Where No Podcast Has Gone Before
In this episode the Podcast Mind Meld honors the late Leonard Nimoy. Jim, Peg, Shelly and John watch an episode of the original Star Trek television series. In the manner of another old series, Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K), they do not sit passively and observe but rather demonstrate what they laughingly call their wits by providing running commentary. You are encouraged to listen to this episode while watching Star Trek, season2, episode 10, “Journey To Babel” (with or without the captions).
Proving that they have almost completely run out of new ideas (send suggestions!) this episode ransacks two classic television series. The original television version of Star Trek spawned a Next Generation as well an entire lineage of television and film descendants (not to mention the whole Comic.Con culture). According to the summary of “Journey To Babel” published on the Alpha Memory website, “As the Enterprise comes under attack on the way to a diplomatic conference on Babel, one of the alien dignitaries is murdered, and Spock’s estranged father, Sarek, is the prime suspect – but he is also deathly ill, and only Spock can save him.” According to Wikipedia, this episode of the television series features not only the first appearances of Mark Lenard as Sarek and Jane Wyatt as Amanda, but also the introduction of two new species, the Andorians and the Tellarites. Mystery Science Theater 3000 was described in The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows as a “…movie hosted by a human and two robots who appeared in silhouette in the lower right-hand corner of the screen, offering sarcastic commentary as the flick unspooled.”
