Uncanny Treks

Believers S1E10 (27 Apr 94) vs. Invasive Procedures S2E4 (17 Oct 93)-We were happy to recognize John Glover who played Lionel Luthor & voiced the Riddler on Batman: The Animated Series & Tim Russ who played Tuvok on Star Trek: Voyager-The Trill issues raised in this episode callback to our prior discussion: https://rss.com/podcasts/b5ds9/174686/-Some of the implications about the Trill symbiote selection process being suspect are also present in Star Trek: Discovery Season 3--For a recent critique of meritocracy, see Daniel Markovits Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, & Devours the Elite (2019) & a critical interview with the author on The Genn [Loury] Show

Deathwalker S1E9 (20 Apr 94) vs. The Homecoming- The Circle- The Siege S2 E1-3(26 Sep, 3 Oct, 10 Oct 93)-A quick consult of the Babylon Project wiki says the only two major Earth Alliance wars before the series Babylon 5 began were the Dilgar War (2230-2) & the Earth-Minbari War (2245-8), although we later vaguely learn of something called the Canal Wars, which don’t sound like a major interstellar war & may’ve occurred between Earth Alliance & Mars separatists-League of Non-aligned Worlds, according to the Babylon Project wiki, has an average of 14 members, although that often fluctuates, but they are limited to 10 ambassadors w/ a collective single vote (although in Bob’s memory it seems like sometimes the League only gets to use their vote as a tiebreaker when there’s a deadlock among the 5 major powers) on the Babylon 5 Advisory Council. The entry doesn’t give any sense of the League’s history prior to it being invaded by the Dilgar in 2230-Frank Langella’s roles include Skeletor in Masters of the Universe (1987) & the kindly Soviet spymaster Gabriel in The Americans (2013-8)

Sky Full of Stars S1E8 (16 Mar 94) vs. In the Hands of the Prophets S1 E20, Finale (20 Jun 93)-René Descartes entertains questions about the first principles of reason & the possibility of deception & error in Discourse on the Method (1637) & Meditations on 1st Philosophy (1641)-Philip K. Dick’s narratives often engage w/ questions of Cartesian doubt, for example Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) & the film adaptation Blade Runner (1982) & “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” (1966) & the film adaptation Total Recall (1990)-If you want more info on the RFK assanination & conspiracies around it, check out the excellent podcast season RFK Tapes (2018)

Bob and Matt discuss the best and worst of DS9 Season 1.

The War Prayer S1 E7 (9 Mar 94) vs. Duet S1 E19 (13 Jun 93)-”War Prayer” (1905) is a Mark Twain prose poem, originating from his disgust about the Spanish-US war & US occupation of the Philippines-Upon rewatching, G’Kar is inciting a crowd of Narn, Minbari, Drazi, & presumably other species from the League of Non-Aligned Worlds that Bob didn’t recognize. Pointedly, no Centauri are in the crowd-The new delegate to the League was Mila Shar of Abba IV-Harris Yulin is famous for playing the hanging judge in Ghostbusters 2 (1989)-The great 90s cop show famous for its interrogation scenes is Homicide (1993-99)-The summary of the Andrew Robinson novel Stitch in Time (2000) about Garak’s pre-history makes it sound like Garak’s role in the Cardassian occupation of Bajor was minimal, with him being forced to work as a plain, simple tailor by Dukat for revenge. The Dafydd ab Hugh novel Courageous (1999) seems to have flashbacks on what Winn Adami did during the Cardassian occupation. Bob was mistaken about the Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens trilogy Millenium (2000), which seems like an alternate universe narrative. The Terok Nor trilogy (2008) seems to cover the whole history of the Bajoran occupation & the final novel, S.D. Perry & Britta Dennison Dawn of the Eagles, seems to partially cover Odo’s time as security chief on Terok Nor when, according to the Memory Beta summary of the novel, he was an active collaborator w/ Kira & the Bajoran resistance against the Cardassian occupation. Bob read the Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch novel Vectors (1999) when it came out, which deals w/ the Cardassian occupation, but Bob cannot remember any details about this disease novel other than the presence of Dr. Pulaski from the Next Generation & Odo-Although the paracanon of the novels seem to dispute this, we speculated that Odo’s role as security chief under the Cardassian occupation was similar to Claude Rains’s character as a Vichy French policeman in the great film Casablanca (1942) -For an in-depth history of nazis fleeing to Latin America, see the podcast TrueAnon’s 5-part Spider Network series (2020, episodes 66, 74, 83, 87, & 89). For science-fictional treatments of the same topic, see the film Boys from Brazil (1978) & the comic Manhattan Projects (2012-6)

