Star Trek Discovery Podcast, featuring Picard and Lower Decks Golden Spiral Media

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1 Episode 6 – Terminal Provocations



We’re back with the sixth episode of Lower Decks, titled Terminal Provocations. This episode was written by Executive Story Editor John Cochran and directed by Bob Suarez, who also directed S1E3 Temporal Edict.



Ensign Fletcher – Not your exemplary Starfleet Officer



This episode, we get to see another Ensign on Lower Decks, namely one Ensign Fletcher, who seems to be a bit of a diplomat, but his other skills seem a tad lacking. The longer he went on in the episode, the more annoying he got. He was SO NOT Starfleet.



One nice thing that he brought to the episode was that Mariner and Boimler got to work together on the same side, and they actually worked really well together. Rather than blaming Fletcher for everything, they gave him the credit for everything, which got him promoted to Lieutenant and transferred to Boimler’s dream assignment aboard the USS Titan, Captain William T. Riker’s ship after the events that occurred in Star Trek: Nemesis that occurred in 2379, the previous year, only to get fired six days later.



Nice casting of JG Hertzler in this episode



I thought the casting of JG Hertzler as the Drookmani captain was particularly brilliant in this episode, including drawing the character with an eyepatch, much like his more famous character General/Chancellor Martok from Deep Space Nine. He always puts on a good performance.



It’s Microsoft Clippy! I mean Badgey!



Most of the listeners, including Kyle and me, were taken by Clippy, which easily reminded us of the Microsoft Office Assistant, commonly known as Clippy. I was wrong in the episode that it came out with Windows 95. In fact, Clippy was introduced with Microsoft Office in 1997. It was universally hated by users. Tendi & Rutherford used his new holodeck training program that was not quite ready for use in your typical holodeck adventure gone awry that was part Elementary, Dear Data, part The Big Goodbye, and part Fistful of Datas. I enjoyed this part of the story.



Chapters



00:00:00 STLDP 006 – Terminal Provocations (S1E6)00:00:21 Intro00:01:05 About Terminal Provocations00:02:13 Ratings00:03:59 Yeses00:11:42 Nos00:16:02 Not Good Enoughs00:18:11 Listener Feedback00:34:07 Spot the References00:39:40 Our Notes00:44:00 Shipwide Announcements01:02:27 Wrap Up



We should be back to a regular schedule so the deadline for feedback will be on Fridays going forward…



Except… that we had to extend the deadline again this week. For our next episode, we’ll be discussing the Season 1 Episode 7 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, title Much Ado About Boimler. The deadline will be 7 PM Eastern/6 PM Central on Friday, September 18, 2020, unless announced on the Facebook group otherwise. Your feedback is SO important to us!!! And don’t forget to sign up for our Patreon to get access to our Patreon episodes.



Links to us…



Want to participate? Join our Facebook group! And follow us on Twitter! And don’t forget to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts! While you do, we’d appreciate it if you can leave us a review, hopefully, a 5-star! Or, if not, a rating will do!!! You can do the same on Podchaser. Also,



Sign up to CBS All Access! Help support the podcast! If you sign up from this link, you’ll help support the podcast, as CBS gives us a small referral fee, and it costs you nothing!



Star Trek: Lower Decks is now streaming on CBS All Access! Click this banner to sign up, and you’ll help support the podcast!



Speaking of our Patreon…



We have now recorded five Patreon calls, the last one you heard here last week, and you got to listen to this episode several days in advance. Our next Patreon call-in show will discuss the novel, Star Trek: Picard – The Last Best Hope, and there WILL be spoilers. Patrons will get the episode a week earlier! If yo

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1 Episode 5 – Cupid’s Errant Arrow



We’re back with the fifth episode of Lower Decks, titled Cupid’s Errant Arrow. This episode was written by Ben Joseph and directed by Kim Arndt. In this one, the crew of the USS Cerritos teams up with the USS Vancouver to manage controlled demolition of an unstable moon of Mixtus III, but the natives are restless and can’t agree on the getting it done.



