The Delta Flyers - Alice

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, everyone, welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry, as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Trek actor and director and also producer of resident Alien. Yeah. Hey, Mr. Robert, Duncan McNeil, and myself, your favorite Eternal Ensign, Garrett Wong. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. Yeah, do you like that dramatic pause I gave you? It did. I didn't know where you were going. I didn't know where I was going either.

Starting point is 00:00:46 You covered some weird stuff. Yes, yeah. I decided to pull it to something more current. Resident Alien, which now is, you know, our, our. the part two of our season two is finally airing. So I hope everybody's watching it. I think they are. It's a great show. I hope so.

Starting point is 00:01:05 It's a great show. So I'm, you know, I'm jetting around flying here, flying there. I just got back into Vegas. I was in Calgary, literally, just got back in. I was in Calgary only for a couple of days, but I promised Megan that I would make it for the Hamilton showing in Calgary, basically. The Hamilton came to Calgary. The tour came through town?

Starting point is 00:01:26 Yeah, they came through town. Oh, that's exciting. We went to go watch it, and it was understudy night. Oh, no. But I got to say, the one understudy that knocked it out of the park was the actress who played Eliza, Alexander Hamilton's wife. And this young lady was Asian American, Chinese American. Really?

Starting point is 00:01:49 So I was so excited to see representation. And boy, she did a good job. Oh, that's awesome. Good, yeah. And then, you know, they had an understudy for Burr, which is a huge role for an understudy. And there were some numbers that he did very well and others that it just seemed he was a little nervous, you know, and that happens. Washington kind of went up on a line. He didn't go up in a line. He said the wrong word, which was kind of weird. He corrected himself. And then he had to speed his wrap up to catch up with the music. And I felt I felt really bad for him. I'm like, oh, you know, because. As actors, we all have those nights where everything seems to go not the way we planned, you know, and we get tongue tied and the wrong word comes out of our mouth and we're maybe, you know, so I feel for the man. I'll tell my worst, the worst theater mess up night.

Starting point is 00:02:45 And it really had nothing to do with me, but I was left holding the ball. So do you remember Mattel electronic football? Yes. A little game where. Colico. Calico. And it was a little handheld. Yeah. And the little red dots will move around. Yes. Every American boy had one. I had one. And I'm doing, I'm doing a play, a professional production of the unsinkable Molly Brown. Okay. Musical. Yeah. At the Harlequin Dinner Theater in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm 15 years old. I'm in the chorus. I'm just like in, I'm one of the chorus guys. And, but it was like a six-week run or something.

Starting point is 00:03:30 So, you know, we had been doing this play night after night. And I was the, there was a scene on the boat where Molly Brown gets a telegram. Okay. And basically the telegram says, Molly, you've got to come to New York to this big party. Right. Yeah. And I was dressed for the big party number that was about to come up after this scene. And I'm sitting in the wings playing my.

Starting point is 00:03:54 electronic football and I'm waiting I knew that there was a couple minutes left and so I'm waiting and then all of a sudden it's silent and I look up and the guy that's supposed to come out with the telegram lines

Starting point is 00:04:10 he's nowhere to be found oh no so they're out on stage waiting for the guy who's supposed to bring the telegram and I'm sitting there with the electronic football and I'm looking and I'm like what do we do and the stage manager rips a page out of his script. And hands it to you and shows you out there?

Starting point is 00:04:29 Folds it up like a telegram, hands it to me and goes, go. I didn't know the lines. I didn't know the scene. I didn't know what he was supposed to say. So I go out there and I'm like, Molly, this is for you. And they sort of improvise. And I'm clearly, I'm in a tuxedo for the next number. like what it and as luck would have it that was the night my father came to see the show

Starting point is 00:04:58 oh no after the show yeah i go to see my father and he's like oh it was so fun it was great he goes yeah but you had a little mess up there in your scene with a telegram and i was like that wasn't my scene dad i wasn't supposed to be in that so it was i was terrified because i didn't yeah okay the the question that everyone is asking is what happened to the telegram actor i i the dressing rooms were like upstairs above the stage and i you there's a monitor so you can hear the play going on while you're in the dressing room correct and people chat and wait and he just wasn't paying attention oh my gosh so he came running down so as i came off the stage he came running down he was running down like panting oh my terrified it was fun

Starting point is 00:05:50 I think. Yeah, so things happen. Look at you picking up the slack. That guy owed you a pizza at least. Yeah. Goodness. Well, it was a dinner theater. There's plenty of food around, so. Do they fire him after that or no? No, I don't think so. It really wasn't anyone to fill it. No, what are you going to do? What do you do? But, you know, I think that's something that I would dream of, like, as a nightmare of missing my cue to come on stage for a stage production. I would Oh, my gosh. I can't even imagine doing that. But, yeah, it happens.

Starting point is 00:06:24 And you must have been turning red and purple with just having to deal with that. My heart was just racing. Well, thank you for sharing that. The actors in the scene were so great because they were like, you know, I said, Molly, this is for you or something. I don't even know if I said, I was so terrified. I may not have even said anything. And then she goes, oh, it's a telegram.

Starting point is 00:06:44 And I think in the scene, he was supposed to say, yeah, it's from. Buffalo Bill or whatever. He's supposed to say a lot of stuff that gives her information. So instead, she was like, oh, is this a telegram? Is it from Buffalo Bill? Oh. And I was like, prompting you.

Starting point is 00:07:02 Yeah. She's like, is he in New York right now? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. It was amazing. And is there, are you going to a costume party later? You're very well dressed for a telegram person for a messenger. So that would have been very.

Starting point is 00:07:18 funny awesome yeah well thanks for sharing that's right i've haven't i've never experienced anything like that but that must have been terrifying for you and for the other actor who missed this cute yeah that's the theater it's exciting it is it is hey are you ready to watch this episode i am what is the episode again it's called alice alice oh oh yes okay all right we will be right back Robbie and I will be right back with our recap and discussion of the episode Alice. Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material.

Starting point is 00:07:53 Okay, Robbie and I are back from watching Alice. Yes, we are. Yeah, okay. Let's withhold your comments. Let's just go right into our poetry synopsis. I'm going to start with my haiku for Alice and it goes a little something like this. Okay.

Starting point is 00:08:12 Tom has a new toy. It has a mind of its own. Torres saves Tom's bum. My other option was Torres alarm clock. Nice. But I went with Torres saves Tom's bum. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:30 Nice. Okay. Well, here we go with a limerick synopsies. As they say somewhere. I don't know who they are, but they say they always say synopsies. I say synopsis. Okay, here we go with Limerick. A shuttle and Tom start to blend.

Starting point is 00:08:50 He thinks she's some kind of girlfriend. Tom goes on the run. Balana says this is done. From now on, Tom's hobbies will just be a friend. Good job. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:09:05 Thank you very much. Yeah, thank you very much. Give us the rundown when it comes to the guest stars. I want to hear about the guest stars. So we have Claire Rankin playing Alice. And Claire is a Canadian actress, probably best known for her recurring role as Dr. Kate Hightmeyer on Stargate Atlantis. She was like a recurring regular on Stargate Atlantis. So sci-fi fans would know from there.

Starting point is 00:09:34 But her very first job that I could come up with was Death Wish, the face of the face of death 1994 what yeah she was in death this the charles bronson series of ronson it's one of the death wish movies so i don't know which one it was because he made sequels so this is death wish the face of death oh my god and if you and if you recall i was an extra on death wish three or four one of whatever it was and tim russe was actually a bit player of under five actor on that film as well oh that's fun And so was Claire Rankin. And so, okay, get to know.

Starting point is 00:10:16 Our other actor is John Fleck. Star Trek fans will know him from lots of roles that he played in Star Trek. He plays Abidon. And John Fleck is, he was born in Cleveland for those that love Cleveland. That's where Tim Hagan, Cape Mulgrew's ex-husband. Yeah. Tim was from Cleveland. And let's see, his very first job that John Fleck has that I'm aware of.

Starting point is 00:10:47 I know he did a lot of theater. So he had a big theater career. But his first film job that I could find was in 1982, a movie called Truckin' Buddy McCoy. Some kind of low budget. This sounds like a credit that you had on your resume, something that you had. Truckin' Buddy McCoy. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:11:09 This movie starred. Terry Knox and Miguel Ferrer and it was in 1982. That's John Fleck's first job that I could find on film. Okay. But he's done a lot of other Trek though. Oh, tons of other than Voyage. Yeah. Well, it definitely shows because when it comes to guest stars, a lot of times guest stars are so

Starting point is 00:11:26 uncomfortable doing Trek because Technobabble, because pushing buttons, because, you know, a number of reasons. But I felt that his performance, it was, he was so comfortable in his skin. It was really, it was impressive what he laid. down. He was great. He's a great actor. Yeah. I think he was in every one of the Star Trek franchises. The TNG, Voyager, DS9, and Enterprise. Well, and if they haven't used them on the

Starting point is 00:11:52 newer stuff, they should. This guy can definitely knock it out of the park. He's great. All right. This was a teleplay by Brian Fuller and Michael Taylor. Story by Julianne Delane. I don't know who that is. Maybe it's pronounced, because it's spelled the same way as how, you know, how Delancey is little E, capital L. So I think it might be Delaney. Yeah. Oh, okay. Don't know. We don't, I don't know her, but Brian Fuller, Michael Taylor, who shared an office on our show.

