This week in The Ready Room,
I embark on an away mission for a very special
Strange New Worlds Season 1 finale discussion
with our pointy-eared pal, Ethan Peck
and Executive Producer, Henry Alonso Myers
from the set of Season 2.
And since I was there,
I took a tour of the Enterprise's newest hangout spot.
General quarters!
It all starts now.
Hey, nerds. I'm Wil Wheaton
and this is The Ready Room,
your official behind-the-scenes hub
for all things Star Trek Universe.
Well, we did it.
We have reached the end
of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 1.
And I, for one,
not exactly ready to say goodbye.
It's a shame we can't talk to future versions of ourselves
who have already seen Season 2,
to tell us what we can look forward to.
I mean, I can talk to future versions of myself,
but you can't, and I don't want you to feel bad about that.
Which reminds me, future you is going to be very unhappy,
if you don't heed this... red alert!
If all this discussion of future selves
has you wondering
if you're in a self-help guru session of The Ready Room,
let me say I'm flattered, but no.
This is a direct reference to this week's finale episode.
And the only life advice I'm qualified to give
is that you go stream the finale episode,
before returning here to partake in all the spoilers.
Got it. Great.
Now, we can all delve into Captain Pike's life decisions
and stop thinking about our own.
This week I am so thrilled to be traveling
to the set of Strange New Worlds Season 2,
where I get to speak with Ethan Peck
and Executive Producer and Writer, Henry Alonso Myers,
about the season finale, "A Quality of Mercy."
Which, dang, that title alone is full of Easter eggs,
including both a William Shakespeare reference
and a reference to an episode of The Twilight Zone,
starring a young Leonard Nimoy.
How cool?
To take further advantage of my away mission to Toronto,
I convinced the powers that be
to let me have a look around at a brand new set
that will feature heavily in Season 2.
And of course, you get to come along with me.
So, later, we'll be headed into the, kind-of-future
with this glimpse into next season.
But first, the shot-for-shot moments of the finale
that mirror The Original Series episode "Balance of Terror"
were jaw dropping.
If you haven't streamed the two episodes side-by-side,
just to see how much they align, I highly recommend it.
I did it, and it is so cool.
But before you do that,
we got to talk with the executive producers and the cast
about what went into making this alternate version
of a legendary Star Trek episode.
Control room, engage.
Enterprise.
Can you see?
We're over a mile deep on an asteroid.
Almost solid iron.
Even through our deflectors, it did this.
The first time I read the season finale,
I initially thought,
"This is sounding familiar." [laughs]
We're a mile deep on an asteroid,
almost solid iron.
And then I started to realize,
I think I've seen this before.
It's such a cool idea
to take one of the most beloved episodes
from the original
and look at it, not as a recreation,
but what would've happened in this situation
had a different captain been in the place of Kirk.
"Balance of Terror" is one of my absolute favorite
original Trek episodes.
I remember just having this idea,
like, wouldn't it be cool to be able to revisit this?
And there's a history in Trek of doing that kind of thing.
On Deep Space Nine, they did "Trials and Tribble-ations,"
which is an episode where they revisited
"The Trouble With Tribbles."
In talking with Akiva about it,
we were discussing how, you know,
here we are on the original Enterprise.
What if we could find a way to put our characters
in the situation that they're in in "Balance of Terror,"
only updating it with our contemporary visual effects,
our new actors, our different approach to character.
That is sort of where it started.
Is this some kind of--
Joke? No.
How am I supposed to believe--
That I'm really you?
You ever gonna let me get a word in edgewise?
We wanted to do a time travel episode,
because that's another essential Star Trek genre.
We had this idea, which is a classic sci-fi idea.
What if your future self comes back
and tells you not to do something?
This is end of the world stuff.
And Christmas Carol-style,
he's transported into his future body
and gets to experience the mistake.
Captain.
What was I saying?
That, "Since the age of wooden ships..."
All ship masters have had one happy privilege.
Right.
Part of that was basically a hat trick
of trying to steal the camera language and blocking
and some of the lighting from not just that era,
but from that specific episode.
So we had the original episode that we were referring to,
as we were blocking some of those scenes.
