The Delta Flyers - Barge of the Dead

Episode Date: September 5, 2022

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Barge of the Dead. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Barge of the Dead:A brutal experience aboard a shuttle puts B'Elanna in touch with the Klingon afterlife, where the Barge of the Dead steers her towards Klingon hell along with her mother.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, & Bryan FullerAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Daniel de Rooy, Chris Knapp, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Brandon May, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Jeremy Mcgraw, Jason Bonnett, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Susan V. Gruner, & Andrew EvansAnd our Producers:James Amey, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Megan Moore, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Craig M. Nakashian, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Carmen Puente-Garza, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Jordan Marie Benko, Christian Koch, & Lisa GunnThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail].”Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Trek actor and accomplished television director, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, your favorite Eternal Ensign, Garrett Wong. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at Patreon. on.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. Robbie. Oh, hello.

Hey. Hello. How are you? I'm good. How was your hike this morning? I had a good hike. Saw buck. We saw deer with a buck.

Mailed deer with big horns on it. Yes. Yes. He was just all by himself, having a little breakfast. It was nice. Yeah. Did he run or did he stay? No.

He sort of looked at us. We were probably 50 feet away. Pretty close. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I love it. Oh, it's so nice.

Okay. How are you? I'm good. I'm in Calgary. It's definitely, you know, getting to be summer now. Thank goodness. Yeah. So it's, it was raining quite a bit.

And, you know, people were complaining about how crummy the weather has been. But now the rain has stopped. So it's all good right now. Good. Yeah. I am wearing my yes, ma'am, t-shirt right now. Yes, you are. Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am. I love the sort of design of the command sort of uniform, sort of very graphic. It's kind of cool. Yeah, it's sort of a representation of it, you know? As long as you suggest, a suggestion of it is, it's enough. It's art. It's kind of like our poetry synopsis. It is.

We're a creative little podcast. We sure are. Gang here, we like to be creative. so yes we do cool what are we watching today uh we're watching an episode called barge of the dead yeah oh oh yes oh yes yes okay yes yes yes yes yes yes yes you should know something about this hopefully a little bit okay we'll see all right well let's go watch this episode everyone we will be right back after we watch this episode barge of the dead and we will give you our recap and discussion of the ep we'll see you soon see everybody hey everybody we're back from watching barge

of the dead yes we are yes okay what an emotional journey what an emotional journey very emotional also gave me some goosebumps in some of the scenes i was like oh it's a little yeah you know a little intense so all right yeah let's start off with our uh poetry synopsis of this episode okay And here is my haiku for Barge of the Dead. Okay. Klingon metal found. Torres heads for Klingon Hell. Makes peace with mother.

Oh. Yeah. Oh, that's nice. You got it all in there. I got it all in there. I squeeze it all in there. I squeeze it all in. All right.

Here is my artistic, creative, and slightly charming limerick for Barge of the Dead. in a shuttle balana hit her head and she woke up on the barge of the dead her boyfriend was tom but she had to save mom she survived and hugged janeway instead i love it it's really to the point i love it thank you thank you okay good job yes uh talk to me about these guest stars and their first job yes stars okay eric peerpoint yeah plays cortar Cortar, yes. His very first job, 1984, a movie called Windy City.

What? I don't really know much about it, but that's Windy City. Sounds like a Chicago. Chicago, maybe news, a news thing, I don't know. Yeah. Sherman Augustus plays Hitchquah, Hitchquah, Hichqua, whatever that news. That's Sherman.

He is, yes, that is the older Klingon, that Torres is sitting down with. First time that she meets on the sitting on the ground. Yes. His first job was the movie Colors in 1988. Now, Colors, I think Sean Penn directed that movie. It was about like gangs, like L.A. games, I think, or something. And that is actually the first film that Aaron Eisenberg worked on as a background actor, basically.

Featured background is what it was. Colors. Colors. That's Sherman Augustus. Okay, Karen Austin, who plays Moral, which is, I'd forgotten. That's where we got Tom and Balana got their daughter's name from. Oh, you named it after mom. Yes. I'm sure I knew that, but I'd forgotten that connection.

So, okay. Anyway, Karen Austin, who plays her mom, her first job that I can find is happy days in 1978. Oh. Must have been a baby. Yeah. She must have been one of those teeny boppers there at the diner. Yeah.

At the diner on happy days. And Karen Austin, I have to mention this. Karen Austin, before this, Karen was in my first short film, the battery that Joshua Jackson was in. Oh. And Karen, yeah, Karen played the mom in that short film. And it's, it was, I had forgotten that she played

was that an open casting or was that some you knew her and you invited her to play the role how do you recall how that i can't remember how i got connected with karen okay i really don't um i think it was through words of mouth and like hey i know do you know anybody that would be good for this talking to friends and right you know i didn't have a casting director okay so she played josh jackson's mom yeah she did Karen austin so that's cool yeah small world very very small world The last actor that I looked up here is John Kenton Scholl. He played Brookton. Ah.

And his first job was Fantasy Island in 1981. Oh, look at Fantasy Island, Happy Days. I know, classics. Oh, these are classic gems of television here. Yes. Goodness gracious. Okay, very excellent. We were incorrect about our little guess about who the director is.

