Primitive Culture: A Star Trek History and Culture Podcast

Half a Decade of Primitive Culture

Star Trek’s original five-year mission was brought to a premature end in 1969. But over the ensuing half-century and more, the franchise has continued boldly going to new frontiers. By the 1980s, when a second generation of fans came to seek out fresh adventures, the voyage had become a continuing mission … with no end in sight.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recorded earlier this year on our own five-year anniversary, host Duncan Barrett is joined by show co-founder Tony Black to look back on a half-decade of podcasting, and to consider how Star Trek has changed since the good ship Primitive Culture left spacedock in 2017. We also share some news about the future of the podcast. Because, as we know, all good things …

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Tony Black

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Cardassian war crimes and The Man in the Glass Booth

For many fans of Deep Space Nine, the penultimate installment of Season 1, “Duet,” is also the show’s first classic episode. A bleak exploration of guilt, responsibility, and forgiveness in the aftermath of war, it’s a story that could scarcely have been told on any other Star Trek series. One of Trek’s most popular bottle episodes, “Duet” is built on intense two-hander scenes between Nana Visitor and guest star Harris Yuelin, giving it the air of an intimate theater production. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that the episode’s central conceit—a case of mistaken identity at the center of a potential war crimes trial—is lifted from a stage play, Robert Shaw’s The Man in the Glass Booth, which was later adapted into an Oscar-winning movie.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Clara Cook to discuss the parallels between “Duet” and this enigmatic source material, which in turn borrows from the real-life trial of Adolf Eichmann, the original man in a (bullet-proof) glass booth. Broadening the conversation to include Star Trek’s approach to war crimes more generally, we consider whether the Eichmann trial—as well as the Nuremberg trials immediately after the war—offer a valid precedent for Federation and Bajoran justice.

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Clara Cook

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Autistic representation in Star Trek

“Perhaps you’re just different,” Tam Elbrun tells Data in the Next Generation episode “Tin Man.” “Not a sin, you know, though you may have heard otherwise.” Both characters—the emotionally sensitive Betazoid and the supposedly emotionless android—have been seen by fans as allegories of a particular kind of difference, standing in for those on the broad spectrum of neurodiversity.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by autistic Star Trek fan Thad Hait to discuss how Trek has encoded the experiences of neurodiverse people—often accidentally—over the course of its long history. Looking at characters such as Data, Seven of Nine, Reginald Barclay, and Sylvia Tilly, we consider how Starfleet’s approach to difference both mirrors and differs from our own, and ask whether the time is ripe for Trek’s first explicitly neurodiverse character.

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Thad Hait

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Star Trek’s Double Troubles

Don’t they say you die if you meet yourself? Our intrepid Starfleet officers had better hope the answer is no, since encounters with doubles, doppelgängers, and duplicates appear to be just part of the job. From the two Kirks in “The Enemy Within” to Lower Decks’s twinned Boimlers, Star Trek has offered up a host of alt versions of our regular characters over the years.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Clara Cook for a look at Star Trek’s doubles, setting them in the context of their literary and cultural forebears, all the way back to Dostoevsky. We consider Sigmund Freud’s work on The Uncanny, Carl Jung’s idea of the shadow projection, and the sinister interplay between doubles and death. We also ponder why some characters seem to get on with their other selves just fine while the very notion that they aren’t entirely unique in the universe is enough to prompt an existential crisis for others.

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Clara Cook

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Trans representation in Star Trek.

In 2022, trans characters in Star Trek have become part of the fabric of humanity’s shared future in space. In addition to Adira and Gray Tal in Discovery, we’ve been treated to the villainess Captain Angel in Strange New Worlds and even an explicitly non-binary character, the Medusan Zero, in Prodigy. But a few decades ago, Star Trek’s most direct engagement with trans culture was the truly toe-curling Deep Space Nine episode “Profit and Lace.” That said, a number of stories from both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine had touched on trans issues more obliquely—in many cases unintentionally.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, originally released as part of Tony Black’s podcast The Sanctuary, Tony is joined by Orion Armstrong for a look at the TNG episode “The Outcast,”which was intended by writer Jeri Taylor as an allegory about gay conversion therapy but is open to very different readings today as a trans story. They also discuss TNG’s “The Host,” DS9’s “Rejoined,” and more. And, in a new introduction, Duncan and Tony catch up with developments since the podcast was originally released.

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Tony Black

Guest Orion Armstrong

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

The Alien franchise and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

In space, no one can hear you scream. But for unlucky Starfleet landing parties, meeting a nightmarish alien menace can prove as traumatic as deadly. For La'an Noonien-Singh, who carries the burden of having survived captivity in a Gorn breeding colony during childhood, another encounter with the monstrous lizards proves both physically and mentally challenging. And to make sure the audience is equally freaked out by the terrifying encounter, Strange New Worlds leans heavily on the imagery of the Alien franchise—the epitome of sf horror.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Lee Hutchison to look at the latest episode of Star Trek: trange New Worlds, “All Those Who Wander,” alongside the films that inspired it, from the chest-burster scene in the original 1979 movie to Ripley’s final moments in Alien 3. We also take in reference points from the beloved movies we grew up with, including Predator, Jurassic Park, The Thing, and more. What new life forms are birthed when these iconic stories creep in through the Star Trek airlock? Grab a flamethrower and join us on the express elevator to hell as we attempt to find out.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Gorn Yesterday (00:09:50) Strange Newt Worlds (00:23:55) No Sex, Please, We’re Star Trek (00:31:15) That Which Survives (00:50:00) La'an Time No See? (01:04:00)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Lee Hutchison Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

How Star Trek’s leaders reflect our own.

Young, charismatic, and a bit of a ladies’ man, Captain James T. Kirk was cast in the mould of President John F. Kennedy, the beloved US leader who had been killed just three years before Star Trek debuted. But over the course of more than half a century, Star Trek’s captains have often echoed the great politicians of the day; and sometimes they may even have paved the way for political careers in the real world.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, originally released as an installment of The Sanctuary, Tony Black speaks to guest Mac Boyle about the parallels between Star Trek’s leaders and our own. Where do the likes of former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former US President Donald Trump, and current US President Joe Biden find their counterparts in the Star Trek universe? And what kind of characters can we expect in the future to take their cues from Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky? With Star Trek: Discovery’s Federation President Laira Rillak taking an ongoing role, has Trek finally managed to marry the military ethos of Starfleet with the business of intergalactic politics?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Assignment: Earth (00:03:25) The Maquis (00:16:30) Strange New Worlds (00:48:30)

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Tony Black

Guest Mac Boyle

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Star Trek’s backdoor pilots.

The year is 1968. As Star Trek goes off the air for good, a new show—Assignment: Earth—debuts from some of the same creative team. For dedicated Trekkies, the premise is already familiar and the two leads, Gary Seven and Roberta Lincoln, have a head start garnering fans of their own. That, at least, is what might have been had Star Trek not been renewed for a third season. As things turned out, the episode featuring Seven and Lincoln was simply the finale of Star Trek’s second-season, not the series, and “Assignment: Earth” was never picked up as a show in its own right.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black for a look at Star Trek’s most famous backdoor pilot, an episode that lays out the premise for a potential future show, using the budget and production infrastructure of an existing one. “Assignment: Earth” might be Star Trek’s most blatant use of this sneaky approach, but more recent examples include “Point of Light,” “Terra Firma,” and “All Is Possible.” These three installments of Star Trek: Discovery seem to hint pretty strongly at shows that might be coming down the pipe. And then there’s Discovery’s entire second season, which set up not only Strange New Worlds—and introduced new actors in the roles of Captain Pike, Spock, and the original Number One—but the long-awaited Section 31 show as well. What are the benefits—and pitfalls—of taking the backdoor route to a new project? And do such stories inevitably struggle to function as episodes of two different shows simultaneously?

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Tony Black

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

… it wasn’t the Vulcans who made first contact?

April 5, 2063. In Star Trek’s imagined history, it was on this date that humanity made first contact with an alien race. The event led to societal transformation on a global scale and ushered in a bright future. But what if it wasn’t the Vulcans who happened to be passing by that day? What if first contact had been made with the Klingons or Romulans instead?

In this episode of Primitive Culture, originally recorded for The Sanctuary, but never released, Tony Black is joined by Mike Slamer to imagine how things could have played out differently.

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Tony Black

Guest Mike Slamer

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Captain Picard and Indiana Jones.

Wise, measured, and distinctly unromantic, Captain Jean-Luc Picard was conceived from the start as very different from his predecessor, James T. Kirk. But for Patrick Stewart, the lack of physical drama felt creatively unsatisfying. In October 1988, he wrote a letter to Gene Roddenberry outlining his desire for Picard to get some “action”—in more ways than one.

It would be over a year before Stewart’s request was granted, in the third-season episode “Captain’s Holiday.” As writer Ira Steven Behr recalled, the instructions he was given were, “Just get the Captain laid.” This he accomplished, somewhat incongruously, by marrying the normally cool captain with a contemporary action-adventure hero: Indiana Jones. The curious melding stuck, and in episodes such as “The Chase,” “Gambit,” and “QPid,” Picard’s passion for archaeology—along with his swashbuckling heroism—added an extra arrow to the good captain’s quiver.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recorded last year when the fifth Indiana Jones movie was filming in Glasgow, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Indy super fan Carlos Miranda to compare and contrast these adventuring archaeologists, both returning for their latest escapades well into their golden years. Is the staid life of a university professor—or a Federation diplomat—really compatible with the thrills and spills of derring-do? And what might these two men’s fascination with the lives of their ancient forebears reveal about their relationships with the fathers who went before them?

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Carlos Miranda

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Lisa Klink on Writing for Deep Space Nine and Voyager.

Starting with a short-term position as a writing intern on Deep Space Nine, Lisa Klink rose rapidly through the Star Trek ranks, penning more than a dozen episodes over the course of just three years. In episodes such as “Resistance” and “Sacred Ground,” she proved her skill at handling character-based drama, while “Blood Fever,” “Message in a Bottle” and “The Omega Directive” cemented her credentials as one of the series’ finest storytellers.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett talks to Klink about working in the Star Trek sandbox, from penning DS9’s “Hippocratic Oath” before jumping ship to Voyager, to contributing short stories 25 years later to the new Star Trek Explorer magazine.

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Lisa Klink

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

How Star Trek tackled the Vietnam War.

Every Star Trek series has engaged with the issues of the time, and perhaps none more so than *The Original Series*. Episodes touching on the hippy counterculture and NASA's bold Apollo program grounded the show as much in the 1960s as the 2260s. But perhaps no contemporary subject loomed over TOS more so than the Vietnam War. Sometimes quite bluntly and at other times more obliquely, over the course of three seasons the show charted a constantly developing view of the conflict, embodying a range of perspectives as diverse as its collective writing staff.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, originally released as part of Tony Black’s podcast The Sanctuary, he is joined by critic Darren Mooney to look at how Vietnam played out across TOS and beyond. Tackling key episodes such as “A Private Little War” and “The Omega Glory,” as well as less obvious reference points including “The City on the Edge of Forever,” they consider the role the conflict played not just in Star Trek but American thought more generally, and in particular how Gene Rodenberry’s own views developed during the run of the series.

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Tony Black

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Jack Bauer and Jonathan Archer.

Premiering just after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Enterprise took another two seasons to fully engage with the radically changed real world in its storytelling. When the show did reveal its own 9/11 story in the third season, it followed in the wake of another intensely serialized, monster-hit TV show: 24. Jack Bauer might seem an unlikely model for a Starfleet captain, but throughout the course of the Xindi arch Jonathan Archer found himself repeating many of Bauer’s signature moves—including torture and cold-blooded killing

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by 24 aficionado Lee Hutchison to compare and contrast the two shows’ approaches to dramatizing the momentous events of the time. We discuss how Manny Coto and Brannon Braga went on to breathe new life into 24 once Star Trek: Enterprise was canceled, whether the problematic aspects of both series are, to some extent, explained by the hawkish mood of the time, and whether Archer and Bauer are actually more similar than they first appear.

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Lee Hutchison

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer)

Naren Shankar on a life in science fiction.

While Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga took the Star Trek: Next Generation cast to the big screen—not to mention reinventing classic space shows Battlestar Galactica and Cosmos—it was another young writer from the TNG stable, Naren Shankar, who would contribute to the most science-fiction TV in his post-Trek career. Over three decades as a screenwriter and showrunner, Shankar has worked on genre classics such as SeaQuest, Farscape, The Outer Limits, and, most recently, the phenomenally successful adaptation of James S.A. Corey’s Expanse novels, currently in its final season on Amazon Prime.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett speaks to Shankar about a life in science-fiction TV—from his early days as a writer-scientist in the Star Trek: Next Generation writers’ room to his current role at the head of one of the most lauded sf shows to hit the small screen in decades. We discuss where the science ends and the fiction begins—from the rather cavalier “teching the tech” of nineties’ Star Trek to the precise physics demanded by The Expanse—and ponder why the current historical moment seems to be heralding something of an sf renaissance. Host Duncan Barrett Guest Naren Shankar

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer)

Live from Destination Star Trek London 2021. After the cancellation of last year’s Destination Star Trek (DST) in London, anticipation for 2021 event, billed as Europe’s largest Trek convention, was greater than ever. A slew of last-minute guest dropouts—combined with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic—didn’t stop thousands of Trekkies from descending on ExCel London exhibition and convention center for the three-day celebration.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett speaks to more than 20 convention attendees—a mixture of guests and fans—to learn their impressions of the con. It may not have turned out to be the grand celebration originally billed, but, for most, it remained a great opportunity to interact with their extended Star Trek family after almost two years of isolation. From Captain Janeway’s coffee mornings to Dungeons and Dragons with the crew of Star Trek: Discovery, DST 2021 seemed to have something for everyone—even Boris Johnson, the improbable Trek fan who is prime minister of Great Britain!

