There Are Four Mics: A Star Trek Podcast

Name a few characters on Enterprise you love. I'd wager Phlox and Porthos are among them. Well this episode features lots of Phlox and Porthos!

Though it ended up mostly ok. :(

Archer's character kind of falls entirely apart this episode! There are some good lines, some fun scenes, and by the end, maybe we see some character development on Archer's part. But every poor quality Archer has shown over the last 30-some episodes is magnified 10x this whole episode. Hopefully things turn around for Archer after this.

::Some of our audio is a little screwy on this episode, we're working on a solution! Thanks for bearing with us.::

Enterprise 02x05 - A Night in Sickbay Directed by David Straiton Written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga Guest Stars: Vaughn Armstrong

There Are Four Mics is a weekly Star Trek podcast discussing the Star Trek episodes and movies in stardate order. Join Anna Heiser, Chris Keeley, Jason Allen, Joe Heiser, and Joshua B. Jones as we discuss the 5th episode of season two of Star Trek: Enterprise, A Night in Sickbay.

Music credits: Faith of the Heart/Where My Heart Will Take Me - Written by Diane Warren, performed by Russell Watson, Jerry Lubbock, and the New York Trek Orchestra Archer's Theme - Dennis McCarthy and New York Trek Orchestra

After limping away from the minefield from last episode for the past four days, Captain Archer decides its time to do something he'd hoped would never be necessary. Send a distress call.

Salvation comes in the form of rumors of an automated repair station nearby. While the crew thank their lucky stars, Archer finds this whole thing a bit fishy.

::Spoilers, we all loved this episode::

Enterprise 02x04 - Dead Stop Directed by Roxann Dawson Written by Michael Sussman & Phyllis Strong Guest Stars: Roxann Dawson

There Are Four Mics is a weekly Star Trek podcast discussing the Star Trek episodes and movies in stardate order. Join Anna Heiser, Chris Keeley, Jason Allen, Joe Heiser, and Joshua B. Jones as we discuss the 4th episode of season two of Star Trek: Enterprise, Dead Stop.

Music credits: Faith of the Heart/Where My Heart Will Take Me - Written by Diane Warren, performed by Russell Watson, Jerry Lubbock, and the New York Trek Orchestra Archer's Theme - Dennis McCarthy and New York Trek Orchestra

The Enterprise finds itself with a mine stuck to its hull after accidentally stumbling into a minefield placed by something calling itself the Romulan Star Empire. Before long, Reed soon finds himself skewered through the leg by said mine, and really begins to test the patience of his captain (and the audience) with his mournful "woe is me" attitude.

Enterprise 02x03 - Minefield Directed by James Contner Written by John Shiban Guest Stars: None?

There Are Four Mics is a weekly Star Trek podcast discussing the Star Trek episodes and movies in stardate order. Join Anna Heiser, Jason Allen, Joe Heiser, and Joshua B. Jones as we discuss the 3rd episode of season two of Star Trek: Enterprise, Minefield.

Subscribe, rate, and review us on iTunes and Stitcher!

Music credits: Faith of the Heart/Where My Heart Will Take Me - Written by Diane Warren, performed by Russell Watson, Jerry Lubbock, and the New York Trek Orchestra Archer's Theme - Dennis McCarthy and New York Trek Orchestra

T'Pol tells Archer and Trip a story about the true first contact between Vulcans and humans on Earth, way back in 1957 in the small mining town, Carbon Creek, Pennsylvania. An episode that ended up delighting each one of your hosts!

Enterprise 02x02 - Carbon Creek Directed by James A. Contner Written by Chris Black Guest Stars: Ann Cusack, J. Paul Boehmer, Hank Harris, Michael Krawic, David Selburg

Music credits: Faith of the Heart/Where My Heart Will Take Me - Written by Diane Warren, performed by Russell Watson, Jerry Lubbock, and the New York Trek Orchestra Archer's Theme - Dennis McCarthy and New York Trek Orchestra

Welcome to Season Two of Star Trek Enterprise, guys! We made it!

