The Delta Flyers - Apocalypse Rising

Episode Date: December 2, 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, Apocalypse Rising, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Armin Shimerman.Apocalypse Rising: Sisko and his crew masquerade as Klingons to expose a Changeling who has incited a war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire.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, Jenny Cordina, Izzy Jaffer, Andrew Cano, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Chris Garis, Sean T, & Cindy WoodfordOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, 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, Jeff Allen, & Tamara Evans. And our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Sab Ewell, Ann Harding, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Sarah Thompson, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Sarah, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, 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, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Brian Heckathorne, Kilian Trapp, Katherine M. Prioli, Nelson Silveira, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Durrell Bishop, & Andrew Golden.Thank 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] Sponsors:* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.com* Check out Uncommon Goods: https://uncommongoods.com/tdfSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello everyone and welcome to the Delta Flyers' Journey Through the Wormhole 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 for today are my fellow Trek actors Armand Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong, for the complete and exciting version of this podcast, please check out patreon.com.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. And that is my impersonation of doing an Irish accent because I got to see Armand's play. I'm so excited.

I just want to say Armand did a wonderful job. Thank you again for that performance, sir. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Very nice on the Irish accent. Yeah, I was thinking as he was doing that. Like, Armand's going to be listening carefully. I was listening.

And the introduction, I have a slight quibble about the introduction. Yes. Which is, you don't really have dachs. You have Jadzia. Oh, true. Good catch. You've been doing it for how long? I think you can't change it now.

I mean, we do have dax. I'm going to quibble with your quibble for a second. Let me think about it. A double quip. We do have dax, but we have Jadzia dax, and then we will have a different deck. We can't say that. Yes. That's true.

But actually, in this point in time, and I'm now, no, I won't say that because I give away something in the future. Oh, no. Oh. Just put the brakes on that. Okay, let's continue. Don't tell us. Let me just say very quickly, have you been watching, Robbie, at all? I've been catching bits and pieces.

It's a commitment. So you did not watch the 18 inning game. No, I didn't have. I heard about it. Oh, my gosh. Well, because I have a Canadian wife, I have. Yes. had to watch the 18th of course you do it's the national team of canada and that's what's crazy

about that everyone in canada doesn't matter if you're in toronto or not the entire country or saskatchewan or the yukon for gosh sakes yes yes yes and by the time you the listeners or the viewers have heard or watched this episode of the delta flyers we will have we will have had a new champion in it. It's close. We're almost there. Yeah, we'll see what happens. Also, what's cool is this hat, it's very rare because it's red. You don't have red Blue Jays hats

at all. It's very rare. And red for me symbolizes Klingon, and that's what this episode is about. A lot of Klingon nation. So I've read background for those of you were watching, and for those you're listening, I'm wearing a red Blue Jays cap right now.

Very Klingon of you. Thank you. Blood wine. Blood wine. Thank you. All right, first of all, December 4th is a great day because it is the birthday of our good friend, Sandra Stengel. Happy birthday, Sandra. Happy birthday, Sandra. Happy birthday, Sandra. We also have Maria Roselle on December 6th. Happy birthday, Maria. Happy birthday, Maria. Also December 6th, right? We have two December 6th birthdays. Daniel, Daniel. Happy birthday, Daniel. Happy birthday, Daniel.

poetry synopsis time so would you give us your limerick please a little bit of a limerick for the klingons undercover with some klingon ridges and gear our crew's mission involves a ton of beer the plan went awry but they still got their guy and the truth soon became very clear Excellent, excellent Now, a little piece of trivia In the Irish accent that I use Which is one particular part of Ireland In this play, we don't say limerick

We say limerick Limric, limerick Oh, all right, here's my haiku Dangerous Mission Expose Galron The Changeling What? It was Martak? Nice

I think you gave away the ending Yes, you did But you captured the whole plot In fact, exactly You captured the whole plot All of it Exactly all of it Okay, I'll try not to nail it on the head as much next time

That's the thing about poetry and the arts though Is they can capture such a lot They can communicate so much Through the art of poetry That's why we do it Very true I don't have a limerick And I don't have a haiku

But I do have a tamales Can you do it in an Irish accent for us, though? Why are you doing it? No, I don't want it to. The etymology of the word apocalypse. It comes from the Latin, Apocalypsis, and the Greek, and I can't pronounce the Greek, but it has a Greek origin as well. It means the revelation of the future granted to St. John in the Isle of Patmos.

That's where that happened. The book in the New Testament in which this is recorded. extension, any revelation or disclosure. Very quick. And that is it. I guess I didn't think of it the same way, because you talk about it's a revelation about like a prophecy of something about to happen. And I thought Apocalypse was the,

it's the end of time. It's just that, you know, everything just gets demolished. Yeah, it's just an event. And that's what the revelation was to St. John, was the end of time.

The end of time revelation. And that everything, you know, came to a great guffle. I would not have guessed Apocalypse is a Greek origin, but it sounds it. As soon as you connect those, you go, oh, that's a Greek word, apocalypse.

Yeah, I saw the Greek in the dictionary, and I went, I can't pronounce that. Yeah, no. I can't read it. I can't pronounce it. Right on. All right, well, thank you so much for that. Yeah, thank you.

This episode was written by Iris Stephen Bear and Robert Hewitt-Wolf, directed by James L. Conway, guest stars Robert O'Reilly. Yes, our good friend, James El Conway. Our good friend. Unfortunately, Robbie, this is the very last episode of DS9 that he's directing because he accepted that position at spelling. So he takes off at this point.

Yes, he went off to do Charmed. That's right. He did do that. But they really wanted him to direct this episode because he was supposed to leave before directing this episode. And he does, in my opinion, a finesse. phenomenal job. Great job.

He does a really good job, for sure. Our guest stars, Robert O'Reilly as Galron, J.G. Hurtzler as Martok, Mark Alamo as Golte-Cat, Casey Biggs, as DeMar. We have a bunch of co-stars. We have Robert Budasca as Burley Klingon. I like that. Burly Klingon. Robert Zashar as head guard.

John L. Bennett as towering Klingon. Tony Epper as Drunken Klingon. and Yvore Bartels as young Klingon. And Armin Shimmerman as non-Klingon. Yes. Armin, we used to do the very first professional acting job of some of the guest stars. And I would like to, in honor of our old tradition,

do one actor, and that is Robert O'Reilly. Oh, gosh. You know what, his first professional paid acting job on camera that I could find. it is fantasy island fantasy island he played Gustav in an episode of fantasy island and got his sag card from all I can tell

and do you know that Robert O'Reilly's real name is not Robert O'Reilly I did not know that his name is Robert Riley and the reason he had to put the O in because at that time SAG had a mandate that we couldn't have two actors with the same name.

Yeah. Bob and I have known each other for a very long time, long before we did Star Trek together. We did a little-known play called Hamlet together. Little known. And we've known each other for a very, very long time. I could have gone the other way when I joined the union and just dropped the Mick and just been Robert Neal.