Host Duncan Barrett

Guests Carlos Miranda, Nick Jones, Rashid Uzzaman, John and Olivia (I Quit Star Trek), Faux BoJo, Drew and Tracy Barker, Sam Darragh, Kate Mulgrew, John Billingsley, Noah Averbach-Katz, Hannah Cheeseman, Elizabeth Dennehy, Wilson Cruz, Andrew Robinson, Martha Hackett, Garrett Wang, and Tony Lee Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

James Bond and Julian Bashir. Not many film franchises can boast 25 installments over the course of more than half a century, so for sheer longevity the James Bond cinematic franchise certainly gives Star Trek a run for its money. In some ways, the old-fashioned brutal masculine ethos of Bond feels very much out of place in the utopian Trek future, and yet both are properties forged in the cultural crucible of the 1960s that have been forced to reinvent themselves with every passing generation.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Carlos Miranda for a trip to the Double-Oh Heaven of Julian Bashir’s favorite spy holoprogram. We consider the lasting influence of “Our Man Bashir”—not just on the good doctor’s story arc but on the shape of Deep Space Nine as a whole— and try to answer the thorny question of what our fantasy lives have to say about our innermost character. We also ponder whether Commander Bond of M16 would feel more at home in Starfleet or the Obsidian Order. Host Duncan Barrett Guest Carlos Miranda Production Duncan Barrett (Editor, Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Tony Black’s new book: *Star Trek, History and Us*     From 1960s hippies in “The Way to Eden” to the War on Terror in Enterprise Season 3, Star Trek has always reflected the cultural moment from which it springs. In his new book, Star Trek, History and Us, Tony Black brings the Primitive Culture approach to print, taking a long view of the past half-century through the prism of Star Trek's 800 episodes and films.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony to discuss the book’s journey from idea to publication. We look at how—from the 1960s up to the 2020s—Star Trek has continually shifted with the times, reflecting and interrogating the various eras of its production. From the religious right in the 1970s to Monica Lewinsky in the 1990s, Tony draws on some surprising sources of inspiration in a book that is always illuminating and sure to appeal to Primitive Culture listeners old and new.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Genesis (00:01:20) The Lost Era (00:11:05) Faith in the Future (00:21:05) #WeAreWokeTrek (00:32:25) Above the Law? (00:43:15) Don’t Walk, Run! (00:49:00)   Host Duncan Barrett   Guest Tony Black   Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer)

Robert Duncan McNeill on Star Trek's Directors' School.

To Star Trek fans, he is Tom Paris, the cocksure pilot of the USS Voyager. But in Hollywood, Robert Duncan McNeill is better known as a different kind of helmsman. From his first day of filming on the Voyager pilot "Caretaker," McNeill declared his intention to take a shot at the director's chair, following in the footsteps of fellow Trek such as stars Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, and Leonard Nimoy. Two years later, when Frakes was forced to pull out of shooting the third-season episode "Sacred Ground," McNeill got his chance. It was to be the first of eight Star Trek episodes he directed, four on Voyager and four on Enterprise, and would lead to an illustrious career working on everything from Dawson's Creek to The Orville.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by McNeill to look back on his time at the Star Trek Directors' School, and to consider how those early experiences helped shape his career. We discuss the limited scope for auteurist flamboyance when playing within Trek's strict sandbox, the varied approaches that hired guns brought to the Voyager set week by week, and how the deftly handled comedy of "Someone to Watch Over Me" helped prepare him for his most recent work on Resident Alien and Turner & Hooch.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Eyeing Up the Chair (00:02:27) In Berman's Box (00:12:15) Voyager (00:27:25) Enterprise (00:45:50) Tom Paris Returns? (00:58:49)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Robert Duncan McNeill

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Twenty Thousand Leagues across the Delta Quadrant. 

Throughout Star Trek: Voyager’s seven seasons, Tom Paris repeatedly proved his credentials as a mid-20th-century history buff, with his replicated TV set, black-and-white B-movie holonovels, and even his own 3D cinema. But in the fifth-season episode “Thirty Days,” he reveals a boyhood fascination with a much earlier period of history and literature: the age of great nautical exploration. In particular, young Tom was obsessed with Jules Verne’s 1870 novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, a pioneering work of science fiction that—in its vivid depiction of the wonders of the ocean—anticipated much of Star Trek’s fascination with another vast unknown: space.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Lee Hutchison to discuss Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (and the popular 1954 Disney adaptation) in relation to “Thirty Days” and the fourth-season Voyager episode “Year of Hell,” which borrows much of its plot from Verne’s novel, transposing the action from Captain Nemo’s submarine Nautilus to Annorax’s temporal weapon ship. Join us for a deep-dive into the murky depths of this remarkable book, in which madness, monsters, and mutiny are never that far from the surface.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Diving the Starry Sea (00:05:00)   “Year of Hell” (00:20:55)   Temporal Psychosis (00:51:00)   Mutiny (01:07:00)   Final Thoughts (01:13:45)  

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Lee Hutchison

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

How Nicholas Meyer’s other time-travel caper inspired The Voyage Home

When Nicholas Meyer was called in to write a new script for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, just weeks before pre-production was due to begin, he must have been struck with a bad case of déjà vu. Leonard Nimoy explained that the story outline he would be working from involved the crew of the Enterprise traveling back to present-day San Francisco for a nice fish-out-of-water comedy. Just a few years earlier, Meyer had made his own directorial debut with Time After Time, a film he had written based on a friend's unfinished novel. In this story, 19th-century novelist H.G. Wells travels back to present-day San Francisco with equally amusing results.

Time After Time had married nice comedy with a distinctly nasty streak, since Wells's burgeoning romance with an emancipated 20th-century woman was threatened by another time-traveler, Jack the Ripper. But tonal differences aside, the films would prove to have a lot in common, and Meyer's script for Star Trek IV (he wrote the "historical" sections, while Harve Bennett provided the 23rd-century wraparound) recycled—and in some cases upcycled—specific moments, and even specific jokes, from his earlier movie.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black for a side-by-side look at these two films. Did Meyer's "second draft" of the time-travel romp succeed in eliminating the flaws of his debut? What does it mean for Spock and Kirk to be mapped onto the roles of Wells and the Ripper respectively? And does our enjoyment of the one film affect how we experience the other?

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Tony Black

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

The Scopes Monkey Trial, Inherit the Wind, and DS9’s “In the Hands of the Prophets.”

The trial of US high school teacher John Scopes in 1925 was perhaps the definitive 20th-century showdown between religion and science. Indicted for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution in defiance of creationist state law, Scopes turned the small town of Dayton, Tennessee, into the center of a political carnival. Household names headed up the legal teams on both sides, vast crowds packed into the courthouse, and performing chimps were stationed outside among the lemonade stands to provide entertainment for those who couldn't get a ringside seat.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Clara Cook to look at how the Scopes Trial—and it’s most well-known cinematic recreation in the lightly fictionalized 1960 film Inherit the Wind—featured as a major inspiration for Deep Space Nine’s Season-One finale, “In the Hands of the Prophets.” Penned by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, this classic episode eschewed the temptation of a shocking cliffhanger ending in favor of a complex political and philosophical drama which staked a claim to the kind of show DS9 would go on to be.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Inherit the Wind (00:04:25)   Fire and Brimstone (00:29:05)   Galileo, Galileo (01:06:40)   Religious Education (01:28:30)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Clara Cook

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Suspiria and “Cold Fire”

Despite being teased in the series premiere, it took Star Trek: Voyager well over a year to actually introduce its female caretaker, a being with the power to send the ship home on a whim. And when the entity did appear, in the second-season episode “Cold Fire,” she turned out to have a surprising and distinctly sinister name: Suspiria. An apparent reference to Dario Aregnto’s 1977 film of the same name, in which a young ballet student stumbles into a coven of witches, it was a clear sign that the female caretaker would prove less benign than her male counterpart.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Lee Hutchison for a look at some of the links between Argento’s remarkable movie and this unusually creepy Voyager installment. We discuss episode writer Brannon Braga’s well-documented love of horror, the repurposing of Kes as the archetypal Scream Queen, and whether the horror genre’s conflicted feminism is a good or bad fit for the gender politics of Trek’s first female-led show.

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Lee Hutchison

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Episode titles since 2009. Concluding our look at Star Trek’s 800-plus episode titles to date, in this episode of Primitive Culture host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black to consider naming strategies for the Kelvin films, Short Treks, Discovery, Picard, and Lower Decks. What exactly lies “beyond” the final frontier? Can magic really make the sanest man go mad? And how moist can a vessel get before it becomes little more than broken pieces?

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

The original reset button. It’s one of the oldest of literary tropes: a sudden, last-minute reveal that an apparent fictional reality is actually doubly invented. From Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland on, writers have thrilled in pulling the rug out from under readers and characters alike, allowing carefully constructed scenarios to collapse like a house of cards as their protagonists awake from an alarmingly realistic fantasy. The medical drama St. Elsewhere went as far as to imply that its hundred-plus episodes were no more than a young boy’s daydreams, while Dallas famously reset an entire season of continuity when Pamela Ewing awoke to find her supposedly long-dead husband taking a shower.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Lee Hutchison to look at Star Trek’s responses to the dreamland trope, in episodes such as The Next Generation’s “Future Imperfect,” Deep Space Nine’s “The Search, Part II,” and Enterprise’s “Vanishing Point.” Why do some wake-up turnarounds leave the viewer feeling cheated, while others play as a brilliant coup de théâtre on the part of the writers? Is the ambiguity baked into episodes such as Voyager’s “Barge of the Dead” and DS9’s “Far Beyond the Stars” a cop-out or a smart creative move? And can we ever truly be sure that we’re awake and not still dreaming?

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Lee Hutchison Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer)

Episode titles in Voyager and Enterprise. Does hubris always lead to nemesis? What can you see in a mirror, darkly? And how do you know when you’ve finally reached the endgame? In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black to continue our look at Star Trek episode titles as we wrap up Voyager, Enterprise, and the Next Generation films.

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Tony Black

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer)

Milestone Episodes of Star Trek.

For most TV shows, making it to the one-hundredth episode is a significant achievement. In the Star Trek franchise, only the three 1990s spinoffs—The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager were able to reach this milestone. But collectively, more than half a century since Gene Roddenberry’s original show debuted in 1966, the nine series that now comprise Star Trek are about to deliver their 800th installment.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black and Clara Cook to celebrate their own milestone as the show reaches its 100th episode. Join us for a trip down memory lane as we discuss some of Star Trek’s landmark installments and find out how your own knowledge of the podcast stacks up against Duncan’s two former co-hosts as we play the inaugural Primitive Culture Quiz!

Host Duncan Barrett Guests Tony Black and Clara Cook

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer)

A Marxist analysis of “Bar Association,” with Will Nguyen.

From lowly dogsbody to Grand Nagus of the Ferengi Alliance, Quark’s brother Rom went on quite a journey during Deep Space Nine’s seven seasons. Perhaps the most pivotal moment for the character came in the episode “Bar Association,” in which Rom outrages Ferengi custom by setting up a union for the bar staff.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Will Nguyen, better known online as The Trekkie Communist, to take a look at this key episode from a Marxist perspective. How does the utopian Starfleet coexist with Ferengi capitalism? Is the Federation really as classless as it seems? And what changes might it take in the real world for us to approach a Star Trek future?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) A Union Man (00:03:55) Starfleet Soviets (00:18:40) The Rommunist Manifesto (00:37:50) Blood Feudalism (00:50:45) Getting from Here to There (01:08:20)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Will Nguyen Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer)

Episode titles up to “What You Leave Behind” When is a scorpion not just a scorpion? What wrongs are darker than death or night? And what happens when you cross a dark frontier to dance with the devil in the pale moonlight? In this episode of Primitive Culture, we continue our trek through Star Trek’s episode titles as host Duncan Barrett is joined by Lee Hutchison for a look at the final seasons of Deep Space Nine and the middle years of Voyager.

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Lee Hutchison Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer)

Dan Davidson on how “Captive Pursuit” saved his life.

For many fans, Star Trek has been a force for good in their lives—but few can say with certainty that they wouldn’t be here now if it weren’t for their favorite show.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, a supplement to the previous episode’s look at suicide in Star Trek, host Duncan Barrett shares an interview he conducted last year with Dan Davidson. Twenty years ago, Dan was on the point of ending his own life when the Deep Space Nine episode “Captive Pursuit” caused him to change his mind. He now shares his inspiring story of coming back from rock bottom in the hopes of helping other fans who find themselves in a similarly desperate situation.

Need support? In the UK, the Samaritans are on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reach at 1-800-273-8255.

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Dan Davidson Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer)

For Starfleet officers, saving lives is perhaps the most important part of the job, even more so than exploring the galaxy and making contact with new civilizations. So when a character such as Quinn, the Q in the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Death Wish,” chooses to end their own life, it invariably comes as a shock—just as, in our own lives, the death of a loved one by suicide can be a particularly disturbing loss.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Clara Cook for a look at Star Trek’s depictions of suicide and parasuicidal behavior. We consider how the presentation of such desperate acts—and the impact on those left behind—has shifted in the half-century between The Original Series and Star Trek: Picard. We also dig into the tricky business of the “psychological autopsy,” trying to establish exactly why a person would choose to bring their own life to and end. Can 13—or 47—reasons why ever truly help us make sense of suicide? And what can those of us left behind learn about ourselves from those who’ve made such an irrevocable decision?

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Clara Cook Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer)

Episode titles from “The Search” to *Star Trek: First Contact*. As we continue our voyage through Star Trek’s episode titles, host Duncan Barrett is joined in this episode of Primitive Culture by Lee Hutchison for a look at some more episode titles from Deep Space Nine and Voyager. What exactly is the way of a warrior? How hard is it to fit through the eye of a needle? And where’s the right place to go looking for par’Mach, after all?

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Lee Hutchison Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer)

McCarthy, The Crucible, and “The Drumhead”

In 1953, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible used the Salem witch trials of 1692–93 as an allegory for the contemporary persecution of alleged communists by US Senator Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee. Four decades later, the Star Trek: Next Generation episode “The Drumhead” drew on both the legacy of McCarthyism—as the senator’s search for communists in the US government came to be dubbed—and Miller’s play to craft a cautionary tale of an investigation into alleged Romulan spies on the Federation flagship.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Amy Nelson for a look at this classic TNG episode along with its historical and literary influences. Is retired Admiral Norah Satie more witchfinder or witch? Is it ever acceptable to trade freedom for security? And what is the price that must be paid to maintain a utopian society?