Starting point is 00:12:25 They wrote this teleplay and David Livingston directed it, which I didn't remember. Right. I don't remember that at all either. No. Well, you probably don't remember much because you were mostly on the bridge, although you were, I have a shot in engineering. Yeah. Got a couple other shots.

Starting point is 00:12:41 But I will say watching this episode, first of all, it reminds me a lot of Stephen King's Christine. Yes. It basically feels. It's the same. It feels like a rip off straight from that story. It's our Trek version of Christine. Right. And I did not remember how much I did in this episode.

Starting point is 00:13:06 I mean. You're all over. it yeah it's literally i was like oh my god there's another scene with tom paris like every scene and i will say overall i feel like it's a it's a good story but to me in the end i was just it was i had a lot of frustration watching this and i and i get why maybe i didn't remember it because it just you blocked it out i blocked it out okay i think i blocked it out but you know even that being said there are still going to be fans who really love this episode regardless of you don't like it there's still fans and that's something that we've learned there's episodes that we have both

Starting point is 00:13:46 rated very low and we've gotten emails or comments that this was my favorite episode of Voyager of all time so you know so don't be too hard on yourself but i do think like the idea of doing christine in space is a good idea i just i struggle with the story struggle structure and the the kind of full journey of Tom going down this road of this haunted spiraling downwards it didn't feel like it I don't know it felt like we skimmed the surface of this story yeah and you know my my rule of a great episode is something that involves everybody more equally and this one didn't it was it was yeah a lot of people I don't think we saw the doctor until 30 or 40 minutes in like deep we didn't see you know Jane

Starting point is 00:14:37 was getting caught up on this on yeah the status from chakote near the end like it was almost like where was janeway the whole episode so yeah i don't know that that part bothered me that we didn't see more of the cast yeah that's always been an important requirement for you in terms of what you deemed to be a good episode and for me that's not as important but you know when there are certain holes in this in the plot or certain things that that stand out that's that's what bothers me and I personally feel that the suit, the flight suit was introduced too early because you're wearing that darn thing. Like no one is making any, the only person who comments about it is Chacote, who says like,

Starting point is 00:15:18 you know, get rid of it, shave, whatever. But no one else says the thing about, you know, Harry does say, what are you wearing? But still, I felt like that was introduced way too early. I feel like that's, that flight suit should have come in right before the fight with balana you know or maybe that's when you should be wearing it for the first time when you're showing you know you're showing a balana not when you're showing her the ship but when you come in and find her um dying basically dying or something yeah that maybe that you have the suit then but you're wearing it so early and that kind of bummed me up nobody really comments on like no it's

Starting point is 00:15:54 weird no and it's it just reminds me of like the you know when you talk about grade school kids kids going to school, and the one kid who's a little bit, you know, marches to the beat of his own drum wearing this, you know, the Captain America suit to school and everyone else is wearing normal clothes. That's kind of how I felt Tom was. It's almost like, he's going to wear that suit now, you know? I mean, we'll let him wear his little costume. And I felt that that just, that didn't really do justice to the episode of the story. So that, that won me out a little bit. Well, let's get into the episode. So first thing is we're on the bridge. Well, space shot first, right? Exterior space shot of Voyager, leading to the bridge.

Starting point is 00:16:33 And then we go in on the bridge. And it's basically Tom and Harry trying to guess Tuvok's age, which is a very funny scene. It's a great scene. It's a great scene. You guess 162, I guess 133. But the other funny thing, you notice Pablo is standing next to Tuvok. I made a known of that. Just staring at him.

Starting point is 00:16:54 I mean, what is he doing there? It's one of our regular background guys, Pablo. Pablo Soriano. Pablo Soriano was a regular background. He's done a million commercials. You'll see him in commercials everywhere. Everywhere. Yeah. And the thing I love about Pablo is he was a salsa dancer. Do you remember this? Yes, yes. And he used to like dance around or waiting for, you know, everybody to get there. He'd talk about his salsa nights. And I love Pablo's awesome. Yeah, but Pablo's just standing there. While Tuvac is avoiding answering the questions from us, he's playing with a pad. And then at the end, he gets up and hands the pad to Pablo, which I was glad to see Pablo with a little specific screen time, not just deep background. Yes. The other thing I made note of in the scene is when Harry says to Tuvok, don't tell me Vulcans are embarrassed about their age. Tuvok responds with this comment. He says, on the contrary, we value the wisdom that comes with advancing years. And I, that ring, that immediately rung a bell in my head. And the memory is whenever I try to do impersonations of the other cast as the in character, I would always find a go-to phrase from that character.

Starting point is 00:18:11 So for Tom Paris, it's always been, yes, ma'am. So I use yes-ma'am to get into the Tom Paris for us. And Chiquotay. Chikote is, any luck get duvok. So any look, yet duvok is how I get into. into Chakotay. And for me, and Tim has always been a tough one for me to, to kind of wrap my head around or my mouth around in a way because it's just, it's harder to get his voice down. But I do recall that that was the line that I worked on day and night. On the contrary, we value

Starting point is 00:18:43 the wisdom that comes with advancing years. So I use that one over and over again. On the contrary, we value the wisdom that comes with advancing years. And so I use that over. and over and over again to try to get them come close. And I still feel that I'm not really as close as I'd like to be. It's good. That was good. But you know, there it is. It took you into season six before you had a catchphrase for Tuvon. Tovite. Harry detects a fleet of ships, 200,000 kilometers dead ahead. But he can't identify the ships. Tom reads multiple Hulk configurations. So it's different ships. They're not all the same. Tuvok immediately orders shields to be raised, switches to red alert. At this point, Janeway comes in with Chicote. She asked for a status

Starting point is 00:19:27 report. Tuvok says there's a large group of ships dead ahead, possibly hostile. He says he's charging weapons. Harry detects 62 ships and a few hundred pieces of ships, all dead in space. And Paris has the best line of this scene. Congratulations, Tuvok. You just saved us from a flotilla of hostile trash, which I just love. So good job there on the writing. We are then hailed by the guest star of the week and the... Mr. Abadon, John Fleck. He says, welcome to Abadon's repository of lost treasures. I love that.

Starting point is 00:20:04 I love the introduction. Yes. It sets a really unique tone. He invites them to come in and browse. Look around. Yeah. I thought he was great. The makeup on him was really different than we've seen.

Starting point is 00:20:16 Completely. Yeah. And I liked it a lot. It sort of had this, you know, it was kind of the, typical skin tone underneath, but then it had these kind of brown, almost like a shell, like an eggshell in the back was this brown eggshell kind of protecting the head or something. Was that his helmet or like, you know, was that some type of pet gear? No, I think it was part of his anatomy.

Starting point is 00:20:41 I think it is. All right. But I thought it was really cool. It was very, very cool. It's hard to get this far into the Star Trek world and come up with new makeups that really feel unique and different. And this one, to me, felt, you know, the color combinations, all of it felt really good. And his choice of how he played that character.

Starting point is 00:21:02 And just his initial lines immediately kind of gave me this, it harkened an earlier era. It was almost like we were back in a 30s or 40s, black and white movie, you know, very theatrical, very, that's his theater training. Very unique, very talented. Okay, so let's jump into the next scene. We're in the transporter room. And again, right off the bat, the camera is on Abidon as he materializes. And again, he doesn't have that sort of confused look that guest stars have when they get transported on our ship.

Starting point is 00:21:33 He's ready to go. I mean, his lines are there. He's just, he's on point. So Abidon arrived. We find out that his name is the same name that his father had, his grandfather had, not very creative. He's greeted by Chikote and Nielix. And he senses that Nelix. By the way, so he's greeted by Tchkotay.

Starting point is 00:21:50 Cortet and Neelix. And the first thought I had was, why is Abadon wearing Neelix's coat from the pilot? No, you're not. It looks like the same. There's no way. But it's similar. It's similar. And I was like, that's not fair, because I love that coat on Neelix. And here's Abadon coming in with styling like Neelix. And I was very upset about it. You know, Neelix, that should have been his lines. Mr. Abandon, that I have not seen my coat in a while. I think you're wearing. I think you're wearing my coat. Maybe it's a trader coat. Maybe that's sort of a Delta quadrant.

Starting point is 00:22:26 The signature. If you're a trader, a junk trader like Neelix was, then you got to wear that kind of coat. That's what it is. Oh my goodness. Good eye. Good eye. You caught it. He gives them a list of his available inventory.

Starting point is 00:22:41 Yeah. And he looks around the transporter room. He's like, wow, you've got artificial gravity plating, plasma-based power induction system. It's very impressed. Yeah. And by the way, he hands Chakote his inventory. And Chikote within two seconds goes, oh, looks like you've got a few things here we could use. What is it?

Starting point is 00:23:01 He is a speed reader. He is a speed reader. I don't know if we know that. But that is. How did he read it so fast? Acuchy moya. I guess so. He used Akuchy moya.

Starting point is 00:23:09 And by the way, in the transporter room, did you see Jerry Flex nephew? That's right. Simon. Simon. Simon. Simon. Our first assistant director's nephew, Simon. He's the transporter controller.