Archer and Daniels are poking around a library in the 31st century while back in the 22nd, the crew of the Enterprise is desperately trying to survive a Suliban occupation of their ship. Shockwave Part 1 was one of the strongest of the series so far, will part 2 keep it going?

Enterprise 02x01 - Shockwave Part 2 Directed by Allan Kroeker Written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga Guest Stars: John Fleck, Matt Winston, Vaughn Armstrong, Gary Graham, Keith Allan, Jim Fitzpatrick

There Are Four Mics is a weekly Star Trek podcast discussing the Star Trek episodes and movies in stardate order. Join Chris Keeley, Jason Allen, Joe Heiser, and Joshua B. Jones as we discuss the 1st episode of season two of Star Trek: Enterprise, Shockwave Part 2.

Music credits: Faith of the Heart/Where My Heart Will Take Me - Written by Diane Warren, performed by Russell Watson, Jerry Lubbock, and the New York Trek Orchestra Archer's Theme - Dennis McCarthy and New York Trek Orchestra

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Show Notes

After Archer disappears, T'Pol offers to drop out of warp so that Silik can come aboard and verify he's truly not there. Trip protests her foolishness in agreeing to such a thing, only to realize there are no other options and that he was the one who was being truly foolish.

Archer and Daniels trapse through the Future Ruins as the Captain becomes increasingly frustrated with the time traveler's inability or refusal to clarify much about what's going on. After becoming concerned that it looks like the monument to a federation was never even built, Daniels and Archer make their way to a library. Upon entering, Daniels is surprised to learn that the library is not filled with electronic storage like he expected, but instead good old fashioned paper books that they get to work looking through in order to piece together what went wrong.

Back aboard the Enterprise, the Suliban are unable to locate Captain Archer but do detect a temporal signature in the turbolift where he was last seen. The Suliban take control of the Enterprise and the ship warps away.

At Starfleet Headquarters, Soval is scolding Admiral Forrest for the fact that Archer and the Enterprise are three days late in following their orders to rendezvous with the Vulcan ship. He tells Starfleet that since it's obvious that Captain Archer has gone rogue and must be holding T'Pol against her will, he has no option but to send a Vulcan ship to get her back.

After taking the Enterprise back to The Helix, Silik finds himself unable to contact Future Guy. While Silik's buddy strongly advocates for blowing up the Enterprise, Silik advises him to have the surgeons get ready and to deliver him the Vulcan for some drug-assisted interrogating.

Daniels' research in the library has him realizing that taking Archer from the 22nd Century is what caused Daniels' time to be destroyed, and the only way to fix it is to find a way to return the captain to his own time. Using Archer's communicator and scanner, Daniels thinks he might have a way to communicate with the past and Archer goes to collect some materials.

Trip found a workaround that allows him to use comms, and he reaches Reed and tells him to sit tight until he can get the rest of the crew on the line.

T'Pol is returned to her quarters after her being drugged and interrogated by Silik, when a disembodied Archer head appears and tells her that she needs to find a way to make it over to Crewman Daniels' quarters.

A conference call among the Enterprise crew via Trip's comm system hack has everyone agreeing that the claustrophobic Hoshi is the perfect person to send through a cramped conduit shaft. After swinging by Phlox's quarters to pick up some hypos, Hoshi shows up at Reed's quarters topless after a "comedic" series of incidents. Later, T'Pol is feigning craziness in a hallway as some Suliban walk by, and then BOOM -- Enterprise crewmen fall from the sky and knock them out with drugs. Reed makes his way to Daniels' quarters and pulls out a device from a secret compartment. Upon exiting, he sees some Suliban waiting for him, who proceed to rough him up something fierce. Under pressure, he tells Silik that Archer told him to destroy this device before he left to prevent Silik from contacting someone. After he's returned to his quarters, T'Pol and Travis successfully take over engineering and initiate a core breach. The Suliban drag the Enterprise away from The Helix and scurry away, and then the Enterprise shuts off all the fireworks and goes into warp. Silik is using the device Reed recovered trying to communicate with Future Man, when the typically stationary fella jumps out of the projection and reveals himself to actually be Archer.

