The Delta Flyers - Bar Association

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

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

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers journey through the wormhole with Quark, Dax, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armand Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Gareth. at Wong. And one more amazing guest host Chase Masterson.

Yay! Hi, Chase. Welcome. So good to be back with you guys. I love this show. Oh, my God. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. And everyone, for the complete and exciting version of this podcast, please check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. I am a patron. Did you know?

No. I can't believe that. I know. I love it. I love it. got some Star Trek alumni who are also yeah we have Lisa Klink writer Lisa Kling who work in DS9 and Voyager as a patron as well so we're very excited when people join us there we're so excited to have you here today and what a great episode mm-hmm thank you it's this is so it's just so very Star Trek there's so much in it there's so much great story and comedy and drama it's exciting to be here yeah and social issues that's what I like about it.

And you get to speak a bunch. I mean, because since we've seen your introduction, right, it was a, that was that one quick scene. It's only two episodes. Well, so far.

No, we've seen her, this is her third time on DS9. Yeah, I'm saying, two before this, right. That's it. Yeah, this is an exciting episode and I get close to ROM,

which is extremely exciting. Yeah. Now, you know, Garrett and I have not seen this series. So we're in real time experiencing these episodes. for some reason in my mind I thought you ended up with Quark

I know I know but clearly Perkins up with his Latin What did you think that Robbie? Listen I haven't seen the show So I that is Thank wow

I don't say thank God Chase don't say thank God that's what was starting to come out of your mouth Frankly no thank God I mean this is I love you are but Quark, that would be, that would be a nightmare mirror universe episode. I know, that's why I was, I was confused.

I'm like, how is that going to happen? But in my mind, that's what I thought. Yeah, yeah, no, no. I could, I would end up with Esri before I end up with Quark. That's funny. Well, okay. The other thing that this episode, I don't know who Esri is, Chase.

Oh, I do. I think Esri is the, is the trill replacement. Yeah, yeah. More on that in another episode. But anyway. But I did, I was surprised, and we'll get into it as we talk about the episode itself, but I was surprised at the Bashir, the status of your Bashir relationship here. I was like, wait, what? They're dating, but they're not. You don't ever see it really. Like you see them once and they be. Yeah, that's what's inferred, right? That they've been long, it's a long term dating thing. It seems like boyfriend, girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah. I was very surprised. And it all happened. off camera and I don't know why but you know there was a lot of storylines to cover so whatever yeah it's like we we missed some episodes is how it felt it's like wait what what happened yeah excuse me maybe the episodes were just too hot to handle we couldn't show them on star I'm sure exactly yeah yeah I'm sure there's a lot of but you can come to quarks and see them in a hollow program yeah there you go yeah all right well

Well, we've got some birthdays. We do, we do. Let's start up. Happy birthday. Here we go. All right. So, on September 19th, that is Mike Chow's birthday. So happy birthday to Mike.

Happy birthday, buddy. Birthday, Mike. Happy birthday, Mike. You share that birthday with my mother. Congratulations. Mike, lucky you. Happy birthday, Mike. Happy birthday, Mike.

Thanks for joining us. September 21st is a really important day because it is Killian Trapp's birthday. Happy birthday, Killion. Killion, you're happy, happy birthday, the 21st of September. Happy birthday, Killion, Trap. Happy birthday, too, you. Yay. We also have Brianna Klaus on September 21st.

Happy birthday, Brianna. Happy birthday, Brianna. Happy birthday, Brianna. Happy birthday! Brianna. Also September 21st, two days after Armin's mother's birthday, another September 21st baby. Happy birthday, Sabrina Yule. Happy birthday, Sabrina.

Happy birthday, Sabrina. Happy birthday, Sabrina. And while you guys are celebrating your birthday, I'll be hiking Scotland. Oh. Wow. Yes, very excited for you guys. Nice. Wow.

The whole Scotland? All of Scotland. Wow. They hike. Armid and Kitty do these trips where they get this plan for hiking. You can explain. You should explain. We take these trips where we get very sore, our legs get very sore, our torsos get very sore, our feet get very sore, but we see beautiful countryside.

And don't you hike from one hotel to the next and they move your stuff? Yes, a lot of times we did not on this particular hike, but we have, we hike from one hotel to the other. We hire organizations that take our luggage from a hotel there, so we don't have to lug our luggage. but we have taken, for instance, we walked the, in England, we walked 105 miles from Stratford to Bath, or Bath, as they like to say, and we've taken long hikes in Italy and long hikes in other areas as well, the Lake District in England. Beautiful. So that it is, it is both strenuous exercise and also mental exercise, because we have to know

where we're going. Well, Armin, I can relate to that because. because I have to hike from my front door to the mailbox, and it's a steep driveway, and then I have to hike all the way back. So I do, like you, Brano, pretty intense. Yeah, thank you.

Intense, very intense. Do you use walking sticks to do that as well? Sometimes I do. Sometimes it's smart to do that, yes. I think Robbie uses a walker to actually get over there, not even a walking. I'm so, yeah. Do you have people carry your stuff, carry your mail?

Yes, they carry the mail for me. I have an organization that will go there, get the mail out handed to them and then they bring it back and do you ever get lost on your way back or two i have it's embarrassing but yes i have oh but it's beautiful countryside it really is it really is hey armin i'm very very impressed i did not know that you guys hiked those lengths that is that is i don't i could i probably i mean i probably could but i doubt it i i don't think i could do that and now i know if you're prepared you can do it okay if you're prepared you have to train for it yeah And you have to take supplies.

The first time I did it, every time I walked into a town in England, I went directly to the pharmacy to get something from my feet. But I've learned how to get around that, how to be prepared for that. So it's just a matter of knowing you can do it. It's like a performance. If you know you can do it, you can do it. And being prepared for it. So that's like rehearsal, I guess. Definitely.

And that Kitty does this. The fact that Kitty is like the most health. person we know. Yeah. And what an incredible journey she's had in really just strengthening herself after everything she went through. Huge respect for that. Well, everything she went through happened because she was strong, because she was already very strong before she had to go through all those procedures. And the doctors told her, we couldn't do this if you weren't. When they opened her up, her physician said to me later, her physician said to me later that I knew exactly where to cut because of the ripples on your stomach were so defined that I knew exactly where to put the scalpel.

Wow. Oh, my God. Wow. The hiking clearly contributes to how svelte both of you are. It does. I recommend to everyone. You don't have to take as long a hikes as I, as we do. But I recommend highly to take a 20 to 30 minute walk as often as you can.

Yeah. Just to keep everything moving. I got to get a farther mailbox. That's what I got to. Exactly. That's why mine's downhill. Yeah. Yeah.

And uphill. And going downhill, by the way, is much harder than going up. Yes, it is. It actually is. Chase, are you still in L.A.? Where are you right now? I am in L.A. Yeah.

You're still in L.A. Yeah. Got it. All right. So there you go. Maybe you need a mailbox in San Francisco or something like that. That's what it is. Or Santa Barbara. How's that?

Yeah, man. In Big Bear. In Big Bear. If you're going to walk somewhere, go somewhere nice. There you go. There you go. Yeah. I'll just walk the promenade.

There you go. A few circles of that. Yeah. Robbie, how about we start off with your poetry synopsis? Yes, I'll do a little poetry just to get us in the mood for this episode. Here is my poem for the episode Bar Association. It's pejoring cleansing and quarks as empty as can be. With union demands, quark and rom disagree.

Worf's unhappiness begins to say. spike. Roms the victor in the union strike. The Ferengi brothers now have a new repartee. Oh, yes. Yes. I love it. Yeah. Just let it soak in. Just let that art and poetry just You should put that to music. You should sing it next time, Robbie. That's what we need. Oh, interesting. I thought he did, actually. Yeah, he did. Yeah, he did. Yeah. Garrett, do you have a haiku I do, I do Okay, so here's my

Here's my hykoo for a bar association Ram has ear problems Quark Faced with Union problems Brom finds a new job Nice I have to give a very theatrical Reading of my high cue

Yes, give a little Oh, good! Thank you Very nice Armond, do you have of etymology for us today. I do. I do. I have a rather long etymology on this. So bear with me. The word bar is an incredible word. It has over 30 different meanings in the OED. Wow. As a noun, it has 28 meanings. It's a barrier or a counter over which a drink or food is served out to customers in an inn hotel or tavern and sometimes it indicates the entire

apartment building or area it was first used in 1590 there as a verb there are a let's see there are 12 different meanings of bar including to close or obstruct a way of approach by some barrier and that and that first use of the as a verb was in 1596 the word association is also has a lot of definitions it's from the old french it's the action of combining together for a common purpose first used in 1535 now that's bar association with bar as a noun and association as a noun bar association and immediately we think i imagine something to do with quarks bar bar bar association However, it occurred to me last night, just before I went to sleep, that if we think of bar as a verb, it actually refers to the B story. It's in the sense that Wharf is moving to the defiant and is barring association with the other people on the station.

Oh, look at you. Interesting. Look at, yeah. One of the things I teach when I teach Shakespeare, is sometimes people confuse nouns with verbs. If they see something that they normally think of as a noun, and when Shakespeare's using it as a verb. And that's why the sense is lost because they don't realize it's a verb.

Wow. Oh, my gosh. I love that connection. Yeah, it's very deep. Yeah. I love, the thing I love that you bring into this podcast about language is how complicated and complex it is, and we sometimes make assumptions.

off of a word that how we under how I understand it but your intention is different or your understanding of that word is different and I find that in life it happens so often and I remember this I'm rambling now but I remember

Marvin Rush said to me once when I was directing he said just so you know he said because I'd asked for something and then it wasn't what I asked for so I said Marvin I thought I had asked for this and he said oh I I misunderstood you.

He said, just so you know when you're directing, tell me once with one set of words. Tell me a second time with another set of words and a third time. And then maybe I'll understand clearly what you mean. Because just saying something once, we assume that they're hearing what we think we're saying. Your intention is that you assume they've got your intention. Just like bar association.

Like there's an whole other way to think about that, those words. but um yeah the joy the joy of studying language is the intricacies of the language english is a very complicated language and as in the word bar um there can be dozens of different definitions for the same word it could even mean the ferengi barring the workers from justice yes it could be yeah absolutely i love etymology thank you arman for bringing etymology to this podcast. Exactly. I have a,

I have a liberic. What? I do. I do. Well, I want to play a lot. We didn't even assume. We did not want to assume that. But if you, any time we have you in the future from this point forward,

have you come up with something. What a gift. Yes. What a gift. Okay. I don't know if this is a gift. You'll decide. Hold that thought.

It's a gift. All right. We may give it back. But it's a gift. Hey, we're not giving it back, Robbie. We're going to let it. He might want to cut this or re-gift it. I don't know.

Re-gifted it. All right. Here we go. Here we go. To get Quark off his greedy soap box, Rahm and Lida and team were in talks. To get justice and fair pay, but then, without foreplay,

Rom came up and asked me for Um-Ox. Very good. Excellent. Very good. Thank you. And I'm glad you included Lita in the limerick, because, as I said earlier, there isn't enough of Lita in this episode. Thank you.

Agreed. Agreed. Thank you. We are not re-gifting. That is not a fruit. It's not a fruit cake. It is definitely something that we are keeping. Thank you.

Thank you. That's nice to be told I'm not a fruit cake. Well, you know what I'm saying. The one thing that everyone regifts. Thank you. Thank you. Yay. Good job.

Thank you. Thanks, guys. All right. Just so everyone knows, we did not reach out to Chase and say, please come up with something for us. She just did this on her own. She took the initiative and she joined in and thank you so much for that.

Wow. Got to be part of the team, man. Yeah. We're down with that. You are. Thanks. Okay. This episode, Bar Association,

story by Barbara J. Lee and Jennifer A. Lee. And let me just talk about their pitch. Okay. So when this story was originally pitched by the sisters, Barbara J. Lee and Jennifer A. The producer saw it as a possible B story for either the episode rejoined or the episode Crossfire.