But, you know, Mike Vahar, someone that we respect and love Mike, love. Always loved Mike, yeah. Teleplay was Brian Fuller. Mm-hmm. It came from a story by Ron Moore and Brian Fuller together. Good old Ron. Here he is. He's fresh into the Voyager writing room and he's already, he's already knocking it out of the park a couple times here, right?

So this is his second go. I like that. Excellent. Okay. Well, let's talk about what happened. Let's begin. First thing we see is Balana in a shuttle. Yeah.

And she's having some kind of emergency. It's a super rough ride. She does have her crimped hair still. So this is an ongoing season six commitment. It really wasn't for your arch rival. This is sort of just a seasonal thing. Yeah, I guess it changed for only season six.

I'm glad it wasn't just for her ex-boyfriend that she's fancy panster hair. Yeah. So she's having a rough ride and things are exploding. And one thing I noticed is, you know, in the shuttles, there weren't, there wasn't glass in the windows. Like, it was just an open. And there was so much smoke. And I look behind her head and I'm like, oh, I can see the smoke going out where there's no glass. Like, also, also, isn't the pilot supposed to be on the other side of the shuttle, typically? No, usually it's on

the right side. Is it the right side? Okay. So it's sort of like a British vehicle, Yeah, British car then. Yes, exactly. All right. Yeah, the shuttle was damaged and she encountered an ion storm. She's hailing Voyager. Her status report is that her deflector field is shot. She's venting plasma from a port and a cell.

She's lost helm control. So Chikote says, okay, no problem. We're going to modify a tractor pulse to slow you down. We have arresting fields are in place, which reminds me of when a naval jet lands on an aircraft carrier. They have those little things that catch the plane and stop it, sort of. But we have that in terms of a containment field in the future. Janeway is off camera, tells her to hold on, and it's going to be bumpy. She does make it, and she lands and hits hard.

And again, where are the seat belts? Where? I mean, we need some, okay, clearly. Paris, you make a very quick entrance into this episode, and you're the one. I'm kind of calm, though. You're weirdly calm. You're like, hey, you're okay? I mean, you'd be a little bit more freaked out, I think.

I would think so. So right off the bat, I'm like, something's a little, I don't know if that was intentional or if that's just how I'm interpreting it. Yeah. I didn't, it didn't really trigger. It didn't make me think anything. I thought, okay, well, Paris is a little bit more mellowed. I didn't think anything.

But she has a mild concussion. Not until later, do I get a little bit of a clue as to, wait a minute, maybe we're not in reality. So we jump to, do you have any other comments about the shuttle crashing scene? No, okay. We jumped to the ready room, Janeway's ready room. and Janeway is sort of reprimanding Torres for not falling orders. Oh, yeah. She was like, listen, I ordered you to return to Voyager,

but instead you chase the probe into the center of an ion storm. And Torres is like, because it's the only probe that we have, the only multis spatial probe that we have. And I didn't want to lose it. And Janeway goes, you're the only balana that we have, and I don't want to lose you either. And then she also says, Lana, I'm glad you made it back in one piece. Torres stops and says, wait a minute,

did you just call me Lana? And Janeway says, yes, I did, in fact. And Lana says, well, that's what my mom used to call me. Yeah. So we have a little bit of tie there. This again, I was like, this is weird. Yeah, it's a little weird. No one's ever called her Lana.

Correct. So it felt to me like, oh, we're making a point that Janeway is doing something for some unknown reason, either aliens are controlling this or it's not a reality. I right off the bat was feeling like this is something's off. Okay, I still didn't know that yet. I'll tell you when I realize something's off, but it's not yet. Do you have any other comments on this scene? No, no, we go to Bologna's quarters next and Chocote enters.

He says that they found something from her shuttle mission, and he says, my ancestors called this piece of metal a monkey wreck. And I paused that and I went back. And you're like, three times. I'm like, why is he calling this, this. rectangular piece of metal, a monkey wrench. Like a monkey wrench is an actual name of a tool, but that's not it.

It's not, you know, what he's holding is not a wrench. Yeah. It was just weird to me. Well, I mean, I think he was saying, he was referring to the fact that, you know, the monkey wrench in the, metaphorically,

yeah, metaphorically, the monkey wrench in the, in the engine or thrown into the system, it short circuits it. It just ends up making whatever it's thrown into malfunction. That's what I understood that. has, right? Okay.

But then I started thinking, I started thinking, wait a minute, that's something that Tom Paris would talk about, you know, a monkey wrench, not Jacote. So, and a little bit of a, I don't know what's going on, but evidently this piece of metal was lodged in the port and a cell of Torres' shuttle. He thinks that it happened when the deflector field collapsed. So that's why it was lodged in there. As he hands it to her, she looks at it and realizes there's a Klingon insignia on there. It's a Klingon symbol.

And she's like, wait a minute. This is Klingon. And Chocote says, well, it's a few hundred years old. And Torres says, well, the quick explanation is a Borg, a Borg cube was in the alpha quadrant. They assimilated a bird of prey, took it back to the Delta quadrant on their way. They blew it out of the airlock on the way home. And she sets it on her table. Chikote leaves.

