The Delta Flyers - Accession

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell & Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.This week’s episode, Accession, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Armin ShimermanAccession: A three-hundred-year-old Bajoran ship comes through the wormhole, and its passenger claims that he is the Emissary of the Prophets. We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Izzy Jaffer, Andrew Cano, Francesca Garibaldi, Thomas Irvin, Jonathan Capps, Sean T, & Cindy WoodfordOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, David Wei Liu, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Andrew Duncan, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, Chris Garis, Keir Newton, Jeff Allen, Tamara Evans, & Deb LahrAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Robby Hill, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Shawn Battershall, Natalie Swain, Brian Heckathorne, Kilian Trapp, Nelson Silveira, Ming Xie, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, & Andy BruceThank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers. Journey through the Worm Hall with Quark, Dax, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host today are my fellow Trek actors, Armand Shimmerman, Garrett Wong, and myself, Robbie Duncan McNeil. for the complete and exciting and amazing and stupendous and really I'm speechless it is so good the Patreon bonus material that you get I'm speechless if you want it check out patreon.com forward slash the delta flyers sign up to become a patron today I'm speechless I'm not

speechless do it you heard him you heard him people Armin says quirk says do it I love the hard sell by Robbie and then the absolutely punctuation mark by Armin at the end. Just do it. Okay. There it is. Uh, hello gentlemen. How's it going? Hi. Good, good. Good, good. Very good. Excellent. Good, good, good. Good, good. We've had fires in our neighborhood. That's the latest news. No. That's not good. Can you see them from where you're at? No. They're not that close, but they're so big that the smoke is just overwhelming. And yesterday I went out on the deck and the patio of furniture was covered in like Ash, ash, yeah, you can see it.

And it's in southern Utah, these fires, but they're intense, yeah. And there's fires at the Grand Canyon in Arizona and there's things in Nevada. Oh, my gosh. We're kind of surrounded. Yeah, that's the excitement. But the air quality is good today.

Air quality is not bad today. But when people are listening to this episode, those fires should be out by them as my guess i hope so sometimes these fires go on for weeks or even months you know they contain them and then let them burn and where they want them to burn but i i can't help thinking of my friends in cedar city where the shakespeare festival is and that's in southern utah and that sort of thing can stop a performance because after a while the actors can't breathe uh and the audience for that matter but the actors can't project that is very concerning oh my goodness Yeah.

I didn't even think of it from that angle, Armand. Yeah, you spent a lot of time down there. You spend one season or more than one season? One season, but five months. And it was glorious. If anyone is in southern Utah and wants to see extraordinary theater, please go to the Cedar City Shakespeare Festival. It's not just Shakespeare.

They do musicals. They do modern plays. They do a lot of different stuff. But it's three wonderful stages all linked together. And the big stage that's out. I've been to that theater. It's beautiful. It's like a contemporary sort of interpretation of the globe theater. It feels very much like the globe, but it also feels contemporary. It's beautiful, beautiful space. Well, Armand, you talk about how you had a wonderful time in your five months there in that one season that you were there. Is it just been because your schedule's been upside down that you haven't been able to make it back? I think so. Also, you know, I don't see any roles that I particularly want to to do during the course of five months also the administration changed so the people that hired me

when I went are mostly gone now so I'd have to make new inroads with the new people but I would love to go back sometime but I'm getting old and I don't like being away from my wife and my dogs that long so five months is a long time that's a big commitment or they come with well there's that yes Garrett I've I've sort of made some noise about I would love to come back and wouldn't it be great if you hired us as a couple. Uh-huh. Exactly. That's even better than coming with.

Hire Kitty as well. And then hire your dog, too, to be part of the production. Yeah, well, there are plays with dogs. Shakespeare and plays with dogs. Yes. Yes. Armand, if you're talking to them, you can offer you, kitty, me and Garrett as well. Yes.

Okay. Well, we'll come as the extra. And I guarantee you you'll have a wonderful, wonderful time. It is magical there. Wow. I'd love to do it. What's the name of the city? What's the city?

Cedar City. It's Cedar City, Utah. Okay. Yeah. Just north of St. George. It's in southern Utah. There's some, what is it called? The breaks, the big national park up there by?

I've forgotten, but there is a beautiful park up there. It's on the back end of Zion, and it's just glorious. And every weekend that I was there, I went to Zion and just reveled in the beauty. Yeah. Yeah. It's stunning. Stunning. Well, hopefully these fires will pass them by and everybody will stay safe and the air quality for performances outside, especially, will be okay.

Yeah. And the only thing that fire is really, really good for is to light candles on a birthday kick. That's the best thing. We have some birthdays we have to talk about right now. Yes. You like my segue? I like that. Very good, Gary.

Thank you so much. I tried my hands. I was like, there's some way I'm going to pull this through. First off, we have Samantha Weddell. on September the 20th. Happy birthday, Samantha. Happy birthday, Samantha. I hope it's a great day,

and we're so glad you're a part of the Delta Flyers family. We have Andrew Duncan on September 23rd. Our good friend Andrew Duncan, happy birthday, Andrew. Happy birthday, Andrew. Happy birthday, Andrew. We also have Steph Lee's birthday on September 24th. Happy birthday, Steph. Steph, congratulations.

Happy birthday. Steph living in London. Happy birthday. I hope you have a great birthday. Last but not least, we have our good friend, Mary Jack Greer on September 28th. Four days later, September 28th, happy, happy birthday to Mary Jack Greer. Mary Jack, all the best. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Mary Jack. Poetry time, Robbie. Yes, it is poetry time. I like how you got quiet and calm there. I got calm. Poetry really does. Soothe the poetry. the soul, as they say.

Yes. I don't know who they are, but somebody says that. Break off your limerick. Go ahead. Are you both poets that are 200 years old? I can segue to the episode. Yes. You're on the right page.

Good. Yes, you are. Here's my limerick sort of poem for the episode accession. Cisco doesn't think the emissary title should be his. A quorum's claim as emissary feels like some funny biz. Keiko and Molly come back. The boy's bro-time is off track. Cisco accepts the true emissary is who he really is. Yeah, that's tight.

Yeah, very good. Very good. All right, thank you for your limerick. And here comes my haiku. Two emissaries, Siscorum heads to wormhole. The Cisco chosen. Oh, you got the Cisco in there.

I got the Sisko in there. That's Cisco, yeah, yeah. Got to have the the. The article is very important. Okay. Yes, it is. Oh, my goodness. Are you a prophet?

You must be prophet if you say the Cisco. Oh, yes. I'm speaking in profit language. Yes, you are. I speak prophet. I clearly. We are of Bayjore. You are of Bayjor.

The Cisco. The Cisco. Yeah, very calm. You speak profit. Very good. Thank you. I've been practicing. And now.

Armin Shimmerman with the etymology. Excession. It's from the old French in 14th century. The action of coming near, coming into the presence of anyone, or into contact with anything. First used in English in 1658, I love the quote that was in the old English dictionary, which is, The rational creatures are the more noble in themselves and of more near accession to the divine. similitude. That's from the dictionary. Okay. Coming closer to the divine. That connects. Yeah, closer to the divine. Exactly. So I thought

that was appropriate. So it just means to an interaction with something or someone or anything. Yes, that just cut. Yes, interaction with something. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Interesting. Thank you. I honestly didn't even know that word existed, Robbie, before this episode. It is a strange title. Yeah. Yeah. In the sense that, uh, Usually it's more Anglo-Saxon. The title is more Anglo-Saxon. This has a mystery to it, which is perhaps appropriate for the episode. Oh, most definitely.

Because let's talk about the original title, the working title for this episode, was The Other Emissary. How boring would that have been? Yes. Oh, my gosh. That's not as good. No good. You know, you said this was 1658?

Yeah, that's the first time was used in English. In English. At least in the Oxford English Dictionary. Yeah. you would know best of all of us that there were this explosion of words in the 1500s through the early 1600s just an explosion like historic unprecedented i think yeah a language our language english was indeed exploding during that time a hundred years before shakespeare so that's in the early 1500s you know english sounded like good like this when that operated with his

It doesn't sound like anything that we would understand. No. A hundred years later, it sounds like modern English. And people, not just poets, but people were making up words using conjunctions and prefaces and what's the opposite of prefaces. What's the opposite? Suffixes. Thank you.

Is that the plural? Suffixes from Latin and Greek in order to do. to make new words. Yeah. And yeah, the language is exploding. And also because of trade, the English people are being bombarded with other foreign languages, the Dutch language, the French, well, they've already been inculcated into the French language, but German language, people coming to trading and words are being used.

Just as they are today, we have words because of new technologies that become part of our language because we use them because we have to find a word. for that yeah yeah oh yeah so this this word sounds like it came near the tail end of that sort of explosion but sort of adopting a french turning a french word into a more useful english word the english court was french for a great many years right and and so the french language was the royal language was the aristocratic language and and so a lot of french words were incorporated into the english language because of that use just as in russia the sophisticated Russians all spoke French, as much as Russian, perhaps more.

