Reaction & Review: "Golden Things" [205]

Obviously, it's not out yet, but I, like the rest of the cast, got a sweet sneak preview from Mike Hennessy which I listened to tonight. Thanks, Mike! (It will be released to the public VERY soon!)

So I just heard this episode for the first time -- I had literally never heard several scenes before tonight, which is a radical departure from my usual stance, where I've heard every draft of every scene multiple times. Usually I'm bored almost to tears by the time an episode comes out. Not so tonight - I was excited like a child on Christmas morn'. It was a great privilege to be given this perspective.

This is an excellent episode. For the first time, I can say that not just as a producer but as a fan. A great action-oriented followup to the ideas presented in 204, and a wonderful tie-off for our heroes. And those last few scenes... man.

Great work, actors and producers!

This post has been edited by James Heaney on Oct 20 2009, 04:20 PM

And it was so important he said it twice

Bugger! Thanks for catching that!

James' short attention span is showing.

I've listened to it twice already. There were a few scenes where I had trouble hearing one channel because it was being overpowered by the other, but oh wow!

We definitely did good!

I've also put out the word on Hidden Frontier, Osiris, Phoenix and Intrepid (the Scottish fan film).

I just want to say what a pleasure it is to be doing this with all you wonderful folks. I'm absolutely sucked into this show, especially as a fan. What I really enjoyed about this episode, besides the great action of course, is that the ensemble is the star of the episode. It flows very well, from one group to the others, giving the appropriate kind of feeling that an ensemble show should, & I especially want to express my pleasure with the Star Trek soundtrack choices in this episode. TWOK has some of my personal favorite scoring of all time

It's a consistent thing now, at least once or twice during listening to every episode on my headphones, I get me some goosebumps. I'm not sure why that is specifically, but I'm certain it's a sign of the show being really great

Congrats to all on wonderful performances, an excellent episode, an engaging second season, & an all around terrific show! As far as we've come with this show, I still feel as if we are only at the beginning, & there is still so much to explore

I am inspired to look forward to more challenges & more exciting adventures

Affectionately, Larry

What he said!

Producing "No One Gets Out Alive" is going to be a lot of fun. I'm hoping to keep it production on a tight turnaround schedule and hope everyone will get on board with that. The less time we spend in pre=production, the more time we will have for post=production, with the result that we will have fewer of the annoying little bugs and artifacts that find there way into any large scale production.

I gather we'll have a script in hand very shortly and I plan to get the guest roles filled in short order.

Thank you all for your great work and support!

Mike

Ok, guys I am going to say something controversial... First off I wanted to say I liked Golden things... I wish there could have been a little more phaser to phaser fighting, and I do think the kindred class is a little bit bigger then you portrayed it as I said before. At least may have had a little bit more of a crew, so i think a little bit more of a fight would have been put up.


Ok the moral tone... And Mr. Alex Roles change of opinion. I just have to say I disagree with it. Now I agree with the standard that you can never do a right thing, by doing a wrong thing first. However, in extraordinary circumstances the public good, aka the good of the Federation calls for acts of questionable morality, like the releasing of the plague on founders. Ultimately, whatever the Sword of D is not know to me at least, but what ever it is, it must truly be a horrid thing... Desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures. Unfortunately those measures are sometimes ruthless. While the killing of an officer that finds out too much about a threat may or may not fall within that. Perhaps the right thing to do would have been to wipe his memory. :-) But I digress... End of rant, long live Section 31... We are here to protect you, because your unwilling to protect yourselves. :-)

Hey, feel free to disagree with Rol's choice, Sherman. We're not trying to preach here, or to make up anyone's mind about moral decisions; we're just trying to tell a good story with the characters we've been given. If you end up cheering for Brahms instead of Rol, more power to you: neither one of them is quite a hero or a villain.

Like all character choices on Excelsior, Rol's choice is going to have consequences -- consequences neither he nor Brahms could have ever predicted. Stay tuned!

I was so pleased when I obtained the TWOK and TSFS soundtracks, Larry. I've owned "Battle of the Mutara Nebula," "Genesis Countdown," and "Enterprise Clears Moorings" for years now (thanks to the the very first soundtrack album I ever owned, Star Trek: The Astral Symphony), but adding "Kirk's Explosive Reply" and "Stealing the Enterprise" to my collection (among others) is epic win. So Ithink you're going to be hearing them quite a bit around here... although the music directions for the post-producers are going to be less mind-numbingly complicated next episode!

Download counts coming soon.

If I can add my 2 cents, Sherman, I like the fact that Rol and Brahms are somewhat ambiguous characters when it comes to their morality. They certainly do make you think about what you would do in their places and what decisions you might make. I don't think the point is that any particular choice is the "right" one, but that you have to at least consider the consequences and moral ramifications before you act. Certainly, a lot of those kinds of issues have cropped up in the post 9-11 world, at least for Americans.

I think in every generation there are operatives who convince themselves that they are the last barrier against the forces of evil (could be the Carthaginians, could be the Nazis, could be the commies, could be terrorists). If you see yourself in that light, it's easy to see how what would seem to me clear cut choices (lines?) suddenly become very murky.

The more aware we are that we can convince ourselves that morality is less important than survival the better, I think.

Well said! Oh and I don't think you guys were trying to preach to us at all. I love the fact that you guys don't take a liberal stance like a lot of audio drama's do, or much of trek programing does.... Darkerprojects unfortunately throws in some liberal rants from time to time, so that can get a little tiresome. I guess I love the fact that you guys present the facts, and live it for the audience to decide the ramification and the right choice. Keep it up guys. :-)

Oh and as for Alex Role's choice and its consequences, now that is scary!! I can hardly imagine, I guess some of those ship eating creatures are about to appear! THE HORROR! THE HORROR!
I guess I will just have to stay tuned. :-) That sword of D is sounding scarryer by the day.

Half-credit.

Well, one-third credit. Maybe less. But still... you're on the right track. Nice.

(oops, I guess I posted my first note about this episode in the wrong place, it should have been here instead of the Announcements board... sorry!)

Personally, I think Rol's "flip" was properly foreshadowed, his "that changes everything" discussion about Lorac with Brahms in the brig I now consider to be his apology/explanation-in-advance to him, and should have clued me in to what his own personal objective might have been. Plus his comment to Brahms that his genetic controls prevent him from talking about them, when we, the listeners, knew well that he had fully admitted their existance to Lorac previously. I did spend some time pondering where this story might be going and am still kicking myself that I didn't figure it out. Maybe I shared Dovan's mistrust of his admission.

Thinking back to the previous episode in light of the latest one - one thing I didn't understand though was how Brahms, in his interrogation with Dovan, was so sure they'd so soon have all the "pieces to the puzzle" without knowing about Rol's admission. He must have realized that those genetic controls had somehow been uncovered, but I think they'd have been pretty hard to uncover unless led directly to them. I'd also like to know what representative Brahms was expecting to appear and tell Dovan the "story", and whether or not someone DID eventually show up.

Another little mental flag that went up, was the fact the Dovan allowed Rol to get out of the brig and participate the way he did. While he did say he believed in Lorac's belief in Rol, but I just can't see that being strong enough to for him to allow Rol that much free reign, not given all the clandestine happenings going on around the Excelsior up to this time. But then again, "don't call me Captain" Dovan doesn't play by normal rules! I'm looking forward to finding out the rest of the story and what Dovan does about it.

-Andy T.

PS - cool that you got some more sources for background music. With just one exception, I've really liked the music you've used so far.