Archer drags Silik out of the room with a gun to his head telling him to call off the ships he sent after Enterprise. The Enterprise itself is taking a helluva pounding, which all stops suddenly, confusing the bridge crew. All of the Suliban vessels break off, save one, which turns out to be carrying Captain Archer and his prisoner Silik. The Enterprise docks with the Vulcan vessel and phone home where Soval tells them that even though they didn't kill those 3,600 miners, they still kinda suck and should be brought home. Archer gives a speech about gazelles in Africa being better than humans before T'Pol steps in andlaunches some torpedoes of truth about how the Vulcans aren't that great either. Starfleet will meet to discuss the future of the mission, and holler back at them shortly.

Archer shows up in T'Pol's quarters in the middle of the night wearing his PJs to let her know that everything is awesome and that she's probably what made the difference. T'Pol still doesn't believe in time travel.

Last time we finished up Season 1 of Enterprise, so this week we're going to take a quick look back at the series so far; hand out awards for "best of" and announce the winner of the Enterprise Trivia Cup.

Joe took home the gold with a sizable lead. Though Jason promises his victory will be short lived as we get into the later seasons of Enterprise.

Enterprise has a lot of ups and downs and our opinions on the show are incredibly varied. Joe and Josh are of the mind that this first season was the best first season of any Star Trek that came before it, while Jason feels it is easily one of the weakest of the Star Trek franchise. That's not to say there weren't highlights that we all shared an affinity for.

Broken Bow is at least up there when it comes to quality of pilot episodes, rivaled perhaps by The Next Generation's "Encounter at Farpoint", though Voyager's Caretaker came up as well. And we all agreed that the season finale, Shockwave Part One, was one the better episodes of Enterprise, certainly for season one. A few host favorites came up, Unexpected, Shuttlepod One, Rogue Planet, Andorian Incident, Cold Front, and Vox Sola.

Season one of Enterprise had a few low points. Travis Mayweather never really took off as a character and seems to be eternally relegated to being the Scrappy-Doo of the bridge. And Archer's character development was minimal. While he no longer seems to hold such unbridled animosity towards Vulcans or T'Pol, overall he seems more a blank canvas than a three dimensional person.

Before diving into categories, Joe made everyone some pretty cool NX-01 caps to celebrate the completion of Season One!

Anyway, onto the Awards!

Most Improved Character

• T'Pol
• T'Pol
• T'Pol
• Malcom or Reed
• Hoshi Winner: T'Pol

Least Improved Character

• Archer
• Mayweather
• Mayweather
• Hoshi Winner: Mayweather

Best recurring side character

• Commander Shran
• Commander Shran
• Silik
• Cutler
• Daniels Winner: Cutler

Best one-off minor character

• Zobral - Desert Crossing
• Klaang - Broken Bow
• Jarmin - Terra Nova
• Ah'Len - Unexpected
• Riann - "Civilization"
• Sarin - Broken Bow Winner: Zobral

Best alien (species or specific character)

• The revamped Andorians
• The creature from "Vox Sola"
• Suliban
• Kreetassans (you eat like you mate) Winner: Suliban

Best cold open

• Shockwave Part 1
• Shockwave Part 1
• Rogue Planet
• Shuttlepod One Winner: Shockwave Part 1

Worst cold open

• Desert Crossing - "Captain there's a distress call **Opening Credits**"
• Two Days, Two Nights - "Will the captain go on vacation?! Yes." Winner: Desert Crossing

Best costume design

• Space suits
• Desert wear
• Suliban Cabal (Worst - Temporal Agent Daniels)
• Underwear
• Trip's Hawaiian shirt/jacket combo Winner: Underwear

Best Episode (technically speaking)

• Shuttlepod One
• The Andorian Incident
• Shockwave Part 1 Winner: Shockwave Part 1

Favorite Overall Episode

• Unexpected (Joe)
• Vox Sola (Chris)
• Unexpected but also the Andorian Incident or Rogue Planet (Josh)
• Shuttlepod One (Jason)

There Are Four Mics is a weekly Star Trek podcast discussing the Star Trek episodes and movies in stardate order. Join Jason Allen, Joe Heiser, and Joshua B. Jones as we look back on Season One of Star Trek Enterprise.

