The Delta Flyers - Author Author

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Author Author. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars. Author Author:The Doctor writes and publishes an incendiary holonovel that defames the crew, Paris' tampering offends the author, and The Doctor's rights fall into question.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, Bryan Fuller, John Espinosa, & Ariana DelbarAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Daniel de Rooy, Chris Knapp, Michelle Z, Janet K Harlow, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, E, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Jenna Appleton, Alicia Kulp, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Adm. Bill "Seoulman" Yu, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Zachary Upton, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Andrew Duncan, Lauren Wolffe, David Buck, Jeremy Mcgraw, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Matt Norris & Stephanie LeeAnd our Producers:James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Aaron Ogitis, Ryan Benoit, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Mark Lacey, Cindy Holland, Will Forg, Ryan Tomei, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Christopher Berry, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Akash Patel, Jennifer Vaughn, Cameron Wilkins, Michael Butler, Ken McCleskey, Walkerius Logos, & Abby ChavezThank you for your support!“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, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at...Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hi, everybody. We just want to take a moment to say that we would like to dedicate this episode to Ariana del Bar. She is one of our Patreon patrons and a longtime supporter of the podcast. And she passed away recently. She passed away on June 27th. And Ariana was an incredible part of our family. She was so generous with her spirit. her time, her energy. She was really generous to others and always positive. We had no idea of sometimes of the struggles she was going through her health struggles. And losing her is a real blow to our Delta Flyer family.

So we wanted to dedicate this episode to her. Yes, most definitely. Ariana has, you know, she's just been one of those people who have, who has touched my life. and really been an integral part of our Patreon patrons. And, you know, she went to Scotland and I made sure she was able to contact some of other Scottish patron patrons there before she went on that trip. And she recently took a trip to New Zealand. So I thought everything was, you know, copacetic and everything was great, but clearly it

wasn't. And what a sad, sad, sad day it is for us to have to announce this. So rest and peace, Ariana. Don't Bar. Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry. As we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager, your two hosts along this incredible journey are my fellow Voyager actor, Garrett Wong, who in 1994 played Raymond Hahn

on All-American Girl. And myself, your favorite helmsman, Robert Duncan McNeil, Robbie D, R.D.M. McDunckstein. You remember, you can get the full version of this entire podcast, all the bonus material, lots of extra fun goodies. If you sign up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. So, so Raymond Hahn.

Before we go to Raymond Hahn, let's just talk about this. Who has called you McDunkstein? Is there actually someone in your life that refers you as McDunkstein? No, but people do that. Yeah. They make up, they make up because I have a really long name. You do, but- Professional name, and people are always like making up, McDunk, I've gotten that a lot.

I don't know. I think McNeil is really easy to say, and Robbie is really easy to say. Pick one of the two. You know who says Robbie D all the time. Do you know? No. Ethan Phillips. He has called me Robbie D.

And I call him Johnny P. What does he call me? Garrett W. No. What does he call you? I call him Neely. Because I actually call him by his, like it an affectionate term for Neelix. Yeah.

Neely. I see Neely and he calls me Eni Kimi. E-N-N-Y-K-I-M-M-M-Y. He's like, and he'll give me, how's it going? So, and that's how he'll refer to me on text, too. Like, if he, he's texting me directly about, yeah. So it's like, we still have that Voyager connection. Like, we'll have a whole thing.

He was like, any kid me, come in, please. And then I'll text back like, you know, hey, can you help us change out a relay or something? Like, I'll talk as if we're our characters, basically, as a joke. Right. Right. So, he's very funny. He's got nicknames for everybody. And Ethan will also have mentioned this before.

he calls me Robbie D but he will text me randomly because I had a fan club I mentioned this before but I'm going to say it again I had a fan club called Random Flight during the show that I wanted to end

when the show was over because I thought that's you know now the show's off the air nice way to finish it but anyway random flight was the Tom Paris fan club and Ethan got so obsessed

with being a member of random flight he had all the things the club had He had the T-shirts, he had the buttons, he had a hat. And whenever I would see him at conventions, he knew I was going to be there. He would wear those items. He would wear the random flight button. He would wear the hat or the T-shirt.

So now he texts me with news about the club that he makes up, this international club. He's got to fly to like, you know, Madagascar because there's an emergency at the random flight club in Madagascar. Oh, he's so funny. And then he always, it's the same. joke he's always like and both the members were supposed to be there but nobody showed up so i was there by myself and uh yeah he's a hoot and holler he really is he really is we love him okay speaking of a hoot and holler all-american girl yeah yeah for tell me about that yeah yeah and also you saw me do it again look look how easy that it's delta the hand sign liars this is going to

literally be our greeting to each other when we see Delta Flyer, Patreon, Patreon, Patron, or anyone who listens to the podcast. Anyone who listens. Yes. Patreon, Patreon, not. It doesn't matter. You're a member of the Delta. And our cheerlead squad, our spirit squad is going to, you know, incorporate that into all kinds of Delta Flyers podcast.

Delta Flyer Spirit Squad. Right? Right. We need it. We need it. Men and women. We have to have both. Absolutely.

Or all genders, any gender. Everybody's welcome. Right. But it's all about the spirit. Yes. Yes, the spirit of it all. Raymond Hahn, that's basically, that's the guest star role on the first episode of All-American Girl.

Oh, wow. Yes, I was cast in the pilot episode as a co-star role as handsome Korean man number three. We talked about that before. Right. Now, when they went ahead and got the full, when they got the order for the first season, they then said, okay, it's time to produce and, you know, we've got to film the first episode. And so they called me and said,

would you like to be, they gave me, I didn't have to audition for it. They said, would you like to be the guest star in the first episode? I said, well, what are you going to do about my handsome Korean man number three

co-star role in the pilot? I'm the same person. People are going to say like that, you can't have that's not even the same guy, but he's playing two different characters. And they said, no problem. We're going to recast handsome Korean man number three.

Oh, and so I called up my buddy, Tim, Tim Linobos, and he, oh, Tim Linobos was on an episode of TNG, actually. He got started out. Oh, cool. Yeah, my friend Tim. So I called my friend Tim up, who's half, half Korean, half Caucasian. And I said, hey, there's a role that I vacated, basically, because I have to do another role for the same show.

But I'm going to recommend that they call up your agent. So they did, and he got the role. So he did. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So I helped my friend out. So that was pretty cool. So they recast my role from the pilot, and then I did this role of Dr. Raymond Hahn.

And what was so cool about this, I played an anesthesiologist that was basically Margaret Cho's boyfriend, right? So he's the perfect Korean boyfriend. He's a doctor. He's this, the parents approve. But because he's so perfect, Margaret tries to make herself the perfect Korean-American girl. And that's just not her. She's more of a maverick, and she can't fit into that mold. and she had to break up with me at the end of the episode.

But it was me in every scene practically. And what was so cool was when I was pre-med, my decision back in the 80s was that I was going to go to med school and then I was going to specialize as an anesthesiologist. So this role was written exactly of what I was going to do in real life. And I invited my mother and father, who, you know, you've met on numerous occasions,

I invited them down to the taping of this sitcom. Because they have an audience. Yeah. At an audience, and it was at Disney. It was a Disney show, and so we were at Disney, their lot, and my parents were there, and oh, my gosh, it was it, was it, was it Warner Brothers? Oh, my God, my memory is like bathing right now. I think it was Warner Brothers, yes.

So regardless, my parents are there. They're watching. And before we even start the first scene, they've got, there's hair and makeup just kind of fritz, you know, fussing with me on set. And I'm looking up at that, and I see them right there. and I just and I say out loud very loudly so the back of the state back of the house could hear I said look mom dad I'm a doctor finally I know it's on TV but I am a doctor so you know the the hopes and prides of Asian parents all around were we're somewhat satisfied it's not the real deal but yeah yeah so that was cute very funny I'm sure they were proud on lots of levels yeah you were playing a doctor and You know, performing a big show. That was a big deal of that show back then.

It was a huge deal. And also, while we were in rehearsed, because typically for sitcoms, you rehearse Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then you tape on Friday to a couple of different audiences, right? So on Wednesday was the day that I got the page from my agent. And this was the call that I went to Clyde Kosatsu, who plays the father on All American Girl. And I asked, can I use your phone in your trailer? Because I didn't have, I don't think we even had, do we even have cell phones? No, we didn't. They were big bricks at that point.

Yeah, they still were bricks. Yeah, so I said, can I borrow your phone in your trailer? He's like, yeah, I guess it's my agent. I think he's going to tell me what happened with Star Trek. And so he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. So I called up and that's when my agent, Jim Hess, told me that I booked Voyager. So this was the role that I was doing. Yeah, during Wednesday or Thursday of our rehearsals that I found out.

What a week. Yeah. What a week. And then I had to rush after after. Yeah, he said, as soon as you're done with rehearsal, haul your ass over the hill to Paramount to go to a wardrobe, you have to go to a fitting immediately. And that's when I rushed in and into the blue lot and almost killed Harrison Ford.

That story that I told you at the beginning. So it all started from working on American girl. Yeah, very tight into Star Trek. That's crazy. Yeah. So, you know, and this was huge because at the time, there were no sitcoms revolving around an Asian. character, you know, in Hollywood.

It just wasn't happening. And Margaret Cho really, she cut her teeth in the stand-up comedy world. That's where she made her waves. And so she was a stand-up comic who then got a deal to do her own TV show. And unfortunately, it only lasted one season. It's kind of sad. Her mother was played by Jody Long. Her brother was played by, oh, God, B.D. Wong.

B.D. Wong. I almost forgot B. Wong's name. Yeah. So it was a hefty cast. Clyde Kossatsu was a father. I think Clyde Kossatsu was the son. sag president or something like that at one point. Do you do something like that?

Sounds right. That sounds right. Yeah. So Clyde's been in a ton of things. So great, great cast and the fact that I was in the first episode as her boyfriend was. It's a big deal. Big because it gave me a lot of, I don't know. A lot of confidence. Confidence, yes.

Most definitely. I'm sure. Yeah. Cool. All right. All right. Well, let's talk about author, author. We're going to watch that today.

It's nearing the end of our series. I can't believe it. Wow. We can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We're moving along. This is incredible. Let's go watch Author, Author. And for all our Patreon, patrons, stick around for all of that exciting bonus material.

And we will see you in a minute. Okay, Brabby and I are back from watching, Author, Author, and guess what? We have a very special guest. We talked about calling Bob Picardo to come in for this recap and discussion. And guess what? Robert Picardo is here. Congratulations. for being on our podcast. Thank you so much, Bob.

Thank you. I, and I point out that I am both author and author in author, author, author, you are. You are. You're both titled characters. You really are. Oh, my goodness. All right. Do you guys, we have to talk about how this episode came to be, but I won't, I'll wait until you ask me, all right? Sure. We'll get to that. Okay. So right in the beginning, Bob, we start off, Robbie and I start off with our poetry synopsis. So we synopsize this episode ourselves. I will do the haiku. Yes, we do. Which, if you recall, Bob, it's five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. And then Robbie will come up with a limerick afterwards.

So this, yes, here is my haiku for author, author. Doc tries out writing published without permission. Voie E.T's phone home. Do you catch that last one? So it's voice and Voyager. And then I said E.T's apostrophe. So we are. the extraterrestrials in the Delta Quadrant.

So therefore, the Vo-E-T's phone home is what I got. There you go. All right, Robbie. All right, here's a limerick. Here's a limerick for author or author. Yeah. It goes a little something like this. The doc writes the hollow novel, Photons Be Free.

With the story, some of our crew disagree. The doc tries a rewrite and gets into a legal fight. The subject of holographic rights is certainly quite. white whey tea way tea that's really bad that goes beyond bad i know i know that you've achieved a level of that person has far too many syllables per line the rhymes are tortured it's about the worst limerick i've ever heard do you know what do you know about limericks bob i've spent my life writing most of my limericks are dirty uh from when i was 12 13 14 years old and i and they cannot and they cannot be said on. I can do another poem I wrote at the same age, which I wrote for the

middle school magazine that got in the magazine. It's not technically a lyric. It has a slightly, it's a tiny bit longer. It's called, I don't remember what the title. This is your middle school in Pennsylvania, correct? This is a Penn Charter School, the one that's depicted if you've ever seen the Goldbergs or their spin-off series schooled. That is my school. Because I don't Goldberg went to my school and then wrote made two TV series about my school. Wow. Thank you for sharing that. I did not know that.