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Any Nelson Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer)

Episode titles from “Emissary” to “All Good Things … “

As we continue our voyage through Star Trek’s episode titles, host Duncan Barrett is joined in this episode of Primitive Culture by Lee Hutchison for a look at the tail end of The Next Generation and the early years of Deep Space Nine. What happens when wishes become horses? To whose own self must we be true? And do all good things really have to come to an end?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Undiscovered Countries (00:08:10) Emissary (00:17:30) Tapestry (00:49:35) Descent (01:15:10) Lower Decks (01:33:04) All Good Things … (01:54:45)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Lee Hutchison

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer)

Frankenstein and the Star Trek universe.

Originally published in 1818, Mary Shelley’s groundbreaking gothic novel Frankenstein has been a major influence on many works of dystopian science fiction—so much so that many critics argue she invented the genre. Star Trek itself has borrowed from the literary masterpiece—as well as it’s most famous film adaptation—on numerous occasions, from Guinan joking that the eponymous scientist was an old friend in “Evolution” to the crew of the NX-01 bickering over the 1931 movie in “Horizon.”

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Brandi Jackola for a look at the pervasive influence of Shelley’s novel on the Star Trek universe, from The Original Series through to Picard. We discuss Trek’s various mad scientists—among them the three Soongs, played by Brent Spiner, all of whom owe a major debt to Shelley’s protagonist—as well as look at how the author’s deep empathy for the hideous, ungodly “creature” at the heart of her novel chimes perfectly with Trek’s own approach to humanizing the most alien of antagonists.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) From Prometheus to Picard (00:06:45) “Prototype,” “Drone,” and “Life Support” (00:19:29) Cheating Death (00:43:00) Mad Soongs (00:56:37) Slippery Slopes (01:08:28)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Brandi Jackola

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer)

Episode titles in The Animated Series and The Next Generation.

As we continue our look at Star Trek episode titles, host Duncan Barrett is joined in this episode of Primitive Culture by Tony Black for a look at the naming strategies of The Animated Series and The Next Generation. Did Michael Piller really put an end to the era of the poetic, evocative title, or did TNG simply find other ways to play with the weekly nomenclature? What is sharper than a serpent’s tooth? Just who does watch the watchers? And which man was being measured when Data found himself on trial?

Guest Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Talking Horror with Brannon Braga.

In space, no one can hear you scream. And while the well-lit corridors of a Federation starship may seem worlds away from the grimy darkness of the Nostromo, even Starfleet’s best and brightest are sometimes caught in the grip of a full on horrorfest. Perhaps no one in Star Trek’s history has penned more chilling and gruesome tales than Brannon Braga, whose hundred-odd franchise installments run the gamut from spine-tinglers such as “Schisms” and “Frame of Mind” to the full-on body horror of “Genesis” and “Phage.”

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Braga for a look at some of his creepiest episodes of Star Trek. Along the way we discuss the thrill of turning the Enterprise into a haunted house, how Star Trek: First Contact narrowly escaped an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, and whether or not Star Trek, in the post-network-TV age, should be looking to embrace even more nightmarish imagery.

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Brannon Braga

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Episode Titles in The Original Series.

“What’s in a name?” Juliet demands of Romeo. “That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet.” In 1968, the Star Trek episode “By Any Other Name” took more than just its title from Shakespeare—it used Juliet’s words as a jumping-off point to consider what makes us human. But it was also characteristic of the Original Series scriptwriters to lean on such rich literary source material when it came time to name this particular episode. In fact, throughout Trek’s 50-plus-year history, the names given to individual episodes have often revealed a lot about their content—sometimes providing additional context to what is depicted on screen.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, the first in a series looking at episode titles throughout Star Trek, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black to consider some of the more interesting among Trek’s original 80 installments as we ponder the difference between a cage and a menagerie, work out exactly who does mourn for Adonais, and try to remember just what little girls are supposed to be made of.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Season One (00:21:40) Season Two (01:00:25) Season Three (01:30:25) Host Duncan Barrett Guest Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Trekonomics, with Manu Saadia.

“The economics of the future are somewhat different,” Captain Jean-Luc Picard tells Lily Sloane in Star Trek: First Contact. “You see, money doesn’t exist in the 24th century.” But the “primitive” 21st-century human is instinctively appalled: “No money? You mean you don’t get paid?” To some viewers, the post-scarcity economic system that underpins the Star Trek universe—what author Manu Saadia calls “Trekonomics”—can seem equally baffling. But is the utopian future of the Federation really as improbable as the creation of warp drive or the transporter? Or is Star Trek, as a cultural product of American capitalism, produced by relatively well-paid entertainment professionals, just fundamentally ambivalent when it comes to some of its most sacred ideals?

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Saadia for a look at both the imaginary economics of Star Trek and the real-world economics of getting the show on the air—and turning a profit from it. We also discuss the link between economic conditions and “evolved” human behavior, the thorny question of human nature, and the extent to which—in attempting to predict the future—all economic theories are really little more than science fiction.

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Manu Saadia Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer), C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

DS9’s “Meridian” and the 1954 Hollywood musical that inspired it.

Perhaps more so than any other Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine leaned heavily for inspiration on the world of 20th-century film. But not every futuristic retooling of a classic movie could reach the heights of “Badda-Bing Badda-Bang,” which we discussed in our previous episode. Perhaps the least-successful of DS9’s cinematic adaptations was the third-season episode “Meridian,” which took its central conceit from the 1954 MGM musical Brigadoon, about a magical Scottish village that appears only once a century.

So what exactly was lost in translation between the Scottish Highlands and the Gamma Quadrant, and how could the DS9 writers have approached this particular challenge differently? Or was the whole enterprise simply a fool’s errand—Brigadoomed from the start?

In this episode of Primitive Culture, Duncan Barrett and Tony Black answer these questions and more. Join us as we strap on our kilts, ready our cabers, and pay a rare visit to this little-loved Star Trek episode and the ersatz Scottish movie that inspired it.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Brigadoon (00:02:50) To B-Plot or Not to B-Plot (00:22:43) Space Soap Opera (00:39:55) Brigadoomed? (00:55:25)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Ocean’s 11 (1960) and “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang.”

Long before George Clooney assembled his star-studded gang of high-rolling thieves, the original Danny Ocean—Frank Sinatra—successfully knocked off five casinos in a single night in the original 1960 Ocean’s 11. With help from Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., and the rest of the Rat Pack, Sinatra brought his own brand of cool to the caper genre in a film that, arguably, proved more iconic than creatively successful. Three decades later, when the producers of Deep Space Nine began plotting their own casino heist in “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang,” it was to Sinatra’s job that they turned for inspiration, even renting particular period-specific costumes because they matched those featured in the movie.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Justin Oser to look at the links between Ocean’s 11 and “Badda-Bing, Badda-Bang,” two stories in which a crack team of decorated war veterans must pull off the most audacious mission of their careers. We consider what the DS9 writers added to the mix (not least a bit of nifty shapeshifting), as well as ponder how high the stakes can be in a film about rich people getting richer—not to mention a robbery committed by those who barely understand the concept of money.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Hanging with the Rat Pack (00:03:55) The Lie (00:15:25) The Eyes Have It (00:40:35) Monopoly Money (00:54:25)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Justin Oser

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Cold War Détente and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. When Nicholas Meyer returned to the Star Trek cinematic universe with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, he produced one of the franchise’s most flagrant—and successful—examples of “ripped from the headlines” storytelling, reimagining the collapse of the USSR in space. Gorbachev became Gorkon and Chernobyl became Praxis. And, in the story’s imagined cabal, who will stop at nothing to preserve the Cold War status quo, the film tapped into an anxiety that lingered around this pivotal moment. After the “end of history,” as Francis Fukuyama memorably described it, what kind of future might lie around the corner? Would the old cold warriors still find a place for themselves in this new, as-yet-undiscovered era?

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black for a look at Fukuyama’s seminal 1989 essay “The End of History” and its influence on The Undiscovered Country. We consider some of the inherent risks—as well as the pleasures—in borrowing from current events and also ponder a tricky question: If only Nixon could go to China, does that make Kirk, who once seemed like an echo of JFK resurrected on the bridge of a starship, the heroic president’s most cynical and untrustworthy successor?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Discovered Countries (00:08:55) Make Peace or Die (00:15:36) Dinosaurs (00:40:55) Klingon Lives? (00:55:25)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Voyager’s “Critical Care” and the current global pandemic. A healthcare system struggling with inadequate resources. Patients dying, untreated, as politicians and administrators grapple with a humanitarian crisis. In some ways, the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Critical Care” seems eerily prescient. Originally intended as classic Trek-style social commentary on the health maintenance organizations that exercise a vise-like grip on the US healthcare system, this dystopian parable has been interpreted as a swipe at numerous other medical models around the globe, including the “socialized” healthcare provided in the UK and continental Europe.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recorded during the height of the coronavirus lockdown, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Clara Cook to look at some of the parallels between this 20-year-old Voyager episode and the current global pandemic. We focus in particular on its critique of the US healthcare model and consider how our own health service in the UK—the NHS—is coping during the most challenging time in its history.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The NHS (00:07:09) Getting Critical (00:09:15) Sicko (00:34:45) Intensive Care (01:03:03) Classic Trek-Style Social Commentary (01:29:00) Final Thoughts (01:35:44)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Clara Cook

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Picard Season 1, Part II.

Ancient utopias? Lovecraftian monsters? A quixotic quest, where the windmills may be giants after all? The second half of Picard’s first season continues to draw on a rich well of inspiration. In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is once again joined by Tony Black to continue their discussion of the historical and cultural influences on Star Trek: Picard, this time focusing on the back half of the season. From impossible boxes to Arcadian golems, join us as we continue our trek through the show’s freshman season.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Invisible Doors and Impossible Boxes (00:05:15) Like Tears in Rain (00:15:40) Forget Me Not (00:52:05) The Tragic Sense of Life (01:05:05) Arcadia (01:20:25)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Tony Black

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Picard Season 1, Part I.

With a Pulitzer Prize-winning author at the helm, it’s perhaps no surprise that the first season of Star Trek: Picard should be one of the richest in Star Trek history, at least in terms of literary, cultural, and historical allusions. From Miguel de Cervantes’s classic novel Don Quixote to the Dunkirk evacuation of World War II, the show delights in its real-world reference points. Often, it wears its influences proudly—very much in keeping with showrunner Michael Chabon’s stated belief that all fiction is fan fiction.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, the first of a two-part discussion, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black for a look at some of the key influences on the first half of Star Trek: Picard’s freshman season. Next time, we’ll be back to do the same for the back half—golems and all.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Mars Attacks (00:06:04) Romulan Lives Matter (00:18:55) A Bridge Too Far? (00:33:13) Earthed and Grounded (00:44:55) Family Business (00:52:17) Candid Observations (01:12:25) What’s in a Rag? (01:33:15)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Tony Black

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Nicholas Meyer interview: On writing Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes.

To Star Trek fans, Nicholas Meyer is one of the most highly regarded writers to have played in Gene Roddenberry’s sandbox. As someone with only a passing familiarity with the original 1960s TV series, his outsider’s perspective was invaluable when it came to working on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan—a film that reinvigorated the franchise after the disappointing performance of The Motion Picture.

But Meyer is equally adept at working in another long-standing fictional universe: that of Sherlock Holmes. In 1974, his Holmes pastiche The Seven Per-Cent Solution, in which the great detective teams up with Sigmund Freud in Vienna, became a massive bestseller that spawned a successful movie adaptation. Over the decades, three more Holmes novels followed, most recently The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols (2019), in which Holmes and Watson investigate a notorious true story of “fake news”: the publication of the deeply anti-Semitic forgery known as The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, a companion piece to our previous episode on Star Trek’s debt to Sherlock Holmes, host Duncan Barrett speaks with Nicholas Meyer about his work in both fictional universes. They discuss creative inspiration, recycling material, and the vexed questions of canon and continuity that can arise when working with popular long-established characters. Join as us we touch on everything from The Wrath of Khan to the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. The game’s afoot!

Chapters

Intro (00:00:00) Meeting the Great Detective (00:02:05) The Original Trekkies: The Sherlockians (00:15:24) Playing in Someone Else’s Sandbox (00:28:30) Star Trek: Discovery (00:33:10)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Nicholas Meyer

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor, Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Nicholas Meyer interview: On writing Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes.

To Star Trek fans, Nicholas Meyer is one of the most highly regarded writers to have played in Gene Roddenberry’s sandbox. As someone with only a passing familiarity with the original 1960s TV series, his outsider’s perspective was invaluable when it came to working on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan—a film that reinvigorated the franchise after the disappointing performance of The Motion Picture.

But Meyer is equally adept at working in another long-standing fictional universe: that of Sherlock Holmes. In 1974, his Holmes pastiche The Seven Per-Cent Solution, in which the great detective teams up with Sigmund Freud in Vienna, became a massive bestseller that spawned a successful movie adaptation. Over the decades, three more Holmes novels followed, most recently The Adventure of the Peculiar Protocols (2019), in which Holmes and Watson investigate a notorious true story of “fake news”: the publication of the deeply anti-Semitic forgery known as The Protocols of the Meetings of the Learned Elders of Zion.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, a companion piece to our previous episode on Star Trek’s debt to Sherlock Holmes, host Duncan Barrett speaks with Nicholas Meyer about his work in both fictional universes. They discuss creative inspiration, recycling material, and the vexed questions of canon and continuity that can arise when working with popular long-established characters. Join as us we touch on everything from The Wrath of Khan to the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. The game’s afoot!

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Meeting the Great Detective (00:02:05) The Original Trekkies: The Sherlockians (00:15:24) Playing in Someone Else’s Sandbox (00:28:30) Star Trek: Discovery (00:33:10)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Nicholas Meyer

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor, Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Star Trek and Sherlock Holmes.

