The Well of Forever

[0:00] So what is to be gained by fighting? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. I'd like to be the one to make that decision.

[0:06] Music. The year is 2024. The name of the podcast, Babylon 5. For the first time. Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin. And I'm Brent Allen. You know, Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek nerd podcaster dudes who had never seen Babylon 5 before. We're 30 years late to the whole deal. Well, we decided to take our podcasting stuff and apply that to Babylon 5 and over-examine it for all sorts of messages. And you know what we found out? It's a pretty damn good show. And we loved it so much that we decided to continue on with the spinoff show Crusade. And so here we are doing Crusade for the first time. Just like always, we'll be searching for those messages that the series is trying to tell us. But don't worry. Those are not Star Trek messages. They are sci-fi messages. And to really, really demonstrate that, Brett and I play a game you might have heard of it before. It's called The Rule of Three. It's a game that limits both of us to a total of no more. A limit of just three references to Star Trek per episode. That's it. Three. Uno, dos, tres. No substitutions. Extensions or refunds. And, Jeff, what happens if we make one of those references? Oh, people are going to hear their favorite sound in the world.

[0:10] I want you to know that this thing just made a very large dent in my ship.

[1:33] Hey, Brent. Hey, Jeff. We have a five-star review. Oh, yes. This one's from Apple Podcasts. Bus Driver Buddha says, Whether you're a seasoned B5 fan or you're just B5 curious, this podcast is a wonderful companion to your Babylon 5 experience. Jeff and Brent, two veteran Star Trek podcasters, are watching the show as spoiler-free as they can manage, sharing their impressions episode by episode. While they do make some references to Star Trek, they don't fall into the trap of comparing B5 to Star Trek. I'm sorry, read that line again. Yeah, let me say it very slowly here. Yeah, it's louder for the people in the back. While they do make some references to Star Trek, they do not fall into the trap of comparing B5 to Star Trek. And everyone out there said, BS. Go ahead, Jeff. They said.

[2:38] The next line's even better. But rather, they choose to engage with the material on their own terms. That's true. I myself am a longtime B5 fan. I started watching the show when I was 12, and it first aired here in Brazil. See, we had a delay of about a year with respect to the States. And I've rewatched it maybe five or six times since then. While I know this show like the back of my hand, these chuckle nuggets have nonetheless allowed me to see the show with new eyes, noticing details I hadn't seen before finding the good in episodes I'm not so keen on and pointing out flaws in a few episodes I love it's all part of the experience keep up the good work guys can't wait until you reach the end hey listen bus driver buddha you you have just written in, I don't know that this is number one it might be number one but this has to be a top three review we've ever had on this show. Agreed. Because you know what? You get it. You understand us. You get it. While everybody out there thinks that we're making all these comparisons back to Star Trek, and from the beginning, it's never been about comparing it to Star Trek. We just take that analytical lens and we apply it here, and then we're going to talk about Star Trek because that's what we know. But we also talk about lots of other genres out there.

[3:57] And kudos for the Chuckle Nugget reference, although I don't know how I feel about Jeff being lumped into one of those, but that's okay. I am not a Chuckle Nugget. My next T-shirt. I get the one. I am. I am not. I'm with Chuckle Nugget with an arrow. But you know what I love about this, though, Jeff, is Bus Driver Buddha says, this is, I think, what I hope for when people listen to the show. Is you're going to talk about reliving those first watches as you go through, but the finding good in episodes that I'm not so keen on and pointing out the flaws in a few episodes that I love and the fact that Bus Driver Buddha can sit there and receive both of those things and not let them think we're just crapping all over everything and that we hate everything because we don't. I don't know if we can say we loved Babylon 5 beginning to end, Even the bad parts. We loved it. And we'll prove that when we watch it for the second time. Right? Because who goes through these for a second time? Or a fifth or a sixth. Or a fifth. Yeah, but who does this for the second time? Are we the first? Are we the first one who's ever done a full rewatch? Back to back like this? Probably. I'm going to say we are. Okay, let's go with it. Yeah. We're the only back to back Babylon 5 podcast. B2B B5.

[5:23] That's not going to be the new title for the show, Well, Jeff, you know what? Along with our game, the rule of three and reading reviews and all sorts of stuff like that, there's another game we like to play at the end of these episodes where we try to guess what next week's episode is going to be about based on title alone. We don't read descriptions or look at thumbnails or anything like that. We try to avoid all the possible spoilers to it. Well, Jeff, this is where we revisit our prediction from last week and we see just how close we were. So, my friend, what did you think the Well of Forever was going to be about, and how close do you think you got? I thought that Galen was going to be seeking out the wisdom of the Technomages who had gone beyond. And that was part of his first pitch.

[6:06] No, you got Galen, and you got gone beyond, those who had gone beyond. So that's two out of three. You just said Galen, wisdom of the Technomages who had gone beyond. You got two out of three, my friend. I'm going to give that one to you. I'll take it. What did you think it was going to be about? Oh, I said that this was going to be a time travel episode. Tongue in cheek, guardian of forever. Well, if forever, I said they were cousins. And this is going to be a time travel episode. I really hope next week's our final episode of Crusade. And while I seriously doubt that this is what's going to happen, I really hope it's a time travel episode. Just because we haven't had a time travel episode yet. That'd be pretty gutsy. Pulling out a time travel episode in the first half of your first season. That's some bravado. Dude, JMS has some serious sci-fi credit. He could do that he could he could pull it off he could do that although he waited till season three to do his in babylon five so and did it perfectly he earned it well well done well i think it was great how he did war without end and the babylon squared thing all together and made it work i'm curious though brent if he made things work in this episode for those who have not watched this in a long time or don't remember it can you break down the well of forever for us a slow open reveals a shuttle headed towards the Excalibur there's something familiar on the hull of the shuttle it looks like.

[7:27] A Greek letter, a trident of sorts, a size. No, no, wait, it couldn't be. The Psy Corps is back. OK, don't worry. This this isn't Bester. It's just Mr. Jones. And Mr. Jones is here to do his periodic review of Lieutenant Matheson, you know, to make sure he isn't using his psi powers on any poor, unsuspecting, unfortunate mundanes, you know, reading their thoughts without their permission and stuff like that. This is all part of the result of the telepath war. You see, every so often, the Psi-powered people have to submit to this, kind of like getting your car emissions checked yearly.

