will be
Speaker 6: about the rejection of that.
Speaker 1: That does happen in the real world.
Speaker 6: But it's not often the healthiest perspective, and that I
Speaker 6: mean it can be in some ways, to be sure,
Speaker 6: but sometimes people find the best sort of path when
Speaker 6: they're able to say I'm rejecting all of the repression
Speaker 6: and rejecting all of the things that taught me to
Speaker 6: not like mysel or whatever. But I'm also accepting that
Speaker 6: there were things about how I grew up or my
Speaker 6: culture or my connections that I do love or that
Speaker 6: I do relate to outside of everything else that was
Speaker 6: on top of it.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's a part of where he goes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree, And now that we're talking about it,
Speaker 5: I feel like this is actually maybe a representation of
Speaker 5: diaspora in the real world where you see, like for me,
Speaker 5: as an Asian American, like you see how the generation
Speaker 5: born or that came, you know, after immigration to America
Speaker 5: from Asia. A lot of these people who grew up
Speaker 5: in the US and that's kind of all they know,
Speaker 5: had this moment of like, but I do kind of
Speaker 5: want to go back and reconnect with my roots. And
Speaker 5: that's what he's doing because he's been he grew up
Speaker 5: on Deep Space nine among Bajorans and humans and not
Speaker 5: among f Ringi, right, so since maybe like early teens,
Speaker 5: and so he's having this moment of reconnecting with this
Speaker 5: culture in a healthy, positive way, as you said, and
Speaker 5: not the misogynistic aspects of the culture.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 6: So let's talk actually then about the what happens to
Speaker 6: him and the trauma, the PTSD and the losing of
Speaker 6: his leg. And I will name from the beginning that
Speaker 6: I have a very biased perspective obviously on this, because
Speaker 6: I can relate to what he's going through about halfway
Speaker 6: in that I did have and that I did lose
Speaker 6: my leg to amputation and a lot of the things,
Speaker 6: and it was very traumatic, and a lot of the
Speaker 6: things that he goes through are similar to what I've
Speaker 6: gone through, But of course I've never been to war.
Speaker 6: There's very different circumstances to which how I lost my
Speaker 6: leg And I would not claim to have like war
Speaker 6: caused PTSD in any of the same way as but
Speaker 6: it's certainly something I know quite a lot about and
Speaker 6: a lot of counseling the folks in that world, and
Speaker 6: my own mental stuff is very similar to PTSD. So
Speaker 6: just some of the things that I noticed early on
Speaker 6: one was just this whole idea of how everyone was
Speaker 6: unsure of what to say to him, and that there
Speaker 6: were things that people were saying, Well, let me ask you,
Speaker 6: like what was your response to people like his family
Speaker 6: and Jake and Jake's girlfriend Kiara trying to sort of
Speaker 6: offer him words of help and him rejecting them.
Speaker 5: It was painful to watch, and obviously like that's the
Speaker 5: point in this episode, But what I really felt was
Speaker 5: so many of those characters were civilians, right yeah, and
Speaker 5: I don't I don't recall like if they gave him
Speaker 5: if there was like a starfleet like soldier character who
Speaker 5: tried to reach out to him, like, did did Chief
Speaker 5: O'Brien talk to him? Because that's that's who I would
Speaker 5: think of as like a veteran who has seen war
Speaker 5: and like.
Speaker 8: Has had some trauma over it.
Speaker 5: We saw it, and I think Next Generation where he
Speaker 5: has like a very racist response to Cardassians because he
Speaker 5: fought against them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and he does talk to Obrian briefly, but it's
Speaker 6: about vic Fontaine and we'll get to.
Speaker 1: That of oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: And I'm really glad you picked up on that, because
Speaker 6: I do think a lot of the times this is
Speaker 6: portrayed as everyone around the person is doing their absolute
Speaker 6: best and is saying really helpful good things, but the
Speaker 6: person with PTSD is being a jerk and rejecting them all.
Speaker 6: And I do think everyone is tronging their best. I think,
Speaker 6: do you think everyone is trying to help? But I
Speaker 6: think what this show portrayed and what I really related
Speaker 6: to because how I experience is that people are actually
Speaker 6: really bad at knowing what's a good way to speak
Speaker 6: to someone after something like this, and although they should
Speaker 6: because it's probably takes a lot of training to have
Speaker 6: a good idea. But like there's one scene where Jake
Speaker 6: and the girl he's dating at that moment. I think
Speaker 6: her name was Kiata something like that, and I can't
Speaker 6: get it wrong, but Jacob's fortunately.
Speaker 8: Like Jake has a lot of girlfriends of the work.
Speaker 1: Yes, of psycho through.
Speaker 6: And Jake goes off to use the refresher, which is
Speaker 6: their sort of very polite way of saying, goes to
Speaker 6: the bathroom, and he's left there with Kiara, and Kira
Speaker 6: is clearly trying to be curious but trying to be helpful,
Speaker 6: but also she's clearly very curious, and she's kind of
Speaker 6: like dancing around what she's trying to say, and he
Speaker 6: catches her like staring at his legs, trying to figure
Speaker 6: out which is the real one and which is the
Speaker 6: myoprosthetic one. And that moment hit me like a ton
Speaker 6: of bricks, because I have had I mean, I think
Speaker 6: it's pretty clear with me that I have a prosthetic leg.