The Goldberg is based on your school that you actually went to. It is. And when I guest starred on school to the spinoff series, it was because he was dramatizing or he was, he was recalling a moment when he was 14 years old and I came back to visit their school when Voyager was on the air. And they made the whole episode about, oh, you know, Penn Sharter, William Penn graduate Robert Picardo, who's on Star Trek now, is coming back to talk to the acting students.

That is awesome. So I came back and played myself talking to his class. Anyway, here's the limit. All right. Let's hear the limerick. I'm going to hear. This was, I think I was 13 when I read this. Here we go.

On the day he was meant to be married, Marvin the earthworm looked harried. He had promised Leroux, he would always be true, and had told Kathleen he would make her his queen. In short, he knew not what to do. But his problem was solved by one quite uninvolved, for the gardener then shopped him in two. Very good. Wow, that really is. That's an extended limerick there. It's a beautiful.

It's a whole story. It's a sad story. Yeah. It's a sad story, but it's not that sad because now he goes ahead and he marries two different women, which is, you know, a subject of fantasies for certain kinds of earthworms. Worms, yes. You know. Yeah. Thank you for that middle school.

Yes, far better than mine. Thank you for the middle school poetry, a little art to class up this podcast. Thank you, Bob. Thank you. Let's talk about the teleplay. Yes. So author, author is a teleplay is by Phyllis Strong. Mike Sussman wrote the teleplay, beautifully written.

And Brandon Braga came up with this story. So this was a story by Brandon, who was not really heavy on our show in season seven. He was off flipping it. How the story happened to come about? How did it? Yes. How did it happen? You guys have already discussed the episode,

flesh and blood, the two-parter. Correct. Right? With the renegade holograms. Okay, a good, good friend of mine, Jeff Yeager was cast as the guest star in the head of the, of those rogue holograms. The Bajoran. He was a Bajoran.

He was a Bajoran hologram, and he was a big fighter, freedom fighter for hologram rights. Yes. Okay, so when Jeff guest stars on the show, and I was surprised and delighted to hear that my old friend was going to guest star on the show, and he said, tell me a little bit about holograms on Star Trek, what they can and can't do. And I was telling him this and that, and we don't have to eat, and you can turn us on and off, and we can handle real objects somehow and all these things. And he says, wow, you should write a book about this. And I went, ding, there's an idea. Meanwhile, Jeff had just gotten engaged to an actress friend of mine from China Beach for Megan Gallagher.

So he said, you write a book and I'll do the art for it. And I said, great. And I'll split the money with you. And it went toward paying for their wedding. So I wrote a book called The Holograms Handbook. And Jeff did the cartoons. And the Holograms Handbook is basically, it's a how-to book. If you are the smartest guy in the room and you work with all these inferior organic people,

it's basically how to get along with people that are stupider than you. That's the ongoing. The common premise of the whole thing. The premise, exactly. And it turned out pretty funny. Anyway, so I told Bran and Braga, I made the mistake of telling Brandon Braga that I was writing a book for Simon & Schuster called The Holograms Handbook. And of course, he went, ding, and completely ripped me off in a very good way.

And then pitched the idea of the doctor, because he was so amused with the idea of the doctor writing a book because I told him I was writing the book in character as the doctor yeah the holograms handbook by the emergency medical hologram of the federation starship voyager so he took my idea and frankly made much more money than I ever did from the book um ripping me off and making uh making a story idea out of it so kudos to him I remember when you wrote that book I remember that yeah you put a lot of time and energy into writing that book I didn't know Jeff was connected to it, but that's amazing. Jeff did the cartoon.

Jeff is an amazing artist in many, many areas, primarily a sculptor more than a cartoonist, but he can do anything. And it was a lot of fun. And as I said, with half the guarantee on the book, it helped pay for his wedding. So it's a sweet memory, aside from this, you know, this carping about Brandon taking the idea

and turning it into an episode. It was a very sweet memory. And I believe Flesh and Blood was season six, right? or was it early season seven? I don't even remember. I think it was, if it's not six, it's definitely early seven,

that's for sure. So he had heard about it and came up with the idea when they were still pitching stories for season seven. And I think that author, author, we shot author author,

before my book ever came out. Okay. Wow. Wow. So I have a question. So Simon and Schuster, they were the publishers, actually,

for your book. Is that right? Yeah, They owned, or they had the, whatever it is, the Star Trek franchise agreement. And they had different levels of books. They were the sort of cheap. They were called sell-through paperbacks that are on cheaper paper and all that that looks like recycled paper. But we got the high-end, more expensive kind of white paper, which costs much more to produce.

And therefore, we never made a penny beyond our guarantee. Because your paper stock was so expensive. Because our paper stock was so expensive. They kind of warned us that it was better to go with the cheap version. But I like that we made a very handsome volume and that your listeners right now, you can't even find a copy of the holograms handbook because it's out of print so long. And they're so highly prized that I challenge you to find one on the internet for less than $50. All right.

Well, that's kind of like the Hologre, the Holog deck novel that you wrote in this episode. It's, you can't find it. Spoilers with the plot, but it's, it was there briefly and it's gone. It was there briefly and then taken off the market, exactly. Well, Robbie, we were, we were wrong because we both guessed that Brian Fuller was the writer behind this one, this episode. So we were incorrect in that guess. It felt like a Brian Fuller story to me. Do you remember your director guess?

Because I'll refresh your memory. Oh, for that. Was this a David Livingston? You are correct. That's right. It is David. Although, it's always good to guess. Yes.

And the guess was perfect. The guess was perfect. He did so many. He did. He did actually 28 episodes of Voyager, believe it or not. And this was his very final Voyager episode that he directed. Robbie guessed it. Was it really?

Robbie guessed. Yes, it was. Robbie guest Mike Vahar for this one. And I guessed Anson Williams. I was like, let me go with the Dark Horse Dick. Anson Williams would have been great. Anson only directed, I think, one show and that was real life. I think that's the only

one. Is that the only one? I thought he did. I think he directed two. I think in our podcast we've discovered he directed two. But not many. Well, the one that was, real life obviously featured my character. So I remember that very well. Perhaps when he

directed again, I didn't have anything to do in it. So I don't, I don't recall. Yeah. David Livingston and I got along great. I mean, David is a sweet, sweet, lovable man. He is perhaps you know he's a little indecisive sometimes right we all we all remember you know doing a take for David he would go great great great that was great that was great let's do it again great great that was great let's do it again great should we do anything different no no no no no no no no no no just

do it again yeah and that would happen 14 15 16 times however many times he needed guest stars our guest stars in this episode Richard Hurd as Admiral Paris yes what a wonderful man oh my goodness great guy and and I I saw him in the intervening years, over the years after we went off the air, I would see Richard all the time at conventions, sweet man. His wife was an actress who I'd work with in a play years ago. Here's some really odd Voyager trivia. Our beloved Ethan Phillips wrote a play, and when they did a reading of this particular play, I played the title character, and I acted with Richard Hurd's wife. Oh, my gosh. There's a little...

There's like a six degrees of separation void of the story. Richard, wonderful man, and we lost him only just not so many years ago. Last few years. Yeah. Yeah. I think by 2020, very recently. Yeah. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer?

Oh, my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes. You know what doesn't belong in everyone's epic summer plans, though? What? Getting burned by your old wireless building.

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And also, of course, Barry Gordon. Yeah, I'll go to Barry in a second, Bob. But I want to say, before we go to that, do you know Richard Hurd's very first credit, Bob? Wow. I don't. This is insane. But Richard Hurts's very first credit, very first one is the 1970 movie, Hercules in New York, which starred in Arnold Schwarzenegger, who debuted his acting career in the,

this movie in this 1970 film. Oh, my gosh. Wow. And that was Richard Hurd's very first credit. Wow. And that was before Schwarzenegger did stay hungry with Jeff Bridges. Yes. Yes. This is his very first, this is his acting debut. Hercules in New York. Hercules in New York. And who did Richard Hurd heard play relative to Hercules in New York? Richard was Hercules and Arnold Schwarzenegger played New York. Yeah, played New York. I know. We also have Barry Gordon is another guest star who played Arden Broat, his very first credit. I'm going to tell you this. And then, Bob, you can talk about your... I know his first credit. Oh, do you? Okay, go. What is it? A thousand clowns. He was the kid and a thousand clowns with Jason Robarts. Is that right? Is that what you've got? No, I have a 1956 episode of the Danny Thomas show. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. Okay. That may have been his first

credit as an actor. I beg your pardon. Yeah. But his starring role as a child was in a thousand clowns. Yes, with Jason Robarts. And it was just... He was the kid? He's the kid. I think he did it both on Broadway and in the feature film, which they shot when he was still young enough to do it. It was the second. I mean, it's basically a two-hander. Yeah. And that's young Barry Gordon. It's a great movie. Highly recommended. Wow. That's awesome. We also have Joseph Campanella, who unfortunately passed away May 16th, 2018. So we lost him fairly recently.

He played the Federation Arbitrator. If you remember, he was the guy that was in the, yes. And one of those faces that you've seen over and over again, for sure. Very first credit, 1952, an episode of a TV series named Suspense. Suspense in the 50s. I bet he played with a name like Campernel. He probably had to play a lot of sort of mafia dons, too, in the, in the 50, you know, probably gangsters.

It's funny, but looking at his career, most of his stuff has been doctors, uh, has been, I can see a doctor, lawyers, you know, just, you know, but not mobsters of all, of all, it's strange, yeah. Glad, glad to hear that. Yeah. He had that beautiful head of silver hair. Oh, my gosh. Just those gorgeous locks that he had. A lot of authority, definitely had a lot of authority. big time. We also have Lorraine Vosoff, the actress that played Irene Hanson, which is Anika Hanson's auntie. A very, very first episode was, very first credit, is a 1975 episode of Kojak, the series with Telly Savalas as the... A lot of people got their start with... On Cojave. I was... That was my first sag job, was Cojack. Seriously. Was it really?

1975. A two-part episode called Cojacks Days. And it was also, I shot it in December of 76. Oh, my God. Most of Cojac was shot in, in California, but Telly moved the show to New York for at least two seasons. So that was my very first sag job. He moved it? Telly made them move the show? He made them move the show. He wanted to shoot in New York to have a more authentic look instead of faking L.A. for New York,

which always looked stupid. Right. And I shot it in Little Italy. I walked to work because I lived on Sullivan and Prince Street. Oh, wow. to shoot. I shot about eight blocks from my house. I played an angry kid who was getting himself mixed up with bad people. And my dad played by the wonderful actor, Sully Boyer, who's in Dog Day Afternoon, playing the bank, you know, he's the manager of the bank who has a heart attack

when they take him hostage. Yeah. Sully Boyer plays an owner of a restaurant. And my dad owns the, my dad played by Sully Boyer, realizes his son is getting mixed up with bad people, so he tries to get CoJack to straighten me out. And I played, you know, a bad kid who had to yell at Cojack a lot. So that was my first job. That was your first job, too. Yep. Amazing. I remember during when I was yelling in rehearsal at Telly, I got a little tiny glob of spit, flew out of my mouth and landed on his bald head. Oh, no. I was so embarrassed. I didn't know what the hell to do. I didn't know, do I pretend I didn't do that or do I apologize? Do I let it air dry? Do I buff it out? What do I do? Buff it out? You know? So, anyway, it just dried.

And he slapped me on the shoulder after rehearsal and went, it's good, kid. So that was it. So apparently I did a good job. That was my big, I had to yell at him. I had this whole monologue right. Oh, my God. Oh, very funny.

Okay, moving on, we also have Juan Garcia, who played John Torres, a 1989 feature film, The Banker, was Juan Garcia's very first credit. We also have the venerable Asian American actor Robert Eto, my goodness, who plays my father, John Kim. A 1965 episode of I Spy was Robert E. Toe's very first role. But we all know him from, he did 146 episodes, I think, of Quincy M.E. Medical Examiner, which is unbelievable. To have an Asian American as a series regular back in the 70s is a big deal, I think.