However, after they began trying to insert it into an existing story, they realized that it was too rich of a subject to be sidelined, so they decided to give it an episode of its own. Wow. Yeah.

Did Barbara J. Lee and Jennifer A. Lee ever pitch or get a story sold again? Or is this their only credit on the... That is a very good question. I'm curious. While Garrett is looking that up, I always assumed that they wrote this episode

because they knew I sat on the union board for the Screen Actors Guild. And Ira, many years later, insisted knowing that had nothing to do with it. That's one of the quotes that somebody had mentioned saying that this is one of Armand's favorite episodes because of the fact that he sat on the board for Screen Actors Guild, yada, yada. So now we know it had no correlation. Had no correlation whatsoever. But as a board member, I had the privilege to lead a number of contract negotiations for the Guild. And so I'm fully aware of what labor has to go through with negotiations.

And although some of the things in the episode didn't occur to me while I was negotiating, some of them did. And either it happened to me or to people around me. Okay. Yeah. And how wonderful that this episode was written by two unknown writers, two female writers, back in the day when that didn't happen that often. And that it was during an era where, and this has probably been discussed, before, where unknown writers could pitch and have their stories heard and even made. And it wasn't such a tight thing in the writer's room where only a few people were allowed

to get story credit. To that, and I don't know about Voyager, but I certainly know it was true for Deep Space Nine. Star Trek, let's put it that way. The franchise was the only organization in TV anyway that was accepting pitches from people that were not professional writers. And a number of people went on to great careers as a novice writer who got something sold to Deep Space Nine

or to the next generation or to Voyager. And they went on to great careers as writers. Including Ron Moore and Brandon Braga. They came in on pitches. I do believe that that was probably one of the smartest outside of the box decisions ever made because, yeah, creativity is everywhere. And just because someone isn't a professional writer doesn't mean that they don't have a great idea.

So Star Trek was very smart in that regard. Robbie, I looked it up. I don't think, I don't see any other credits for them for Trek. But I will say this is unique. As far as, as long as Robbie and I have been doing this with all the Voyager episodes and now up to season four of DS9 episodes, we've never come across a sibling writing team with two, you know, two brothers, a brother and a sister. And two sisters. No, this is the first time. Two sisters.

It's amazing. love it. The other thing I would say about the outside pitches and how wonderful that was, it was rare. But the reason that that was able to happen was because Star Trek did so many episodes every season. When you're doing 24, 26 episodes sometimes, you need that fresh, you know, those fresh ideas. Outside help. Yeah. Whereas now, you know, the new Star Trek's, they're doing eight episodes like you don't have any room for outside pitches you just need to keep it contained yeah so i i do miss those shows that had long seasons where it kind of opened up creatively to to people having opportunities it's it's rare now yeah it's all money in that way yeah and the

and the short seasons don't allow for any you know it's it's it's a closed room it has to be because you're doing so few episodes. It's got to be closed. And if I may be political, it is time for the unions to step in and change some of that. Yeah. Thank you, Armin. Yeah. There you go. That's appropriate for this episode. It is. Yeah. Yes. All right. So we've got the story by the two sisters teleplay by Iris Stephen Bear and Robert Hewitt Wolfe and directed by none other than Lovar Burton. LeVar Burton, yeah. Do you guys remember LeVar directing this episode? Any memories of it?

I'll let Chase go first because my memories are skimpy, but Chase may have more. I have one memory. I mean, of course it was wonderful to be directed by LeVar, and he was really open to just talking and ideas. But this one memory was when this group of Buddhist monks came through on the set, and they were visiting for some reason. I don't know why. But LeVar stopped everything and talked with them and greeted them and talked with them

and was very just open and gracious. And it really struck me how lovely that was because, and I have no idea why they were there. But, you know, TV is such a time game, of course. And, you know, taking the time out to do that, I thought was both a confident move. Like, I will catch up and I'm going to be here now. and greet these people, what a Zen thing? But I don't know, I just remember that. Wow, that's very, yes.

Time is always pushing. It's chasing you on a TV set. So for him to have the confidence to just breathe and take that moment. Robbie, did you use that verb chasing you on purpose because of Chase being here? Oh, no. That was pretty impressive. Thank you. That's beautiful.

And ironically or conversely, I remember LeVar, constantly saying to everybody on the set, to the crew, and to the actors, I'd really like to be shooting this now. He said that over and over again. I'd really like to be shooting this now. That, and do you remember his hat, Armin? He had a hat that said E-racism on it, to erase a racism. He would always wear that one baseball cap. But that's so true. I'd like to be shooting this people. Yeah, that was his little thing. He's quite the gentleman. The bar is quite the gentleman. And I don't know what the original intent by wolf and bear were with this episode but both LeVar and I were on the same page about making it a little bit more serious serious is the wrong world consequential I think is

a better word than just a funny Ferengi episode that that was meant to be more consequential and that's what we came up with because it's it's you You name to me any TV show that deals with labor strife. Yeah. Not common. No. Well, I mean, that was the right take to less whimsy, more serious. And we see it, and I think it did justice for this episode, for sure.

You know, I just want to say that it never occurred to me that this would be a comedic episode. I mean, just because the Ferengi and Lita were go-to sources of comedy, or lightheartedness anyway, or both. This is such a deeply important subject for the majority of people on the earth, really, and certainly the majority of people that live in this country, that it just never seemed like it was at all funny or lighthearted. This is one of the most important episodes, I think, of DS9,

one of the most important subjects because it touches everyone's life and well-being. You're right. This is almost never covered. Justice on this level is very rarely approached in television or film. Let's run through the guest stars. Max Gredenshick is Rom. Chase Masterson is Lita. Jason Marsden as Grimp, Emilio Borrelli, as Frul, and Jeffrey Combs as Brunt.

Armin is every single Ferengi first name one syllable? That's what I've seen. For the most part, yes, I can't remember any of that or two. two-syllable interesting um and i'm glad in there well one of the episodes he doesn't get credited as a guest star but he was my stand and i've talked about him several times he actually gets mentioned in this speech and that's david levinson whose character's name is broik yeah you call him out he doesn't he doesn't have any lines in this one but you call him out which is good to keep that all right a little bit of trivia um when the producers saw the on-screen

chemistry between actors Max Gredenchik and Chase Masterson, they decided to make them a couple in the future. So it's kind of this episode that kind of pushed that a little bit. And they liked that and they wanted to have more of that. Does that imply that they weren't intending this episode to be the beginnings of a romance? They just intended it to be co-workers and you guys brought chemistry. It was hard to tell, except for that one scene in the end. And I know I'm jumping here, but where I kiss him on the head and I compare him to Julian. And, you know, I tell Rom, he's almost as brave as you. And I think it's clear that Lita is completely enamored with Rom throughout this.

I couldn't help it. Who could help it? I mean, being paired up with Rom or Max Redenshik has got to be the biggest honor. And so I couldn't help it. Yeah. I adore him. On screen and off. Right. But do you recall any conversations with writers saying like, oh, hey, this is really, I mean, was there...

Were they trying to just want, you know, encourage that? Or was that you guys bring it, I guess, is my question. I think, I may have told this in the last episode that I did with you guys, but I'm not sure. So there was a time I'm not sure in what season where Ira brought Max aside and he said, come on, let's talk, son. And he said, we're going to give Rom Lita. And Max said, uh, thank you. And then Ira went on. And it's because Dr. Bashir is so popular with the ladies that we, we want to keep him single. And Max said, uh, thank you. And so it was very much that, um, it was a strategic thing on more than one level, but I'm not sure when that started. Okay.

Interesting. Uh, good, good ramen person. by the way. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, really good. Okay. Ah, all right.

Surrock Lofton does not appear in this episode again. I know. It's over and over again. He's not getting any residuals. He's getting his pay as a series break up. Yes, but he is getting an education. He goes back to school. He was going to school.

Yeah, good for us. Yeah. But still. But still, we'd love to see him. We miss him. Yeah, he's so lovely. He is. He is.

All right, Robbie, let's jump in. Yeah, well, we start off on the bridge the Defiant. The Define is docking back at the station. They're returning from the Gamma Quadrant. Worf and Dax are talking. And Worf comments that, you know, he's very concerned about the Defiant. It needs some maintenance. Maybe it's just not performing quite right. Dax accuses him of being in love with his ship. Warf is very thrown. He's very defensive. You exaggerate as usual. Yeah. So, so they're starting to play this uh wharf and dax romance again so we're seeing a little tracking of that forgive me for being

critical but if i were the bar i would have asked michael doran to be more in love with defiant in this scene oh yeah i would have liked to see that in hindsight is is you know 100% yeah uh but um i would have liked to have seen him really eulogizing the defiant and thinking about how can we make her better? She's just great, a great ship. I mean, those lines are there. So that we understand more of why he decides to set up his quarters inside the defiant. Well, he was certainly being defiant. Yes. Yes. And we see, you know, we were just talking about the relationship between Lita and Rom. We've already seen some inklings of the relationship between Wharf and Dax, which will come to fruition.

But, Armand, you're right, because when Dax has that line, Mr. Woff, you're in love with the defiant, it didn't land as well. And if he, if Lovar had directed, if he directed exactly what you said to Michael saying, hey, make it so that in your lines that you love the defiant, but also physicality in blocking, the hand could have been touching the, well, kid in a certain way you know i mean there's there's little little little tiny little things that you could have been added that would have been very subtle that would have made that line land a little more so that was a very insightful comment thank you but to put myself in lavar shoes it's difficult enough to come on to a sister show and direct because all the actors all the crew know who you are many of them

had worked with him on next generation for years and so there's that but to come in in on another show where a dear friend of yours michael dorn is to tell you him how to act his character after Michael has been doing that character for X amount of years, would have been a difficult situation. Wouldn't you say Robbie as a director? Yes. Oh, man. I didn't even think about the politics involved there. Yeah, you're right. Yeah. Who was your equal on a prior job is now helming the episode. And it is difficult to say, hey, do that, I guess. You're right. How would you approach that, Robbie, just out of curiosity, if that was something that you were needing to do, the diplomacy of that.

I've heard other directors say this type of thing. So how would that go? I usually try to, I hate to sound so passive-aggressive, but often, or manipulative. But often I'll ask a question. And I'll say, you know, at the end of the episode, Michael, when you move into the defiant, it feels like that's a real payoff for something.

Is there a way that we could kind of set that up in this scene and just ask the question rather than telling him how to do that? But just make that connection, you know, is there a way? I'm trying to think of a way to really support that payoff in the end. And what do you think? And that way, it kind of diminishes what you're talking about, Armand, which is, I'm going to tell you how to play your character.

And it just keeps it on the facts and the script. and it gives the actor some authority over those choices rather than saying, you know. Yeah, that's so wise and diplomatic. But you do have marching orders in the tone meeting. You're told by the producers, writers, we want this quality in this scene. And who's to say that LeVar was given that thought?

Again, hindsight is incredible. So who's to say that that was part of the tone meeting or not? Yeah. Yeah. And this scene to me was problematic in a way because, in hindsight, it's problematic, because they're trying to track his love for Dax that's developing. So the very end of the scene, when she says, Mr. Worf, you're in love. And he, you cut to him for a moment. Wait, do you know I'm in love with you is what he was playing?

And then she goes, with the defiant. Right. So was this scene about their relationship or was it about setting up? his feelings for the defiant itself that pay off later on. I don't know. It was a little, it was trying to do kind of conflicting things, in my opinion. To your response to Chase's question about how you deal with that, I think that's smart because when you ask that question, you're almost guiding them towards answering it themselves, the way that you kind of want them to. So then they feel like they've accomplished something. Like, oh, I have power here.