Bradward’s got a girlfriend!



This episode, we get to see more of the Mariner/Boimler dynamic. Boimler’s got a hot girlfriend on the Vancouver, Lieutenant Barbara Brinson, and Mariner thinks something is wrong with her like she’s a shapeshifter, spy, or parasite. Mariner turns herself into a conspiracy theorist and it’s pretty funny, although maybe there were a little TOO many references to past shows, making this one my least favorite episode so far Boimler is definitely a dork.



Tendi & Rutherford competing to keep a T88, whatever that is, was probably my least favorite part of this episode. I guess the Lieutenant Commander’s antics I didn’t particularly like.



The mission was something straight out of a Star Trek episode, with the exception of the USS Vancouver. The Enterprise never seemed to need any help. This captain coveting the other’s deeds is a little surprising on this show. I’m not sure I like it, but it’s probably more realistic.



Chapters



00:00:00 STLDP 005 – Cupid’s Errant Arrow (S1E5)00:00:21 Intro00:00:58 Feedback for Last Week’s Episode00:08:23 About Cupid’s Errant Arrow00:10:11 Ratings00:11:37 Yeses00:20:08 Nos00:26:22 Not Good Enoughs00:28:32 Feedback Section00:51:22 Spot the References00:56:48 Our Notes01:01:56 Shipwide Announcements01:08:03 Wrap Up



We should be back to a regular schedule so the deadline for feedback will be on Fridays going forward…



So, that’s it for this episode! For our next episode, we’ll be discussing the Season 1 Episode 6 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, title TBD. The deadline for S1E6 will be 7 PM Eastern/6 PM Central on Friday, September 11, 2020. Your feedback is SO important to us!!! And don’t forget to sign up for our Patreon to get access to our Patreon episodes.



Links to us…



Want to participate? Join our Facebook group! And follow us on Twitter! And don’t forget to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts! While you do, we’d appreciate it if you can leave us a review, hopefully, a 5-star! Or, if not, a rating will do!!! You can do the same on Podchaser. Also,



Sign up to CBS All Access! Help support the podcast! If you sign up from this link, you’ll help support the podcast, as CBS gives us a small referral fee, and it costs you nothing!



Star Trek: Lower Decks is now streaming on CBS All Access! Click this banner to sign up, and you’ll help support the podcast!



Speaking of our Patreon…



We have now recorded five Patreon calls, the last one you heard here last week, and you got to listen to this episode several days in advance. Our next Patreon call-in show will discuss the novel, Star Trek: Picard – The Last Best Hope, and there WILL be spoilers. Patrons will get the episode a week earlier! If you want to listen to it when it comes out, sign up to our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/brianandruthie for as little as $1/month and you’ll get access!



Become a Patron!













Watch this episode on YouTube!

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1 Episode 4 – Moist Vessel



We’re back with the fourth episode of Lower Decks, titled Moist Vessel. This episode was written by Ann Kim and directed by Barry J. Kelly.



A generational ship, ascending, and a dysfunctional family/command dynamic…



This episode, we finally got a little bit of the dynamic between Mariner and Freeman and how they rub each other the other way. In the end, they did end up working well together in a serious crisis. They saved the ship and the crew of the Merced. I was wanting to see that family dynamic, although we still don’t know how Mariner got that way. I still say she was pushed into command before she was ready, at too young of an age. However, Mariner’s behavior is really hard to stomach. Again, this is probably exaggerated for an animated show, but why would they keep her in Starfleet if she acted that way?



Tendi gets involved in O’Connor’s ascension, and he ACTUALLY ascends, which made little to no sense to me. HOW did that happen? WHY did that happen? Am I overanalyzing? Maybe. While I was editing this episode, I wondered if I was taking it too seriously, and holding this show up to a live-action standard. Again, maybe. It did bug the heck out of me, though, enough to take off two points from my rating. Tendi was a little annoying, too. By the way, the t-shirt I mentioned that had the koalas and galaxies can be found here.