And as she goes to fill up her coffee at the replicator, she hears a noise. She turns around. The noise gets louder. The piece of metal turns into blood. and yeah there's blood starts coming out of the symbol and going onto the table and I love this shot as she set it down on the table this cool shot that went like underneath the table yes it was very cool I did like that good job Mike Fahar yeah and the noise gets louder and all of a sudden we hear this cacophony of cling on voices screaming and yelling it's very confusing and I'm thinking what is going on is that piece of I thought that piece of metal was possessed like it was haunted you know like it was a evil but artifact. But then all of a sudden, it goes silent in the room, and the blood vanishes. It's metal again. Wait, was this a vision? You know, like, is her concussion? Is that what's going on? That's what I thought. It must be concussion based. We then jump to engineering. And I actually, I like this

scene because this is one of the most relaxed Harry scenes I've ever seen. Very relaxed. I know. Very relaxed. And you can see, Harry is not excited. He has been running endless scans on this piece of at all. And Balano wants to get to the bottom of what she saw and what she heard. Harry says, look, maybe it's the comm system. The comp system picked up some strange signal from a pulsar. Torres replies a pulsar that speaks Klingon. Harry, Harry's pretty upset that it's 0,300 hours. And Neelix interrupts. Neelik shows up. He's there to congratulate Torres on the discovery. Yeah, look at you. You've discovered the Klingon artifact in the Delta Quadrant. This is amazing. Yeah, I'm going to throw a party. Yeah, I'm going to celebrate. Celebrate. Celebrate.

commemorate this Klingon artifact. Right. Corr's is like, I don't, there's no point to that, you know. I've made a note here. He's talking about how valuable this antiquity, this, you know, this thing is. And then he goes over and he starts rubbing it. And I'm like, dude, if that's like a, you know, a super valuable thing, don't touch it. He stuck to rub it.

But he's like, caressing it and kind of looking at it, touching it. I'm like, don't touch the important stuff. Okay. But, uh, I didn't know. He does. That's funny. He does talk about some Klingon lore and like he's already started researching Klingon lore. He's quoting this stuff. Yeah. Because what Torres says is she goes, it was an accident. I didn't really find it. It was an accident. It fell into the Nassel. And that's when he recites the whole, well, you know, it was an accident when this one famous Klingon found this famous night. And he was looking for his dog, his targ. So yeah, he's already, he knows more than we think. Again, another kind of suspicious. like, are we in reality? Really? You felt that in there, too? No. I was like, how does he know so much? I just, everything seemed a little too convenient for me. Okay. But he does, he does say,

I've, I've already replicated five barrels of blood wine. Yeah. And I'm not going to let go to waste. Go to waste. Exactly. That's a lot of blood wine. Okay. So he has to the celebration. He says, oh, and Balani, you're going to have to make his beach. Yeah. So she's, she's on the spot. Yeah. And that, this is Harry's exit, though. He's like, look, obviously, we both need sleep, and so she lets them off the hook, Harry leaves. We cut into Club Tuvok into Club Tuvok's words. Yes. And it looks like they're sort of in a meditating kind of scenario. There's a, yeah, the lamp or the candle going. Right. And that's the last time that we saw Torres in Club Tuvok. She was doing a meditation exercise. Yeah. A little psychotherapy

in there or something. Yeah. Tuvok is talking about this artifact as the reason why it has brought these feelings of self-loathing to the surface, how she hates the fact that she's Klingon. And no matter how hard she tries to evade her Klingon side, it will always reassert itself. So he suggests, let's forego the meditation. And let's try a different exercise. She agrees. She's like, yeah, I'm into it. So then he hands her a bat-luth and says, well, what do you thought, what do you think of this? By the way, what is Tuvok doing with a bat-liff hanging around and is, oh, I happen to keep this for some exercises. Yeah.

You know, aerobics with the bat lift. It's very popular. Well, clearly, clearly he's got the bat lift because in a second, he grabs the batleth. And she says something like, you know, that's a clumsy weapon. Yeah. Like everything cling on. It's overstated.

Yes. Yes. And then he starts to make some moves with it. And I was like, whoa, two months got, he's got game with this, this batleth. And he starts doing it. It's almost like a whole routine, which by the way, whenever we have Batleth stuff, I don't know if you remember, but Dan Curry, our Vis-Effects supervisor, who designed this weapon. He did.

Originally, Dan Curry would always come in to kind of coach and create the moves with Batliff. That's right. With Dennis Madelone and the stunt guys. That's right. And he coached me on that, too, if you remember. Yeah, because I decided to do it in Germany at Fetcon at the convention in Germany. I wanted to bring the, yeah, I wanted to do some bat left moves on stage. But my version of it was attach, I attached glow sticks all around the edge and turned off the lights.

And so I made this mess, you know, this big deal with that. But yes, it does, it is amazing that Dan Curry created the whole thing. Yeah. You know, I mean, it was all him. Okay, so Tuvok does his moves. And then his final move, he kind of swipes it by her face and he cuts her face. Yes. And then she's like, what are you doing?

And he goes, a true Klingon would kill me where I stand. And he starts acting like a Klingon. And I was like, what is happening to Tuvok? Yeah. Is this where you find her life? Yes. When he cut her face, I was like, what? No.

And then when he says, you're just, this, this exercise is over, dismissed and take your dishonor with you. That's what I knew. He's not going to talk like that to her. And he won't cut her either. So that's the point where I kind of felt like that. Yeah, this was definitely a no-brainer at this point. But this is where I was like, I knew it.

I knew we weren't in a real world. But yeah, it took until the Tuvok scene for me to realize something weird where it is going on. This is not real life. Right, right. Is this real life? No, it is not real life. And you caught onto that three scenes ago. So good for you.