I'm not being, I'm not just a lackey. I came up with this answer. It's a collaboration, and I'll do So a lot of times ego is involved so you have to get around that. To me, there's really the top two ways of working with actors are either to use a verb, keep it simple, just use a verb. Hey, can we try this more seductive? Let's do a pass that's more seductive. Give a verb, something that's very actable. And don't explain why.

Don't get into all the, just don't get into that. Let the actor figure that out. You know seductive is not a verb. Can we seduce? Can we seduce? Yeah. I was waiting for Armin to say something. Seductive is an adjective. But yes, my point is. It's seduce.

Yes, it's not an adjutant. It's an adjective. And this is great rules for living, too. For everybody out there in the audience, we can use this in real life. Like, honey, I wonder how we can get rid of this trash. That's the passive aggressive part of talking. It can be. So you have to word the question. questions with sincerely yeah either a verb or or a question to me those are the best ways to direct

everything else starts unpacking opinions right you know and judgments and i don't want to ever judge a character whether it's a good you know a hero or or a villain i don't want to judge the villains the villains are doing what they think is the right thing to do so i don't want to pass judgment or opinions about it i just want to give a verb or ask a question for the actor and that'll those things to me are the simplest ways to get an adjustment and a result without getting in other people's work. But I'll put this out there as well. Some actors like myself would love to get direction and just be told, just do it this way. I'm like, fine, I can do that.

Yeah, sometimes sometimes that's the easiest way. Hey, guys, this just isn't working. The pace of it isn't working. We just got to go faster. Yeah. And when you get to this line, like be specific. And when we get to this line, let's stop. give it three or four seconds so the laugh lands and then move on now this is the turn in the

scene like sometimes we need to have a technical explanation yeah be in an agreement on how this scene is is structured and kind of built the mechanics of it yeah that's a fair yeah and faster yeah sometimes just faster is almost always better all right so we leave the defiant we go over to quarks uh lita is there i was so happy to leada i was so happy to leada i put exclamation, exclamation, Lita, yay. Yes, she drops a piece of latinum on the floor. What are you thinking, Armin? Well, I loved your dropping it, and I loved you picking it up,

and I love the shot of the camera coming up on Miles O'Brien and Bashir. But I'm thinking this cleansing festival has been going on for a while, and you've got a tray of latinum there. Where did that come from? It's not like we're doing a, you know, box office business and we're doing, and a lot of latinum is being exchanged here. If no one's in the bar, there are some people in the bar, or some creatures anyway in the bar, none of them but Joran, if, then I would understand it. But if the business is that bad, where did you get that tray of latinum? Yeah.

I didn't think of that exactly. I was more slightly distracted by the way this shot was set up. There was a piece of latinem preset on the floor to me. And you acted it beautifully, but they had the piece of latinum preset so that as you turn and they put a sound effect in of something falling, it would take them to the feet. That's the shot that LeVar wanted.

But I saw that that technique, to me, felt a little transparent. It was like, oh, that piece of, of latinum was already there. Okay. It's the timing. I hadn't thought of it that way. It's a bar.

A piece of latinum on the floor is like a $100 bill on the floor. It's not going to be there for very long. Right. Well, I think I had just dropped it. But finding an excuse for the reveal of these outfits, I don't know. I guess that was. Or it could have been any kind of problem. You could have been picking up some napkins in the next.

napkins fell over and you went to pick up. Yeah, that's a good point. Could have been something less valuable. Valuable, yeah, to arm and more likely. Yeah. Yeah. But we do see them in these, the Irish and Viking outfits, they're playing. Irish only, Irish only.

Oh, they're Irish. That's right. They're Irish. But they look sort of Viking-like, like that era, the old time. Frankly, it was that it reminded me of the wardrobe from the Viking episode we had where Oh, the Beowulf episode, excuse me, the Beowulf, yes. Probably recycled from the same stock. Probably was.

Yeah, agreed. Agreed. Yeah, Lita flirts with Bashir here a little bit, gives him a kiss, which I guess was supposed to show us that they're dating, but I didn't get that yet. I didn't pick that up. I think it was to signify that we were together, but it was one of the very few clues. I picked it up from just your line when you said, okay, he says, I feel silly. you say, I like it. It shows off your legs.

Just, it shows off your legs to me was there are a couple. They're dating. I mean, like, you don't know. You just don't say that that often, I think, in general passing with someone you're just acquaintanced with. Yeah. Not on Star Trek. No.

Yeah. Yeah. But it was one of the very few clues that we were ever together, even before we broke up. I mean, it was fast. It went over my head that moment, honestly. I thought Lita was just flirting with him. and that they were at the same place we had left them the last time we saw them, which was flirting.

You know, he was interested, she was interested, but it didn't, it didn't say to me that their relationship had developed into something more formal. It just, I thought we were picking up. And they could have, which would have played up the jealousy, particularly with Dax and then, or, you know, that kind of thing that she was starting to feel

in that first episode, Explorer. And then maybe her change of, well, maybe now she's interested in Wharf. I mean, that's just how life goes and people experiencing all sorts of feelings at the same time that can be confusing. Well, we do have the kiss. And then we learn that Bashir wants to be the king as they walk up to the holodeck. He's like, why do you get to be king? And O'Brien does mention his family history, that he's a direct descendant of King Brian Baru. So he's bringing up his family line, which is going to come back later on.

Yes, he does claim to be descended from Irish King Brian Baru. This is largely correct because the Irish surname of O'Brien literally means descendant of Brian Baru. It's what it means. Oh, that's funny. Yes. So Miles talks about the Battle of Clontarf being the Irish versus the Vikings. But I literally, because I'm a huge history person like Robbie, I went down a rabbit hall, battle of Clontarf. It was actually, it was the Irishman of Munster, which is where Brian

Baru was part of that, versus the Vikings of Dublin and the Irish of Leinster that were allied together. So there were Irishmen fighting other Irishmen in this one that were allied with the Vikings, basically. Yeah. So that is, that is pretty awesome that O'Brien means descendant of Brian Baru. The other crazy thing is this battle was so bloody. It started in the morning and ended at, it started at sunrise and ended at sundown. So we're talking like just 12 hours of straight fighting. I think it was like 7,000 versus 6,000, something like that. And the losses were incredible. It just, like, decimated. 90% of each army was, you know, I would say 95% of the Viking force allied with the Irish were destroyed, whereas 80% of the Brian Baru's forces were

destroyed, including Brian Baru himself. He was killed. His son, heir to his throne, he was killed. His grandson, so his son's son was also killed. So how is there a Miles O'Brien? Everybody was killed. Robbie. Obviously, that son's son had a son that didn't fight. That was an infant that continued. Okay. He was at home. Good. The lesson here is don't go fighting from sunrise to sunset. Yes, yes. Don't do that.

Don't fight all day. Don't even fight. Just, no fighting. No, just don't. No. Just negotiate. Well, the next thing that happens in this scene is we see that quark is very depressed, very grumpy. There's zero business going on in here.

And we learn it's the Bajoran time of cleansing, which is a month, I think you say, of cleansing. That's right. It's a month. Yeah. So this is a long stretch with nobody drinking and eating. Well, not nobody. Just Bajoran's not inky. All the Bajorans are not, but it's pretty, pretty quiet.

Ram's got his earache here. He's trying Mooghys Home Remedy, which looks like Alka-Seltzer in a test tube or something. What is the equivalent of a time of cleansing in modern religion? Isn't there some type of Lent? Lent, Lent, sorry. I'm not Catholic, so I don't, Lent. I'm not Catholic either. But you know, and I didn't, so good.

But also, there's obviously all of the Jewish High Holiday Day, they're fasting and that type of cleansing focus yeah i'm not sure it's cleansing and it's only uh it can only be for a couple of days so it's not a month but lent is 40 days so well it's a couple days yom kippur is um yon kippur is only uh one day one day right is that what you're referring to then um kippur is that the yeah that's what i was thinking and yeah yeah but it is a week of of of reflection from russia shunner to Yon Kippoor's. So that's eight days.

But that's only Yon Kippur that's a fasting day. Oh, okay. Well, we learn that things are super quiet. We learned that Rom has an earache and he's going to try Alka-Seltzer in his ear, which I was thinking about the makeup and the mess of that. That whole good, yeah. Yeah, that would have been. He filled that thing up, Robbie.

That test tube thing was full. That whole thing went in that little makeup crevice of his ear. No. No. That's why he's turned it aside. Okay. So it was all down the side of his face. And that's why I'm mopping it up.

Yes, yes, yes. They played it away from camera. Thank God. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking there was a tube in there that must have caught. It's a drained system. Yeah.

It just spilled out. It just spilled out. Okay. Yeah. It doesn't work. Lita's very concerned. Quark's very mad. We see Roms POV in this scene, which I thought was kind of cool.

Yeah. is kind of slow-mo, weird stuff going on. Eventually, Quark wants him to go back to work. He shoves a tray at him or something, but he falls out. Rom passes out. And Quark has no sympathy. You're not very sympathetic to his... Well, because he says he's going to dock his pay.

That's the only thing he says. It was really mean. To defend my alter ego, he's had a bad month, or at least a couple of words. weeks yeah yeah no excuse no it's a very good excuse actually and and you've seen you've probably seen uh rom go through this earache problem before right and and he knows what the earache is from there's a line that there is oh yes there is yeah oh wow that's later though it's not in this scene not not yeah okay no but but yes and i have a conversation because the character says again i think that's one of my lines again okay that might be an excuse

but the excuse is he hasn't it he's been losing money and uh you know he has to he may not he may not pay the federation money but he is paying some salary otherwise you wouldn't be there yeah yeah oh he's paying everybody and he's got to pay for supplies and all kinds of things i'm on team court still i'm still team core karmine thank you i don't understand i'm sure it's it was a running thing and again part of the tone meeting why we needed to have more than there because all of this is happening morn is sitting there um and he's not allowed to speak um and i thought really why have him there what's the point of having mourn there if all of this is happening and he doesn't say a word or it now it could be there were a number of

episodes in the original white pages where morn actually did have language um and it may be that it got cut out in the blue pages and the golden round pages so it's possible. But then it became a device, right? Then it became that he was... It was always a device from the beginning. David Livingston loved

Mark Shepard's makeup as morn. And so he began to put him in every shot that he, David, was directing in the bar. And so it became a thing. Yeah, yeah, became a thing. But here it was like, really, he's sitting right there, he's in the foreground. You're literally talking between...

He's between the two of you. Yeah, yeah. And not... not saying anything? Come on. He's known wrong as long as he's been on the station. So, really. Well, maybe he could have been animated in terms of his physicality. Like, what's going on? Maybe that would have helped. I don't know. But you're ready. And then it stops. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But to your, to your point, Armand, when you said that there is an excuse. We've had no business, blah, blah, blah. Well, later in the episode,

we find out, you don't pay rent. You don't pay power. You don't pay any of the overhead than any business person. We didn't know that. So I kept thinking, wow, how bad could this cleansing be when you're so far ahead from not paying any of those costs or expenses? You still have to pay for inventory. You still have to pay for wages. You still have to, there are other things have to be done. It is the conflict between socialism and capitalism. The Federation is a socialistic society and the Ferengi are a capitalistic society. So there are still things that have to be paid for. Those people coming in bringing supplies, bringing liquor, bringing whatever else is that supplies the bar, all of those things have to be paid for. Can I just say, though,

if everyone were to react in that way, it would be just a terrible world. I mean, we as actors have to pay things even when we're not getting paid. We still pay mortgages. and expenses for our lives. We can't just go being in a horrible mood and treating everybody horribly because this is a bad month. We know that this is okay that it's a bad month because there will also be good months

and because there were good months. With all due respect to that, Chase, sit on some of the union negotiations. Yeah, well, I mean, it just doesn't excuse people from being awful. Well, understood. Again, yes, it doesn't excuse people from being awful,

but it is the difference between capitalism, socialism, capitalism incites people to make more money that's the point of capitalism and and and the ferengi are are steeped in this this is what they if they don't make a profit they look bad not only to themselves but everybody else who's keeping tabs of what they're doing which obviously brunt and the others are doing yeah so we're in the infirmary Bashir is trying to get rid of this infection, which is very far along, to the point that it's been a couple of weeks. If Rom had waited longer, there's a good chance he may not have even made it to the infirmary. Could have died.