[8:04] Moreover, as Matheson explains it, this guy is kind of like internal affairs is for a police station, complete with a pay and promotion structure that completely depends on catching bad guys, not just doing their job. So what could ever go wrong with that? Well, Mr. Jones comes in for the scan, and it's not nice. It's not nice at all. He's clearly probing deeper and harder than he should. Don't say it. And in doing so, he gets out of Matheson the location of their next mission, the Well of Forever. This should be interesting. Alright, let's back up a few hours. Galen has come aboard the Excalibur with a cool-looking glowing rock. This rock, as it turns out, is kind of like a map to a mythical place deep off the beacon path in hyperspace. A sort of ancient crossroads where ancient cultures all came together to do stuff, and there's a really good chance that we could find something else to help out with this Drock Plague. But it's going to be dangerous and it's going to require both the Excalibur and Galen ship, whatever its name is, to be tethered together for the duration of the trip.

[9:12] Whatever could go wrong with that? Well, the trip is starting to take a lot longer than expected and the crew really wants to turn back to normal space where it's nice and safe. Then they come across some life forms native to the region of hyperspace that they're in. Jellyfish, very Clearly, jellyfish.

[9:32] Galen's fascinated, but he's not threatened. Just pass through them with the engines off, he says. It'll be perfectly safe, he says. They'll leave you alone, he says. He was wrong. Faster than a revved-up 13-year-old boy passing by the naughty rack in the grocery store, one of those jellyfish reaches out with its tentacles and starts wrapping itself around the long cylindrical Excalibur. The other jellyfish see it, and they want in on it. They, too, start getting some action. I'm sorry. And on the action, Gideon is freaking out that they're trying to eat the ship. But they pose no real danger. There is this rhythmic thumping that clearly sounds like they're trying to take a bite out of the ship. Oh, wait. They're not trying to take a bite out of the ship. No. They're humping the ship. Which, I mean, who could blame the jellyfish, really? Because the Excalibur does kind of look like a very long and wrapped around. Brent, Brent, come on, man. Not in front of the kids. Oh, not in front of the kids. Sorry. Well, that does it for Gideon. He wants out of here. The only thing is Galen isn't so keen. Remember, their ships are tied together and Galen says they're not going anywhere except to where they plan to go. Effectively, he's mutinying against Gideon, which is kind of weird because Galen's not exactly under his command, but whatever. And Galen's going to force them to go there anyway.

[10:58] Gideon gives Galen a piece of his mind, clearly not happy about it, but they continue anyway. Before long they've arrived this is a mystical place galen pops down onto some sort of piece of land thingy that has buildings and lots of fun stuff in it gideon follows but before long we realize what this place really is it's full of minerals and treasure and those aren't buildings those are tombs and mausoleums this is a burial ground not a crossroads meeting of the minds but an ancient burial ground where aliens of all sorts come to bury the dead. And Galen has come to bury his girlfriend's ashes. You see in life, you see in life, she was obsessed with this place. And now that she's gone, Galen has to fulfill his last promise to her, no matter the cost. Gideon gets it, watches a touching little ceremony. Then it's back up to the Excalibur. They go.

[11:59] Well, Eilerson is put out because he can't grave rob the place for IPX. Gideon is put out with Galen, who comes to apologize and they talk it out. They're friends again. And Matheson? Well, he gets to put Mr. Jones out after Gideon lays a trap for him, using Dorena to plant the thought of a bomb on the ship. When Mr. Jones comes to alert Gideon, Gideon asks a simple question. How could you know unless you're doing the stuff that you're not supposed to do as a sci guy? Hey, you keep this secret. Leave Matheson alone. We won't tell anybody that you did this. And with that, we're back in normal space and we're off to our final episode. Jeff, I have a prediction. I wrote it down.

[12:44] I put it in my Brent Watches video. Oh, wow. Okay. It is there as far as what Jeff thinks of this episode. Would you please now tell us what you thought of Well of Forever? I didn't like this episode. I would like to read my prediction now, Jeff. Okay. It says, Jeff, I bet you hated this episode.

[13:06] I mean, hate's a strong word. There's some stuff I liked in this episode, but I really didn't like it. You and I were talking scheduling as we were leading up to this, and I said, you know, I'm really, really angry that this series got canceled and we don't get the conclusion of so many of these stories, and I kind of can't wait to be done with this series. So we've had some stinkers, and this is one of them. And the thing is, I really like Galen. I like the character of Galen. I like the idea of Galen. And this was a really bad Galen episode. He lied he eavesdropped on the bridge he sabotaged their net like he held them hostage with the he made a bunch of these like just nonsensical claims and told all these stories it was it was a level of desperation out of him that okay here's the whole thing for me it's not in his character to act the way he did but it probably is i think this episode is like a key episode in the arc of Galen's story that we don't get to hear. And so on its own, he just looks like an idiot and a jerk. Completely irresponsible. I can... Tell myself the story, you know, of what happens next. This is the same girlfriend that we saw back in the forgiveness episode. So, like, this is a thing for him.

[14:30] And I get it. But just because we don't get the next parts, it's just dumb what he did. Yeah, I can see exactly what you're saying, if I may interject here, particularly going back to that forgiveness episode. because there was a whole thing where Gideon was trying to, she said, like, if all of this is true, I'm going to come back and tell you. And Gideon refused to accept it, refused to believe it. And so to have this be butted up against that, as you say, another stepping stone onto whatever his eventual journey was going to be. Absolutely. It feels like it would have been that. It was a good Gideon episode, though. I liked Gideon a lot in this episode. He stood up to Galen, didn't put up with his stuff. And then when he understood how much all of this meant to him, he got out of his way and let Galen do his thing. But then he called him on it. And not only did he call him on it, but he called him on it from an elliptical.

[15:27] Because he is that tough. And the relationship with him and Matheson had some really good growth in this one. And for some reason, spacewalking in hyperspace is apparently amazing compared to normal space. I don't know why. But because of Gideon being awesome, Matheson knows why. It's better. I thought that was great. I thought the Psycor stuff in this one was, I was glad to have it, but also I was very confused. So Psycor doesn't exist anymore, and it's now the bureau of something. Right. But they're using the Psycor symbol on their ships, wearing it. But I feel like the only difference between psych whore life and bureau life is now the telepaths get to have regular jobs. That's the only difference. They still have people monitoring them. I'm sure they're still registering. Is life really any better? Is it even arguably worse? Because now you get to go live your own life, but not really. Because they're going to show up and they're trying to earn their promotions and stuff based on finding you.