Yeah. Hmm, I didn't think of that. Or you could have been Robert O'Neill. Or you could have been Robert O. Mick Neal. For signing purposes, for as many times as we sign our name, James, probably good to lose the Mac, just so that you're going to be a little less time. Let's go to Neil. Robert N.

Just a letter. You don't even need anything else. I mean, it was Dornowicz before he changed it. Michael Dornowicz. It was not. I believe you for a second. Do you remember when they had that naming competition for the boat and the winning name was Botey McBoat-Face? What?

No. What boat are you talking about? It was like some naval ship or something like that. There was a naval ship and they decided to like put out a thing on the internet. Hey, let's you guys name the boat. A naval ship. I think it was a naval ship. You guys named the boat, put it, you know, nominate names and we'll see whoever gets the most boats.

And the name that won the most boats was Booty McBoat face. And I think the Navy was like, we can't do that. They should have just did it. The USS Booty McBoatface would have been awesome. So, yeah, so Bob O'Reilly could have been Bobby McBob face. But it must be very concerning when you're faced with that issue and say, okay, they won't let me have my real name. And now, by the way, the union can't do that. The union says you can have, we can have three.

They could be multiple names. They changed it finally. All right, a little bit of trivia here. Tora Zial, the daughter of Goltecott, was supposed to be in this episode with one line greeting her father upon arriving at the station. and that did not appear. Yeah, because they had thousands of background people. Yes, exactly. They really did have a lot of background actors.

A lot of stunt people. A lot of stunt people. Oh, my God, yes. The budget for this episode, my goodness. This is also the third consecutive season premiere where Jedziadax has a different hairstyle. Do you guys notice that? It's another hairstyle yet again.

I did notice that. Also, this is the first episode in which Iris Stephen Bear's executive producer credit is displayed alongside Rick Berman's at the end of the episode. This is the first time? Yeah. Wow. It's the first episode where they're now side by side.

Also, this episode, the producers were super, super impressed by J.G. Hertzler's performance as Martok. So René Echeveria was quoted as saying, this is the show we fell in love with J.G. Hertzler as an actor. It was like, hey, this guy is terrific. and here we are killing him. What a quote, but he did a great job. For me, he is the star of this episode. His performance is outrageously good. Oh, delicious.

Yeah, he is really good. Okay, well, there you go. Let's jump into this episode, Robbie. Let's do. The very first thing we see is a last time on Star Trek, Deep Space Nine. So they bring us back up to date, which I think is a, especially back in those days. I think that's a really good thing. Like, even though we're doing this podcast and we're watching it every week, to me, at first I was like, oh, you know, previously on. But this show is complicated

and to remember all those story points. Anyway, they catch us up with Odo and his, you know, losing his changeling ability. And his nude scene. And his nude scene. Got to get a little more skin. Ratings, come on. Was he in a body suit at all? I probably had a little shorty shorts or something. Yeah, just the shorts. But his whole chest, that was his skin, though. I bet it was. Yeah. Okay. I don't know. Well, we start off after our recap in Ops. They're waiting for Cisco and Dax to return from Starfleet Command, where they've gone to talk about their previously on all the issues with the changelings would happen. And the fact that Gauron has basically declared war on Starfleet. So they're waiting. They're nervous. Warf is very agitated. He would

prefer to take the defiant and go find them they should be back by now uh o'brien agrees and then carol's rank she's in charge and she says no no we're going to wait suddenly there's an alert and before we do that if i may just say once again warf is shot down it's becoming a pattern yes 100% yeah i've noticed that too that is that something that continues on the show um or do you remember questions i'll tell you Robbie, it's clearly intentional on the writer's part, I think. I think it's an inside thing. They love this. I'm sorry, Michael, who's a dear friend, it's slightly delicious because I don't care

if you're from TNG. You don't rule here. Well, suddenly there's an alert. They're waiting for Dax and Cisco to come back. There's an alert. The runabouts returning. We see that it's very beat up. It's had to fight its way back.

It's the exact same visual effects scene as the... they used in a prior episode with a different runabout name that was damaged. It's the exact. Is that when Keiko got hurt? Yeah. Yeah. Because I'm looking at it going like, that's exactly this. And then I did the research and I was like, oh, it is the same one. They just called it a different runabout. And they're expecting you to not know that that had happened. I mean, it's so recent too, right? Yeah. I saw it already. Interesting. Well, yes, but they do find two life signs, human and trills, so they're alive. A little bit later, Cisco and Dax have returned. They look pretty good. Kira meets them. I like this little walk and talk. There's a lot of walk and talks

in this episode. Thank you, James Conway. It keeps things moving. Yeah, it was great. And we learned just in this brief walk and talk up to the commander's office that the Klingons are throwing everything they can at them. They're really coming on hard. They walk into the captain's office and they comment that they believe gowron is a changeling that's what's going on he's causing all of this chaos and they remind us of that because uh odo had mentioned that before at the season finale you know he remembered that in his uh in the great link he saw that so um so they remind us of that and starfleet is going to send a special team to infiltrate and prove that gowron is a changeling and Cis Let's everybody know.

Kira says, tough assignment. Who are they sending on this really tough assignment? Cisco says, me. So, of course, we go into Quarks. Is this your residual scene? I feel like this is it, right? I thought so. James kept me moving here too, which I thought was good.

Yeah, you are on the move. By keeping you moving, we see that the place is back up and running, even though you got shut down by Brund. but the writ of accountability is still posted up on the wall so you're having to make do and there's no Ferengi in the bar except for you none of the Ferengi can work there but Cork greets Cisco are there other servers there I don't even notice are there other non Ferengi sir non-ferengi I saw somebody walked by an alien makeup yeah blue or white makeup with a tray okay so there are other employees okay and Cisco's looking for

Odo. He asked quirk about Odo. Quark shares that he's been super depressed since he lost his ability to change. And Cork says he's upstairs. Just look for the big black cloud. He's right under that. It was great. It was a great scene. Armand, were you happy with it? Yes. It's very nice to do one scene in an episode, get paid for a whole week. It's very nice indeed. Yes. And get your residuals. And get my residual. And allow me to go off and do Buffy. Yes. Yeah. But even outside of that I think for the show, it's important for us to revisit, especially in the season premiere, to re-establish. Well, yes, to see all the characters.

And, you know, later on, we'll see Jake as well. So, yeah, that's really important. My one purpose, I think, in this scene, was to remind people that we're at war and that people, even in wartime, go out and, you know, have a good time. Yeah. Although we'll hear later that, you know,

things are slightly different as far as attitudes. The other thing about you working one scene for your residuals and having the rest of the time off, the most amazing thing is you don't have to be in makeup anymore the rest of the time. That's the best thing. It's your skin a break. Yeah, your skin gets to breathe.