The morgue would have been his destination, yeah. Well, as he's working through that, it's Bashir who sort of brings up this idea of a union, which Rom obviously had never, ever thought that this could be something that he could ever do until Bashir starts talking about, you know, you need something to keep you guys from being exploited. And really, that sparks the fire. That's the spark. Well, he talks about, Rom reveals that they get no sick days, no vacation, no overtime. So it's all kind of driven by whatever management says.

And he even defends, I think, Rom defends the contract at one point. Yeah. He goes, no, our goal isn't to beat management. It's to be management. Like, we want to be the exploiters. or something. The labor contract is a standard contract that all Frankie employees will sign.

It's normal. The norm. Considering that he almost just died, can you imagine if he died from too much UMox? Like, how did he pass? Well, excessive UMox. We would have burned his body immediately. Yeah.

It's not good in an obituary. No. No. So Rahm almost just died and is still defending the right. of the Ferengi to screw each other. I mean, that's, like, pretty deep. That's the culture, is the culture.

It's not the rights. It's, forgive me, just, I mean, an entomologist. The word is the culture, because there is no rights. It's what they're steeped in. This is the culture that they're steeped in. It's their religion. It's their culture. It's their obligation.

Their obligation, but, yes. Yeah. It is their tradition. This is what they've been doing since the dawn of time. Right? Yeah. Their identity. Their identity, yes. Good way.

All those things. Good way of explaining. Okay. Yeah, we go to Quarks again. There's a work meeting going on. Lita says, Lita says the Quark should have let Rom go see Dr. Bashir because he's super dreamy. Again, I guess this is suggesting that they're dating, but I didn't get it. I didn't get it until late in the episode that that is what they were suggesting.

Yeah. It was a bit vague. Like, yeah, it was big. I got it, though, for me. You did? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It just wasn't an intensely, they didn't take advantage of all they could have.

Yes, agreed. Yeah. Um, Rom does reveal that, uh, he might have gotten this ear infection from too much umox, and, which is ear action for those listening that don't remember. I just want to make sure you understand it's, it's the frangy. The pharynge sexual organs are somehow related to their ears, I just put it that. And UMox is the stimulation of these things, right? Lita asks who the lucky girl is.

Rom says, oh, just me. Super awkward moment. It's like I had to pause it. Yes. Can I read, you know, Robbie, here we go. Rom's reluctant confession of self-administering UMox is the first all to masturbation in any species in all of Star Trek. And this is, I know it's,

It's kind of embarrassing or whatever, but this is one of the reasons why I love D-Space 9 is because they talk about real issues, you know? They really do more so than any other track. We never, in Voyager, we never dared to go in that direction, you know what I'm saying? And again, again, DS9 has Voyager to think because Berman and all the eyes are on our show so that Ira could do whatever the hell he wanted, which was wonderful. And in typical Ferengi fashion, there's no stigma to the need and greed for Umox. It's just when Lita says, you know, when he says that there was no girl just him, and Lita says, I'm sorry.

He says, sorry enough to do something about it. Yeah. And he just says it. Like, hey, want to. Yeah. Who would say that in real life in the middle of a bar? There's no shame. No shame.

Yeah, I would say what you read, Garrett, you said. his reluctant confession, he wasn't reluctant. He was happy to share and no shame at all, which I thought was very healthy and surprising, honestly. Frankie are often asking for their ears to be rubbed in, you know, or making it's a joke that's right out there in the open. There's absolutely no stigma. Yeah. Well, in little green men, you remember that with the, they had the female, a human doctor like rubbing their ears in the I was just in her house for dinner. Yeah. Oh, were you? Oh. And, and, and, and, Dax at one point did that to

Quark reached over and made an illusion of that. Yeah, it happens often. Probably healthy. Yeah. No shame at all. They're not puritanical. They're not puritanical.

They're not puritan. Exactly. Well, Quark arrives in the middle of this conversation about Umox. He again says business stinks. So he decides everyone is going to get a pay cut. And Rahm is very upset about this. This is not fair.

Quark is pretty harsh about all this, says he's just an employee. And he does say in this scene that he wishes he was an only child. Yeah, that's pretty ugly. That was ugly. The other stuff I can get behind, but that's pretty ugly. And if I may compliment LaVar, at the beginning of this seat, there's a beautiful shot of Rahm leaving the infirmary, crossing the promenade, walking into the bar, and seeing a group there. standing there. I loved that shot.

That's, I was just, wow. I don't think anyone ever did that before. Wow. Or we'll do it again for that, man. Yeah. Yeah, it was very, very nice. Good observation, Armin. We do jump out to the corridor with Daxon Wharf for a minute.

They're in their, uh, their workout clothes, which was like the yin and yang. Did you notice their clothes? She had a white stripe going this way. He had his going that way. So together they would sort of. form of heart yes or something i just thought that was an interesting like why are they going different directions oh because they they would fit together i see it's very martial arts looking yes the way right very i don't know last airbender wardrobe looking to me what they were

wearing so that's a great observation well dax is starting to feel good with the meckleff the very small weapon wharf is very stingy with praise he doesn't want to give her compliments because uh you No, a Klingon warrior doesn't need the praise of his teacher, he says. That's his excuse. But they're sort of flirting with each other. You can feel that. Worf, here's a noise up in the ceiling, hits a panel with his battlet, and outfalls a thief, hits the ground with a bunch of small items, including his tooth sharpener, which we saw

he really loved that tooth sharpener in an earlier episode. Yeah, that's what made him growl when you realize that, that last shot on Michael Dorman. and are you getting all that. And now and did he growl, but we have a great image of his teeth. Yes. Yeah, I was looking to see how sharp they were if they needed an update. Yeah, they needed some sharpening, I think. Yeah.

Yeah. My little critique on this scene is, okay, when you hear a funny noise, all right, I take, I didn't like the fact that they both got into like attack mode with their weapons. It's like, it's just a noise, you know what I'm saying? I would have loved for them to, because like, what are you? going to do? You're going to chop something. I'm like, come on. You're holding the weapons. You're not on an away mission. You're literally walking down the corridor. It would just be like you walking to your bathroom and hearing some little creek. You're not going to be like, oh, my God. You know, it's, to me, they should have walked with their, the mechleth and the

batleth down by their sides. And as they, as they, as, as Worf is hearing the noise, he just pokes and then the guy falls out. It doesn't have to be like, defensive posture. We're being invaded by Kardashians. That's not happening, you know. So that was a weird direction with they were doing there. I have a false threat. Yeah, it really wasn't. Interesting. A trauma response. So I disagree with LeVar in that regard. Yes. Yes. Well, we go to the security office, Wharf throws this thief onto Odo's desk at the opening shot. Odo sends him off to a holding cell. And Worf says, this never happened on the Enterprise, basically saying, Enterprise was so much better. I love Odo's Renee's smile when he says that. When Worf goes, just never happened.

to see Odo smile to see Renegal because he already knew he already knew all this he had the evidence yeah but I think it's more than that but I agree with you absolutely that's absolutely right

okay but I think there's a slightly more than that I think all of us on Deep Space Nine were slightly miffed at the at the devotion to next generation and I think if he could puncture that bubble just a little. I think that's what Renee

was smiling about. I love it. So it was, there's more going on there. I love it. Thank you. Right. So there, for your little darlings. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was. Exactly. Which still persists,

frankly. It does. It's still there. It is. Hey, but there's nothing that we can do about it. It's just the way. It's just what show was filmed before what other show is what. Well, here's what. Here's what. Odo does about it. Odo goes down a list of all these times things happen on the enterprise that are just like

what's happening here. It's the same. Right. No better. You're no better. Right. Those were not the glory days. Yes.

And Worf concedes, you're, you know, yes, you're right. And Worf eventually just says, it just makes me mad, you know. Yeah. What's the name of that alien? Is it Dapthian? Is that what that alien was? The stealing alien. Okay.

Well, that's the same alien. alien that stole Majel Barrett's Laxanatroy's hair brooch or whatever the heck of that thing or brooch on her clothing. They're thieves. They're thieves.

Why are they even allowed on the station? I mean, this is come on, guys. I mean, this happens over and over again. Maybe they're not all thieves. Maybe not all of them. Okay. Well, maybe it's the same Doctian. We keep seeing over and over again.

Yeah. It's just one. We need to see a good Doptian. Yeah, we need a nice. stop the end. Yeah, I'm sure there are. And speaking of stereotypes, thank you for bringing that up.

And not all Ferengi are the same either. And that's what this episode is partially about. Yeah. Not all Davo girls either. Not all anybody. Not all Bajorans, yeah, yeah. Good point. Very Star Trek-y point.

We go to Rom's quarters next. Quark's got all the employees gathered together. Basically this scene is where he forms a union. And I said to myself, who's Grimp? Like, suddenly there's these Ferengi talking all over the place that supposedly work there that we've never met. Right. I wish. And we'll never meet again.

I know. Yeah. That always bumps me on Star Trek that suddenly people appear that are supposedly on our ship or our station or our bar, and they have a lot of lines. And then I wish we'd see them before or after. Okay. Armin, here's, sorry. My question to you is, why on God? Green Earth, did they not just use David Levinson as Broyke in this scene and not

grand purfrey, you know, just use someone we already know. I don't get it. Yeah. I think the prejudice, and it is that, and I may be wrong. So everyone, in Ira, writing staff, Berman, everybody else, forgive me for saying this. I think they, they pigeonholed the background, especially the stand-ins, as background. And God forbid that they should get any bumps now they got over that uh david and others did get lines at the end of the run oh thank goodness in the seventh season they did get some lines but i i think it they're being quark here if you give them one word that's that is scripted um you have to raise their salary exponentially exponentially so um i think that's why i think it's a matter of finances that they just now

they had to pay somebody they have to pay the two actors that spoke exactly and and it would have made a lot more sense for david as broik to set those lines and there were some other uh of farangi actors who were background usually of farangi background they could have spoken um i i i think that would have been a better choice because as much as i appreciate what the two actors who are playing the two speaking roles as Ferengi. If we'd given David or someone else, someone who was steeped in Deep Space Nine's culture, I think we would have gotten slightly different performances. I think these guys said, these are what the Ferengi are on TNG, take a look at it, that's how you should play it. But we had already matriculated out of that stereotype. Yeah. Both not only for me, as Quark,

but also to some extent, for Brunt, for, for Max, for, you know, that we were not. We were not just one-dimensional characters. And these guys, I'm sure they were doing their very best, and I'm sure LeVar gave them what they had to do, but it's slightly one-dimensional and sort of, their IQ is sort of like around room temperature. Yeah, they weren't part of the gang already. This is a total aside, but that's how I got my sag card. I was in a basic, non-special, like a special extra position, and I said to the director, hey, could I have a line? Because I hear, if I have a line I could get my SAG card and I hear that's a good thing to have.

You said that for you. I did. Look at you. I was young. I was in Texas. I knew nothing. I was a theater actor. I mean, I knew nothing about film and TV. And I said that and they gave me a line and that's how I got my card. Oh, my God. Well, the lesson there is

if you don't speak up, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you'll never know. Frankees would speak up too. Yes, good for you. That's, yeah. Anyway. Yeah. I just had a problem with the two actors playing the Ferengi from next generation.

Yes, they were playing old Ferengi. Yeah, they were playing a dated Ferengi is what it was. And I heard it too. I heard it in their diction. I heard it in their cadence. I was like, wait a minute. That doesn't sound like it's on the same page. So agreed.

