I’m quite happy with the way it ultimately went, but it’s a pretty interesting thought experiment.

It’ll make one hell of an oral history some day.

As I understand it, the original plan was that Captain Kim was going to be kind of like Admiral Shelby [Elizabeth Deneny], that was going to be you.

Correct.

So, I was wondering how far down the road did they go with you on that?

It went all the way to my manager saying, “You’ve been cast.” It was originally a three episode arc, which then changed to two, then then changed to one. But I was told by my manager that I needed to be in the LA area in January for a fitting for Picard. So it was there. It had progressed fairly far actually having Harry on that show, pretty darn far. The script was written. Harry’s name was in there… Jeri Ryan said to me, “It’s so funny because we got sent a script, and Harry was in there, and all sudden, the revisions, Harry wasn’t in there.” I was like, “Oh, wow.” So, it went pretty darn far. And I’ll be perfectly honest, being a sci-fi fan, I was depressed for months after that when it didn’t happen. I was literally crying into my own sleeve. [laughs]

I haven’t listened to the audio, so I don’t know what Wang’s tone is like during this story, but…that sounds really shitty. Possibly worse than filming something that later got cut.

This is a few months old, but I don’t remember seeing it before. I’m a sucker for this kind of “inside baseball” information.

I think that was Wesley on “Prodigy,” but it’s possible - probable, even - that I’m forgetting something.

With all this talk about the multiverse, I can’t help but wonder whether we’ll get a tip of the cap to the mycelial network.

It’s very possible - in 2001, it would have been harder to find things that weren’t influenced by “The Matrix.”

The plot setup itself isn’t too original for Trek - DS9’s “The Assignment” comes to mind.

I liked how William Boimler was so done with Multiverse fatigue. Felt topical given the current Hollywood trend.

Agreed - it was nice to see them tackle multiverse fatigue head-on. It was even nicer to have Lily(!) provide a bit of a rebuttal to it, and argue that such stories don’t have to be hacky.

I’ve found the season to be a little lacklustre, but I really liked this one. The gags seemed like more than just gags, and the story was more engaging than I thought many of them have been recently.

Having Jolene Blalock back was a real treat.

Sahar is “super old,” extending his life through genetic augmentation and cryo sleep.

This is a somewhat different take from what I’ve been thinking - my interpretation of things that have been revealed so far is that he’s an unfrozen Augment prisoner in the Khan tradition.

I get it. I’m obsessed with Streamline Moderne, myself.

Retro-futurism at its finest.

Well…retro now.

I’m glad to finally get a hint of a plot, even though it sound pretty much like what I expected it to be.

Sam Richardson’s character sounds pretty entertaining based on a single line.

My partner and I (well, her really) have pretty modern taste, and coincidentally own a couple of lamps from the newer shows.

I thought this was a nice palate-cleanser.

The premise is a genre staple, including of course the original “Lower Decks” episode. I particularly enjoyed just how full of bullshit a typical day is for Captain Freeman.

I strongly object!

Pop-Up Video was a VH1 show.

I wonder if “senior science officer” isn’t actually a very prominent position - by this era of Starfleet, the Operations officer tends to fill this role.

I think the TNG Technical Manual explains that the Ops officer manages and allocates the ship’s resources like sensors, while the actual scientists are presumably down in their labs rather than on the bridge.

If that’s still the case, I wonder what a science officer on the bridge actually does.

I had no idea he’d actually auditioned for this role.

Maybe all you have to do is wave a light over it…

I was thinking something kind of similar - if they had left Mariner out of it entirely, we could have had a Tendi/T’lyn “Janeway and Chakotay build a bathtub” plot.

It makes me wonder about how much background information Mount was given along with the sides he was reading - honestly, probably very little, or nothing at all.

He certainly seems to be playing the role in a stern-but-friendly way, which is likely not what they were looking for in the case of Lorca.