[16:35] All I could think about while I was watching this was when Lita sent all those telepaths out, and she's like, remember Byron, remember Byron. Is this what she had in mind? Was a not Psycop wearing a Psycor logo who's not with Psycor showing up to interrogate a telepath? What was the point of the whole thing? But yeah, I didn't like this one. It had some shining moments in it. I think it was part of a bigger story we didn't get to hear, but all in all, I didn't like it. Please don't tell me you did. Jeff, you and I, more so than any other thing we have done together, Babylon 5, Stargate, and any of these other things, have been in opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to Crusade. Agreed. Big time. More often than not. We are there once again. I liked this episode. How? I thought it was a fun episode. dude um i'm sorry the the the absolute ridiculousness of the jellyfish scene oh that was incredible that was incredible that was so funny and it just you know we know tnt is putting pressure on jms to to incorporate stuff so the we we have seen what you and i suspect often even through babylon 5 when he is.

[17:50] Forced to do something by the studio looking at you keffer and what jms does to those things that he gets forced to do by studio and jms has a level of of snarkiness of of subterfuge that sinclair and sheridan and gideon combined can't even measure up to you know like the way those guys solve problems. Of course, JMS is the guy writing their, their solutions to stuff because man, he, he just, he goes for it. But here's the thing. There really wasn't much to the main story of this episode. Like it was, it was really thin. They added in several extra subplots, which I think all made it work together really well and kept me interested and engaged throughout the course of the episode.

[18:38] But what I found so compelling about this episode, Jeff, was I found it terribly introspective. And the meat of this episode to me really lies in the final scene between Doreena and Galen. And we're going to talk about that in pretty good detail later, but where he's basically addressing the various questions that people had answered in their trip to the well of forever. We'll get to that later. There are great questions though, that I think are much, much deeper than the normal questions or what they might've been on the surface. So overall, it was a good episode that I really enjoyed, and I can understand why you would be put out by this episode. I can understand why people in general may be put out by this episode, but I enjoyed it. I enjoyed my way through it. Maybe because my expectation bar for this series has always been way down here, and the series just continues to show me that it's better than this right here. So it's been good.

[19:36] Okay. I mean, that's the thing, right? I mean, every episode is somebody's favorite, and it's okay that you don't. This is not my favorite. Exactly. I'm just saying it's okay that you like it. I don't understand some of this. I'm eager to talk about the questions at the end. I just want to read my note just to kind of let's foreshadow this a little bit. Okay. Questions that were answered, colon, dot, dot, dot. These are some weak-ass answers. Yeah, I have thoughts on how that whole thing was handled. But the fen, though, that whole thing with the fen, I have a whole section of notes on just the fen. Of course you do. Of course you do. And it's not even, I mean, the hilarious part for sure, but I love the line when Gideon's like, is there any damage? Because if they got anything on my ship. But what I loved about this. To take the Excalibur for a shower. Right? Do we have a bleach hose? I just need so much bleach right now. I need a spaceship car wash.

[20:40] But what I found fascinating is just that idea of hyperspace as a place. We know there are like folds and stuff. The Vorlon used it to hide. The well of forever is a thing that is hidden behind a veil and kind of has a trajectory. There's life. Galen talks about this is barely sentient this year. They're attracted to bright and shiny objects. I felt like he might have been talking about a person as opposed to the Fenn with that. But is there more intelligent life out there? You know, like that's unexplored territory within hyperspace. So I just was very fascinated by the idea that they presented. Do you remember way back when they first started talking about hyperspace and just the, we're going to go hang out in hyperspace for a few hours and hide here? And we're like, that's not how hyperspace works. We got so many emails. It's just like, you don't understand. We did not. You are correct. No, you're right. We don't. And we're, we come at it with everything that we're given from other science fiction franchises. And we're trying to rewrite in our brains what this, what this is, but you're absolutely right. There has to be more life out there. There has to be something out there that's more intelligent and.

[22:01] Otherwise, we wouldn't have a show. Right? You know, but there's got to be stuff out there. There's got to be places we haven't discussed. I mean, this could have been a backdoor pilot. There's aliens, there's locations, all in hyperspace we've never explored that are way different than anything that we've got going on here. Could have set you up for it. That could have been Matheson's spinoff, right? That moment he was spacewalking out there. He's like, this is my thing. This is my place. Oh, he connects with like anything. Well, especially because telepathic abilities are so amplified within hyperspace. I liked because we got that back in Babylon 5 proper when they were going to find. We got that from Bester and we also got that from Lita when they're going to Zahadum to find Sheridan, what happened to Sheridan. But they brought it up here. It didn't turn into anything in this episode, but it was just neat they brought it back. So the spacewalk bit. He couldn't go into spacewalk with people because it would heighten his senses to such a point that he couldn't even control it. And he would just read the minds of anybody that he's out there with. And that would be a violation of the terms of the Psy agreements, right? He and Gideon are fairly close, right? Yeah, I think so. Now, I don't know.

[23:12] Fully acknowledge Gideon is a captain. He's got things in his brain that Matheson does not need to know. Probably codes and passwords and just things that he's not sharing with his lieutenant. All right. That probably exists. But just on a friendship level, I don't know who else Matheson is connected with on the ship. I'm going to say you, Jeff. Oh, okay. If you were a psi-powered person and I was just a normal old mundane and we were on a ship out in hyperspace, you know, and there's a rule. You have to go out by twos. You can't just go out with one. Like, you've got to go out. And you'd be like, man, I really want to do this. Really want to do this. I would like to think that I would be like, come on, Jeff, let's go. I'll go with you. Yeah. And if you read my mind, then you read my mind. I tell you pretty much everything that's in there anyway. But I think it's the other side of that, though. I don't know that I would or Matheson would want all of that. Yeah. Because you're not just going to get the codes and the passwords. You're going to get that one time when I was four. And you're going to get all the stuff. I went up to the balcony of the movie theater and I mixed up a bucket of fake puke. And I dumped it over the sun. And it made a noise like, blah, blah, blah.

[24:24] And everybody got sick. You're going to carry Chunk's trauma if you go out there. And I don't think anybody wants that. I would at least offer let's put it this way i would i would like to think i would at least offer you can you can say no if you want to but i think i i would like to think i would do the same right but i also think i also think that i would not want it if i were the telepath, which makes it interesting the rule right like the whole you can't do this it's almost as if well no it's not almost it is completely as if society has already painted telepaths as like Like you are inherently bad and you will do these things unless there are rules to stop you from doing them. But they're actually creating more bad in the creation of stuff. It just really, I don't know, it just really bothers me a lot that there's no change from PsyCorp to this Bureau thing. It's the same to the point that Mr. Jones, I also like, just from a storytelling thing, I like the idea that they're all Mr. Jones. Yeah.