I kept seeing all these little things. I was like, this is not real. I know this is not. We're going to, it's going to be a dream. It's going to be a hollow simulation. I don't know. We go to the mess hall. Klingon party time.

We go into this scene at the cameras following Paris and Boulana. Yes. But I made a note here. I wish we would have seen her face because I feel like the moment she steps into a Klingon celebration is going to have an impact on her. And I did miss that moment of like, doors open, see what her eyes. are seeing, you know, same expression. Right.

And then we could have gone inside. We didn't really get a sense of balana until like after the doctor sings. Agreed. Yeah. Opera and then seven starts singing. And then finally. Well, it's not opera. Let's be precise.

It's a Klingon drinking song is what it is. Yes. But Seven says she doesn't, you know, she fails to see the merit of learning a Klingon drinking song. But the doctor convinces her that this is worth, well, worth her time. And then she joins in. And she knows all the words to it. So it was a little confusing.

Like she's not into it, but then she's into it. And you're right. To see Roxanne's reaction or Torres's reaction would have been better than following it. I felt like I missed that moment. I felt like this whole, but again, at this point, I knew something's up with. We're not in the real world. So if it feels weird and awkward, I guess there's a reason. Yeah, there's a reason.

It still fits, though. It's not bad. I got to be honest, this whole scene in the mess hall felt really. really awkward to me oh really okay yeah it was like there wasn't crowd noise it didn't feel like real life it felt like a twilight zone weird yeah awkward thing i hear you it was odd looks between torres and tuvac yeah and harris sort of clocks that as well finally we come back and we see them janeway janeway scoops up some blood wine for harry and i loved you just stare at reaction that was very funny yeah uh neelix comes over to you and balana and offers you

some gach. It's replicated gach, but it's still moving. So he does something to it to make it have a little movement. Yes. Which is interesting. She talks about how Torres talks about how her mom would have loved all this effort put in by by the crew for this party. And that when her mom divorced her dad, she took Balana out of Federation school and put her in a Klingon monastery to teach her honor and discipline. So really try to force feed her this whole Klingon ritual and and heritage and culture. And she really fought against it, big time. Janeway gets everyone's attention.

It starts giving a speech. But the minute she starts speaking, all of a sudden, we see. The sound sort of fades away. The lights turn red. And it's, yeah. There's a cling on behind her that she turns around and looks at. And then he runs out a frame and she looks back the other way. And now there's another cling on in the room.

And suddenly these clingons start to slot. or everybody, they stab you. Starts with the captain, starts with the captain, right? And Bologna yells, captain, and she watches the captain die. And then the Klingon kills the doctor and seven, and then Chikote, and then Kim. I'm glad that you threw me in the first, in the beginning. But I'm actually next to last to die. You're the last one to die.

Did you see when I died, by the way? I was going after one of them, and he got me. And my hand just sort of like gently, as if I was thanking him. like, well, he was, because he was running at me and I was being killed and going the opposite direction. And so I could not avoid touching him, but I sort of tried to. And because it's in slow motion, it looks very, almost like a gentle sort of caress. Like, it was weird. Thank you for bat letting me. I appreciate it. Like that. That is hilarious. And then the Klingon comes right at Torres

and she's the last one to actually die. Yeah, we see them swing at her and then we cut to her close up on the ground. Well, it was a good cut though. You like the segue? Because as the badleth comes down

on her, then you see her head fall down on the deck of the barge, basically. So I did like that transition between scenes. Yeah, it was a nice transition. She starts to wake up. She looks around.

She asks where she is. Yeah. I forget which cling on. whoever's there says yeah a couple of not well a couple of clings was the brass guy right yeah yeah and no it's brockton is who is the one that has the the the what do you call it the brand so brockton is given the brand to uh background clingons grab her and he tries to brand her cheek but then but the brand doesn't take on her he's like wait a minute what's going on here so it's clearly something's happening it's not her time.

They release her after they can't brand her. And she falls to the deck, basically. She sits down in this one spot. And that's where we see the older Klingon. And again, she asks the same question, where am I? And he says to her, well, you should know. You're half Klingon.

And she says, I don't know. Enlighten me. And he's the one that says, we're on the barge of the dead. This is the ship that takes dishonored Klingons to Gretor. And in our, in our intro we talked about we thought that this was the ship that took them to stovacore which is incorrect this is the ship that takes them to hell not to heaven and she says she says that's a myth yeah it's just a story yep he said yeah I thought so too but it's real it's real you're you're surprise yeah she goes no no I was I was on a ship called Voyager right and he says that was the nage or the dream before dying right And then he says to her, when we can't accept dying, we create an illusion to hold on to.

An illusion of life to hold on to. It's an illusion of life. So he's basically telling her that all of her time on Voyager was just an illusion that she was dead. And she points to Brocktar and she says, that's the one that slaughtered my friends. And then the older Klingon says, no, he slaughtered the dream. He dragged you from the illusion of life. This is where you belong. where you belong.

By the way, do you, I was looking at all this stuff on the ship. Well, you and I remember that there was this big boat set built. Yeah. We did remember that. Yes.

But it looked smaller than what I remember on screen. Yeah, it did look a little smaller. It was huge and it felt huge in real life. It really did. But it also was noisy. I don't know if you remember, all the creaking and the rocking.