So, I ring Sue, who plays my mom, who plays Mary Kim, 1963 feature film, Take Her, She's Mine, is the name of the movie. that she was in. Irene Sue also went on to become my real estate agent, and I purchased my first house through Irene. Oh, how funny. Wow. Yeah. Now, that is, that beats my six degrees of separation of story.

Dwight Shultz, Barclay, 1981 TV movie Thin Ice. We have also a couple of co-stars, Brock Burnett, male ND, 1992 episode of the TV series Welcome Freshman. We also have Jennifer Hammond, a female ND, a 1991 episode of Superforce. We also have Heather Young, a sickbay, and D. This might have been the one that you were making out with, possibly, or the one that came in afterwards,

the next one coming in for another exam. 1994 episode of Soger of Fortune Inc. was the first courted for Heather Young. There you go. That's our co-stars and our guest. We got them all. Big cast. Let's dive right into this.

The first thing we see is the doctor in the holodeck. It's kind of empty in there. and he's inviting everyone into this story he's written. And he's wearing this smoking jacket, kind of, you know, Noel Coward-esque. I said a smoking jacket that would make Hugh Hefner proud. You went No Coward-esque. I went Hugh Hefner on that one.

Okay. Yes. Great kind of opening. You don't know what we're watching. And he's looking right at the camera, which is always, there was a number of times in this episode where we break the fourth wall. we looked right you know bob you looked right into the lens kate looked right into the lens

because we're in this hollow novel um and then there was there's a moment where uh we hear the emh stop the the hologram or the holodeck program and then the real doctor walks in and i didn't know bob do you remember how you did this was it motion control was there do you remember the vis effects because it was really elegantly done i don't i don't um I don't remember whether it was motion. It had to have been motion control because I do overlap myself behind. Well, it's not a split screen.

It's not a digital split, was it? I mean, in other words, for the sake of the audience, if you walk behind the other, then you have to shoot the foreground character first in front of a green screen, and then you shoot playing the other version, as long as you're going to overlap behind it.

Otherwise, it has to be like the Patty Duke show. It has to be a split screen, and you never impose. on the other side of the screen. So it must have been we did quite a bit of motion control photography in the episode that I got, that I shared story credit on called Lifeline. And I think we'd already done that. So the technology had been worked quite a bit that season or that may have even been

the end of the sixth season. So I'm quite sure that it must have been motion control. And that same day, of course, they shot, they did it with you, too, Robbie. You played two versions of yourself, too. So they must have shot all the motion can control stuff in the same day so they didn't have to rent all that expensive equipment more than one day. I love you. Don't forget the optical. It begins, first of all, it kind of, it kind of parallels the book of Genesis instead, you know, in the beginning. In the beginning, there was darkness. And in this, and then in our version, there's the flash of a single

photon or something. But the way they, the way they kind of digitally create my three dimensional image was, I thought, not only a great optical, but really quite advanced for, you know, for the late 90s, you know. And, and that really stands up. I thought I was, I was pleasantly surprised when I rewatch the show in advance of today's talk that that opening optical, I just thought was great. And also, it is fun. Because whenever we did a cold open that really was arresting and looked very different from our other shows, then I think that really does capture the audience's attention. I agree with you with the direct address to the camera.

Yeah, I thought it was great. The optical, the way it was sort of built up almost like Legos, stacking or the energy fields. And it was all one shot. David did a great job with this scene. It was all, I think, motion control. I agree with you. It was, we sort of wrapped around that buildup of the, of the holographic doctor in the smoking jacket, then pulled you to the, to the table.

Right. And then the second you walked behind. So it was a very complicated shot, but elegantly done, really beautifully. I agree. It was a, it was a great opening. Sadly, that smoking jacket, which they ended up giving me, I talked wardrobe and letting me keep that jacket. Oh, my gosh.

Because when I did, the series I did before Voyager, China Beach, we, we did an episode it was a military drama. We were set in Vietnam at this in-country R&R base, and even though my character was a doctor, I was pressed into one episode, I'm pressed into playing Henry Higgins and My Fair Lady. So they made a smoking jacket for me.

So I explained to the Voyager, I said, hey, the last series, they let me have my smoking jacket. So they gave me the smoking jacket. Sadly, I still fit in the one from China Beach and the one from Voyager I got too chubby because it was super tight. It was very, very tight. It looked very tailored, yes. Yes, very tailored.

So a blackman love to, you know, trim things up as skin tight. I remember that. And that's the only piece of wardrobe. I think that was it, other than a pair of boots. That's the only wardrobe I ever got the smoking jacket. I never got a uniform or anything. A uniform or anything? Like that.

Yeah. But I still have that smoking jacket somewhere. I don't know where. Well, Bob, if you had sweet talk to the wardrobe department like Robbie, you'd have one of your uniforms. Well, I know, but yeah, sweet Robbie is, you know, I mean, he might write up really crappy limerick, but his sweet talk is very poetic. His charm is in abundance.

It's not poetry. It's another, yes. It's pros or prosaic, we might say. But still charming to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the more low bro. So we have an exterior space shot with Voyager at Impulse and we have a captain's log, star date 54732.3. It's been three weeks since we've received Starfleet's and in the last data stream, and we're finally ready to begin Operation Watson. We're all holding our breath.

We then cut into astrometrics where Seven and Harry are hard at work. Janeway and Chocote arrive, and Harry detects a phased tachian beam with a tri-axilating signal encoded in it. We see that Barclay and Admiral Paris kind of appear on the view screen. Janeway congratulates Barclay on establishing the first transgalactic com link. Barclay says that he can't take all the credit. It was actually Harry and Seven that suggested bouncing this tackion beam off of a quantum singularity. Now, Paris, Admiral Paris, informs us that the singularity only stays in

alignment for 11 minutes a day. So calm time is very limited. And Barclay has a gift for us, a live image from McKinley Station of Planet Earth. So a really nice opening scene here, you know, the gang. And it's really important that this is our first live conversation. We've had these messages we've shot back and forth. But this is a live connection. That's great. And if you remember this the episode message in a bottle which also guest star Dwight the wonderful Dwight Schultz it basically established this first thing that that was one of the first ones where we could send messages to the alpha and that's how we emailed the doctor's program effectively you know was along this same you know the same transmission route that Barclay was

developing so I think it's great that they took that thread our show as we all know had discrete episodes, we tended not to do very long story arcs. But they did keep that thread of how to, of this developing technology to send a message and ultimately to have a live voice and actually a voice and picture, you know, like a Skype call. This is the first one where we had Skype calls with the Alpha Quadrant. Yes. I wondered in this scene when they showed Earth. At first I was very like, oh, it's so emotional.

You see Janeway in a close-up here. But then I thought, well, does Tuvok or seven or any, like, does everyone get, is it as meaningful to them? Because he's from Vulcan. He's not from Earth. Like, that's not going to mean, it's only going to mean something to the humans that. So Janeway and Harry in this, in this scene, right? In that scene, yeah, seven. Except that isn't it possible that Tuvok, as a young cadet studied at Starfleet Academy in San Francisco?

Oh, yes. That's true. Definitely. So in other words, I think that, but really that very same theme you're dealing with applied to seven virtual because she sort of had, you know, her parents were assimilated. And then that sweet moment where she realized where she talks to an aunt that she barely remembers. And that had a nice emotional payoff too. I know we're, I don't mean to give away the future of the show. Yeah. Spoilers. Spoilers. Bob. Spoilers. Okay. So we're now in Mess Hall. And Neelix comes in. He's got his, he's got a, he's got a, he's got a. his hat upside down and he has 146 sequentially numbered isolinear chips.

Now, before I go on, Robbie, we have different numbers of how many crew are on this ship. Like, different episodes say different numbers because another episode we were listening, we had 130 something. And now in this episode, we got 146 crew members. So it kind of, we have somehow changing numbers. I don't know if you recall this, but the number of people on our ship changed constantly whenever it came up. And the thing that bugs me is, in the very first episode, we were told that we only had like

six photon torpedoes left, and we had to really be careful not to use torpedoes. And then we proceed to use photon torpedoes almost every episode for the rest of the series. Well, see, Robbie, here's what you didn't know. You were able to take an organic crew member and turn them into a photon torpedo. That's why those 12 extra crew members we used to have were all turned into photon torpedoes. It's just a theory, but I think if you explore this. I love that theory. I think it's a great theory. All right, getting back to the scene in Mess Hall, everyone is talking about who they will be calling. Harry draws number 130. Tom draws six. The dock draws number one. Harry tries

to trade with a dock, but no go. So Tom graciously gives his isolinear chip to Harry. It was so nice of you. Paris is awesome. Paris is really good. Now, when you're scripted to do something nice, Robbie. My God. All right. So we're now in Astrobatrix. And now we see a Bolian on the view screen.

We later realize this is the publisher, at least one half of the publishing team. And he is gushing over the doctor's work. Absolutely loves it. He wants to distribute, start distribution by the end of the month. And doctor says it's just a working draft and that he needs time to make revision. he asked the publisher who his favorite character is.

The publisher starts to say, of course, it's lieutenant, but it's cut off. It's got to be Paris. Yeah, that's what Robbie thinks it's Paris. The doctor's time is up, but he protests to Seven who quips, and I love this. Seven, never ever has these little quips. Well, she does have quippy lines, but not usually towards the doctor. And Seven says, I believe your ego has received enough stroking for one day. Oh, my goodness.

She got a little mouthy with the doctor later on. She did. Yeah. No, but it was always. It was affectionate and it was always with a slight borg twinkle. But yes, I think that she did recognize that the doctor enjoyed the ego stroking. Yes. Bobby, Bobby P., if you were going to finish that sentence that got cut off from your publisher,

when he says, my favorite is Lieutenant, who do you think that person was? Well, it would be. Torres or Paris? It would be Lieutenant Marseille, of course. It would have to be Marseille. Excuse me, Marseille. Yes. Because Marseille was kind of a slight.

And I think that it's more of a, it's more of a comment on, on the publisher, the, the, the Bolian publisher, maybe not getting as much nooky as he hoped. Okay. I see. It's my guess. This is great insight. This is really great insight. This is really is.

We do, we do go to sick bay where the doctor enters and he is whistling as he comes in. He's bragging about his meeting with Broughton Forrester. Tom asked if he could talk to the publishers. about Captain Proton may be being published. The doctor says, all right, I'll talk to them. Tom does ask if he can see the doctor's work. Dr. does, eh, it's not really finished, but he says, come on, you need some other eyes to look at this.

So the doctor agrees. Tom finds out the title of this program is Photons Be Free. That's the hollow novel. I have a question. Who did the whistling? Was that my whistling? I don't even know whether I had to be lute. I was a much better whistler back then than I am now.

But I'm, I was, I don't know if I'm doing my own whistling. I can't tell you. Oh, that's interesting. It's interesting. I assume. We thought it was you. You were whistling. It might have been me.

Right now, I could not whistle along last night with the same, you know, whistleability, with the same successful, yeah. Interesting. So it could just be that I don't whistle, you know, I don't know. I mean, there are some famous whistlers in show business history. Yes. In Crosby, great whistler. you know, but I don't know that at that age in my mid-40s,

whether I was that good a whistler or whether we had to bring in a whistle ringer. I can't remember. I don't know. I would bet money it was you, Bob. If someone asked me, is Bob Picardo a great whistler? I'd say, absolutely. Really? You seem like a whistler.

I think of myself as a great cook, a great wit, a great lover. Whistler, I don't know. Okay. We go, now we're in Hollywood. And Tom is running the program. He's running photons be free. And he pauses the acknowledgement section and skips to the first chapter because he finds out it's nine minutes long. And now guess where we're at? We're in the sick bay scene from the pilot episode. By the way, I want to say when I'm listening to the introduction in the holodeck and I stop, it's the best lighting I ever had in seven years. I had gorgeous. I had backlighting from like the 1940s glamour. I don't know. know why Marvin Rush liked me that week, but he lit me beautiful. No, because it was a, it's a pulpy novel. He gave it that romantic novel look.