[25:36] It makes it less personal when it's that way. But if you took every single word that Mr. Jones said in the way he said them and acted them and plopped those onto Walter Koenig, that guy was Bester. It was Bester, yeah. Oh, yeah. Also, that guy, Mr. Jones, is a repeat Babylon 5 guest star. Is he? He was the space zombie back in Spider, a Spider in the Web. A Bullhorn. When we got Bureau 13? Yep. Interesting. Okay. I thought that Daniel Dae Kim did such a great job with the story, though. This, to me, was the most compelling story in the episode. Yeah. And a lot of it was because of him. there was this moment when mr jones came on board and he said something about you know well i'll see you later or whatever and there was just this like fraction of a second shutter on matheson's face just this thing and in that moment you could feel in the pit of your stomach the fear that he had you know the that he like oh my god i can't do this again this is going to be horrible.

[26:45] And maybe you wonder, like, what was life for him? We saw a little bit of life for him in Psycor, but I don't know. I keep going back to the same thing. Was it actually better for telepaths under Psycor than this? I kind of had this piece because I don't think it is. It does not feel like much is really that different. So we saw the Psycor logo on his shuttle. He was wearing the Psycor badge. I feel like this is the first time I've noticed. I probably point this out every time I say it like it's the first time I'm seeing it. But Matheson has the Psy logo on his uniform as well. He's marked. And I'm sitting here thinking about that, and I'm going, man, that feels to me a little bit like Jewish folks having to wear the Star of David on their clothes back in Nazi Germany. Uh-huh. You know, like, why would you have to wear that to identify yourself as a Psy person when you're around other normal people so that they know what you are? Like that that's all sorts of yeah go live your life it's fine whatever job you want also carry this thing around all the time literally the the entire x-men comic book thing is based on.

[27:57] Do you do that or don't you do stuff like that should you have to identify yourself around other people with that and and it just does not it just didn't sit well with me that he has to he has to go through that and by the way he's got to get checked to see if he's been doing whatever okay can we talk about the idea that this guy's coming in looking for what you have done wrong yeah and just in in his whole livelihood is based on whether or not he catches you doing something wrong not that he's just doing his job but that he's actually catching you doing something yeah it's a wild thing in life if you you tend to find the things you're looking for sure you do right And even in this, I had a note in here. I'm like, he said he made mistakes. What were the mistakes? But then later we found out it was just passing stuff, like noise. I said this. I had this as a note. I was like, making mistakes is not a crime.

[28:57] Perfection should not be a requirement for living. So to be a psi-powered person, to never catch a stray thought, to never whatever, to never even have these things enter your mind, And that is not a requirement for living and it should not be a requirement for existing. Exactly. Now, whether you catch, it's what you choose to do. Once you catch those thoughts, do you throw it away? Do you keep it? Do you store it? Do you, do you go back after it? That is where we can talk about what you do later, but to just receive stuff, to just catch stuff like that, like the, and, and even still the, oh yeah, I did mess up. Yeah. Hey, you know what? I was driving the other day, right? Speed limit's 70, which in Florida means 80.

[29:41] OK, and I'm driving and I looked down. I was going 92 miles an hour. I was like, whoops. I did not mean to be going that fast. I was just be bopping along in traffic, kind of doing my thing. And as soon as I saw it, I regulated myself back. Now, if I'd gotten caught going 92 at any cop pull out and give me a ticket at that point. Yeah. Would I have been well within deserving to get that ticket? Sure, I would.

[30:06] Hopefully they don't send me one in the mail now that I just confessed that. But at the same time like i don't need people like coming after me checking my the history of my speedometer to see if it's ever gotten up that high to give me a ticket you know i can adjust myself it's okay and it's like what happens like it sounded like madison was afraid he's going to lose his job yeah so but what happens do you go live at the bureau to jail probably not just his job probably his freedom that's what i'm saying like is is this just like this pause and then a way mr jones clearly a site was a psycop in the in the psycor days so it's just just a way to get the psycops to go out and re-incarcerate all the telepaths re it's just it's just like this pause and you know whitewash over what psycor was and it's going to end up being bigger and worse as a result of the way they're they're managing the whole thing i'll tell you something else that didn't change from the telepath war, and I still don't like it, it still feels icky to me, is this terminology that we use between the telepaths and the normals. I still don't like that separation because it's still a dividing line. It's still a you and them, us versus them type situation.

[31:26] And who's to say that this is the normal? Normal is not a great word to use, full stop. Right. And here's the thing. And I know that telepaths were put on and created by Vorlons, but if we understand it right, that was something that happened a long time ago and now has propagated through the species.

[31:45] It's, you know, so it's not like they're, they're alternate. They're actively being genetically modified. Like this is just how people are. And some people are born like that. and as i understood it it was happening like it would happen in time anyway right they just basically you know took a couple millennia fast forward to the whole thing right but i did love gideon trapping mr jones like that was just such a such a power play oh so good especially when he comes in mr jones oh my god there's a bomb gideon doesn't even pause he's just like hey here's what I did to you, idiot.

[32:21] You walked right in. You are a spider and I'm the spider in a web now, Abel Horn. What do you think about that? You walked right into it. I said of that, it's like, how very Sheridan and Sinclair of him. You almost could say, to your earlier point, how very JMS of him. Right. So apparently, Galen's on board. You know, he just comes when he wants. And I think clearly when he wants something, he wants a ride. Hey, Uber, Excalibur Uber, take me to this place on a rock. But don't just take me to that place. Get out of the driver's seat and let me drive. Use my GPS and I'll do it. Like, I've got the whole thing. I thought it was fascinating, though, just the... And this speaks to the power or the possibility of that hyperspace spinoff, and that's that the Technomage ships don't need the hyperspace beacons. Right. That's a big deal. Which, why would they? Beacons are just tech. Mages are above that. Like, they're creating the tech.

[33:20] So Galen comes in, and he throws the... Well, I'm sorry. Let me back up just one more thing on the whole Matheson deal. Uh-huh. I felt like you would actually really appreciate this. I really loved Gideon offering to help his guy. Offering to stick up. He's like, hey, listen, do you need me to do anything? I'll take care of this guy.