Well, Rom decides to form a union, the idea that Bashir gave him in Sickbay. He suggests forming a union and the Ferengi are shocked. shocked Grim and frule say this is blasphemous that the Ferengi Commerce Authority will hear about this

they'll find out and Rom says basically look they're going to find out anyway they're going to find out what's going on here so why not embrace it

this is an opportunity for us to actually make money he kind of takes the Ferengi culture and puts it from the union perspective and it actually makes a lot of sense. Ferengisian opportunity, what do you do?

You try to make some money and we can make money with this union idea. And one of the things that causes that is he rubbed shoulders with a human. This idea would never have occurred to a Ferengi if they all lived on Ferengenar on the planet. It's the intermixing of cultures that makes for a more enlightened individual.

And that is the beauty of, cultures mixing together. You learn from each other. Yeah. Great point, Armin. Thank you for pointing that out. It's a great point. Yeah. Well, the union thing comes up. They kind of debate it, but Lita starts this group chant. They start chanting union, union. Before she chanced that, when Ram is sort of getting them all riled up, that the pacing of the, and the way those lines are written, I thought he was going to go into this rap almost when he's like strike a blow against quark strike a blow against the fca strike a blow against i just expected it to turn into like a chant well it does sound like that's what striking groups do they get group you know group chance and group cheers and you want to get that back and forth

with a leader call and response kind of thing that is a classic union move yes go to any any strike and see the line of strikers, that is exactly what's happened, call and response. And it gets people riled up, gets the people going by riled up. If it's loud enough, it can rile up the management because they have to listen to this through their windows. It's absolutely a labor tactic. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I agree. I just feel like I felt like it was about to turn into a musical as well. It was like, how, this could be a musical right now. This scene. Sorry. Go ahead. Chase. When words aren't enough and you have to sing. Yes. Exactly. That's right. Yeah. And interestingly, during every single strike that I've seen in recent history in the last couple of decades in L.A., that DS9 has been involved and has been like a meme. I don't know if you can see this. Now you can't see it. Put it in front of your body.

Yeah, put it in front of your body. There you go. Okay, here we go. So this is a graphic that someone made and it's a wonderful artist, I should be telling you who right now, speaking of which, but it says the boss needs you, you don't need them, labor is entitled to all it creates. And apparently this was also a meme in 1938, there was a strike. And there were also, this was also the type of thing that was used to rally and, you know, consolidate the voices that were necessary to rise up against capitalism or to well to rise up against the bosses the unfair labor yes yes now i want to say something tangential but slightly different to that which is i would have loved for you to have said something during this scene more i would have liked for to hear your point of view chief leaders point of

and not just have a male explaining to us what the problem was thank you thank you because there are whole additional set of issues that females are subject to. I mean, it's not just the money and the hours. It's the heel. And the cat costume. And the sexualization of workers, waitresses, daubo girls, the part that the fact that that is expected to be part of a job, which Lita didn't subscribe to, but still the fact that there is that type of pressure. Yeah, I mean, that's certainly an aspect of this that wasn't addressed. I did feel like your performance, Chase, to Armand's point, even though they didn't give you lines to, you know, take a leadership role in this moment because Rom's kind of leading it. But you were, your performance, you were leading that cheer with energy in a way that I put you in Rom as almost equal leaders in that moment.

Thank you. In my experience of that scene, I thought you were great. energy was great. Thank you. And if not later, it would be captain in number one. Like just right, just right there. Yeah. So your energy was awesome. That's what I meant. I mean, you got to give it your all. Whether the camera finds that or not is another thing. But yeah, thank you. This is so radically different for Ron. And God bless the writers for saying, we haven't really seen this out of Max Kredenchik. Is he capable? Really, they have to think this. Yeah. Is he capable of doing this. And they gave him a great opportunity to show what he could do. And he, you know,

it was a home run for him. God bless them for trusting him. And God bless Max Kredenchek for showing them, yeah, I can do this and more. The range of sensitivity and strength that he has as Rom, and this was such a beautiful showcase for it. He always has it in every episode, the depth and the fun and the humor and the reality and the sensitivity i'll go back to he's amazing isn't he his voice quality almost changes in this uh episode there's it's just almost like he's he's transforming in front of our very eyes but then there's still little glimpses of old for i'm like after he gets kissed he's like she just kissed me he goes back to that little goofy whimsical voice right it it it is it's a it's a fine line that he walked and he was

And it's a tribute to his ability that he could do both. Yeah. It really is. And Rahm is a free thinker. I mean, the fact that he was doing all this umaks during what was actually the Bajoran cleansing ritual when they were allowing themselves no pleasure. And he's like, well, I'll make up for that. You know, it just occurred to me. It is the Bajorn cleansing ritual.

And you should not have kissed Bishir. Oh, well, I clearly wasn't allowed to take part in that anyway because I was a worker working girl. Well, you know, maybe, maybe not. Yeah, it's interesting. I thought the same thing. It's the Bejorn Cleansing Month, but Lita's working and all of that. And it reminded me of how people often in their cultures or their faiths, not everybody subscribes to it. Yeah.

Some people are going to practice Lent very, you know, very severely. Severely, and others are going to say, I don't, no, I don't do that. Alina is more spiritual and less religious. Yes, yes, less traditional for sure. Yeah, the heart of it. We are in the infirmary now. Dr. Bashir is now treating O'Brien for not a huge, not a broken bone, not an upset tummy, but a sebaceous cyst, which is a deep embedded piece of acne.

Sounds disgusting. I'm so glad we didn't see it. I'm so glad we didn't get a look at it. Thank you. Why would they write this? Again, this is more, this is the reason why I love this show so much is look at this scene. Nobody on Voyager went in to get a Zit treated, a cyst treated.

You don't see this. And who knows? Maybe this scene was the influence of a current show called Dr. Pimple Popper. I mean, that's a huge show. People love that show. And maybe they were watching this and say, hey, I have an idea for a reality show. And that's what happened. Maybe.

Yes, nine. creating other projects unbeknownst to them Miles thinks he has two heads I like that joke It could have just been a slipper disc Oh yeah Yeah

Ram does come in though He wants some advice from Bashir about unions Bashir's trying to be very cautious in this scene But Miles we discover Is all about unions Talks about how it runs in his family His relative led The Anthracite Minor Strike

In Pennsylvania won their demands but then, as he's telling the story, we realized it ended sadly. He was shot and pulled out of the river before it ended, but he was a hero. He died a hero. Yeah, but it's a little unsure of this advice at the end. I think what makes it even funnier is just how many times he was shot over 30 times.

And that just adds the intensity of like, this is what happens when you try to buck against the system, right? And so, yeah, you're right. Rom does have a moment of like, am I doing the right thing? Oh, my God. but he was more than a hero he was a union a union man yeah and and look at the the change in the o'brien family at least from miles o'brien his forefather was uh brian king this this relative worked in the coal mines yeah granted he was he was a leader of the strike and and more power to him

and I'm sure he did have the biggest funeral at the time, but still, before that, he was a coal miner, which were the jobs relegated to immigrants when they came to this country. So look at the change in the family history, and of course, it all goes on to Miles O'Brien being a huge factor in space in the 24th century. Well, immigrants now, you find people who were doctors in their country, and now they're driving kids. cabs or waiting tables. Mm-hmm. Well, Ram is changing the history of your family line. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, he's making a big, taking a whole, breaking new ground, taking a whole new path there. Yeah. We go to ops next. We see O'Brien under the console. It looks like Worf Station is breaking or something. Miles finds the problem.

And they discuss how the enterprise was so much easier. And O'Brien agrees. He says, yeah, it was a lot easier. But O'Brien's kind of into the fact that this station needs me. What I love about DS9 is there's always something breaking every day. And it's great. I love fixing things. So O'Brien's attitude is kind of a positive spin on it, whereas Worf is like, you know, this is a mess.

It's not what I'm used to. Yeah. So O'Brien actually disagrees with him. He says it's easier working on the station because he gets to do things. Is it what he's saying, right? because you were saying that he agreed with Worf saying it was easier on Enterprise. Well, he agreed that things weren't broken. Like the Enterprise ran great.

They both agreed. The Enterprise was smooth sailing. There was nothing ever wrong. But exactly. O'Brien loves it here. But a metaphor for DS9. Everything's not perfect. Everything's messy.

Yeah. Everything breaks. Yes. Yep. Perfect. I thought, by the way, this was another confusing scene to me because Worf's complaining about the Defiant. I thought they were on the Defiant as well.

I thought they were on the Defiant as well. I thought they were on the Defiant. Mine too. I'm like, wait, that's, no. So. Yeah. So it was confusing. It was confusing.

Yeah, I wish that had been cleared up a little better. Agreed. Next thing, we go to the promenade where we see quark walking. This is what you were talking about before, Armin. Yeah. This is quark walking through the promenade. So they dressed, they lit the entire promenade just to bring quark through there. So we do see the moment of him, say, he says, happy cleansing as all the bejorns are going into the temple.

and then we pan the other direction. This is actually a second one of those because there was the first one with Rom coming from the Affirmity into the bar. But this is the second one. This is the second long shot like that where LeVar showed us a lot of the promenade, showed us just the, what's the space

between the temple and Quarks Bar, which was the actual space? And you can't do that on a lot of shows because everything's broken up into little pods. But on our show, as Chase Will's second, it was just one huge big set. It was a big set. It's just shocking to me, though, Armin, that it took up until the fourth season for a director to do a shot like that. Like, why didn't anyone else try that season one or two?

I don't get it. I think they did some shots like that, but it was not common because you'd have to bring in more extras. You'd have to have a lot more time to light it. It just was not easy. Yeah, time. well we go into quarks Rom's got the whole crew gathered shoulders shoulder squared off against quark

they show him their demands he laughs thinks it's hysterical Rom basically says all right then we're on strike and they all march out together I did like that Rom he says that they formed the guild of restaurant and casino employees

which the letters of that are grace so they're the grace Union, which I thought was a, he doesn't say that, but I... Robbie, what a cool realization. Yeah. Guild of Restaurant and Casino Employees. Grace Union. Somebody should do that.

Yeah. You know what I really like about the makeup for Frangis? And you see it when Cork is laughing. When Cork tilts his head back, the nostrils are not perfectly round like human nostrils. They're literally tear drops. They have a point at the top. or raindrops. Yeah.

They're kind of, they're a different shape, which is a small detail, but it just makes things more believable for me. You know, it pulls me. I want to be pulled. I want to be pulled into the story and not sitting outside going, wait a minute, that looks just like a human nostril. And it wasn't. It's an alien nostril.

Tear drops. And again, I would have liked for Lita to have said something in that scene as well. So we're not just getting Rom's point of view. The other thing is, speaking of makeup, I was particularly taken. with the way they lit us in this episode. Sometimes I see all the wonderful things that my makeup artists would do with my makeup because it's obvious.

They've lit it in a certain way that everything shows up and I go, oh, that's not good. But in this episode, they used light and shade in a way that the makeup looked more like skin than it usually did. Yes.

I don't know how they did that. But it was obvious to me. there's it looks like skin as opposed to prosthetic yeah I made that yeah I tracked that and there was one shot

especially with with ROM talking and the way the shade hit I thought wow I was looking at it closer and closer this looks like it's real alien skin it doesn't look like makeup at all so yeah why would they do that Robbie I mean it's the same it's the same DP

it's the same same gaffer same gaffer why would some episodes it was obvious that it was prosthetics and this one it's not I would say

and this is just a guess that usually a Ferengi is in a scene with mostly other characters other human characters or other you know makeups with different colors

so because you were in the minority of the number of actors in that scene they sort of key off of who is the, you know, the main character or the majority. So they may key off of more human skin tones and human, whereas because you were the majority, there were a lot of Ferengi in this episode.

They could sort of key the colored temperatures and the lighting style to the Ferengi because there were, you had Rom, you had these guest star actors, you had background Ferengis, you had Brunt, Quark, obviously, got a lot of Ferengue. So that needs to be your key, and everybody else falls into that. Thank you. Does that make sense? Yeah. That'd be a guess.