If indeed, and I don't remember, if indeed I went off to Buffy on that week because I had nothing to do on Deep Space 9, I invariably must have said to the vampires, you know drink a lot of water because I didn't have any makeup to wear right so yes it gave my skin a break but the the studio was very good to me Marina had warned me and I took advantage of it they sent me for facials twice a month oh wow who warned you did you Marina certis yeah what do you what do you mean she warned you she said if you're going to wear all that stuff

you make sure that they give you facials to take care of your skin and and I took advantage of it and said, you know, told my agent and said, yes. And, and the Paramount said, sure, we'll pay for that. And so twice a month, I would go in and get my, my skin cleared from all the things that they had put on. Glue and all that stuff. Yeah. Wow. Oh, my God. Because I want to say right now, the heavy pancake makeup made me, my skin was horrible, just from just not even alien makeup. It was so heavy. I may have been able to use that argument for I probably could have. And I didn't even think about that.

You showed me the ropes, Uncle Armand, but you didn't tell me about the facials because I spent so much money at the Murad and everyone probably knows Murad from all the infomercials they do. But Mirad down in Santa Monica, I went every, probably twice a month. You did so much money on facials. I can't even tell you.

Oh, my God. See if you can go back to Paramount. I'm going to, yes, I'm going to do that. I'm going to go ahead and show them that record and say, please i will take that now and paramount shares stock paramount stock i could take that okay all right all right well that we go upstairs with cisco he finds odo sitting up there drinking all alone otto's drinking now he never ate before he never drank no he is drinking beer it looks like bubbly fizzy something and he's fascinated by the bubbles in this drink this whole conversation

this whole scene it's like he's in an altered state maybe he's just completely drunk he's drunk he's completely inebriated right now right and look at the way it's lit it's lit like a caravaggio painting it's it's incredibly beautiful to look at and this golden light coming through the beer and on his face it's it's gorgeous it's gorgeous to the point of being surreal almost gorgeous oh yes yeah yeah yeah well he's been drinking and he's he mentions he found digestion disgusting before but now he's He's finding it comforting. And Cisco does mention it. I think Cisco notices he's a little drunk.

He's like, you know, there's a temptation to overindulge. Be careful. Right. He's warning him. Cisco wants Odo to come on this mission to investigate Gowron. And Odo thinks, you know, what can he, he can't change anymore. How can I help? And one last thing.

Yeah. Odo says he's off duty. That's new because in the past, Odo was never off duty. Now, granted, he had to regenerate. there was time when he was but we've never seen him be off duty yeah if he wasn't regenerating he was working yeah yeah oh my goodness yeah even when he was dying he wanted to work and now he's just drinking yeah very different attitude and he says my job doesn't interest me as much as it used to yeah my favorite line was when uh he said uh i didn't have a sense of taste so i never paid much attention

to food or drink i had no idea how seductive they could be i liked that looking that little bit of dialogue was pretty cool well it's a very relatable experience we've all used food or drink to comfort ourselves you know stressful times and things like that so yeah it's a very it's a great star trek observation on a human experience you know for odo um but cisco finally loses patience with otto keeps saying no no no i don't want to do it i'm not good i can't do anything cisco's like it's in order you're coming on this mission cisco just orders him gets up and leave So to that, very quickly, why does he need Odo? What does Odo provide on this mission that nobody else can provide?

And perhaps that answer comes later on in the episode. I asked myself this whole time, Odo is right, take somebody else. Don't take all the major personnel off the station. You're at war. Kier has to stay, but the only reason she's staying because she's pregnant. Why are you taking all the major people and leaving the station unprotected by personnel? For me at this point, it was about he's observing how Odo's giving up. And in one way, it was almost like, you know what, I'm doing this for you.

You need to come. You need a purpose. You're losing your purpose. Okay. But Avery didn't play that. If that was the purpose, and it might have been, I just didn't see that in Avery's performance. I, well, what I saw in Avery's performance, and my take from that scene was that Avery felt, okay, we are going on this mission, which is to expose a Klingon as a changeling. The only person I have that is a changeling expert is the former changeling named Odo.

So he's going to come along no matter what. I need him as my counsel. That's the way I looked at it. That makes sense. That makes perfect sense. Yeah, he orders him that he's going to go along, but he also, but the main order at the end of that scene is you're coming to. a meeting about this mission coming out. Staff meeting in 1600 hours. You're going to be there. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Well, we go into this meeting. Great opening shot, by the way.

Yes. Again, he uses Cisco's walk. It reminded me of like on our show on Voyager. Janeway would walk around the bridge to bring the camera over for the lines. That's right. Walk up to your station and walk over to my station. It was very well done. Cisco walks and explains that they, They've moved Klingon Command to this fortified place. And Gowron is in this protected installation on TIGA Corps, heavily fortified, and he's got a special security force called the Brotherhood of the Sword, we learn. They talk about getting a blood sample.

If they go on this mission, will they get a blood sample? He's got the security force, the Brotherhood of the Sword. They're never going to get blood from him. but Cisco says we've got a device from Starfleet Command and he pulls out these four round balls and everybody's kind of looking at him and Bashir's like, what is this? They're basically modified Polaron emitters.

They have to set all four of them out around him and they will release this polaron radiation and that will that will reveal if Gowron is a changeling but they have to do it all at one. They have to do it only once, so they've only got one shot at this. Everyone feels like, well, this sounds impossible. It's such a 90s prop, though.

If you're thinking about a 24th century thing, it's not, it's too big. This thing is way too big for what really would happen 400 years from now. And then after you set them up, then you've got to have another thing that hits it to start it. Like, no. Like, it's just to me that that's the only thing that dates it. It's too obvious. It's kind of silly. But that's because, you know, back then we thought,

differently of what tech would be. But that's the only thing that really shows the age of of anything in Trek from the 90s is some of the props, such as these large balls. Yeah. Everyone's a little skeptical. They're going to pull this off. But Worf seems a little intrigued by it. He says, you know, there will be many songs sung about us if we succeed. Yeah. Very cling on of him. Very funny, though. Everyone's doubting it. And he's like, this is going to be great. You know, he's all into it. Well, Kira asks, the first problem is just how do we get you there and Cisco says I've got an idea I think I can get us there and we cut into a corridor before we do I have a question for you Robbie as a director so

almost everybody was sitting at the table every was walking around as you pointed out and that was really quite good of James to do that why was a Miles of Brian sitting in the window why wasn't he at the table what was it what's the point of put I mean he comes closer during the course of the scene but when he starts out he everyone's at the table except for miles and it is a staff meeting is it slightly disrespectful not to be at the table when the captain is addressing the group in my memory of our briefing room scenes we got so bored with the same you know what chair are we sitting in today like you know every director we'd come in and it was the same thing and i i remember actors just trying to do something different like if okay okay if we're in the middle of this conversation

and maybe I was sitting, can I be over here like I got up and was listening or maybe I just, they were pitching things. I mean, Robert Beltran and I used to have a running inside joke that we both had the coffee cups and we'd watch each other during the scene and try to come up with business

with a coffee cup that was just, we'd try to make each other laugh. So we'd be there listening to Janeway like this and I might go. And I know that Robert's watching me, me so then he'd do something else he'd be listening and he'd have a line coming up and he'd go you know we'd do anything we could we were so bored in the briefing room scenes with the same thing so i guess what i'm getting at is like maybe column was just like do i have to sit in a chair again it could

have been it could be it could be and i just want to point out to all those who are watching this is the difference in cultures between the two shows none of us ever would have done what you just none of us would have done that we were like carnival cruise lines we were the fun show is what we were the boy yes you were and when people asked us what what was the fun stuff what was the practical jokes that you guys did on deep space nine we look at each other and go there weren't any and i saw that when i went over to visit you know uh Nicole deborr when i went to the set you could feel oh you can feel it was totally different the only person that was that was not sort of being solemn was uh was was was Eisenberg would be doing his goofy thing.