[33:38] And Matheson's like, no, no, no, I'm good. Which, cool, fine. But Gideon's also like, hey, I can do something here if you want me to. I really appreciated Gideon doing that. And as soon as Matheson said he was fine, Gideon was like, okay, you got it. But yeah, Gideon's just great. he he is seriously he's a top starship captain in all of sci-fi absolutely he really is Gideon Gideon is one of the best if not the best captain in all of sci-fi and I say that ubiquitously across the genre agreed and I think that Gary Cole specifically brings so much to the personality of who he is like the writing and the character is great but what he with the life he infuses into that character is just next level can you can you imagine gary cole running this this role for five years where the writers are getting used to him and how he's portraying it and bouncing new ideas based off of how he is portraying the role and what that would have looked like by the time we got to the end so many great stories oh my gosh you know instead we get gary cole you know going if you ain't first you're last and you know talking about copy machines and whatever which Those are hilarious, so don't get me wrong. This is his favorite role. There are so many of these actors. This is the favorite role that they've ever been in for me. Well, for you, for sure. I think for them also, probably.

[35:01] I mean, Walter Koenig says that Bester is his favorite role. I mean, Chekhov is what puts food on the table, but Bester's... Well, it makes him smile. He had more lines in, yeah, if you can find every line he had over decades of Star Trek, he said more in Babylon 5. Peter Woodward, I don't know much of his stuff. There was a thing recently. He just produced some movie that came out, and he had an Ask Me Anything on Reddit where he posed naked with the sign covering himself. But he looked great. Like, he very much looked like Galen, just a little bit older. But I wanted to go listen to or find some of his stuff because I this episode made me more curious than others as to like how much of an affect is he putting on his voice as Galen. Oh, yeah. Does he talk? Does he speak like that normally or is that him enunciating clearly for magic sci-fi? Well, he talks just like this. It's pretty funny. So he comes in. He's got a glowy rock that's going to lead. It's a mystical rock that points to a mythical place that is a metaphorical book to give us answers to questions we haven't asked yet. And you want us to just go? And my answer is, hell yeah, I do.

[36:17] If your job is to explore strange new worlds and do absolutely yes. But what he did, this is the filthiest thing. It just got dropped. And then it never came again. He's like, there's all this great stuff. There could be stuff about the Drock Plague. He's like, oh, here it is. And then they never, you know, at some point Gideon should have been like, where the is the plague stuff? Well, I also think it was pretty clear that like it was a, there might be something there about it. I don't know. You know, we're just kicking over rocks right now trying to find anything we can. And this is a pretty cool rock to go kick over, so. I don't know. The whole is the idea, the idea, I have a hard time with the idea of holding water, right? He mentioned, like, Stonehenge and Oracle and stuff like that. So, okay, yeah, there's a precedent for this, but I don't know. Maybe the idea of answering questions that we haven't asked yet is bigger than just dropping and fully interrogating in one episode. Sure. I mean, but to be fair, he should have known from the examples he gave. Now, I don't know if you can go to the Oracle at Delphi. My understanding is that was a person, not a place.

[37:26] But certainly you can go to Stonehenge. And here's what I know about Stonehenge, at least in the modern world. Stonehenge does not provide answers. Stonehenge only creates more questions. Especially when it's in danger of being trodden upon by a dwarf. So Galen needs the Excalibur. The Excalibur needs Galen. to be able to go do this. Here's a question I have for you. Is Galen's ship integrated with organic tech in any way? Oh, that's a great question. I mean, it doesn't look like the Vorlon ship. I'm not saying the whole thing is organic tech, but does it have organic tech integrated into it? The White Star had organic tech integrated into it. It didn't look organic-y. So there's definitely precedent for it.

[38:08] It's a good question that we'll likely never know the answer to. You know what I love about Gideon? Or, you know, you know, where I just I always get a tickle out of listening to Gideon run one on Eilerson. Yes.

[38:21] And that's when he goes in deference to common sense and Mr. Eilerson's concerns, which somehow ended up the same for once. I've got my issues with the actor who plays Eilerson. It's it's it's a weird role to me for him. But the look he gave Gideon right after he said that was classic. It was so good. it's just again i just got a short end of a lot of stuff in this one i mean he even told him to shut up at one point uh-huh i did enjoy what he had to go through for this eilerson yes only to get to the spot where like yeah there's treasure down there there's gold and rubies and diamonds and sapphires yes let's go no right and dorina's like well they have to on he's like yes you can absolutely we'll preserve the place we'll keep it great after we take all this stuff away to the museum to which i then wrote this question down what is the difference between a grave robber and an archaeologist a degree i had a professor of history once um who said this what's the difference between a fine piece of art and pornography the price tag and i always sat back and went but he's got a point to your point what's the difference between archaeologist and a grave robber a degree there's a point there i mean in theory a grave robber is going to do what ios is going to do and sell it and profit and do that but archaeologists kind of do that too.

[39:46] Yeah but then they take it and put it on display for everybody to come look at yeah like dude i left the stuff down there for me to use in the afterlife not for you to come grab it and do stuff with it it's not an investment holding place it's like i often tell my daughter once you grab something hey what's it was it was just fine where it was before you came and touched it can you just put it back where it was.

[40:07] Yeah. I mean, I, I just, there's been, there has been this explosion. It seems recently like post COVID of them finding a lot of new, like mummies and unknown burial places over in Egypt and in, in that area. Yeah. And every time that like they play, we're going to find out new stuff about this culture and about what's going on and all this kind of stuff. I'm going, none of those people buried this stuff so that future generations could learn about their culture. And you're going to take it, and you're going to take it to the museum, and it's going to be preserved. But you know what? The desert heat was doing a pretty damn good preserving it itself. It had been here for thousands of years. Yeah. And we know that you don't want to dig too deep. You might find the Stargate, and that didn't go well initially. I was going to say, you haven't seen the end of it yet. Yeah, it's starting to turn out okay, but I don't think we're ready for the Stargate. Probably not. Who says we don't have one yet? Good point. All right. I got a question. I'm going to change topics just a little bit here for you. The card game. Yeah. The whole card game scene. All right. I loved the scene, but the game five card draw is an awful game. Can we just agree on that? Agreed. It is a pointless game. There is no skill to it.

[41:18] You have to shuffle way too often for what you get out of that. That thing. You know what I mean? You just you don't use the cards enough to be able to.

[41:26] Although i will say those cards highly impractical for playing games with very yes you're gonna you're gonna go to shuffle those things and you're gonna bend them all to hell man i always love how they try to make future cards uh-huh and they had some a while ago that were cool but these were not i did i did love though how darina like darina cheated uh-huh gideon was okay with it and wanted to learn from her like it wasn't yeah he's just like i gotta i gotta i gotta know how you did that that was great i just threw that card away and you just laid it down how also why would you do that i just laid that card down i i know that you just took it like i guess it's part of the uh part of the relationship there where she's like i'm just i'm gonna show you what i did but good tell me how you did it so let's talk about gideon and galen yeah and galen mutinying against gideon And I'm of two minds on this one. All right? All right. So here's the thing, Gideon, it's kind of one of those, I fully want to acknowledge, Gideon is well within his rights to be pissed at Galen, well within his rights. What Galen is doing is wrong and should not be done. That being said, Galen considers the Excalibur his family. And Gideon has an incredible loyalty to Galen. You could almost say Gideon considers Galen to be family as well. Agreed. At least metaphorically, right? Then it works both ways, if that's the case.