“When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sherlock Holmes’s famous maxim is one that any self-respecting Starfleet science officer could live by. So it should come as no surprise that Star Trek’s two most-celebrated rational minds—Spock and Data—should both draw comparisons with the great detective. When Spock, in The Undiscovered Country, suggested that Holmes was an ancestor on his human side, the joke was two-fold: first, because it cheekily suggested that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary creation was, in fact, a flesh-and-blood human being; and, second, because Leonard Nimoy had famously played Holmes on stage. Brent Spiner, meanwhile, got to give his own take on the character—a parodic performance modeled on the great 20th-century Holmes, Basil Rathbone—in three episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation: “Lonely Among Us,” “Elementary, Dear Data,” and “Ship in a Bottle.”

In this episode of Primitive Culture, Duncan Barrett is joined by former co-host (and avowed Sherlockian) Clara Cook to investigate the curious links between these two sprawling fictional universes. In particular, we focus on the role of “canon” and its relationship to the freer realm of ancillary literary materials. Although many people credit the original Star Trek fans with inventing the idea of fan fiction, Sherlockians were, in fact, way ahead of them. The followers of the great detective participate in a kind of collective fantasy known as “The Game,” in which they presume Doyle’s writings to be statements of absolute truth and try to fit them into their own narratives, and their own investigations, into the cracks between them. It’s no coincidence that one of the most celebrated Sherlockians, Nicholas Meyer—whose bestselling novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution saw Holmes and Watson team up with Sigmund Freud—was the writer who cheekily suggested that Spock was descended from Holmes himself. Join us as we slip on our smoking jackets, light up our pipes, and embark on The Adventure of the Intertwined Franchises.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The Rules (00:05:10) Cold Reason(00:23:55) The Napoleon of Crime (00:41:40) Enduring Archetypes (01:10:35) Unseen Adventures (01:34:15) Final Thoughts (01:42:25)

Hosts Duncan Barrett

Guest Clara Cook

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

The Legacy of The Original Series.

Of all Star Trek’s live-action iterations, it was The Original Series that was cut short the soonest, managing just three seasons and 79 episodes before succumbing to the axe of cancelation. But as Star Trek was reborn time and again over the ensuing 50 years, those 79 episodes have remained a touchstone for the almost 700 that have followed. But throughout the 1990s, as Star Trek attempted to chart a new course, the relationship between old and new was a fraught one.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, our own 79th outing, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black for a look at how Star Trek has influenced itself—specifically the impact that the legacy of The Original Series has had on the various series and movies. Looking at Deep Space Nine’s “Trials and Tribble-ations” and Voyager’s “Flashback”—the celebratory episodes that marked the 30th anniversary of the franchise—as well as the move towards TOS nostalgia in Enterprise, the Kelvin Timeline films, and Star Trek: Discovery, we consider some of the ways in which those original 79 stories have remained at the heart of this trek to the stars.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The Next Generation (00:06:20) Deep Space Nine (00:45:00) Voyager (00:54:55) Enterprise (01:04:30) Discovery and the Kelvin Timeline (01:13:15) Treks to Come (01:34:35)

Host Duncan Barret Guest Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

The Eugenics Wars, with Greg Cox. For a high-tech futuristic utopia, the United Federation of Planets can seem surprisingly cautious when it comes to new technologies. Time and again, Star Trek has played out the science fiction staple of technology run amok. In some cases, the response we have seen has been a kind of retrenchment, a refusal to make use of certain technologies because of their perceived moral cost. The complex web of problems surrounding the banning of synthetic lifeforms in Star Trek: Picard calls to mind the extremely strict rules on genetic modification seen in episodes of The Next Generation and Voyager, all of which stem from the Eugenics Wars—a particularly dark period of Earth’s history in Star Trek’s timeline.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by prolific Star Trek novelist Greg Cox, author of a trilogy of tie-in novels filling in the history of Khan and the Eugenics Wars, for a look at how Star Trek has approached the subject of genetic engineering and the ethical problems it raises. We discuss the retconning of the Nazi-inflected eugenics described in the Original Series episode “Space Seed” and how that carried through to genetic manipulation and the creation of augmented humans in The Wrath of Khan. We also consider, with the benefit of hindsight, whether real-world advancements in genetics over the half century since Star Trek was born make the Federation’s position seem a little too restrictive.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Writing the Eugenics Wars (00:03:00) From Eugenics to Genetic Manipulation (00:15:43) Brave New Worlds (00:33:08) Towing the Trek Line (00:44:00) Future Projects (01:09:55) Host Duncan Barrett Guest Greg Cox Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Star Trek and Sexual Assault, Part 2.

Over its long history, Star Trek has not shied away from dealing with the impact of sexual assault. In its many incarnations, the franchise has offered a number of storylines—some more successful than others—that shine a light on this important issue. And it has always done so through the lens of the current moment. Sometimes the shows have employed classic Trek allegory, with violations of the mind by aliens as a clear stand-in for real-world assault. At other times, sexual assault and harassment have been dealt with more directly.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, the second of a two part discussion inspired by the #MeToo movement, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Clara Cook to consider how Star Trek’s sexual assault storylines have played out on screen. Looking at examples from The Original Series through Discovery, they consider issues such as believable consent, response to trauma, and the relationship between sexual violence and other forms of assault in wartime. We also consider what role the #MeToo movement may ultimately play in shaping the narratives of sexual violence that we consume in the future—in Star Trek and beyond.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Violations (00:02:26) Retrospect (00:12:45) Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night (00:28:03) A New Normal (00:55:30) Final Thoughts (01:05:30)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Clara Cook Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Star Trek and Sexual Assault, Part 1.

In 2017, the #MeToo movement brought stories of sexual assault and harassment to the forefront of public consciousness. Some of the key figures in the campaign are part of the Star Trek family—most notably Ashley Judd and Anthony Rapp. Their willingness to share their stories played a major role in bringing many uncomfortable truths to light, particularly in relation to appalling behavior in the entertainment industry. But Star Trek is not itself immune from such shocking stories, as anyone who has read Grace Lee Whitney’s autobiography will know. The circumstances surrounding Janice Rand’s disappearance from The Original Series more than 50 years ago offer a sobering glimpse at the treatment of women by powerful men in Hollywood.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, the first of a two-part discussion of sexual assault in Star Trek, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Clara Cook for a look at some of the links between the franchise and the #MeToo movement. We also speak to Marina Sirtis about her own experiences as a young actress working in Hollywood in the 1980s, and some of the difficult storylines she performed as Deanna Troi. Tune in next week for Part 2 of the conversation as we explore the various ways—some literal and some allegorical—in which Star Trek has presented these important issues on screen.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The #MeToo Movement (00:04:06) Grace Lee Whitney and the Physiology of Trauma (00:27:05) Marina Sirtis Interview (00:54:00) Nana Visitor, Kate Mulgrew, and Anthony Rapp (01:09:05) Sexual Assault in Star Trek: Discovery (01:22:25)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Clara Cook Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Talking Treknology with Ethan Siegel. At times, life in 2020 can feel very much like the future we see in Star Trek. We read the latest news on portable tablets and ask our digital assistants to play music or dim the lights. We have instant access to a vast library of collected knowledge and can track our friends and family through their devices. With 3D printing, we can replicate complex designs at the touch of a button. Painless hyposprays have even replaced needles, a relief for those of us who need them.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Dr. Ethan Siegel, author of the book Treknology: The Science of Star Trek from Tricorders to Warp Drive, for a look at how Star Trek’s imagined technologies have influenced the development of real-world counterparts. We consider the huge advances seen in the 30 years since Star Trek: Next Generation premiered—not to mention the half century since the launch of the original Star Trek—as well as contemplate some of the ethical quandaries that go along with such rapid technological change.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Ethical Subroutines (00:09:15) Treknophobia (00:23:50) It’s a (Deep) Fake! (00:34:00) Trek Tech Today (00:40:32) Host Duncan Barrett Guest Dr. Ethan Siegel Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Looking back on 25 years of Star Trek: Voyager.

On January 16, 1995, Star Trek got lost in space. The premiere of the fourth live-action Star Trek series offered not just the franchise’s much-anticipated first female captain (something explicitly ruled out in the final episode of The Original Series) but a strong science fiction premise: a ship stranded on the far side of the galaxy and crewed by a mixture of by-the-book Starfleet officers and reckless Maquis renegades. It was a bold new approach, brimful of opportunity. And yet, somehow, the show—hampered, in part, by meddlesome corporate oversight—became one of Star Trek’s least adventurous outings, retreading familiar ground rather than truly venturing into the unknown. To its detractors, Voyager was little more than a lite version of The Next Generation. But its devoted fan base found much to love in the franchise’s most cozy and comfortable show. Some 25 years on, is it time for a reassessment of Voyager’s strengths and weaknesses?

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Darren Mooney, who has recently completed a set of detailed Star Trek: Voyager reviews on his website The M0vie Blog, to celebrate the show’s silver jubilee with a thorough retrospective. We consider Voyager’s merits and failings, the behind-the-scenes battles that set the template for what played out on screen, and how looking back with the benefit of hindsight offers new perspectives on familiar stories. In particular, we examine how a quarter-century of history helps us see just how quintessentially of its time Voyager was.

For Darren’s complete Voyager reviews, visit: https://them0vieblog.com/reviews-hub/79613-2/

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) DS9 vs Voyager (00:05:32) First Contact with the Delta Quadrant (00:35:38) Partying Like It’s 1995 (01:05:25) Now Voyager (01:29:00) Final Thoughts (01:41:55)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Darren Mooney Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Dante in the Delta Quadrant. Far away from home, everyone could do with a guide. That’s true whether you’re a 14th-century Italian poet embarking on an ultramundane journey through the afterlife or a Starfleet captain stranded on the far side of the galaxy. While Dante is lucky enough to be aided by the ancient Roman poet Virgil, Kathryn Janeway—who received a copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy as an engagement gift from her fiancé, Mark—must turn to Neelix to guide her through her own dark wood.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Zachary Fruhling of Meta Treks and To The Journey for a look at how Dante’s Vita Nuova and Divine Comedy are referenced in Star Trek: Voyager, in the episodes “Latent Image” and “Shattered,” respectively. More generally, we consider how well Dante’s archetypal characters—Beatrice, Virgil, and the poet himself—might map onto some of Star Trek’s own protagonists. We also ask whether the cosmology of heaven, purgatory, and hell can tell us anything about the route home from the Delta Quadrant.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Lost in Translation (00:23:05) 70,000 Light Years from Florence (00:38:24) Dante’s Cosmology (01:02:26) The (Other) Undiscovered Country (01:27:00) Final Thoughts (01:35:32)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Zachary Fruhling Production Duncan Barrett (Editor, Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Star Trek: The Motion Picture on the big screen. Forty years ago, Star Trek boldly went where it had never gone before: the cinema. A commercial hit—thanks in large part to feverish anticipation by fans whose dedication to The Original Series that had grown steadily since the show left the airwaves 10 years earlier—The Motion Picture proved less successful with critics. Over the years, its reputation with fans sunk lower and lower. Compared with the ballsy action and emotional drama of The Wrath of Khan, the The Motion Picture came to be seen as a misstep into hard science fiction. It is too long, ponderous, and emotionally distant. many say. In recent years, however, its stock has begun to rise. Today, Star Trek’s first big-screen outing is often seen a film that, while unusual , is an absolutely crucial installment in Trek canon. Poetic and soulful in its serious attempt to conjure the truly alien and unknown, 40 years after its premiere, The Motion Picture is gaining newfound respect.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recorded live at the Prince Charles Cinema in London’s West End, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Drew Barker, Dana Kazim, and Ben Keeling at an anniversary screening of Star Trek: The Motion Picture to reflect on our own experiences of witnessing the film on the big screen for the first time. Of the six movies featuring the cast of The Original Series, the first perhaps benefits most from a theatrical presentation—even if the old 1979 prints now show significant signs of wear and tear. In our discussion, we consider how our opinions of the movie have shifted over the years, what we look for in Star Trek at the cinema, and how The Motion Picture fits into broader Trek canon.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Cinematic First Contacts (00:15:35) The Perfect Trek Movie (00:21:00) Just Beginning? (00:29:33)

Hosts Duncan Barrett

Guests Drew Barker, Dana Kazim, and Ben Keeling

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Rick Sternbach on designing Star Trek’s future. As senior illustrator on The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, Rick Sternbach shaped the look of Star Trek’s 24th century. He contributed to the design of the titular Cardassian space station, was responsible for the USS Voyager’s smooth cetacean styling, and worked on alien vessels such as the Borg Cube. With his iconic design for the PADD, he helped inspire real-world devices such as Apple’s iPad, which owes a lot to the futuristic tablets shown on screen throughout the 1990s. And in his work with Michael Okuda—including on the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, published in 1991—he laid the groundwork for much of the science of Starfleet ships, developing concepts such as inertial dampeners and structural integrity fields, as well as that fan-favorite department that was, sadly, never glimpsed on screen: Cetacean Ops.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recorded at the Destination Star Trek convention in Birmingham, England, host Duncan Barrett speaks to Sternbach as part of a roundtable press panel. They discuss what influenced him as a designer and how he started as a Hollywood illustrator, his work on Star Trek, and his thoughts on the future look of the franchise. He also answers a question that has been lingering for almost a quarter century: What happened to the whales when the Enterprise-D saucer crashed?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) First Steps (00:04:05) Artistic Influences (00:09:25) Designing the Future (00:14:25) Cetacean Ops (00:20:15) Worlds Elsewhere (00:25:05) Host Duncan Barrett Guest Rick Sternbach Production Duncan Barrett (Editor and Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Star Trek and Theatre. As Q told Picard, all the galaxy’s a stage. Both the Bard-bothering captain and his real-world alter ego, Patrick Stewart, who was famously dubbed “unknown British Shakespearean actor” by the Los Angeles Times when he first took on the role—are better placed than most to appreciate the wisdom of these words. And Star Trek has always had one foot in the old-school theatrical tradition as much as it has been defined by the almost magical possibilities of television. Not for nothing do we refer to some of the best Trek episodes as “morality plays.”