Mind War S1 E6 (2 Mar 94) v. The Forsaken S1 E17 (23 May 93)-The great rabbit is on the lawn in Donnie Darko (2001)-Walter Koeing played navigator Chekov in seasons 2 & 3 of the original Star Trek (1966-69) & guest starred in the Baywatch spoof Son of the Beach (2000-2)-Koeing’s parents were Russian Jewish immigrants from Lithuania to Chicago-Alfred Bester is a great golden age sf writer who wrote the novels Demolished Man (1953) (a version of Dostoevsky Crime & Punishment [1866] but w/ telepathy) & Stars My Destination (1956) (a version of Dumas Count of Monte Cristo [1844] but w/ teleportation)-Alfred Bester’s work on the original Green Lantern spanned 1943-7-The scale of the Sigma 957 walker reminds Bob of the weird fiction of H.P. Lovecraft & Matt of the DC comics character Spectre (the best Spectre run, by John Ostrander & Tom Mandrake, ran 1992-8)-JMS wrote about 2 dozen episodes of the cartoon Real Ghostbusters (1986-91). His better comics runs include his run on Thor (2007-9) & the early part of his run on Amazing Spider-Man (2001-7) while the worst stuff include his runs on Brave & the Bold (2009-10) & Superman (2010-5)-Matt’s subsequent browsing confirmed that Digipets premiered in ‘97-Bajoran Militia uniform colors are command red, security brown, operations gray, & engineering green/gray-Bester’s salute is a reference to the all-time great English show The Prisoner (1967-8), influential on both Babylon 5 & Twin Peaks S3: The Return (2017)

B5 S1 E5 Parliament of Dreams ( 25 Feb 94) v DS9 S1 E13 Battle Lines (25 Apr 93)-Baruch Spinoza is a Dutch philosopher of Portugese Jewish ancestry, famous for his pantheist (or crypto-atheist) metaphysics & ethics & really influential on later continental European philosophy-Screwball comedies are a romantic comedy subgenre prominent from the 1930s to mid 60s, famous for witty banter & the battle of the sexes. Classic examples include The Awful Truth (1937), His Girl Friday (1940), & Some Like It Hot (1959)-Bill Mumy played in 3 Twilight Zone episodes: ‘Long Distance Call’ & ‘It’s a Good Life’ (both 1961) & ‘In Praise of Pip’ (1963) and Will Robinson in Lost in Space (1965-8) along with Jonathan Harris as the wonderfully queer and archly English Dr. Smith-Mumy co-created the Nickelodeon kids show Space Cases (1996-97) w/ Peter David, famous for his runs on the Marvel comic X-Factor (1990-3, 2005-15) & for creating the new Star Trek novel series New Frontier (1997-2015). Space Cases bears some visual similarities to the forthcoming kids cartoon Star Trek: Prodigy (2021-)-The great Hong Kong action director John Woo did direct a failed Lost in Space reboot pilot for the WB in 2004, & the sets were sold to the already running Battlestar Galactica reboot (2003-9)-The much more successful Netflix Lost in Space reboot (2018-21) has Mumy briefly play a Dr. Smith whose identity is assumed by a confidence artist played by the excellent Parker Posey-’Battle Lines’ gives Matt vibes from the great postapocalyptic film series Mad Max-Jonathan Banks is most known for his roles on the crime shows Wiseguy (1987-90), Breaking Bad (2008-13), & Better Call Saul (2015-22)-Our 2nd homage to The Godfather (1972), this time from Babylon 5-The best books on Star Trek & economics are French economist Manu Saadia Trekonomics & Peter Frase 4 Futures: Life after Capitalism (both 2016)