The terraforming ship was cool. What it did to the USS Merced and Cerritos wasn’t. It seemed like a LOT of damage to just be able to reverse. That took me out of the episode. A Tellarite captain was cool to see, although the name of Durango was confusing unless he had some human DNA. I don’t really know but it would have been nice to explain.



Chapters







00:00:00 STLDP 004 – Moist Vessel00:00:21 Intro00:01:08 Feedback for Last Week’s Episode00:08:01 About Moist Vessel00:09:47 Ratings00:12:29 Yeses00:17:31 Nos00:31:06 Not Good Enoughs00:37:27 Feedback Section00:54:33 Spot the References00:58:13 Our Notes01:03:52 Shipwide Announcements01:14:10 Wrap Up



We should be back to a regular schedule so the deadline for feedback will be on Fridays going forward…



So, that’s it for this episode! For our next episode, we’ll be discussing the Season 1 Episode 5 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, title TBD (at the time of writing; Cupid’s Errant Arrow is the title). The deadline for S1E5 will be 7 PM Eastern/6 PM Central on Friday, September 4, 2020. Your feedback is SO important to us!!! And don’t forget to sign up for our Patreon to get access to our Patreon episodes.



Links to us…



Want to participate? Join our Facebook group! And follow us on Twitter! And don’t forget to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts! While you do, we’d appreciate it if you can leave us a review, hopefully, a 5-star! Or, if not, a rating will do!!! You can do the same on Podchaser. Also,



Sign up to CBS All Access! Help support the podcast! If you sign up from this link, you’ll help support the podcast, as CBS gives us a small referral fee, and it costs you nothing!



Star Trek: Lower Decks is now streaming on CBS All Access! Click this banner to sign up, and you’ll help support the podcast!



Speaking of our Patreon…



We have now recorded five Patreon calls, the last one you heard here last week, and you got to listen to this episode several days in advance. Our next Patreon call-in show will discuss the novel, Star Trek: Picard – The Last Best Hope, and there WILL be spoilers. Patrons will get the episode a week earlier! If you want to listen to it when it comes out, sign up to our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/brianandruthie for as little as $1/month and you’ll get access!



Become a Patron!













Watch this episode on YouTube!

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1 Episode 3 – Temporal Edict



We’re back with the third episode of Lower Decks, titled Temporal Edict! This episode was written by



We all hate Delta Shift…



This episode we learned a lot more about the inner workings of the Lower Decks crew. Buffer Time, Margaritas, violin odes to Boimler’s Mother. Um… yeah, that. Captain Freeman loses an all important peace accord at Cardassia Prime and demoted to a lousy return to an old first contact gift giving mission only to find out that her crew is not as efficient at doing their jobs as she thought. Mix in a Ransom and Mariner away mission that goes awry with some aliens who seems to hate wood and love geodes that leads to a weird, almost uncomfortable romantic spark between the two that I can’t say I enjoyed. Over all this episode had some fun one liners, a lot of shoutouts to old Trek favorites, interlocked hands epic fight scenes and some great listener feedback for this episode of Lower Decks – Temporal Edict.



Chapters



00:00:00 STLDP 003 – Temporal Edict (S1E3)00:00:21 Intro00:01:03 Feedback for Last Week’s Episode00:03:21 About Temporal Edict00:04:33 Ratings00:06:46 Yeses00:25:10 Nos00:27:26 Not Good Enoughs00:32:10 Feedback Section00:49:38 Spot the References00:52:20 Shipwide Announcements01:00:16 Wrap Up



We should be back to a regular schedule so Deadline for feedback will be on Fridays going forward…



So, that’s it for this episode! For our next episode, we’ll be discussing the Season 1 Episode 4 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, titled Moist Vessel. The deadline for S1E4 will be 5 PM Eastern/4 PM Central on Friday, August 28, 2020. Your feedback is SO important to us!!! And don’t forget to sign up for our Patreon to get access to our Patreon episodes.