Marvin Rush on our show as we got going and started loosening up like that. In my memory, he didn't particularly like it. No. He would reference you guys. Like, well, in DS9, they're very serious. They don't goof around on rehearsal. Like you guys, yeah.

He was not. Marvin didn't like our silliness. I think he grew to like it later, though. I do feel that because he came from DS9 directly to us. So he already saw who like that. TNG, and then DS9. He thought DS9 was, he thought they were very professional and serious actors. Yes, yes.

And then he really respected that. And then back to us, we're outside in space. We see a Klingon ship decloak and it docks at the station. I forgot about that entirely. Here he is walking with Kira. He tells Kira that, oh, you use my daughter to lure me back over here to DS9, tricked me. And you want to borrow my Klingon ship on top of it. And he says, to top it all off, you're pregnant with Shakar's child.

And she goes, well, no, it's not Shakar's child. Duccott's like, well, who's is it? O'Brien's, it's Miles O'Brien's. It was a wonderful, wonderful read by Nana. It was a wonderful. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Which then elicited a wonderful reaction from Mark Alimaud.

Out on the promenade, DuCott says, well, at least being pregnant, she won't have to go on this crazy mission. So he's been updated with what they're planning to do and why they wanted his ship. He says three people can't possibly infiltrate the Klingon headquarters. They'll be caught in a heartbeat. We cut inside as they walk from the promenade into the infirmary. He says they'll be caught in heartbeat.

And Kira kind of smiles, yeah, maybe. They walk inside and we see the plan. He's got a big smile on his face. Cisco is in full Klingon makeup here and he says, what's wrong, Dukot? Haven't you ever seen a Klingon before? But they see Miles of Brian first. They see...

Oh, that's true. They see Miles. Yeah, it just pans across, right? To reveal each of them, which is super cool. I just want to quickly interject that Michael Dorn was so happy when all the other actors had to put on the Klingon makeup so that they could experience exactly what he had to go through. one of the people who really did not

like the makeup at all Robbie, who do you think it is? Who hated the makeup? I want to quiz Marabi on this one. I would say, Colum. Yes. Column. You win.

You win. Here's a quote from Columnini. Quote, all I remember from that show was the makeup. The makeup drove me insane. I think I so much about it that they won't ever put me

in alien makeup again. It gave me new respect for Michael. I don't know how he or any of the other people who play Klingons on our show. Do it. I had to do it for six days and I almost went insane. It's very, very difficult to go in hours early, sit in a chair for hours and then go in and try to act. Then when you're finally done working, you've got to go and get it all removed, not fun, end quote. Welcome to Armin's life. Yeah, I know, literally. And you know, Renee and I used to say, shut the just shut that and and as pleased as michael was i was even more pleased because i thought oh well yes yes guess what it's not as easy as you think it is

and this is a little bit of trivia that surprised me rene auberginois said that he found the cling on makeup much easier than his typical odom makeup because he could eat well there you go and it also covered less of his face. The Odo makeup, he's completely covered. It's like a hockey mask. He couldn't eat as Odo. And he can't eat. For the first two or three years,

all he had was yogurt for lunch. Can you imagine that? Wow. I cannot imagine. Oh, my gosh. Unbelievable. All right. Well, we cut onto the Dukot's bridge from that moment, and we see Wharf is on the bridge as well.

And they've altered his Klingon look a bit. So it's not the normal Wharf Klingon, because he's got to be disguised as a different Klingon for this mission. So he's disguised a little bit. Duccott is still very skeptical. D'Amar is there. He says they should just torpedo the whole place, just blow the whole fort up,

kill everybody. And Miles explains an attack like that would never succeed. They'd start fighting back immediately. So that's not going to work. Cisco asked Duccott if he's prepared their fake identities. So they want a file for each of these fake Klingons that they're playing. Duccott says they will have a very impressive file transferred to the planet very soon. Worf mentions at the end of the scene there's an inductee ceremony for the order of the

batlith. They want their names added as inductees. So that's their plan. They're going to pretend to be inductees into the order of the batlith. And we learn that Gowron will be there and he is presiding. So now we kind of know their mission. They're going to go undercover's clangons. they're going to pretend to be getting an award

and then set up the tech, the round Rubik's Cube things. The Polaron, whatever. Polaron things, yeah. Question. When you were looking at that makeup, for me, even though Colm hated his Klingon makeup, I thought he looked fabulous, by the way,

all of them looked great. But looking at him, he'd look like a meld between Gowleron and Martok. If you meld those two, you get the Klingon makeup of... of O'Reilly, of, not O'Reilly, of O'Brien. So I felt that's what I saw, but I don't know if anyone else saw anything like that. The only thing I saw on O'Brien's makeup, on Colum's makeup, was the teeth seemed to not, his teeth didn't work for me.

They seemed to go in or something. Oh, okay. Speaking of teeth, we have teeth on Avery, we have teeth on Colum, we have teeth on Odo. But there's no teeth I noticed on Wharf. What? Michael, I guess, never wore the prosthetic teeth. Ever? I don't know.

I'm looking at this episode and going, the others have teeth. Why doesn't, why is his teeth the way it's Michael's teeth? Well, under sight, they forgot? No. I don't know if they forgot or he just never had. I never noticed it before because he was standing with all these crowns and with the others have teeth. I noticed that too.

I noticed that too. Huh. And if he's never been wearing it, you can't give him teeth then. Now it looks silly, right? It doesn't match. Maybe that's why. Maybe they never had it. They didn't give him teeth and the TNG.

Okay. Going to the captain's office next, Bashir was standing still for action, I noticed. The doors have glass on them. You could see him standing there for a second before the doors open. And then he started walking. And I was like, usually people are on the move and they just,

it should have started him a few steps back. Yeah. Yes. A little nitpick. Bashir says that Vyxopran is budding again, that he's already got eight or maybe 18 children. They don't even know. They've lost count.

And he's going to be asking for bigger quarters because Vyxopran is budding. Who we've already heard of before. They've spoken of Vyxopran in a prior episode, but we have not seen Vyxopran, which is, I always get... You really want to see. Yes, we want to see the butter, the person who can bud so well. Well, we hear that Vyxopran has a lot of product. Janine, that's for sure. It needs larger quarters.