I remember wanting to nail
a recreation of Kirk's first entrance to the bridge.
We actually pulled, you know,
text from the original episode
and found all these places to plant it in.
And if the Romulans are an offshoot of my Vulcan blood,
and I think this likely,--
- -then attack is indeed the only option.
One of my favorites,
probably an iconic moment, where Mark Lenard
in The Original Series says,
In a different reality,
I could have called you friend.
And we have that same moment happening. But with Pike.
In a different reality, I could have called you friend.
The meaning is completely twisted.
It's changed,
largely because the person in the captain's chair
is Pike and not Kirk.
His heading is now 1-11...
- Mark 1-4.
The exact heading a--
- Romulan vessel would take, Jim.
Getting an episode that's kind of a reconstruction
or a reinterpretation,
is, again, like another huge challenge.
Because up until Episode 10,
I, Ethan Peck,
have been embodying this younger version of Spock,
which we've kind of discussed as being
a little more emotional, as he, again,
is trying to find this balance between human and Vulcan.
For Episode 10, we had discussed him being much more Vulcan,
much more logical, much more stentorian,
and sort of monolithic is a word I love to use
when describing Spock and, I hope, my work as him.
It's fortunate that it was at the end of the season,
once I've kind of gotten more comfortable
and we've found, I think,
a bit of a groove in the production.
Did Outpost 4 say anything else
about the attacking vessel?
No identification, sir.
When I read the finale script and realized
that we were going to be flash forwarding several years
and I was going to sit at the TOS position,
where comms is right behind the command chair,
that was incredible.
I got chills the first time I read it because it was like,
"Oh, I get to wear her green earrings
and get her nails right."
I didn't get the beehive for the final episode,
but I'll survive without it.
Who's hailing us?
Their captain, James Kirk.
Alex and I thought that it would be an interesting thing
to bring Jim Kirk into the last episode
of Strange New Worlds.
That was always the plan.
We had no idea how we were gonna do it.
And then Henry really sort of bore down
on this idea of the retelling of "Balance of Terror."
And it became this really wonderful way of letting in
a Jim Kirk, who's not the Jim Kirk we know.
- Quite the ship you got here. - He's jealous.
There's a little bit of flexibility here because
he's actually not the captain of the Enterprise.
He's never met Spock.
He doesn't have those allies.
And so, he doesn't necessarily
have to be the version of Captain Kirk on the Enterprise
because he hasn't had the same experiences.
Working with Anson's great. He's such a veteran actor.
There's a great juxtaposition between the two guys,
Pike and Kirk.
You tried for something better.
Tried and lost.
And somehow, the differences between the two of them
actually end up syncing quite nicely.
And by the end of the episode,
they have a deep respect for one another.
If you had just chased that Romulan ship from the get-go
and taken it out,
maybe none of this would've happened.
Fire.
You're a good captain, Jim Kirk.
I think you might see him back
next year as the younger version.
You thinking of retiring?
[laughs] Oh, no. No, not yet.
For the Season 1 finale of Strange New Worlds,
it was only fitting that we go big.
Now listen, full disclosure,
I am geeking out as badly as I have geeked out
since I was maybe 15 years old
and walked onto the bridge of my Enterprise.
I am here in Toronto.
I am in Captain Pike's quarters
with Henry Alonso Myers and Ethan Peck.
You guys, come on.
This is amazing!
Congratulations on finishing up your first season.
How does it feel to know that it's in the world now?
I mean, it's crazy.
For me.
I mean, probably it's been a longer process for you.
It's just been a marathon for me.
Yeah.
It's wild because we made this thing in such isolation.
I mean, last season was super challenging with the pandemic.
[Henry] Yeah. Yeah.
And we couldn't have a lot of the executives on set,
which we normally do.
And so there's a part of you wondering like,
"Is this working? Are we gelling?"
Cause you're putting together a whole new cast.
And we kind of plowed through that first season
and came pretty directly into the second season.
We did. Yeah.
I mean, I didn't get to visit.
I didn't even come to Toronto, to set, until the finale
- Really? - Yeah. Right.
Because of COVID restrictions.