Speaker 6: That is pretty obvious, but just this idea of people
Speaker 6: like wanting to ask questions that I think might be rude,
Speaker 6: but kind of dancing around it and wanting me to
Speaker 6: be the one to jump in, and just you know,
Speaker 6: maybe that I'm like not being a little unfair to
Speaker 6: folks because I don't expect people to know how to
Speaker 6: do it, But I just I could tell that those
Speaker 6: scenes were written by someone who at least knew someone
Speaker 6: who had been through moments like this, of like the
Speaker 6: soldier coming home and no one knowing how to talk
Speaker 6: to them, of the person has gone through a major
Speaker 6: injury and no one knows how to relate to them.
Speaker 6: Because I felt like, did this really good job of
Speaker 6: showing that Noog needs help and he's not really being
Speaker 6: very pleasant to people around him, but also that there's
Speaker 6: some justification and that the people around him are trying
Speaker 6: but are kind of just making things worse.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you really feel that in this episode. And there's
Speaker 5: kind of like a jokey thing, right, like where when
Speaker 5: someone is depressed, Yep, there's like a oh, have you
Speaker 5: tried not being depressed?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 5: Like that's obviously not the solution, but often people say
Speaker 5: things very similar to that in a way that is
Speaker 5: just like condescending and not understanding of the situation.
Speaker 8: So yeah, it definitely felt.
Speaker 5: That this episode of people being uncomfortable and not really
Speaker 5: knowing what to do.
Speaker 8: Yeah, and that's what that's what made.
Speaker 5: Like the Vic Fonteine thing work, right, Like, he goes
Speaker 5: into the Hollow suite and Vic the character treats him
Speaker 5: completely differently or maybe not differently as the point.
Speaker 6: Right, normally, Yeah, he treats them the way he would
Speaker 6: have beforehand, and is kind of aware of the leg
Speaker 6: but doesn't uh. And there's an interesting back and forth
Speaker 6: there because so this is after the Trill has.
Speaker 1: Switched to a new person. It's no longer jed.
Speaker 8: Zia Dax, it's Ezridas.
Speaker 6: Ezri Dakx, thank you, and her role is to be
Speaker 6: the ship's counselor the station's counselor kind of like what
Speaker 6: Blana Troy was on the Next Generation. And she at
Speaker 6: first is like, no, this is fundamentally unhealthy. This is bad,
Speaker 6: and Vic has to kind of convince her that no, actually,
Speaker 6: what they're doing for Nog is helping, because among other things,
Speaker 6: he's trying to help him kind of like not just
Speaker 6: sit around in mope, try to get make him more active,
Speaker 6: feel more confident about himself, and was presented as kind
Speaker 6: of a guffin of the episode is this idea that
Speaker 6: his prosthetic leg, it's a bioprosthetic legs, which should be
Speaker 6: completely fine, but that Knog has a lot of pain
Speaker 6: about it and walks with a cane and one of
Speaker 6: my favorite lines in the show, he at one point
Speaker 6: says that he knows that everyone else feels like The
Speaker 6: quote is the problem's all in my head, that I'm crazy,
Speaker 6: and it's never quite returned to you. But I feel
Speaker 6: like part of what the episode gets at is that, yes,
Speaker 6: it is all in his head, but he's not crazy.
Speaker 6: And for me, as someone you know, a little bit
Speaker 6: of a tangent here, but I think it's relevant. I've
Speaker 6: often talked about that. I don't like science fiction that
Speaker 6: says that we have a disabled character, but because of
Speaker 6: technology or magic or science or whatever, that disability basically
Speaker 6: goes away. And here they have a level of scientific
Speaker 6: possibility of a prosthetic wildly.
Speaker 1: Beyond what we have in our own world.
Speaker 6: I can't relate to that, but the idea of a
Speaker 6: prosthetic feeling like it doesn't fit even if it technically does,
Speaker 6: because it's just.
Speaker 1: Not a it's not your body.
Speaker 6: You are still getting used to it in ways that
Speaker 6: are difficult, and that there are phantom pains and that
Speaker 6: there are feelings and people telling you it's all in
Speaker 6: your head. Ask any amputee and they probably can watch
Speaker 6: that scene and be like, Yep, that's that's my experience
Speaker 6: right there on screen.
Speaker 5: And good well, I was gonna say, like that that
Speaker 5: phrase phantom pain, right is like if you've lost a limb,
Speaker 5: you still think that you feel things there, like pain, right,
Speaker 5: even though there's physically nothing, no nerves there.
Speaker 6: Well, in technical like there is an agree to which, yeah,
Speaker 6: it can be entirely psychological, but also sometimes it's that
Speaker 6: there are nerves there, but they're just dead end into
Speaker 6: like dead skin or whatever.
Speaker 1: And so there are random firings of people. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly so.
Speaker 6: And yeah, obviously we don't know the science and the
Speaker 6: biology of his leg, but I thought that was just
Speaker 6: a really effective way of making his experience one that
Speaker 6: a lot of other people can relate to. And and
Speaker 6: so anyways, so back to the main topic, Vic kind
Speaker 6: of gives him this newer cane that's like cool and awesome.