They had fans going. So I was thinking in this first sequence on the ship that they must have looped all. Oh, everything was looped, clearly. Yeah. They had to loop everything because it was creaking and rocking and fans going and all kinds of noises. But wouldn't you say it was a good looping job by everybody? It was pretty good. I was actually impressed.

It was a good job. There's an interruption in terms of voices are now being heard. You're hearing Klingon voices. You're also hearing Chikote, Janeway, and Tom. The older Klingon says, watch out. It's the hos harry, which is the, it's sort of like a siren. You know, they're trying to lure you to your death, to an even worse death than the hell. And he says, don't listen.

Don't listen. They're trying to get it yet. They're trying to lure you. Yep. And she goes over to the edge to look down. And she's like, Tom, Tom? Yeah. And then behind her, there's a cling on standing up high, a stuntman clearly.

He just jumps. And the wide shot, he just sort of jumps out. It was so awkward. I don't know. I laughed out loud. It was not, it was not like, it wasn't a. moment of like, oh, no. It was for me.

Really? Yes. I was like, he got leered. He heard the voice of his loved ones and he wanted to go to them and he jumped into the water. And I was like, oh, and you were laughing. I did. I laughed at it.

It was kind of funny to me. Okay. All right. When he jumps overboard, yeah, we see the point of view. And this is all of his effects shot. Yes. I was trying to figure out how they did this because I don't think they put any Klingons or in a water tank.

So they must have created all the water with Viz effects and just had a shot of him pretending to be in water or something. I guess. I even thought that he was a Viz effect too. I thought he was CGI. He might have been. I didn't think that was the real dude. So, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And then there is a cool shot, though, because you see, you see Roxanne looking out through that little porthole at the guy that just got eaten. And all of a sudden you hear someone, you know, behind her, you know, and she turned. And then the camera racks focus as she turns back. And now you see it's Brocktar and Brockton. And he's there to take her to Kortar, the guy who's basically piloting the ship. We do learn who this guy is. He is the first Klingon who destroyed the gods that made him.

So he was condemned to ferry the souls of the dishonored to Grettoll. So we have a little backstory here. Yeah. She's introduced to him. But what's important here is he says, it's not your time. Yeah. there's been a mistake you know it's not your time that you've been close to it several times right not your time yeah he also says that she is the daughter of morale which is uh that's when all of a

sudden i was like mara wait that's our daughter's name like that's tom and balana's daughter so oh my god yeah i put it all together yeah that was cool yeah she also sees a bat left there and she's kind of looking at it thinking about it and she grabs it and she comes in towards cortar and he's kind of laughing at her like you can't do anything to me with that i'm already dead so he grabs it from her and as he yanks it off for her he ends up slicing her hand so she cuts her hand open she's got an injury on her hand yeah she looks at it there's a close above it yeah before she can address that that's when the sound happens a lot of a lot of crazy noise starts happening the storm is acting up and that is this that is signifying the arrival of another dishonored soul and as this in this person this being or this other

the Klingon materializes on the deck, we see that that is her mother. Her mother, Maraul, Karen Austin. Karen Austin is there. By the way, I wish that they could have come up with a better way to bring people under the ship. It felt like they were transporting. Like if it was going to be sort of a spiritual thing, I don't know. I wish it had been like wind and, you know, something a little more magical or

organic. It didn't feel organic. it felt technological. Okay. That was my issue. That's your critique. But it is a different effect than when we do beam into someplace, though. It is a slightly different, it's a slightly different color pattern, but it still felt

technological. Okay. I mean, yeah. Whereas if it had been like, you know, a smoke monster coming in and spinning around like a tornado, something organic. No, point. Well, take it. Yeah.

Yeah. That would have added to it. For sure. For sure. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after trip.

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Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. But yes, it's Karen Austin. There she is. And then I think this is where Torres regains consciousness suddenly. She sees her mother. Yes.

And then she wakes up and she's in sick bay. And I love the low angle that they did in this. seen it. It just felt like a fresh and cool look to the sick bay at this point. Yeah, but she wakes up. Paris explains to her what happened that her shuttle was on the trailing edge of an ion storm and she lost life support. They had a tractor the shuttle in that she was in a coma that she almost died. Yeah. And then she says, what about the artifact? Where's the artifact? And Paris is like, what do you? What artifact? There's no artifact. What artifact? And then she looks down and she sees the cut

on her hand just like in the dream, just like what happened with the bat left on the ship. So she's like, and by the way, she has a cut on her hand and then the doctor comes over to heal it and you see that cut on her hand in the shot and then

as he's talking to her, it goes below frame and then when it comes back up, it's the cut is gone. And I was like, oh, that's cool. They did a little quick switch down below while he was talking. So you think somebody was below camera frame and they wiped off the blood they wiped it off cleaned it off and then pulled her hand back up and it was like whose job would that have been robbie to wipe off

blood who do you think would have done that would it had to be somebody in makeup department scott wheeler maybe okay one of those special effects makeup people yep one of the people who did make up. And I'm blanking on who her primary guy was. It wasn't Scott. Oh, my gosh. The guy with the baseball cap and the beard. Yeah, I can't think of his name right now.

We're blanking. Okay. Keep moving on. Okay. So next week go to Bologna's quarters and she's reading on a pad and there's ding-dong. Chikote comes in. You know, he's heard about what happened. He says, hey, you want to talk?