That's a guess. I don't know for sure. But it did look better. I think we all noticed that. And now that I think of it in hindsight, when they're all standing together in that mass to confront cork, there are a few non, you know, aliens in that bunch. And their color looked off to me. So if it was tuned for all the Frangie makeups, there was like one very, one here.

A woman gal who kind of look like the gal from Beetlejuice. They wouldn't have been human. Forgive me, just to be, they would have been Bajoran. Okay. So there was a Bajoran there. Just as Chase is a Bajorn as much as she looks very human. Yes. She is a Bajorn.

The skin tone didn't look very good on that one Bajoran. Yeah, Chase, you probably, Chase, you would have suffered with the lighting in this episode because you were- Interesting. Yeah, they would have not prioritized you guys. They would have prioritized making sure there was a. nice continuity with all the Ferengi. That's so interesting, huh, okay. Yeah.

But I thought you looked great. I didn't mind it. I liked watching this, you know, maybe the fact that it was 25 years, 30 years ago was it helps. I'm going to say you just, you can't be photographed badly, Chase. Oh, thank you. That's nice. Thanks.

Well, we jump outside of Quarks. The picket line is often. running. They're thanking people for not patronizing quarks. But they're paying them, not yeah. That's what? They're not right. That's pretty backwards. Yeah. And ladies and gentlemen, that is not what a professional labor union would do. They do not pay people not to go into buildings or whatever. And what were we paying them with? That's what occurred to me. They were paying one of It was Latin strips. I thought they were like memory chips or flyers or whatever about the strike, but no, it was

Latin them. They were giving away. I'm like, oh, my gosh. Now, there's a conflict in this show because of that. Cisco tells Quark in an earlier scene, you're not, you're not being charged because we're a socialistic society. Everybody is, it's all free here. We don't exchange money.

It's the running argument I had with Michael Dorn. But here, the strike. are giving out money to people. So what are they going to do with that money? They can't just spend it in quarks. There must be other places where money is taken. In which case, what is the currency on this? Is it nothing?

Is everything free? Or does do things cost things? It does in quarks, for sure. It costs a lot. It does. But if they're giving money to not go in quarks, what are they going to do with that money? And why would any Ferengi in his right mind give a way?

money. And he must have given away a lot. I mean, Grym or somebody says, I hope we don't run out of Latinam. I think that's one of his lines. This also brings up, I've never thought of this before, but you're right, Armin, if the Federation and Starfleet is socialist and there's no money, then

what does Kira pay with when she comes in? What does where do they get that money? Because they don't trade in Latinam in the Federation. Do they get an allowance? Do they... I don't know. I used to, I think I've already said this, but I used to say to Michael Dorn, when he was in the scene with me in the bar,

I would push a pad in front of him. And he said, what's this for? I said, so you pay for your drinks. And he said, we don't have money. And this was a running argument that Michael and I had. But you do in quarks, you've got money. That's, yes, it's a capitalist. So a tray full of it.

You know, Chase was carrying a tray full of money. It's Latin. It is complicated when you clash a socialist group with a capitalist group. How do they trade? How do they communicate? How do they trade? It's a bit of the prime directive in action, right? I mean, we're not going to change the Ferengi way, so we can't not have money in quarks, but we also need to have our own system and credo and ethics. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of trading going on in this station and outside of this. We constantly have lots of episodes where people show up with they have things to sell, things to buy, things. to trade um not everybody is a socialistic society not every society is a capitalist society so um how does you're right robbie how does trade go about yeah i don't know you know how does starfleet go to some

colony of aliens that has dilithium crystals and say hey we'd love to get some of your dilithium how do you they're just going to give it to you yeah doesn't make sense if you don't have any money what do you What? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it made sense for the original show because they were, they were, I don't think they ever bought anything on the original show. But in subsequent shows, there's a lot of trade going on. And how is that done?

I don't think anybody ever addressed that in a way that I felt comfortable with. Well, on Voyager, Robbie, if you recall, a lot of times we would barter with aliens. We'd like, okay, we'll give you these supplies that we have excess, We have an excess of, you know, amount of these things. We can give that to you. So we did that. And if someone could figure out the answer, we'd have a different world in real life, right? Right.

That's right. What did they have in San Francisco back in the 60s, the free store where there was food, there was clothes, there was furniture, and everybody just came in. It was free. Wow. I remember. Yeah. Free store. We need more of those.

Yeah. Yeah. I hear Ram saying, don't go into Quarks. And this is the line of. of picketers there i wanted all of those people to be saying that yeah and i know the reason was they didn't they didn't want to pay all the background people to say those lines yeah but they certainly could have given lead us some lines they could have given and they did to some extent give uh some lines to the two guest stars but i wanted all of them to say it and here's the difficulty

where people, all those people should have been saying something. I wonder the difficulty for the background actors how to perform without saying a word. That's a difficult situation to be it. Because the camera is focused on the group. How is it the one or two people are speaking? It's something like that and they're not speaking. That's where I think the production was pennywise and pound foolish.

Yeah, if you're going to do an episode about a labor strike where there's a very vocal group of strikers, they should have played that part of the story. And you didn't really feel that part of the story. Yeah. We're going to do a labor union episode as cheap as possible and not pay most of you guys. Exactly. Exactly. That's funny. And if they were all demonstrating, that's the word.

They were all demonstrating. I would have loved for Odo to go by and shaking his head because they're making too much noise. Yeah, he doesn't. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I did like, when we go inside Quarks, I did like Quirk's solution of having holographic

replicas of himself working in the bar. I thought that was very funny. Just the way they shot it, you know, is awesome. You coming up going, may I take your orders? This very, very just monotone voice in a way, right? Yeah, it's cute. it is a it is a reality of strikes that when labor goes out management tries to take over the occupations to some extent of what their workers have now given up their jobs and usually like in this scene they fail yeah they can't do it as well as the as the workers can because the workers are trained and they know their job management doesn't know how to do that and they fail it's it's not quite the same thing but for For me, it was symbolic of that.

Yeah. It was symbolic for me of AI because you've got holographic quarks who were just not quite up to the task. And there's a real reality that AI could take over a lot of people's jobs. Ours could take over our jobs. Could take over our jobs. Could take over actor jobs, could take over writer jobs, could take over director jobs. Can't take over this podcast, though.

They cannot. AI will never be. the Delta Flyers. It was bad enough when reality TV took over everything. Remember when that was just cheaper to make? And there was just an influx of it all of a sudden. And they're still, yeah. But now that they're actually having actors replaced.

Yep. Well, that's what I thought of. So, yeah, the waiters are all holographic quarks here. Odo doesn't know the difference in the beginning of the scene. And then quark fritzes out and the tray, crashes to the ground, and then the real cork comes over. I have a question again to Robbie. Yes.

How did they do that? I don't remember I must have done all those extra movements around the bar in order to be the background for the scene. But how expensive is that to intercut all of that into the sequence? Well, I think it was a combination of some, it's not cheese. They had to rotoscope and green screen some of those moments with a locked off camera probably. But they also probably combined it with some photo doubles in the background that had your makeup on and were deep background and kind of turned away for the most part. Okay.

That makes sense. It was probably a combination of those things. I mean, there was one moment where three quarks are all in the frame together. Yeah, that would have been a split screen and they would have had to rotoscope the four. ground elements from the background elements and it would have it would not have been super cheap but yeah it would have been like a split screen like when an actor has to play um the twin of themselves i've shot those kind of scenes before we have the same actor playing you know the evil version of themselves or something like that yeah you'll get a photo double for yeah it's it can be expensive

You'll split screen some of those shots. You use a photo double to shoot over a photo double to the real actor as if they're talking to themselves. And they could have done that for part of this. And as a footnote to that as an ex-union official, if you play a double of yourself, if you play your twin brother, your twin sister, you get two salaries. So let's say you as Quark were getting paid above scale, your negotiated rate for your main role. But then if, let's say you had three other twins of yourself. that had a line here and there that would be paid according to the union i would be i would be paid whatever my agent negotiated probably minimum but it's possible the agent could negotiate a comparable

salary for my twin oh wow so it's possible um whatever the agent can get out of management you know great whatever labor can get out of management and we're back to our story well we're in the we're in the upper we're in the promenade upper level and right off the bat I thought, man, this scene is just reminding me of Jake and Nog on the upper level, doing their little thing, talking. And to me, this could have been easily a Jake and Nog scene, but because Nog is off at Starfleet Academy, clearly this was the writer's way of, you know, we're still going to use that upper level. We're going to use it and we're going to put, we're going to put Chief and we're going to put Doc up there and see how they do. But it's great because they're playing a game. They're playing a game of who is going to enter Corks and who will pass Cork, which is, again, a game that Jake and Nog would probably play.

but it's cute, it's funny. Worf comes up and immediately everyone says, someone says, oh, Brian says pass because he never even really steps foot in that place, but he enters and they're shocked and they rush in to go confront Warf. I love this little quick scene. We'll talk about this later,

but I would have loved to have heard Warf's reasons for why he walked in because, as he said, it's absolutely true. He didn't say it, but as I think Bashir's says he never goes into quarks anyway. So why would he go in now? And we never hear about this. Even later, even when they're in the brick, we don't even know why he walked in.

He was being defiant. Yeah. Nice, Chase. There you go, Chase. Okay. Yeah, so Worf does walk in and important to note that O'Brien is triggered by this. And he's like, wait a minute, I'm going to go talk some sense into him. Yeah.

He goes running in. Bashir chases O'Brien. So we can tell there's going to be a labor issue discussion, hard cut to the holding area where Cisco comes in very mad. And it's the three boys just had a brawl in the bar. And they try to explain. I feel like this scene could have been funnier, if I'm being honest. There was comedy opportunity in this that it just felt like the energy was a little low

or something. Like maybe they shot this at the end of the day, the very, very end. I don't know. It's, you know, the three, the three boys are in trouble. The captain's mad. There could have been some funny, you know, trying to make excuses or it just didn't quite get to comedy or light comedy level. It was kind of middle of the road for me to see. Yeah.

The comedy for me was the final line. Captain, can we leave now? I'll tell Constable Odo to let you go in the morning. It's like, you're still staying there. That to me made me laugh. I chuckle. I feel like Zisco, Avery's. energy was appropriate. It was the other three inside the, they just...

In the brig. Yeah. There could have been banter and accusations and you and... Yeah, there could have been physical comedy. There could have been, you know, timing of looks and things like that. There just could have been some sharpness to the comedy in the scene that I don't think was... And there could, you know, because if we remember back to the first scene, when Bashir and O'Brien are going off to their Hall of Sweet program, Bashir doesn't doesn't want to be there

He doesn't he's not happy about these clothes And I'm not quite sure why he's going with O'Brien And now he's in another situation That O'Brien has put him into The comedy I think could have been I'm a little tired of following you around Getting me hurt constantly And that

That's what I sort of wanted to see there as well So that there's an arc to what people have been doing in the episode yeah with all due respect to to sid who's an incredible actor and a wonderful person i got the feeling he was bored throughout this episode that's what i felt about the three of them in the scene i felt like all three of them were like why are we doing this scene phoning it in a little bit we're stuck in a in a holding cell in a in a scene that's like and and the why for me would have been hey this is a great opportunity to have some fun and get some laughs and let's find let's be creative whether it's like you're pitching

armin with cid's with you know bashear's attitude of i keep getting in trouble this isn't my fault like he's had enough of it and it could have continued the fight and like almost gotten into it again and then you know their their anger had dissipated which i think is the problem yes jace you're absolutely right there's even more of the fight in that scene yeah yeah so what if this took place in corks where Cisco showed up, you know, right at the end of the altercation. It could have. It wasn't about the place, to me, was fine. They're in jail.

That's the hard cut to. They're all in jail. But the energy level was just off and the interest in playing the, you know, the stakes of the scene and the circumstances just didn't seem like anybody was interested in playing that scene. Yeah. Yeah. Very meh scene is what you're saying.