Oh, yes. No, you did. You looked very, very handsome, Robbie. In fact, I noticed that myself. I noticed that. And even, even my wife said something like, my, what a handsome man, he used to be. Something like that. She said, no, she said something very complimentary.

I'm sure it was the light it was all the lighting what nice lighting they gave your castmate Robbie so chapter one starts exactly where our basically our show starts which is the activation of the doctor in sick bay after the huge accident where everyone is dying and what's really interesting is that they cast someone else to activate the doctor and I'm like wait a minute because that was Harry's thing like Harry was the one that was supposed to And the funny thing is the actor that they cast to be in that scene that's not me sounds like me. So I thought, why would they even do that? I didn't understand why. But that was a little bit confusing. You're absolutely right. Because you're the one who activates the doctor for the first time.

The doctor for the first time. And so I knew it was a different actor, but I, but I forgot in that moment. Right. And they also, of course, they didn't do any of the dialogue. I mean, you know, You don't say, yeah, you don't say medical tricorder or any of that. But they do, they did create, obviously you get activated roughly at the same place in sick bay. Correct. And it is strange that they didn't use you. Maybe Garrett, you just didn't want to, you know, you didn't want to work that day. Well, I didn't have that kind of power.

That's for sure. We know that. But we also in this scene, we see a very different look in Chakotay walk in. He has long hair in a ponytail. He's a Bajoran. A Bajoran, I mean, he's a Bajoran, exactly. He has tribal, like an earring, a very long chain. And, of course, the tattoo is completely different.

It is in full color, not monochrome. And there's a snake design going on with either a shield or, I don't know, I paused it, trying to make it out. Couldn't figure it out. But I'll tell you, the makeup department must have had a blast putting on that design on his face, for sure. But he's holding an injured crew member that we cannot quite make out. Then we do realize there's a reveal.

It's Lieutenant Marseille. The doctor moves on from Marseille because he is very low priority. He only has a minor, minor, minor, minor injury. And Chocote says he needs Marseille to be on the bridge. So he needs to be treated now. Chacote speaks very rudely to the doctor. Janeway comes into sick bay, ask what the problem is, and also speaks very rudely to the doctor

and solves the issue of treatment priority by killing the more severely injured crew member, a.k.a. Pablo. That was Pablo that was actually shot with the phaser. If we both would recognize Pablo Soriano, one of our regular background and also stand-ins. Yeah. So any words on this scene, guys? Well, here's my only thought is that obviously the doctor thinks a lot of Lieutenant Marseille, that he needs to program in how important Lieutenant Marseille is to our ship. it's worthy of the captain killing another crew member to save Lieutenant Marseille. So I just thought that was appropriate respect for the inspiration, Tom Paris, for that character.

Do you have any comments there, Bob? Well, I hear what you're saying, Robbie, and it does seem counterintuitive since the doctor always considered you the most worthless medical assistant in sickbay he could possibly have. have. So I don't think that the doctor was, you know, was accustomed to assigning you critical value in the Voyager crew. Having said that, you know, you were a much better pilot, of course, than you were a medical assistant. So I guess it's possible. But, you know, maybe it might be that the doctor secretly regarded you as a more valuable member of the crew than I think as an actor recall. So, you know, I kept my feelings about you very separate from the doctor's feeling.

And by the way, the real Tom Paris is still working as a nurse in the sickbay because he's doing it in this scene. So seven years later, he still has not improved. He's not improving. He's not in life. No, he's still a nurse. All right. We jump to the mess hall and we have Bolana, Harry, and Neelix very intensely and intently listening to the story that Tom is telling about the hollow captain Jenkins killing hollow Pablo. That actually, I like that, Holo Pablo.

And it's shocking to everybody. They discuss whether they should report this to the captain. Bologna accuses Tom of hollow novel, author, jealousy. Tom tells everyone to just run the program yourselves and see what it's all about. So that's a good scene. Yeah, I love it too, but you go on, Rob. I was just going to say,

we never have these scenes where a handful of us are just hanging around talking like friends do. We're always talking mission in the briefing room or something. This was such a nice little friends type scene. I loved it. Buddy scene. It was great. It was great.

And what were you going to say? Roxanne has the most delicious, bemused smile listening to you complain. It's quite, she's really, it's delightful. She almost wants to burst out laughing in your face that you are so upset. It's adorable. So I remember her very well. Her expression is just delightful. Agreed.

All right. Now we're in sick bay. Chapter 5, out of the frying pan, in which our protagonist must confront abusive colleagues. So Torres is now playing the doctor. And let's just start calling her, referred to her as Tor doc, just to make it easier. Tors is now playing the doctor now as a female crew member enters sick bay and says that she's come for her physical.

And right after she comes in, Lieutenant Marseille arrived. and I love Balana's look on her face where she starts to smile and then pulls it back, she's trying to play the program. And Marseille tells the doctor or Tor Doc that she needs to go to engineering and treat those that were injured by a ruptured plasma conduit. So as Tor Doc starts to leave, her leg starts to fritz as she starts to step into the corridor. So Marseille very rudely reminds the doctor to take the mobile emitter. Now we see the mobile emitter for the very first time. It is massive. Now, do you guys remember this? It's a backpack. It's a giant backpack. But let me, let me, if you look at it very clearly, that backpack was a backpack made by a designer

that somebody had decided that they were going to take the, um, the plastic shell of a motorcycle gas tank and form that into the backpack, right? So that was, I remember seeing that at a couple boutique stores in LA and Vegas. It was very popular. And they just took that design. They actually bought one of them, added the extra stuff for the straps to make it look more sci-fi, more Trek. And still, you know, a few more do-hickies. But basically, it is that backpack of part of a motorcycle shell, basically. It was a great prop. And I, again, want to just compliment myself on great heavy prop acting I, when I

lifted it up to put it on Roxanne struggling like as if this thing weighed 500 pounds and I know it didn't. Right. In fact, I was overacting so much in this scene. I feel like I deserve some sort of prize for it.

It was big acting. I did eye rolls. I did heavy prop acting. I think you should get the Dr. Fancy Pants award for for overacting in sickbay. Normally, it was my, it was awarded to me. But as a, I think, I would like to say that for this particular scene,

you deserve it, season 70. I feel like it was the mustache that did it. The mustache put me over the top. And you have that, it's kind of a pencily mustache. It's very, it is a little. It's very sleazy. I mean, it wasn't very, it's not a pencil thin, but it's a thin mustache. day, right? Yeah. Yeah. That was Braden's nickname for me, Dr. Fancy Pants. Oh, he's that what he called

you. I did not know that. He called me, he called me Dr. Fancy Pansu. That's funny. Oh, my lord. Okay. So now we're in, we're in engineering where Tora or Tordock has gone to help all these plasma conduit, you know, these people are supposedly have plasma burns. But they're, you know, she walks in and what do we see? We see Torres actually. Completely human though. It's Tori, Exactly. Excuse me. Tori is completely human. Yes, that's her hollow novel name.

Because it's so different than the real Bologna Torres. Well, I would say your imagination for this hollow novel, Bob, is just phenomenal. Well, again, this is the doctor. The doctor was programmed. I did not write the script. Okay. I'm only an actor. Right.

I had to deal with, you know, with whatever they gave me. Robbie, that's the kind of team player I am. You really, I know, you really are. Tori is completely human and completely sarcastic, even more sarcastic than real-life Torres. She also treats holodox like crap. She says that engineering is off-limits to holograms. Tori threatens to reprogram the doctor if they don't head back to sickbay immediately. So it's a great scene, though, between Torres and Thor doc.

Another split screen with, and all of these scenes. by the way, when, when Roxanne was acting with herself, you had to have a photo double. In fact, you had to have two photo doubles because when, you know, there was one photo double for the short-haired Tory look over that photo double. And then you had another photo double in the Balana Torres wig and all that. So it was a, it was a puzzle of a of an episode for David Livingston to shoot with all these, you know, actors playing themselves in two different roles in, in these scenes. he did a great job and by the way i think roxan she wore her a wig but it was very similar to her

real hair in real life you know the shorter haircut and she didn't have the ridges she didn't have to put on any makeup i bet she was thrilled i guess she was very happy but she had to go do you think she only went in and out of the torres makeup once that day right hopefully they shot it so she only had when she shot her side she never had to go back into that now She probably started as the human, like start as the human person, do that side and then turn it, go get makeup on while they shoot something else and then turn around and shoot it. And it was always delightful to see Roxanne's full, beautiful face on camera. Yes.

Because we're so used to seeing her in the makeup, which she looked, you know, very pretty in as well. But in those few episodes, I think there was this one. There was one that featured her called Blood Something. where she had to... Blood fever? I think she appeared in that one, in a dream or something. But, and maybe one other one,

where we got to see her whole face. So I always think that's a, you know, that's also a special moment when we get to see her outside of the makeup. Did you see one last thing about Roxanne in this scene? When she's, at the very end, when she says, why don't you go back to a sick bay

before I start doing a little reprogramming? And she like flips a tool. Yeah, she does like a cowboy spin up. Yeah, flips it and catches. I was like, that is cool. That should have been her bit all along. Yeah. She should have been flipping tools. The whole series. She's a drummer. She did a great job. Yeah. It was very cool, super cool. Yeah. All right. So after being rebuked by Tori, Tori, Tor Doordock does return to Sick Bay. But guess what? Sick Bay is extremely dark. There are no lights on. Once lights come on, we reveal a Marseille on the clamshell bed with the female crew member from earlier.

the one that was there for the physical. He's definitely giving some type of physical to her. And he, you know, he's caught and he jumps off of there and he threatens to purge the doctor's memory buffers. If he mentions any of this to his wife, I love this scene, by the way.

This was a very funny scene for me. A second female member pops in. More overacting, by the way. It was great overacting by Robert Duncan, Neil on the scene. You can only get the award once, the Doctor Fancy Pants Award once per episode. Robbie, so you don't have, there's no reason to campaign anymore, all right?

Well, if I was to award it, I would award it for this scene. That's what I'm going to say. Okay. Okay. All right. By the way, he's administering a treatment to her, which is, looks very, very painful and very unpleasant. Clearly. But, you know.

She looked miserable, by the way. She looked very unhappy about it. I will say that this scene, at the end of this scene, I thought, God, it feels like we're going back to, and I mean from the real writers of this episode. Yeah. They're going into these cliches that they actually wrote Tom Paris, the first couple of seasons, very much like this. And it really bothered me. It really bothered.

I hated that side of Tom Paris. And it's interesting in this episode, because when Tom programs the doctor to behave that way, it is super creepy and unpleasant. and the doctor is, is furious. He's so upset. But yet Tom Paris got written that way in real life for a couple of seasons. And it just made me think like, God, I hate. It's just, yeah. Do you, Rob, do you remember that scene on the Climb Shelf?

Like, do you remember shooting that scene at all? Like, were you guys? So were you guys actually canoodling? Or was it just kind of like you just got up? No. So there was no. No, I think my face was like down in her hair or something. I was actually canoodling.

We were there was no Yeah I just it was I didn't like that side of Tom Paris Yes okay But as an actor I didn't like that side of Tom Paris I really liked as the character evolved into someone Well I'm more clever and funny and Yeah and uh sincere with with balana and all that so

Well I'm sorry the scene triggered you but it made me laugh It did triggering a little bit okay so I apologize Yeah it was very humorous to me Okay, so now we're in Captain Jenkins' ready room. And I must say Captain Jenkins, because it's completely different, this ready room. Chapter 6, duel in the ready room in which our protagonist faces and Inquisition. We see all types of modern and antique weapons displayed. Just so many guns.

She has guns galore. This is like a slot meet. She just shot somebody in sick bay, so clearly she loves guns. She's into guns. And she points this antique flintlock, you know, handgun at. Neelix, who's actually Neil Dock at this point. Neelix is playing the doctor. And the captain is just not happy with what the doctor has done,

with the extra subroutines programmed into his program by himself, essentially. So she calls for Mr. Toilock, who Tuvac walks in, and it's not Vulcan Tuvok, as we know. It is now a human Tim Russ with a go-tee. And then Kimball, which is the character that I get to play. play is he's trill he has trill markings his hair is slick back and i oh god i remember when josie normand was slicking my hair back for this scene it was i don't know how many products products she ended up putting in there but it was like cement when she was done like it took it took i'm gonna i'm not joking it took probably one hour to get that out of my hair that's how

that's how that's how that was it was like an ice skating rink it looked you're just you're lucky you didn't live through the 1950s, Garrett, that's all like, because you would have looked like that gone to school every day. Is that what they put in their hair, all that homemade or whatever? My God. Grill cream or, yeah, whatever. So, yeah. So a little dabble, do you?