Music credits: Faith of the Heart/Where My Heart Will Take Me - Written by Diane Warren, performed by Russell Watson, Jerry Lubbock, and the New York Trek Orchestra Archer's Theme - Dennis McCarthy and New York Trek Orchestra

The Star Trek Discovery trailer was released a short time ago and, like all of you, we had a lot of thoughts.. Regardless of your feelings, it's certainly an interesting time for Star Trek.

As much as we love hearing ourselves speak, which is a lot, we'd love to know what your thoughts are! Seems like Star Trek changes direction every 6 months these days--Where do you think its going from here? Send an email to [email protected] or get in touch on twitter @thereare4mics and make your opinion heard!

There Are Four Mics is a weekly Star Trek podcast discussing the Star Trek episodes and movies in stardate order. Join Anna Heiser, Chris Keeley, Jason Allen, Joe Heiser, and Joshua B. Jones as we discuss the trailer to Star Trek: Discovery.

Direct download available here: Link

Subscribe, rate, and review us on iTunes!

The Temporal Cold War heats up as Future Man and Silik continue to meddle with Archer's historic mission. The death of 3600 Paraagan colonists rests on Archer's shoulders, the Enterprise is ordered to return to Earth, and Crewman Daniels visits Archer despite shedding his mortal coil earlier this season. Season one of Enterprise wraps up in a big way!

Enterprise 1x26 - Shockwave Pt. 1 Directed by Allan Kroeker Written by Rick Berman & Brannon Braga Guest Stars: John Fleck, Matt Winston, Vaughn Armstrong, Breezy

There Are Four Mics is a weekly Star Trek podcast discussing the Star Trek episodes and movies in stardate order. Join Chris Keeley, Jason Allen, Joe Heiser as we discuss the 26th episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, Shockwave Pt. 1.

Music credits: Faith of the Heart/Where My Heart Will Take Me - Written by Diane Warren, performed by Russell Watson, Jerry Lubbock, and the New York Trek Orchestra Archer's Theme - Dennis McCarthy and New York Trek Orchestra

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Show Notes

The Enterprise approaches a mining colony of a matriarchal society for a visit, while Trip, Archer and T'Pol discuss the possibility of future human settlements as large as the nearly 4,000 people that populate this one. The Enterprise receives the colony's strict landing protocols, but as the shuttlepod descends to the planet there is an explosion that quickly spreads across the planet.

In the medbay, the crew tries to figure out what happened as Trip's injuries from the explosion are being treated. Hoshi assures the Captain that there is nobody left in the colony to answer because they watched it burn. After all scans and logs show the plasma ducts were closed, but do still show the point of origin for the explosion being directly under the shuttlepod, Archer calls Earth to deliver the bad news to Admiral Forrest. T'Pol requests Phlox keep a close eye on the captain because he's being emotional, but the doctor assures her that he is behaving naturally for someone dealing with so much grief. Scans of the planet reveal evidence that the atmosphere must have been ignited by a plasma, but Reed remains certain the shuttle's plasma ducts were closed as ordered. Archer takes Trip and T'Pol into his ready room and informs them that he has heard back Admiral Forrest with the news that the Enterprise mission has been canceled and they have been ordered to return home.