Well, this word or this language explosion that we're talking about, did it coincide with the invention of the Gutenberg printing press? Yes, it had something to do with the Gutenberg printing press because, again, words, you could read words in different languages. But I think more than the Gutenberg Bible was, trade was that people were just coming in and speaking different languages. People were picking up words from other languages because of trade. London was a major, was becoming a major port at that time. It had not been before, but it was now. And so this is what was happening. All righty. Well,

thank you, Armin. This episode was written by Jane Espinson, who I cannot speak highly enough about. Jane Sberson is a great, great writer. I had the good fortune not only to do this episode, but numerous episodes that she was a writer of and creator of on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love Jane's writing. Wait, she created Buffy? No, she did not create Buffy,

but she was part of the writing pool. Her choices are all over the scripts of Buffy. And what a lovely lady as well. She would be on the set. every time I was there, I pretty much saw Jane on the set. So I had nothing but the highest praise for Jane Esperston. And not only is she a great writer, she nurtures new talent constantly. I have met her.

Maybe it was on Warehouse 13. I directed that show. Oh. But I'm looking at photos of her now. And I have definitely had conversations with her. And I don't know if it was maybe to work with her on another show. I don't know. But my general.

memory of whenever I met with her was that she was awesome yeah she's very yeah just positive energy and yeah that's great to hear and the theme for this for this episode is really incredibly well thought out and and exceptional it we talk about a lot of things on deep space nine but this particular goes to the really the heart uh of the show and and to goes harkens back to the pilot episode as well. Yeah, it's funny you say that because Garrett and I were just talking recently about stories that this was some of the bonus material, some questions, a deep dive that we talked about. And the question was, what storylines do you want to see more of or what do you want to see less of?

But one of the things that we talked about was the emissary, that the pilot episode had established this huge, profound ideas. that he's this religious figure and we haven't really seen much about that so this was a great way to deal with it and it's ironic that we literally just were talking about that and tangential to that and important to that is the fact that we are dealing with religion it's it's unusual for any of the star trick shows to deal really with religion and and this episode primarily certainly the A story is about religious principles and who follows them and who doesn't yeah yeah we'll see Since you brought it up, Robbie, I will say that the writer-producing team really had to fight to get this show made because the studio had told them not to do any shows about Bajor and religion. Oh, maybe that's why they stayed away from it for so long.

Because when they have done the prior shows where they did touch on the prophets and religion, Bajoran religion specifically, the ratings were so low that they felt that this is not the direction we want to go in. So they had to fight tooth and nail to get this made. It makes me think, like, when they talk about, oh, the ratings were low, don't do that. Or the ratings are high. Do more of that. That is one upside to this new streaming world that we live in. You know, the creatives can kind of tell the stories they want, and they're not beholden to these weekly, you know, statistical charts that studios love to play with.

I don't think. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but. Yeah. And my thought is that. that perhaps at the time when Deep Space Nine was not attracting a lot of viewers, they were worried about whether this would be a good story or not. Now, 30 years later, you know what?

It's a very good story and people are watching. It's a great story. Yes. Also, Armand, you have the best poker face because earlier when I mentioned Jane Espinson, written by you said, Jane Espinson, I cannot, and then you stopped. And I was waiting for you to stand her.

at all. But I had no idea which way you were going. You were completely, and you went the other way, which is the positive route, which was wonderful to hear. If you deal with Jane at all, you have to go that way. She is extraordinary. Can I read a quote from here? Please. A quote from Jane. Jane commented, the whole Trek experience at TNG and DS9 was incredibly positive. Thank you, Star Trek, exclamation point. So you don't hear that from the writers. You can feel the positivity in that quote. From her quote, exactly. And understand, she wrote this episode while she's a regular writer on Buffy. My God.

Talk about a full plate and multitasking. Goodness, gracious. Very talented person. Very talented lady. All right. Directed by Uncle Les Landau. We also have guest stars Rosalind Chow as Keiko O'Brien. Robert Simmons is Porta and Porta Alien.

And when I'm referring to Alien, that's when they're in as prophets. You know, that's what I'm talking about, right, in the wormhole. Camille Saviola as Opaka alien. And this is her final appearance as Opaka, Kai Opaka. She will not be seen again. Hannah Hattay as Molly O'Brien. Special guest star, so I guess he had a really good agent. Richard Libertini as a quorum,

Corm Lawn, our poet and foe emissary. Co-star is David Carpenter as Onara, Grace Zendarski as Latara, Laura Jane Salvato as Gia. So those are all our co-stars. And I'm particularly happy to see Robert Simmons in this episode because I did a play with Robert for about two and a half months, directed by Andy Robinson. Oh, wow.

Oh, wow. What was the play? Do you remember? Yes, of course. Birthday party by Pinter. Oh, Harold Pinter. Andy did a lot of Pinter. That was kind of right up in the alley.

Yeah. Yeah. And Robert was a joy to work with as he is in this episode. I can see why they cast him. He has a sweetness and a kindness that works well with what he has to do as this character. He's not twisting his mustache. He's not a villain. He's really a person that really believes these things and is trying to put them forward,

even though they may not be the kind of things we as viewers want to hear from a character. even though he pushes someone over a balcony to their death we still understand that he's sincere in his beliefs exactly he was married to priscilla pointer and because of that marriage he is the stepfather of amy irving oh wow very cool yeah very cool i love connecting these dots sarah lofton does not appear in this episode but he was supposed to oh interesting we'll get to that he was supposed to o'brien does talk about how much mollie loves the book that Jake gave her, so maybe there was a scene with him actually giving that to her, is what of my guess is.

I was fine with Richard Libertini's performance, playing the other emissary, and I'm just going to say that I'm fine with that, and I want to say that before I read this, because David Warner, the actor, David Warner was approached for the role of a quorum, and Iris Stephen Baer commented. Personally, I wanted David Warner as a quorum. He wanted to do it, but his wife talked him out of it because he was on vacation and she didn't want him to work. To this day, I still wish David Warner was in it. I think it's a really interesting script and idea, and it leaves us with a nice, interesting mystery.

It's a good show, and Avery was great, but I wanted him to have a better opponent. So I feel bad for Mr. Libertini a little bit. Don't feel too sorry for him because I think Richard Libertini does a phenomenal job in this episode. That's what I'm saying. I'm totally fine with his performance. I must say about Richard Libertini. he's a character actor's character actor the roles that he has played are extremely wonderfully over the top this is not one of them not that it isn't wonderful it isn't but it

isn't over the top one a friend of mine uh did a produce and direct not produced direct in a movie called all of me and if if you ever get a chance you should see richard libertini's performance in that film he is he's wonderfully funny wonderful all of me with the lead being Steve Martin, not that film. Oh, it is the same film. Yeah. If you remember the film, I do. What does he play?

He's the monk. Beck and Bull. Oh, he's back. Did we meet a back and bowl guy? Oh, my God. Robbie. Wow. This guy's a celeb man.

I mean, Liberty is a back and bowl guy. Oh, my God. I'm looking at some of his credits. He did a lot of those kind of 80s farcical comedies. He did all of me. He did Fletch, Fletch lives. Well, I'm even much, I'm even more appreciative of his performance, Armand, because he's

Mr. Oh, yeah, he's over the top guy. Over the top. And over the top. This is subtle and layered. I was like, wow, very impressive. I have a weird connection with Richard Libertini. Oh, oh. So I'm looking at his movie credits. Yeah. First I'll talk about my side of this. So I'm living in Atlanta, Georgia, doing local theater, an enthusiastic, young musical theater kid. And I get a call from somebody I know who's helping organize extras for a movie in town, a Burt Reynolds film. And he says, this is a scene on a bus. They need some featured extras to kind of get shots as hostages on this bus. So we need real actors. And me and my friend Barbara Saraldo were hired to be on this bus. The movie is Sharkey's Machine with Bert Reynolds,

1981 the first time i was ever on a set with a camera was this i had never done anything like this and we worked for two days i think yeah and i ended up becoming asking ironically asking uh bill fraker william fraker who was the dp very famous google william fraker everybody you'll see he's a legendary director of photography i befriended bill fraker and he invited me on a weekend he said hey if you're so interested in camera work and stuff I directed this film, come see a screening of it, a private screening. And I got to go to my first private screening.

He was a very kind man. Anyway, Richard Libertini is in Sharkey's Machine. So I worked with him. My very first saw, that's my point. Richard Libertini is in Sharkey's Machine, yes. Sharkey's Machine was big because they had that huge stunt where the guy like falls all the way down the Omni or the Peach Tree Hotel.

Do you remember this? It's like a glass. He's like, yeah. It was a big stunt movie and Bert Reynolds had shot a lot of films back then in Georgia and outside of Atlanta. Yeah. Richard Libertini, I worked with him.

You did. Let's get into this story. And speaking of this story, just to point out, this is one of the episodes where I have the script. Oh, the real official script. We can then refer to you then when we're ready, when we need it. Yes. Okay.