Yeah. So anyway, so Tolock and Kimball enter to take the doctor to the Holo Lab for reprogramming. Then we, do we have any, any points on this scene with the Janeway and the gun and the whole ready room, gentlemen? No. Okay. No. let's move it on i but i thought i do think it was interesting that they made the janeway character the doctor makes the janeway character like a you know like a gun slinger um yeah because that

that makes no sense i mean no at least at least the doctor would have been aware that tom paris had a checkered past right right and uh and he um but that that that version of janeway um that she's uh you know that she's trigger happy i don't know where the heck that came from. That's true. They did a great job, though. Her evil Jenkins, she was great. And her wig and they made her look hard.

I mean, I'm sure it's really her acting, but also I think the makeup on her was much less. You know, she just looked tougher and nasty. Yeah. But you also, it's interesting because the doctor basically programs every hollad character to have brown hair in this one. If you think about it, Janeway is a darker hair color. Chacote is that also, you know, everyone has, and even Paris, Marseille has a dark, it's dyed. Everything is very, very dark hair.

But seven of nine is strawberry blonde. Correct. That's the only one, though, right? Just seven. Everyone else is very, very, but again, seven is the apple of the doctor's eye. So therefore, it makes sense that she's more angelic looking or a different color. Okay. next scene turbillift interior chapter seven the escape uh this scene was just i don't i'm not sure what

what tuvok was playing or tulac was playing was like when he was saying are you ensign are you afraid you're going to risk get another disease like the way he said it i thought he was referring to like STD disease but i guess he was referring to the fact that himbo was more of just a hypochondri he's a germophoed he's a germophe yeah that's what i thought so you didn't get the other way then You just got that one then. Okay. I got that the doctor had programmed Kimball. Yeah.

The Harry Kim, Holodeck version. Kimball as a germaphobe, as a worry ward, as a nervous. Yeah. It was. Yeah. And I thought it was great. Again, another scene with Garrett, you playing both characters in the turbo lift and the same scene. Really well shot.

Yeah. Really nice, you know, distinguish the characters from each other. And you had the backpack on. Yeah. Well, I mean, and also. all of us when we were playing our Hala characters. We all played jerks to the doctor. So that's, that's one great way to delineating between our normal characters is the fact that we're all jerks in this one. So the turbo lift doors open and this is where we reveal seven for the first

time, Hollow seven, which is her, her name is three. Three of eight. And three of eight. And three says she'll escort the prisoner. And Toulock is confused. He's like, we were supposed to take the the prisoner. We'll stick with him. And they go out into the hallway and three uses her like some kind of wrist weapon. Yeah. Yeah. She has controls on her like a like a magic Dick Tracy.

Yeah. Yeah. She's got a Dick Tracy watch and she throws up a force field and then attacks Toulock and Kimball. Yeah. And basically let Harry as. the doctor character she has sympathy for the doctor so this is the first character that the doctor has programmed that has any sympathy and uh and allows kimball to escape and says run and we cut into the sick bay actually not kim doc right kimbill's not down the floor yeah kim doc escapes exactly

can see why my wife was confused oh yeah it's it's hard to track it is a little confusing it was It's hard for me to track. Wait. Kim, the doctor now. Yeah, knee doc and Torres Doc. You know what? Kudos, kudos the Livingston for even keeping this all together while filming this.

Good Lord. My goodness. So many things happening. But, you know, Kimball, excuse me, Kim Doc doesn't get very far. Another force field comes up. A couple of security guys grab Kim Doc and take him away. We cut inside the sick bay next. And we hear the doctor say chapter 8, a tragic end.

where our protagonist learns his fate. And now he cut inside, and Janeway is playing the doctor in this scene. And Jenkins, another scene with Kate playing two characters. Basically, Jenkins says, we're going to, we're going to decompile. Your matrix is going to be decompiled. They're basically going to kill the doctor in this scene. And Tori, Evil Torres is ready to do it. Jenkins says, do it.

And three of eight stops it. And she's got this short little speech where she says, you know, one day the EMH and all others like him will be recognized for what they really are intelligent individuals with a passion for life. Yes, that's the only one. No, no. And as she says decompose the program, again,

she's looking in the lens here. So there's a lot of these moments where the characters are looking in the lens because they're in the game. They're in the video game. And her image starts to dissolve away. and then we're back in the holodeck with the doctor as the narrator saying, wrapping it all up.

I hope you have a better understanding of the struggles that holograms go through. And Bob, you were looking right in the camera there. You know, another fourth wall break. And as you end the game there, we hear Janeway call the doctor, report to my ready room right now. She sounds mad at the end of this.

She just, she only sounds mad at the very end when she says the now part. She's just, she's pretty calm. She's like, Jane went to the doctor. Report to my ready room now. Like ready room now. Now was she landed on now so heavy. It was beautiful. Yeah.

Yeah. But then we have the, the next scene is in the briefing room, not a ready room. Correct. So what happened there, Bob? Was there another scene that got cut out with you and Janeway in her actual ready room that then moved into the briefing room? Um, not that I recall. I don't, I don't recall.

Um, I just think that, but it is interesting that, that she does call me to her ready room and then we're having a group meet. Yeah. Unless there is a scene, I mean, unless the audience is presumed to, unless the audience is supposed to presume that she first brings up that, um, that this is upset not only her, but several members of the crew and that we're all going to have a talk together, you know, But I don't recall there being a cut scene. Right.

But that makes perfect sense, though. That's logical, right? She dresses you down in her ready room and says, and by the way, here's some other people, your friends who are also offended or not happy with you. And then you make the move from ready room to the briefing room, which is really just a walk across the bridge. So it's quick. It's possible.

Yeah. Okay. Well, in the briefing room, basically the crew is confronting the doctor and saying, you know, this novel that you've written is. is nothing like us. You know, it's making us look horrible and it's not true. Yeah. And the doctor's defense is, well, of course it's not true.

It's all made up. And, you know, I write what I know. This is just, I'm basing it, starting from things that I know, but it's all, you know, imaginary characters, imaginary situations. And it brings them around to, you know, he says it's a metaphor. This is all just a metaphor because, The point of it is, these are the burdens that I live with every single day. You don't understand how hard it is to be a hologram.

And Janeway really has some insight in here where she kind of says, you know, it sounds like this was written by someone who feels oppressed. Is that how you see yourself? She's really trying to be empathetic and see his side of this. But he's not aware of that. in the scene he goes you know of course i don't feel oppressed the but but the real victims are back in the alpha quadrant my e m h brother so he does feel like there's a uh a righteous reason for writing this novel but it he doesn't see how it could reflect badly on any of the of his friends yeah and the

metaphor you're referring to is actually the metaphor talking about the mobile emitter being so heavy why was it so heavy and he's saying it's a metaphor it's the burden i must carry so just want to make that clear. But I want to ask you, Robbie, because I personally felt like we were too heavy-handed in our complaints to the doctor. I felt like we should have been calmer. Like, we were, I don't know why we were screaming and yelling. It just seemed to, I feel like if anyone's going to get emotional about it, it's more the doctor should have been more emotional about this than us. We should have been more matter of fact, like, you know, oh, so it is about Voyager then. But I was like, so it is about Voyager. Like, I was so yelly in this scene that I felt.

It was too much, personally. I don't know what your analysis of this was, Robbie, when you watched this. I don't know. I felt like I liked this scene. Bob, what were your thoughts on this? Bob, what were your thoughts about this? I, this was a little, as an actor, I thought that it's, the doctor, let's face it, was oblivious early on.

But given this point in my development and of a personality in my development of sensitivity, of sensitivity for patience and all that, I found it a bit of a reach for me that I am oblivious to the crew's complaints. You see what I mean? I thought that was a little tough to pull off. And I'm not saying that this is what I thought of back in the day,

but in watching it, I think my characters, how should I put this, his real excuse is, look guys this is it's not a finished product yet and some of these scenes and certainly the names are placeholders and I'm I intend to change it more but my basic point is that is that humans have humans are flawed in ways that we are not as as artificially created beings and what's and there's a certain lack of fairness in the fact that I'm treated, you know, that I am pigeonholed or prejudged in a way when you guys seem to accept all sorts of every manner of flaw in each other,

your organics. So that was the way, but I did feel, I did feel at the time I grown, my character is advanced beyond this level of obliviousness, at least with the people he cares about on the crew. So I thought that was a little, you know, I thought it was a little tough to have to pull that off. Yeah. It was tough. I can totally see that. It would have been tough to pull off the obliviousness here. But they were trying, I guess, to save it for when he really had the experience where Tom has rewritten his program. And the shoes are reversed. And he's, he experiences what they experience. So it did take a leap of faith to kind of go through this part of the story. And with your typical heavy handedness, Mr. Paris. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's how I get the award.

this episode. Well, you, no, but I mean, but it's no more heavy-handed than making Captain Janeway, you know, shooting an injured criminal. But it is, it is that shocking for the doctor when, you know. So, and we, I can't wait to talk about that scene because that's one of my, it was so, it was so much fun to do. Yes. But at the end of the scene in the briefing room, the doctor, you know, he just doesn't see

their point. It doesn't see their side yet. And he walks out, storms out. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, there's no compromise or anything. It's just the end of the scene. We jump over to astrometrics. And on the view screen are the parents of Harry Kim. John and Mary Kim are on screen. And Mary talks about how Harry's very popular with her eighth graders. It's all they ever talk about, Voyager this, Voyager that. And what's so funny is that Seven is sitting off to the side listening to this conversation I'm having with my parents, which should be private.

but we've got seven eavesdropping basically and uh you know mary kim harry's mom has some ideas that harry seems to be much more important than he really is on the ship as if he is in command all the time and so you know harry tries to set her up straight and then mary says that she needs to know how hard you work and i need to write her a letter and this is when harry flips out and starts saying please mom don't do this don't and it's it's just it just reminds me of when i was was a kid and my mom said, I'm going to come to school and talk to your principal. I was like, don't do it. It's the same thing. It's exactly. You know what? You know what this reminded me of in our podcast? I can't remember when exactly. But didn't your mom write a letter in real life

to Rick Berman or make a call or something or go? Didn't your mom in real life? I wondered if they took this, they wrote this. That's what Megan thinks. based on... Megan thinks that. Yeah. About when, yes, when that time when I was late to work for Bob's episode that he was directing,

and then I got sent up to the office, and then I told, I called my mom and told her what happened, and she flew down on her. Dude, she flew to L.A. without telling me. She was at the front gate. She was at the Gates of Paramount. L.Z. walked up to me and said,

that's what I was remembering. Yeah, he said, he said, Hey, Garrett. I go, yeah, what's up? Kelsey, yeah, there's a woman at the gates of Paramount claiming to be your mother. And I was like, what? She's here to see Rick Berman and Jerry Taylor.

I'm like, no. So, yeah. So this scene, I do feel, I think they wrote this in because of that. Oh, I think this was completely well. Well, I do remember watching it that Elizabeth said, he says Harry Kim has a tiger mom. Yes.

There you go. She has very high expectations for her sons. Oh, most definitely. Most definitely. But even if they didn't write this, Robbie, specifically for my own experience, it's definitely an experienced or it's a cliched sort of stereotype that Asian parents, and not even a stereotype, it's based in truth. Asian parents are very hardcore when it comes to their kids.

But she was very, but she was not at all, she's in no way. The actress playing your mother is in no way bossy. She's as sweet as can be. They didn't portray her as being. When I say, I use Tiger Mom in quotes because she's not at all fierce in her defense or her pushing you to be more successful. Correct. But I thought I, that scene, your reaction really made me smile, Garrett.