Yes. Bashir and Kira have a little rom-com moment, a little bickerson's between them and this, blaming each other for who's at fault, which I thought was very meta, you know, the fact that it's actually their kid, and this is your fault. No, it's your fault. Look what you did to me. That was on purpose, actually. Was it?

Yes, the writers did that in order to acknowledge the fact that they were in a relationship and that that baby truly was Sid's kid. So that was on purpose entirely. Yeah, it's cool, though. I love it. This is your fault. It was great. And I think Sid couldn't help showing his enjoyment of it,

whereas Nana, the serious actress, never let that through. She did it, but there was never a twinkle about, I know what the subtext is. The game, yeah, but you caught the twinkle in Sid's eye? I caught the twinkle in Sid's eye. Yeah. Ha ha, ha, I love it. I love it.

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Don't miss out on this limited time offer. Uncommon goods. We are all out of the ordinary. Back on Dukot's ship, Worf is training our team here to act like Klingons. It's a very funny scene. He calls Odo and Alvarian Dung Beetle. And Odo does not want to play.

Worf basically says, no one's going to believe that you're real Klingons. And then Cisco comes over and hits Odo. Oh, sorry, Cisco comes over and hits Worf. Yeah. And Worf's very impressed. And next time, though, use your fist, not the back of your hand. There are Klingon protocols. Right. I think one is to challenge someone to a duel to the death. You don't want to do that. You just want to, yeah, backhand is challenging. Like a full fist to the face. That's acceptable for a song. Very funny. Warf says, was your intention to challenge me

to a battle to the death? And Sisko says, no. And he said, well, then next time, do not strike me with the back of your hand, it's your fist. Depending on how a Klingon hits another Klingon, it's a signal to what the challenge is. I love it. Nice detail. Miles is overwhelmed, though.

He's like, this is a lot more complicated. I thought it was going to be. The back of my fist, the front of my fist. Cisco tries to join in the Klingon energy. He tells Miles to speak loudly, gets up in his face. Worf is not convinced this is going to work. He just says, keep practicing.

Oda leaves. and Sisko chases him out, you know, follows him out. Odo says he thinks he shouldn't be here. He's just not going to be convincing as a Klingon. He doesn't know why he's here. And Cisco gives him a nice heart to heart. He says he knows that this isn't what you would choose, but ignoring your responsibilities is not going to change anything.

So he suggests just go back and do your job. Just get back to work. And I like the scene. It was a nice scene. Yeah. It was a very nice scene between the two of them, yes. Now, I have a nitpick. When Wharf is yelling at O'Brien

and telling him all these things, the one thing that I thought he should have said to O'Brien, I'm serious about this. It may sound comical, but I'm serious about it. Get rid of the Irish accent. Oh. Oh, yeah. Which column can do.

I've heard of a American accent. Yeah. Get rid of the Irish accent. I have never seen an Irish cling up. Kling. A dead give-up on that. Yeah. It's a dead giveaway.

Jesus. It's not like he couldn't do it. He could do it. But he's probably so upset about the makeup he didn't think about it. That's what it was. It had to be a bad. But somebody, I mean, Avery took on a different persona altogether as a Klinger, for which I applaud him a great deal. But really, get rid of the Irish accent because there's no Irish Klingons.

There are no Irish Klingons. And there is an Irish accent. You can hear. it's not it's not thick but it's there and it's well who's supposed to police that though the script supervisor like at the first ad like who's supposed to everyone's supposed to know that and go hey somebody should have brought it up somebody should have brought it up either in daly's the first time it comes up right of course then you'd have to shoot it over again right uh or um or loop it oh they could have just looped it yes looped i mean it's one of those points arm and it's a very

very smart and you're absolutely 100% right. And I've seen this happen with issues like that on other shows I've worked on where when it hits everybody and it's too late, everybody looks around and goes, why didn't somebody say something? Because everybody should have known it. The script supervisor, the director, the writers, they should have put it in the script. Even the other actors to some extent should have said. The actors, there's a lot, the fact that those little obvious

choices that should have been so obvious go past dozens of people and no one because they're accepting the norm that this is how column speaks so yeah he's just going to act like a cling on but the irish accent is a detail that that should have been somebody should have pointed that out good catch we go back to the bridge on ducats cling on ship a cling on bird of prey is hailing them Duccott says, he's got hollow image relays that are going to filter out, you know, his Cardassian look and make him look like a Klingon. So hang on one sec. We're going to get that going.

But it's not working. For some reason, it's not working today. Worf offers to speak to them to cover for their mission. It looks like their cover is going to get blown right away. And the Klingons start demanding an answer. Turn this on now. Dukot answers with a couple torpedoes and blows up the ship. he's just like I can't deal with this problem

so he blows them all up and DeMarre is very pleased yes oh is it is there a reaction shot on yeah there's a reaction yeah and he loves it he loves it he loves it I didn't catch that that's funny well Cisco did not like it he's mad no because he feels like they could have gotten out of there without death and destruction that's a whole crew

that's dead that people don't even take into account that's a bummer our show once got an award it's the opposite of a war that our show killed off more people than any other TV show around. I think I heard that when we were filming. I'm not, it's not. It's not. It's not. We killed off hundreds of people.

Wow. And never really blinked. Wow. Another shot at Worf and TNG in the scene at the end, Dukot says, you know, he doesn't trust that Worf could have been able to lie. Couldn't have pulled it off. I didn't trust Worf to talk to them and cover for us all. Another knock at TNG.

Another knock. Wow. We go through space. They're arriving at Tiger Corps, the planet surrounded by space stations and Klingon ships and very cool CGI shot of them arriving at this place. Every time you've said it and every time they mentioned in the episode, that name of that installation, Tiger Corps, I keep thinking about like Marine Corps, but it's all tigers in uniforms that are like storming the beaches. Tiger Corps.

Tiger Corps. Yes. Thank you. A little later, Miles is, uh, preparing these emitters. He does mention here, I hope I remember how to set these up. Like, it seems like they're saying these are complicated. Later on, it doesn't seem complicated at all, but he suggests maybe they are going to not

operate these things well. DuCott says, good luck, and he mentions he's going to leave right after they beam down. Like, wait, what? That wasn't our agreement. And DuCott says, well, things have changed. I can't stay here without my hollow imaging filters. I can't hang out. And if you guys succeed, then the war is over, exposing him as a changeling,

Gowron is a changeling. And if you fail, no need for explanation. No need for explanation. It's sound logic. DeCott's right. It's perfect. He doesn't have to be there. And I thought, wow.

And he is a pirate. He's dangerous. He has no allegiance to anyone. Yes, he's got to go. Warp confirms that they've added their names. to the commendation list, the brotherhood of the... No, no, the order of the Batleth.

The order of the Batleth, that's right. Dukot confirms, yes, that's all done. So they say goodbye to Cisco, and we learn that his identity for this mission is Jodmos, son of Kodor. They're now starting to call each other by their spy names. Down on Tiger Corps, I'm going to call it Tiger Cor.