Okay. Yeah, that's good point. It was a Ferengi episode. that's true there you go all right yeah we're in the captain's office cisco uh was talking to quark cisco's getting tough here he wants this settled today um quirk says that uh that it's a pharynge violation of their culture to talk to strikers i can't talk to them he says and cisco now reveals that the federation has the lease on the place and he's been getting it for free that quarks been getting this place for free.

Cisco starts doing a little accounting, starts adding up some of the back costs on his pad. Did you see him typing the pad on the desk, by the way? Nothing was interacting with his fingers. I was like, maybe we should have hidden that pad a little better. Yeah, good point. Yeah. But he adds up all these costs.

It's a lot of money. Quark realizes it could be very costly not to talk to them. so he says he'll talk to his brother. Loved Avery in this scene. Just loved his integrity, his intensity, his righteous anger, vitriol toward the injustice. And I have to say,

I thought Avery was terrific, but I also thought Quark was terrific. I did too. And here's what I want to point out, not that so much. But when I watched that scene, I thought, this is season four, if they had asked me to play this scene

in season one, I would have played it radically different, not as good as I did this time. I would have played it for whatever humor was in it and not have been as committed to what my problem was as I am in this. And I thought, thank God I got to that place over the course of a couple years. Thank God that the writers had also matriculated in seeing my character in a different light. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. I thought, you know, and your willingness to concede when Cisco brings up all this money, but you frame it as, well, I'll go talk to my brother. I'm not going to talk to the strikers because that's against Ferengi rules, but I'll talk to my brother because he's my brother. So, yeah, it was nice. It's nice. Yeah, it was very nice. Good scene.

And one of the rare ones that I have with with Avery, that doesn't happen very often. It was a great scene. I liked it a lot, except for the pad being revealed on the table. I wish they'd turned that away because that took me out. And if I remember correctly, neither one of us moves. There's no blocking in this scene, which made it more intense because it's just the two actors bringing energy and commitment to what they're saying that is interesting enough that we don't need any blocking. Mm-hmm. the power of stillness on screen power of stillness yes chase yeah we go from one pad scene to another

pad scene so here we are with rom working on a pad doing a little bit of accounting work uh and of course cork is there he's ready to transfer uh latinum into his private account and rom's like well what what we talk about slips strips strips or bars slips cork says rom just makes a little little noise or look and then Cork changes it from slips to strips. But Rom says it doesn't matter, even if it was bars. I'm not going to end this strike unless every single demand is met. Then all of a sudden, Cork brings in family. Rom, we shouldn't be fighting.

We're brothers. And Rob says, no, no, no, no, no. You've already made it clear. You're the employer. I'm the employee. Cork admits he was wrong. Rare. Rare, rare, rare, rare.

We do not see that. But to me, that's Cork, evolved. in a way. You know what I'm saying? He's becoming a much more complex alien, and he's also evolving to the point of, for the betterment of himself and of everyone around him. He's actually admitting that he's wrong. And, you know, Cork is absolutely, basically flipping in a way, but he's trying to come to an end. He wants to make this strike end as soon as possible. And Rom has that quote. There's only one thing I have to say to you, workers, of the world unite you have nothing

to lose but your chains which is a reference to I think that's spoken elsewhere it's the communist manifesto manifesto itself yeah he reads it rom reads it he goes I have one thing to say to you and then he pulls out his pad and looks up the quote

yeah and again Max walk the really wonderful fine line of being both comic and serious at the same time amazing work beautiful I thought your last line was beautiful too. What's happened to you? It could have been comic. It could have been often, you know, writers will write what we call a blow at the end of the scene or a button.

Like, you know, the line is intended to be a period at the end of the scene. And it sounds that way often when after say the last line, that line, what's happened to you could have been that? but you made it so much more complex and complicated and interesting. I thought it was great. Well, thank you. Thank you. Again, my intention with this episode was to make it as serious and real as possible. I tried to stay away from humor because this was my other life.

While I was shooting the show, I was a union representative. I was official. And interesting that your button was something that shamed Rom. that as an honest expression from quark it also was a shaming type of comment and that could show that everything else that you said was a tactic instead of real change right i think if i remember correctly that the the choice was yes it was a tactic but yes there's there's a there is a love at least i always thought there was between the two brothers it was just manifested in a bad way that was sibling problems. But there is a relationship that's there that grows because Max and I became incredibly in love with each other. So there's no other way to put that.

Well, the next scene is in Quark's Bar. Quark unlocks the main doors, heads inside, and we see Jeffrey Combs as brunt. And danger. And danger. Yes. Yes. Yes. And danger as the, the Nossican thugs.

Was it definitely danger? Oh, I could say death absolutely was danger. It's absolutely dangerous. I wouldn't be surprised. And I think maybe it was Tommy, but I can't be sure of the other one. Well, okay. Because there's a little bit of trivia talking about how they hired professional dart guys to play the Nossackens.

Really? Yes. So that's why. I really thought that was danger. I really did think it was danger. Yeah, which then makes sense because you want guys that can actually aim and hit the other guy in the later scene.

Yeah, and not end up injuring the other person. And yeah, which would end the whole scene. Whoever it was, there was the same build and height as danger. But I'd like to just interject very quickly talking about identity of who's playing who. Honestly, when I looked at Brunt, it didn't look like Jeffrey at all.

In every scene after this, when I see him, I'm like, God, is it when you first see Brunt as the FCA in the prior episode, is the family business, whatever it was, you know it's him. It's like, oh, yeah, that's Jeff. I know it's him. But in this episode, I kept thinking, no, I thought they hired someone else. They brought in Jeff to do his voiceover because he wasn't available to do on-camera principal photography.

That's what I thought. Oh, my God. Is that what happened? Because not at one point did I ever think that was Jeffrey Combs underneath the makeup. That's funny because I. saw it immediately. And in the dialogue, when Jeffrey is delivering dialogue, he works the makeup so beautifully in a way that only Jeffrey Combs can do it.

Okay. It felt very, like he did something with his tongue at one month. It was just incredible. And he knew what his teeth looked like on camera and he used that too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's such a transformative actor, but there is something consistent with Jeffrey Combs that's his sort of unique brand of physicality

that I saw immediately. Well, then I guess my question is this. Did anyone notice that is his makeup any different from the prior time, the only time that we've seen him before? It looked different to me. That could be. There was more darkness added around the eyes

than he had before. And I was like, wait a minute. This doesn't even look like the same. Chase, do you remember who made him up? I don't. I don't remember. but yeah he sure knew how to work that face oh he knows how to work the face yes he does his tongue his enunciation yeah there's a sensuality to his brunt yeah and they and there was a dark scene i love

the fact it was a dark scene because again it covers up the uh the maybe that's why he looked a little different to you because because there was a lot of shadow in that scene yeah and uh lit very differently And that may have been the reason, but I love the fact that it was a dark scene. Let me just go back to the, please, a quark bribing rom. I wouldn't call them out and out bribes, but in labor negotiations, something like this happens on a not regular basis, but does happen, where someone has offered, listen, you do this for me, and especially to the attorneys on the union side or on the management side, I suppose.

I don't think, I want to say labor never does it, but perhaps they do. where you just try to convince the attorney who's guiding the negotiations for the other side to maybe, you know, not guide them as well as perhaps they could. We had a, never mind, this is for another time. I have a feeling that that's happened in real life. Yes, yes, that's what I'm saying. I can't say it from my labor negotiation experience, but I certainly have heard about this in other labor negotiation experiences. Pretty evident.

What I like about this episode is it does deal with realities. It gives reality to a strike, to a labor action, management action. And it may be a Ferengi episode, which are usually comic, but there's a lot of really grounded truth in this. Always with the Ferengi, a lot of grounded truth. I hope so. I tried to do that. So did you. well uh brunt is there to end this strike by any means necessary uh we go into rom's quarters next

and they're very confident rom and lida and frule and grimp they feel like the strikes working uh rom does share with everybody that court tried to bribe him but he refused it so that means they must be close to winning if if cork was going to pay me something we this must be working Yeah. That's when Brunt enters with his Nossack and scary bodyguards. He threatens them very hard. Threatens they're going to lose their money,

all their accounts. Their families will be targeted. We'll pay the price for this. They'll be thrown from the Tower of Commerce. You know, if they were back on Ferengi, that's what they would do. Frul drops to his knees. Our guest star, Ferengi,

drops to his knees. He's terrified. He says it wasn't him. It was all them. So he's, so the, the strike is, seems like it could fall apart here. And Brunt says be back at work tomorrow or the consequences will be severe and he leaves. And then Rahm doesn't back down. He tells everybody that Sean O'Brien wasn't scared and neither is he.

And they all need to go back to the picket line. So I would have liked to have seen someone, I mean that the two Ferengi guest stars did it to some extent. But I would have liked a little argument against that, not from Quark's point. you, but simply in negotiations, it isn't just one person speaking saying, yes, yes, we're going to do that. There are conversations about every little tiny piece of negotiation, about what are the pros and cons of this? I would have liked a little of that, but again, time, we didn't have time for that, maybe.

It was more the comedy of him groveling. Yeah, that was the only counter argument is I give up. Yeah. Which I didn't think was necessary in that. scene so that to me is old tn g pharynge i agree but during this conversation brunt you know is is kind of laying down the law but he does look at lida and he's like hey i mean it's just yes he's he's frozen he's distracted by oh my lord he really likes lita or he's in love with her beauty or something but it's just he's completely distracted her lobes are a little bit too delicate

Or something like that. Oh, my God. I mean, was that, that must have been in the script, right? Where he tracks that way? Okay. Or did that just happen? I don't know about that being in the script. I think that, yeah, that's just Jeffrey.

Huh. Okay. I feel like that might have been just Jeff. I have a feeling it was Jeff too. That part, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, we go out to the promenade next. Rahm is giving the crew. It's like a general addressing his troops here. he's giving them you know look sharp no slouching unity you know there's unity in strength there's strength in unity there is strength so be strong he looks up he sees o'brien watching and he gives him a thumbs up which i thought was nice oh brian the union man rom the union man

yeah and then we cut upstairs warf apologizes to o'brien about the the ruckus they had getting him thrown in the holding cell. And Worf admits something about the station just unsettles him, and he decides he's going to move his quarters to the defiant. And Moss is like, what? You're going to be all by yourself alone out there? Worf's response is, yes, I know.

He's very happy about that. Yeah, it was good reaction shot on Worf before he says, I know. He played that quite well. And I think it's all a oneer, isn't it? I think pretty much up top, yeah. maybe the very end they fall into some coverage at the very last moment but yeah yeah I mean you know LeVar trusted the actors and said okay let's just do it

just do it um this next scene is in the quarter with Rom walking Lita back to her quarters and she's very impressed with him this is a really lovely scene yeah yeah rom comes such a beautifully long way yeah you know A lot of times I've said about Lita and Rom that Lita falls for the guy who is pretty on the inside. But really, the truth is, he is damn, sexy in this. I mean, he is really so brave and so forthright in his knowledge and action for what is right. Absolutely, Lita fell in love with him. And I think Lita was just walking through the motions with Bashir after that.

Yeah. Well, I like that, you know, she says, I knew it all along. I knew you were so brave all along. And he goes, really? And she goes, no. No. She's honest. I like her on it.

Like, she's kind. But if somebody asks her question, she's going to be honest. No, I didn't think at all. No, he was the runt brother until now. What a huge turning point. Yeah. Yeah. She says in the scene, you surprised a lot of people, including me.

I can't believe it. Wow. It's a whole new wrong. that we're seeing. Yeah, empowering the audience to rise to the occasion and do all they know that they can do, do things greater than they thought they could do, which I think is part of why Rahm is such a popular character. And to recognize first impressions aren't always right.