I love it. All right. That looks like really extra fat, too, when you help that up. It's got salmon pages. It's got blue pages. It's got white pages. I don't think it's beyond. And it's got some yellow pages.

There are things that I've seen in the episode that I don't have in the script. So obviously, there were more pages after that. Yeah. Cool. Interesting. Interesting. Well, the very first scene, we're in O'Brien's quarters. He and Bashir come in to clean up.

The place is a mess. There's just junk everywhere. Projects. It's like a bachelor's apartment explosion. Yeah. And they're cleaning up. Bashir says, you know, this place looks like a sculpture, like a beautiful monument to you as a bachelor. So a lot of, you know, a bit of roommate comedy kind of vibes, you know, buddy comedy kind of vibes in the scene.

But Keiko's coming back. They've got to clean up because Keiko and Molly are coming back. Correct. Here's a little bit of trivia about that scene. Colomini was not happy about his quarters being in complete disarray. His quote, it was expedient to have some sort of what's, considered humor in the script, but I object to saying this man is incapable of keeping his apartment tidy when his wife's away. That's a cliche. And I agree with him 1,000% because he's

the tech guy. We never saw it that messy before. No. I mean, he's not that guy. This is totally to make a have a laugh or whatever. So Colum didn't like it at all. Yeah. Colum, welcome to my world. Yeah. There you go. Yes. Yeah, it was, it was, it was trying to be as he said uh what is considered humor i don't know that it was worth the the continuity error there's we never saw any hint of that kind of thing before so to just do it for the sake of a joke but it wasn't really a joke they could have played it with far less mess and just cleaning up and being being anxious about you know i want to make this place look great could have been could have worked better yeah i actually wish that seemed

had been lengthened, not more words, but that we could have seen more of this stuff. When I watched it the second time, I went, way, that goes by really quickly. I want a Bashir to sort of, oh, God, I remember when we did this again. You know, because part of the B story is the relationship between column and between O'Brien and Bashir, and this could have set that up a little bit better, I thought. So as much as I like Les's direction, I would have loved to have seen this. extended just a little bit more if they had the time as it is they probably didn't and i'll get to that a little later well you're right about that i i think that would have been a better scene by

far a hundred percent better if they extended it and taught and pointed at different things like hey remember when this happened yes i agree yeah good comment we go to the airlock next everybody's getting off it's family reunion scene mollie runs to see daddy keiko's there and uh keiko they have a wonderful reunion kiss, and then Keiko says, we're going to have a baby. What? Miles is very awkwardly tries to be happy about it, but he's in shock. What did you think at this point, Robbie? Did you go there? I thought he was, I thought he was thinking, who did you have an affair? Exactly. That's what I thought, too. Yeah, that's what I thought. Is this the TA that you had a romantic interlude with? Yeah, we all thought the same thing. In the script, in the early pages,

There's some dialogue. I don't know why they replaced it, probably time again. But I thought, oh, it's really, that would have been very impactful. The language that was taken out of the episode is that they, the O'Brien discussed the fact that it took many times to get Molly. And they had a hard time getting pregnant. And so the fact that just this one time, and they have the second child, that's a surprise not only but that's a surprise to miles o'brien who who has all the other lines about i thought

this was going to take longer um it's both comic and i think important to say oh i thought this took longer because it did for molly yeah okay i loved ross's smile at the end of the scene she has the best smile and she's extraordinary and then she has been off the up the show for a while and um her commitment to this relationship is extraordinary. And now I have to ask Robbie, it's prior to the time when this became de rigour, but I mean, their kisses are really quite hot.

As is asked for in the script, by the way. The script says they have to be hot. Oh, okay, okay. And both of them seem to jump in with both feet. Yeah, that's believable. So my question is, how difficult, because nowadays we have, what is it called, Coaches. Intimacy, uh, counselor. Intimacy. Coordinator, coordinator, excuse me. Would they have done it back then?

Would they've had intimacy coaches back then? No, no, they wouldn't have had an intimacy coach. It would really be what you get from the actors. And often those topics were tricky to talk about from a director's standpoint, you know, you'd try to be careful. And, um, I think that the actors just, I think they probably liked each other. It feels like they did. I don't know. You could, you would know better than me, but it seemed like they got along well and we're comfortable with it. And they're both professionals. They've done this a lot, this, you know. And yet they are wonderfully lingering kisses. It's not professional kissing. It's, it's, it's, they really do seem to be enthused about this. Yeah. Yeah. Less may have said, you know, we have to really land these go for

it on the kisses because we don't have a lot of dialogue to establish how much we love each other and how long, you know, he may have made some comment that triggered them, oh, let's, Let's go for this. Show us your love. Show us the passion. And they did. And they did. Yeah.

Yeah. Talking about Roz's smile, you guys are right. I'm shocked that advertising agencies didn't use Ros Chalmore. She could sell anything with that smile. She just glows. Laundry detergent, chewing gum, Budweiser, whatever. That smile would sell anything, literally. I think it's the last shot of the scene, but it's amazing when she looks at him and this big smile comes on her face and it's so sincere.

and just so glowing she's a wonderful actress we should have used her more we should have used her a lot but we should have used her more for sure agreed well we go to ops next and uh we meet porta a pejoran monk he brings a couple up uh ask kira if if they could meet the emissary they were just married recently they want a blessing um i made a note this woman looks like kira's twin when they're standing there it's almost the same kind of outfit it's the same sort of short hairdo it's the same i was like because she looks so similar i don't know it was a little distracting to me and sometimes in casting that's what you know i will bring up if if i'm casting i'll say hey we don't want to have that actor's really good maybe slightly better

but they're going to look just like this other you know character in the scene and we want to make sure that the audience can distinguish all these people and sometimes we go with the slightly you know maybe the second choice by a hair, but only because of the physicality. In this one, I feel like they could have gone with somebody who looked different because to me it was a little distracting. Agreed.

You brought up and touched upon briefly the fact that they were dressed the same. As I'm watching it the second time, I'm going, why is she in a military uniform? Because that's what Kira has. She has a military uniform. Is that part and parcel of the Jara theme that's going to happen during the course

that here is a woman getting married who is a military person and perhaps is outside of the traditional Dejara. Yeah, maybe. It's a detail that in the moment, to me, was a little distracting and I didn't connect it like that.

So I don't know if it was worth. I'm only thinking that now. I've seen it several times now. Yeah. Well, we go in the captain's office next. Kira pops in, asks us go if he can do a blessing. Dax is there. Dax, he says, yes.

Dax says, are you sure you even remember the words? It's a very solemn blessing. So already a suggestion that, like, he's not into this emissary thing because maybe he doesn't even remember the words of this. But he does. He does. He does. The monk even comments his accent is getting better.

The husband, I noticed, is mute, by the way, at this point. Only the wife is talking. I'm like, can't you give the guy a line or something? Because there's supposed to be a couple. He never says a word. It kind of bugged me. But he makes the blessing. My quibbles about the universal translators.

If he's speaking in Bajoran, why don't it translate it into English? Good catch. And if he's speaking Bajoran, why, how does Porta know that the accent is? So a quibble, forgive me, but you know, I've been part of this franchise a long time. You have a good catch, very good catch. So I'm going to say that they tweaked it before they came in. So there's a little thing you can just toggle off where it doesn't translate. It'll just say, Bajoran translate to English or not?

And you're like, no, keep it Bajoran. That's all the only way. I'm going to say that this was part of the, this was a little moment where if the audience is tracking in this story, that because the true emissary can, when he speaks like this, cannot be universally translated. because he's the true emissary. Oh, I like it, Robbie. And they should have known, hey, wait a minute. Why wasn't that universally translated?

You must be the true emits. But see, they didn't catch that yet. No, they didn't know that. That's my... But I like your... Interpretation. And suddenly what Jane is doing in the script is reminding us that the emissary, the true emissary,

is not a pejoran. Yeah. And that's just a subtle thing that is there. We don't think about it. it, but I think that's part of it, is that this is not one of the tribe. This is somebody outside of the tribe. Yeah. Yeah. Well, after the mute husband and his wife, who talks, leave. He didn't say anything. He said nothing. He never said a word.

But they did have a look. The couple had a look. They shared a look. And they held hands. And they held hands. Maybe he was mute. We don't know that. Ah, very well-foot. It's a possibility. It's possible. Well, Cisco says, after they leave, you know, it's just really awkward getting used to being a religious icon. And as he's saying this, there's a nice push-in, which is kind of landing. This is going to be our thesis, I think, of this episode. But because of that push-in, we missed out on one of Terry's lines that I thought was really very funny because we don't see it on camera. It's just off-camera because we're pushing in on Avery.

I kind of would have liked to be a religious icon, I think is what she says. Yeah. Really? I think I'd like it. Yeah, yeah, we did miss that. At the end of this scene, after Dax says she'd really like it off camera, Kira calls, says, you've got to get out here, Cisco. Something's coming through the wormhole. Yeah.