T'Pol joins Archer in his quarters to tell him that while there have been some questionable decisions he's made, there have also been many unimpeachable ones. She advises him to convince Starfleet to continue the Enterprise's mission, and she will makes the same case with the Vulcan government. Phlox is packing up Medbay while Trip is hollering about how terrible everything is, but Doc maintains faith in humanity's future. In his quarters, Archer crawls into bed and turns off the light, but turns it on moments to find himself on Earth ten months earlier. Crewman Daniels appears and tells the Captain that he sent him back because the destruction of the mining colony was never recorded in history, so must have been caused by a faction in the Temporal Cold War. Back aboard the Enterprise in the present, Reed brings Archer a device discovered just where the Captain said it would be that was designed to emit a plasma beam. The Captain tells Hoshi to make the coms go on the fritz for a few hours, and reverses course back to the destroyed colony.

Archer tells the crew he's met with Crewman Daniels, and uses the knowledge he gained from that conversation overcome a quantum engineering problem for Trip, and to provide instructions to T'Pol on how to extract Suliban logs from data discs. Reed and Archer enter Crewman Daniels' old quarters to extract Suliban ship schematics from a toy the time traveler left in his quarters after his last visit. The mysterious flurry of orders Archer issued previously culminate in them locating a cloaked Suliban ship hiding on a nearby planet and disabling it. Trip, Archer and T'Pol board the disabled vessel, taking down a bunch of Suliban. After they retrieve the data disks, they retreat back to their shuttlepod and order the Enterprise to set course for the Vulcan ship as soon as they are aboard.

The Suliban Data disks reveal a cloaked Suliban ship attaching the device responsible for causing the destruction of the mining colony to the shuttlepod. Silik relays the events to Shadowy Future Man, who orders him to capture Archer but let Enterprise continue on its journey. T'Pol stands by her belief that time travel is impossible in spite of seemingly overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Reed calls the captain and Trip to the bridge because something is fishy with their warp field. That something fishy turns out to be a fleet of heavily armed cloaked Suliban vessels. Silik orders the captain to turn himself over, or he'll destroy the Enterprise. Archer agrees, and leaves T'Pol in command of the ship and Hoshi in command of Porthos. To the puzzlement of the bridge crew, the Suliban hail once again after the captain has left, frustrated that Archer has not turned himself over. The captain exits the turbolift, but he no longer finds himself aboard the Enterprise, but instead amidst the wreckage of a city in the 31st Century. Crewman Daniels appears and tells him there is no way to send him back to his own time.

The Enterprise crew finally make it to Risa, wrapping up the three episode arc that started with Fallen Hero.

Archer settles in to do some light reading, Trip and Reed seek to expand their horizons, Travis tackles a local cliff face, and Hoshi practices her language skills on the local population. Of course this is a TV show, so nothing goes according to plan, but without revealing too many spoilers--at least three senior officers shed their clothes at some point during this episode.

We're short two members again for this episode! But different ones this time.

Memory Alpha: Link

Enterprise 1x25 - Two Days and Two Nights Directed by Michael Dorn Written by Chris Black, Rick Berman & Brannon Braga Guest Stars: Dey Young, Kellie Waymire

There Are Four Mics is a weekly Star Trek podcast discussing the Star Trek episodes and movies in stardate order. Join Chris Keeley, Jason Allen, Joe Heiser as we discuss the 25th episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, Two Days and Two Nights.

Music credits: Faith of the Heart/Where My Heart Will Take Me - Written by Diane Warren, performed by Russell Watson, Jerry Lubbock, and the New York Trek Orchestra Archer's Theme - Dennis McCarthy and New York Trek Orchestra

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Show Notes

T'Pol escorts the captain to the shuttlebay as he expresses concern that he is going on vacation while some of the crew are left behind to work. T'Pol assures him that he needs the time off, and the system of drawing lots was a fair way to make the determination. Shuttlepods One and Two make their way to Risa's surface.

As the shuttlepod makes its way to the surface, the bridge crew discusses the various ways each of them will be spending their time. In the MedBay, Crewman Cutler prepares an injection for Phlox that will initiate a 2-day hibernation cycle instead of the standard six. As Archer and Porthos scope out the villa overlooking the sea, the captain notices that it also overlooks the balcony of a pretty blonde lady who also has a dog. Trip and Reed are in the bar looking for some sexy aliens. Archer takes a break from reading his book under the moon's light to refill his tea, when the dog from the other balcony suddenly appears and menaces Porthos. It's owner, Keyla, rings his doorbell to retrieve the hairless beast, and Archer scores himself a sweet date for tomorrow.