Starting point is 00:23:20 control guy. He's this transported chief for the day. Good old Simon. But as, as Abidon is looking at these, by the way, didn't Simon stand in for Neelix quite often? Yes, correct. Yeah, I thought so. About the same height. So he was the stand in for lighting. When they would be lighting the scene, Simon would stand there where Ethan Phillips would be doing the scene and they'd get the lighting prepared with a stand in. So that's what Simon did. Yeah, Simon did that. Quiet guy, but nice guy. So, you know, Abadon's really impressed with all these things that he sees, but Chacote says those are integrated systems that we cannot trade. Nelix is the one that comes up with a suggestion that converting spare deranium sheeting and cargo bay one into gravity plating. And Chocote is all over that.

Starting point is 00:24:02 He's like, okay. You know what, Nelix show Mr. Abadon our inventory. And so Nelix takes Abidon and they both leave. So let me just talk about this for a second. So they're in the transporter room talking. They're all standing in the middle of the transporter room. And Chocote says, okay, Nelix, you go give him a tour, and I'm going to head this way. So Chocote goes out camera right.

Starting point is 00:24:23 Yeah. And then Nelix and Abidon go out camera left, as if there's a back door. There's no back door. There's no back door. Do it nowhere. Why are they going in different directions? There's only one door in this place. It was such a good eye.

Starting point is 00:24:41 I feel this is something that our Admiral Jason Oaken is going to bring up. I feel like he's going to say. Where do they walk to? Yeah, I get why story-wise, they want to say, okay, Chukotay is going this way, they're going that way. Yes. But there is no that way. There is no that way.

Starting point is 00:24:54 But the audience doesn't know that, so it's okay. But now I'm telling you. Now I'm telling you. We've just ruined. Robbie has just ruined your experience, everybody. There's no back door. You're welcome. Okay, we go to Astrometrics.

Starting point is 00:25:09 There's Paris Seven and Harry looking at what is available, I guess, for them from this. Harry says it's even more that this junk trader has more than the Borg had. Yeah, more junk, more tech than the Borg has. They've collected more than the Borg and Seven is like, yes. Everyone needs Borg humor. Yes. And Seven's like, yes, but most of this is useless. So Seven's like, this is junk.

Starting point is 00:25:36 Right. And then Paris sees, he goes, wait, you know, expand that. Look right over there. He sees this old shuttle. Yeah. And Paris is obsessed suddenly with this vintage Delta Quadrant shuttle that he sees in the junkyard, he even says at the end, I think I'm in love. Which I just thought, again, I thought, like, where is this coming from?

Starting point is 00:26:00 Yeah, but you played it great because you were so, I mean, you didn't even look at us. You were locked onto that view screen. You're looking at the astromestric screen. And you're, you just say, I think I'm in love. It was under your breath. I think you played it perfectly. Oh, thank you. It was believable to me completely.

Starting point is 00:26:17 And then plus our reactions. Did you notice seven and our reactions also validated your line? There's some good comedy in this and there's some good moments. And I will say as we go through it, again, I'm not critical necessarily of my performance. It's not like I'm like, oh, I really mess that scene up and not seen it. I actually think, you know, generally my performance and the other guest stars and everyone's performance is good. my struggle in this episode is I'm just not invested in the stakes of this story. I don't feel the context of why is Paris suddenly in this story. I know, I know he's into, you know,

Starting point is 00:26:56 vintage stuff or 20th century stuff, but it just feels like it's not specific enough in this episode of why he's becoming obsessed about this suddenly. Okay. You know, anyway, I think there's a bunch of missing scenes. I hear you. It still made sense to me. I was able to, about, you know, I was able to work it out of my head. So, okay. Go to the briefing room next. Chikote is there. Harry's there.

Starting point is 00:27:20 Neelix, Paris. And they're talking about some, some kind of inexpensive cultural artifacts that, that they might take. Paris is showing, then brings up the shuttle. And he jumps up from the table. Well, it wasn't just a cultural artifacts. Let's just be clear. It's also all the other items we want to trade for that we can use on the ship.

Starting point is 00:27:41 Yes, there's some other stuff. Right. And then there's some of these junky artifacts, which are going to come up later. Anyway, so Parra says to Chocote, and there's the shuttle. And he says, he starts showing the schematics up on the side panel. And he talks about the optronic weapon systems that they have with this neurogenic interface. So there is a part of this shuttle that's something that could be kind of cool. You know, it ties right into the pilot's thoughts.

Starting point is 00:28:11 So it could be more maneuverable. It could help our technology quite a bit. It could even be, you know, it could be better than the Delta Flyer or we could use this technology in the Delta Flyer. So, you know, he's into it. Did that remind you of anything when they talked about that technology? Optronic interface. No, what? It just reminded me of, I think on certain U.S. attack helicopters that the helmet of the pilots, the visor.

Starting point is 00:28:40 They've got like a heads up. The visor, if the pilot looks to the right, the guns will move to the right to, like it, it tracks whatever they look. You know what I'm saying? So there's a little bit of that neural interface there with modern day technology as well. That's what I thought about. Yeah. But you're definitely, Paris is definitely making an impassioned plea for this vessel to be one of the things that we trade for. And I love how he says, I will do all the restoration on my own time.

Starting point is 00:29:08 Plus, if I need any help, Harry is already a. read out and then my my oh i have i i just liked our little interaction there yeah you're just obsessed you want it and and what we're trading for is i paris has offered up his audio file collection which basically he says yeah it's my jukebox yeah i would like i'd love to see all the titles in that collection those songs in that collection yeah i'd like to know you know what you should probably why didn't we see that in his quarters ever No. Or why didn't he put it in mess hall for everybody to use his 20th century jukebox? That would have been awesome. I know. Here's a long-term homework project for you. Yes. Come up with those

Starting point is 00:29:50 titles. Come up with those titles. And then we can say Tom's, yeah, Tom's playlist. And we can post that online. I think people will be really excited to see what those, yeah. His 20th century is 20th century jukebox. What songs? And you have a very, you know, you have a pretty good grasp of music as a human being. And I think you'd be able to pull out everything and put that on online. All right. All right. We are in the corridor now. And Abedon is debriefing Tom about this derelict vessel that is now the owner of, basically. And Neelix is there too. And they do a walk and talk towards the transporter room. And it's a very, it's a great scene. There's a lot of energy to it. Everything's moving. All the lines are being, are coming out fast and furious.

Starting point is 00:30:36 and when they're in the transporter room And Abadon does say that this shuttle is special. It's like a daughter to him. Yes. And I think that's a little clue that Abadon's already had this experience that Paris is about to have

Starting point is 00:30:51 of this very special shuttle. And he says all trades are final. Yes. He also says that. That's the one more thing that he has in the transporter room. But Neelix guesses it. Neelix says, let me guess. All trades are final.

Starting point is 00:31:05 So it's a Neelix. in his trader, trader knowledge, he knows what the deal is. And I love Neelix's little laugh at the end after Abadon points out of him. It's like, yep, you got it. Neelix has this little joyful laugh, sort of like he guessed the clue on the game show correctly. So he was pretty happy about that. We have a little space flyby of Voyager here.

Starting point is 00:31:26 And I noticed the nacelles looked very bright. Righter than usual? Yeah. I don't know why that is. I don't know why, but they definitely seemed bright blue. stock footage though you would think it would almost always be the same but in this one i was like i particularly noticed maybe it was the angle i was like whoa those and the cells look pretty bright okay but we we go from space into the shuttle bay and harry and tom are there working on alice

Starting point is 00:31:52 yeah um named uh named the shuttle that uh harry says you should name it a lost cause right you i thought was funny also harry's sleeves are rolled up i know i'm always like, whenever I see one of us with our sleeves rolled up, I'm like, oh, this must be real serious work. This is serious work. Yeah. You're going to roll up those sleeves. Did you see we had grease on our faces? Yeah. We had like grease. I'm like, wait a minute, what what shuttle in the Delta Quadrant uses grease to lubricate it? I don't, it makes no sense. And if it was in space, why is it covered in dust and yeah. I mean, I get why if it was Christine, the Stephen King novel the critique begins oh I was just like there's no grease there's no dust it just

Starting point is 00:32:43 doesn't make any sense maybe on the inside it could it could have been there could be some debris or something but I don't know dust dust is organic yeah organic thing I hear you I but I critiques aside I still like this scene between us I think it's a good scene it's a good scene I just wish we didn't have grease I hear you I hear you had fancy hair in this by A poofy, extra poofy hair. Yeah, yeah. That note's a little lower, but... Yeah, yeah, it's not as poofy as Anson Mount's Pikes hair, but it is, there's some poof in there.

Starting point is 00:33:16 Yeah, yes. The biggest issue with this vessel is that there are damaged power cells everywhere, okay? And in talking about the fact that Tom has named this shuttle Alice and Harry says, how about the lost cause, that's when Tom goes into the story about Alice Battisti, this young lady he met back in his academy days who was sexy, smart, and wouldn't give him the time of day. So this is the influence of, this is the person who influenced the name of this shuttle, basically. Tom tries on the neurogenic interface for the first time when he's inside the shuttle. Yeah, that thing that comes around, wraps around.