Go into ops, and we see this lightship tumbling through the wormhole. So the lightship is just like the one that Cisco built, this ancient how the Bajorans used to travel with solar sails. It's just like it except it's completely thrashed. That's the main difference, yes. Yeah, and it's kind of tumbling, which I thought was cool. Yeah, it was. I thought it was going to crash.

into the space station at one point because it's, you know, the camera pans and it's like, oh boy, they're going to have a problem because things out of control. So when they beamed him into the infirmary, he would have been so dizzy because he's been spinning the entire time. Correct? Okay.

Yeah, they do find a life sign of a Bajoran. They can't, no response, so they beam him in an infirmary. And he wakes up in the infirmary. Kira asks, who are you? And he says, I am the emissary. Bum, bum. And again, subtle Jane Esperson, she asks, who are you?

Who else asks who are you? Yeah. The prophets later. The Gio Paca. Who are you? Who are you? We laid that in early on so that it's not, it's just subtle. It's just wonderful writing.

Very smart. Good writer. She wrote with Renee, Echeveria. They let her write the script. Sometimes somebody pitches a story. and then the writers take over and they write the episode. They let her write this with Renee. That's great.

Really good. She has sole credit, too, though. Renee's not even written. Renée's not even credit on my script. It's written by both of them. Okay. It may, and so what happens, Armin, sometimes, that draft, they may print out that draft. They have to send that in all the revisions, and the whole process has to be reviewed

by the Writers Guild. And the Writers Guild makes the judgment on who wrote. most of the episode. So if in the end, most of the words are Jane's, she'll get, the Writers Guild will credit her as the sole writer, even though Renee may have written some of the process earlier. And it is possible also knowing Renee that he might have said, just give it to her. Yeah. You know, just give it to her. Just let her have the residual. 100%. Yeah. That's great. Well, we come back after the, after the push in, I am the emissary and the opening credits. Which is shocking, by the way. Very shocking.

for us who had seen this episode before? I thought he was a con man. I got to say that right off the bat. I thought the whole time, something, he's a con man. He's not telling the truth. But when he's asked, when Cisco asks him what happened to you, he describes the same experience that we saw happen in the first episode. So it's like, no, I thought that too, but when he started keeping out information,

and went, yep, then he must have experienced that. Right. Yeah. Right. Well, he explains he got injured and the prophets visited him the same way that they visited Cisco as people he knew. They healed him. And then Keir and Sisko asked, how long ago did you leave?

He says over 200 years ago. They realized that he's a famous poet. Kierit makes that connection in the scene. Well, he doesn't say that he left 200 years ago. Doesn't he say like it's been like two days or something like that? No, that's later. That's later. Oh, is that later?

Yeah. Okay. Well, he says he's left two days. And I can't remember where... A few days ago. And then it's right after that. So Cisco asked him, what year was this? What was the year?

I can tell you. You can tell him. Look it up. Look it up. Yeah, because he thinks it's been two days. That's right. Yeah, a few days. And then when they ask him the year and he gives the year,

91 says that's over, I think Kira says that's... That was over 200 years ago. That is correct. So it's coming out. This is fishy. Yeah. Here it is on the, on page. When exactly did you leave Bejure?

It couldn't have been more than a few days ago. Yeah. Sisko says, what was the year? Corum says, 91.74. Kira says, that's over 200 years ago. And she also recognizes his name as the famous poet in the scene. And he recognizes her last name as the family that she was born into. They were artists.

And they start bringing up this Dejara idea. The Dejara's are a caste system that Bejor used to have. And you were just born into, if you're born into an artist family, you were an artist. If you're born into a janitor family, you're a janitor. And the name indicates the cast level, just as in the former episode that we just did, O'Brien means a descendant of Brian Baru. So the name indicates the ancestry. That's right.

We were just talking about, yeah. You know what's also interesting? The only society that I can think of that has a caste system would be India. And the whole thing with the name, Dejara, to me, sounds like a... could be a Hindi, it's almost like if she chose that. Maybe they went into Hinduism to look to research and kind of use that as a foundation of this for sure. I'm just, I'm plotting Jane Episbetson for something

that maybe I didn't see before, so I'm just... I wonder, Armin, did you ever hear about the Bajoran religion just globally? Did they ever talk about some real-life analogy that, you know, it's kind of like the Hinduism or anything like that? They may have spoken about it in the writer's room. may have spoken about it to the actors who had to participate in it, to Kiri, and did I not visit her? But no, I never heard about it.

Okay. Because Hinduism would kind of make sense to me in some ways. I don't know a lot about Hinduism, but it would be an analogous religion to the prophets and things like that and the Dejara's for sure. Interesting. I mean, if Jane's going to write an episode about religion, and it wouldn't surprise me that she did research into religions.

Most definitely. Well, we end that scene in the infirmary. Cure is going to fill them in the last 200 years, basically. Let me catch you up. Thank God we don't do that on camera. That happens off camera. She fills them in. It takes a while to have some drinks.

It is a minor fault in the episode for me is that a quorum wakes up and he's being addressed by a human. Now, he's never seen a human before. Granted, it's just a, the nose is straight as opposed to wrinkle, but, but there's no reaction to the fact that, who are these people? If I were to wake up in a hospital and see a pejorian, where am I? Who are you? How did I get here? Yeah, how did I get here? Who are you? Why are you dressed the way you are? It's 200 years. The episode never dealt with that. The fact that this person is jumps. And in fact, I think it might have. Improved a little, improves the wrong word, accentuated the episode a little.

If we understood that this thing about Dejara's was something he was inculcated in 200 years ago and just assumes it's the right thing now as well. Right. Yeah, it would have helped. Because it does feel like he's kind of taking this old idea and imposing it in a way rather than it's just part of who he is. He's stuck in 200 years ago,

and that's just how everything is. And that's the way it was. And why are we not still doing that? Well, we go in the captain's office, we see Cisco has analyzed all the prophecies, and he thinks Accoram must be the true emissary. It all makes, it's making sense to him, and he's kind of happy about it, because he's off the hook. You know, he doesn't, he didn't really love, it was awkward for him being the emissary. This is a great way out.

And Starfleet has said they don't really like the idea of him being, you know, the emissary, involved in the pejoran religion this way so yeah he's happy he's he thinks a quorum's going to make a far better emissary than than he did and he seems to be exactly what the prophecies say that he should be yeah you know what i read into this his final line in this scene cisco says it feels good no more ceremonies to attend no more blessings to give no more prophecies to fulfill i'm just a starfleet officer again all i have to worry about are the clingons the dominion the maquis i feel like i'm on vacation Okay, that to me was him actually being reluctant to give up the role of the emissary. I felt that because he's trying to talk himself into convincing himself not to be the emissary

because his inside, his actual gut knows that he is the emissary, if that makes any sense to both of you. That makes perfect sense. And Avery could have read it that way, but that makes perfect sense. Yeah. And I'm just, again, looking at Jane's writing, and after you've explained, you know, her backstory and everything, Armin, I'm just seeing more stuff that I didn't catch before. That's all. So that's my take on that one. Yeah. Yeah. We go to the promenade next. We see O'Brien walking through the promenade. Cameras inside quarks. And it pans over. We see Bashir in the foreground. Bashir pops up and goes to grab O'Brien. When he popped up, by the way, did he seem drunk to you? He seemed like he was kind of like bouncing off. a wall. I don't know. I didn't catch that. I thought he was drunk, but then later on, this is a long oneer, by the way. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it starts with O'Brien. Then it reveals Bashir in the foreground. Then Bashir goes and gets him. It's a two shot that goes all through

the bar, ends up with them sitting down. I think Sid just literally sort of lost his balance for a second. That's possible. But the rest of the take was so good that they're like, ah, leave it in. Because he got up and he was like, whoa. Oh, hey. There is a bar. There is a foot rest at the bottom of the bar. Okay. So it's possible his foot got caught on it.

He tripped on it. I don't know. But if you look at it again or anybody are looking at it, it looks like he's drunk when he first gets up. Good guy. But then he's not drunk. Anyway, and then he brings O'Brien in for a drink. Quark is very happy.

I love this, Armin, when you remember the children's book, the Ferengi Children's Book. Don't all children put things in their ears. Oh, yes, in the ear joke. Jane did a good job with a comedy. There's more good, traditional, smart comedy in this episode than there tends to be in Star Trek. She brought her Buffy spin on it. Settledy.

I want to get the book, the Frangy Children's book about acquisition. I think that would be very funny. This is also the first time you're kind of nice or talking about Nog nicely. Like usually you're very strict with it. You know what I'm saying? don't ever say you don't compliment you're not talking about nog i'm talking nog as a baby a baby yes not yet it's true that's true nogg is a baby see see brock acquire acquire brock acquire it just made me laugh and that must have been a late edition it's not in any of my pages i have on my desk really oh

interesting that whole brock acquire bit is not in there that that the brock is new the other stuff is there but the brock why did it have said it on brock i don't know but but but that's That's not, I have four versions of the script in here. There must have been a fifth, sixth, or seventh version where that was included. Interesting. Well, it's one of my favorite bits. I liked it. Yeah.