And I was just dealing with prep and everything.
I did everything over Zoom. Yeah.
That's a trip.
Except, and then I would text people like,
"Hey, good job."
[laughs] I was getting notes from you through text.
Someone would be like,
"Hey, Henry wants you to..."
I'm like, "Where's Henry?"
Try not to be too intrusive.
You raised an really interesting point
that I hadn't considered.
When you all started your first season,
it was pre-vaccine.
Yeah.
And I've talked with a lot of your castmates
about the challenges inherent to that.
It hadn't occurred to me that
you're a cast coming together
and that is extremely important.
I've been part of that a few times in my career.
And the chemistry and the interpersonal relationships
that you develop when the cameras aren't rolling
are so incredibly important to informing your characters.
Yeah.
Was it extra challenging to find that
when you were under those restrictions.
It was super challenging,
because we weren't really permitted
to spend time with each other off of set.
And as soon as we step off of the set,
we had these shields to put on
that basically protected our makeup,
but was essentially a COVID precaution.
And even just having that up,
was very sort of distancing and strange.
- [Wil] Yeah. - And distorting, socially.
And so, yeah, it's, it was really awkward in a lot of ways.
It's so interesting to me to know that
because it doesn't read that way at all.
That's so crazy.
I mean, you all feel like a crew
that's been together for a minute.
And the history and the existing relationships
between the different characters
feel really organic to me
and feel like they have existed for a really long time.
That is a real credit to all of you.
Let's talk about specifically the finale.
I know that I am not the only Star Trek nerd in the world
who finished watching it
and immediately went to my Star Trek library
to pull "Balance of Terror" off the shelf
and watch it.
I'm just very curious to know,
did you touch "Balance of Terror" at all
when you were prepping this?
Did the cast and crew do that
or did you leave it alone so this could be its thing?
I'll answer that.
- And then I want to hear - Go for it.
your answer to this question.
So, we were shown,
Chris Fisher directed this episode.
Yeah.
And we had some, like, reference moments
from "Balance of Terror" that we watched.
I've seen it a couple of times.
Yeah. I keep forgetting that you're a Star Trek fan, too.
I just keep forgetting that. [laughs]
But I try not to, like,
be too fresh on the material
we're kind of revisiting just because
I wanna have my own take on it
and it be something really authentic and original to me.
- Yes. - So,
we definitely did have like reference scenes
and moments in that episode
that we would watch before executing.
- Yeah. - Which was very cool.
"Balance of Terror" is one of my
absolute favorite episodes.
What worked for this was,
it was kind of a perfect encapsulation
of how Pike could deal with his fate.
What it leads to is this moment of self sacrifice.
And the thing that does it,
the thing that really changes it for him
is Spock's fate is altered
for much worse.
And this actually has a huge, you know,
effect on the future of the galaxy.
Ethan, Spock and Pike have this really wonderful,
heartfelt moment,
when Pike says like,
I'm not trading my future for your future.
Let's just say,
I think the universe is telling me
that some fates are inescapable.
And even if I could get out of mine,
it might just fall to someone else.
Someone you know?
Yes.
Seeing the origins of Pike and Spock's relationship
start to play out is deeply gratifying.
Do you have a similar experience
as you are discovering these parts of the relationship
and this part of Spock?
Yeah, absolutely.
I find that there's a tenderness between the two of them,
sort of, a softness
that I think is so essential when you're--
I mean, Anson's called it,
it's like a military outfit, right?
This is an organized, structured thing
that has a great deal of formality to it.
And I think to have that sort of tenderness
between two men is really wonderful and essential.
I think you probably--
if you went and looked in the world
and visited different groups
fighting battles, or maintaining a similar sort of posture
and demeanor, you would find
that's a reality of their situations as well.
And so I think it really grounds it.
Cause you're not just, you know,
shooting photons and solving math problems.
It's, there's a lot more to
life on the Enterprise.
And I think that's really-
Although, we do, do that a lot.
We do, do a lot of that.
But yeah, I think it's just a very
essential and grounding part of this world.
So yeah, I so enjoy those moments
because most of the time,
Pike's asking Spock to explain gravitational redshift
or something and we're about to be blown to smithereens.
