BackTrekking returns again to look back at the real-world inspirations of classic Trek episodes!

You can leave your uniform hat on this week 'cause we're diving deep into the connections between the 1957 WWII classic "The Enemy Below" and the legendary Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Balance of Terror"! One is a tense yarn about two naval commanders playing a deadly game of cat-and-mouse to defend their respective nation's ideologies, and the other starts Robert Mitchum!

On this episode, we discuss our (lack of) experience with WWII sub flicks and the way they and other military films were post-war cultural therapy, the real-life events that inspired the films, the personal stakes Curd Jurgens had in his role, whether it's ok to humanist Nazis in the current political climate, and just how sweaty it got in one of those pig boats. Then, we transition seamlessly into "Balance of Terror", and we discuss how Trek may have done it better, how the Trek casting office loves its Romulan actors, whether or not the most long-running Trek adversaries are "boring", how Terror deals with race while Below elides over it, and whether Captain Kirk is Murrell or Stolberg.

We also talk the greatness of Marc Lenard, Romulan fashion sense, the importance of phaser coolant, the wrath of Wah Chang, space Catholics, flying a Denny's around, feather merchants, Heinie is Worf's dad, Kal presents his Axis/Allies Vikings/Packers theory, and Gooey invents the Trek Demolition Derby! Plus Kal's Anson Mount/Ethan Peck story!

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