She goes, now, not really. And so he's like, okay. And he starts to leave. And she goes, you know, you'll think that I'm crazy. and he stops. So she really does want to talk. She does. And she basically says to Jacote

that she thinks she died and she was on the barge of the dead and she said, I think my mother was there. And she says, what if it's real? His response is like, well, think of it like a metaphor or symbols,

you know, like he talks about his grandfather. He says, my grandfather used to imagine that he had transformed into a wolf. And it was very real for him. He didn't grow gray hair. hair out of his body but the metaphor the feeling the experience was very real and then she does

say that you know well her mother has been on her mind a lot and it and she realizes that you know it's been she's realized recently that it's been 10 years since she's spoken to her mother so she's definitely having some guilt some pangs of you know that that fractured connection and so so it makes sense if her mother's been on her mind and she's had this kind of guilt about that that maybe it is was a dream. Yeah. So then we go to engineering and Paris walks in and she's reading, she says the Pagbati. Pagvati.

How do you say it? I think it's the Pach badla. But you can say the Pah booty if you want. Whatever you end up saying. Batty. It's almost, yeah. It's in Hindi now. Yes.

She's reading the Pagbatla. Yeah. Batla. Okay, pot la. Thank you. Okay. So she's reading the pot. The potluck dinner is what she's reading. Yes. She's reading that, that cling on thing. The sacred Klingon scroll. Let's just say that. That thing. And Paris says, what are you reading? She's like, you don't want to know. And he goes, oh, no, what did you find out? Come on. Tell me about it. She says, well, this thing is explaining why her mother is being sent to Grethor. It's because of Torres. It's her design. her and her mother is being punished. Yeah, the sins of the child. Mother's paying the price. Because she turned her back on everything Klingon.

Now her mom has to go to hell. Yes. Oh, my goodness. She says in the 11th tome of Klovak, he returned bearing a wound. He returned from this vision bearing a wound that he received there. And she had the wound. So that hand thing comes back. That's part of the evidence for her that this is real.

right that happened to her and tom's like yeah i'm you know he's very skeptical yeah and she says i want to go back i want to save my mother from hell basically yeah i've got to go back and fix this that's right so then we cut to the ready room and briefing room actually yeah oh is it the briefing room yeah it's weird if they have this whole conversation in the briefing room it's just jane way and torres so well she says she wants to return uh under the doctor's control and to recreate the circumstances of the ion storm so she can go back and save her mother. Yeah. She wants to make this right.

Yeah. And Janeway's like, no, absolutely not. Well, she says no, because she's requesting to simulate a near death experience. Yeah, basically almost kill me. And that's how I'm going to get back to save my mom. So, yeah. And Jamie was like, no. And then I was shocked when Balana goes, you can't prevent me from practicing my beliefs.

Yeah. I was like, wait a minute. When did, Lana has been rejecting, like, not even for a moment, has she said, this is, like, she's going to try to play that card? I don't think so. And, you know, but then she sort of says, look, I've had my chance to prove to you, you know, my worth. And then you've been proud of me. And Janeway's like, yes, I have. And I want my mother to see what I've become so that she can be proud of me so that she, because at this point, my mother only thinks of me and thinks of how disgraced she is. is the only thing my mother thinks about. So I need to change that. And that convinces Janeway basically to do this, right? Yeah. Yep. We go to Sick Bay and Paris walks into the shot. He's wound up. You are passionate. One minute you're in a coma and the next year a born again cling on.

I know. But my first thought when I came in, I was like, where am I coming from? Why am I just walking in circles around the room? Did I just sort of? Yeah, I guess because you're fired up. You're so fired up. You're trying to talk her out of it, you're like, listen, what is it going to take? Do you want me to learn Clingon language? And I was thinking, well, read the scrolls. We'll figure this out together. Yes. But she, she's got candles burning. She's got some kind of like statue or some ceremonial kind of stuff in there. She's, she's going full Clingon right now, basically. She's gone full Clingon. She lays down in the, in the surgical bed. Yeah. The doctor says, you know, computer erected force field. So he's closing off this surgical area.

and they go through a bunch of steps of, you know, losing oxygen and all this stuff. Basically, recreating the ion storm circumstances. And she's basically, I think he says, you know, she's not breathing, but her brain is, is safe. It's not, she's not brain dead, but everything else is gone. And Janeway looks at her very solemnly and says, kaplah, balana. She does. She does in the very, yeah. So off we go.

Yeah. Off we go. We're on the barge. And now she's wearing full on Klingon warrior armor clothing. Yeah. Hold on. This is what I'm like, all right. If this was real before, then why was she in her Starfleet uniform before?

And now all of a sudden she's magically done a costume change. Yeah. It's a little confusing. It really is. The costume switches, I didn't quite get. Well, my feeling was it's got to be a metaphor. Yeah, it is a metaphor. because when she had her Starfleet uniform,

this is again her rejecting her Klingon heritage, her background, rejecting her mother, fighting with her mother, fighting with everybody else, you know, and then boom, with her Klingon gear,

it's sort of like, all right, I'm all in now. I am all in. Well, partially all in, because this is the ruse that she's trying to play,

you know, in terms of trying to get her mom out of this. So she's going to somehow trick her mom, not trick her mom, but trick the barge pilot. Yeah. I'm going to say, sacrifice myself for her, let her go. And then once he lets her go, he's going to have the

doctor bring her back. Yeah, that's what it is. But I do find it funny that how would the doctor know when to bring her back? Oh, that's right. He wouldn't know. Look at you. You're like a sleuth today. You're like, is there some signal or something? Yeah. Well, you are very Sherlock Holmesie today and you're pulling everything out of here. There's a hole in the plan. There is a whole. Yeah, there is. But as she, you know, as she materializes on the barges of the dead, she doesn't see her mom anywhere so that she has to go below deck. She goes below deck and she finds her mother. Her mother thinks that she is one of the, the, the hos-hari and trying to lure her away.