Yeah.
So, it's really great to have a little break from that
and connect and, sort of,
get into the underlying emotion effect
of all of these things that they're doing together.
The emotional Spock scenes are my favorite.
And the scene at the end of this,
where they have that unspoken moment,
where Spock realizes,
somehow, that Pike has done something for him.
I believe I may owe you a debt of gratitude, Captain.
Although for precisely what, I do not know.
Spock, you are,
you are very important to me.
As are you to me, Captain.
Such a great scene.
It's like, "I love you, man."
"Yeah, I love you too, man."
That's, I gotta give Akiva credit for that scene.
Cause that was his vision for that scene.
- Nice work. - I loved it.
I think it's a perfect scene
and it is absolutely about
explaining why Spock in, you know, "The Menagerie,"
- Yeah. - does what he does.
Yeah.
Ethan,
this week
is the very first time we see Kirk and Spock together
in Strange New Worlds.
[Ethan] Yeah.
Like, that is,
I'm sure I'm not telling anyone anything
they don't already know, kind of a big deal.
Yeah.
I got from your Spock.
"I don't know about this Kirk guy. He's kind of a hothead."
That's what I read.
What I read was like, what I read from Spock was,
"This dude needs to calm down."
Like, that's what I read from Spock.
Did I make all of that up?
Was any of that intentional in your performance?
In my mind, Pike to Spock is kind of like,
he's kind of like a father, uncle, older brother figure,
all wrapped in one.
I saw him as that in many ways
and he's very reasonable and has a lot of integrity.
And here comes this super arrogant guy
who's in conflict with my captain's problem solving.
Yeah.
And I think you're absolutely right.
That is there for Spock in this episode.
And there's actually only the one scene where we speak.
Right?
Yeah.
If you'll , excuse me,
I wish to supervise the repair
of the phaser array, personally.
Captain.
We really wanted to have that moment.
It's just like, it's just--
It's the flirtation with it.
Oh, I know.
Like, I just know that other people
had the same reaction I had.
We're just like, this is amazing.
I'm gonna watch it over and over again.
It was such a great moment.
I'm sure you know this, but like out in the world,
this show is beloved
and it's on its way to being one of
Congratulations.
- You too. - the absolute,
like it's very much on its way to being like,
one of the legendary Star Trek shows.
And if you wanted to talk to fans at all,
if you just wanted to like communicate a thing
to people who just,
I cannot overstate how much they adore what you're doing.
Like, is there anything at all you wanna say to them?
I'm just so incredibly grateful
that people are watching it and enjoying it.
Someone asked me like, "Why do you think the show's good?"
It was a friend of mine.
And I was like,
"It's hard to describe,
I think you hit like a critical mass of people
that give an F."
Yeah.
And I don't know whether it's 62% or 63% of people
that like really care.
And then it just all kind of comes together well.
Like you can't have,
you know,
one or two figureheads that are like really special
and brilliant and have vision for it,
if the people below them don't sort of fall into that.
It's a team.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Big time.
I have a question for you, if you don't mind.
Of course.
What was it like getting cast on TNG?
Like you were a fan before that, right?
Yeah. I was a huge fan of Star Trek.
And when I found out a new Star Trek was being made,
I just, I could not believe that I got the audition.
So, when I found out that I was actually cast
and that I was going to now be part of this thing
that I've loved forever
and it's gonna be part of me for the rest of my life.
I was 14 when that happened.
Wow.
I turn 50 in a couple of months,
and it was probably three years ago-ish
that I had enough time and distance and space to go,
"Oh my God, man.
Like what an incredible thing to do
and be part of.
Yeah.
And that I get to do this now.
That I get to still be part of it.
And that, you know, like they just,
I can't imagine another acting career
where you are part of a franchise and then 30 years later,
you get to go back and take a different role.
That's the like weird, amazing thing about Star Trek,
which is that it's this,
it's like a collective dream.
Instead of a thing that you come in and say,
I'm imagining it from beginning to end,
like someone hands it to you and you sort of say,
"Okay, well now it's my turn to imagine it
for a little while."