Yeah. Yep. It really is a true heroic journey that he has, even in this one episode. Yeah. Well, she kisses him on the forehead, which is a nice gesture, saying good night. and then she goes in her quarters, Quark appears, says they need to talk. Rom needs to stop all of this, the FCA's involved, Brunt could take him out. And Quark's very honest about this.

You know, he doesn't want his brother to die. And Rom says, well, then you'll be an only child. That's what you always wanted, which calls back to that very ugly comment that Quirk made early in the episode. It's a nice scene. It's a scene that is made better by the affinity and trust. that the two actors have with each other. This whole scene from the walk-and-talk with Lita

to through the quark and the end of the scene, it was one of my favorite scenes in the whole episode. It's really good. Well, well-acted and really well, like, on point with the writing. They went to the heart of the relationships and the story in this episode. It's great. Thank you. Those were such tender moments all throughout

and also beautiful that Quark didn't need to do this. And he did. This was, I think, such a beautiful display of genuine care. This was not about the money or the union. This was about his brother, finally. And you've never seen Quark so vulnerable in sharing what he's, you know, we don't know all these things that are going on in Quark's head. We know him now. He's always cared about Rom. Always from day one. Try to protect him. Do all these things. And we now get a glimpse of that, which is, it's great. Yeah. Yeah. Well written. Well, well executed. I'm glad you said that, Garrett, but, you know, I'm not sure you always, always cared about his brother. Oh, so maybe there was a time where you hate this guy. Maybe, you know, there are moments. The teenage years.

Yeah. Where you have a problem with a sibling or a family member and you still love them, but overall. I hate them for, you know, for five minutes. Right. But overall, yeah, overall, I mean, they, really, it's quark and rum and nog and eventually lead up. they're all family and and and they are they are in a strange land they're strangers in a strange land and they have to stick together in order to be a unit when everything else around them is different but it's not tied up in a bow is it even though quark does have a moment

of vulnerability with rom rom still is hurting from when he said he wanted to be an only child and Rom has to say that. You know, don't think you can come back so easily. I'm still hurt. Exactly. And I love it that he throws it in his face. That's absolutely right. Yeah.

We go back to Quarks. It's after hours. Brunt and the Nossicans are there. The Nossicans are playing darts and throwing them at each other's abdomens. It just seems not smart. Okay. So I'm just going to read. The two Nossicans were played by professional dart players,

James Lomas and Sean McConnell, specifically for the scene in the episode where the two Nostkins throw darts at each other. So it's possible the earlier scene was danger with Tom Morga. And then this scene, they brought in the dart professionals for this. Yeah, because they're in the background.

It's not a tight shot on them at all. They're in the background doing them. We can't miss what they're doing. So I... It's funny. I thank you for that because that... Yeah. Because I really thought it looked like danger to me.

It might have been. It might have been danger in the first scene and then these guys later. Yeah, it's possible. Well, Quark says to Brunt, he needs more time. And basically, Brunt decides, you know, we need to make an example of someone. And Quark thinks it's wrong. No, not wrong. Then he thinks, well, maybe is it Lita you want to make an example of?

No, it's not Lita. That wouldn't be smart. It's Quark. Oh, man. They're going to make an example of quark. He's like, me? And Brunt is, uh, Quark says, me, I'm on your side.

Brun says, ironic, isn't it? Yes. That's so easy now. Poor cork. We cut into the infirmary. They have made an example of quark. His eye socket is busted. He's almost killed.

He looks very beat up. He's got this weird thing stuck on his head, this medical device to try to heal him. And Rom comes in, corks in bed. Rom comes in and says, this isn't going to work. this we're not going to fold we're not going to give in this this labor thing is too important and cork has an idea he says dissolve the union and i'll just give you what you're asking for in six months or so i'll quietly give you what you want and rom says no by the end of the week

and quark has to agree he's he's in a bind here rom has to agree rom has to yes rom has to agree to dissolve the union but cork has to agree to pay us now not six months right yeah that's right so they both kind of make us a quiet under the table deal which is the way things are done between the leaders you know it has to be okayed by the labor committee and by the management committee but the two leaders of the negotiation can come to a resolve and say this is a perfect answer for what we're what we both want and then you have to go back to your people and and try to pass it And there are things, Armand, I'm aware from the director-skilled side of things, that often there are things that are not in the new contract that the DGA wanted, for example,

but there are conversations and good faith that these things will be looked at and discussed during the next phase so that maybe they will be brought up in the next contract. That's right. That's exactly right. One of the things, you've touched on something that's enormously important and most people don't understand. Negotiations are a process, and the end of the process is a contract, but the doors are opened where we all know that in three years' time,

and our contractor is three years, in three years' time, this can be brought up. We've opened the door. We haven't agreed on anything, but we've opened the door to more discussion on it. Yes. And the final result, each contract is just a step,

stone to the next contract yeah yeah and that's kind of what's happening here with rom and quark is they're not getting you know rom's not getting everything he wanted and quark's not getting everything he wanted but they're making a deal and an agreement that that uh they're going to settle this the definition of a good contract is when both sides think they haven't gotten everything they wanted yeah and that's where they are in the infirmary here they're not they're not But they're finally settling. They're finally moving towards each other. All right.

So we're on The Defiant. Dax is with Worf, and he's starting to settle in to his new digs where he's going to be sleeping. And Dax says that initially she was going to bring a house plant, sort of like a gift. But she decided against that. And Worf says a wise decision that you didn't bring me that plant. She gives him an isolinier chip. And on that chip are all of Dax's favorite. it, Klingon operas, and she tells Worf, you can play those as loud as you like on the

defiance, since you're the only one there. And Worf says, that's a thoughtful gift. Thank you. And then, Dax says, you know, talking about sooner or later, you're going to have to adapt to life on the station. And Worf says, well, perhaps in the end, it will be all of you who will have to adapt to me is what he says. So, yeah. I'm not a fan of this scene. We come off of such a strong scene and this is just again confusing. I'm not sure of Worf's point of view or Dax's point view to be honest. Like, is he being serious at the end? You're going to all have to adapt to me. Yeah. Seems I kind of felt like it didn't land, Robbie, because they should have played more of the flirtation between these two. You know, it seemed very, very kind of clinical and just,

and you're right. That line, perhaps in the end, it will be all of you that will have to adapt to me, should have been more whimsical or more comedic as opposed to Or they should have just cut the scene when he said, oh, that's a really thoughtful gift. And end of there. End of scene. Okay. Yeah.

It got muddy at the end, for sure. Yeah. There wasn't much story in his B story about moving on to the defiance. So they should just cut it, right, in my opinion. Okay. We do have one more scene in Quarks. We do. The bar's back up and running.

Kira gets her residual scene here. She shows up for a drink. This is the only scene. I think Kira's in in this episode. Yeah. Yes, she gets her residual scene or she broke her cleanse, you know, her cleansing fast. Either way, she's in a scene.

Rom is there, but he's not in his outfit. Quark's like, why are you dressed like that? You need to get back to work. He's not working here anymore. He's got a new job. He's a repair technician, junior grade, night shift. And when he said the line night shift, I just said to Rebecca, I'm like, wait a minute, night shift.

Is there night? Is there day? Isn't it always night? And then Rebecca's, her defense was, well, they're probably on the Bajoran, the planetary Bajoran time clock. If this is a, you know, a station tied to the Bajoran home world, maybe that's their block that they're, even though there's no day. That makes sense.

That makes sense. And it's so cute that he's relegated to night shift. I know. It's funny. He makes all of this progress, but he's still... Night shift. He's still a beginner, and he's starting at the very bottom of the latter. Yeah. My question is, Federation don't pay wages. Yeah. How's he going to buy? Well, the same way that Kira is there buying a drink, I guess he's going to get whatever they, however she pays.

Yeah. That's so true. Yeah. I mean, I understand the matriculation. I understand him. wanting to get out from under that makes perfect sense and getting another job is fine but then i ask myself again it's this question of the economy and and yes uh it's it's never been resolved no it's it's one of the major it's why michael and i had this argument for years yeah yeah yeah how's it's gonna pay for it yeah so snail juice yeah but i i got to say uh he looks great in a bajoran uniform he looks really good i i let wow i like it but but but I'm a big fan of that.

And it's less hot. Oh, yes, considerably. Well, the end of the scene's really nice because Quirk is in shock, but he does admit he'll miss his brother. Rahm says the same thing. It's a nice brother moment there at the end. And it's an echo, it's a slight echo, but it's an echo of the Wharf and Miles O'Brien's scene. Rom is saying, there will be things for me to do. I know you'll need me, and I'll be happy to do those things for you, because it gives

me something to do yeah well there you go there we have it there it is we finished the labor movement episode who and one last thing about the labor movement yes in the scene where cisco talks to quark and says you'll get this done is an analogy in a labor movement sometimes the government steps in and says i know you guys are at odds at loggerheads with each other you must come to a result and the government steps in and says this and that makes all the difference in a negotiation yeah i just want to say to chase if if i was to walk up to you in corey allen's workshop that we were in together and say to you like hey years from now you and i are going to be on a podcast talking about the same show you're going to be in a different version of the show i will be on the show the

the version that comes after your version of the show, and we're going to discuss it on a thing called Zoom, where all of us will be at home. We don't have to be in the same city at all. And we're going to be talking on the, using the internet. Like, you would have been like, what? Get out. Get out of here, crazy guy. Yeah. What is wrong with you? Yeah. I mean, wow. Everything has come such a long way, baby. No, it has. But also, but for two people in the same acting class, to be on the same franchise. Like, I mean, for Armin, for Robbie, I'm pretty sure no one in your acting classes

ended up in Star Trek, you know what I'm saying? No, but a lot of people I worked with in the theater ended up as guest stars. As guest stars, of course. Sure. Of course. And that's a little different because, of course, theater actors are, you know,

Star Trek is made for theater actors. It is, yeah, yeah. But to have this random class on La Cianaga, also be taught by Corey Allen, which we didn't have any idea. Right, that he directed, Next Gen and also other episodes of Star Trek. Yeah.

It's incredible. And Jonathan Del Arco was also in this class. He was there too. Three out of the ten people in the class. Became Star Trek characters. In a city of 12 million people. So nuts. I think we need to talk about the theme, right?

Yes. We need the theme or the lesson, the moral of this episode, starting with Robbie. Then Armin, then if Chase wants to throw in her answer, she can't too. Can't wait to hear. Let's see it. Okay, my theme moral lesson for this episode is believe in the impossible and be your own biggest fan. It's the ROM lesson. It's believe in yourself and be open to believing in the impossible because to ROM unions were, as Armin said earlier, didn't exist in their culture.

So it was something that was impossible, and Rahm believed in it and made it happen, made a big change. I like that. Yeah. Okay. Armin. Mine is slightly similar just in different words. Change can be daunting, but it also is a catalyst for growth and progress.

Great. Much, much better words. Much more eloquent than Robbie's, but yes. Yes. Okay, Chase Stand up for what you know is right Don't give up And you'll go farther than you ever thought you would

Okay, that's the winner so far I like that Sorry, I just made it up It's quite alright It's great Okay, so my lesson is more haikuish It's even less words It is

Know that you are enough Great A lot of people don't realize that, you know? You have everything within yourself to do whatever you want to do. And ROM is realizing that. Yeah. Yeah. That's great.

Thanks. Love that. All right. Our Patreon poll winner for the theme slash moral slash lesson of this episode as submitted by SNASIO is rule of acquisition number 286, which is new. Flexibility is the key to long-term success. I think they just made that one up. They just made it up. Yeah, because there's zoning 250 rules.

Right. That would be Jeff Combs's, you know, flexibility as an actor is more episodes. Exactly. Exactly. All right. Well, that's it. Thank you, everyone, for tuning in for those of our listeners who happen to be Patreon patrons. Congratulations, because you get to have more Chase, more Armin and more Robbie.

and a little bit more of myself in our bonus materials section, which we're about to get into for everyone else. See you next time. Bye. Bye-bye. Thanks, everybody.