Links to us…



Want to participate? Join our Facebook group! And follow us on Twitter! And don’t forget to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts! While you do, we’d appreciate it if you can leave us a review, hopefully, a 5-star! Or, if not, a rating will do!!! You can do the same on Podchaser. Also,



Sign up to CBS All Access! Help support the podcast! If you sign up from this link, you’ll help support the podcast, as CBS gives us a small referral fee, and it costs you nothing!



Star Trek: Lower Decks is now streaming on CBS All Access! Click this banner to sign up, and you’ll help support the podcast!



Speaking of our Patreon…



We have now recorded five Patreon calls, the last one you heard here last week, and you got to listen to this episode several days in advance. Our next Patreon call-in show will discuss the novel, Star Trek: Picard – The Last Best Hope, and there WILL be spoilers. Patrons will get the episode a week earlier! If you want to listen to it when it comes out, sign up to our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/brianandruthie for as little as $1/month and you’ll get access!



Become a Patron!













Watch this episode on YouTube!

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1 Episode 2 – Envoys



We’re back with the second episode of Lower Decks, titled Envoys! Sorry for the lateness of this episode. Unfortunately, we had to record four days late, and I already had a full week.



A strange energy sphere…



The cold open was interesting, with an energy being strolling in and looking like the being from the TNG episode The Child, who Mariner manipulates to give them a new tricorder. It then seems to be absorbed by Captain Freeman, in a Tilly spore-like absorption. We’re both pretty sure that we will be seeing this entity again later this season.



Boimler & Mariner escort a Klingon General…



Boimler gets the assignment to escort General K’orin to Tulgana IV, only to find Mariner is also going. We see Mariner’s ease at handling every situation, while Boimler fails miserably. There’s a very funny scene that describes about 50 plots of Trek episodes, and then Mariner thinks a Ferengi is a Bolian, even with the over the top “Hu-mann” from TNG Season 1. It gives Boimler the confidence boost he needs, and we find out that she took one for the team.



Rutherford’s career fair…



The idea of Rutherford changing careers just so he can accompany Tendi to watch a pulsar seems more than a little far fetched, but it does bring us several funny scenes. The bridge simulation was especially laugh out loud funny, and I did enjoy the “Smorgasborg”. Medical was less interesting, but still interesting. Rutherford, with his cyborg talents, would make a great security officer, but he would rather hang out in a Jefferies tube. Engineering, through and through. He still reminds me a lot of LaForge.



Chapters



00:00:00 STLDP 002 – Envoys (S1E2)00:00:21 Intro00:01:25 Feedback for Last Week’s Episode00:14:20 About Envoys00:15:37 Ratings00:17:08 Yeses00:23:16 Nos00:29:45 Feedback Section00:41:41 Spot the References00:48:44 Our Notes01:04:08 Shipwide Announcements01:13:35 Wrap Up



Despite what we said, you have until Saturday afternoon to send in feedback…



So, that’s it for this episode! For our next episode, we’ll be discussing the Season 1 Episode 3 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, titled Temporal Edict. Despite what we say during the podcast, we are pushing the deadline almost a day later. The deadline for S1E3 will be 5 PM Eastern/4 PM Central on Saturday, August 22, 2020. Your feedback is SO important to us!!! We have already gotten in some feedback about this episode after we recorded, so feel free to send in your own feedback for this episode and we’ll cover it at the start of the podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our Patreon to get access to our Patreon episodes.



Links to us…



Want to participate? Join our Facebook group! And follow us on Twitter! And don’t forget to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts! While you do, we’d appreciate it if you can leave us a review, hopefully, a 5-star! Or, if not, a rating will do!!! You can do the same on Podchaser. Also,



Sign up to CBS All Access! Help support the podcast! If you sign up from this link, you’ll help support the podcast, as CBS gives us a small referral fee, and it costs you nothing!



Star Trek: Lower Decks is now streaming on CBS All Access! Click this banner to sign up, and you’ll help support the podcast!