Hoshi interrupts the couple eating dinner next to her in the restaurant to show off her mastery of Risan, but incidentally impresses a fella lurking in the back who offers to teach her his native language if she joins him for dinner. Over in the bar, a couple of ladies make their way over to Trip and Reed to make a determined effort to make these Earthlings' first trip to Risa a memorable one. Keyla sees Archer looking at the stars on his balcony, and asks to join him so he can regale her with tales of his adventures. In the bar, the two lovely ladies Trip and Reed have met offer to show them the beauty of the subterranean gardens, but instead take them into the basement, morph into ugly ass aliens, take their belongings, and shoot them.

Travis has a shuttlepod pick him up from the planet surface after he hurt himself rock climbing. With Phlox snoozing for a couple of days, Cutler seems pretty confident she can handle his broken leg. Trip and Reed wake up in the bar's basement tied up and robbed of their clothes, and they set their sights on getting out of their predicament before the Enterprise becomes aware of their shame. Travis is having a reaction to the painkiller the Risans gave him, and requests they wake up Phlox. Hoshi gives up learning this guy's native language, but they start communicating in the language of love as he lays a kiss on her and they head to relax in some steam pools. Keyla swings by Archer's villa again to go on a morning walk, but instead things get serious when she reveals her entire family was murdered by the Suliban. T'Pol and Cutler wake up a confused Phlox and inform him of Travis' condition.

Phlox is acting like a drunkard, but seems determined to fix Travis' troubles in spite of everyone's concerns. After Keyla was injured by a camouflaged turtle on their daytime adventure, she keeps turning the topic back to the Suliban and getting more agitated. Archer scans her on the sly, and sends the readings up to T'Pol for analysis. The analysis reveals that she is Tandaran, and when she is confronted, she scratches Archer causing him to collapse. Trip and Reed have finally escaped their prison by knocking down a stinky bottle of alcohol and cutting through the ropes. Hoshi wakes up the next morning next to that alien fella, suggesting that the steam pools turned out to be pretty fun. Phlox solves Travis' allergic reaction and passes out. Archer wakes up to find Keyla has left, and then joins his comrades on the shuttlepod back to Enterprise.

Hello and welcome to another episode of There Are Four Mics: A Star Trek Podcast. I am your host, Joe Heiser.

We weren't able to get together and record an episode discussing Enterprise for this week; so we thought we'd take the opportunity to try something a little different.

The Star Trek universe is much more than just the TV shows and movies, especially with the Star Trek vacuum that was created after the end of Enterprise in 2004. So I'm talking books, graphic novels, and video games.

In this series, we're specifically going to take a look at one of the many many Star Trek video games floating around out there.

I'm sure I won't be inciting much debate if I suggest that most Star Trek games have traditionally seemed rather -- Unremarkable.

But it's my hope that as I sift through the titles and give each game a fair chance, I'll uncover more than a few that do the Star Trek universe justice.

If you have recommendations going forward, please, let me know! Send us a tweet @thereare4mics or an email to [email protected]

The most recent release seems as good a place to start as any. Star Trek: Timelines. A free to play strategy game available on Android, iOS, and through Facebook.

Star Trek: Timelines was developed by Disruptor Beam and released in 2016. Disruptor Beam previously released Game of Thrones: Ascent. Another mobile and browser based free to play strategy game.

Before we get started. Free to play is a polarizing concept. The game utilizes many of the classic components of a free to play game that we've come to expect: special currency, rare or specialty items, set waiting times for certain aspects of gameplay, advertisements for "special offers", etc.. And while generally I'm suspicious of titles that rely on this form of revenue, I must say I was impressed with the amount of content I got without feeling pressured to buy in to keep the good times rolling.