Starting point is 00:33:57 Comes around. And it works for a few seconds, but two more power cells blow out. and Tom eagerly wants to reconfigure their power distribution grid, Harry is tired and wants to go to bed, Tom finally relents. But what I did make note of is I just love the use of shadows and darkness during this scene, which we typically don't have. Everything is always so well lit on Voyager, but a lot of shadows. And I liked David Livingston's camera angles and everything. Well, they had to play this room dark because after, Tom and Harry leave.

Starting point is 00:34:35 That's when it turns on. The camera pans back over in the darkness and the shuttle comes to life. It wakes up. And it would not be as impactful if it was super bright lighting and then just the cockpit lights up, correct? So it was for effect that it started off so dark. But I thought it worked. I mean, I loved it.

Starting point is 00:34:52 I really liked the darkness. Yeah, it was very cool. It comes to life. It wakes up and we see inside or cut inside the shuttle. We see the shuttle computer is now analyzing Tom's brain. Oh, I know. that was freaky and it's starting to analyze you know it's starting to find its own voice right yes and then you hear this female voice sort of appealed right but it's almost the female voice of your voice

Starting point is 00:35:13 is what I kind of felt that it was doing it was taking your voice and turning it into a female voice and saying the same lines that you were saying when you said good night I think you said good night good night good night out or something like that something like that and it sort of repeats it and then and then evolves it into this creepy female voice. Creepy. We go into Tom's quarters and he's there and then suddenly he hears a woman's voice. And he's not sleeping. He's still up.

Starting point is 00:35:43 He's working on a pad to da-da and he hears the voice. Yes, he hears this voice. He thinks it's Balana for a moment. He calls Balana and he goes outside to the corridor. He hears the voice again. He looks down and sees a woman round. rounding a corner. Before you round the corner, it looked like you had a cut on your lip in that scene. I noticed that. Did you notice that? I was like, what happened? Either maybe, I don't know.

Starting point is 00:36:09 I don't know what happened there, but it was definitely noticeable. I saw that. But then you didn't see it again. Yeah, then it was gone. I don't know what happened. Maybe one of your kids kicked you in the in the in the mouth by mistake. I don't know how that got there. But yeah, I noticed there I mean, there was some inconsistency in Tom Paris's makeup throughout the beard got long, then it was all of a sudden shorter, you know, it was different. It was definitely some, I liked the look with the, you know, not shaving and stuff like that. I thought it was a good look for Tom. Yeah, close to what you got right now.

Starting point is 00:36:42 Yeah, exactly. But it wasn't consistent. So it kept taking me out of it. I kept focusing in on, oh, the beard's changed. The looks change. Take us back to the corridor. Take us back to the corridor. he sees. Yeah, we go back in the corridor. He hears the voice. It's not Balana. There's no one out there. He

Starting point is 00:36:58 hears it again. He looks down and this woman is rounding a corner. He sees her from behind. So he starts following her. And he follows this mystery woman all the way to the shuttle bay. And then he steps inside and we don't see what he looks at. And you just like that. I like that. I did too. You don't see who he's looking at. And he's looking at. And he says, says, who are you? And you hear that creepy female voice. It's me. Alice. That's the name he gave the shuttle. So we know the shuttle is kind of coming to life. And there's some mystery woman, but we can't put it together. And so that's the end of the act. The next day, Paris comes back in. It's morning. He says, good morning, Alice. He starts cleaning it up. Then we start hearing music

Starting point is 00:37:48 that sort of accompanies a montage slash a working kind of thing. getting work done. Yes, it was old school, kind of like, I like the score, but it was very old school. Dun-da-da-da-da-da. It was kind of like the A-team or yet like you were doing, Raiders the Lost Star, like something's happening, yeah. Yeah, it was good music. Old school, good action music.

Starting point is 00:38:13 He's cleaning it up, shining, polishing. And then it ends with him revealing this gray flight suit. Silvery gray is I was. Silvery gray, not flattering. I'm just going to say, it looked like I was wearing a parachute. It was bad. It was one of the dumpiest looking uniforms I've ever seen you wear. I'm going to say that right there.

Starting point is 00:38:33 It was not a good look. No. And he seemed so happy, though, about it. He's very proud of this parachute he's wearing. Oh, yeah. We go into engineering, and we see Harry climbing up a ladder in his Buster Kincaid outfit. Yep. On the second floor, or the mezzanine of engineering.

Starting point is 00:38:51 comes to find Tom and Tom's still wearing the parachute working on a console and by the way we see Tom from behind and I noticed as as it panned over and revealed Tom there that I have panty lines I can see them I can see the panty lines through the parachute and I'm very humiliated I don't understand okay I'm going to say 99.999% of fans who are watching this will not make note of or even be aware of your panty lines exactly. You are so critical, which is, but I love it. I love it when your eye just goes to these crazy things. It makes me, it makes me happy inside. It's an unflattering suit that show, I don't even know if it was panty lines, but it just had weird, weird lines. Okay, okay.

Starting point is 00:39:38 I don't understand it. Anyway, Harry's like, Tom, uh, we need you in the holodeck for Captain Proton. Like, come on, let's go, dude. Arachnia needs you, but Tom is obsessed. Yes, yes. Well, Harry basically has two questions for you. Number one, who are you talking to? Because you're talking to Alice while you're working at a console. And secondly, what are you wearing? Because he thinks that you've changed the outfit for Captain Proton. But Harry reminds him, you know, that we had a holodeck appointment, chapter 37,

Starting point is 00:40:08 and then the web of pain, which sounds like a really fun chapter. But Tom completely, completely forgets about the appointment. Not only that, he just kind of blows off hair, just blows him off. He just bales on Harry entirely. And look at, did you see the. that just the absolutely um you dismiss me and i just have that that look of sadness at the very i'm pretty disappointed i was very disappointed in you and the way i turned and walked away it made me l-o-l i was laughing at that so by the way where's boulana in engineering like he's

Starting point is 00:40:38 there in this weird suit talking to another one and right in engineering like what an idiot you should have been you should have been whispering you should have been now alice this is what yeah that would have been a little bit better because even if she isn't there There are other engineering personnel that would say, hey, your boyfriend was talking to this random something. And yeah, he's kind of gone off the deep end. Are we done with the scene? Yeah, we go to mess hall next. Seven enters and finds Nelix.

Starting point is 00:41:08 She wants a refund. Yeah, those star charts. Inaccurate. Star charts obsolete. This is junk. Yeah. And Nelix says not only that is that junk, but there's more things that are worthless. Yeah, the cultural artifacts are worthless.

Starting point is 00:41:22 All these cultural artifacts are worthless. Yeah. And then Seven says, well, that crystal. Well, she picks it up and she wipes the dust off, which is the dust from space. The dust. Yes. The space dust. And then, yeah, and then immediately she sees this beryllium crystal.

Starting point is 00:41:41 Yes, very valuable. She says it's the primary currency in Spatial Grid 539. That's right. There are species in Spatial Grid 539. that will trade an entire fleet of starships for this crystal. So Neelix is like, well, Abadon would never have traded that for a few plasma couplings. So Neelik starts debating whether he should return it. And Seven says, need I remind you, all trades are final.

Starting point is 00:42:05 And I started thinking, now, wait a minute, she wasn't even in the engineering, she wasn't even in the transporter room. Yeah, she wasn't even in that scene where he says all trades are final. But maybe that's just, you know, maybe there's a shipwide newsletter. Yeah, that goes out to everyone that says, Avedon leaves, and he tells us, all trades are final, and that's how she knows. That's the only way I can justify that. Paris enters, though.

Starting point is 00:42:28 He wants to replicate some champagne. He's listening Alice. And he says he's going to have a private ceremony with Bala. Yeah. And Nielis then suggests a double date. Yeah, because he starts talking about his ship the first time he saw it, the back seal, right? Yeah, that's what I suggest the double date. He suggests maybe we can have a double date with a-

Starting point is 00:42:50 Paris is great line at the end. What is it? I didn't write it down. Oh, it is. You packed a picnic basket. I'll bring the deterium, is what you say. Always clever, that Tom Paris. You're not bum when I imitate Tom Paris. No, not at all.

Starting point is 00:43:04 Good. You know, I love doing the Tom Paris voice. Okay. We go to the hallway next. It's Belon and Paris heading towards the shuttle bay. And Paris is like, don't be too critical, you know. You know, it's not a perfect shuttle. And Belon is like,

Starting point is 00:43:19 when have you known me to be too critical and then Tom's response he stops is that a trick question I love that exchange this is this to me uh this to me this the scene that begins in the corridor is really the essence of every relationship on the planet it seems like it's so relatable uh yes and inside oh go ahead but by the way she doesn't comment on his she doesn't comment on his weird outfit. Yeah, no, that doesn't come up there. That's the first time we see that she's seen it. So maybe she's giving him some crap before, but maybe this would be a great opportunity to talk about that his his parachute outfit.

Starting point is 00:44:01 Anyway, we go into the shuttle bay. The shuttle is totally cleaned up. It's shiny. Yeah, it looks. It looks great. All good. And then we cut inside. They're opening the champagne. Yeah. They're sitting close and tight. She spills a little bit of champagne. And that's when Tom's like, he's like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me, careful of the upholstery. And she joked. She's like, well, let me just send an engineering crew down here to clean this up for you. She's trying to make light of the situation.

Starting point is 00:44:28 But you're not even, you're not laughing. You're so serious about this. Very serious about this shuttle. Like, this is, don't mess around with my baby. I've cleaned this thing up all the space dust. It was hard to clean up all that space stuff. But they do. So they're drinking champagne.