And then at some point,
you're gonna hand it to the next person.
So you sort of, you know,
no one person has ownership of it.
[Wil] Yeah.
And you sort of have to,
if you know that and respect that and enjoy that,
like it makes the process a lot more fun.
Let's talk briefly about Season 2,
without spoiling things.
Let's get people excited
without getting me fired.
[everyone laughing]
Is there anything at all
you want to tease to the audience about Season 2?
Ethan, I'm going to honor the actors'
"Don't Get Me In Trouble" compact
and direct this question a hundred percent to Henry,
who is on that side of the line.
Well here's what I'll say...
We...
We endeavored not to play it safe.
We endeavored to try to
make the show--
we are trying to do a version of the show
that you have become familiar with,
but we're trying to do a bigger, crazier,
more ambitious version. - Okay.
One that I don't think we could have done Season 1.
Yeah.
And one of which, you know,
we're working very, very hard to achieve in Season 2.
There are a bunch of threads that are, you know,
up in the air at the end of the season.
Obviously, we don't know where La'An is,
Number One is in prison.
You know, there's what the hell's gonna happen to them?
Yeah.
We will answer all those questions.
Great.
We're gonna see more of
Spock's love life.
- Awesome. - Let me see, what else.
A little more to T'Pring, maybe.
A little more to T'Pring.
We're gonna see,
we're gonna see Trek-- I will say this.
[Wil] Okay.
We're going to see Trek
do something that it's never done before.
Amazing.
I say that with, I would say that and keep it vague,
but like I promise you,
it's a thing that's never happened on Trek before
and we're gonna do it.
I really appreciate both of you making time
to sit with me today.
Thank you for welcoming me into your ship.
- It's been our honor. - Absolutely.
This is the second Enterprise I've ever been in
and it's pretty great.
So, thanks for that.
- Thank you so much. - Thank you.
That conversation was just so special and so awesome.
It had me feeling simultaneously torn
to be completely geeking out over this week's epic finale,
while also feeling so, so, so excited
for Season 2 of Strange New Worlds.
I can report to all of you
that from what I saw during my visit to Toronto
and the little spoilers that people, kind of,
accidentally dropped around me,
we are in for an amazing second season.
Don't worry.
I'm not going to keep all the Season 2 secrets to myself.
Just the biggest one.
I got a special tour of an all new Enterprise set.
It's called the port galley and it is amazing.
As the new happening hangout spot for the crew,
it seems only fitting
that we all get to check it out together.
Take a look.
So walking down the corridors of this Enterprise
is weirdly familiar to me
and it's not because I watch it on TV.
Like there is a,
there is an emotional and physical sense memory
of my Enterprise that wakes up when I come through here.
So, we are standing
in front of your brand new set,
The port galley.
This is our new baby.
There's something very exciting
on the other side of this door.
I think we should go in
and I think you should press the button.
[doors whooshing]
That was everything I wanted it to be.
[both laughing]
The centerpiece here is this gorgeous bar
that is in the middle of the room.
I really enjoyed the sets where the actors
and their characters get very intimate
and we learn a lot about them.
The only space we had for scenes like that
in Season 1 was the mess hall.
And originally we were gonna build the whole mess hall,
but in the end we built it for AR.
It's great, but it's difficult to schedule.
And also we only have part of the set.
However, when we spoke about what the set should be,
one of the big things we didn't want here were windows.
Because the minute you have windows,
you are into what are we seeing out the windows?
Where are we in space?
What's the planet that should be out there?
You get into a million questions about it.
And that's not what this set was about at all.
Let's talk about these gorgeous works of art.
I thought they were braziers, but I'm wrong.
They are actually...
Comets.
So, cool.
For 102, I had to design a comet
and it was called M'hanit.
And I found myself drawing comets,
but these sketches were, sort of,
lying around my drawing board.
And then I just took one of those sketches
and I just turned it 90 degrees.
And I went, you know what?
That looks quite interesting. - That works.
So we took the comet drawing.
Yeah.
And just rendered it in real metal.
We found a genius guy in Toronto.
In his workshop, he built them for us.
Very excited about them.