Yeah. Uh, Worf comes in. This is calling back, I guess, to when Worf delivered Molly on TNG. Robbie and I have not seen that episode, so we did not know that dwarf delivered Molly. What? Yeah. Yeah. And he was traumatized by it, clearly.

Clearly, yeah. He's like, yes, uh, in seven months from now. I will be away from the station, far, far away. On earth, visiting my parents. He's backtracking as much. And the guys know it. They laugh at the end, too. It's very funny.

There's some good, Jane did a good job of bringing some light comedy into this. If I may, that probably was Renee. Because I don't think, none of us remember that episode were worth giving. I can't imagine Jane would know about it either. So it's probably Renee. Yeah. That's funny. Well, we can tell when he's drinking a beer

that Miles is a little torn about this news about the baby, that he's, you know, he just wasn't expecting to have life change so quickly. And when she got back. I did like the way that it, that less framed in the coverage, he framed right behind, I think Bashir was the dart board. You could see people playing darts. And so it's sort of this idea of, hey,

you want to go play some darts? and then Miles says, no, I've got to go home. It was all framed. The story was all in the frame in a nice way. Yeah. Those little details help. They do play the story better. You don't have to cut over to a POV of the dartboard or something, I guess, right there.

It's already in the shot. Perfect. Yeah. O'Brien's got to go home and we go to the promenade next. And everyone's waiting for a quorum to speak as the emissary now. I guess this is his official coming out party as the, the emissary for everybody. There's a lot of extras in this scene. That's like the most extras I've ever seen in any Star Trek television show. It could be. It was a lot. Oh my gosh. Well,

they're all waiting. Beautiful crane shot from down below that goes up to Kira and Odo as they're discussing faith. I love this discussion the way it is articulated from all sides. Basically, Odo sees a contradiction in her beliefs that he's like, well, you just believe that Cisco was emissary and now you believe that a quorum's the emissary yeah it seems like you know you just keep changing the rules here he sees a contradiction there and uh what does kira say she says that's the thing about faith if you don't have it you can't understand it and if you do no explanation is necessary it's an interesting argument it's a hard one to argue that's what faith is you know it's hard It's hard to explain, but if you have it.

And that's an investigation of religion. You know, it's got a larger purview than just something happening on a TV show. It really does go into a fundamental discussion, major discussion, about life and religion. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I'm going to read a little quote here. Kira's line, which you just read that thing about faith, is a paraphrase of a quotation often incorrectly attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas, which reads.

reads, to one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible. It is more plausibly attributed to Father John Lafarge, circa 1934. That's the notes, yeah. Interesting. Well, I liked it. If they stole from somebody else, it's a good steal. Good steel.

It worked. A quorum finally arrives, and basically in his speech says they have to return to their cast system. They got to go back to these Dejara's. And Kira looks very concerned. Cisco's watching the video feed from his office. He looks like he's got concerns too. And even in the crowd, I like what Les did as when you cut to the crowd, some people are very happy about this idea and some people are kind of looking at each other. Yeah. With all due respect to Les, who's a wonderful person and great director, it's the writer's idea because it's in the script. Oh, is it really? Oh, I love it.

Right? I love it. Well, that story, it plays here because you see this Dejara idea is going to create some friction. Yes. Yeah. Every time you say a quorum, I keep hearing a quorum, like Q-U-O-R-U-M, a quorum in a meeting. Yes. I'm like, oh, I hear that, but it's not that.

We have a quorum here in our podcast. I guess we do, yeah. Three is a quorum. It's three a quorum. When there's three hosts and all three are here? That's a quorum. It's a quorum, okay. I have to say this because it touches my heart.

So I'm watching this huge crowd scene. And I suddenly stopped the video and go, oh, my God, I did not know this. One of my closest and dearest friends who I had known for years and years, who had moved from New York to L.A. was one of the background. I stopped it and went, oh my God, that's Michael Patrick Hughes. And he had never told me that he was on the show. I didn't know he was on the show.

And there he was, and I brought Kitty over. I said, do you see anybody familiar in this picture? And she didn't recognize him right away. And when I pointed it out, she said, oh, yeah, it's Michael Patrick. And I was just so pleased to see him there. And again, we've talked about this in past episodes. he was at one time a very successful actor I worked with him for a year and a half

and three penny opera and there he was doing background work I remember on the soap opera that I did in New York often we would try to get friends that we you know we tell the producers hey I got a friend who needs some insurance can they do background in the bar for a couple of days this week it'll get them over the hump and so we would do that I remember having friends come in and who were principal actors in their career,

but they were just at a moment where they needed a little help and we'd get them on to the soap opera. Yeah. And if I may just compliment Steve Oster, the line producer on our show, I would sometimes go to Steve and say that. And he would bring them in for ADR. Yes, ADR counts as well. And God bless Steve Oster for doing it. He helped a lot of people who are in tight straits, get insurance so that they, they could address the illnesses that they were undergoing.

Yeah. Yeah, that's, I didn't even think about that for insurance purposes, right, to be able to do that. But I'm also feeling that your friend knew you were there, but did not want to come out and say, hey, look what I'm doing right now. Well, in that scene, I'm not there. Oh, you weren't there that day at all. Oh, that's right. I'm not there.

I didn't see you. Okay. So, so Michael could have done it. And because of the stigma that was attached to it then, he may not ever have told me. Maybe he did, and I've forgotten. but I don't remember him ever saying that he did background work on deep space. Well, we go to the wardroom next. Cisco is very concerned.

The caste system goes against all Starfleet protocols, all rules. Basically, if they do this, it means that Bejor is not going to be able to join the Federation. The Federation will not allow it. If it's a caste society, they won't allow it. And a quorum says that they will even deport people who don't eventually fall. in line. A quorum's there with Cisco. Porto's there as well. And Porta. And Porta. Yeah. And they're kind of laying out what this may look like. They're not, they'll take a little bit of time to start these new, to get people used to it, but not too much time. They want to get this going. And so if people don't

agree, they'll deport them. They need to fall in line. This is going to be how it is. Anyway, as they're leaving a quorum grabs Cisco's ear and checks his paw. This is what I'm a little confused about. I thought that's what only the Kai's can have the power to do that. So any Bajoran can grab any other Bajoran's ear and be like, yeah, I can feel your paw. Is that right? I think so. I thought Opaqa was the first person that we see doing that with Cisco in season one.

And that's the only, you don't see any other Bajoran touching anyone else's ear to feel their paw it's always been all the time okay i guess not i think because again laying in things that are subconscious yeah if he is the emissary which at this point no one is doubting that yeah right so he has the power of any vedic uh to be able to do that and and the responses he gets from feeling cisco's paw is are seem to be right on and in fact um we get something that we we probably knew but but he wouldn't have known about it well he might have but which is that when kai win fears you that's a piece of information we have not heard before no we might have suspected it but we've never heard it out loud it's confirmed here yeah it's confirmed yeah well

speaking of kai win in this scene at one point a quorum says well kai win and i have already discussed this we're willing to make the sacrifices in order to follow the will the prophets That kind of lays in, oh, a quorum, even if you are the emissary, you're aligning yourself with Kai Wynn. This is not good. But she is the head Vedic. Good, better and different. She is to head Vedic. One of the things that, again, I think the episode could have dealt with and didn't.

The Dejora system, cast system, has only been dead for 50 years. That's right. It's within the lifetime of Vedic Porta. It's within the lifetime of Kai Wyn. It is something that was done away with in order to deal with the Cardassian occupation. So it's not as obnoxious as it seems to us because it was there before and in a sense of time very recently. Well, it's interesting when you put things that way just to bring it back to our real life now. If you think about how things were 50 years ago and there's a lot of people that don't want to go back to 1975 or,

Or 1965 or 1955, you know. As you say, it's kind of within the lifetime of some people who are still alive. There are people who are, you know, 75 years old, 80 years old, who as children grew up with that way of life being very familiar. Right, which I think can help explain Porta's take on it. It's something he grew up with. It was part of his life. Yeah.

He's certainly over 50 years old in this show. Yeah. And so it's not as obnoxious to him as it would be to us who've never experienced. Right. Well, we go to the Repliment next. There's Cisco sitting all by himself. He's got a lot of heavy thoughts about all this. Kira arrives.

A Bajoran pops up right away. Hey, take my seat. Because of the caste system recognizes that Kira is superior to her cast and Kira doesn't like it. And Cisco says this has been happening all morning. People are popping up and they're falling in line with this. He discusses when he was promoted from Ensign to lieutenant, that it was hard for him to accept that title initially. But Kara says, well, you earned that status.

You earned that. It wasn't something just because your name, you got it. So, yeah, they have a nice discussion, I think, about earning a rank and just being given a rank, which I think is. is an interesting argument. And another minor quibble, I'm sorry, because I really do like this episode.