Wow. Tiger Corps from now on. Meow. They have a cool Ocean's 11 hero walk as they beam in. I like this shot. I wish it was in slow motion and had a rock song under it or something. Yeah. Doom-ch-c-dun-dun-d-dair.

Yeah, because they almost look like 80s metal band. Yes, they did. Like a music video. Exactly. Perfect. They come into the hall of warriors, this giant room with statues and fires. Looks good. Looks good.

Yes. Looks very good. Do you think it was all background or was it some of it's CGI? I think it was all background. That's a lot of background player. All in makeup. Oh, all in makeup.

Yes. Oh, my God, that's got to be an expensive day. Well, you know, all those day check makeup artists were hired for this one. Everyone in Hollywood who was free was on that show. Yeah.

For sure. For sure. Very busy day. A little montage of the celebrating and the partying. And knocking of heads. My God, what Jim got them. all to do i mean there isn't anybody standing still in that shot everybody is moving everybody is

is fighting or yelling or screaming or uh and again i'm wondering if uh if there was a lot of uh a d r work done afterwards by loop groups to put in all those voices but but just the physicalization everybody doing something it's it's quite amazing to look at i did like when column got head bonged and he pretended to be disoriented to Odo for a second. Because he could have played that a million ways when he said, I just wish they'd stop ringing that bell. And then he just smiled at Odo. Yeah.

And then there's twice, at least twice in this episode, he plays this Klingon. He laughs. He just hits the other person and laughs, which is good, which is good. But he does it twice. I think this is the first time and there's another example of it later. I think that's me being a Klingon. Right. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, he was having fun with that, even if he hated the makeup. He liked him. Silly. And he did. We cut to the promenade back to the station, and Jake is up on the upper level. He's watching all the people below. The upper level where he and Nag always were. Yeah.

Yes. And he's a little, you know, sad, you can tell. He's deep in thought, Bashir approaches. And Jake has some very wise insights about. people's moods just by watching them which is a very writerly authorly kind of wise beyond his years insight he talks about you can tell people's moods when they walk the promenade when things are good they take their time that window shop but then there's days like today he's noticing people are anxious kira calls there's wounded on two ships that are arriving they need

Bashir to come down into the infirmary to help these people. And Bashir stops, though, and he reassures Jake. He said, you know, your dad's going to be okay. Because he can pick up on Jake's mood. Yeah, he's anxious. Jake's anxious for his pop. Yeah, he says he wishes he wasn't so good as his job. And Bashir says, well, he does what he's asked.

When he, you know, he wears the Starfleet uniform, he's going to do his job. He does what he's asked. And that's not going to change. And another excellent performance by Surrog Lofton. Just it's not much, but it's all heartfelt and wonderfully sincere and moving. Yeah, it is moving. And it's the only scene he's got in this episode. I wish he had more.

In almost every episode recently of this podcast, in trivia, I always say. And Sirac Lofton does not appear in this episode. So for us to have even one scene, thank you. But it is the first episode of a new season. So as we said at the very top, it's important to show all the series regulars. Right. And in this case, many of the recurring characters. Yes.

Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Correct. Well, we cut back to our Klingon celebration. They're getting blood wine. Klingon named Burley is bragging about killing a captain named Leporan. And Cisco is triggered by this.

He punches him. He knocks him out. He says, brag all you want. but don't get between me and my blood wine to cover for his punch. His name isn't Burley. He's the Burley Klingon is what it is. Oh. Remember that?

They started naming people by tall Klingon, like obnoxious Klingon. So if you're saying that his name is Burley, I just want to make sure that that's. Yeah, he's just a big. He's just a big guy, yeah, a larger Klingon than most. Yeah. Well, O'Brien, no clocks what's his go, you know, his anger and everything. and he gets it. Sisko admits he knew that captain that was killed by the Klingon.

They went to the academy together. So, you know, the life and death stakes are very real here for what these guys are doing. Worf says about this party. He explains this is as much an endurance test for the ceremony as a party that they're supposed to drink all night, go crazy, and then be clear-eyed when Gowron arrives tomorrow.

So it's a challenge for them to talk. try to go hard and then be step back into professional mode o'brien asked when should we set up the emitters Cisco says not now not tonight then we'll do it in the morning we don't want to risk being found out and Odo does reference back to his fascinating bubbly beer that he was he wishes that blood wine had some bubbles in it the writers put in something to to make us understand why they don't get drunk they covered their butts and saying okay if they drank that much they would be drunk but You know, they've been injected with some sort of thing. Anti-intoxicant?

Is that what they call it? Yeah. Yeah. Yep, they had the anti-intoxicant. And in this next scene, we see Cisco wrestling a cling-on, throws him to the ground. And then he tells his buddies that he admits that he was captain of the wrestling team. But then he goes, 22 years ago, ow, which I thought was very funny. It's like, I can't do this.

Very clever. Yeah, it was fun. Martak arrives in this scene, but he's very suspicious immediately. He thinks they look familiar. Well, O'Brien, specifically, that's who he stops at, right? Maybe it's the Irish accent. You sound, not only do you look familiar, you sound familiar. You sound very different.

Yeah, Martak grabs Miles by the shoulder just as he's about to set up his first emitter. And he says, you're really familiar in that Irish accent. He doesn't say they are. But Miles uses a cover story to explain they were both in the battle of Mempa. Martak says, oh, yeah, you were there too? Could be that. He's not sure about it.

He's still very suspicious. So wonderful performance by J.G. Hertz. So good. So good. Yeah, you think he's, you know, the straight guy that he's just playing this all straight. It's going to have a great twist later on. While they're setting up these emitters,

I found that this was a little confusing to me. my only nitpick of the scene because at times it seemed like some people had already attached the balls and then it seemed like wait a minute wasn't that ball already together and then now he's reaching for it now so it seemed like some things were a little messy here in the editing for me but um a little confusing i agree with you the putting of the putting up of the emitters was very messy and i just want to point out um bob blackman the costume designer for both of our shows never believed in pockets anywhere anywhere so And so they have to stick it in their glove,

I can't tell you how many times I've stuck things in my coat pocket. Because there's no, you know, script would say, Quark takes something out of his pocket. There are no pockets. Exactly. Why couldn't they have put some pockets? Because with all the knocking about that they're doing, these things are going to slip out of their gloves.