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recorded live at the Destination Star Trek convention in Birmingham, England, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black for a look at the debt Star Trek owes to the theatre. Whether in the casting of Shakespearean heavyweights such as Stewart, David Warner, and Christopher Plummer, or in the presence of companies of players—both amateur and professional—aboard the starships of the future, Star Trek consistently maintains a link to its theatrical roots. Indeed, some popular episodes, such as Deep Space Nine’s “Waltz” and Enterprise’s “Shuttlepod One” are structured as near-one-act plays in their own right. Join us as we raise the curtain and take a look at Star Trek on the stage.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Arise, Gul Madred (00:07:55) Black Box, Yellow Stripes (00:16:25) Up Close and Personal (00:26:05) Five-Act Mission (00:40:55)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Tony Black Production Duncan Barrett (Producer, Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Fan encounters in Star Trek and beyond.

For Star Trek fans, conventions offer a rare chance to get up close and personal with their heroes—whether that means snapping a selfie, getting an autograph, or buying them a drink at the bar. But Star Trek’s characters aren’t immune to the power of celebrity themselves. Many, in fact, find themselves distinctly star-struck in the presence of their own role models. Sometimes the experience can be disillusioning, as in the case of Zefram Cochrane in First Contact. The legendary inventor warp drive turned out to be less the bold pioneer of an enlightened age and more a lecherous drunk with a bad attitude. On the Holodeck, however, such encounters can be managed with less risk of disappointment, hence the appearances of such real-life luminaries as Leonardo Da Vinci, Isaac Newton, and even Stephen Hawking.

In this special episode of Primitive Culture, recorded live at the Destination Star Trek convention in Birmingham, England, host Duncan Barrett is joined by five fellow Trekkies for a look at Star Trek’s fan encounters. We consider how our heroes’ own fanboy and fangirl moments offer a glimpse into their personalities, why Star Trek invests so much time in historical figures—real and fictitious—and how our expectations of the actors we encounter at conventions are colored by the characters they portray on screen.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Heroes on the Holodeck (00:09:02) Lower Decks (00:17:15) Celebrity Cameos (00:23:43) Host Duncan Barrett Guests Drew Barker, Murray Christison, Dana Kazim, Ben Keeling, and Terry Parsons

Production Duncan Barrett (Producer, Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Phobias in Star Trek. Killer clowns! Crashing planes! Confined spaces! Crumpets? When our most deep-seated fears hold us hostage, our ability to make rational decisions flies out the airlock. What hope, then, for the transporter-phobic officer serving on a Federation starship, or the claustrophobic Cardassian living in exile on an overcrowded space station?

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Brandi Jackola of Live from The Edge to discuss the phobias of some of Star Trek’s characters, as well as our own irrational terrors. We look at transporter phobia as an analog for fear of flying in TNG’s “Realm of Fear”, claustrophobia triggered by “misplaced guilt” in DS9’s “Afterimage”, and—worst of all for a crew of intrepid spacefarers—the “nihilophobia” (fear of nothingness) in Voyager’s “Night.” In space, there are plenty of reasons to be scared … even if no one can hear you scream.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Our Worst Nightmares (00:04:30) Hostage to terror (00:09:40) Trapped in the Closet? (00:20:15) Federation Health and Safety (00:36:00) The Sum of All Fears (00:43:50) Saru and Barclay (01:11:20)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Brandi Jackola Production Duncan Barrett (Producer, Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Star Trek’s Revivals. By the summer of ’69, Star Trek was dead. The half-century that followed has seen the franchise resurrected more times than the Borg Queen, but before all the spin-offs and reboots, Star Trek pioneered a much more straightforward approach to bringing back an old property—one that, in 2019, seems to have become almost ubiquitous: the original cast revival. In 1979, getting the old gang back together for The Motion Picture was truly a bold endeavor (although perhaps the short-lived Animated Series had helped pave the way). Four years later, with The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek truly proved the value of revival storytelling, turning the time off-air in the real world into a key dramatic asset.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black to consider Star Trek’s revivals, from 1979 to the forthcoming Picard series, which looks set to do for The Next Generation captain what the Original Series movies did for Kirk and his crew. Comparing Star Trek’s approach with some other recent TV revivals, we discuss the dramatic potential of returning to the well one more time, the danger of diminishing returns, and what happens to the sense of ending when every finale is only provisional.

Chapters Introduction (00:01:30) A Tale of Two Kirks (00:15:35) Revival versus Reboot (00:28:15) Picard (00:43:25) Bringing Back the Enterprise (00:58:50) Nog Lives! (01:11:00) Sense of Ending (01:16:30)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Star Trek: Generations.

When the cast of the original Star Trek series returned to the screen in 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture, it marked the culmination of 10 years of fan-ticipation that started with the untimely cancellation of the series. This was not the case when it came time for the cast of The Next Generation to leap to the silver screen. They began filming their own freshman movie immediately after wrapping their final TV episode. Using the same sets—albeit spruced up a bit—and following a script written by wunderkinds Brannon Braga and Ronald D. Moore long before they bashed out the series finale “All Good Things...”, the movie faced an uphill battle in attempting to convince fans that cinematic Trek was truly a different beast from the beloved TV show. And yet in the hands of longtime Next Gen director David Carson, Generations did just that, offering a feast for the eyes, truly cinematic storytelling and an eye for spectacle that set it apart from the previous weekly instalments. Whether or not the film worked dramatically, it most certainly deserved to be seen on the big screen.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Dr. Chris Nunn at the University of Greenwich in London for a look at this key transitional moment in the continuing mission of Star Trek: The Next Generation. They consider Generations in relation to other TV-to-movie leaps, including The X-Files movie released only a few years later, which was required to slot into place within that show’s ongoing continuity. They also look at the pairing of Captains Kirk and Picard in the film, asking whether this particular double-act—“the most ambitious crossover event in Star Trek history”, as a popular meme might have it—succeeds or fails in attempting to serve two very different masters.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) In transition: from Small Screen to Big (00:09:05) The Hero’s Journey (00:34:00) Light, Shade, and Lens Flares (00:52:10) Kirk and Picard Go Large (01:15:00) The Future of CBS/Viacom (01:27:05). Final Thoughts (01:44:40)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Dr. Chris Nunn Production Duncan Barrett (Producer, Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Star Trek and Dr. Who, with Una McCormack.

Not many TV shows have had a lifespan stretching beyond half a century. This is especially in the genre of science fiction, which is notorious for abrupt cancellations. Yet, when Star Trek celebrated its golden anniversary in 2016, it did so in the shadow of another long-running sci-fi behemoth from the other side of the pond: Dr. Who. Premiering on the BBC three years before Star Trek hit US airwaves, the quirky British show has, in many ways, had a similar history to its American counterpart. Like Dr. Who, Gene Roddenberry’s creation has constantly reinvented itself while retaining its core identity and values, and carrying with it a deeply loyal fan base who kept the faith through long periods off the air.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Dr. Una McCormack for a look at some of the links between these two iconic franchises. Trek.fm listeners will know Una as the author of a number of highly acclaimed Star Trek novels, but she is a prolific writer of Dr. Who tie-in fiction as well—not to mention a huge fan of the “madman—or woman—in a blue box” since childhood. Here she discusses some of the challenges of writing for these two fictional universes, the core qualities that Trek and Who have in common, and the varied historical and cultural influences that have pushed them in different directions.

Chapters Intro (0:00:00) Into the Tardis (00:04:11) Age-Appropriate Time Travel (00:15:17) Along for the Ride (00:24:10) Prime Directives (00:44:04) Crossovers (01:06:00) The Undefeated (01:14:30)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Una McCormack

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor, Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

The Rashomon Effect in Star Trek and Beyond.

Two podcasters meet on the internet. They watch a classic film that one has seen and the other hasn’t. They compare it to an episode of Star Trek—or maybe two, or even three or four. They consider the broader cultural implications of the film’s central themes of uncertainty, subjectivity, and the unknowability of truth. Or perhaps they don’t. Listening at home, you wonder: Did any of these things really happen? Can you trust your ears? Are you sure you can really remember what you’ve heard?

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black to look at famed Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s seminal 1950 film Rashomon and its influences on Star Trek—in particular on “A Matter of Perspective” from The Next Generation and “Rules of Engagement” from Deep Space Nine.

The so-called Rashomon Effect—a cultural trope in which multiple unreliable narrators produce different accounts of the same event—has become so popular that it has eclipsed the fame of the story that inspired it. Comparing the black-and-white Japanese film, about the frustrated attempt to understand an act of extreme violence that takes place in a secluded bamboo grove, with the episodes of Star Trek and The X-Files that borrowed from it—along with the 1998 play Copenhagen—we ask whether the film’s fascination with the impossibility of reconstructing an objective history of events may be peculiarly relevant in the current “post-truth” world.

Chapters Rashomon and What We Left Behind (00:03:55) A Matter of Perspective (00:13:51) Rules of Engagement (00:23:47) The X-Files (00:27:30) “Living Witness” and “Author, Author” (00:36:28) Alternative Facts (00:41:00) Copenhagen (00:53:15) Final Thoughts (01:07:15)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Tony Black

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Life on a nuclear submarine vs. a Federation starship.

In this special edition of Primitive Culture, meant to complement the previous episode’s discussion of The Hunt for Red October, host Duncan Barrett is joined by former US Navy submariner John Krikorian—better known for his popular Trek Profiles podcast—to discuss the parallels between Star Trek’s imagined life in space and his own experiences living and working underwater. Join us on this not-so-deep dive as they tackle questions of naval discipline in a cramped and confined environment, the role of the executive officer as a link between captain and crew, and the perils of flushing a toilet the wrong way a thousand feet below the surface.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Life in the Void (00:11:15) Onboard Entertainment (00:14:45) Lower Decks (00:17:40) Chain of Command (00:24:20) Disciplinary Measures (00:35:25)

Hosts Duncan Barrett

Guests John Krikorian

Production Duncan Barrett (Producer, Editor) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

The Hunt for Red October and Face of the Enemy.

In space, all warriors are cold warriors. And none are colder, perhaps, than the steely Romulans who crew those imposingly green warbirds. In the sixth-season TNG episode “Face of the Enemy,” the normally warm-hearted Counselor Deanna Troi must join their ranks as she impersonates Major Rakal, a ruthless operative in the Tal Shiar, the Romulan intelligence service. This popular story was inspired, in part, by Tom Clancy’s thriller The Hunt for Red October—particularly the movie adaptation starring Sean Connery as a Soviet submarine commander who attempts to defect to the West. In fact, when writer Naren Shankar was at work on the script, it was Connery’s voice he imagined for the captain of the Romulan ship.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Carlos Miranda, a massive fan of The Hunt for Red October, to discuss the film’s influence on “Face of the Enemy.” We then open up the discussion and look at the role of the Romulans as primary Cold War antagonist in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as some other episodes involving defections across Star Trek’s own iron curtain: the Neutral Zone. Finally, we consider how the Enterprise’s various Romulan encounters might play into the new Picard series coming in early 2020.

Chapters Up Periscope (00:02:15) Cloaking Dagger (00:15:40) One Ping Only (00:35:20) Across the Neutral Zone (00:41:55) Chair Versus Badge (00:51:55) Final Thoughts (01:06:58)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Carlos Miranda

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor, Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Deadly Games, from *The Prisoner* to “Move Along Home.”

A product of the same era as the original Star Trek, the short-lived British drama The Prisoner was, in many ways, more in touch with the psychedelic spirit of the age. Now considered a cult classic, this bizarre blend of spy thriller and existential science fiction remains as puzzling half a century on as when it was first broadcast. It has also been hugely influential, not least on Star Trek itself. One episode in particular, Deep Space Nine’s “Move Along Home,” took its inspiration from an iconic scene in “Checkmate,” an episode of The Prisoner in which a game of chess is played with living human pieces.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black to look back at the legacy of The Prisoner, comparing this iconic TV show to its contemporary—Star Trek: The Original Series—and asking why the writers of Deep Space Nine tried—and, arguably, failed—to capture the quintessential weirdness in their own, somewhat baffling, episode. We then consider the overall role of games in Star Trek storytelling, comparing the Wadi in “Move Along Home” to the Empire of Azad in Iain M. Banks 1988 novel The Player of Games, asking whether the way a character wins or loses can offer a window into their soul.

Chapters Briefed: The Prisoner (00:07:14) Stamped: Kirk and Number 6 (00:16:00) Numbered: Serialization and DS9 (00:23:00) Filed: High or Low Stakes (00:36:45) Indexed: Alien Games (00:45:00) Pushed: Cheating (00:59:20) Debriefed: Final Thoughts (01:11:00)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guests Tony Black

Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager)

Cast Changes in Star Trek.

When Star Trek’s original pilot, “The Cage,” was rejected by NBC, Gene Roddenberry was forced to rethink the acting lineup for his new show. Jeffrey Hunter’s Christopher Pike was out, replaced by the more charismatic William Shatner as James T. Kirk. Gone, too, was Roddenberry’s partner, Majel Barrett, leaving Leonard Nimoy as the only cast member to survive the recasting process. It was the first in a series of periodic reshuffles that have marked the franchise throughout its long history, many the result of bitter behind-the-scenes disputes between actors and producers. Most recently, the Deep Space Nine documentary What We Left Behind has shone a light on the circumstances surrounding Terry Farrell’s abrupt departure from the show at the end of its penultimate season—a subject that is clearly emotive for those involved, even more than 20 years later.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recorded live in London following the first public screening of the Deep Space Nine documentary, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Carlos Miranda, Drew Barker, and Andy Poulastides to discuss Star Trek’s reshuffling of personnel in front of the camera. We consider the introduction of Worf to DS9 and Seven of Nine to Voyager with the goal of boosting viewing figures, the abrupt departures of Gates McFadden from The Next Generation, Terry Farrell’s exit from DS9 and Jennifer Lien’s Voyager farewell, and the ways in which modern TV sensibilities—in the wake of shows such as The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones—have upended long-held assumptions about the longevity of series regulars.