So if you were ready to dismiss the game based on "free-to-play" alone, I'd stick around and hear what else it has to offer.

Star Trek: Timelines wastes no energy and immediately drops you into the thick of things. Right out of the gate you adopt the role of a captain of your own starship. You're in the middle of investigating an anomaly alongside a Romulan Warbird commanded by Captain Tomalak.

Q, with original voice acting by John de Lancie, crashes the party and warns you that Starfleet may be out of its depth with this one. As if to prove his point, several ships suddenly appear, including none other than the NCC-1701 Enterprise, commanded by a very confused Captain Kirk who is beamed to your vessel.

Tomalak takes this as some sort of ploy and you immediately enter into a space battle, something you'll be doing a lot through the game. You're given a taste of character abilities as you use Kirk and Spock to boost your ship's stats, turning the battle to your advantage and allowing you to eventually destroy the Romulan Warbird.

Another Warbird decloaks, and destroys the Enterprise. Kirk is distraught, but after Q sends the Warbird to Borg space as penance, he assures Kirk that yes, while his crew are dead, there are countless other versions scattered through time.

Q further explains that the timelines and realities of the universe have become intermingled. People, planets, ships from across all times and universes are converging and vying for space. While he trusts you to take care of the warping around and starship battles, he intends to get to the bottom of this and sort it out.

You're given a set of prologue missions to complete and then finally engage with the main story.

Now, this opening feels very much like an episode's cold open. We're dropped into a situation and given a mystery that needs resolving. A bunch of things happen that we don't really understand and then we're whisked away into the proper story to find our footing in this new and dangerous galaxy.

The main game is divided into different episodes, each comprised of a dozen or more missions. For instance, Episode One deals largely with the Klingons and the Augments, the followers of Khan Noonien Singh for the uninitiated.

Are you more sympathetic towards the Klingons? Side with them in conversation, complete more Klingon missions, and ultimately, support them in achieving their final aims for the episode. All of which will influence the direction and control of the region.

The entire game is divided up like this, Factions vying for power while you support one side or the other.

Each mission awards you with items and credits, which can be used in purchasing a chance for more items, characters, and ship blueprints. Ship blueprints being let you upgrade your ship to increase its stats or even build new ships.

The missions come in two flavors: Away Missions, and Starship Battles. For Away Missions you select a certain number of crew according to their listed skills and traits. You encounter a set number of challenges, each emphasizing a specific skill. For instance, if you see there will be some demand for the Medicine skill you might consider throwing in Dr. Phlox. Each challenge can be faced multiple ways, and it's up to you to determine who has the best chance of success, or what is more in line with the kind of captain you want to be.

If you are particularly good at selecting crew members with appropriate skills and traits, that'll work in your favor by adding a bonus to your ability to complete the challenge.

A challenge of 25 needs to be met by a crewmember whose skills will add up to 25 after the various bonuses are applied. As you use each crew member they will level up, increasing their skills and making each challenge easier. Each crew member can also be outfitted with specific items to increase these abilities.

Starship Battles are a bit different and largely take care of themselves. Your ship will automatically fire and evade, your job is to apply the bonuses your selected crew can offer. For instance, Travis Mayweather can increase your ship's maneuverability temporarily, making it harder for the enemy to hit.

Outside of the main story there are standalone "Distress Call" missions you can complete. These operate much like the episode specific missions but don't necessarily affect events unfolding in the galaxy.

There are a lot of elements blended into Star Trek: Timelines that I really enjoy. There's a certain RPG aspect to it. Being able to choose your responses, enhance and upgrade your starship, leveling up your crew, and siding with one faction or the other all bring some semblance of roleplay to the game.

It's not simply a matter of filling your crew roster and unleashing them upon each mission, there needs to be a level of strategy and reason behind your choices.

The game boasts over 330 recruitable characters at this moment. More having been added since the game's initial launch; a trend likely to continue. Honestly, this aspect is quite fun to me. While most are variants of the same character, Jazz Musician Odo or Boxing Chakotay, for example, it's reminiscent of collecting those Star Trek action figures that used to be released years ago.