It just didn't make any sense to slip it in the glove. Just give them a pocket. Yes. Or Bob Blackman, he could have invented a Klingon Fanny Pack. you know that's right that's right that's right yeah as funny as that might be yes he could have done that well otto's placing i i guess the last one whatever sequence of placements is happening otto's placing his when a drunk clingon pats him on the back real hard to ask about gowron and the emitter falls and rolls right onto the foot of another clangon oh seems like they're

busted and the cling on we come back he picks up this little rubyx cube round thing he thinks it's a weapon when wharf arrives and says aha you found it and he explained warf explains oh it's a vulcan toy it's a spoil of war and he takes it back and that's when gowron arrives big ceremony slowly handing out medals the pace kind of slows down here in terms of dialogue they're they're milking the suspense of what's going to happen yeah he's handing out metals while that's happening otto puts that emitter that fell down he puts that last emitter up there and that's when cisco pulls out a remote he's about to hit it when suddenly gowron calls cisco he says jodmos son of cobor and so cisco's got to hide it back in his glove yeah

and the question is why one would assume that you would just trigger it then why would you yeah what what difference does it make whether he's been called or not they're about to cause a you know sensation so why not that's the most valid yeah i i agree i agree with that one thousand you're on point today yeah you are you're batting a thousand look at that it's because they only had one scene in his uh well he sticks a bag on his glove goes to get his metal and he gets the metal very suspenseful are they going to get busted here or not but no it seems he's going to get the medal and as he starts to step down. And doesn't Bob look like he recognizes Abley?

That's what I was going to say. Gowron or Bob Riley plays it as if he has a bit of an inkling of who this is. I felt, maybe I'm wrong, but you both saw that, right? And Jim should have said to him, don't do that. Don't do that. You're not supposed to know him at all, yeah. But maybe they did that just to have the tension to make it look like he recognized him for us to go, but then it didn't really happen.

But yeah, it's a little messy there too. But as he's walking away, that's when he's about to hit the emitter. Sorry, the remote that activates all the emitters. And that's when he gets hit from behind with a bat left. That's why Bob should not have played it. Because moments later, seconds later, Martuk attacks Avery. You think it's Gowron doing it, not Marta. Well, for me, well, okay, I didn't think that.

Oh, okay. Maybe because I don't know. I didn't think that. Garron doesn't have a bat lift. That's true. But I suppose you could have picked one out. You're right. I'm sorry.

Yes. It could have been that. Martock knocks him down. I liked the shot because you had Avery coming towards the camera and then you see the Batleth rise up above. You don't even know. I thought the shot was very cool. You don't know who it is that just knocked him down.

But some Klingon just took him out right after he got his metal. Yeah, but did either of you go, well, wait a minute. Did you just get slashed by a Batleth? Why is your arm not, you know, off of your body? Well, it looked to me like he got hit in the back. back. Yeah, he got hit the back, but it was more like he got hit in the back with a baseball bat. Something blunt without any edges or points is what it seemed like. I'd have to look at it again, but I'm at the impression that it was the back of the bat lift.

Oh, the other side. The other side, not the sharp, but where the handhold is. Yes, well, then that would make sense. Okay, because I was like, there's no blood. There's nothing. I was shocked. Well, it's Martok that knocked him down, and Martok basically reveals his deception. Captain Benjamin Sisko, I knew I recognized the face. Seal the room. Seems we have some uninvited guests.

Well, Cisco's busted. Their cover is busted. We cut inside this prison cell, which I love this prison cell. It was like a bird cage. It was a giant round, barred room. Cisco, Odo and O'Brien and Worf are all in the cell. Martuk says they were fools to think that this could work. Says Gowron is not a changeling at first.

And Gowron has destroyed the emitters. And now their whole plan with these emitters, it's not going to work. Cisco thinks Martok agrees to them. He fishes a little bit. He's like, you're suspicious too, aren't you, Martak? And Martok says, no, that would be treason to, you know, accuse Gowron of being a changeling. That would be treason. And Wharf says, when is it treason to act in the best interest of the Klingon Empire?

So he's starting to get to Martok in the scene. Martak does admit he never really liked Gowron that he was always a politic. and always compromising, but suddenly he admits, you're right, Gowron has been calling for war. Now the losses are mounting and the war is foolish. Martak finally says, you know what, maybe you're right. The only way now to know if he's a changeling is to kill him. He says, I'll let you guys come out and back into the hall and you can kill him and we'll get our answer.

So it's a big turn in this scene. Except that. is it is it wharf in the earlier scene says let's kill him and and Cisco says our Starfleet said we're to find out if he is a change

it's not an assassinate it's Simon is not an assassination so all of a sudden oh so now all of a sudden it is an assassination wait I thought otherwise but okay that's just meaning maybe because the because the emitters have been destroyed

yeah they cannot expose him now You can't do the original plan, so do we just leave and do nothing? But the point of the emitters was to find out if Gowron was a change. Correct. If, if you're just going to assassinate him, the if is removed. If it is removed, but they all believe that he is at this point. They all believe hook, line, and sinker. Because what Odo told them.

But getting the emitters is from what Odo told them. And I think it's Wharf who says, why don't we just assassinate? Maybe it's Cullin. I think it's Duccott. Maybe it's Duccott or Duma. Somebody just says. Right. And somebody says, because our assignment, it may, our assignment is to find out not to assassinate. Correct. Yeah. So now they're going to assassinating. Yeah, it doesn't seem like there's

any new information that would have changed their plan. And I didn't see any new information. No. If anything. No, I agree. No. You're on point today, Armin. Thank you. You should have been in the writer's room. I should have been. Yes. I would have love to have been a writer. That would be a fun job. Well, we cut out to the corridor. Martuk's letting them out. The guard says, I can't let them leave. Gowron said don't let him leave. Martok just shoots him, kills the guard. Add to the body count deep space nine. Yeah, he shoots both guards, right? One. Just one guard. The other guy is disabled the other one. Avery is disabled the other one. He did, but he doesn't kill him. I think he knocks him. No, doesn't kill him. Then they walk through

this other door and Martok takes out two daggers and kills those guys. so more body count there yes I like that move that was a very very yeah yeah and and and is that JG's idea is that Jim's idea is it this writer's idea whoever idea it was good idea very good it was very cool and I had to justify that because I was starting to nitpick I was like really these are Klingon warriors one little prick is going to kill them you know so I said okay he knew exactly where they're vital you know yeah most vulnerable or whatever is in their body. And he took them out that way.

Well, Worf, Miles, and Cisco head inside. Martok stops soda, though. He says, I don't trust you. You were a changeling. I don't trust you. You're going to stay out here with me while they go kill. Gowron inside the Hall of Warriors, they push to the front. Worf tries to stab him, but the whole room is defending Gowron.

Weapons are drawn. This is when Gowron says, no. Everybody in this room, lower your weapons. If Worf wants to fight, I will fight him. Bring it on. Well, yeah, a welcome to try. Bring it on. So a very cling on sort of, you know, cling on traditional attitude.

Honorable. Honorable. Yes. Yes. But I would have loved to have seen Garon and say, bring it on. And then Wharf said, it's already brought in or something like that. And then they go at it. Yeah, that would, yeah, could call back to bring it on the film.

Yes. Like the cheerleading film. There you go. Um, back in the corridor, Martaq's getting impatient. Why isn't Galron dead? Odo figures it out in the scene. He's like, wait a minute. Gowron is fighting with honor. He's fighting like a Klingon. And Martok said there would be no honorable combat, no formal challenges. So he thinks Martok is the, he's putting two to two together. So this is why I think another reason Cisco wanted him on the mission, because he would be able to. you know, deduce these kinds of detectives. This is the only moment that justifies Odo being there. It's a good one. They didn't set it up, though.

