The Ready Room

The Ready Room 142: Always Practice Safe Docking by Trek fm

Vox Sola.

Running Time: 1 hour 51 minutes 41 seconds
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Star Trek has presented us with more aliens that we can count. But most of these have been humanoid. Even the exceptions—Tholians, Excalbians, even Species 8472—are still easy for us to imagine being real… somewhere out there. In the first-season Enterprise episode “Vox Sola,” the writers and creative team attempted to give us, as Brannon Braga put it, “a wildly alien alien.” The title of this episode is Latin for “lone voice,” and is one of just seven episodes with Latin names—and possibly the best.

In this episode of The Ready Room we're joined by Phillip Gilfus, Tommy Kraft, and Suzanne Abbott to discuss just how unique this story is within Star Trek, how difficult it is to present truly alien life, the production challenges of turning plastic wrap into a villain, as well as the technology sneak peeks and ethically building blocks of this early mission of the NX-01.

In our news segment we reflect on the 20th anniversary of the TNG finale, "All Good Things…", some unique ships coming to The Official Starships Collection—including the 22nd-century Romulan Bird-of-Prey and the Krenim timeship from Voyager's "Year of Hell," and the big plans that are afoot over at Star Trek: Phase II.


Hosts

Christopher Jones and Phillip Gilfus

 

Guests

Tommy Kraft and Suzanne Abbott

 

News

Looking Back at "All Good Things…" 20 Years Laters (3:14)
Get Larry Nemecek's TREKLAND: On Speaker Volume 2
New Ships Coming to The Official Starships Collecion (12:07)
Star Trek: Phase II Kickstarter (18:42)
Sponsor: Audible (30:29)

 

Feature: Vox Sola

Episode Synopsis (34:39)
First Impressions (38:15)
To Seek Out and Offend New Life Forms (44:24)
A Hoshi Story? (51:54)
A Bunch of Guys In a Pool (58:12)
A Truly Alien Alien (1:03:48)
Life In Plastic: Behind the Scenes of Vox Sola (1:11:03)
Shared Cultural Significance (1:19:46)
Exploration and Ethics (1:25:04)
Final Thoughts (1:30:24)
Closing (1:41:50)


Sponsor

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