And she's like, no, it's me, it's me, mom. And then they start having the same argument they had 10 years ago, which is kind of ironic. But also interesting. And she and Moral. Torres does apologize, but Moral is like, doesn't want to believe her. Torres basically says, I want to perform the transference ceremony. Like, I want to offer myself. Yeah.

And then she says, the doctor, yeah, she says, then the doctor, my people are going to bring me back. The doctor will bring me back. Right. And Morales really kind of pissed off. She's like, oh, you're trying to cheat your way through this. This is not the way it works. Yeah, mom doesn't want to cheat her way to Stovacore. She wants to do this.

the she's legit and uh just then two guards come down bring torres up above torres tells up above the boss man court at court tar or tar uh torres says take me let her go yep and uh he's like oh you want to you want to offer yourself okay as soon as you go through the gates and you're in hell then i'll release your mom then i'll release you no no no no now yeah and he goes i know what you're doing yeah like you thought you could fool me trick me you're trying to trick me and i know your whole plan and then torres says no really i will die for my mother yeah and it feels legit it does he says okay if you want to die we can make that happen you can trade with your mom but if you decide to really do this your friends aren't going to be able to

save you and i'm like really i could have told you that because you didn't have a plan on how they were when exactly they were going to pull you up so no your friends can't save you they never could Because you had a hole in your plan. Anyway, but she says she agrees to it. And suddenly the branding starts to fade on her mom and starts to come on to Bologna. That's right. She gets like one of the pieces of the branding. Yeah, that keloid scar appears now on Bala's face.

Once the branding is done, then mom beams over to Stovacore. Yeah, she's gone. And then I thought, all right, they're going to travel for a while. but no, they're already at the gates of Grethor right there. They're like, but-da, we're here. As soon as she's gone, they're at the gates. And that was kind of a cool shot of feeling the shoreline kind of coming into frame. Yeah, they lower the plank.

And Balana is basically starting to walk the plank. Starting to walk the plank. Did you see the dragon on the front of the boat? I did. Yes. Do you remember if that was real or was that a vis effects? I can't remember. I feel like it was real.

I think it was like physical, like they had actually created that dragon up there. I think it was physically real. It was cool. It was cool. When she looks back, you know, Bakhtar, Bakhton is there with his, he's holding the bat lift. Like, don't you try to come back is what he's doing. And then she looks back again. It's no longer the Klingon. It's now Tuvok holding the bathelet. And he's like, don't you come back either. And basically, does he try to hit her? I think he does hit her or he makes a move towards her. And then all of a sudden, she's transported to sickbay and now she's in the cling on hell version of sickbay where the doctor and neelix are there to greet her and they are creepy creepy and more creepy and she walks out into

the corridor with neelix who escorts her to the mess hall and now all the main players are there including the doctor who was in sick bay but now magically transported to the mess hall the same celebration that they had in the earlier dream is going on i did like when she says she says something like, you know, Voyager, this isn't hell to me. Like, where, why am I here? Right. And then Neelik says something like, oh, are you sure? Yeah.

Because were you ever happy on Voyager? Yes. That was an interesting. Yeah. Exchange. Right. Because it's true. She's often kind of, you know,

she's displayed to most people. Like she doesn't want to be here. Critical of Starfleet. And so I thought that was interesting. Like, do we create our own sort of hell kind of concept? Definitely. But yeah, we go into. the dream mess hall.

Everybody's singing drinking songs. Janeway makes a toast to Bologna's dishonor. Let's drink to her dishonor. Do you remember that song? No. I don't think Paris was singing it for some reason. Oh, I had to sing it because the camera comes across me.

And I think you had to sing it too. I think we all had to learn it. And I just remember I remember looking at the script going, man, we have to learn another language for the scene. I was not happy. I don't think I did sing it for some reason. And as the camera went by, Paris wasn't singing. And I thought it was really strange. Like, why isn't he seen? But maybe. I guess you, okay. But I do remember the last word of that one phrase where, where they say bitech. And I remember that, that word just, it's still in my memory. I was like, oh, yeah,

I do remember this. But back then, I was not enthused that we had to sing a song in a, yeah, in Klingon. Now, because I'm so into languages now, I would be so stoked. I'd be like, yes, we get to sing Klingon. I would have been so excited. During this toast, Janeway's insulting Boulana. Everyone's insulting her. Everybody. They're saying things like, you know, this is your fault. You keep everyone's at arm, everyone at arm's length. You're stubborn. Seven says, the doctor even insults her forehead. Yes. Oh my God. Just like your mother, especially that forehead. Yeah, yeah. God, that's really nasty. Yeah, he was mean.

