Surprise! It’s the fourth Trekabout special! This time, we’re joined by Wes Teasdale, creator and host of The Pensky Podcast. We compare notes on our different approaches to Star Trek, discuss whether television has gotten better over time or worse, and spoil the fuck out of Breaking Bad. So, beware of that, we guess.
Trekabout Special 4: The Pensky Podcast
Cliffy73
-Interesting discussion. One thing I thought of as you all discussed how hit and miss TOS can be from a standpoint of craft is that I bet — by the ’80’s at least — most of the audience was just being served the good stuff. I never saw That Which Survives or The World is Hollow… or Requiem for Methuselah — you know, the stinkers –until binge watching became possible around the turn of the millennium. And yet Mirror, Mirror, The Enemy Within, Amok Time, and several others I saw a half-dozen times as a kid. It sure seems to me like somebody had their thumb on the scale, which allowed kids to become Trekkies on Saturday afternoons in a way that no longer exists for people watching TOS from tip to tail on Netflix.
Eric Brasure
-That’s a really good point, and something I never thought about it, since I didn’t grow up watching TOS in reruns.
Cliffy73
-I think it probably happened with TNG reruns in the early ’90’s (and later) as well. Our local station ran the new eps Saturday night and then an older rerun on ash day. Certainly I don’t remember seeing any S1 episodes in that slot.
Anyway, I’ve mentioned this before, but when the second Bill & Ted movie came out I saw it opening weekend. Early in the film the characters are watching “Arena” — specifically one of the fight scenes between Kirk and the Gorn captain. Then later on, they have a fight with Death (William Sadler, later of Section 31) at the same location on Vasquez Rocks. When I got home from the theater, I flipped on the TV to the channel that had TOS reruns on Saturday. Guess what episode was on? That was the first time I understood that there was somebody actually making conscious decisions about what episode went where, even in the rerun package.
Cliffy73
-Sunday, not ash day.
The Pensky File
-It’s a good point. I always laugh that our podcasts essentially consist of us rapidly watching a series of shows (lower level binge) that were not designed to be viewed that way.