Speaker 6: It has a lighter so you can light women's cigarettes.
Speaker 6: It's the nineteen fifties, it's a very different times, and
Speaker 6: but it's it's but the idea being that doesn't actually
Speaker 6: support his weight, and he's going to start and also
Speaker 6: as he gets more excited about things, kind of forgetting
Speaker 6: that he needs the cane, which is.
Speaker 1: A time honored, very good, good psychological tool.
Speaker 6: And you know, for a long time, Vic Fontaines actually
Speaker 6: does heal Nog in a lot of important ways.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and there's a beautiful shot of like panning back
Speaker 5: to the cane, just like sitting sitting there, like leaning
Speaker 5: against something, right, like to end a scene to remind
Speaker 5: us or show us like, oh hey, yeah, he doesn't
Speaker 5: need that anymore.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah, Okay, So maybe.
Speaker 5: This is the right spot to say because you mentioned
Speaker 5: Ezri Dax who comes board as the ship the station's
Speaker 5: counselor and continues this time honor tradition in Star Trek
Speaker 5: of mental health professionals being kind of bad at their
Speaker 5: jobs unfortunately, like counselor Troy in Next Generation was so
Speaker 5: badly used as a character.
Speaker 1: She had no boundaries, She had no professional boundaries. It
Speaker 1: was awful, and there.
Speaker 5: Were so many episodes where characters end up going to
Speaker 5: Guidnan the bartender of Ted Forward, for guidance. So this
Speaker 5: is like, to me, feels like a similar situation where
Speaker 5: the mental health professional, the person trained in this field,
Speaker 5: is just kind of fumbling the situation and a non
Speaker 5: professional like casual like bartender, your casino owner character just
Speaker 5: happens to like know the right things to say and
Speaker 5: the right things to do for this person, right, and
Speaker 5: I just that is my least favorite part of this episode.
Speaker 5: Ezri DAC's like at the very end, I think like,
Speaker 5: oh yeah, like talks to Biggs like you were right,
Speaker 5: like you had the right track. But in the beginning
Speaker 5: she just seems so again like bad at her job.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I definitely hear where you're coming from, and I
Speaker 6: want to get to that. Let me just make one
Speaker 6: or two things about the trauma as well, that I
Speaker 6: just again thought were perfect. There's a moment where he's
Speaker 6: watching Shane the old John Wayne movie, which the idea
Speaker 6: that people have you know, twenty twenties or the twenty
Speaker 6: two whatever, twenty three whatever of this show. Fans are
Speaker 6: yelling at me that I don't know the exact dates
Speaker 6: right now, but that they would still remember this John
Speaker 6: Wayne movie seems pretty weird, but the idea that people
Speaker 6: in the nineteen fifties would be watching it on television
Speaker 6: makes total sense. But in that movie, like a lot
Speaker 6: of cowboy movies, like a lot of action movies both
Speaker 6: then and today, the character gets injured and then five
Speaker 6: minutes later is having his big goodbye with a pretty girl,
Speaker 6: and there's just no mention of his injury and and
Speaker 6: Nog says, quote, wasn't he shot just a few minutes ago?
Speaker 1: He's not even bleeding. And this is something that I'm
Speaker 1: not sure.
Speaker 6: Again, having not been in warm myself, I don't relate
Speaker 6: to quite as much, although I do feel it like
Speaker 6: when you know, Misty Knight puts on a new prosthetic
Speaker 6: arm and everything is perfect. But I've definitely heard from
Speaker 6: a lot of others just that when you've seen actual war,
Speaker 6: when you've seen actual violence of whatever kind, seeing the
Speaker 6: way it's presented on TV and in movies where there's
Speaker 6: so little consequence, like yeah, you're shot and then you
Speaker 6: just tie up your arm and everything's fine, really drives
Speaker 6: people crazy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can get that.
Speaker 6: And here's one other things that they mentioned that I
Speaker 6: thought was really powerful because again showing this, I think
Speaker 6: there's a while of like every villain on TV or
Speaker 6: in movies had PTSD and it was kind of presented
Speaker 6: as kind of like this terrible thing. And I think
Speaker 6: now there's more sympathy of like PTSD can lead to
Speaker 6: bad outcomes if people aren't treated, but we're not demonizing
Speaker 6: people with it anymore. But I like that again, he
Speaker 6: has shown being a jerk to a lot of folks,
Speaker 6: and one of the primary ways it happens is he
Speaker 6: becomes very self focused, like he assumes that he can
Speaker 6: stay with Vic forever because doesn't think for a minute.
Speaker 1: About what Vic might want in a situation.
Speaker 6: He kind of assumes that, like everyone else like that,
Speaker 6: their needs are going to become sublimated to what he needs,
Speaker 6: mostly in terms of his family, in terms of his
Speaker 6: friends and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a very real thing that happened.
Speaker 6: It's certainly happened to me, and so I just it's subtle,
Speaker 6: it's it's never lamp shaded, but it was just one
Speaker 6: more way I was like, Okay, someone really understands trauma.
Speaker 1: Who made this episode?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I don't know specifically, like who involved created like
Speaker 7: those aspects of it, but I'm glad you're saying that
Speaker 7: because to me, as an outsider to these types of situations,
Speaker 7: it felt realistic, right, And that's I think that's part
Speaker 7: of what makes this episode so effective, is that, Yeah,
Speaker 7: I think like the nog being a jerk aspect, or.