I thought that was a very funny scene, very funny scene because you're clearly embarrassed. And the same way all of us are when, when we've let our parents perhaps believe a little too that we're a little, you know, that we're a little more successful than we are or a little more prized in the workplace than we are. I thought that was a, I thought that was a great scene. I like it a lot. Yeah, it was fun. And also a great scene to set up Seven's experience. She needs to drive her to actually call her. Oh, right. Did you guys think that, did you guys think I played that too harshly at the end when she says, when Kim goes, you just don't get it, do you? And she's like, no. And I go, well, maybe if you had family you were close to, you'd feel a little

differently. And I walk out with such just, it just, but maybe that's, it needed to be there to set up the later scene. I think I had to have that little pressure there on her, right? A little bit of, oh, it was like you were embarrassed too. You were, you, you perhaps were a little testy because you've been publicly embarrassed in a way. Yes. She saw it. Yes. Okay. So it worked. It worked. Now, we do have a chief medical officer's personal log, which is rare. I mean, very rare to hear any personal logs other than Captain Janeway. And Bob says, or the doctor says, Although the decision has made me unpopular with the crew, I've decided not to compromise my work. I'm making some final revisions to the program before transmitting it.

Now, this is, this scene coming up is, again, back in the holodeck, the doctor walks in, trying to make his revisions. He's running the EMH program, Photons be free. But instead of seeing himself as the narrator, we see Paris narrator, who says, welcome, you've made an excellent choice. You've obviously, you're obviously a person with impeccable taste, and now the doctor freezes the program, and the computer says unable to comply. It is, it's constantly running. You're about to embark on this remarkable journey. Your job would be to assist the chief medical officer and learn to tolerate his overbearing

behavior and obnoxious bedside manner. Please, remember, patience is a virtue. And, oh my gosh. Again, Robbie and Bob, your thoughts of this, and the beginning before we see what. I don't do impersonations as a rule. It's just not a thing I'm good at, and I don't often do it. But I do feel like I did a little bit of a Picardo flair there at the very end. Remember, patience is a virtue.

I have a finger up. Yes. So, okay. Did you notice that, Bob? Yes, I did. And I would say simply that you're right. You don't do impressions well. But that was a, it was very cute.

No, I'm just teasing you, Robbie. I love this scene. My behavior is completely outrageous. It has one of the sickest lines ever to be in an 8 p.m. time slot on television, I think, when I refer to, you know, the three of eight big triplets or something like that. It is beyond sleazy. I love having a comb over. I thought that was genius.

How did you do the comb over? Do you recall? Oh, I mean, that was written in. I did not. Oh, that's part of it. I was not my suggestion, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've done that gag myself in, there's a Joe Dante movie where I have a little tiny hair priest.

I call it, it has a name that I can say on your podcast, because I'm sure you're PG-13. But there's an old thing when men had a little bit of hair, they would, it was like a streak of hair that was plastered down. So I have done the comb over gag before, but this time it was in the script. they found the hairpiece. I thought it was great. I thought it was very funny. And I love my space age golf putter. I thought that was funny.

But literally my, you know, my misogyny with 7 of 9 and all that is unspeakably horrendous. But as I said, I did not write the line. Right. And given permission to play this. scene, massaging, you know, lasciviously Jerry Ryan's shoulders, I must say that I was very well behaved and would never do anything to make my co-star uncomfortable. Having said all of that, I loved playing that scene. Loved it. It was a fun scene. And you played both characters. I mean, you were able to play yourself as the doctor observing, you know, the hallway image. As the doctor,

as the medical assistant, as the doctor, as the doctor is mortified, yes, and the doctor is mortified in his expressions, you know. But, Bob, I mean, I want to say kudos to you because your physicality in this scene as as creepy, let's just say creepy doc, okay, is just amazing because when you're scanning, you didn't do your normal scan. You do this thing. You're like, I mean, all your acting choices were to definitely differentiate between creepy doc and regular docs.

And God, that was hilarious. I remember the rewrite. I did call the front office and say, when she says it hurts when I do this, and I say, well, don't do it, which is the oldest doctor joke in the world. Hey, doctor, it hurts when I do this. Don't do it.

I mean, that's an old vaudeville joke. But I said, can I slap her on the arm? And then say, don't be a baby. And so they did let, and let me add that line. That was right. Oh, my God. Because I say it under my breath.

You do. Because she says, ouch, right? She reacts and you go, don't be it, and it's almost like a throwaway line. But it was so perfectly put in there that that's probably one of the best.

And it's so completely out of character for the doctor. I mean, all of that. You're right. The tricorder waving. Oh, my God. David, I wanted to do.

I'm just going to, you know, break all the rules that we've established for six years. So funny. So damn. But also the beginning, Robbie, if you think about it, it goes from seeing in the holodeck before the program begins. And then the beginning of it, you hear Paris saying, Chapter 1, it's the doctor's world. You're just living in it. I mean, just the titles that that Brandon wrote or whoever, actually Sussman wrote that, right? Just hilarious. Very, very funny.

Very funny. Okay. Corridor. Now the corridor, the doctor, now the doctor, because the real EMH catches the real Paris. And basically we have a walk-and-talk argument where the doctor is furious. Oh, my gosh. And that's really well staged. I mean, I played that oneer played it a couple times, admiring my own ability to go back and forth over your shoulder three times in the scene, find the camera effortlessly. And then when we fell into the overs finally, that was a very, I thought, considering how many oneers we did in that hallway, I really, I thought I really got the sense of someone who was so upset and was trying to get in your face, but couldn't, couldn't quite go. Oh, yeah.

Paris wasn't stopping. No, no. I'm shocked you guys didn't run out of corridor. It seemed like you guys went through everything and then some when you were walking. I'm like, what the, okay. It's a long scene. And that's what I'm saying. really the scene had a really nice arc to it it sort of um you know it it it wasn't just a straight

ahead argument there was really some awareness that the doctor finally has and there's you know tom fights back with the doctor in the scene at one point but then at the end kind of says do you know do what you want with it like you know i've made my point and um and uh you know you decide what you want to do i thought it was a great scene i i don't remember filming it though, Bob. I don't think I remember filming it either, but it's quite seamless. It's really, I would say, an unusually good hallway walk and talk. For your audience that doesn't, you know, these are scenes that have to be perfect. Any scene in one where there's no cuts, every moment of the dialogue has to be perfect visually, you know, if there's a second too long where a character's

face is blocked or a keyword is delivered behind. behind the shoulder of the foreground character. Any little detail that isn't perfect, you would notice it as an audience right away. But when it really works as well as it does, when it's as well staged and executed, it looks great and it gets a pretty high page count from our script in one shot.

And those were, I always thought that they were fun. That was clearly a steady cam shot. Who would have been our operator on that? Would that have been Joe Jess, maybe? Yeah, probably. Didn't Joe leave earlier than that? Joe may have left. It's probably Doug Knapp is what I'm thinking.

Oh, Doug, God rest, Doug. Doug passed away, as you know. What? When did that happen? A couple of years ago. Yeah. I didn't know that, guys. Two years ago, yeah.

Oh, my goodness. I didn't know it until later, but for the same very tough kind of cancer, the pancreatic cancer that Jonathan Frank's Kitty Swink, you know, that raise money for. So I'm a big supporter of the pancan, pancreatic cancer network is a great charity. So I just thought, Doug Knapp, for the sake of the audience, one of our wonderful camera operators on Voyager died at two young an age from a very brutal kind of cancer. So, and he was a lovely guy. I worked with him on other shows, too. I work at least one or two Joe Dante movies.

I think he was on the Gremlin's movie and all that. So anyway, but I didn't mean, I just thought I would bring that out. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's very important to talk about. Definitely, and I'm a little shocked. I did not know that information, but wow. Okay. Where are we?

So we are in, yes. Go back to the doctor's office and the doctor is sitting there after having experienced the other side of a hollow novel and had his conversation with Paris in the hall. We cut into the doctor's office and Neelix comes in. Neelix has written a book, basically a cookbook, a culinary tour of the Delta Quadrant, and wants the doctor to help him get it published.

And by the way, I'll say that Ethan Phillips actually wrote a cookbook. The same thing, it's so funny that you wrote the holograms handbook. It really is a joke on a joke because it was my age. envy of Ethan Phillips writing. Now, they came to him and asked him to write that book, the studio. Right. He didn't, I don't believe he'd pitched that. I think they said, hey, would you like to do this?

I went and pitched a book, I guess because I must have had some deep-seated envy of Neelix writing a cookbook. But in any case, I think that was a joke on a joke, is that he had a much more successful book sales-wise than mine. That's funny. Well, he wrote it in real life. In the scene, Neelick says he's written a book. He wants to publish, just like the doctor's book is getting published.

The doctor, you know, is really distracted by how he's affecting, how his book is affecting his friends. And Neil does he says, you know. Don't I say something terrible to him about it being lowbrow? Not here. The lowbrow comments are to Paris, actually. or not to not to Neelix yeah yeah yeah that's to me

Bob that's lowbrow to me about my stories it was totally fitting it was totally fitting okay as long as we're not saying anything bad I mean to Neelix yeah because he's too he's too sensitive you can take it you can Robbie you can take it but you know okay you know Ethan so it's too sensitive a soul yes the doctor in the scene though is having taking it. He's very concerned about his friend's feelings. And Neelik says, there's an old

Talaxian expression when the road before you splits in two take the third path. And I just love that Neelix has a Talaxian saying. I wish we had seen more, heard more, more Talaxian sayings as we wrap in, you know, up this series. I thought, God, that's a great like runner bit they could have had for Neelix, always having a Talaxian saying. But anyway, his saying is suggesting the doctor can adjust the program. So it's not obviously based on Voyager characters and or crew members. And the doctor's concerned a rewrite will take so much time. But Neelik says, give him a call.

And so the doctor's got is going to take his suggestion. We cut to the astrametrics lab. Oh, and Neelix is talking to his publisher. Yeah, Nielix does hand him a chip. And what's interesting about it is that the script follows the Tlaxian advice. Because the script to this point has been about one thing. And suddenly it takes, it's been about, you know, I'm doing, the doctor is creating something that's a work of art. And the people that he works with who say you're basing this on us and it's going to create.

misunderstand about your crew if you publish this, but then it takes, the script goes off on a third path. Just the same way a script like Tuvix suddenly became about, you know, euthanasia and right to life. You know, it just takes a complete turn. And the doctor is back on his heels because suddenly he's on defense. And I thought that was a really clever thing about the story. It goes from being basically a comedy, rough, you know, a comedy episode. And then it becomes a very, you know, it becomes about intellectual property rights of an artificial intelligence. Well, we do see the doctor talking to his publisher in the astrometrics lab. And the publisher thinks these characters are amazing. They're so believable, he says. Which I found a little implausible. But

But the publisher thinks they're believable. And the doctor insists. He says, no, I've got to rewrite this thing. My friend's reputations are at stake. So we think the doctor has put his foot down and is going to rewrite things. And we cut into the mess hall where he's telling Torres and Janeway and Chocote that I'm rewriting this. This was weird, guys. Why was it in the mess hall?

Did you think that that was weird? We were all lounging around the mess hall. He makes it. I thought this would be in the briefing room. Why are we in the mess hall for this announcement? It feels very just forced. Informal, for sure. Yeah, but just informal, but also.

Yeah. Okay. I don't know. It just struck me as odd. That's all. Why are we here? But the purpose of this scene is basically the doctor says, my publisher assures me that he won't distribute the program

until I've made the revised version. I've revised everything and sent that to him. And everyone make a couple of jokes. And Janeway says, take your time, doctor. And, you know, that's towards the end of the scene. And basically, the doctor apologizes to Tom Paris about the big yelling and the argument. Paris just forget about it. And then the doctor even kind of offers a bit of an olive brand.

She says, well, I could use your help with rewrites. And Paris is like, really? Oh, okay. Well, as a writer, I'm a little unsophisticated. And that's when the doctor says, no, I believe the phrase you're looking for is lowbrow. So the lowbrow line comes in right here. It's just a little. And it's a little sucker punch.

It is. And you walk off camera and the camera just focuses on Robbie's face. He's like, he makes this funny face of reaction. He's like, what did he just say to me? I did a bit. I did some mugging as it's called in the business, Bob. I don't know if you've ever heard of mugging. No, I don't.