Starting point is 00:44:45 Yeah. It starts feeling like sexy time. little bit. It's feeling like Tom and Boulogne are going to, you know, have a romantic christening of this thing. And then suddenly there's an alert and the environmental systems are not working probably, starting to get hot in there. And he tries to correct it.

Starting point is 00:45:04 He starts, all of a sudden, his attention goes from sexy time to, oh, I've got to work on this ship. He starts playing with the panels. And she's like, well, you know, maybe I could help. And he's like, no, no, no, I got this. So he's very territorial about it. He's basically obsessed with this. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:45:19 But when she hears that voice, she says, well, that's some voice. And then Paris says right back, he's like, oh, are you getting jealous? And she's like, uh, maybe. I mean, there's a little, little tension there, you know? She senses that there's something weird about Tom's connection and obsession with this shuttle. Yes. And he's, but he's oblivious to it. He has no clue.

Starting point is 00:45:45 she realizes like okay sexy time is over uh i'm gonna get out of here well she says basically to you well maybe i should just leave the two of you alone and then you don't even look at balana you're like yeah okay because you're still you're still trying to make all the adjustments yeah yeah and you're okay with her leaving you and it was just i was watching that going oh my gosh tom is crashing and burning this is and we all yeah we've all seen this or we've all experienced this in our own relationships too, you know, this type of thing where one of the, of the, of the significant others is preoccupied or distracted by something. And this is exactly what happens.

Starting point is 00:46:23 And she leaves. Well, then when Bala, she starts to leave and then she gets shocked. Alice, like this, Alice shocks her. On purpose, basically. It's like, yo, you know, yo, girlie, you know, you better not, you don't touch my man. Yeah, exactly. I'm Tom Paris's lady, not you. We go to Chocote's quarters next, though.

Starting point is 00:46:42 So that, that was a disaster. The christening, christening romance time. We have the exterior space shot of Voyager, and now we're in Chikote's quarters. Going to Chocote's quarters in Paris is pacing. He's, he's amped up.

Starting point is 00:46:53 He wants supplies. He looks like he's a crack addict. Looking for his next fix is what he looks like. He's just like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. He's a little Beavis and Buttheadish. He's very, very tense. Very distracted.

Starting point is 00:47:05 Chikote is like, you know what? You're getting a little obsessed about this. You've been late for your shift. You've been distracted on the bridge. Yeah. you know obvious signs that you're you're just overdoing it yeah and and also all the things you're requesting you ask for 30 meters of EPS conduit a broadband sensor matrix a tactical data module and Chikote says well we have those things but we can't spare these parts because they are

Starting point is 00:47:31 emergency supplies and Tom is like well uh okay but they're spare parts and Chicoke says yeah but they're for an emergency this is an emergency yes so Tom says too much you're asking for too much. I'll replicate them. I can replicate the parts. And Chocote says, well, that takes energy. And we are in short supply of that also. And Chacote's being as nice as he can be to you. He says, well, maybe in a few weeks, if we can replenish our power reserve, then we can replicate those parts. And hearing this is just like the end of Tom's world. He's like, well, what are I going to do until then? I mean, that's his first sort of outburst that he has. And Chocote goes, well, maybe you can do your job. And Tom's like,

Starting point is 00:48:12 huh and he's like you've been late to two shifts in sickbay you've been distracted on the bridge you look run down maybe you should stop by sickbay and have the doctor check you out tom says no no no i'm fine i'm fine just i just haven't been yeah i haven't been getting enough sleep and chikote says well look i suggest uh that you turn in early since your next uh duty shift isn't until oh 700 tom says well that's a good idea and starts to leave and that's when chikote stops him and says one more thing and it's interesting we have one more thing the transporter room and that's the all sales are final and then we have one more thing in this scene and he wants tom to shave and put his starfleet uniform back on the only person to make

Starting point is 00:48:54 any comment about that suit other than harry asking what the heck he's wearing um yeah yeah so he leaves but clearly he does not go to sleep no he goes in the shuttle bay straight to his girlfriend alice exactly to give her the bad news and this is when we have this moment he walks in we see the shuttle is there as he heads over. The camera wraps around a 360 and reveals the actress in human form. So it's what Tom is seeing. He's seeing this woman. He's seeing Alice as a human.

Starting point is 00:49:30 Yeah. And then Tom starts to undo this new suit. Did you see this? What is he going to do? He's going to like strip right there in the shuttle bay and like, I was like, He's going to walk out with his t-shirt and boxer briefs. I guess. That's what you're going to do.

Starting point is 00:49:49 That's his panty lines. That's his panty lines. But the bad news is he has to put the test flight on hold. And like you said, he tries to take off the suit, but she tells him not to. Keep it on. And she tells him to ignore protocol. She asks him to activate the neural interface. And this is when she gets into his brain and basically,

Starting point is 00:50:12 compels Tom to continue with the repairs continue so we cut inside the shuttle and that's when he notices he's so we jumped a little bit later a little time cut he's sitting in the pilot seat yeah and she has made some modifications to his garment so that they can work together there's there's some extra inputs that showed up in the top of his uniform that we're not sure what they do but um we know that there's some something nefarious just tightening this this connection that they have all right so we jump from the shuttle bay to a scene in one of the vertical Jeffrey's tubes because we have horizontal and vertical. Tom is climbing up a ladder to get to a part of the Jeffries tube that has a power cell. And this is when Alice also appears in human form and starts talking to him.

Starting point is 00:51:00 And basically there's a little bit, again, is this the close talking scene? This is close talking. And she says, what's wrong? And you say something. And she says, you're not being honest with me. I thought we agreed to tell each other everything. And then you come out with it. You're saying, well, you still have a conscience. You feel bad. You said, we're compromising vital systems. And, you know, she says, well, they're just kind of backup systems. And Tom's like, well, we still will need them if there's an emergency. And then she goes on to say, sometimes you just have to leave your family behind, you know, you don't belong here. You belong with me. And she knows what he's thinking everything so then she asks about his first flight you remember how that was and he starts

Starting point is 00:51:42 talking about that so she's really kind of just she's got her fangs in just deep into tom paris yeah he and he recalls his first flight and the exhilaration that he held yeah yeah yeah furthering the bond yeah and she and she says remember that feeling you're going to feel that and more more on our next yeah our first flight the next day so she's yeah she's really kind of you know, brainwashing him here for sure. And by the way, okay, so then we go to astrometrics. And my beard seems to be less. Like we go in this, I didn't notice that.

Starting point is 00:52:18 Jeffrey's tube scene where it's really close with a good beard. And then we go to astrometrics. I'm like, where did my beard go? Did I go groom a little in between the Jeffries tube? Anyway. Your superpower today is you are critique man. And I did not see, I did not notice that it was less in this. The beard was less.

Starting point is 00:52:38 I just noticed that you were being super shady. Yeah, he's being shady. He's got some kind of course. We see this red line. He's charting a course. Charting a course. But then the door opens at 7 and he quickly deletes it. He erases the course.

Starting point is 00:52:51 puts the screensaver on. puts the screen saver on. And then he lies and said he was just curious about this. I don't even know what he was curious about. He just came in. No, he just said, I was just curious. I was checking things out. She's like, you don't belong in here.

Starting point is 00:53:06 I was like, yeah, I just came in. I was just curious about astrometrics, I guess, in general. Yeah, Seventh is very skeptical of everything. He's just, she's just looking at you like, wait a minute. She's like, what's up with your flight suit? Yeah, were you assigned to astrometrics and looking at his suit? Yeah. And she's critiquing the suit.

Starting point is 00:53:26 She's talking about, you know, this. Maybe it should be tested because, you know, it has a neuroenterface. Yeah, this neurogenic interface is could be dangerous. And she says, she'd do it. it herself. Yeah. And then in this scene again, David does this sort of wrap around move, David Livingston, where all of a sudden Alice is in astrometrics with us, but she's seven can't see her, but Tom is seeing her. Right. And it's a good reveal though. I like the reveal. It's a good reveal. She's there, you know, telling him to avoid her questions. Don't tell her what's

Starting point is 00:53:56 going on. Making a quick excuse, get out of there. So she's coaching him every step of the way. Coaching him, exactly. And the camera continues to move and then suddenly Alice is gone. So I think that's it's a great idea what what david livingston did here it's really well done well executed and it also takes the actress who plays alice to be able to run around behind the camera and then jump into place just for the reveal as if she's just been standing there the whole time it's a challenging kind of acting exercise to be able to do that i thought she did a great job she did she did and you know pretty much only in sci-fi did we see these kind of things it seems or horror movies you know what's funny. It just reminded me. I did this same bit in Resident Alien. Did you? Recently. Yes. I don't

Starting point is 00:54:43 want to give it away because it hasn't been on the area. But there was a moment where a character sort of disappears and then reappears on the other side of the room. And I did the same bit. Same bit. Yeah. Where the camera panned around. The actress had to run around behind the camera. And so it's a fun, you know, it's a fun way for the camera department and the shop making to interact with the actors and tell the stories. And the actors get a little bit of a workout, you know, a little physical activity, a little physical exertion. There's some steps.