Speaker 5: At least, you know, not to be judgmental, but like
Speaker 5: rejecting his friend's help Yeah, is a very powerful setup
Speaker 5: to this whole situation.
Speaker 1: Very much so.
Speaker 6: And I will say I don't know anything about his specifics,
Speaker 6: but Ronald D. Moore, who, as you said, was very
Speaker 6: involved in this episode in Star Trek, but it also
Speaker 6: went on to be the I think either the showrunner
Speaker 6: or the head writer or someone very involved with the
Speaker 6: making of Battle Star Galactica. And that is one about
Speaker 6: a military and I've heard him talk at times that
Speaker 6: one of his frustrations with Star Trek is that he
Speaker 6: couldn't really just flat out call Starfleet a military and
Speaker 6: and that he wanted to deal with like the mental
Speaker 6: side of military trauma. So clearly it's something he's had
Speaker 6: a large interest in, and so I imagine he's had some
Speaker 6: background or some experience, or at least some some research
Speaker 6: he's done into that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And that's the thing like even if you don't
Speaker 5: have firsthand experience, necessarily, like if you do the research,
Speaker 5: like we talked about this with Full Metal Alchemists, where
Speaker 5: the author Arakawa did a lot of research into talked
Speaker 5: to war veterans and especially those with injuries to get
Speaker 5: their perspective on all of that, and that that's like
Speaker 5: the all we ask, is like, even if we talk
Speaker 5: about media and how like representation is important and how
Speaker 5: having people who have the lived experiences can can deliver better,
Speaker 5: more authentic stories, that doesn't mean that people outside of
Speaker 5: those experiences can't write about these subjects.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it means you have to.
Speaker 5: Have an extra level of responsibility to do the research,
Speaker 5: talk to people who have experienced it, and to try
Speaker 5: to understand and not just like project your own Like, Oh,
Speaker 5: I think this is what it would be like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I've hinted about this before, but I don't think
Speaker 6: I've been able to go into detail before because the
Speaker 6: book hadn't come out yet. But the new Brandon Sanderson
Speaker 6: novel in the Stormlight Archives Win in Truth. If you
Speaker 6: go through the acknowledgment page, and most people don't, I
Speaker 6: never would either, so don't blame if you didn't. But
Speaker 6: if you do go through it, you'll see prosthetics and
Speaker 6: disability expert Matthew Fox. Oh wow, And it was exactly
Speaker 6: what you're talking about, because I know someone who's a
Speaker 6: beta reader for him, and he apparently is very good
Speaker 6: about this, and he had a character who lost a
Speaker 6: leg and used a prosthetic during the course of the book,
Speaker 6: and he sent me those chapters and had me kind
Speaker 6: of make comments on them, and I'm very proud that,
Speaker 6: like the they changed a lot of the way the
Speaker 6: story was structured for him based on the comments I
Speaker 6: made where I was like, this is realistic, this isn't
Speaker 6: and stuff like that, and again fitting into his magical world.
Speaker 6: But you know, and I think it's really cool, and
Speaker 6: I think that more and more authors doing that is
Speaker 6: so needed.
Speaker 5: That is awesome to hear for you, but also just
Speaker 5: like for the industry and for Brandon Sanderson, that that
Speaker 5: fits with my understanding of him. Yeah, is that I
Speaker 5: believe he's Mormon, right, Yeah, but he has written LGBTQ
Speaker 5: characters and has talked to people in the community I
Speaker 5: believe about that issue and it's kind of a conflicting
Speaker 5: situation because of his faith, but he still tries to
Speaker 5: like listen to communities and to try to depict accurate representations,
Speaker 5: is my understanding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I think that's true.
Speaker 6: I think there's obviously a lot of complications there in
Speaker 6: controversy and stuff like that, but I think in terms
Speaker 6: of how he deals with this issue, it's really kind
Speaker 6: of like setting a standard. Sorry, let me get back
Speaker 6: to the Ezri part of it, because part of what
Speaker 6: I noticed when I rewatched it just last night is
Speaker 6: I think you are right that for most of the episode,
Speaker 6: Ezri is portrayed as kind of she's the buy the
Speaker 6: book person. She's doing what she's been totally supposed to
Speaker 6: be helpful, but clearly she doesn't have this experience herself.
Speaker 6: And for most of the episode the story is about
Speaker 6: how Vic Fontaine.
Speaker 1: Is helping him.
Speaker 6: But we get to a point where that shifts, and
Speaker 6: I want to actually read a quote from a friend
Speaker 6: of ours who commented on when I when I put
Speaker 6: this question out, Patrick Coole wrote, the way the episode
Speaker 6: addresses the transition from giving Nog the space to grieve
Speaker 6: to acknowledging that Nogg is no longer grieving and as
Speaker 6: instead wallowing his own self pity is incredible. The fine
Speaker 6: line between holding space and enabling is one that is
Speaker 6: too often ignored, and I want to talk about that
Speaker 6: in general, but just that one.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 6: It is Ezri who points out to Fontaine, hey, you've
Speaker 6: kind of crossed this line. You're now into enabling territory,
Speaker 6: and and Fontaine listens to her and that's what able
Speaker 6: to help him given the final push. So I agree
Speaker 6: it's still not a great representation on meltal health professionals,
Speaker 6: but I do think it's significantly better than we often
Speaker 6: would get.