You mentioned that,
one of the needs this room was meant to address
was a quiet conversation area.
And you specifically addressed this corner
as a place that could happen.
And a few things about this corner just pop for me
that I wanted to talk with you about.
The first thing is these amazing 1960s chairs.
I've seen them on the bridge. I've seen them in quarters.
I'm like, "Oh yes, of course.
That's what's on the Enterprise."
That's right.
The Original Series,
they took these and other chairs and they actually added,
they added a top section to them.
Yeah.
Just to make them their own.
Yeah.
But I think they're incredibly elegant just as they are.
So, coming in here a little bit more,
I noticed that your tables have this gorgeous,
soft, kind of, unfocused light.
Our Ten Forward had this in all of our tables.
And I loved working in there
because I thought that uplight
always made me look cooler than I am.
It's a kind of language that goes for furniture.
And the set itself.
And an enormous amount of time is spent
at the drawing stage for the set.
Yeah.
To make sure that we've got lighting built into the set,
so that where anybody stops,
they can film them, wherever they're standing.
At every opportunity, as you can see in the beams here,
we're building in lighting.
And if two people are around a table,
then there's lighting from the table.
[Wil] Let's take a closer look at your bar.
[Jonathan] Yes, please do.
You made a specific design choice
to put the bar in the center of this room,
rather than against the wall,
like it was an our Ten Forward.
Talk to me about that design choice.
Where you have a bar against the wall,
the camera can really only look in
a limited number of directions.
So I thought I'm gonna put the bar in the middle,
that will allow us to play scenes
in an almost infinite number of ways.
Let's come up here.
Tell me about, you described this as a cloud.
Yeah. - Which is gorgeous.
I was on an aircraft carrier once,
there were 5,000 people on this carrier
and they never got to see daylight
for weeks and weeks and weeks.
I thought it'll be the same on the Enterprise.
You're in the middle of space.
You'll never see a blue sky or clouds.
And I thought it would be nice to have a cloud.
Just a sense that some light is above you.
Then when I shared it with Glen, the DP,
he said, "Well, that's gonna work for me.
Wherever the actors are around the bar,
I'm gonna be lighting them with that."
There's an incredible lighting rig up there.
They can play with the lighting.
This is, this bar's replicator.
Is it like a self-service replicator? Is that the idea?
That's the idea.
That's the intention behind this.
You've got an interactive panel here,
so you can select what you want.
And you stand back and through the magic of visual effects,
it's going to appear here.
I have just realized that the part of me
that is convinced that all of this is real
refuses to lean on this.
- Yeah. - Because it's a replicator pad
and I know they're delicate,
which is silly, but true.
All right.
So, I'm thinking our last really big feature in this room
is behind me.
It is this raised area.
We had addressed the need
for private conversations in corners,
crew get togethers, off-duty moments around the bar.
- Yep. - So that was all covered.
But I wanted it to also have a stage
where we could have music,
where we could have people giving speeches.
With this set, the digital playback department
and the motion graphics department,
we got them involved very early on
with these big digital art walls.
So, and I must tell you,
Henry Myers gave me an interesting note
from The Love Boat.
- He said his favorite-- - Okay.
His favorite set on The Love Boat
was the handrail at the side of the ship.
[Wil] So you have a bit of a handrail here.
This is The Love Boat handrail.
Henry's gonna kill me for saying that.
I clocked a very special bottle in your bar
before we came over here.
And on our way out,
I just want to really handle it. [laughs]
Let's head over there.
Over to you.
Top shelf or hooch?
Hooch, I think.
Saurian brandy, it is.
So this is Saurian brandy
that we absolutely have to talk about.
I don't know if anybody at home clocked this,
when I came in.
Guinan shared this with Picard,
I just wanted to be able to go home
and tell my friends that I touched it.
You've gotta leave it there.
On the set here.
I know I will leave it.
If it disappears,
I had nothing to do with it
and we don't have to check my bags
on my way back to California.
Security will be checking on the way out.
I just think it's a beautiful Easter egg,
for those of us who appreciate this sort of thing.
And it also, canonically, make sense.