Starting point is 00:55:14 All right. So now we jump to engineering. And Kim is testing the regulators that we have received from Abadon. They seem to be working. Torres is there. And Harry kind of detects that there's a little bit of something going on when Torres talks about, you know, she had a bad night with Tom. And she complains that every time Tom finds a new hobby, she goes right out the

Starting point is 00:55:34 airlock. I just love that writing by Taylor and Fuller on this one. And Harry tells her not to take it personally. He goes on to say that the Ferengi call it the five stages of acquisition, infatuation, justification, appropriation, obsession, and resale. And that there is only one stage left when it comes to Tom and he's going to be all yours again. After he's past that stage, he'll give up all of his interest. He's in the obsession stage right now. He's in the obsession stage. He's in the obsession stage. He'll soon be in the resale stage. And Torres then notices a 0.003 drop in the warp field output. And Harry says, well, that's within the norm.

Starting point is 00:56:16 And she says, well, not on my watch. And she discovers that somebody has removed four power cells from the secondary warp assembly without authorization. Kim checks into it a little bit more and says, whoever did this tried to cover their tracks by rerouting power from adjacent cells. So he asked Torres if he should report this to Tuvok. And Torres says, don't even bother. It's an open and shut case. And she storms out because she knows. Yeah, she's heading to the shuttle bay.

Starting point is 00:56:42 She knows, yeah. I love when Bologna comes into the shuttle bay. She's like, Tom Paris. I wanted her to use your full name. Thomas Eugene Paris. You are in trouble. Yes. She's looking for him.

Starting point is 00:56:56 She goes over to by the shuttle. She finds a missing tool over there, missing. Which is one of her tools, actually. with that taken without permission she goes inside he's not there and as she turns to leave the door shuts yeah she can't get out it's it locks it locks her in all of a sudden there's life support failure she starts gasping for breath yeah tom comes in to see her banging on the banging and losing consciousness he opens the door she gets some oxygen and and well you ask her you say what are you doing here and she just pushes past

Starting point is 00:57:32 you and get out of there and get air and she's so angry she says the ship tried to kill me yes and that's in the corridor that that she says that she's already in the corridor at this point uh tom catches up with her and that's when she says your ship tried to kill me he says that's ridiculous they start arguing about all this piece of behavior i like this scene it was a great scene it's a really really good scene really intense scene and tom's trying to physically stop her oh my god you got so loud in this one i was like i did i was like you scared to me you scared me okay okay Good. Well, he scared me.

Starting point is 00:58:04 It's like, but I think this is part of that. This is, this is the, you know, the rock bottom, I guess. Yeah,

Starting point is 00:58:10 no, it was necessary, but I'm just saying that I've never seen you personally that loud in my life. You know what I'm saying? Like, in terms of your,

Starting point is 00:58:17 I was acting. I know you're acting, but I was acting, but you still like, you have the potential to get that loud. Yeah. If something, if something gets to you that much and you lose it,

Starting point is 00:58:29 it's kind of like if I'm at a Georgia Bulldogs football game, and the other team gets away with cheating like Alabama. You get loud, man. I get loud. Well, you know, I've seen you. You get very vocal and you're a pacer. You walk back and forth. I don't even think a chair needs, if, you know,

Starting point is 00:58:48 if you're ever at a party and people have watching a Georgia game, you can come in and say, I don't need a chair. I don't need a chair. I don't need to sit. I'm going to paste this entire time. That's what I did in this scene in the hallway. You were pacing. It was like I was in a Georgia game.

Starting point is 00:59:00 Yes. And she was the official. The ref that called, that made the call in favor of Alabama. And boy, you laid it into her. Yes. I did. But yes, I yelled at her, stay out of this, Bologna. Then suddenly Alice is there.

Starting point is 00:59:14 Yeah. Tom is freaking out. Bala says she's going to go talk to the captain. And Alice says, let her go. Let her go. And Tom says to Alice, you almost killed Belaana. And now the first argument between Tom and Alice happens. And Alice says, well, Bala.

Starting point is 00:59:32 I broke into my database and was about to discover the flight plan. And Tom says, well, maybe, maybe then it's time that she did discover it. And then again, back and forth, arguing, arguing. And Tom is realizing for the first time the danger that Alice poses to not only himself, but to his loved one. And so he's trying to get away from her. And he wants to go to sickbay. This is over.

Starting point is 00:59:54 This is over. Yeah, because she says, well, if they just have to do one scan of you in sickbay and realize what's going on. And Tom's like, fine, then it's done. We're going to do this. And he starts trying to get away from Alice. Alice follows him. He gets into the turbillift and another cool reveal that she's right there.

Starting point is 01:00:12 She's immediately there. Yeah, she's everywhere. You can't get away. Tom requests sick bay. The turbo lift begins its journey to sickbay. But Alice starts to remind him of how he felt when he first saw her. The first time he interacted with her. And he's trying to resist.

Starting point is 01:00:30 He's trying to get to sick. trying to, trying to. And then she puts like blue veins in his head. She blue vaneed you. She blew vein made. It's like these vis effects. It was like a big migraine headache. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:00:43 That's her ace in the hole. That's her ace card in the hole that she used. That's the last resort move, which is give you this aneurism kind of thing. And you're in pain. It obviously hurts a lot. Yeah, fell to the floor. Tom falls to the floor. But you say no.

Starting point is 01:01:00 You still say no. So then she gives you a bigger jolt, a bigger shock, more blue vein. Lots of screaming in this scene. Yeah, big scream. Very emotional sequence all the way from finding Boulana in the shuttle dying to blue vaining in the in the turbo lift. Oh, yeah. But you comply.

Starting point is 01:01:17 Paris complies at the van. He does say, let's deck 10 shuttle bay. So they head right back there. We cut to the ready room and Torres is having a conversation with Janeway. She's stating her case. ever since Tom has been working on Alice. He hasn't slept. He's become irritable, irrational.

Starting point is 01:01:35 This neurogenic interface has some kind of effect on him is what Janeway deduces. And so just as Janeway tells Torres that she'll have the doctor take a look at Tom. We hear Chikote's voice on the comm, notifying Janeway, that we have an unauthorized launch in progress. No, it's happening. Guess who? So we jump to the bridge. Chikote orders her to seal the shuttle bay doors. It's too late.

Starting point is 01:02:00 and Alice, they're already out. Janeway orders a tractor beam. Now it cuts to the interior of Alice. And Paris says that they're trying to tractor us. Alice says, stop them. And Tom says he can't. She says, well, you'll be able to maneuver better if you complete the interface by activating the connector sequence.

Starting point is 01:02:19 Tom hesitates. He does it. All of a sudden, these tubial cables shoot out of the chair. They're glow sticks. The glow sticks come out and attach to you. Long skinny glow sticks come out. You are going to a rave as well. you're about to go to. So yes, the glow sticks come out and they hug him all around his chest.

Starting point is 01:02:35 Yep, yep. And not as not that many. There's like three that comes like three or four come out. Later more, but then now there's three. And so now, now these nodes, they connect to the little glow sticks. And Tom all the all of a sudden he realizes, he says, I can disrupt the tractor beam with an optronic pulse. And she's like, well, all right, go ahead. We jump back to the bridge. Tuvok says, he's powering weapons. Chikote orders full power to the shields. Torres, who is on the bridge now, reports that she normally isn't but she's up on the bridge up at that center console i love that center console we should use that more often we should she reports that tom is disrupting the tractor beam janeway says to increase power to emitters but he breaks free and janeway orders tom to stand

Starting point is 01:03:15 down return to voyager we cut back to alice and tom is just completely brainwashed he says i can't i'm with alice now let us go and janeway says you know you know that i can't let you do that And that's when Alice says to Tom, that Janeway would do anything to get him back. And he must stop her and that he knows how to do that. So then she said, she actually says, you know, your captain will do anything to get you back. I don't blame her for that. She's like, she's like flattering him. Like, oh, and this with the glow sticks and the blue veins and all, you're going to, really, you're going to try flattery.

Starting point is 01:03:53 Yes, flattery. It seems to work. It seems to work. It does. It does. Fred, we cut to the bridge, and Kim says, he's coming about. Tom fires at Voyager, direct hit, and then just shoots the warp. Janeway says, track him, but we cannot because Tom has masked his warp signature.

Starting point is 01:04:11 He's gone, exactly. Him and the glow sticks. We have a little time cut. We see a space POV of like warp stars flying by. And I thought, is that warp 11? Did I break the warp barrier again? Because it was a different kind of warp look. Okay.

Starting point is 01:04:27 I feel like Tom's, yeah, he's doing, maybe he wants to be a lizard or salamander. There were times when I was watching this episode that if I got sort of suggestions of threshold in a way, you know, I was like, oh, it made me, it reminded me a threshold. With a similar sort of obsession of, you know, an obsession story. Yeah, an obsession about flying a shuttle story, basically, right? Yes, very similar. Yeah, yeah, just a little bit repackaged on this one. So now we see in the interior that there are even more glow sticks.

Starting point is 01:05:02 More glow sticks wrapped around. And then somehow Alice starts reciting the myth of datalus, fashioning wings, wax and feathers escaping his prison, which is Tom's one of Tom's favorite myths. And I never do that. Tom says that's one of my favorite myths. And she goes, I know, because she knows everything you're thinking. And it's just, again, you look like a Borg.