Speaking of our Patreon…



We have now recorded five Patreon calls, the last one you heard here last week, and you got to listen to this episode several days in advance. Our next Patreon call-in show will discuss the novel, Star Trek: Picard – The Last Best Hope, and there WILL be spoilers. Patrons will get the episode a week earlier! If you want to listen to it when it comes out, sign up to our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/brianandruthie for as little as $1/month and you’ll get access!



Become a Patron!

Star Trek: Lower Decks – Season 1 Episode 1 – Second Contact



We’re back with a new podcast, sort of. Rather than start a new podcast feed, we are putting the Lower Decks episodes on both the Picard and Discovery feeds. That way, you won’t have to start subscribing to a new podcast feed. However, we are calling these episodes The Star Trek Lower Decks Podcast. For the first episode, we are covering Season 1, Episode 1, titled Second Contact.



About Lower Decks… Welcome Kyle!!!



You may remember from our episode covering the two animated Short Treks, Ruthie is not a fan of animation, so she’s sitting out the episodes that cover Star Trek: Lower Decks. Kyle McAdams, who’s been hosting Fear the Walking Dead Talk Through since Season 3, will be taking over co-hosting duties for Lower Decks. Kyle’s been a Star Trek fan We may need to occasionally bring on guests, especially near the end of the season and the beginning of Discovery.



Ruthie will return for Discovery Season 3!



Don’t worry! Ruthie is not leaving us. She’s just not into animated shows. She will be returning to The Star Trek Discovery Podcast for Season 3 Episode 1 when it airs October 15th. You may go through some Ruthie withdrawal until then, but it’s not that long to wait, though it might seem like it with Coronavirus still plaguing us.



Who did the music for Lower Decks? Orions in Starfleet? Mahan or McMahan?



I mentioned I’d probably put in the blog post who did the music and theme for Lower Decks. The answer is Chris Westlake. He also worked with Mike McMahan on Mike’s other show, Solar Opposites, which airs on Hulu. We did see an Orion in the 2009 Star Trek film at Starfleet Academy (I’m not sure if she was studying there or not), but that’s in the Kelvin Timeline. I neglected to mention that Orion women are supposed to put out very potent pheromones that males of many humanoid species are susceptible to, but Ensign Tendi didn’t seem to have this issue.



Speaking of Mike McMahan, I did something I don’t do too often. Every time I said his name in this episode, I pronounced it wrong. I believe it’s pronounced Mick-mah-hann. It also might be pronounced like Ed McMahon or Jim McMahon. I’ll confirm how to pronounce this name next week.



Chapters



00:00:00 STLDP 001 – First Contact (S1E1)00:00:21 Intro00:04:16 About Second Contact00:06:16 Spot the 4700:06:53 Ratings00:09:19 Yeses00:20:55 Nos00:32:55 Not Good Enoughs00:34:29 Listener Feedback01:01:00 Shipwide Announcements01:06:39 Wrap Up



We will be recording a few days later next episode…



So, that’s it for this episode! For our next episode, we’ll be discussing the Season 1 Episode 2 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, titled Envoys. We have to make a scheduling change for next week, so you will benefit from an extra-long deadline for getting in your feedback. The deadline for S1E2 will be 7 PM Eastern/6 PM Central on Monday, August 16, 2020. Your feedback is SO important to us!!! We have already gotten in some feedback about this episode after we recorded, so feel free to send in your own feedback for this episode and we’ll cover it at the start of the podcast. And don’t forget to sign up for our Patreon to get access to our Patreon episodes.



Links to us…



Want to participate? Join our Facebook group! And follow us on Twitter! And don’t forget to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts! While you do, we’d appreciate it if you can leave us a review, hopefully, a 5-star! Or, if not, a rating will do!!! You can do the same on Podchaser. Also,



Sign up to CBS All Access! Help support the podcast! If you sign up from this link, you’ll help support the podcast, as CBS gives us a small referral fee, and it costs you nothing!



Star Trek: Lower Decks is now streaming on CBS All Access! Click this banner to sign up, and you’ll