I have no idea. Your work is very subtle. It's very close. It's muggingless. Very, very close to the business. bone. Yes. Yes. But I was, again, overacting here, giving a funny expression. I made the same note. Right. You're trying, trying again, still campaigning for the Dr. Fancy Pants of Wolford, even though you already want. I really was. Paris does notice Torres, who's reading a pad,

and he chases after her, and he wants to see what's going on. And she says, oh, it's for my dad. My dad He wants to talk to me. And of course, we know Torres is very much estranged from her father, from prior episodes. So Paris is asking you, what are you going to do about this? And Torres is like, well, I mean, I'm already supposed to talk with my cousin, but I don't even know what to say to him. And then Tom says, a great thing. He says, let him do the talking. So then we end up in astrometrics with that scene between John Torres and Bolana.

And I love that Tom stays with her the entire time. Tom's with her. She has a talk with her dad and her time's running out. And her dad apologizes. He says, you know, I thought I'd lost you. And I don't want to make the same mistake again. And she says, just as the clock's running out, she says, I'll write you. And it's very sweet.

That little simple line, I'll write you. It was great, great emotions. I love that Tom and Bolano join hands. You grab her hand. You made that move. So I don't even think that was written into the script. So if you chose to do that, good job. Yeah, very subtle acting, Bob.

I just want to make note of the sound. It does not make up for the earlier scenes. We go to Starfleet headquarters next. We have a Starfleet headquarters establishing with a shuttle flying by. And inside Barclay basically says, to Admiral Paris you need to check this out. You've got to play this program or read this, you know, play this novel because it's spreading like wildfire. It does not portray the Voyager

crew in a flattering light. We cut into astromatrics. Janeway's talking to Paris now. He's played this game or played the novel and he can't believe that she allowed this hollow doctor, the EMH, to discredit her crew. And she's very defensive of him. And it says, well, I think he's making revisions. Yeah. Yeah, Robbie.

Just to make it clear, it's Admiral Paris that she's talking to. You just said Paris, so we don't want to confuse people listening. Oh, no, Admiral Paris. He goes by Paris too sometimes. Yeah, he does. A few times. He does. It's weird.

Yeah, but she defends him and says, you know, I think the doctor's making some revisions to the, to the program. And we cut out to space with a little time passing. and now we're back in the astrometrics and the doctor is really upset because he's talking to his publisher he says you assured me that you were going to wait for revisions which i don't think bob he did assure you i think you it feels to me like in that scene the doctor made his demands but the publisher never really said okay no he never did you're right doctor sort of made the assumption because i jim the publisher was thinking ahead

or was thinking according to his thing that I've got this perfect situation because I have an author who has no rights. So I think he was already treating me that way in retrospect, you know, which the doctor wouldn't have realized at the moment. So you think, Bob, he knew all along this entire time he knew this was what he's going to do. Well, either that or it's a non-issue. In other words, the doctor's demands were just not an issue.

He may have thought in the moment that he was going to. them and then the moment that he hangs up the phone looks at whatever his release days or the fact and the release date yeah yeah they needed to push the release date up a week or two and he knew he knew it wouldn't be a problem because the character has no you know has no say in the matter so right that was that was in his back pocket i think or you could assume that and i think this scene sort of in a in a funny way comes back full circle to the doctor's main point of the novel of You know, it's the same message as his novel that holograms are not treated fairly, that they're not treated with respect and the same kind of treatment that organics have.

So just reiterating sort of the theme of the doctor's book. You're absolutely right. But we've gone from a very comic examination of that point. Yes. To a much more dramatic one. Most definitely. Yeah. And what's cool about that, I mean, with.

In the in the ether right now, everybody's talking AI and AI possibly out of control or that headline three weeks ago, AI could destroy humanity and all that. All of those issues, you know, the seed of that discussion really is in Spiner's character in NextGen and my character in Voyager. This episode of particular, the rights, the intellectual property rights. of an artificial intelligence. I mean, that's a pretty cool thing to be writing about almost a quarter century ago. I'm sorry, I was just thinking about if someone actually in the future

just ends up being a massive Star Trek fan is watching these old episodes and they design an AI that looks exactly like Bob, exactly like Bob, and that it becomes the AI that takes over the world. I'm sorry, my brain was going there. Well, they'd have to at least license my opinion.

Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. So at the end of this last scene, basically, we find out that according to Federation law, holograms have zero rights. They have no rights at all, which brings us to the next scene in the briefing room. Brings us, brings us into the briefing room. And Tuvok is basically in the scene giving us the explanation of this law. Chikote asked, could we claim defamation? They're all looking at legal angles. And Paris seems to be a lawyer, too, besides a nurse. He's also a lawyer because he knows about the. the defamation claim that we could make and has the legal commentary on it. I just want to point that out, Bob. Well, I think that Paris, you know, because of his dark past, he was probably sued for defamation three or four times, so he would know the law. Right. That's not exactly where I thought he got the wisdom from, but he was incarcerated. Well, he was incarcerated, so he would, he's hung around with criminals. And these criminals are studying law in prison, and then they explained to him, you know. So he just learned every, he learned the right things in the wrong way.

I see. I'm glad you could explain that to me because I didn't know where Paris got all this legal. If you have any other questions, any other questions about your character, some 25 years too late, you come to me, all right, and I'll help you out. This is great. Okay, so Janeway at the end of the scene basically says, look, doc, you're, you have the same rights as every member of my crew, and I am not going to let this publisher say otherwise. So, she, She's really standing up for him. So we have a captain's log and it says a Federation arbitrator has been assigned to determine whether the doctor has the right to control his artistic creation.

Because of our limited calm time with Earth, the argument should take about three days. And so we get that space shot. We go to the Pathfinder Lab. And we're going to start a series, this kind of a montage of these arguments, where Tuvok's making his plea on the screen in the Pathfinder Lab. and uh broat is sitting in the room and making his argument and i just you know they basically go through the arguments uh the doctor is a creator of this novel uh broat argues that a replicator created this cup of coffee should the replicator be able to determine if i can drink this coffee or not

and the doctor's very offended by that um tuvac jumps in with some lawyering about works of literature and how art is treated. And I just thought this whole sequence, they continue their arguments, but I thought the whole sequence was really well done because David moved the camera in a great way. You know, he transitioned between this three days of arguments beautifully, with Tuvac ultimately saying kind of that Section 7 and Gamma of the 12th Guarantee

defines an artist, a person who creates original artistic work. And that's what this is. So they're sort of arguing the art side of this case, I guess. But yeah, I thought it was a great, really well-done secret, great montage of testimony, the camera movement. And they basically, they wrap up their case and the arbitrator says he'll make his decision in two days. And they're They go to recess. And I just thought it was really well done. It's like you said, Bob, a great argument about artificial intelligence 20 years before AI was even an issue.

And they made all the cases in this beautiful montage sequence. Interesting side note, too. Both Janeway, I think Janeway, Tubac, and I are all sitting on these sort of like counter bar stools, too. Yeah, in astramatrous. remember that. Yeah, which is kind of weird. You know, normally to see us full form sitting on these stools, I thought, this is a shot that I have never seen in any of the other shows. I don't know why. Because the direct line of communication had to go through astrometrics, you had to plead your case there. You couldn't do it from the briefing room. You couldn't do it. From the ready

room, you had to do it in astrometrics. But I noticed that too. The stool was sort of weird. It was like we were at some sort of weird cocktail party, you know, waiting for a drink to be served or something. But we also in this, this, this, I guess, this arbitration, we do have testimonials from seven and from Harry. Harry also testifies on behalf of the doctor. Yeah. But yes, but the, you know, the judge is not ready to rule that the doctor is human, basically, has the same rights as a human. So he does say, two days, I'll give you my decision. Yeah. I do want to make note, Bob, that Paris does not give a testimonial for the doctor. Yes.

He does not. Right. My recollection is that we shot the scene and you were overacting so much they cut it out, because I think what happened. I don't remember that. But I think you may be right. You may be right based on what I've seen of my performance in this episode so far. The highs, the lows, the – it was incredible. I must make this disclaimer to all of our listeners.

If you're listening to this, please understand that the banter that you hear between Robbie McNeil and Bob Picardo is what we did on the show. A lot of it is just them joking around because I'm afraid, gentlemen, that there's going to be someone listening to this thinking, wow, Robert Picardo and Robbie McNeil are enemies. They do not like each other. I'm just saying. I'm just saying.

If you're just listening, I just want to. It's very affectionate. It's affectionate. It's very affectionate better. Yes. But it is not unlike what we did back in the day. Oh, my gosh. We had so much fun.

I mean, this gives everyone an indication of how much fun we had. This is the tip of the iceberg of how much fun we had interacting with each other on the set, off camera, and sometimes even on camera. And here we are. We're doing it again for the podcast. So there we go. So he gives him two days. We cut to the mess hall. We've got a little B story scene here.

with Seven and Harry, where Harry apologizes for overreacting with Seven, and Seven offers her isolinier chip for Harry to use to call his parents. She was there. She saw how much that meant to him. To call his mom for her birthday, right? Yeah, it calls mom for her birthday. And Harry thinks about it for a minute, but he goes, no, I can't accept this. You, you know, you should contact contact somebody from your own family and she says well they were all assimilated and harry says no there's got to be somebody there yeah and she thinks about her aunt irene hanson her father's sister and i just thought there's a great move by harry because it did mean a lot to him to call his family and that was a great offer she made but he he sees that she needs to

to experience her own family somehow and use that chip and that time, that time to call. So I like that scene. It was really sweet. Yeah. Then we jump in on the Astromatrix Lab. And now we have that actual call between 7 of 9, Onica Hansen, and her aunt, her auntie, Irene. And we learned a little bit of backstory about how Anika was a very stubborn six-year-old. But Auntie Irene was able to coax her out of her, her little. temper tension with a strawberry tart. And Seven says, wow, I am very fond of strawberries. So we

have a little bit of character development for Seven. It's a sweet little scene between her and her only, well, one of her only living relatives, I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. And we learned that she was a perfectionist even as a child. Yes. Her aunt says, oh, you didn't hesitate to point out if the strawberries weren't perfectly ripe. So we see that she's still, she's still very much seven to nine, even as a child. Right. But a sweet softness from Jerry, you really see this humanity sort of connecting with her there at the end.

It was great. Really sweet. We cut back to Starfleet Communications, and the arbitrator has made a decision that he's going to ask for all copies of the Holo Novel to be recalled. He argues that, you know, this is not an easy decision. and the issue of holographic rights is not going away, which we've talked about. It's AI.

It's definitely not going away. But he does say that as a creator of this art, that he has the right to do with it what he wants to do. Yeah, so he's extending the legal definition of artist to include the doctor. So he's not saying holograms, all holograms deserve rights now, but at least he's. Yeah, putting the doctor in that label of artist so that he has those rights. But he makes it clear that he's not willing to call him a person,

to give him all the rights of personhood. So it's a, it's a hollow victory. I believe that's the exact fun that the doctor uses. Yes, he does, he does. A hollow victory. I love it. And there's a nice scene to sort of wrap it up with Janeway and the doctor in Paris. The whole gang is there.

And Janeway congratulates him on kind of cracking the beginnings of some rights for holograms here. And Paris reminds him he needs to go revise his book, which I think is the responsible thing to do, Bob. You know, if you didn't have Paris there looking out for you, you wouldn't know what to do with yourself. Well, I think the book is not going to be published ever. Is that what you say at the end to go revise the book that's not to be published? you've got a whole well but you can revise it

and do it what you want once you've done your revisions then you can decide if you want to be published so I must have been I think at that point in the episode I'm just not listening

to you anymore Robbie so I just forgot that okay well I understand that I understand especially because in this big wide shot Tom is in the back row between about seven other people

trying to chime in on and it's just too much There's just too much noise in the doctor's world there at that moment. So I just successfully blocked you out. All right. In the same way that this Zoom call blocks your generator when it goes on outside. That's the way I... Yes.

Yes, it's the noise filter of Zoom. It's kind of like the Bob Picardo filter. Well, I mean, as a hologram, I can filter out all extraneous noise. And often that was Tom Paris. Okay. This scene feels like the end to me. This scene feels like we've wrapped up a victory. Oh, but it's not.