For we who are fans,
when we see things like this, it just makes us feel like,
"Oh, you've rewarded us for our weird, obsessive nerdery."
You know, Justin Craig, the set decorator
and Jim Murray, the prop master
are brilliant at pulling us back and saying,
"Don't forget what we're doing here."
And they're pushing the Easter eggs the whole time.
That's great.
So, I'm very grateful to them.
Thank you for everything you've done.
Like, it's just, your Enterprise is great.
I've really appreciated it.
And I know everybody at home has enjoyed it as well.
So thanks a lot.
My pleasure.
This is where I tell you
that I have a sneak peek to show you
from next week's Star Trek: Strange New Worlds,
but we're at the end of Season 1,
so I have no sneak peak to show you.
Still,
I have to end this epic 29-week run
of behind-the-scenes action in The Ready Room
with something for you to hold onto,
something to be excited about.
Well, Season 3 of Lower Decks is coming soon.
So here's a look at a little bit of the hilarity
that is in store for us.
[Boimler sighs]
[Boimler choking]
Oh, God. Vineyard flies. Ugh.
Ugh. I hate being home.
Dude, are you even listening to what I'm telling you?
The captain's getting railroaded, man.
I have to do something before it's too late.
Well, count me in.
Really?
Usually, it takes way more convincing.
I'll do anything to get away from these raisins.
It's already gonna take me a month
to get the smell outta my hair.
Hey, Bradward!
Want to test the sweetness of my bushel?
Ugh, fine Genevieve.
Just give it 43 more sun hours at 21 degrees Brix.
Oh.
Okay.
When you said your family had vineyards,
I just assumed it was for wine.
Oh, I wish.
No. We Boimlers dry grapes.
Just dry 'em and dry 'em and dry 'em
till they're all shriveled and hopeless
and stuck on Earth forever.
Bradward, all these varietals are so confusing.
Take me to the privacy of the pickery shed
and explain them to me.
Come on, Mandelina.
Red goes in the red bucket,
white in the white, you know that.
Mm.
How do they not see this is a setup?
We were nowhere near Pakled planet when it blew.
I mean, she was saving another ship, for Kirk's sake.
Okay.
We know it doesn't track,
but the ship's logs got corrupted
by the Lapeerian debris field.
It makes it look like she's covering something up.
Wait, so they just need our logs?
I have logs.
No, we need the official senior staff logs.
Not like what you had for lunch.
No, no, no, my logs are crazy detailed.
Every night, I'd listen to the captain's
and rerecord them for my own reference.
What?
Yeah, the official stardates, systems, personnel.
It's all in there stored by my bunk.
Oh, my God. Boimler.
Wait, that is so nerdy and so clutch right now.
So all you have to do is get your pads
and we clear her name with some surprise evidence.
Take that conservative military court.
Ah. But we're grounded.
Plus, we don't even know where the Cerritos is.
It's in dry dock?
Yeah, but which dry dock?
There's like a bajillion
and besides they probably only kept on
a small skeleton crew of engineers to help dock it.
And that's it.
Engineers? [gasps]
Rutherford.
Okay, real talk.
When I first started hosting The Ready Room,
I thought it was for one season of Star Trek: Picard
I had no idea I would get to keep coming back
to do more and more.
I had no idea that there would be
so many different Star Trek series,
airing one after the next.
I had no idea that I'd get to come here
for 30 weeks in a row
to hang out with you and talk about this show that we love.
Plus, this week
marks my 50th installment
as host of The Ready Room.
I am,
as always,
humbled and thrilled
to join you in watching each new episode as it comes.
And I am so grateful
to the cast and the creatives,
who take the time to talk with me
and show us what goes into
bringing Star Trek to our screens.
Real quick, before we leave, a personal moment.
Our producer, Max, has moved on to new things in his career
and we are so excited for him.
We are thrilled for him!
But he's been a huge part of Ready Room
from the very beginning.
He is one of the persons
who has put words in my mouth
that you all tell me, you are so happy to hear.
So Max, we love you.
Congratulations.
We miss you.
On behalf of everyone at Ready Room,
go boldly
into your new future.
Until next time, I am Wil Wheaton.
Live long and prosper.