142: Always Practice Safe Docking

Vox Sola.

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.