B5 S1 E4 Infection (18 Feb 94) v DS9 S1E11 Nagus (21 Mar 93)-Ikarrian infections recalls in various ways the Star Trek: Next Generation antagonists the Borg, the role of evil AI in the original Trek (“Return of the Archons” [1967] & “Ultimate Computer” [1968] are 2 of the most prominent), the Phalanx in X-Men comics (they’re first big story Phalanx Covenant came out a few months after this episode, the Black Panther antagonist Klaw (debuted 1966), & the Terminator (1st 2 films came out in 1984 & 1991)-DC Comics published an 11-issue B5 comic series (1994-95). The first arc, Price of Peace, was published in a trade paperback, & we will probably cover it on the show between S1 & 2 of B5. The second arc, Shadows Past & Present, explores the backstory of how Garibaldi & Sinclair meet. It isn’t good, folks. In 1998 DC republished a 3-issue B5 mini called In Valen’s Name, which takes place in B5 S4, we might cover that. DC’s interest in B5 comics may have stemmed from its long swath of publishing Trek comics (1984-96)-David McCallum was one of the leads of the excellent English series Sapphire & Steel (1979-82). The other 2 charismatic characters from Sapphire & Steel, beside the leads, were Lead & Silver. The finale of Sapphire & Steel influenced Twin Peaks Season 3: The Return (2017)-Mark Fisher, one of our great theorists & horror media critics, writes about Sapphire & Steel in his Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (2014), although his posthumous The Weird & the Eerie (2017) is also relevant.-The leather aesthetic was big in the first X-Men film trilogy (2000-6) & Grant Morrison’s New X-Men run (2001-4)-Quark’s reception of a petitioner is an homage to the opening scene of The Godfather (1972)-Ironic given his portrayal of a capitalist patriarch, Wallace Shawn is also a socialist playwright & his monologue play The Fever (1990) is a particularly harsh presentation. The podcast Proles of the Round Table has an excellent version of the play.-Scenes of learning to read in primary or secondary languages or awakening to the power of the written word are an important trope of Afro-American literature, for example in Frederick Douglass & Richard Wright autobiographies Octavia Butler Dawn (1987) sf novel

B5 S1 E3 Born to the Purple (9 Feb 94) v DS9 S1 E8 Dax (13 Feb 93)-For more about metaphysical questions of identity, consult the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s entries on ‘identity’, ‘personal identity’, ‘identity over time’, & ‘relative identity’-For a recent critique of meritocracy, see Daniel Markovits Meritocracy Trap: How America's Foundational Myth Feeds Inequality, Dismantles the Middle Class, & Devours the Elite (2019) & a critical interview with the author on The Genn [Loury] Show-Trills factor heavily into Star Trek: Discovery S3 (2020-1) & the new space opera novel that has shaped Bob’s understanding of the Trill as an integrated consciousness is Arkady Martine Memory Called Empire (2019)“Long Black Veil” is a famous country ballad originally performed by Lefty Frizzell (1959) similar to the plot of “Dax”. The ballad has also been covered by Joan Baez (1963), Johnny Cash (1965), & al.-Italian actress Fabiana Udenio is best known for roles in Austin Powers (1997) & Jane the Virgin (2014-9)-The use of Quark’s bar as a courtroom recalled similar scenarios in westerns like Man who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) & Deadwood (2004-6)-Other, better Star Trek episodes involving legal proceedings are Next Generation episodes “Measure of a Man” (1989) & “Drumhead” (1991) & the Voyager episode “Death Wish” (1996)-DS9 returns to questions of murder & the Dax symbiote in “Equillibrium” (1994)

B5 S1 E2 Soul Hunter (2 Feb 94) v DS9 S1 E7 Q-Less (8 Feb 93)-Bob misidentifies the year for “Soul Hunter”; it’s actually 94-Sf writer Isaac Asimov is most famous for his Robot (1950-6) & Foundation (1951-3) trilogies-Bob continues his streak of being one year off on airdates, Bladerunner is actually 82 (it came out on the same day as John Carpenter’s The Thing, remarkably)-Q appears in 10 episodes across almost every season of Next Generation, Vash appears in the Next Gen episodes “Captain’s Holiday” (1990) & “Qpid” (1991)-Two of the best studies that explore the triangulating dynamics of desire are René Girard Deceit, Desire and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure (1961) & Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick Between Men: English Literature & Male Homosocial Desire (1985)-Harry Mudd has appeared in 2 original Trek episodes, 1 animated Trek episode, 2 Discovery episodes, & 1 Short Trek-The new space opera novel that has shaped Bob’s understanding of the Trill as an integrated consciousness is Arkady Martine Memory Called Empire (2019)-Prof. Moriarty tries to murder by exsanguination in Sherlock Holmes & the Secret Weapon (1943)-Twin Peaks S3: The Return (2017) is the best thing to air on tv since the moon landing-The best cocoons in pop culture are spun by the kaiju Mothra-N’Grath does seem to only appear in B5 S1. His ancestor Zorak debuted in 1966 & returned for Space Ghost: Coast to Coast in 1994