Stuart Baird and Star Trek: Nemesis.

The lowest-grossing of the Star Trek films, 2002’s outing by The Next Generation crew—Star Trek: Nemesis—was the first installment to open below number one at the box office. Losing out on the top spot to the Jennifer Lopez rom-com Maid in Manhattan may seem bad, the fourth TNG trip to the cinema performed so poorly that it proved to be their last. In fact, it killed off Star Trek’s silver screen prospects for more than half a decade.

For years, many fans have blamed the failures of Nemesis—both commercially and critically—on its director, Stuart Baird. Better known for his work as an Academy Award-winning editor than for his three less lauded directorial outings, Baird apparently had minimal interest in the Star Trek franchise. This is said to have been true both before and, perhaps more surprisingly, during the making of the film. But is it fair to lay all the blame squarely at the feet of its director?

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Dr. Chris Nunn, a lecturer in film at the University of Greenwich in London, to take a fresh look at Nemesis in relation to Baird’s two other Hollywood movies: Executive Decision and U.S. Marshals. Will an examination of the director’s previous work change the longstanding view among Star Trek fans that Braid broke the odd-numbered curse for all the wrong reasons? Is it right to blame one man for a broth that had plenty of cooks around to spoil it? And, most importantly, is Nemesis really as bad as it’s cracked up to be?

Chapters The Presence of Time (00:01:25) New Beginnings (00:12:16) Baird to the Bridge (00:22:26) Khan Revisited (00:37:20) Post-Nemesis (00:58:20) Meanwhile, in a Parallel Universe … (01:05:00)

Host Duncan Barrett

Guest Chris Nunn

Production Duncan Barrett (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Star Trek and Fan Service.

When Brannon Braga and Rick Berman wrote the final episode of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005, they intended it as a “valentine” for the fans who had stuck with the franchise since The Next Generation debuted in 1987. Surely, they reasoned, the inclusion of TNG favorites Will Riker and Deanna Troi would be the perfect way to close the book on 18 years of continuous TV production. Sadly, “These Are The Voyages” fell flat. The gesture proved far from successful, interpreted as not so much a token of reciprocal love as a misguided effort from an unwanted admirer.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by the show’s co-founder, Tony Black, to talk about the charms—and the perils—of fan service in Star Trek. We look at some of the highs, such as the beloved 30th Anniversary celebration “Trials and Tribble-ations”, as well as the lows, and try to pick apart what makes them succeed or fail in the eyes of fans. In particular, we focus on the inclusion of TOS characters in the second season of Star Trek: Discovery and the recent rise of petitions from unsatisfied fans directed at TV creators. And, we consider the boundary between successful fan service and what Brannon Braga dismissively referred to as “continuity pornography.”

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Fan Petitions (00:07:20) Anniversary Episodes (00:25:45) Online Encounters (00:44:25) Poor Service? (00:50:15) “Sarek” and “Blood Oath” (01:04:07) “In A Mirror Darkly” (01:18:47)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Clara Cook (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Galileo and “Distant Origin.”

That Galileo Galilei, the man who Albert Einstein called “the father of modern science,” turned up on Star Trek: Voyager should come as no surprise. The series was, after all, the first in the franchise to feature a captain with a scientific background. The story of the legendary Renaissance figure was retooled as a classic Trek allegory in the third-season episode “Distant Origin.” In its 24th-century rendition, the story features a society of hyper-evolved hadrosaurs that survived the mass extinction on Earth 66 million years earlier. Escaping to the stars, these smart dinos established their own advanced society and forgot where they came from. Beliefs about how their world came to be are challenged when the crew of the USS Voyager encounters Professor Forra Gegen, a Voth scientist whose radical discoveries about his people’s “distant origin” conflict with the conservative doctrine of their rulers.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook look at how the Star Trek: Voyager writers adapted the persecution of Galileo Galilei by the Catholic Church to tell the story of Voth scientist Forra Gegen. Like Galileo, who was put on trial for his proposal of a heliocentric view of the solar system, Gegen is tried for heresy against doctrine for claiming his people originated on a faraway planet called Earth. We also consider why the Renaissance should be a key moment for Star Trek’s understanding of history, question where the true story of Galileo ends and the myth of the persecuted scientist begins, and wonder whether mythologizing—be it of the past or the future—inevitably means suppressing inconvenient truths.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The Life of Galileo (00:03:28) Science and Scripture (00:09:50) Dino DNA (00:22:20) Method or Madness? (00:35:30) Iconic Adverbs (00:45:50) The Renaissance of the Future (00:55:30) Galileos in Space (01:12:20)

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook

Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

An International Approach to Star Trek.

Is the final frontier of Star Trek’s imagined future as quintessentially American as its nineteenth-century forbear, the Wild West? For more than 50 years, Star Trek has presented a decidedly internationalist vision of humanity’s future, while at the same time leaning very heavily on ideals and rhetoric specific to the United States.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett discuss Star Trek in an international context, in comparison with some other sci-fi shows from around the world. We touch on the German show Raumpatrouille, a fascinating contemporary of TOS which, sadly, only ran for seven episodes. We also consider how our own status as fans outside the US has influenced our appreciation of Star Trek, question whether the franchise’s vision of the future is one that could only have sprung from mid-20th-century America, and ponder what Star Trek might have looked like had it emerged from a very different culture.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) American Exceptionalism (00:10:11) Dubbing, Subtitles, and the Universal Translator (00:28:40) Hyphenated Identities (00:44:25) Comparative Treks (00:53:45) Stowaways and Space Pirates (01:05:40) The Past Is Another Planet (01:17:20) Meanwhile, in a Parallel Universe … (01:29:26)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Michael Eddington, Jean Valjean, and Les Misérables.

Star Trek’s heroes have always been avid readers. From The Complete Works of Shakespeare on display in Picard’s ready room to Janeway’s treasured volumes of Dante to Michael Burnham’s well-thumbed copy of Alice’s in Adventures in Wonderland, Starfleet’s finest have shown us that—even in humanity’s far future—great works of literature will continue to resonate and inspire. Less frequently, however, Trek’s villains have proved themselves equally well-read, with Kirk’s antagonists Khan and Chang spewing out lines from Melville and Shakespeare as they pursued their diabolical schemes. And in the Deep Space Nine episode “For the Uniform,” another classic text proves key to defeating the Maquis traitor Michael Eddington, as Captain Sisko and Jadzia Dax turn to Eddington’s favorite novel, Victor Hugo’s 1862 Les Misérables, in search of clues about their enemy’s personality.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett consider Les Misérables—a giant of nineteenth-century literature—along with some of its most successful adaptations as they look at how it connects both to “For the Uniform” and to Star Trek as a whole. We question whether Eddington’s casting of himself and Sisko in the roles of Jean Valjean and Javert respectively makes much sense when you read the source material, how Star Trek’s ideas about policing the galaxy reflect Hugo’s views on crime and punishment, and whether—in the utopian future of the Federation—it’s still possible for certain unlucky individuals to fall through the cracks.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Javert and Valjean (00:05:50) Policing the Galaxy (00:22:40) The Wretched Ones (00:32:18) Star Trek’s Victorian Moral Compass (00:40:22) Sisko and Eddington (00:54:20) The Greater Good (01:05:16) Final Thoughts (01:18:30)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

The Human Frontier in Guernsey.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recorded live at the Guille-Allès Library in Guernsey, regular host Duncan Barrett is interviewed by Laura Perkins about his book Star Trek: The Human Frontier. Duncan discusses his own history with Star Trek and looks at some of the cultural influences that have inspired the franchise’s writers over more than half a century. In a wide-ranging discussion, that looks at the mid-1960s onwards, Duncan and Laura discuss the role—and limitations—of allegory as a storytelling device and how Star Trek has always moved and warped with the times. Then, in an audience Q&A, the conversation turns to the the latest iteration, Star Trek: Discovery, and the ways in which the new series goes—boldly or otherwise—beyond what has gone before.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Deep Space Guernsey (00:04:49) The Good, the Bad, and the Allegorical (00:09:10) Darmok and Jalad in the Polling Booth (00:29:50) Outside the Roddenberry Box (00:39:30) Q&A (00:44:35) Star Trek: Discovery (00:56:00)

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Laura Perkins Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Cyrano de Bergerac on Deep Space Nine.

From seventeenth-century France to mid-1980s Washington State to a twenty-fourth-century space station, Edmond Rostard’s classic play Cyrano de Bergerac has proved eminently adaptable to new settings. Its timeless theme of unrequited love has resonated with fresh audiences with each interpretation, while the central tragicomic set piece—in which a man woos his beloved on behalf of a friend—never fails to hit the dramatic high notes.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett look at Ronald D. Moore’s loose adaptation of the Cyrano de Bergerac in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places.” We compare this version with both the original 1897 play and the 1987 Steve Martin comedy Roxanne, while considering the rituals of romance—in real life and on screen—and what happens to consent in such tales of comedic deception. We also ask whether, at the end of the day, all love is unrequited.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Enter Cyrano (00:03:50) Ménage a Quatre (00:08:15) Informed Consent (00:20:00) Identity Crises (00:33:55) Unhappy Endings (00:48:58) From Mythic Romance to Messy Hookups (01:05:00) In the Friend Zone (01:12:00) Final Thoughts (01:19:40)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Gothic Fiction in Star Trek: Voyager.

Even starship captains, with the whole galaxy to explore, need a bit of mindless escapism from time to time. While Jean-Luc Picard donned his fedora and trench coat to live out a holographic fantasy life as the surly gumshoe Dixon Hill, Kathryn Janeway’s choice of entertainment might seem—at least on the surface—even less in keeping with her “real” personality. In three early episodes of Star Trek: Voyager—“Cathexis,” “Learning Curve,” and “Persistence of Vision”—we see her indulge in a holonovel that appears to combine elements of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw (1898), and Rebecca, the 1938 novel by Dame Daphne du Maurier. In her holographic escape from life in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway played the role of a wide-eyed governess who finds herself at the heart of a sinister gothic mystery.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett take a look at the literary influences on Captain Janeway’s Lambda One holonovel, considering questions of female agency, repressed sexuality, and the apparent value of low-brow entertainment to Starfleet’s high-ranking officers. We also question whether a show as bright and cheery as Star Trek: Voyager can ever truly accommodate Gothicism.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The Birth of the Holonovel (00:07:00) High Tech, Low Brow (00:17:30) Turning to Screwing (00:22:50) Janeway Eyre (00:36:55) Delta Quadrant Gothic (00:54:35) Infinite Diversity in Limited Combinations (01:06:25)

Star Trek’s Dark Ages.

Sanctuary districts. Eugenics Wars. World War III and the post-atomic horror. It seems clear that the period between our own time and the founding of Starfleet is not one of humanity’s finest chapters. In fact, for a franchise built on an optimistic view of tomorrow, Star Trek offers more than a few glimpses of a catastrophic future.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Tony Black to look at these Dark Ages in the imagined history that is Star Trek. What does it take—as far as Trek is concerned—to get from today to a utopian future? Are we heading in the right direction? Is there hope in technology? And how far into its own history can Star Trek dip before it becomes something fundamentally different?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) World War III (00:09:15) First Contact (00:15:05) Augmented Realities (00:27:20) Regime Change (00:36:02) Earth Exit (00:47:40) The Truth Is Out There (00:59:45) Black Mirrors (01:07:15) Final Thoughts (01:22:45)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Tony Black Production Tony Black (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Short Treks and bite-sized content.

Between 1966 and 2001, Star Trek seemed to be the incredible shrinking franchise. The 50-minute running time of The Original Series gave way to the 44 minutes for episodes of The Next Generation, 43 minutes for Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and a lean 42 minutes by the time of Enterprise. But when Trek made the leap to a streaming service with Discovery, all bets were off. The length of an episode began to vary from week to week, depending on the needs of the story. More striking than Discovery’s variable length, however, was the decision to release a series of shorts between seasons. This short-form approach to storytelling was previously the domain of fan films, not officially licensed Trek.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook look at the Short Treks in relation to both Star Trek’s own short and long forms—from The Animated Series (22 minutes) to The Motion Picture (well over two hours), and also in relation to short fiction in general. Is brevity truly the soul of wit? What does it mean for Star Trek to embrace the format so readily? And is something inevitably lost when our content keeps shrinking and shrinking?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) First Impressions (00:03:04) Picking Up the Pace (00:18:00) Comic Timing (00:36:10) To B-Plot or Not to B-Plot? (00:46:01) Anthology: The Final Frontier (01:00:30) The Perfect Proving Ground (01:18:12) Final Thoughts (01:26:25) Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

From Altair IV to Talos IV.

Star Trek’s original unaired pilot, “The Cage,” established the template for much of what was to come. But that episode was, itself, heavily influenced by an earlier work of science fiction, the 1956 film Forbidden Planet. Stylistic similarities between the two works abound, but there is a deeper link as well: both stories concern a highly advanced alien race whose incredible mental abilities have brought about societal collapse.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook look at the connections between Forbidden Planet and “The Cage,” focusing on the character of Christopher Pike, captain of the USS Enterprise before Kirk. With the return of Pike and his first officer, Number One, in Season 2 of Star Trek: Discovery, we also consider the popular longevity of these barely glimpsed characters and how their presentation has changed over the course of half a century.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) In the Beginning… (00:03:00) “Born Sexy Yesterday”(00:11:50) Monsters from the Id (00:27:00) Where No Men Have Gone Before (00:35:30) A Tale of Two Captains (00:42:00) Number One Fans (00:58:24) Acting Up? (01:09:25) Final Thoughts (01:25:25)

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Odysseus, Craft, and Calypso.

When Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon was announced as the writer the Star Trek: Short Treks episode “Calypso,” fans knew they would be in for something special. But the poignant, wry, and bold story he came up with was full of surprises. Chabon chose to set his episode a thousand years in Discovery’s future, further than any Star Trek episode had gone before. Far from reveling in the high-tech futurism of the barely glimpsed world beyond the ship, he instead produced a bottle show that seemed fixated on the past—both Star Trek’s and our own. The central premise—and title—of the story originate in Homer’s ancient Greek epic poem Odyssey, while twentieth-century cultural curios Betty Boop and Funny Face add a quirky real-world humanity to this otherwise deeply detached tale.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett consider how the use of cultural touchstones from long-ago play into the Star Trek: Short Treks episode “Calypso.” Along the way, we consider the importance of names and stock epithets in the Homeric literary traditional, ideas of female sexuality as embodied in both classic Hollywood film and more recent forays into virtual romance, and how the products of an ancient, long-dead culture can continue to resonate centuries later.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Crafty Odysseus (00:08:04) Funny Faces (00:17:55) Romancing Alexa (00:31:10) Beyond the Short Form? (00:54:30) That Which Survives (01:09:20) Final Thoughts (01:16:30)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

In-Jokes and Easter Eggs in Star Trek.

When Joe Menosky began writing for Star Trek in 1990, he brought with him a peculiar relic from his university days: an obsession with the number 47. This unassuming digit soon found its way into unofficial Trek lore, popping up with increasing frequency and creativity. Before long, Star Trek scripts were replete with the references to 47. Even the art department got in on the act, dotting PADDs, corridors, and weapons lockers with the designation. As the not-so-random inclusion of the number grew throughout the 1990s like a subliminal infestation of Tribbles, spotting them became a fan-favorite activity—the ultimate Star Trek Easter egg hunt.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook are joined by Carlos Miranda from TrekNews.net for a look at in-jokes and Easter eggs in Star Trek. We consider the origin of such carefully hidden nuggets in Warren Robinett’s 1979 Atari 2600 video game Adventure, and how cleverly hiding references has become a familiar part of pop culture. We also look at some of Star Trek’s most popular running in-jokes, as well as the use of self-parody and quotation—in Deep Space Nine in particular—and consider what such creative gestures say about the unspoken contract between Trek’s producers and fans.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Pomona College and the original 47 (00:03:47) Robinett's Egg (00:11:04) Okudagrams (00:19:03) Cetacean Ops (00:33:21) Recurring (non-) characters (00:42:20) Quotation and parody (00:47:10) Flirting with the viewer (00:53:07) Fan silver-service (01:01:47) Final thoughts (01:13:00) Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook Guest Carlos Miranda Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

The Attica Prison Uprising and DS9’s Past Tense.

Typically, Star Trek’s two-parters have skewed toward the action-adventure formula rather than hard-hitting social commentary. But in Deep Space Nine’s third season, the writers decided to use the longer ninety-minute running time to delve into a weighty contemporary subject: the homeless crisis in the United States. The resulting story, “Past Tense,” took Trek in a surprisingly dark direction and offered a future that was distinctly dystopian.

“Past Tense” succeeded in shining a light on the treatment of the homeless in 1990s America. But there was another real-world influence that, according to DS9 head writer Ira Steven Behr, was the key to making it work. That inspiration was the 1971 uprising in Attica Prison, a maximum-security facility in rural New York state. It was Attica that lent the story its hostage-taking plot and much of its bleak cynicism—in particular the catastrophic failure of empathy for those hidden away behind concrete walls.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett look into the history of the Attica uprising, brilliantly reconstructed in Heather Ann Thompson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Blood in the Water. Comparing this ugly chapter of not-so-distant US history with one of Star Trek’s most biting examinations of human moral failure, we find that some of the most obvious lessons from both stories have yet to be learned—even decades later.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) A Brief History of the Attica Uprising (00:09:15) Empathy and Understanding (00:27:49) Between Two Worlds (00:41:10) Julian 2.0 (00:50:27) Crossing Boundaries (00:59:30) Care in the Community (01:14:40) Final Thoughts (01:23:45) Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Star Trek and Repertory Theatre.

Compared with other science fiction shows, Star Trek has always been remarkably versatile, capable of rapidly switching genres, from romantic comedy one week to courtroom drama the next. For the actors hired to play given roles—sometimes for seven years or more—a similar versatility is required. This is perhaps most striking when they are called on to portray a character who other than the one to which their name is tied in the credits. This could be an ancestor, a Holodeck invention, a counterpart from the Mirror Universe, or even a dreamworld alter-ego such as Benny Russell. But for British actors of a certain vintage—Patrick Stewart among them—these challenges are nothing new. Thanks to the traditional repertory system, which would see a cast of players perform a completely new show every week, from Shakespeare to Noel Coward and beyond, these actors are always ready to step into another skin.

In this special Primitive Culture roundtable, recorded during the Destination Star Trek convention in Birmingham, UK, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook are joined by guests old and new to discuss the parallels between Star Trek and the old repertory system. We discuss the peculiar challenges faced by Star Trek actors and why the shows have traditionally favored those with a background in theatre, and share some of our own favorite episodes in which the regular cast take on new roles.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The Repertory System (00:02:54) Top Picks (00:05:54) “Bad” Acting (00:11:15) Ancestors and Relatives (00:15:06) Distortions and Alternates (00:18:35) Non-Actors and Immersive Theatre (00:20:15) Writing for the Cast (00:27:00) Flashbacks and Flashforwards (00:29:30) Double and Triple Threats (00:31:15) Genre Benders (00:32:15) Final Thoughts (00:34:17)

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook

Guests Tony Black, Tony Robinson, Lee Hutchison, Rob Chapman, Rick Everson

Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Live from Destination Star Trek.

Star Trek has always been influenced by real-world history. But, over the course of more than half a century, certain topics have recurred again and again, suffusing the imaginary world of the future with the legacies of our own, often troubled past. Two key influences in particular—World War II and the literature and culture of the sea—have been a pervasive influence on Star Trek’s storytelling, from the earliest episodes of The Original Series right up to Discovery.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, we present two panels recorded live at Destination Star Trek in Birmingham, UK. In the first, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett are joined by Primitive Culture co-founder Tony Black, former Earl Grey host Lee Hutchison, and Dr. Trek himself, Larry Nemecek. In the first, the group discusses the debt Star Trek owes to the history of World War II. In the second, Duncan and Tony explore Star Trek’s nautical influences, from Horatio Hornblower to Moby-Dick.

Larry Nemecek is author of the Star Trek: The Next Generation Companionand Stellar Cartography,and host of The Trek Files podcast: http://thetrekfiles.trekfm.libsynpro.com/website Lee Hutchison hosts Filibuster on The Nerd Party podcast network: https://www.thenerdparty.com/filibuster Tony Black runs The X-Cast podcast network and the entertainment website Set the Tape https://setthetape.com/ Duncan’s book Star Trek: The Human Frontier is available to order from Amazon: https://amzn.to/2PplQQ7

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The Shadow of WWII (00:01:46) Never Forgetting (00:12:30) Heroism and Adventure (00:22:35) Q&A (00:26:25) The Starry Sea (00:35:13) Moby-Dick (00:43:30) Dead metaphors (00:49:20) Q&A (00:55:30)

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook

Guests Tony Black, Lee Hutchison, Larry Nemecek

Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Looking back on DS9 at Destination Star Trek 2018. Perhaps more than any other Star Trek series, Deep Space Nine has seen its reputation continue to rise in the years since it went off the air. Once considered the black sheep of the Trek family, it is now recognized as a groundbreaking work in its own right, pioneering a new form of serialized storytelling that led directly to the so-called golden age of television. Thanks to streaming services such as Netflix, the show has continued to find new viewers and has become the favorite Star Trek series. for many.

In this special episode of Primitive Culture, recorded at the Destination Star Trek convention in Birmingham, UK, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook are joined by a galaxy of stars to look back on the legacy of Deep Space Nine 25 years after the series first aired. In collaboration with Lee Hutchison of The Nerd Party and Carlos Miranda of TrekNews.net, we bring you interviews with actors Nana Visitor, Alexander Siddig, Nicole de Boer, Jeffrey Combs, Casey Biggs, and Chase Masterson, as well as DS9 showrunner Ira Steven Behr. We also attend the red-carpet premiere of Behr’s new documentary, What We Left Behind, where we are joined by acclaimed Star Trek novelist Una McCormack and Primitive Culture co-founder Tony Black to discuss our expectations and reactions to the film.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Nicole de Boer (00:07:02) Jeffrey Combs (00:21:58) Ira Steven Behr (00:31:13) Chase Masterson (00:50:44) Nana Visitor (01:09:55) On the red carpet with Casey Biggs and Alexander Siddig (01:39:02) Reactions to What We Left Behind (02:10:00) Closing (02:14:00)

For more information on Chase Masterson’s anti-bullying charity Pop Culture Hero, visit www.popculturehero.org.

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook Guests Lee Hutchison, Tony Robinson, Tony Black, Una McCormack, The Trekkie Girls, Nicole de Boer, Nana Visitor, Ira Steven Behr, Alexander Siddig, Chase Masterson, Jeffrey Combs, Casey Biggs Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Mental Health, Part II: From The Next Generation to Enterprise.

When Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in 1987, there were two striking additions to the traditional bridge crew: Worf, an emblem of the newfound peace between the Federation and the Klingon Empire, and Deanna Troi, a professional psychotherapist. A sign of the times, perhaps, Troi’s role was given symbolic significance by the fact that she even had her own chair next to the captain’s. Yet, in practice, the TNG writers often struggled with finding the right role for a mental health professional in the 24th century. For the most part, the they did little more than dip a toe into the murky waters of mental illness and it was the two next series—Deep Space Nine and Voyager—that really took the mental health of their crews seriously, crafting complex, psychologically credible stories based on the internal struggles faced by the characters.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, we conclude our discussion of mental health in Star Trek with a look at The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise. We consider how these series charted new ground in the franchise’s depiction of mental health and illness through episodes that deal sensitively with depression, breakdown, suicide, and psychosis. We also share some thoughts about mental healthcare in the real world and the importance of removing the stigma that surrounds mental illness if our own societies ever hope to boldly go into Star Trek’s utopian future.

For those keen to look up the books Clara mentions, they are A Very Human Ending by Jesse Bering (https://amzn.to/2SsPDFz) and This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay (https://amzn.to/2OWEXki).

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Counselor on the Bridge (00:04:30) Depression in the Delta Quadrant (00:28:35) Suicide and Psychosis (00:49:35) Stiff Upper Lips (01:11:10) Final Thoughts (01:17:45) Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook Production Tom Whelan (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Mental Health, Part I: Discovery and TOS. In space, no-one can hear you scream—whether out of terror or sheer misery. But while Federation doctors seem to hold the cure for virtually any ailment in the barrel of a hypospray, looking after their crews’ mental health can be more challenging. Like the members of any military organization, Starfleet officers experience trauma and loss on a regular basis—not to mention the whole gamut of more everyday psychological trouble: anxiety, depression, phobias, and more.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, the first in a two-part discussion recorded on World Mental Health Day 2018, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook look at mental health in Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: Discovery. They also open hailing frequencies to receive correspondence from listeners who share stories of how Star Trek has helped them through difficult times.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Mailbag (00:03:03) Discovery: Breakdown vs. Fake-out (00:29:20) Saru: The Anxious XO (00:43:45) The Original Series: Criminally Insane? (00:53:15)

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook Production Tom Whelan (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

When Captain Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise boldly went into cinemas in 1979, languid art-house pacing, an elegant orchestral score, and an encounter with things unfashionably alien led to a transformative, almost religious experience. Star Trek: The Motion Picture took its cue not so much from the colorful action extravaganza of Star Wars, which premiered two years earlier, but from 2001: A Space Odyssey, a film dating back more than a decade to a time when The Original Series was still on the air.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recorded live in London at the University of Greenwich, host Duncan Barrett is joined by film lecturer Chris Nunn and Tony Robinson of Continuing Mission for a look at the ties that bind these two mystical, complex, and sometimes problematic films. Taking a cue from another podcast, Missing Frames, we begin by screening 2001 for Duncan—who had never seen it—in order to contrast his raw first impressions with the insights of Tony—who has been obsessively rewatching it his entire life—and Chris, for whom it is a cornerstone of his teaching. We then move on to look at the ways in which this peculiar SF classic helped reinvent Star Trek for cinema, as well as some of the themes the two films share—from technology run amok to the birth of new life forms—and why Trek’s next cinematic outing, The Wrath of Khan, represents such an extreme course correction.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Great Expectations (00:03:41) Duncan Meets the Monolith (00:14:30) First Impressions of Time and Space (00:15:55) Douglas Trumbull, Master of the Universe (00:27:03) Tech Wars (00:38:58) Music of the Stars (00:51:28) Auteur on the Bridge (00:59:38) Encountering the Divine (01:09:03) Star Wars and the 1970s’ Trek Refit (01:13:18) Final Thoughts (01:24:23) Host Duncan Barrett Guests Chris Nunn and Tony Robinson Production Tom Whelan (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Hawkeye Pierce, Milo Minderbinder, and Nog.