It sounds like I don't, I don't, but I really do. I love your quibbles. But this quibble too, and we talked about it, you talked about it, Robbie, in the crowd scene, some people like what a quorum is saying, some people don't like what a quorum is saying. That's absolutely true. I would have liked someone to have said

in the scene that we just discussed. Some people refused to give up their chairs, some people insisted. I want to see what the civil discourse was about this. I want to see more of what the Bajoran society is thinking about this. Yeah. Yeah, we don't really hear that too much. Kira says that this is going to be a challenge to make this adjustment,

but she's basically accepting it. She's like, we're going to have to do whatever the emissary tells us. She says, you know, you could have done that when you were emissary, but it's too late. you're not emissary anymore we head to Cisco's quarters next nice long crane shot that moves down on him he's just very restless having a very bad dream

I love the lighting and the camera moving this he wakes up and pops out of bed we sometimes talk about missing scenes there is a missing scene here it says Jake is in the room and here's his father having nightmare Oh. And Jake wakes up, excuse me, Cisco wakes up and tells Jake what the dream is that he's been having.

Jake interprets the dream and gives him really sound advice about what to do with this dream, which causes Cisco to get dressed and start to work the promenade. Wow. This was a scene that Jake was supposed to be in, and for whatever reason, I have no understanding or guess about why this was cut. But it's a really sweet scene between fathers. Wow. Oh, that would have been great.

Yeah, I would have loved to have seen that scene. It confused me, I have to admit, a little bit. It confused me that Cisco woke up, so he's awake in real life, and then walks out to the promenade, and it became surreal. There was not a soul around. So it was a little bit like the promenade was in a dream state. but we just saw him wake up in the real world and get up and go somewhere. I would have liked for him just to have either not woken up at all

or woken up and just laid there in bed and then hard cut to he's on the promenade. I see. Like he's imagining it or something. There was a little bit of confusion of what the story was. It got a little muddy for you. For me, is he really on the promenade? Because this doesn't feel like the real promenade. Anyway, the promenade's quiet.

It's closed. Everything's closed. But the lights are on. I love this dolly shot that moves along into a foreground panel and then suddenly comes out the other side and the lights are off. That must have been a practical light change that was really done well. Apaka appears to him, asks, who are you? She jumps around. That's all she keeps asking.

Who are you? Who are you? She's behind him. She's in front of him. The lights go off at one point. And then she disappears and the lights are back on. So he's definitely been visited by Opaka in some way. By the wormhole alien, yeah.

Yes, exactly. Because we remember there's a past episode where she dies and goes off to be part of the celestial temple. Yep. It was nice to see Camille Satviel will pop back in. I love continuity like that when characters and actors return. Your show does it very well. Well, Sisko's in the infirmary. Bashir's looking at him.

Bejure says you had an orb shadow. It's when you ignore what the prophets are trying to tell you, you'll have this kind of orb shadow vision, a hallucination. And Cisco's like, I want this shot, I want the inhibitor. I don't want to have these hallucinations. Thank you. Give me the shot. Yeah, he's got an opportunity to maybe stick with this, these visions, and discover who he is,

but he's going to ignore it again. So this is Cisco going, don't want to be the emissary, don't want a part of this. And it's a very clever line. what did the prophets tell you? The prophets told me I have all these things in my head and I need to get rid of them. Yes, exactly. Yeah, it was clever.

Exactly. The prophets are telling me I need an inhibitors what they're telling me. Exactly. The neuropeptides, that's what it was. We go to Keira's corridor. She's exploring her artistic side. Real tight shots of just disasters of clay

on the table. It was nice. It was nicely done. A nice way to tell that story. Yeah. And good performance by Nana. The frustration is there without overdoing. It was just really quite good. We go out to the promenade again in real life. It's not a dream this time. Porto calls for prayers with a small harp. He's carrying. Bring, pring. I made a note. Can anyone hear that? Like, I could see if it was a bell or something loud. But it was just this little, he's doing it while they're talking. And it was the tiniest little brink, pring. Maybe it's at a wavelength that only Bajorans can hear.

Maybe, maybe. I don't know. The harp was distracting to me. You didn't like the prink. No. I promise you that Ferengi can hear it as well. Yes. That's like a gong to like a cork.

Ah! Because it's right across. The temple is right across the bar. I love it. Keir is telling Porto that she hasn't fully committed to this. Or no. So he says you haven't fully committed to this. That's why your sculptures stink.

You're still wearing the uniform. You're not embracing your cast, basically. You're Dejara. Right. But, you know, here is definitely arguing, not arguing, but just bringing up the point that she has no aptitude for artistic endeavors. And this is the second time that we all agree, but this is the second time she's brought this up.

If you guys recall, the episode of The Circle, where she's out there in the, she's at the Bajoran monastery, and she's trying to, you know, place these pebbles a certain way and artistic way. And she was like, I can't do this. I have no artistic ability. So she already said that before. And now it comes back, it comes back up again. She is a warrior. She's not a, she's not an artist. She's not a sensitive, touchy-feely kind of character.

No. We go to the O'Brien's quarters. We see some, a dartboard. with magnetic darts that miles is trying to teach molly how to play darts since he can't play with his buddy he's going to have to play with his four-year-old how old is moly four three four yeah i don't know she should be five by now right i'm guessing something like that yeah yeah well he's trying to teach her to play darts and then he goes over to talk to keko a little more frisky kissing here i i was uncomfortable i'm like molly's right behind you

you guys. Like, pump the brakes, please. It's just what I'm saying. The two of them embrace that idea a great deal. They ran with it. They ran with it. They did. They did. And just let us all point out to our audience. That's not an easy thing to do. No. Now, granted, they had a relationship they had been working together for years. Yeah. But even so, even in a relationship where you've been working together, and they're both happily married, by the way, that's not even. easy to do. Not at all. Especially on the third or fourth or fifth take. Yes, because you're asking

actors who are basically strangers to each other in terms of the rhythm of how kissing goes with someone that you've known for a while that you're madly in love with. And they made it look like it was easy. We're watching this going, good Lord, good job. Wow. Yeah, good job. I wonder

if, and I don't want this to sound come off the wrong way, but like in my acting career, I often was cast in roles as a romantic character, whether it was on a soap opera, whether it was on a guest star or whatever. It was very common for me to have to kiss a stranger. Yeah. And maybe because I did it so much, that's just the roles I was cast in. Yeah. That, you know, that trope of being that person, the young, romantic, whatever, I just, I never hesitated because it was the job. It was just the job that,

like it didn't feel weird to me it didn't it was a norm for you it was kind of normal and i i don't know if that was true for them but for me i just whatever the other actor wanted to do a little a lot whatever you want to do i'm i'm you know i'm fine with this what's the story we're telling what is this you know i didn't feel comfortable with like bed scenes and things like that that started getting me uncomfortable but if it was just a kiss it's like oh this is such a common thing i never, I don't know, I never got weird. It never was weird for me. Yeah. Garrett, was it weird for you? You must have done it a couple of times. I think it was weirder for you. Yeah, definitely weirder for me. But on Voyager, they had one episode in season two where I go back to Earth and I see my girlfriend Libby and David Livingson was directing Armin. So the kiss scene. Oh, you did it over and over. I got very uncomfortable because I was like, oh my God, there's way too much. That's why they have intimacy coaches now. Yes. Yes. I think because there wasn't a lot of discussion. So every individual might have different comfort levels.

Like I said, to me, I was always comfortable unless I was doing a scene with someone who was going too far. And then I often didn't know how to address that because it was hard to talk to a stranger about, hey, you're sticking your tongue in my mouth. And I don't think we need to do that. Although I think I said that sometimes. I was like, I don't think we need to do. Just make it look natural. We don't need to do, you know, go any further than a natural relaxed mouth. as we kissed. That was the conversations I had.

All I know is in this episode, the two of them make it look very natural. Yeah, definitely. And they're committed and they're very passionate with each other. We are in the O'Brien's quarters, and they're getting frisky, and there's Molly five feet away from them. It's weird. That's how he got this tangent. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, Miles says, maybe we should try for twins. I like this joke. I don't think that's how it works. You need to read some biology.

teach me. I love it. This is very flirty, wonderfully written scene. Yeah, it's a nice style. Yeah. Caco says she's got to work and he's going to go, Miles is going to go play with Molly. She doesn't want to play darts though. Nah. Poor Miles. She wants to read. Or no, she wants a color. That's what she was. That's a color. Yeah. At the end of the scene, Miles looks over and we rack focus to his holodeck costume that he's yearning for boys' time, you can tell. And Keiko notices, by the way. She clocks it. Yeah. I don't ever remember us. Like, did we keep our wardrobe from Captain Proton in our quarters? I don't think.

I don't think so. I thought that stuff just, you know, you walk in. Yeah, it holodex on you, right? And you go either way. Really? This is how Garrick stays in business is making those costs. Yeah, maybe it's Quark's holiday, holode. And Quark gets a kickback from that from Garrick.

So therefore, he's like, look, you got to go to Garrick's. He's got to make your costume and you come back after that. Yeah, simple was that. There's a whole, there's a whole racket. He's the whole racket. I love it. It's called Enterprise. It's not a racket.

