50. A Face in Space
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Star Trek’s universe is bizarre and horrifying at times. Cosmic beings summon orcs to stab you in the back, alternate versions of your flagship get stuck in a wormhole, nonlinear entities get taught about time through memories of baseball, love and death. It’s all a bit weird and we’re going to revel in it today by talking about cosmic horror.
Ships full of Vulcans get a rough time today, starting with The Immunity Syndrome where a space amoeba kills them and the rest of a solar system. Can the crew discover a solution when their energy and the ship’s are rapidly dwindling?
The next cosmic entity is Nagilum, who is self-aware, godlike and a real jerk! The Enterprise has to work out a solution to get this bastard off their back, but it might mean their own deaths! Wesley picks the best time to take a break from the Conn and we get some camera experiments to distract from this being a bottle episode.
Finally we’re back to tormenting a ship of Vulcans in Impulse, where they’re driven into a mad, zombie-like rage! Not only are these T’Pol’s old colleagues, but she’s also infected. Can the crew survive until help comes? Also Trip & Mayweather get their fanciest gold spacesuits on to go all Minecraft on some asteroids.
Timecodes:
00:01:33 What Non-Star Trek Thing We’ve Been Enjoying
00:15:02 Talking about Cosmic Horror
00:17:58 TOS “The Immunity Syndrome”
00:43:15 TNG “Where Silence Has Lease”
01:11:03 ENT “Impulse”
If anyone could do a cover of the Enterprise theme tune based on either the Donnie Darko “Mad World” or “Cotton Eye Joe” that would be amazing and we would give you a shout out for performing such madness.
Talking points include: We literally only mention him once at the start, but of course Howie P Lovecraft gets a mention, Event Horizon, Space Battleship Yamato, Miles’ guest appearance on Breakfast in the Ruins, The Coming of the Terraphiles, Star Wars The Acolyte, making The Force weird, the disappointment of The Book of Boba Fett, Hold the Front Page, Taskmaster, getting a bit political, Charlie tries to explain cosmic horror in 30 words and loses count, Bobby Davros, Bobby Davro, The Beatles, a redshirt who looks like a young Hugh Dennis, stuntmen called Dick, Babylon 5, Time Lord reproduction, Star Wars Expanded Universe, The Langoliers, power ballads, Rock Band (RIP), The Backrooms, Portal, Earl Boen, Terminator, anime references in Star Trek: TNG, Dirty Pair, Chris Claremont, Buffy, Ernest Kline deserves a kicking, Knightmare, Quentin Quire & Damian Wayne, a thematic trilogy, Impulse (the comic), the descent of the Black Eyed Peas, the most 2003 guest star on a track of music, Mad World, Annihilation, the Space War on Terror, Battlestar Galactica, Alias, 24, Lost, Eastenders, PUT JEFFREY COMBS IN DOCTOR WHO YOU COWARDS, Space: 1999, Star Maidens. Oh, and occasionally Star Trek.
Pedant’s Corner: Miles left the country two years into the 14 years of Tory rule. Charlie’s summary of cosmic horror was 22 words, so we both lost count. Miles’ “reverse logic” bit was 12 seconds, the spreadsheet has been adjusted accordingly,
Music by Alfred Etheridge-Nunn. Read Miles’s blog or Charlie’s blog.
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