If Cisco had said, you know, you're the constable, you're the one that can figure out, you know, the problems if they exist. Well, I thought it was implied, so I did. Yeah, maybe. That's why he brought them along. You're my expert on it. You're going to be able to sniff everything out if something is awry. That's what I thought.

Well, we go back into the Gowron Warf. fight. It's a big one. And lots of great choreography here. Big fight. Worf eventually gets the upper hand is about to kill him. When Odo stops Worf at the very last second stop, and this is when Martok starts to fight with Odo. Odo tells the room that Martok is a changeling, and that's when Martak's arm does the shapeshifter move to shut Odo up from 10 feet away or something. right arm shoots out like like a changeling in the whole room like a start shooting it at martock and he kind of vibrates and then explodes into goo and slime okay but the last time we saw someone that was a changeling die he died at odo's hands he didn't explode so i was just i don't know

i mean i was curious there's no i like the goo explosion yeah it's cool but i always love an alien goo explosion. Just establish it and be consistent with it. That's all I'm asking. Like if you're going to you know, the first time you saw a death of a change, like he didn't explode. And this time he did. That's all. You guys are the logic police. Both

I just like the cool goo explosion. We are Vulcans. Our men and I are Vulcans today. So they blow them up into goo and Cisco confirms we found our changeling. So wasn't who we expected. It was a big surprise to me.

watching this episode yeah i love i love the twist and and why is it a surprise because jg is so good as more yeah yes yeah he never gave it away well a little bit later they discuss what they've learned that the founders misled odo to try and put martok in charge so the founders were we're trying to cover up their own plan and uh if the founders could succeed and martok became in charge that would prolong the war and have the clings and the empire just destroy each other so the founders wouldn't have to do anything. Gowron says, just give us our canis and the war will end. And Cisco says, I can't, we can't do that, but maybe we should just stop fighting, just pause on all this fighting for a minute, and just talk. Gowron sort of reluctantly agrees to talk to the

council and maybe we can do that. And at the end of the scene, I like when Gowron tells Wharf, you should have killed me when you had the chance because you won't get another. Yeah, what's going to happen there? Back to our station. We're in the infirmary. Sisko has been transformed back to his human normal self. He does mention he kind of misses the fangs, the dentures, I guess. He misses the fangs.

Before he says that, he rubs his face, and I thought that's a genuine reaction that he got that stuff off of his face. Odo is next to get transformed back to his now human self. He's not a changeling anymore, so Bashir's got to do this. Odo mentions he will not miss the fangs. Bashir offers to give him any face he likes. And I like how Odo says, I think I'll stick with my old face. I like that the best. Now here is the humanoid prejudice.

Yes. Let me give you the exact line. He says, I can give you a Bajorn, a human, or a trill face. That's what he offers. Yeah. All of those are basically human faces, except for the bejoran, which has a little thing on the nose.

It's, we'll offer you a pretty face. He doesn't offer him a Cardassian face. He doesn't offer him a Ferengi face. He doesn't offer him a Bolian face. It's, we'll give you a pretty face. Yeah. That's just a little bit of the prejudice that I, have always experienced in in Star Trek is that humans are at the top of the apex of the

pyramid that that that they are the best everybody everything below them to some extent Vulcan's being right underneath humans everybody else everybody that looks like a human they're good everybody that doesn't look like a human have problems yeah so it's very humanoid centric is essentially what you're saying and thank you for bringing that up because I don't think that typically I or any other viewer would think that because, you know, I did not play, I played human on track and anyone watching is human. They didn't play an alien, but you have that unique perspective that a lot of people don't have. So thanks for bringing that up. I did like, though, that Odo chose his old face, my old face.

I did like that. It would have been nice to have other positive options offered up and then for him to say, they all sound interesting and wonderful, but now, simply my old face. Now he's human, okay? He's been changed by the founders to human. And his whole thing is that I can't duplicate face as well. That's, and that's clearly something that he has had an issue with and probably bothered him as a changeling. So now that he's human, I'm shocked that he didn't say, yeah, give me a regular human face now. Thank you. Or regular Bajoran face, because that's what he's used to. That's where he was found by the Bajorans, right? So I was a little shocked by that. So my question is, I totally agree with you, Garrett. My question is, why did the writers do that? Why? I mean, forget the show for a second. You've got to put Renee in makeup for 45 minutes in order to get him to get that face. Why keep that if you have a perfect way to get him out of it?

Yes. It's already happened. What was the necessity of keeping that face? I'm sure that had to be discussed. Yeah. What was the final kicker that said, no, we want to keep him the way he is? Yeah. I'm happy that they did.

I'm very happy. Yeah. But they must have had that conversation. And because the line is there, we can give you any face you want. They must have known. What was the kicker that said, no, we're going to keep him in a formless face? For my theme lesson of this episode, I wrote down, you have to look beneath the surface. to truly know who someone is.

All right, I like that. Armin, do you have one for the step? I do, but it took me a half hour to come up with one. I had been doing this show with you guys for over two years now. And it's usually pretty obvious to me what a theme is, and I can usually write that down pretty quickly. Right. This one, I thought about it, and I thought about it, and I thought about it.

I said, I can't find a theme in this. I finally came up with one. So the one I came up with is this. threat offers two paths, danger and opportunity. Hmm. I like that. Yeah, for me, I guess maybe on a broader spectrum, you know, make peace not war. The broadest lesson right there.

And then my other theme is Klingons are cool. That's it. And while we're talking about that, Klingons are cool. I totally agree with you. of the series regulars playing klingons the only and this includes michael as well the only person that i thought was truly a klingon yeah besides the makeup was abry even michael in this episode i went you're not acting the way martok is acting you're not acting the way uh gowaron is acting the way everybody all the tall burly klingons were acting they were all too

cerebral. Michael was very cerebral and I suddenly realized, forget the Irish accent. I would have caught them right away because of their lack of ability to blend in. But Avery took it on and ran with it and did a very good job. Even my dear good friend René Obergen-Wa, who was a consummate actor, I thought, I understand that he, the character doesn't think that he thinks he's fulfilling his mission. But even he seemed to be a liability. most of the time because he didn't seem to be Klingon-like. Yeah. Patreon Paul winner for the theme slash

lesson slash moral of this episode is submitted by Tim Newmark who says it is not enough to look like a Klingon one must act like one which is kind of what you were saying there Armin so there you go. Well thank you everyone for tuning in to

our recap and discussion of this episode. Please join us next time when we will be recapping and discussing the episode, The Ship with Terry. We also want to say thank you to Armin for joining us and hosting again. Thank you, Armin. Thank you.

Thank you for all of your nitpicks and your logic bumps and your detailed thought. Thank you. Thank you. And everyone, welcome to season five. I can't thank you enough for allowing me to revisit the show. Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. I'm going to be B.

B. B. B. B. B. Bhopal, B, Bhopi.

Bhopal, B, B, Bhop, B. B, Thank you.