[42:52] Gideon could choose to support Galen here instead of just being mad at him that he took control of the ship. Hey, I want to leave. You're not letting me leave. I am well within my rights to be mad at you. Yes, I am.

[43:04] Also, family member, I see that there's something going on here, and this is really important to you. And I don't understand what it is, but this is super important. Okay, so I'm going to go with you on this. You shouldn't have taken control of my ship, but you're family, so I'm going to do this with you. And he could have chosen to do it the other way rather than just you took control of my ship and i don't like it when people do that to me i think it was more than that though it could be one thing we just took control of the ship and he was upset but they literally made a deal like the deal was we'll go check this out galen we'll i'll play your game we'll go find it and if we get there and there's nothing we turn around we come home deal galen's like yes deal and then i get there There's nothing there. And he's like, aha, fooled you. I'm holding your ship hostage. No, but he's just like, no, we haven't found it yet. Okay, so it moved. This was expected. We're not done out here yet. We can't say that it's not here yet. Galen is responsible for that. I think Gideon was 100% correct to be like, no, dude. Again, I'm not saying he's wrong. He's absolutely within his rights to be like that. But what I'm saying is there was so clearly something going on with Galen here. There was something way deeper than I just want to go here and prove myself right. There's, there's, this is more than just, I want to go explore.

[44:25] There's something really happening here. And you know what I likened it to what it really stood out to me as it's the menagerie from Star Trek. When Spock just takes it and he's just running. When Spock takes the ship, because he has some loyalty to Captain Pike and he, and he can't, he's not telling Captain Kirk where he's going or what he's doing, although he should have. But Kirk also like when you look and see what Spock is doing, you're like, something's going on here. Like I can, you know, I can humor him and go with him on this. I mean, you and I do this all the time as, as podcasting partners, you know, it's, it's, we'll sit, we'll send each other, Hey, go with me on this bit or track with me here with what I'm doing. And just kind of got to follow along with what you're going. I'm not sure where we're going, but we'll, we'll get there. We'll figure it out real quick. I want to, Let's ride that metaphor, though, because in the episode, Kirk kind of let him do his thing, right? He's just like, I can tell there's something here.

[45:29] I'll let you say your piece and figure it out, and Spock did. He said his piece. This is why I'm doing it, right? That was the whole point of the court-martial and everything. I was going to say, he did convene a court-martial, though. He did, but it gave him his opportunity to be heard. Because he i think because kirk relationship with spock was he'll tell his story like when when he's when he needs you know he'll he'll disclose this exactly has galen done anything in the 12 episodes we've seen him in that would make you think that he would open up to gideon about this yes really and and in the 12 episodes we saw galen rescuing gideon having that this there there is clearly so much that happened between the day Gideon was rescued and the war, war path, the war was that first episode called war zone, war zone.

[46:22] There was clearly so much that's happened between them. And as we've seen Gideon come in, or I'm sorry, as we've seen Galen come in, Galen has proved himself to be right more often than not. I think of the Western episode, which I'm really sad. That was like our second episode. I know it's so good. It was so good. But there are times we have seen Galen where Gideon's had to trust Galen, and it's worked out on the other side. So, yeah, I do think that there's precedent for him to be able to trust Galen like this. Also, Galen didn't need to just straight up jack his ship and be like, no, I'm not going. They can talk that out. Yeah, and I think that's what set it all off for me was they made a deal, and then he's like, no, I'm doing this thing. And what I've observed with Galen is he's the guy who is –.

[47:11] Avoidant of actually answering questions talks above people for things whatever until the thing happens and then he's like see because i was right the whole time and it's like all you had to do was just say this is the thing and we all would have been on board and like what you're saying is gideon should have been to just tell me what you're he's never told anyone what he's doing until he's already done it that's fair that's fair but you you have been through this with him enough to know that when he gets on the other side like here here's what you know galen is not putting the the crew in danger uh unnecessarily i think they make the case that he was though they thought he was but galen galen's protecting his people he he's pretty sure he knows what's going on you know even even when they got a surprise humping by the jellyfish right he that that may have taken him back but he they weren't in danger let's face it like i don't know you You know, let's turn on the thrusters and get out of here. Thrusting, Captain, really? Talk about sending mixed messages. Yeah, that's pretty hilarious. But yeah, I just, and I think this is the thing. I think in so much of this episode, any string of logic doesn't complete. Like, it's completely flawed. Because yes, you're right. Should have this. Yes, I'm right. Would have this. Nothing in this episode holds up. It's what we've had with a couple of these episodes where it's like, here's some ideas.

[48:37] Let's just string them together. And, and to me, it all came to a head at the end when Gideon was calling him out on it. And he was trying to explain, he's like, look, you know, you can trust me. Look how hard I worked to keep this promise to her. You know, I'll do the same. So what he's basically saying is, I betrayed your trust to keep her trust, so now you know I won't betray your trust. What? But you did. That's why we're here. It just didn't hold any water to me. And my big all-caps note on here, the whole trip was just to spread her f***ing ashes. Are you serious? Yeah, that was that was I mean, you talk about a about a big disappointment, man. Yeah, even it starts sparkling. I'm like, oh, something. Sure. No, and it's not even all her ashes. It's just whatever fit in this little vial. You know, yeah. Or this little urn that he had wearing around his neck. By the way, that medallion he had, you remember a couple weeks ago when Chambers had the reject PKE meter? Yeah. That medallion to me was like the reject Indiana Jones medallion. The Raiders of the Lost Ark were in the hand. Because when he pulled that out, I was like, oh, so help me if he sticks out on top of a staff to go find something out there.

[50:03] But yeah, he's burying his dead girlfriend. And I like I literally like I called it as soon as he was pulling that out. I was like, oh, my word. He's just here to bury his girlfriend. That was the whole deal.