The ability to collect all of these characters and ships is certainly dependent on how much money you're willing to spend. The ingame currency is referred to as Dilithium, which can be bought in packs of various sizes.

You're allotted a certain number of free chances depending on missions completed, but its obvious that if you were to rely on these free modes of resource gathering it could take you ages to get even the next level ship.

In my 5-10 hours of play, I haven't felt an overwhelming need to spend money, but if I were committed to collecting or progressing quickly, I can see why I'd want to. And you can be sure they give you ample opportunity to do so.

One thing to note is how power hungry this game is. I mention this here because gameplay can really be hindered if the game locks up indefinitely. My phone is no spring chicken, a Nexus 6 running Android 7.0, but it's still a good device. During starship battles especially, where 3D really comes into play, there are times when it's obvious my Nexus is struggling to keep up. Lagging interrupts the music and sound effects, and so can make for a grating experience all around, especially if you've got headphones in.

The story is comprised of smaller stories contributing to the overarching theme of temporal chaos and how to handle it. You won't find yourself wiping away tears, bursting into uproarious laughter, or aching over the ethical dilemmas, but there's enough there to keep you going. The game continually introduces characters or their counterparts as the episodes develop, which certainly helps to keep interest and engagement up.

What's most impressive to me I suppose is that the game has enough story for me to require more than one sentence to accurately describe to someone. I don't generally associate that with free to play mobile games, but Disruptor Beam managed to bring an original plot to Star Trek: Timelines.

The graphics are pretty slick. The 3D starship battles look great for a mobile game, and each character has original art. Sometimes the character art is a bit odd in one way or another, but so many are so good that it's easy to overlook the occasional haunting rictus or a disproportionate limb.

I love the music. Very "Star Trek" but distinct enough to not feel pulled from any one series.

This is complicated. I think the sound effects are generally quite good. The problem is that many of them are obviously pulled from episodes or movies, and so don't feel like they mesh quite the same as any original sound effects. And speaking of pulled from episodes, the handful of other characters given a voice are simply lines pulled straight from the screen. That's not bad, per se, but it does have a soundboard quality to it.

Each time I select Mayweather I hear a clip of Anthony Montgomery on some episode of Enterprise answering a hail, "Mayweather." And the choices of line aren't always that great. For instance, each time you select B'elanna Torres you hear "I don't care what people think of me."

Is that really the best line B'elanna had? The most identifiably B'elanna line they could find? I'm not so sure.

The voice acting, the original voice acting, performed by John de Lancie in the reprisal of his role as Q is fantastic. It brings a certain polish and charm to the game I'm not sure it would have otherwise. I think it's that voice that carried me through the opening sequence of events and allowed me to successfully resist the urge to close out the app forever and find something else to do--which is the fate of many of my recently downloaded mobile games.

I've seen other reviewers call this game a labor of love. And I'd have to agree. I believe that Disruptor Beam respected the Star Trek characters, stories, and franchise as a whole and in turn, respected their target market. While not a perfect game, and perhaps not the perfect representation of what we see and feel while settling in to watch an episode of The Next Generation or Voyager, it gets as closer than many other Star Trek games I've played.

I heartily recommend you give this game a shot. It's free and quick to get into. In a lot of ways it doesn't even feel appropriate to call it a mobile game simply based on the connotation of that term. I haven't played a single session for less than thirty minutes.

Hell, I like this game so much, that if I do end up buying the in-game currency, I'm not even going to feel embarrassed about it. Disruptor Beam deserves some props for this one.

Thank you for listening to this episode, we'll be back soon with our full discussions of Enterprise but hope you enjoyed this little diversion. We'll see how much traction this gets and might start making a regular series of recordings like this one.

If you want to get in touch with us we're on Twitter @thereare4mics and if you wouldn't mind, we'd love it if you gave us a rating and review over at iTunes.

Thanks again, see you next time.