Speaker 8: No, you're right, that's a very that's an excellent point.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just I think like in the context of
Speaker 5: a therapist, right, Like I what I'm disappointed by in
Speaker 5: the depictions and Star Trek is like there's there are
Speaker 5: very few like good therapy sessions, and it's usually just
Speaker 5: like the therapist like not getting through or the person
Speaker 5: not sharing and then like storming off and talking to
Speaker 5: the bartender or the hollow character. So that that yeah, okay,
Speaker 5: I can see where where Patrick is coming from. Yeah,
Speaker 5: it is a very good turn.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think part of it's a TV problem because
Speaker 6: somewhat by definition, like a therapist shouldn't have that a
Speaker 6: therapist circle of friends shouldn't.
Speaker 1: Be their patience. Like that's just a boundaries issue.
Speaker 6: But on a show where it's like this, you want
Speaker 6: the Baalana Troy character, you want the ez A character
Speaker 6: to be part of the circle of friends of the ensemble,
Speaker 6: and so it's just fundamentally mix. But but yeah, like,
Speaker 6: what do you think of this idea of like that
Speaker 6: shift from he's there and it's helping him, but then
Speaker 6: like it gets to a point where he needs he
Speaker 6: needs to go on from that and he has trouble
Speaker 6: seeing that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it I think it is accurate to real life situations.
Speaker 5: But obviously, like given the circumstances of this fictional world,
Speaker 5: you can't stay in the Hollow Suite forever because it's
Speaker 5: not real. And that's often you know, that's often a
Speaker 5: phrasing that gets used about any situation like this, Like
Speaker 5: if you get super involved in an M M O RPG, right,
Speaker 5: and it's like you're spending too much time, Like that's
Speaker 5: not real. That's not real life, right, Right In this case,
Speaker 5: like the Hollow Suite feels real because you're interacting with it,
Speaker 5: and it visually and tech tact tactfully feels like the
Speaker 5: real world, but it's not. And I think that's like
Speaker 5: the distinction that ultimately has to be drawn for the
Speaker 5: sake of the character and for the TV show. You
Speaker 5: can't just have the rest of the season play out
Speaker 5: with Noggs sitting in the Hall suite forever. But the
Speaker 5: the way they do it is excellent and somewhat heartbreaking
Speaker 5: to me. Yeah, like when when when Big just shuts
Speaker 5: himself off, I think we're going to transition into this
Speaker 5: discussion of what the heck is Big Fontaine. But yeah,
Speaker 5: like obviously no can't stay there.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah.
Speaker 6: And it's interesting because I do think like this topic
Speaker 6: of like internet addiction and like losing yourself in games
Speaker 6: and stuff is such a difficult one because and I
Speaker 6: feel like this sometimes, like I feel like there are things.
Speaker 1: In the world where.
Speaker 6: I recognize that they can be dangerous, but I also
Speaker 6: recognize that the people yelling loudest about them are often
Speaker 6: pretty terrible and don't get it, you know. And so
Speaker 6: when it comes to things like, you know, I do
Speaker 6: think people can smoke too much pot, or that people
Speaker 6: can like get too into porn, and it really kind
Speaker 6: of like start to, you know, change how they're interacting
Speaker 6: with people or stuff like that, or think of other
Speaker 6: things like that. But the fact is that like the
Speaker 6: people who are attacking those things just think that they're
Speaker 6: fundamentally evil instead of recognizing no, like pot can be
Speaker 6: really good for you for in a lot of ways,
Speaker 6: or like porn can be a completely healthy way that
Speaker 6: people enjoy sexuality, you know, as look at it because
Speaker 6: it comes something you're like losing yourself in. And where
Speaker 6: is that line of losing yourself? That's really hard to find?
Speaker 6: And I feel very similar about this and that I
Speaker 6: do think there are people who really suffer because they
Speaker 6: kind of focus all of their social energy and attention
Speaker 6: and focus into online worlds with people they know online.
Speaker 6: But I also know that like people have gotten married,
Speaker 6: people have built families and communities, and I know, especially
Speaker 6: during COVID, a lot of those like MMOs or you know,
Speaker 6: other things like that really saved people's lives. And and yeah,
Speaker 6: and so like, I think you're right, it is a
Speaker 6: good translation of that issue. And I appreciate that they
Speaker 6: by allowing there to be some real value and healthiness
Speaker 6: that comes from Nog being at vic Fontaine's but then
Speaker 6: eventually realizing that this is a crutch that can't be
Speaker 6: his forever and he has to move on. I just
Speaker 6: thought that was a brilliant way of like not falling
Speaker 6: to either side, not falling into like, oh, it's all
Speaker 6: bad kind of thing that often happens.
Speaker 5: Yeah, because Star Trek has already dealt with that in
Speaker 5: Next generation with the character of Lieutenant Barkley, right, who
Speaker 5: had like I think they call it like hollow addiction, yeah,
Speaker 5: where he was using the Holow Deck in an unhealthy
Speaker 5: way to play out various fantasies and like revenge fantasies
Speaker 5: against his coworkers, crewmates and stuff.