It is not. It's not. And for all of you, we have a tag. Yes, and for all of you, Dr. fans, for all of you, Robert Picardo fans, you get to see multiple Robert Picard. Right, because one is never enough. One's not enough.

No. If one, Robert Picardo is great, then how great to have multiple. multiple. How many are in that shot? I'm going to say too many, too many. I think we did 16. I think we did another shot in, I thought in. How did you do that shot? Yeah. You're in the minds. We're in the minds. We see you walk in and then it reveals dozens of you. How did you? One talks to the other. One EMH, one talks to the other talking saying, hey, it's time for your diagnostic, right? And report to the hollow lab. And while you're there, ask the operator to

run program 47 beta and so that guy goes okay and he walks off around a corner then it picks up on another doctor walk another EMH mark one walking around another corner which then shows one hammering and another one shoveling so how was that shot bob how was that shot um the camera was on some kind of a rig okay where it had a repeated movement i i it was some sort of a vertical rig as i recall, but I'm not exactly sure because we did a trick shot like this also, as I recall, at the end of Lifeline. So in any case, the camera repeats the same movement and I simply move, you know, into different places in the repeated movement where we haven't seen me before doing different things. Got it. And what's great is the doctor, as a character, anyone who

you know, knows my character from Voyager. He is about the least adept at manual labor that you could possibly imagine, right? He's, he's far too, you know, he's just, I wasn't going to say it, Bob, but yes, true. So, so it always struck me as funny that they have him, you know, basically with a, you know, with a hammer or chisel or whatever doing manual labor when he is, he is designed for just brilliant, you know, medical, um, medical service. and also, you know, just mouthing off about how brilliant he is. So the, you know, the, the distance that he's fallen off his pedestal there to, to see him, you know, just as they see him, yeah, as a little functionary, yeah, I thought is a, is a fun idea.

So, yes, it was a repeated camera movement. I move around in different places and they simply merge together all of the, you know, all the different shots as they do. and motion control. And it's, but, but really, if you, if, I, I could definitely say that seeing multiple Bob Picardos in the same scene is a thrill, even for, even for me. So I can only imagine what a thrill must be. It's something. It's definitely a feeling. It is a feeling, Bob.

It is a feeling. It's, um, I have, I have another question, story questions. Probably. I just, I just want to come, just, just, just when Bob goes, even for me. I'm sorry. That got my funny bone, and I just need a second. Just give me a second. No, wait, I mean, I can understand why it's a thrill for you, Garrett, for you, Robbie, and certainly for a regular Voyager viewer, but it was a thrill for me as well. That's okay. Even for you. That's how delightful. That's the sheer delight of multiple Picardos is something that even I find irresistible.

So how can I blame you? I have a question, though, Bob, in the story, so these EMH mark ones are all minors. They've been given up in this menial job down in the caves and mines. But how are they projected to be able to do this? Did they have hollow? Oh, are there hollow emitters that are stuck in the mines? Hollow emitters? Is that what it is?

Like, how are you there? Because they don't have mobile emitters. So how are there so many of you? I'm trying to undo this, Bob. You know, I've never thought of you as a deep thing. It's traumatic for me. you know, this is a, the fact that you really examine this, uh, carefully is both shocking and gratifying to me. But I think, I think it's exactly that. They, it was cheap, it was cheaper to put in

hollow emitters in the mine and use all these, you know, deep, declassified, deep programmed EMH mark ones. It was cheaper than actually, you know, hiring, um, organics to do the mining, you know. So it's a way, It's a way of cost cutting and basically automising your business. Is that right? Automizing. Is that a word? Automating, probably. But I like automizing as well.

But I think if you put optimizing and automating together, you get automizing. Yeah. You get automizing. Excuse me. Optimizing and automating together is opta. What do we say? Automizing. That's right.

Automizing. To automize this entire episode. into a theme. Yeah. What is your lesson? Bob, do you have a lesson? I'll ask Robbie first. Robbie, what is your lesson that you, is there a lesson that you learn from this episode?

Yes. The underlying theme. What would you say? I think my takeaway for this episode, the message would be be careful when you tell a story about anything, real life, or any story, because it's hard to capture the truth. And the way you tell the story is going to have an impact. So be careful. That's the lesson that I have from this.

Okay. It's not really about holographic rights, but it's about storytelling. Storytelling is very powerful, so be careful with that power when you use it. What about you, Garrett? Weild that power, wield that power with some sense of, I guess, what are you trying to say? Responsibility. Responsibility, yeah. Okay.

maybe um gosh i my lesson was i guess more along the lines of friendship you know just like being there for your friends because that's what we ultimately did for the doctor at the end you know it's just like you got to always be a good friend everyone be a good friend so that's my little lesson i suppose uh yeah robert picardo do you have a underlying lesson in this episode um well certainly don't mention to the executive producer you're writing a book because suddenly they'll write an episode where your character is writing a book

I'm quite taken Robbie for all the teasing I do of yours I really like your summary of the episode because it also kind of includes your point Garrett that if you are careful in your storytelling and you happen to be basing a story

on people that you work with all day long and that you depend on each other and work together care for each other, then you do have to be careful because people, you know, whereas you may talk yourself into believing that you're simply basing it on real life, but changing enough so no one recognizes themselves, but that ain't what happened. And the doctor did hurt feelings of people he cared very much about.

because he got carried away with his own ego. As you know, that was one of his problems. So in a way, seven of nine's line during the show, your ego's had enough stroking for one afternoon. It sort of applies to the whole episode that never, you know, it's fine to have an artistic impulse and to want to create a story, but do remember that in the telling of a story, you could hurt others.

So I think that that is a, that's a great lesson. So on top of that, I loved Voyager episodes where it seems to be about one thing and then the script takes a turn. That's my favorite thing about our show when they kind of fool you, they lull you in the first 30 minutes and go, oh, this is what the episode's about. And then it, and then it takes a sharp turn. It's one of the reasons I love the episode, Tuvick. so much.

But, you know, and that's one of the great powers, I think, of science fiction storytelling in particular that you can deal with a complex or bigger issue, even though it starts out on a much smaller scale, then suddenly it becomes a really important philosophical issue. And it kind of caught you off guard as a viewer. I'm going to add in another lesson. It's just everything, everything in moderation. everything in moderation because when you when you start becoming excessive when it comes to ego or whatever it may be then you're heading down a downward spiral there you go so that's my additional

lesson okay so bob we rate these episodes on a scale of one to 10 Garrett and I give it a number ourselves you can give it in for in decimal so it could be a 5.2 it could be a 9.6 um and then we have here I have not looked at it. We have our admiral and captains have averaged out all of their ratings that they vote, and we see how close we are to the fans. So I will start out with my rating of this episode. I have to say this is a great episode. It's one of my favorites.

I'm so glad you joined us for this. I am going to give this a 9.0. That's a pretty high rate. 9.0 for me because it involved our entire crew, are all of our cast, which is always important to me that we all have a little something to contribute. And I love that it had comedy and it had a deeper message. Okay. I loved it. I like it. 9.0. That's one of Robbie's highest ratings of all the episodes we've rated. So I'm going to go, I'm going to go a little bit lower. I'm going to go 8.8. And I go

a little bit lower than you for one reason, one reason alone, because I felt like Harry Kim or at Kimble should have been in that very first scene of the beginnings of the doctor. That's all. Oh, that would have been a better way to take. Yeah. Yeah. Bob, I'm going to give us a number.

It's funny, I picked the number before you told me, and it happened to be 8.8. No. I picked 8.8. I'm sorry. Wow. I am proud of it. I think it's a very good episode.

Yeah. There's, there are only 16 of me in the show, so there could have been more of me. So you would have given it a higher rating if there had been more. If there had been more, if there had been more of me, I think it could have earned a nine or a 9.2. No, I, I am proud of it. It is one of my favorites, but I think one of its flaws is that my character at that point,

I told you, in his development, should not have been quite so oblivious to the feelings of his fellow crew members. I thought in that respect, it felt more like a season three or four episode than a season seven episode and my character's personal development. But I'm only carping, you know, and I think it's good and it stands up.

And I love the fact that we got to talk about it now because this whole thing about artificial intelligence is everywhere. I mean, everybody's, everyone is talking about it right now. So it's a particularly prescient Voyager episode. Yeah. All right. All right.

Captain and Admiral average rating for author, author is 8.1. Oh, they don't know what they're talking about. I'm sorry. They don't know. I'm sorry. Come on, guys. Come on, guys. I can't believe that.

Bob, I'm so disappointed in your doctor's at-a-old. And some voted lower. That's all right. There's some in the nines and some in a little lower. All right. I am, I am, it's like a knife in my heart. Oh. But if, if that's the way your captains and admirals feel about my hard work,

then I must accept it. I didn't read the fine print, the fine print on this average rating says if there had only been more of the doctor, then this rating would be higher. I didn't read that. Yes. They're on the same page as you. If you remove Tom Paris from this episode, I'd give it a 9.4. That's what it says.

In the fine print, if he hadn't done those big faces and worn that horrible mustache, this would have gotten a 10. All right. Bob, thank you so much for talking through this episode with us. For our Patreon patrons, stick around. We're going to have a little bonus material for you guys. We're going to answer your questions. Yes.

And join us next week when Robbie and I will be discussing the episode, Friendship One. But I, for one, must say that it has been an amazing time having Bob Picardo here with us. And little did I know that I would be treated to such Robert on Robert banter that I got on. I mean, my goodness, this is a treat. You're welcome. This is a treat. People don't see this. They don't see this interaction.

People don't, this is the stuff that we get to see. They don't see that when Bob is around me, his sense of humor, his comic timing, all of it is so much stronger that they can see the effect that I have on him. You as Robbie McNeil has. Yeah. Yeah. And also, Garrett, it lets you completely off the hook because, you know, Robert on Robert, you know, you just get to officiate and kind of, you know, and stand a referee. Yes. I'm happy doing that.

I'm fine. Okay. Cool. Because next time it could be, it could be someone gone after you. You know, you might have one of the other actors off. That's true. They might just go after you. That's true.

I don't know who it would be. Well, it only did happen. It did happen because I talked about John Delancey and you having a dough off, meaning a pizza bake-off thing. It's a dough, yeah. And then he's like, that's a terrible idea. Because he kept thinking, my thought goes to having thousands of people in my backyard like bad. I don't want to, anyway, I did get a little bit of criticism from John Delancey already,

but in terms of witty repartee or witty banter that normally happen on the Voyager set when the camera wasn't rolling, the fans never hear this. And so for you two to actually engage in it, and without any prodding, like, I didn't say anything to either of you. It's just natural. You just naturally went right into messing with each other, which was absolutely a gem. This is a gem in the rough it's a diamond in the rough so thank you for that all right thank you yes and again thank you for joining us right afterwards some patreon patrons it was a pleasure oh yeah and thank you guys for having me and robbie just in closing i have to say that when i told elizabeth uh during we took a little break i told her that i made that comment about in your scene with your beautiful lighting how handsome

you used to be my own wife said to me oh you are awful So, she didn't like the fact that I was teasing you about your former beauty and you're still beautiful, Robbie. Oh, thank you. You're still beautiful. Okay. Thank you, Bob. Thank you.

That's my message. As are you. As are you. You're only better. You're more handsome and more funny having been on this podcast with me. Thank you. Let's talk about how handsome Garrett is, too, especially now that he cut his hair. Remember when he had that long hair?

Now he looks so good. He looks so handsome. Yes, much more refined and. polished and professional. Thank you. Have I shown you the video of when I walked into our Voyager men's dinner? It's you and McNeil sitting at the bar. And I have my haircut after 11 years of it being long. I have my camera on. And I'm like, hi, guys. And you turn around. You're like, oh, hey. Oh, hey. Like, look at that hair. Like, your reaction is priceless. I must show you that. Bob has always liked you better with the shorter. I like you. He loves the shorter hair. It shows your, it makes much more

handsome look for you, Garrett. I'm glad you came around. Thank you, Robert Picardo. I appreciate that. All right, everyone. We all love each other. And we love all of you fans just as much. All right. We'll be right back with our bonus material.