Starting point is 01:05:24 There's so much stuff going out in and out of you. You're starting to look for. Glowstick. I'm a rave. You're a raveborg is what you are. And then you make the comment that your arms feel none. Arms can't move. And by the way, when my arms can't move and when I look, when you look down at the cutaway

Starting point is 01:05:42 to the insert of my hands, that's not my hands. It's not your hand, is it? I knew it. No. They use someone else's hand. They use somebody else for the insert. They would often do that. They'd shoot all of the dialogue in our faces.

Starting point is 01:05:54 But if it was something that didn't involve faces, they'd do that later with the second unit with stand-ins and photo-double. I didn't like that, honestly, because did that bother you? Did that ever bother you? I don't know. It didn't. It bothered me a little bit. I mean, now that I've directed a lot more and I much prefer filming the real actors doing this.

Starting point is 01:06:15 Yes, agree. Because there is some story and there's some detail in the way that the real actor would do it. Yeah. And not a photo double, but that was a photo double with the hands here. And I would always notice when they did not use my hands because it's, they would try to bring it. I don't know if they did it for you, but they brought in various people to compare their hands to mine and try to pick one. And my, my hands, my fingers are so long and slender that it's very hard to duplicate that. So I always can see when it's not my hand.

Starting point is 01:06:45 It kind of bugs me that it's not my hand. There were a couple inserts in this episode that was not my hands for sure. Okay. So is arms feel numb and Alice says, who needs? arms when you have wings and so she says they're connected now and she tells him to forget the old tom paris he no longer exists this is the new tom paris molded melded with me alice basically instead of tom you are what are you alon alice i'm trying to mix alice and tom together alarm Or tall, tall, tallest.

Starting point is 01:07:23 Tallis. Tallis. It sounds like you're saying the tallest. Tomless. That's better. You are Tomlis in this one. Okay. We jumped to the bridge.

Starting point is 01:07:36 Abadon is now on the view screen. Clearly, Voyager has traveled back to the junkyard now. And he says, my policy, no refunds. Jayway says she doesn't want a refund. Just information. And again, really, I love the writing here. Abidon says, that's one commodity that I don't keep in stock and that he should look elsewhere. And she says, well, not until I'm not going elsewhere until I get some answers.

Starting point is 01:07:59 And Abidon then says, well, I'm prepared to deal with disgruntled customers. Again, love the writing here. Tuvac then reads active weapon signatures on three of the derelict ships that are now targeting Voyager. And Janeway says, well, before we take actions, we may both regret. Mr. Neelix has something to show you. Neelix then shows him the beryllium crystal. which Abadon, by mistake, traded in. And he says, listen, and Abadon clearly recognizes the value of this crystal.

Starting point is 01:08:24 And Neelig says, in exchange for some information, I will return this to you, which is too good of a deal to pass up. The next scene is in the briefing room. Tuvac begins the scene by saying, haunted. And Abidon says, well, that's what the Harconian, Harconian, yeah. Yeah, Abidon says, that's what the Harconian who traded the ship to me said. So, you know, there's already this history of this ship being a little weird. Chocote asked Avedon if he noticed anything odd about the ship.

Starting point is 01:08:53 And as Abidon begins to talk about his experiences with the ship, he then sees Alice, who now looks like it on the form of his species. Yes, a female from his own species. And immediately, good job by our guest star. He is absolutely frightened. He says, I will return everything that I received in trade for the ship. And no questions asked. And I would just, and then he demands to be transported back to, to his junkyard.

Starting point is 01:09:21 But Alice then blue veins him. And he falls down to the ground. And he's again, blue vained a second time. And he then has an aneurysm and collapses. He's, he's out. Now, the thing I wonder here is, I get like metaphorically that she's, you know, that he was haunted by her and she's, but like from a technology standpoint, isn't it the shuttle interface is the thing like the shuttle's nowhere around and he's not connected anymore the shuttle's

Starting point is 01:09:51 connected to tom why is it doing it to him i just it doesn't like from because she already imprinted here she'd already restructured his brain when she he was connected so he's already permanent yes i think so until it's reversed by a doctor and versed by the doctor exactly that's what i that's what i got um you felt it was more of a hole in the script though To me, yeah, the doctor, well, let's go to the next scene and maybe this will help us if we talk through it. But we go to sick bay and the doctor is able to fix his, the hemorrhage. The cerebral hemorrhage, the cerebral hemorrhage he had in the briefing room. And he says that Alice did create this connection and that's, she's the cause of this cerebral hemorrhage.

Starting point is 01:10:40 And he gives him a cortical suppressant to prevent him from. having any more of these hallucinations. Oh, well, then that means she's still, if he doesn't, if the suppressant wears off, he can still be affected by her. That's what I'm saying. So it's permanent then. If it's permanent, then why isn't Tom, like, this is permanent for Tom too. Well, I guess you have to take your cortical suppressant pill every day, once a day.

Starting point is 01:11:09 I guess so. It just seemed to me like it would be cleaner if it was just the one-on-one connection. But I get why they needed Abadon to have this hallucination. I just don't get then why Tom doesn't have the same permanent effects. But maybe we should ask Brian Fuller. I'm sure they've got a reason. I'm sure they talk through. Yes.

Starting point is 01:11:29 It's got to be this quarter. Maybe the cortical suppressant is a one-time thing. Yeah. Maybe, you know, he had never thought of that before Abadon. And now the doctor fixed him up and he's good to go. Possibly. Possibly. But then Janeway asked,

Starting point is 01:11:42 Abadon, you know, what does this ship want with our crewmen? And Abadon says, well, the ship cannot fly herself. She needs a pilot, a biological entity to work in tandem with her programming. And Janeway says, well, if all she needed was a pilot, why didn't she just use you? And Abidon said he wasn't- Because he's not Tom Paris. Yeah, he's not. His reflexes are too slow. He's like a turtle.

Starting point is 01:12:05 He's not a good pilot. He's not a good pilot. For those that think Tom is not the greatest pilot of all time, this episode. Just ask Alice. she found the only pilot that could possibly get her to the particle fountain that she's looking for. So Abadon was no good. She needed a better pilot.

Starting point is 01:12:30 She found Tom. Right. And she apologizes in the end. He does say, you know, I'm sorry, I should have warned you about this, but he couldn't resist the influence of this hallucin. Right. And he says that basically Alice needs a pilot to take her to this final destination. He doesn't know where this destination is. He doesn't have the coordinates. Alice never told him. Alice only told him find her a real pilot. A real man like Tom Paris. So the end of the scene is seven chimes in. You can hear seven on the comms telling Captain Janeway to report to astrometrics. And this is where seven reveals. reveals to Janeway that she has reconstructed the data from Ensign Paris, the data that he was inputting into the computer there.

Starting point is 01:13:23 And she found a shady little move. Yeah. She unearthed the shade. She shun light on the shade and realized that the course trajectory leads to a point in spatial grid 867. Janeway says it looks uninhabited. Seven says, well, it is empty space with the exception of one small. anomaly. And Janeway notices that it's a particle fountain and that the Federation has lost

Starting point is 01:13:50 more than a dozen ships examining a similar phenomenon in the alpha quadrant. So she says, relay the coordinates to the bridge. We cut to Alice, the interior of Alice, and Alice says, take us out of warp. And she says, can you see it now? And Tom says, yes, what is it? And Alice looking at, and they're both looking at the particle fountain, Alice says, home. So now this is what I don't get a particle fountain is super dangerous how is this alice's home i mean she i don't get it constructed by i need to talk to brian fuller i need to know i need the natural of something do they live in a particle fountain was she a oh was she a was she a was was was alice a crew member of a ship that was destroyed in the in the particle fountain and turned into a ghost

Starting point is 01:14:38 and then she sort of inhabited the pot the ship this shuttle that went by It's all very mysterious. It is mysterious. I don't know. The particle fountain doesn't feel like a place that any alien species would build this kind of technology because it seems like a weird, dangerous phenomenon. It does. Not a place that would be home.

Starting point is 01:15:00 But it is beautiful. It's her home. It's actually, it looks like you are at the rave at this point. I mean, the light show is gorgeous, okay? So now Voyager, we're on the Voyager Bridge, and Voyager is also at the particle fountain. Janeway says distance, six million kilometers. January says decreased speed to one quarter impulse, full power to shields. And Tuvok detects Alice off the starboard bow.

Starting point is 01:15:23 And Kim says, it's Tom, headed right for the anomaly. Janeway asks if he can get a transporter lock. Kim says, no, ma'am, not with those multi-phasic shields in place. And Janeway says, are we inhaling range? Tuvok opens a channel. And Paris says, keep your distance, captain, or will open fire? It's like, we will open fire. We are one.

Starting point is 01:15:42 And you're kind of like a Borg in a way. Very much like a Borg, I think. Yeah. This thing gets into your brain. A collective of two. So, uh, all right. Jayway says, Tom, listen to me. This neurogenic interface, it's affecting your judgment.

Starting point is 01:15:57 Drop your shields. Let us beam you aboard. We cut over to interior of Alice. We still hear Janeway talking and she says, let us beam you aboard. Tom's got the glow sticks wrapped up. He can't move. He can't move. Alice says ignore them.