Speaker 6: Right, Yeah, And I like, I liked those episodes, but
Speaker 6: I thought they were very heavy handed, and I think
Speaker 6: this is just a much more sort of def touch
Speaker 6: that is aware of sort of both sides.
Speaker 5: No, I agree, And I think so much of it
Speaker 5: is the character of Vic and I don't think we've
Speaker 5: mentioned it.
Speaker 8: He's played by.
Speaker 5: James Darren, who was a prominent star like in the
Speaker 5: fifties and sixties, he was in Gidget and The Time
Speaker 5: Tunnel or like the other credits that I say that
Speaker 5: I recognize and remember I remember watching The.
Speaker 8: Time Tunnel, so not not like when it was live,
Speaker 8: but yeah, I think the stream runs.
Speaker 6: I don't think he ever actually ran with Frank Sinatra
Speaker 6: on the Brat Pack, but he's definitely like like he
Speaker 6: is a legit crooner of that kind of age.
Speaker 5: He's like even in this episode in Deep Space nine,
Speaker 5: he is a good looking man like maybe sixties at
Speaker 5: this point.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you want if a dictionary under silver Fox has
Speaker 6: a picture of him, that is not a problem. And
Speaker 6: he's a phenomenal singer, like you realize, like why people
Speaker 6: like that kind of krooner jazz, you know.
Speaker 1: Kind of idea.
Speaker 5: And his Wikipedia page, like his profile pick is a
Speaker 5: picture from the Time Tunnel, which was in the sixties,
Speaker 5: and like he's just giving this moment, this super intense
Speaker 5: look and I just can't, I can't look at him anymore.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 5: It swoon.
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, he's he's great and and his singing is wonderful.
Speaker 6: But in this episode until now, like a lot of
Speaker 6: Holidac characters, and I think, like Gynan, he's mostly there
Speaker 6: to be a plot device for other characters to.
Speaker 1: Give them the note of wisdom that they need, or
Speaker 1: to give them a place to have fun and escape to.
Speaker 6: And I really love and I really noticed on this
Speaker 6: rewatch how much it is about him as well, because
Speaker 6: one of the things that I think comes up and
Speaker 6: I as a friend who has been through trauma but
Speaker 6: often helps people with trauma as well, I think this
Speaker 6: is very very true. One of the reasons why therapists
Speaker 6: have strong boundaries is because when you are a friend
Speaker 6: who's kind of acting like a therapist and you are
Speaker 6: helping someone and someone is getting better because because of you,
Speaker 6: that's incredible for your ego, that feels wonderful. And acknowledging
Speaker 6: that that is over and they don't need you anymore
Speaker 6: and that maybe you should stop doing that is not easy.
Speaker 6: And we have a word for that, codependency. Like that's
Speaker 6: literally the definition, or it's one part of the definition.
Speaker 6: I'm not an expert there, but like, and again it's
Speaker 6: never stated in anything but the most passing terms, but
Speaker 6: there there is a moment where Ezery kind of says, like,
Speaker 6: you're really enjoying this in some way, and he's like, yeah,
Speaker 6: I guess maybe that's true, and you're right. The way
Speaker 6: he does it is he kind of has to take
Speaker 6: this tough love attitude because it seems like nothing else
Speaker 6: is working. But I just really appreciate that they show that, Yeah,
Speaker 6: it's not just that Vic missed that this was no
Speaker 6: longer good for for Nog. It's that Vic Vick's getting
Speaker 6: something out of it too, and that's no longer healthy
Speaker 6: for NOG, and that for Vic to have to do
Speaker 6: that is hurtful to Vic as well, and because, as
Speaker 6: he says, like I've been kept on twenty four hours,
Speaker 6: I'm getting to have a life and interact with people
Speaker 6: and not just be you know, the giver of nugget
Speaker 6: wisdom that I sing a song and then I go
Speaker 6: away and I yeah, both just in terms of acknowledging
Speaker 6: that trauma relationship of the helpful friend, but also acknowledging
Speaker 6: like this is a step forward for photonic life, artificial life,
Speaker 6: as they did with a doctor India in Voyager and
Speaker 6: other things like that.
Speaker 1: I just I just love it.
Speaker 5: I love it too. For the character of Vic, I am,
Speaker 5: I am mystified by the technology and what he is,
Speaker 5: maybe because the doctor, the Doctor and Voyager makes a
Speaker 5: lot more sense, right because from the beginning of the
Speaker 5: show that Concede is like he was an emergency medical hologram,
Speaker 5: but they all of their doctors die and they have
Speaker 5: to keep him online, like so he has to become
Speaker 5: a member of the crew, and and there are various
Speaker 5: episodes where they like add subroutines to his personality and
Speaker 5: like improve his his holow deck technology. He gets the
Speaker 5: mobile emitter so that he can leave the hollow deck.
Speaker 8: Et cetera.
Speaker 5: There's none of that with Vic, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 5: he's just a very real person. Yeah in the best way,
Speaker 5: like as a character. But I'm like, where where did
Speaker 5: all this come from? Like? What is going on here?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 6: It's so it's so interesting and and part of the
Speaker 6: ideas is said is that Vic not only like is
Speaker 6: enjoying the feeling of being the friend to Nog, but
Speaker 6: also that he gets to like play poker with the
Speaker 6: he gets to do all the things off screen.