[50:15] And here's the thing. And I think that was the point. Actually, it's right here in my notes. That was the point. I said, I said, is Galen burying his dead girlfriend? Immediately? Yes. That medallion is an urn. This episode is very reminiscent of the menagerie when Spock steals the enterprise to take Pike back to the planet. I bet Jeff hated this. I thought it was sweet. I will tell you what I thought was sweet. What's that? When he says, you know, techno mages know the 14 words that will make someone fall in love with you forever. But she only needed one. One. Oh, baby. Hello. Baby. And then when he was done, he says goodbye. Oh, like that. That was very sweet. I like that a lot.

[50:57] So this episode was another episode that had like 15 different endings. Yep. Did you feel that? Like, uh-huh. It's just like, oh my gosh.

[51:06] However, can we, can we get to the last bit, the final scene now? Yeah. I was going to say, let's talk about the questions, right? Is this your messages piece? Not really. No. Okay. Because it's no, it's not the message. This is, I just think something that was got posed, posed in the deal. This is the pole in the tent for the episode. Are these questions? I agree. Yeah. So, so he goes through and he, there's five people that he names and I don't think it's, it's a, it's a mistake that it's five. He says, Eilerson, he, you know, Eilerson goes down there and he, he gets answered this question. Is there anything that I cannot have? He says Matheson would have had his answer. Had he gone Gideon received his answer, but he wasn't listening. So he's going to have to get it somewhere else.

[51:50] Doreena asks a question later and there's an unspoken question from Galen in there as well. Now, when we're talking about questions, we're talking about the number five. I immediately come back to the five questions that this series wraps itself around the first three of which or two of which were introduced to us in Babylon five. What do you want? Who are you? Where are you going? Who do you serve and whom do you trust? Now, assuming that each one of these people represents one of those questions, Jeff, I'd like for you and I take just a minute and sort of dole out who we think each question is representing. Okay. Eilerson is probably the easiest. Is there anything that you cannot have? Right. What do you want? Yeah, that's what do you want? Okay. So we're left with who are you? Where are you going? Who do you serve?

[52:38] That might be the second easiest, maybe, possibly. Oh, no, I'm sorry. And then who do you trust? That's the second easiest. Is who do you trust? Yeah, because that's Doreena. Because Doreena asked, is there anyone I can trust? Anyone I can trust where it's not about money or power. Right. The other ones, though, Matheson, Gideon, and Galen, this is where I...

[52:59] It's where this... Construct fell apart for me Gideon wasn't listening so I'll have to find it elsewhere, what is Gideon's question though what do you think what is what is his question it's something with the Cerberus because they mentioned you know he's like you know he's like I made this promise to that and he's like I made that promise 300 times you know and then he was holding a little plaque thing for it so it's clearly tied to the Cerberus and see and I think this question for Gideon has probably been something that like it wouldn't shock me if it was in the character bible this is the thing he explores again and again and again throughout the course of his story and it's what we've seen you know i don't leave anyone behind i'll go after people and so if we if we follow that line of logic he didn't leave galen behind right in this and so somewhere in maybe we already interrogated the answer to that question of you know how how should i have showed up showing up for for galen or the people you know or and is what i did sufficient for the people on the cerberus for galen for the people that are important to me now and that would would that come down to who do you serve i would see i would it could be who do you serve but i also think it very much could be who are you because that's his thing who are you as a person yeah but it very also it very much could be who do you serve although matheson's really strikes me as a who Who do you serve as well?

[54:26] He would have received his answer had he gone. But he did something else because he serves Sycor in this in this pair. This question is he going to serve Sycor? Is he going to serve humanity or himself or Gideon or his job? You know, she can't serve two masters. Exactly. You'll love one and hate the other. Can't serve two masters, which if we go with that. So if we say that Eilerson is what do you want? And Doreena is who do you trust? And we say that Matheson and Gideon are some who who are you and who do you serve? And I I that's how I'm interpreting it. It could be wrong because it wasn't super clear. But that leaves for Galen. Where are you going? And let's think about Galen's story that we've had. He was with his people, got ejected from them, and he's just meandering around the universe now. Where are you going? What's your future? What are you going to do? And I think that lines up with what happened in this episode even. They're tooling around space, doing whatever, and he's just like, oh, hey, guys, let's go find this thing.

[55:33] Just chasing the next shiny thing. That's a good analysis of that. I was frustrated by, I loved Eilersons. Eilersons from Go, I was like, this is great. With Doreena's, they got there. Yeah. Eventually. The whole thing with Doreena's question started with like, you shouldn't talk in an open channel because I'm going to eavesdrop on you. Like that whole thing just was weird and inappropriate and I didn't like, but then he flipped it. Can I ask a question about that real quick? Yeah. did galen have a bug on the bridge that he was listening to or does he just have like super hearing that he can zone into what anybody is saying at any time i think he's got because he has a bug because like he literally had like the hologram thing and it yeah come up and i was like that no no not okay and if that was only there for the purpose of him hearing her ask the question of like is there anyone i can trust didn't do him any favors having that be the way it came up but they got to the real question and and i like i think this episode in a lot of ways too i'm beginning to appreciate darina's character's role in the show a lot more she's almost she she's not the mary sue but she just has a naivety around things that allows um you know different stories to be told and explanations to come up and in this one just that idea of you know.

[56:59] Can you trust everyone's after money or power and and that ties that in a way ties to almost all the other questions you know eilerson and money matheson mr jones and power uh galen and none because that's the thing i think what she got out of that is i can trust galen because he's not doing this for money or power he's doing it for love and and to be fair i think all five of them could have all five of these questions asked about them but there's going to be one that they kind of emulate more than others i i suppose is kind of kind of really where we're getting there so i i don't know but i really matheson would have had his answer had he gone down i want to know what that meant yeah and gideon received his answer but he wasn't listening can we go back and see it again like okay what was it maybe i missed it too what was like and if you know that he got it and you know what matheson would have got why are you not like come on man like aren't we family aren't you supposed to help us out here you know what this feels like to me you remember when um was it lady morella came to londo and was like you've got three more chances you've already wasted two so that don't pluck out the eye that doesn't see and don't kill the one who's already dead and don't feed them after midnight or whatever it was i forget and and those three things to this day are debated as to what they actually were and jms purposely does not answer of that question and rightly so because it's better just letting it be.

[58:27] Debated and here we are again and here we are with the same thing here we are very good well here we are Brent we talked about the poll in the tent of this episode those five questions did you get any other messages out of this one you know there was a few I think the whole thing with Jones and Matheson earlier and I mentioned it earlier he says that he's seeing a bunch of mistakes that Matheson made along the ways and it's disturbing and And I'll go back to what I said earlier. Perfection should not be a requirement in life. It just shouldn't. You know, things are going to happen. It's okay. It's okay. We don't have to go that way. I think there's a mirror to society. We use that as kind of one of our litmus tests here. And I'm sorry if this offends anybody out there, but it happens. At least it does in TV a lot.