It's called capitalism. Capitalism. It's called fringism, that's what it's called. Okay, so I love it. We go to captain's office next. Cisco is very frustrated. He couldn't complete his mission to get Bayjord to join the Federation. That was important to him.

Yes. That's why he's here, the whole point. And Kira mentioned someone that could replace. her in her post because she's going to go apprentice in the arts on Bayjor and she does say she has to do this and there's a very emotional exchange at the end of the scene oh my gosh about replacing her yeah disco says i doubt i can find anyone that could fill your post but replace you it's it's nicely written and beautifully performed this uh connection between kira and zisco beautiful scene though beautifully performed a lot of emotion going on right and it doesn't look like he looks at the camera at the very

yet, which was, I was, I got pulled out. I was like, don't look at me. Don't look at me. Yes. It was close. I have a little quibble with that scene, not about the performances, which are terrific. Yeah. It seems to me now, you guys have to help me out here because I don't know. It seems to me this episode is about many things, but one is Cisco coming to terms with whether, who are you, whether he's the emissary or not, and accepting that role. And that, to me, seems to be the main drive of story, the A story.

We have a secondary part of that A story, which is, what are these changes in the Dajar going to do to Kira? How does she feel about that? And that's a necessary part of the A story as well. But to me, the primary story is how Cisco is going to deal with this. So I found it interesting, watching that scene, that most of the time, less concerned. gave us real close close-ups on Kira and less close-ups on Avery, that sometimes when we're watching Avery make up his mind or it's a two-shot and he's walked away. He's still in focus, but it's a two-shot. It's a little further away, whereas the reaction shots are always

extreme close-ups on Kira. And I thought, shouldn't we have the close-ups on Avery? If this is if this is the first part of the A story as opposed to the second part of the A story? That's just me and I don't know and that's, you know, I don't know, I don't know. It just seemed like less was more interested in Nana's reaction to things there than Avery's reaction to things.

But I could be wrong. Maybe they had all that and they just didn't have the shots in the editing room. Who knows? So you're saying, am I hearing you correct? You're saying that you wish that there was more coverage on Avery, correct, to balance it out. Okay.

That's right. That's right. Yes, I agree. Well, we go to the Promenade next. Miles is passing the bar. He takes a moment. Should I? Should I?

He goes inside, locates Bashir in the bar. And Julian is playing darts with Morn here, who doesn't speak as usual. How do you feel about that, Armin? Horrible. Yes. I don't understand why they did just give him some lines. Agreed. The joke is, it's gone on for too long.

Oh, agreed. Especially when other characters say, oh, my God, he's garrulous. That mourn talks all the time. That's what we say in the show. I understand why they didn't do it, but they should have. They should have. They should have. This moment in particular, even if it was just like one word or, you know, he doesn't say much.

And that's part of why Bashir wishes Miles was here because they've got a banter. And, you know, there could have been a version of that. but to not say a word is weird. Well, Bashir runs over to Miles is so happy he's here. They sit at the bar, of course. Quark comes up and says, hey, I've got your regular holiday, Halliswee. It's Thursday. It's Thursday.

Exactly. And Miles is surprised. He's like, Bashir, didn't you cancel this? Bashir was hoping maybe Miles would show up. That's why he's excited. Miles says, no, I got to go. I got to go. I can't do it.

And I made a note, boy. Colum drank that pint very quickly. He wasn't there for long, and it was a full pint of beer. But it's not, I mean, it's fake beer. It's not real beer, correct? It's not alcoholic beer. Non-alcoholic beer. I don't know if it was non-accoholic beer, but it certainly wasn't real beer.

No. Yeah. I was impressed. I don't know if I could, I could not do that. And he had to do a take after take, so he'd probably down quite a few of those points. And it may be that between takes, you know, Unless it was a winner, I don't remember if it was a winner or not. There was a little bit of coverage, but not much.

Yeah, unless the camera stayed on that glass the whole time, it's possible that some of it could have disappeared between takes. Yeah. Poor Miles, poor Bashir. They're not having their bro time. Oh. You know, and there's something, again, tiny little quibble. I would have liked to have seen more of what, of Sid,

of being upset that their relationship has been interrupted. I didn't see much of that in Sid. I saw him being aware of it, clocking it, but not how he felt from the heart. And it's not about performance. It's just, I wish I would have seen that. I wish they'd given him an opportunity to say. If they'd written it.

Yeah, you know, I miss our time together as well. Although they indicate that. They do indicate that. It's never verbally said. We are in the captain's office. Odo is calling to Cisco, informing him that he needs to get down to the promenade because someone has been killed. This is big news. Huge news.

Yes. We then end up on the promenade. We do see there is a monk that's laying on the ground. He's been pushed from the balcony. Cisco asked what happened. And Secair doesn't really know. Odo says he fell from the second level. His neck was broken on impact.

So this is hardcore. Or says, does anyone see this? Who saw this happen? Porter raises his hand. He goes, oh, I did. It's just so casual. Odo goes, well, was it an accident? He goes, I pushed him.

I mean, there was like, no, which is great. This is the way he should play it, because this is the norm for him, right? I mean, he came from the old school Dejara society, so this is normal for him. You can't, if you're not going to be part of your Dejara, well, then you don't deserve to live either. Yeah, and this guy was a monk. He's a monk. He's a monk. He was supposed to join his proper Dejara and not be a monk.

therefore he's unclean he's unclean yeah his family were they they prepare bodies uh for burial basically it's such a jarring scene to think that oh my god porta did that right porta that that that lovely old man that we've that we've been you know oh he's so sweet i'd love him to be my grandpa and no he's the guy that i'm surprised that cisco said just get them out of here as opposed to you're on a federation ship station you should be arrested for murder like that's what he meant by that though you don't know i don't know you don't know that you don't know that no you might assume that but there's nothing there's no reference there i assume no my assumption was that no get him out of here means take him to

the brig is what i thought that meant that's what he said it's not what he said to me it meant get them get them away yeah okay it didn't feel like he was arresting him and and probably for Story-wise, it's probably the best thing they could have done because if they arrested him, there would be an outcry about he was just following the Jara. Right. And the people who are in favor of that would have been behind him in his choice. Yeah. Okay.

We go to the wardroom. A quorum is defending what happened. He says that, you know, he's the emissary. Cisco starts saying, like, you know, what you've done with this position of the emissary has made me wish that I had never given it up. So this is the one point where Tiscoe says. I really need to... Can't let this continue.

I can't let this continue, yeah. And then he kind of questions Sikora. I mean, he's like, how do you know that you are, you know, what you're doing is what the prophets want? How do you know that your actions are the correct actions? And how do we, you know, even questions whether or not he is supposed to be the emissary. And the final conversation between the two of them is Cisco says, well, there's only one way to find out.

And we have to go back to the wormhole. We have to go see the prophets. We have to have the profits answer the question for us, which they do. They had a runabout and they had straight to the wormhole. The other thing I was going to say, earlier when he made the speech, a quorum, have we seen the backward clapping before? Has that been done already? No, I haven't seen that before. Maybe I'm so used to it.

I think you have. I think you have. Really? Okay. That's the way they always clapped. Wow. It's not very efficient. It's not very efficient.

Shit, Robbie. This is much louder. Maybe that's the point. They don't want it to do that. It's more golf hockey there. They can do like hipsters in the 50s, jazz club. Right. I don't remember if this is the first or not.

I do know that that's the way they always. Well, I thought it might be, I didn't see it. But maybe I did. Who knows? They're in the roundabout. They are now into the wormhole. They're going to half thrusters. Corum is wondering, what do we do?

Cisco says, we wait. I love how a quorum does this little. He's meditation hands, yeah. He doesn't have jazz hands. He has meditation hands. He puts him in that position. And then is kind of a weird cut? Because Cisco's sitting there.

And the next thing, Cisco's standing next to him, like a family photo. I didn't understand what was happening there. The script indicates a passage of time. That's simply that. Okay. That's what that is. All right. Well, I still think that could have been indicated with him still sitting where he was at.

It was a little bumpy. It was a little bumpy. Yeah. But, yeah, some time passes. There's a white flash. We go into this very long sequence. They're talking to the prophets. The prophets appear as Kira, Bashir.

Akorum as well. Okorum. Porta is there too. And Odum, yeah. So Akorum basically is saying, hey, thanks prophets for showing up in this, on this visit. Tell this guy that I'm the emissary. He still thinks he's the emissary. And linear time comes up.

he says you know um linear time has no meaning to to us because the quorum talks about how he was the first one to be chosen right in in the timeline he was 200 years ago when all this started for him he was chosen first and they're like linear time doesn't mean anything to us right they do admit though that they helped a quorum and he says well you did that so that I could bring the dejara's back to bejor right and Cisco asked them is it true is that what you want And the prophets say, well, the Dejaras are part of what Cisco would call the past, or the Sisko, preferring to him as the Sisko, yeah. And the prophets say that Akoram was there for the Cisco, not for the Dejaras.