Speaker 8: You know that that exactly because if you.
Speaker 6: Think about like, yeah, a character appears on screen, if
Speaker 6: they only exist in the in the moments that they're
Speaker 6: on screen, they're the NPC, you know. Yeah, And like
Speaker 6: what does the NPC get to do with the rest
Speaker 6: of his life? Here he gets to have the rest
Speaker 6: of his life, and Nog, as a way of saying
Speaker 6: thank you, works out this idea of that the program
Speaker 6: will keep running all the time, so he gets to
Speaker 6: keep living a life and doing all these things. And yeah,
Speaker 6: I I think the way they use the Holid deck
Speaker 6: to in individual episodes or individual arcs, answer these interesting
Speaker 6: questions is really cool. But I think you have to
Speaker 6: acknowledge that the rhyme that there's actually no scientific rhyme
Speaker 6: now works.
Speaker 1: It does not make any sense.
Speaker 5: And the reason the reason I get hung up on
Speaker 5: it is because Star Trek as a franchise does try
Speaker 5: to explain itself and the science more, even if it's
Speaker 5: even if it's technobabble. They add that technobabble to explain
Speaker 5: like why this thing works this way, and Vic is
Speaker 5: never really adequately explained to my satisfaction.
Speaker 8: But I don't know, like we just we roll with
Speaker 8: it and we benefit.
Speaker 5: Like just think about the two main characters on this episode,
Speaker 5: Nog and Vic. They're the centerpieces, like all of the
Speaker 5: emotional beats like are about them. Neither one of these
Speaker 5: characters is a main character, right, Like neither one of
Speaker 5: these actors appears in the opening credits of I don't know,
Speaker 5: like seven.
Speaker 8: Or eight people who are like the regulars.
Speaker 5: Nog at this point is like kind of a semi regular,
Speaker 5: and like Vic is probably like a guest star, I
Speaker 5: would say. But to be able to center an entire
Speaker 5: episode onto secondary or even tertiary and vixed case characters amazing,
Speaker 5: Like I this is the kind of like what people
Speaker 5: derisively call filler. But I think of as character episodes
Speaker 5: that I miss in television.
Speaker 6: I really do, and I part of it is I
Speaker 6: think it's talking called filler. I think another thing that
Speaker 6: thought of is that. And again I don't know the details.
Speaker 6: My understanding is that a lot of times, like a
Speaker 6: TV show would create an episode like this that really
Speaker 6: only focuses on one or two characters and sometimes their
Speaker 6: main cast, and sometimes they're not. But part of it
Speaker 6: is to be able to like give other people like
Speaker 6: a week off, you know, like most of the characters
Speaker 6: probably could come in for one day of work for
Speaker 6: this season, for this episode because they're not in anywhere
Speaker 6: as much of it as they might normally be. And yeah,
Speaker 6: I just think that they're great and I love that
Speaker 6: even when other characters do play a role, it's Ezri
Speaker 6: and Miles O'Brien, you know, Cisco has almost nothing to
Speaker 6: do in this episode, Odo Quark, like each of them
Speaker 6: have like five lines maximum, and O'Brien has I think
Speaker 6: one of my favorite lines in the show. And this
Speaker 6: goes back to the stuff about Fontaine, because nag is
Speaker 6: talking to O'Brien about like Fonteine Fontaine, because at one
Speaker 6: point Fontaine is so determ armange like send Nog out
Speaker 6: into the regular world, that Fontaine himself turns off his program.
Speaker 5: Yeah again, like completely technologically illogical. Yeah, a computer to
Speaker 5: turn itself off, because that's what he is, Like, he
Speaker 5: is the computer.
Speaker 1: Well, a great way of acknowledging that. I thought.
Speaker 6: Nog asks Miles O'Brien, you mean he has free will,
Speaker 6: meaning vic and Miles says, I'm an engineer.
Speaker 1: Not a philosopher.
Speaker 5: Right, that's a good dodge for the writers.
Speaker 1: Good dodge.
Speaker 6: It's a nice callback to bones, you know, damn it,
Speaker 6: I'm But it's also just a nice way of being like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these people don't understand. They're just the technicians.
Speaker 5: I don't know, and I like, I don't I like
Speaker 5: the person podcasting right now, I don't know either. That's
Speaker 5: the thing is, like, what what does this mean for
Speaker 5: him and for like computers in Star Trek?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Well, and not to get all woke about this, but
Speaker 6: I think there's actually an powerful lesson in that, because
Speaker 6: it is I think the storyteller somewhat saying, don't worry
Speaker 6: how many angels are dancing on the pin. Let's talk
Speaker 6: about the fact that the angels are dancing salsa, like
Speaker 6: that's that's the thing I want you to focus on. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and is the way of saying, don't focus on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: But I also think there's something important when it comes
Speaker 6: to the idea of you know, diversity, and of learning
Speaker 6: about new races and new cultures and new peoples of
Speaker 6: sometimes saying it's okay if I don't fully understand this,
Speaker 6: I can respect it. And that goes for everything from
Speaker 6: you know, other people don't. Necessarily I will often say, like, hey,
Speaker 6: please don't push my wheelchair, and I can tell that
Speaker 6: people don't understand that they don't get why I wouldn't
Speaker 6: want their help, even like if I'm going up a
Speaker 6: hill and they can see that I'm struggling. And to me,
Speaker 6: what I really appreciate is the people who can say
Speaker 6: I don't understand, but I will respect that, you know.