[59:13] Police authority and abuse. Police authority, you know, they should be held to a higher standard. They asked that question at some point in the episode. Like, no, you should be held to a higher standard because you're going to be, uh, you know, it's fine. You, you go out, you get scared. You want to go home at the end of the night. Everybody does, but you've got to maintain your cool at a higher standard than the general public or regular, you know, it, there's got to be some sort of a higher standard there. But the, the biggest one that I, that I really kind of caught with, uh, and I think you could go into all sorts of stuff about trust being a family thing. We talked about that between Gideon and Galen earlier and all that sort of stuff. But I loved this. And I don't know that this is a message as much as just a reflection. And I've experienced this for myself. Galen says of his now dead girlfriend talking about finding the well of forever. It was her dream. And because I loved her, it became mine too. Love does that.

[1:00:15] You know, there have been things that I've had zero interest in. But because it's important to my wife or because it's important to my kids, I now want to see it happen to Brent doesn't personally care. But because of it affecting people that I care about, I'm now for it. It happens on the other side. You know, I have a particular favorite football team that I that I support. My wife doesn't give two blips.

[1:00:43] But because it's important to me, you know what? Every Sunday she goes in there and she puts on her jersey. And she comes and sits down next to me to watch the game. Now she's usually playing on her phone or reading a book or something while the game's on. But she's with me in it and she's wearing the gear. You know what I mean? So love does that. And yeah, I think everything else we've pretty much really talked about as we go through. Did you pick up on any that I might have missed here, Jeff? No, it was really exactly what you said, especially the abuse of power. Yeah, I think that one was just so, you know, right up in your face. That is the story of Psycor.

[1:01:17] Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. So, Jeff, those are the messages I got. However, you, my friend, get a special task. And I kind of hate that you're getting to do this because, but you're getting to place this in our completely and absolute accurate, 100% definitive ranking of the 13 episodes that exist. That we call crusade so our current top five jeff i'll go from number five that's appearances and other deceits number four is path of sorrows three is war zone two is the needs of earth and one is the long road jeff probably not finding its way into the top five for you that's okay where are you placing this one well of forever i'm really feeling right now this like tension between this podcast that we do and our incredible stargate sg1 for the first time podcast because That's a fun show. On that show, I get to do the ranking myself. It's my ranking, right? So it makes sense to me. I look at it and I can retrace my thought pattern. I look at this one and you did a ranking that frankly messed everything up.

[1:02:26] And it's going to make this one go higher than I want it to be. But in the way things line up, it has to be you put Patterns of the Soul at number seven.

[1:02:36] It did not belong there. Yes, it did. And so as a result, it's not going to be there anymore. This episode, the Well of Forever, is going to be the new number seven just above Patterns of the Soul. Wow. I enjoyed this episode quite a bit more than that one. We'll just read the second five just for posterity's sake. Anybody out there who might be wondering. Our sixth episode right now is Each Night I Dream of Home. That was a good episode. I liked that one. Well of Forever, Patterns of the Soul. Visitors from Down the Street comes in right after that. And then racing the night memory of war and ruling the tomb. Jeff, I will tell you out of these 12 that we've watched so far, I think there are only three that I did not like. I've liked all the other ones. Yeah. Now I think there's a, there's a dividing line between each night, a dream of home and well or forever, which is the halfway mark that's six and seven, you know? And I think there there's, I'm not saying that the bottom six are, are all bad. They're just not as those that top six. That's a good top six. Totally. You know, that's a really solid top six. But, you know, three of those last six are really good episodes. I think you could make the argument for at least a fourth one being really good, too. So I don't know. I think of everything in the bottom half of this. The only one I would willingly watch again is visitors from down the street.

[1:03:58] The other ones I just did not like. and that's okay because i really liked at least i liked seven of them so far and that's for a season one first half of season one of a sci-fi show you know i i think people i mean for for a show that only lasted 13 episodes due to lots of shenanigans and for a first season a show that was very much still finding its feet and you and i've been told there's there are a lot of ups and there's a lot of downs but there's more ups than there are downs like it's worth to watch and i I would, I'm so glad we got to watch this. I don't know how often I'll ever return to the show just because it's incomplete. Like, yeah, how often am I going to do that? But I'm, I'm glad to have had this experience to go through it for sure. We're almost to the end, Brent. That's it for the well of forever. And we have one episode of crusade left and then we're done with this entire series. We're going to watch that next week. It's called the rules of the game. And so to get this next segment into, into gear, I'm going to explain the rules of the game which is we know the title of the episode right and we're going to guess what it's about based solely on the name itself brent what do you think the rules of the game is going to be about you know i the trekkie in me so wants to make a rules of acquisition reference here i really do there's no way it's anything like that rules of the game i think this this feels like um.

[1:05:22] Gideon in one last heroic like, He's got to go all out to do something that needs to happen. We know the story's not coming to a close, so I'm not even going to wrap anything up there.

[1:05:35] But I think it's one of those, in order to get done what he has to get done, he's going to have to game the system a bit and know what the rules. He's got to know the rules of the game. He's got to follow it to the letter, but he can manipulate it because he knows it that well. That's my guess. What about you? I have a Star Trek thing, too, that this is going to be that's move along home where they're going to end up in a game. No, I don't think that's what it's going to be, though. I think a very similar thing to you. I think this is going to be a Gideon and Doreena episode.

[1:06:06] And whether it's building off of or building to that card game in the episode in the Well of Forever. But basically the same. These are the rules of wherever we are to figure the thing out. How do we cheat? How do we play around those rules? and Gideon and Doreen are going to team up to do that. I like that. It should be, I'm anticipating a fun, fun episode for this one. And we'll find out next week if it is or not. Thank you so much, everyone, for joining us as we dipped into the well of forever. Don't forget to subscribe if you haven't already. Leave us a rating, leave us a review, like, do all the things. We might even read your review here on the episode, on the podcast. But the thing that you can do that really helps us out a lot and that we appreciate more than you can possibly know is to share this podcast with somebody who needs to fall in love with this show just like we have. So until next time, we're going to finish. Hey, Jeff. Yes. What's up, Brent?

[1:07:11] No, you're not going to do that, Brent. I told you at least a thousand times. No, not going to happen. How would you know what I was thinking unless... Oh, hey, man. Just let's get the hell out of here. Initiating getting the hell out of here.