In a series celebrated for its long-form serialized storytelling, Deep Space Nine’s young Ferengi Nog enjoyed one of Star Trek’s most satisfying character arcs, going from illiterate juvenile delinquent to Starfleet officer on the fast track to command. But as much as the character transcended the venal, self-serving qualities which typically characterized the Ferengi, he never lost his natural business acumen. Two episodes in particular, “In the Cards” and “Treachery, Faith, and the Great River,” put Nog in the role of the wheeler-dealer, exploiting his bemused “customers” with ease and managing an absurdly intricate system of trades.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Justin Oser of Earl Grey to look at two of the major influences on these DS9 episodes: the 1970s US television series MASH and American author Joseph Heller’s satirical novel Catch-22. Together, they consider how the classic Star Trek ethos reconfigures the more pessimistic structures of its source material, the boundaries of comedy and drama in the grim context of war, and why we can’t help loving a rogue, even—perhaps especially—when they’re in uniform.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) MASH (00:02:20) Comedy and Drama (00:12:16) Deep Space Korea (00:15:06) Whose War Is It Anyway? (00:32:58) Catch-22 (00:38:12) Exchange and Mart (00:51:54) From A to B (00:59:40) Final Thoughts (01:15:35) Host Duncan Barrett Guest Justin Oser Production Justin Oser (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

John Carpenter’s Christine and Voyager’s “Alice.” In 1983, horror maestro Stephen King was such a hot property that a movie adaptation of Christine, his story about a haunted 1958 Plymouth Fury that goes on a killing spree to protect its owner, was well underway before the novel had even left the presses. The resulting film, directed by John Carpenter, has become something of a cult classic. Many fans believe that it outstrips King’s original for thrills and adventure. Less successful was Star Trek: Voyager’s attempt to rework the Christine story for the sixth-season episode “Alice,” in which Tom Paris purchases a haunted shuttlecraft that gradually begins taking over his life and personality.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Brandon-Shea Mutala of Melodic Treks and Warp Five to discuss one of his favorite movies, Christine, and the novel that inspired it. We consider how well the central premise translates to the Delta Quadrant along with the dark side of nostalgia, the role of the automobile in American culture, and what happens when paying homage to an earlier work becomes stifling rather than inspiring.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Christine and Alice (00:03:05) A Suffocating Homage? (00:09:40) No Sex Please … We’re Starfleet! (00:15:40) Nostalgia (00:21:25) Teen Terror (00:31:22) Bad Dreams (00:39:00) The Open Road (00:43:34) Final Thoughts (00:47:41)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Brandon-Shea Mutala Production Tom Whelan (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Untimely Ends for Star Trek’s Redshirts.

Set phasers to stun, use thrusters only while in spacedock, and—whatever you do—avoid the narrative! The last of these—taken from John Scalzi’s parodic novel Redshirts—might apply equally to Starfleet’s young supernumeraries and the ensigns of the novel’s Starship Intrepid.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook look at how the redshirt trope has played out over the course of Star Trek’s half-century mission, using Scalzi’s novel as a counterpoint. We consider what it means to die a good death (on screen and in reality), why some lives are viewed as more valuable than others, and what our feelings about redshirts might tell us about the limits of human empathy.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Scalzi’s Novel (00:03:12) Featured Extras and Meaningless Deaths (00:10:05) In the Fridge (00:20:37) Post-Mortem on Voyager (00:27:15) Willing Suspension of Empathy (00:43:45) Pain and Suffering (00:56:45) Good Grief (01:03:05)

Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook Production Tony Robinson and Clara Cook (Editors) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Star Trek Beyond in Concert at the Royal Albert Hall.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook host a network roundtable during a screening of Star Trek Beyond, accompanied by live orchestra, at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Joining them are Amy Nelson of Earl Grey, Tony Robinson of Continuing Mission, and former hosts Lee Hutchison and Tony Black, as well as family and friends. Together, we discuss our personal responses to the Kelvin Timeline films, the impact of live musical performance, and how Michael Giacchino’s music, in particular, has helped to redefine Star Trek as blockbuster entertainment.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The Kelvin Timeline Films (00:02:00) The Music of Michael Giacchino (00:07:28) Family and Friends (00:26:06) Closing (00:44:15) Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook

Guests Amy Nelson, Tony Black, Lee Hutchison, Tony Robinson, Ben Cook, Susan Eldin, and Lesley Eager

Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

The Holodeck and Video Games. For Starfleet’s avid gamers, the holodeck offers a seemingly endless repertoire of thrills. You can battle the Spartans at Thermopylae one minute and knock back a martini—shaken, not stirred—the next. And, you can do it all without leaving the safety (mortality subroutines permitting) of a single room.

Since Captain Picard first donned his fedora and trench coat in the role of pulpy noir sleuth Dixon Hill in 1988’s “The Big Goodbye,” Star Trek’s holographic adventures have given us a glimpse into the fantasy lives—and occasionally the guilty pleasures—of our crews. We’ve seen Tom Paris jump into action as sci-fi hero Captain Proton, Julian Bashir foil devious plans as a debonair spy, and Captain Janeway roam the halls of Victorian gothic romance.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Brandi Jackola of Warp Five and Live from The Edge for a look at Star Trek’s holo-adventures, focusing on how video game culture is reflected in these 24th-century entertainment systems. Does the way a person plays offer insight into their character? Is it cheating to set the difficulty settings to minimum? And what can the unwinnable game—the no-win scenario—tell us about how our heroes will face death in the real world?

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Escapism and Fantasy (00:06:15) Guilty pleasures (00:18:33) Video Nasties (00:28:30) Easter Eggs and Cheats (00:43:23) The Unwinnable Game (00:57:37) Players and Gameboys (01:04:05) Gaming as Therapy (01:22:10) Final Thoughts (01:32:00) Host Duncan Barrett Guest Brandi Jackola Production Tom Whelan (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Pandemics in Star Trek.

At times, the medical technology of the Federation seems almost miraculous, offering cures for pretty much everything short of the common cold (and, of course, baldness). But a sudden outbreak of an unfamiliar disease can leave Starfleet’s doctors racing to find a remedy before mass death ensues. Sometimes, they even must bend the Prime Directive to save lives.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett take a look at Star Trek’s case history when it comes to infectious diseases, comparing the stories that have played out on screen to real-world epidemics such as the Black Death to HIV. Along the way, we consider why deadly outbreaks continue to fascinate us in an age when we are mostly protected. We also discuss whether science fiction is particularly well placed to tap into our terror of sudden widespread illness.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Movie Night: The Andromeda Strain (00:17:15) Stigma and Prejudice (00:25:15) Chaos and Social Change (00:32:00) Sterilization (00:44:50) Final Thoughts (00:51:20)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Religion in Star Trek.

“Nothing more than a substitute brain” was the characteristically dismissive phrase Gene Roddenberry once used to describe religion. This perspective found its way on screen in various episodes of The Original Series and The Next Generation that presented religious practice as misguided, primitive, or worse. It wasn’t until after Roddenberry’s death in 1991 that Star Trek began engaging with religion—frequently rebranded as faith—in more positive ways. Deep Space Nine, in particular, took religious belief seriously from the get-go, offering not only two series regulars who were viewed as religions figures, but a serialized narrative that demanded viewers consider spiritual questions and themes.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, recording live at the Church of St. Michael East Wickham in London, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Reverend Peter Organ for a look at Star Trek’s changing stance on religious belief and practice. They consider the shift, from the mid-90s onwards, away from Roddenberry’s implacable atheism, and also look at how key elements of Christian scripture have, in fact, been incorporated into the show’s storylines ever since the 1960s. They also look at how their own beliefs about religion—as an atheist and a man of the cloth respectively—have impacted their viewing of Star Trek.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Roddenberry’s Atheism (00:06:35) Having Your Cake and Eating It … on DS9 (00:15:00) Ways to Eden (00:22:40) Gods (00:27:40) Devils (00:38:55) Reluctant Messiahs (00:49:12) Sacrifice (00:58:35) Faith of the Heart (01:05:15) Final Thoughts (01:09:43)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Peter Organ Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Schooling in Star Trek.

On a Federation starship or space station, every day is an opportunity for learning. But for Starfleet officers whose families have joined them in space, providing a well-rounded education can be a challenge. Aboard the USS Enterprise-D, a host of professional educators were on hand, teaching everything from ancient history to calculus. Meanwhile, on Deep Space 9, an untrained amateur, Keiko O’Brien, stepped up to provide a curriculum tailored to the needs of the station’s dozen or so children.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, host Duncan Barrett is joined by Amy Nelson of Earl Grey and The Edge to take a look at education in Star Trek. We also discuss the ways in which Star Trek has inspired Amy’s own teaching and how she has incorporated her fandom into her classroom.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Teaching Trek in Amy’s Classroom (00:02:35) The Enterprise-D: Glorified Crèche? (00:08:40) Educational Software and Online Schooling (00:15:15) Pastoral Care and Discipline (00:22:55) Amateur Teachers, from Keiko O'Brien to Seven of Nine (00:36:25) Religious Controversy and Faith Schools (00:43:08) Teaching Versus Testing (00:57:45) Final Thoughts (01:04:09)

Host Duncan Barrett Guest Amy Nelson Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Star Trek’s fathers: the good, the bad, and the absent. “Other people have families,” Dr. McCoy lamented in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, apparently forgetting about his own daughter, Joanna. For a utopian vision of the future, Star Trek tends to offer a decidedly unflattering portrayal of fatherhood. Many of the central characters have markedly poor relationships with their own fathers and, in some cases, prove to be distinctly disappointing dads themselves.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett look at fatherhood as represented in Star Trek, considering both the best and worst examples from across the franchise. We celebrate the number-one dad in particular—Deep Space Nine’s Dad-in-Chief Benjamin Sisko—and question whether, in the pseudo-familial environment of a starship, the captain is forced to step into a fatherly or motherly role. We also comment on some of the worst dads in Starfleet and beyond, and wonder why a mature science fiction franchise developed so many daddy issues.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Worf (00:04:51) Sarek (00:13:35) A Rogue’s Gallery of Guest Stars (00:24:02) Gul Dukat (00:36:55) From Badmirals to Dadmirals (00:43:30) Staying Away (00:49:50) Working Dads: Sisko and O’Brien (01:02:50) Honorable Mentions (01:13:30) Surrogate Fathers (01:33:20) Final Thoughts (01:36:30)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Compared with the occupation of Bajor, a violent and traumatic event which cast a long shadow over Deep Space Nine, the brief Dominion–Cardassian administration of the station at the start of the sixth season seems at first like a pretty soft alternative.

The six-episode arc focusing on life under Dominion rule offers a parallel with the World War II experiences of the Channel Islanders, the only English-speaking population to live under German occupation. Demilitarized shortly after the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk in 1940, the islands remained under German rule until the end of the war—five long years of compromise, resilience, and occasional flashes of defiance.

The regime in the Channel Islands was a gentle one compared with the Nazis elsewhere in German-occupied Europe, a “model occupation” intended to prove to the British people that the Germans could be just and reasonable.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett consider the parallels between the station-occupation arc on Deep Space Nine and the real-world experiences of the Channel Islanders—the subject of Duncan’s new book Hitler’s British Isles, published by Simon & Schuster and based on interviews with more than one hundred occupation survivors. We consider the dilemmas faced by ordinary people forced to choose between capitulation and resistance, the penalties meted out on those who fell in love—or lust—with the enemy, and the extent to which any occupation—even with the best intentions—will inevitably turn nasty and repressive.

Hitler’s British Isles is available to order from Amazon at https://amzn.to/2l0N91m.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) The Channel Islands During World War II (00:04:00) Military Withdrawal and Civilian Evacuation in “A Call to Arms” (00:10:55) Creeping Authoritarianism (00:24:00) Resistance Movements and Accidental Heroes (00:40:30) Odo’s Dilemma (00:46:15) Frustration, Resentment, and Protest (00:58:40) Tora Ziyal, Kira Meru, and the Shame of the Jerrybags (01:08:50) Duncan’s Special Offer (01:34:50)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Starfleet and the US Space Agency. When The Original Series debuted in 1966, the Apollo program was in full swing, although it wasn’t until after the show’s final episode aired three years later that humans landed on the moon. In the succeeding years, NASA and Star Trek became increasingly interdependent. Real-world space history and technology was referenced on screen, and an army of Trek fans gradually scored jobs at the space agency. When the time came to name the first space shuttle, the relationship came full circle as President Ford bowed to public pressure and christened the orbiter Enterprise.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook trace the complex and sometimes fraught relationship between NASA and Star Trek over the course of half a century. We consider Constance Penley’s controversial book NASA/Trek, which argues that the space agency fed off the more popular television franchise as a way of bolstering its own waning popularity, and discuss the role of disaster management and public relations in NASA’s history—both real and imagined. We also look at the shift in Star Trek’s handling of NASA from the 1990s onwards, and the importance of “futuristic nostalgia” from First Contact to Enterprise.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) TOS and the Apollo Program (00:12:15) Ground Control to Major Tom Paris (00:21:00) The Motion Picture Era and Murderous Space Probes (00:29:27) NASA/Trek and disaster management (00:49:16) 1990s Trek and futuristic nostalgia (01:09:10) Enterprise (01:21:10) Discovery (01:34:13) Final Thoughts (01:42:54) Hosts Duncan Barrett and Clara Cook Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) [name] (Associate Producer) Tony Black (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)

Shrinking Sci-Fi and DS9’s “One Little Ship.” Ever since 1957’s black-and-white classic The Incredible Shrinking Man, stories involving size-altering accidents have been a science fiction staple. In 1973, Star Trek: The Animated Series provided its own pint-sized kids’ adventure with “The Terratin Incident,” in which Kirk and his crew are gradually reduced in size by a mysterious Lilliputian community. But it wasn’t until Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “One Little Ship,” some 25 years later, that live-action Trek finally tackled this perennial sci-fi concept. A light-hearted episode in the midst of the fairly serious and grim sixth season, “that stupid shrinking show,” as it was known in the writers’ room, was seen as a chance to do something self-consciously silly. Yet, over the years, it has become a fan-favorite.

In this episode of Primitive Culture, hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett look at DS9’s “One Little Ship” in relation to other diminutive stories, from The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957) and Fantastic Voyage (1966) to Innerspace (1987) and Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1989). We even visit the much more recent Ant-Man (2015) as we discuss the pleasures—and pitfalls—of storytelling on a miniature scale, as well as the psychological and existential crises that ensue when people—in particular men—suddenly find themselves much smaller than they used to be.

Chapters Intro (00:00:00) Weird Science (00:06:30) That Stupid Shrinking Show (00:10:18) Up Close and Personal (00:25:30) The Horror of Comedy Parenting (00:33:20) Big Crisis for Small Men (00:41:45) Quantum, No Solace (01:03:00) Land of the Tardigrades (01:17:20) A Little Joke, Sir (01:26:15) Closing (01:31:50)

Hosts Clara Cook and Duncan Barrett

Production Clara Cook (Editor) Duncan Barrett (Producer) C Bryan Jones (Executive Producer) Matthew Rushing (Executive Producer) Ken Tripp (Executive Producer) Norman C. Lao (Associate Producer) Amy Nelson (Associate Producer) Richard Marquez (Production Manager) Brandon-Shea Mutala (Patreon Manager)