Chikote keeps saying, interpret the symbols. Tuvok comes in. He tosses a bat-liff to her. He says, defend yourself. I don't think he throws it at her. I think he picks it up and starts walking towards her and says, defend yourself. Oh, he's threatening her.

Defend yourself. Yeah, she is bat-liff-less. Bat-lith-less. Look at that. That's what I'm saying. We go into the barge and Moral is there, which confuses Torres because she thought, you know, she was like, didn't I leave you at Stover? core yeah and not only that she's wearing janeway's uniform she's wearing the other thing going

she's wearing janeway's uniform maral um says that she can't be freed until torres freees herself yes from breathor which confuses torres because she's like i did everything right like uh you know it makes no sense right the rituals and her mom says you never really truly understood yeah what it So that's what Chakotay keeps saying. It's, look at the symbols. Look at the metaphors. Right. It's not literal.

You know, there's not, you don't have to do everything right. You need to look at the deeper meaning. Yeah. And the last thing that Moral says to Boulana before we got out, cut out of the scene is she says, choose to live, Bala. Choose to live. Choose to live. We have a quick cut to Sik Bay where they're still trying to resuscitate Bala, but then we

jump right back to the barge of the dead. And now all the main players are. or on the barge with her. It's the doctor. It's Chacote. It's you. It's me. We're all there.

Yeah, everybody's there. And Torres is like in the middle of this circle. And she's like, you know, really emotional. She's like screaming, begging everyone. Like, what do you want? What do you want me to do? What am I supposed to do? And her mom's like, you don't need to do anything.

They don't want anything but for you to just be yourself. Yes. They also keep saying. defend yourself, defend yourself. Right. And finally, Torres says, I'm tired of fighting. Yeah. And she takes the bat left and she throws it.

Chucks it out into the water. Yeah. And then she drops to her knees and her mom joins her. And that's like she's gotten at the deep issue that she's, that this whole experience was for, which is stop fighting. Stop fighting everyone. Stop fighting with yourself. Just accept, like let go of this.

fight and this anger and this trying to do things right and just let go and relax a little. That's really the metaphor to me. Yes, I agree. I wanted to see that bat that bat that bat left spinning through the air and landing and hitting that one cling on earlier. Jumped off the shit or one of the sea serpent, something like that. We hear something like that, yeah, you know, making a sound. But her mom, her mom gets down on her knees right with her.

And she said, you've taken the first step in this journey. of your journey that we're going to meet again in stovacore or perhaps even when you get home and then they hug and as they hug we cut back to sick bay and torres is alive and she's awake yeah and she wakes up and she says mother and she sits up and she looks around god i'm alive yeah she says yes and then she hugs janeway yeah and she hugs janeway her mother figure and her boyfriend is standing right next to her, but she hugs her boss instead. That's all I'm going to say.

That's why my limerick said, and I will read my limerick one more time. Yeah. In a shuttle, Balana hit her head and woke up on the barge of the dead. Her boyfriend was Tom, but she had to save mom. She survived and hugged Janeway instead. I know. Look at that. I was standing right there.

I had to come over in the middle of their very, you know, they're very tender, intense hug. And I just put my hand awkwardly on her back. I was like, I guess I'm the boyfriend over here. Yeah. That's a little. It was, it's okay. She was going through a lot.

It was really a mother figure story. So I get it. Oh, my God. All right. She's still thinking about Burke. That's where it is. is her old boyfriend on i'm just very i'm very insecure yeah tom's tom's very insecure right now yeah okay uh the lesson yeah what's your lesson my lesson is don't try and sacrifice who you truly are

to make other people happy to try to fix other people or like just be yourself yeah he was trying to do all these things thinking oh if i sacrifice my life if i become a cling on if i do this if i Just be yourself. Don't sacrifice who you truly are. If you don't want to fight to stop fighting, you know, the fight's not in you and it's not serving you anymore, stop it. So that's my lesson. What about you?

You know, I think when I watch this, I think about people that are called people pleasers. They're trying to make everyone else comfortable. They're trying to do everything so that everyone else is good. But guess what? They ignore themselves. I think it's really just a, just a lesson in self-love and self-care, you know, taking care of your own business.

Nice. Okay. All right. My rating for this episode, I will preface this by saying, I liked this episode in some ways. Yeah. And I like some of the story. But overall, I was not, this episode didn't capture me.

Like it didn't. No. It was not a great. It was not one of my favorites. I'll be honest. And everybody did, people did nice work. It just something about it was a little off to me. I'm going to give it a 6.2.

Ooh. Okay. What about, what do I? I'm going to go higher than you. And I'm going to put it at 7.5. That's what I'm going to give it. I'm going to give a little bit more. So halfway between 6-2 and 7-5 would be around 6.9.

Yeah. roughly. Let's see if we averaged out. 8.5. The captain and admiral's average rating for Barge of the Dead is 7.4. Oh, wow.

Wow, higher than you. Close to you. Closer to me. Point one less. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, everyone for tuning in to this week's episode and join us next week when Robbie and I will be tackling

one of my favorite episodes that have nothing to do with Harry. Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy. Clearly a huge doctor episode. Yes. Yeah. And people always ask me, like, what's your favorite Harry episode? And I say, well, timeless. What's your favorite non-Herry episode? I go, Tinker, Tenor, Dr. Spy. So I always say. Okay. Yeah. All right. All right. Thanks, everybody. See you next week. Go-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-H.