TOS 01:18, "Arena," with Sarah McQuaid Troubadours on Trek

Sarah McQuaid is a UK-based, Irish-American singer and songwriter. Sarah sings and writes songs and plays acoustic and electric guitar, piano and the drums. After moving to Ireland in the 90's, she lived and worked there for 13 years. Sarah’s songwriting is celebrated and award-winning, and she’s well known for her distinctive guitar work, especially using DADGAD tuning. She's had number one albums on the folk charts in the United States, and in 2020, after her spring tour was abruptly cut short due to COVID-19, she launched a very successful crowdfunding campaign that financed the filming and recording of The St Buryan Sessions, a full-length live concert in the beautiful medieval church of St Buryan, just up the road from the rural cottage where she and her family live. The album and concert film were released to widespread critical acclaim in October of 2021.

“Captivating, unorthodox songwriting … layered satin vocals ... enthralling, harrowing arrangements … a gateway into a true innovator’s soul.” - PopMatters

We review Star Trek (the Original Series), Season 1, Episode 18, “Arena." Topics include: Sarah’s advice for independent musicians’ album releases, as a former music journalist, Sarah’s unique sound and her struggle with being defined by commercial musical genres, finding your voice, sticking to your guns, and occasionally turning down record deals as a young artist, Sarah’s international upbringing, the permeable folk music border between the UK/Ireland and America, how the pandemic affected Grace and Sarah's respective creative output, The St. Buryan Sessions, how Sarah discovered DADGAD tuning, Sarah actually reached out to Grace (instead of the other way around), and didn’t need to be convinced to talk about Star Trek, the Riker chair maneuver, Commodore Travers and his personal chef, McCoy is a “sensualist,” the three redshirts in this episode, all the Star Trek terms and plot devices that were established in “Arena,” Sulu in command!, everybody got tinnitus, do we handle this diplomatically or just blow shit up?, were the Gorns justified in their attack?, what role does/should Starfleet play: space police? explorers? diplomats?, “unscientific rumors and space legends,” i.e. drunk and crusty old space explorers in bars making up stories, Nichelle Nichols’ ability to say everything with her facial expressions, even when her dialogue is inadequate, the Metron’s sparkly, blond, fabulous Greco-Roman look, the supposedly “anti-violence” solution that the Metrons come up with and the plot holes thereof, that hilarious fight scene between Kirk and the Gorn, double fist punch, branches and boulders, why can’t the Gorn just crush Kirk like a bug?, planet or asteroid?, the Gorn’s eyes blink now, Ben Stiller owns the Gorn’s head now, Wah Chang, William Ware Theiss, and Ted Cassidy, Vasquez Rocks, Kirk monologues all over this episode, parsecs!, Star Wars vs Star Trek technobabble, the implausible gunpowder bamboo cannon, we’re going to go with the Gorn and Kirk being fully healed by the Metrons in regards to the limp and the diamond gun injuries, Sarah’s song, “The Tug of the Moon,” inspired by the leap second that we added in 2016 to compensate for the slowing of the earth’s gravitational pull, we as humans have to slow down to keep up with the world slowing down, what “success” as an independent artist actually means, how Sarah and Grace met when Grace was a folk baby, and Sarah’s upcoming tour (her first, post-Brexit).