Starting point is 01:16:10 Just keep going. We're back on the bridge. Kim says he's not responding. So Janeway says target his propulsion systems and fire. Tom feels the weapons hit him because he reacts as if it was hitting him personally. Tuvok says direct hit. Vessel shields are holding. And doctor quickly, quickly chimes into the bridge.

Starting point is 01:16:27 Doctor says, don't do this. Stop, stop firing. Yeah, Paris's neural readings are fluctuating. His synaptic functions have become linked to the ship. If we keep firing, we could injure him severely. So Janeway acknowledges this. She says to Tuvok, stand down. Kim says, we got 10 minutes until he reaches the particle fountain.

Starting point is 01:16:45 Chkote wonders if there's any way to disable their shields without firing weapons. Tuvok says, if he could access their main computer and transmit a shutdown sequence, that may be a solution. Kim goes, well, problem is Tom and Alice would detect it. They would compensate. So Janeway says, maybe we could find a way to distract them. So then she calls over to the doctor. The doctor says, go ahead. and she asked about if he's had any progress on this analysis of the neurogenic interface

Starting point is 01:17:12 and the doc says not yet captain and Jamie says well would it be possible to tap into the interface using a calm signal the doctor is like yeah basically make a phone call in this interface yes but Tom will think it's it's real life correct he won't know he won't know he won't know it's a phone call and the doctor is unsure of what Janeway is up to but he says yeah I think I can do it Jamie says, okay, you got five minutes, get it done. And Taurus. And then J-Wilana goes, and tell Valana to get ready for an away mission. And Torres is like, Captain, what, an away mission?

Starting point is 01:17:45 Well, a secret kind of away mission. We go to space. We see a cool particle fountain out in space. It is a cool. It's beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's gorgeous. We go to Sick Bay, Docs, hooking up the neural interface.

Starting point is 01:17:59 Balana says, it's going to be weird getting inside Tom's head, which I thought was very funny. He's like, I don't know if I want. want to know what my boyfriend's thinking about, which I get. I wouldn't want to be in anybody's head. Do you think she's in what she, do you think she can see everything that you have thought of in the last six years? Can she map your brain at this point? I think this is like a wondering. It's a phone call. Yeah, okay. I'm going to say that she's not, yeah, she's not, she's not accessing you the deepest recesses of your brain at this point. I'm going to say I hope not okay good okay we go to the shuttle now and i i wrote down that is a super tight close-up of

Starting point is 01:18:40 tom harris it's really tight on tom as he's in this chair yeah then the camera pans over from alice you know to see alice there then back to tom and then the next time it pans over balana's there so they did tap in they got the phone call to tap into the uh to this uh neurogenic hookup and basically balan is there going this program is tricking you it's it's not this is not you know this is not real yeah alice is just a pile of circuits in the ship's computer core you're letting a program delude you it's just a program not like the doctor who was more than a program i have to say that because i'm getting so much flack for saying he's just a program so he's more than alice that's for sure Janeway says, you know, we've got to do this now.

Starting point is 01:19:33 Balana says, I need you to Tom. And basically in this scene, Tom is seeing each of these women, you know, Alice and Balana, both in the shuttle. He's, he's visualizing both of them there. And they're both trying to convince him to follow. You know, Balana's saying, follow me, listen to me. Alice is saying, listen to me. Paris is like, leave me alone.

Starting point is 01:19:55 No. Very dramatic acting from. Yours truly here. While he's distracted, though, Yeah. Tuvok gets into the main computer. He accesses the main computer during this distraction. Tuvok, he takes the, disables the shuttle shields and is able to beam Paris off of the shuttle.

Starting point is 01:20:20 Yes, but a little difficulty because there was a little interference from the particle fountain. Kim could not beam him immediately to sick bay. Chocote boosts the confinement beam and on the second shot we get Tom back and he's now in sick bay and Tuvac reports that Alice is losing helm control and hurdles into the particle fountain

Starting point is 01:20:40 and we see... She doesn't have the best pilot in space. Yeah, she can't, she can't even, she can't pilot anything without you. She goes right into the... The Tom Paris. Yes, right into the middle of the particle fountain and the Alice is ceased to exist. Alice explodes into a gabillion.

Starting point is 01:20:56 in pieces. Big purple explosion. It was very pretty. Bam. Boom. And then Janeway's just like, okay, resume course to the Alpha Quadrant. She's like, I thought it was very funny. Off of this dramatic moment. She's like, okay, did that. Let's go to the Alpha Quadrant. It was so, you're so right. It was just so matter of fact. It was a very matter of fact. Let's go to the Off Quadrant. We're done. We got Tom. He's a little cuckoo in the cope. It's a little cuckoo, but we'll fix it. Yeah. our very last scene we go to sick bay tom is back to looking like himself he's recovering but

Starting point is 01:21:33 the doctor says he's going to need a few days of rest and then leaves balana and tom alone and balana gives tom a get well card uh he opens it out so sweet it's very sweet from Naomi wildman good old Naomi she wasn't in this episode but she still made it in again i wish that you know it would have been nice if there was a scene with tom and Naomi early on where you see you know, I don't know, it just would have paid off emotionally for me more if there had been a little more of a bookend of why Tom went down this dark road, you know, where he was at, because it just seemed to come out of left field. No, you're right. So the whole, the whole journey felt a little emotionally thin to me. Yeah. But, but it was a sweet get-well card. And Paris does say to

Starting point is 01:22:21 Bilana, he goes, I'm really, really sorry. And he says he remembers everything. It was like he was sleepwalking. Yeah. He just wasn't in control. He couldn't do anything. He remembers everything he said and everything he did. So even the manhandling of his lady, the yelling at, at her. And he apologizes. He apologizes. Big apology. And she says, he says, it was like he was sleepwalking. She says, well, what matters is you woke up? And they have a nice hug there. It is a nice little hug. And a kiss. You guys kiss. Don't you have a nice hug and a kiss. Tom promises no more affairs with strange ships. Blana asks, what about the Delta Flyer? Tom says, we're just friends.

Starting point is 01:22:59 And then they kiss. And then they kiss. Yes. And that's the end of it. Gross. Kissing. Ew. And it was a little loud too.

Starting point is 01:23:06 It was loud. You guys are loud. That's our reputation. We're loud. And you're loud nook ears as well. Yeah. Oh my gosh. You know, I'll tell you, this is not an episode for any PT shipper.

Starting point is 01:23:17 P.T. shippers are probably just, you know, just cringing when they're watching this. They're not happy about it. I got it. Okay. So. What is your theme and your lesson for this episode? I wrote down for my lesson, don't get lost in fantasy. It's that it's pretty simple to me.

Starting point is 01:23:40 It's like, you know, going down the road of like your, your interests, hobbies, your things that you're, you know, you're drawn to can cross the line into. I agree. Dangerous territory and fantasy. that's just not real. So don't get lost in fantasy. What about you? Similar to yours, it's in the same neighborhood.

Starting point is 01:24:02 Too much of a good thing is too much. Basically, moderation is key. You really, when you obsess on anything in life that much and start to ignore your job, your family members, that is an indication that you should back off a little bit. This is way too much. You're not getting anything done except for your obsession. So moderation is key.

Starting point is 01:24:23 My rating for this episode, I was happy to see Tom having a big episode, but I was not thrilled, as I've mentioned, structurally with just the story. I feel like it could have, you know, based on our lessons and our themes, moderation is key. If maybe things had started with, you know, they were all, everyone's in the mess hall, eating, you know, cake, but Tom's just going a little too far. And then the very last scene could have been there back in the mess hall and they've got cake again and tom's like nope i'll just take like i feel like it needed some bookends yeah kind of say like here's where tom was he went down this road now he's learned his lesson or if it had been you know don't get lost in fantasy if the first scene had been everybody in the mess hall and tom really being able to articulate wow i love my life right now

Starting point is 01:25:17 i love reality and then he goes down the fantasy road and then he's back in the mess hall and he says wow, I'm really glad to be back in my real life. There could have just been some structure with a couple of added scenes. I hear you. It could have put a, it could have packaged the story with a lot more meaning than just this, this weird. So what's your rating? My rating is a six. Solid six?

Starting point is 01:25:43 Solid six. Okay. I will be higher than that. And I'm going to give this episode seven point one. Seven point one. Okay. I'm very curious to see. Our admiral and captain's average rating for Alice is 7.1.

Starting point is 01:26:01 Wow. Yes. Ooh. Wow. Nice call on that one. Thank you. I've had a few really. That one time when I guessed it was Alan Craker as the director and I was right.

Starting point is 01:26:13 You were shocked. You're like, I can't believe you got that one. I know. It was like, what? So, no, it wasn't Alan. It was Potsie from Happy Days. Oh, Anson Williams. Yes, when I guess Anson William, it was a shot in the dark.

Starting point is 01:26:26 It was like a one in 100 chance. Oh, yeah, because he only drafted twice. Exactly. So I, yes, that's, and here I am, hitting the 7.1. Okay. 7.1. Well, good. All right.

Starting point is 01:26:37 Well, that was, that was fun. A lot of good stuff in there. Thank you, fans, for tuning in to Robbie and I's discussion of this week's episode, Alice. We hope that you tune in next week when we will be recapping and discussing the episode Riddles. Awesome. I like the name. Yeah. Good title.

Starting point is 01:26:58 See you next week. See everybody next week. Bye.

The Delta Flyers - Alice

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