And that's a big reveal. And Akorum says, I want to go back to my time. I want to see my wife. I want to see my family. No, actually, he says, I want to die. He goes like, he does. He does? Yeah, he was like,

Oh, allow me to die. Yeah, please let me die. Because now that he knows he's not the emissary, he feels like he has no one to live any longer, okay? So he's just like, let me die. And it's Cisco, the Cisco, that is so Gandhi-like. He's like, no, do not. Because actually the prophets agree, like, oh, yeah,

we could take you right back to the point where you have that girder stuck in your chest, and you can continue to die, just like you want. And Cisco interrupts, the Cisco says, no, send him back the way he is. is now healthy to his time, to his family, to his, yeah, that's what. And then he kind of goes, oh, yes, I could see my wife. So he, he sees the, the upside to that. Yeah. Not great. The prophets basically say to Cisco, you know, we are of Bejor. You are of Bejor. So basically telling him, yeah, you're the emissary, dude. You're the guy we picked. The Flash, right? Yeah, Flash is back to the runabout. Before we go back to.

to the runabout. One of the things they say that we will send a quorum back to his time, but he will remember nothing. That's right. He will not remember a thing of what happened. He will not remember a thing that's happened. I think that's interesting to me about what scene is about to, we're about to get into. Well, we pop back into the runabout. Cisco's all alone, kind of taking what just happened in, and then we go into. Okay. If I may. Right there. Taking all this in. what just happened he can remember why is it he can remember and a quorum is not allowed to remember or vice versa why is it that a quorum doesn't remember and and Cisco does I went what is that

that about what why shouldn't they be the same should shouldn't the policy be the same for all people that come to visit the celestial temple what it was necessary for a quorum not to remember why was that necessary if cisco is allowed to remember i would argue that if we're going to send him back in what you call time the prophets don't deal with linear time but they're trying to adapt the solution to to a quorum in cisco if we're going to send him back that could change the timeline if he remembers all and it does it does in that he finishes the poetry but it doesn't in that he does he doesn't say like oh i've seen the emissary he's starfleet like that he can't say you know that so he doesn't remember that part of it he doesn't remember that but it

doesn't and i does change yeah it does change it because there's a scene between uh cisco and kira and we're going to get to it in a moment right where where time the events the timeline has changed yeah yeah i think they have to let cisco remember this because they want him to know who he is. Because he is the emissary. That's why he gets the, he gets the ticket to remember, you know? Because the thematic question is, who are you? Who are you? And now he has an answer. Yeah. Now he has an answer. And so does a quorum. They both have answered. Yeah. He takes all this in by himself in the runabout for a moment. And we cut inside the O'Brien's quarters. Miles has put Molly to bed. Keiko's busy working. She says, go do something. Go have some fun. I got to work

for a couple hours. He goes, no, I'm fine. Does it sound to read? I love his sigh in the background. The original script had two sighs. Oh, it was a double sigh. And the rewrites, they must have written one out. But in the original script, there's two sides.

Well, you might have done two sighs and then they cut it in it. No, there's only one. I double checked. Well, then we could have cut it out. They could have said, oh, that was too much. Let's cut one out. Yeah, yeah. It's a little childish to do double size.

It is a little boy. He sighs, and she tells Miles, you know, Julian's been really depressed lately. Maybe you should go cheer him up, take care of him. Miles was like, no, it's fine. She goes, no, I think if you went, he's like, really? Okay. So he gets up, agrees to go cheer him up. And then we cut to Bashir in the infirmary.

No, no, no, no. Yeah, Keiko is still, yeah, the shot is still on Keiko. Oh, yes, sorry. O'Brien. And she calls Bashir and says like, hi, you know what? Chief Miles has been so depressed. I think he's begged me not to tell you. It's the same thing message.

Exactly. She's the match. Oh, God, she's so good. She's wonderfully devious. Because when she talks to O'Brien in the first part of the scene, it seems very heartfelt. Yes. And then you immediately see, no, this is a plot. She's planning this all along.

She's the mastermind. Yeah, she's a wonderful performance. Well, now we go to Quarks. Kira's there, sits down with Cisco, and she's giving him one of her works of art. An original Kira Norese. I love that line when Kira says, could be valuable one day. And Cisco says, I heard she didn't make many. That line to me, it was very funny.

I laughed so hard at that. Oh, boy. Well, Kira says everyone's very relieved not to be doing this Dajara thing. Yeah. And we do see Bashir Miles come down. They're bickering over their holosuite game. They're playing. So they're back to their banter.

And a father walks up with his daughter and says, Emissary, if you could, bless our daughter as having her Itanu ceremony, which is like a bat mitzvah kind of ceremony. Yep. And this time, Cisco enthusiastically accepts the, the invitation to bless this girl's ceremony and he seems like he's at peace with this and he's accepted this and he appreciates this he even throws a Cisco little sound effect at this like that he does a little yeah no he doesn't go hoohoo he goes hoo hoo he he yeah I like I get it

but I do like this last scene because he genuinely excited non-verbally accepts his role. And I think this is huge. He's been so reluctant to be the emissary. And this is the episode where he flips. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like, you know, when you bring in a younger QB to sort of like remind the main QB,

the QB one that, hey, you got someone here. Other options. Yeah, you got, we have other options. So it's almost like, you know, the other emissary, the profits brought the other emissary there just to show Cisco, look, we could get, we can have another option. if we want. And then he's like, oh, gosh, I took this for granted this whole time. So overall, I enjoyed this episode. I really did. Yeah. Armand, you liked it. I liked it a lot. I liked it a lot. I'm a little less enthusiastic than you guys. Okay. Well, let's talk about,

let's talk about it in our, in our after party. Sure. A little more. Did we skip over what I touched upon earlier about the fact that the poetry, the poem was finished? That was in that last scene when after Bashir and O'Brien kind of banter about their game upstairs. Sisko talks about the poem. Yeah, he was reading one of Akoram's poems. And then when she looks at it, she realizes it ended at the 12th stanza. She always knew that poem to end of the 12th stanza. So she remembers the old version.

Yeah, which doesn't. But it's finished now. Yeah. If the timeline has changed, should she be able to remember? She shouldn't. because the timeline change should be her reality that should be her reality that it has been completed correct she should never have known that it was 12 stanzas huh but wait a minute if that's true then she wouldn't even remember a quorum they wouldn't remember the Dejaro's none of a quorum had happened none of that talk would have worked the whole episode which i hate timeline episodes where it's like just kidding nobody remembers i hate those even though that's that's the way it should be right they shouldn't remember any of this Oh, my goodness. Good catch.

Good quibble. Yeah. Good quibble. I'm going to ignore that, Harmon. I'm not going to look at that at all. But you have a valid point. Well, Cisco's response to that, timeline problem, Cisco just says the prophets work in mysterious ways.

That's like the catch-all religious faith response. Well, it's just a mystery, I guess. So good. let's talk about lesson theme moral robbie what is yours i think for both storylines the bashear miles friendship bro time and also clearly for for uh Cisco being the emissary the not and then back again to it my lesson is you don't know what you've got till it's gone ain't that the truth you know sometimes you got to lose the thing you take for granted who really appreciate it.

It's all perspective, really, yeah. So mine is a little different. I wrote, religious dogma must be constantly re-evaluated. Uncertainty is the pathway to learning and peace of mind. Oh. I like that. I do. Because it was the uncertainty that eventually got Cisco to where he was.

And it's the uncertainty about, in the B story, about how. how I'm going to deal with the new relationship, that brings that finally to the realization. You can have both. You can have Bashir playing darts and you can still take care of the new child. Mm-hmm. Which is, I think, why O'Brien says

at the end of the scene with Kiko, I'm a very lucky guy. Right. Because he's come to that realization. My lesson is really you have to follow your passion because when it comes to someone like Major Kira, her passion is definitely not art, even though that's what she was destined.

Yeah, it's clearly not art. And just realize that that is where your joy will be found. If you follow your passion, what makes you excited, that's the field you should be in. Mm-hmm. Great. That's 100%. I think that it's ironic that Nana Visitor, who is so deeply creative and as a person, Nana is like everything is a passionate kind of artistic, creative.

perspective on life, at least what I've seen of Nana. She's very creative from her whole, her whole life point of view is creative in a way. And that she plays this character who is so awkwardly, you know, creative that just can't be creative, just wants to fight and be military all the time. Yes. It is, but it's, it's, it's, it is comic. It's ironic. It is. I agreed. All right, our Patreon poll for winner of the theme slash more slash lesson of this episode submitted by Alex Ray. Some things are meant

to stay in the past. We've finished our recap and discussion. Thank you, Armin, again, for joining Robbie and I on this one. Thank you. Please join us next time when we'll be recapping and discussing the episode Rules of Engagement with Terry. So Terry will be joining us with that one. For all of our Patreon patrons, please join us for our afterbring. party. It's the first time we're referring to it as that. And it'll be with a little bit more of Armin, a little bit more Robbie, and a little bit more of myself. For everyone else, we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye-bye. Thanks, everybody. You know,

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