Speaker 6: And in the same way that like, you know, when
Speaker 6: you tell me about something that's really important to you
Speaker 6: or someone else many other culture that's not I'll appreciate
Speaker 6: if someone takes the time to help me understand, but
Speaker 6: I don't need that. Also one has to say, is hey,
Speaker 6: this is important to me, Please respect that and I'm
Speaker 6: gonna respect that, and I don't get to understand it necessarily,
Speaker 6: and I just I don't know if that's intended or
Speaker 6: from just reading reading it in there, but I think
Speaker 6: it's definitely something that the episode brings up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've read I interpreted that more. Just like, please
Speaker 5: don't ask questions about this, but I think it's fine.
Speaker 5: Like I have questions about it, but it's not in
Speaker 5: a way that makes me go, ah, like this episode,
Speaker 5: like they can't even answer this question about hollow sweet
Speaker 5: characters yeap. Ultimately, yeah, like I don't care because yea,
Speaker 5: the episode is so good. The character himself is so good.
Speaker 5: Like I would love if there were like a few
Speaker 5: additional vic Fonte episodes, yeah that actually deal with him
Speaker 5: and like what he is and who he is, But
Speaker 5: we don't get that. And it's fine because again, he's
Speaker 5: like the tenth most important character on d Space nine.
Speaker 6: Well I think part of it is that. And this
Speaker 6: just kind of goes to a larger statement I've made
Speaker 6: before that like I am fine not caring about the
Speaker 6: science of something if you don't ask me to care
Speaker 6: about it. This is why Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
Speaker 6: is one of my favorite time travel movies because the
Speaker 6: time travel doesn't make any sense, but they never ask
Speaker 6: you to believe it makes sense, whereas like when other
Speaker 6: things say, okay, time travel works like this, and here's
Speaker 6: the way we're going to logically justify it. Now, I
Speaker 6: feel like, if you've invited me into a logical conversation
Speaker 6: about it, I'm gonna point out where your logic breaks down.
Speaker 5: Right When when do you establish rules and then immediately
Speaker 5: break them yourself?
Speaker 8: Is the problem?
Speaker 6: Like there's a there's a whole set of episodes in
Speaker 6: Star Trek Next Generation because they love the shock Data
Speaker 6: loves the Sholock Holmes program. Moriarty becomes self aware, and
Speaker 6: they keep trying to establish like here are the rules
Speaker 6: of the Holid Deck and then breaking them and it's
Speaker 6: just so frustrating. And so I just like this more
Speaker 6: that it's like, here's mcfontaine, Why did he do this matter?
Speaker 6: We're not philosophers, We're just telling a story.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's just Yeah is a fully realized character.
Speaker 5: That's the amazing thing, because I think it's after this
Speaker 5: he has another great episode where he plays like a
Speaker 5: romantic consultant to Odo Yeah and helps him establish a
Speaker 5: romantic relation with Kira, and I just it amazes me
Speaker 5: that they were able to do this on this show
Speaker 5: with this character, Because if you said, like, here's a
Speaker 5: future sci fi show and they have a nineteen fifties
Speaker 5: krooner character in a hollow suite and he's going to
Speaker 5: have like these very important episodes, like what you talking about, Yeah,
Speaker 5: it doesn't make sense, but it works.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's true. I think it's true.
Speaker 6: Well, when we wrap up here, a couple quick things
Speaker 6: of business I want to say to all of y'all.
Speaker 6: First of all, I've been putting this out there on
Speaker 6: social media more, but we are generally gonna be recording
Speaker 6: every Thursday at twelve noon Central time, and it is
Speaker 6: on YouTube. You can find the tapes of them on YouTube.
Speaker 6: But if you sign it at that time, you can
Speaker 6: be here live, You can make comments, you can join
Speaker 6: in the conversation. Next week, we're gonna be doing our
Speaker 6: core episode. The episode itself will only be released to members,
Speaker 6: but anyone can jump into the live stream and it's
Speaker 6: gonna be about another one of these core questions and
Speaker 6: superhero ethics, this time about who holds authority over superheroes
Speaker 6: who should or shouldn't have accountability or should anyone have
Speaker 6: accountability over superheroes.
Speaker 1: We'll be talking about Marvel Civil War.
Speaker 6: We'll be talking about a lot of those stories that
Speaker 6: that get into this question of you know, Watchman and
Speaker 6: like who watches the watch and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So jump in next week if you want it.
Speaker 6: It will be again be Thursday, February thirteenth at twelve
Speaker 6: noon Central Time. You can also find all of our
Speaker 6: Star Wars episodes at five thirty pm Central Time on Wednesdays.
Speaker 6: We do other episodes sometimes trying and announce those every week.
Speaker 1: Of course, if you do.
Speaker 6: Want to join the membership program and that way you
Speaker 6: can get free access to that way you can get
Speaker 6: access to add free content to bonus content. The end
Speaker 6: of very episode, we're about to do some bonus content
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