The Delta Flyers - Before and After
Episode Date: July 12, 2021The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at ...the very beginning. This week’s episode is Before and After. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Before and After:Kes finds herself in temporal flux with her consciousness moving back in time through various episodes in her life up until her birth.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, Lucas Shuck, Mary Burch, PJ Tomas, Nicholaus Russell, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Ariana, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Shambhavi Kadam, and Christopher ArzebergerAnd our Producers:Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Ann Harding, Laura Swanson, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Crystal Komenda, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Heidi Mclellan, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, James Cottrell, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Liz Lowe, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Justin Weir, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Michelle Maroney, Rickard Fahlander, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Scott J. Mark, and John MannThank you for your support!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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey guys, 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 myself, Garrett Wong, and my co-host, the esteemed, the fantastic, the talented Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil.
Well, thank you, sir.
Thank you for that.
You like those adjectives?
I gave you adjectives today.
Yes, very cool.
By the way, look at me.
I'm wearing our new t-shirt.
Oh, look at that.
Yeah, I'm wearing it today.
Good for you.
Yeah.
I'm wearing my peace, love, and logic shirt.
Yeah, you got a hat on.
You got the Delta Flyers.
Yeah, so for those of you who want Delta Flyers,
merch, you can go to the delta flyers.org.org and you can find our shop there. And if you're
interested in this peace, love, and logic shirt, you can go to foreverenson.com, which is the new
website that I just started. How are you? I'm good. You know, I'm my temporary tooth. The crown is
yeah, it's temporary. I have to get another full crown, but it's it's holding in after a couple of
days, I guess. So it's not bad. It's not bad. And how are you? You're okay? Everything good?
Good. Yeah. Still in Utah. And went on a hike. We got Walter, the famous Walter dog. We got him
some booties for hiking because he was cutting his feet on some of the sharp rocks and things like
that. Very deserty up here where we're at. So that was funny to watch him walking around
his new booties.
Yeah.
Was he doing this little,
this really weird?
Yes.
So funny.
It's funny.
He got used to it.
Yeah,
he'll get,
it takes some time,
but the initial booty,
trying on those booties,
it's hilarious.
Yeah,
it was very funny.
And then it just sort of froze there.
He didn't want to walk at one point.
He was like,
I'm just going to stand here
because this is weird.
So that was funny.
But,
well,
yeah,
we have to get booties in Calgary
because of,
of the snow yeah because it's so cold and they could get frostbite and when we have um we have two dogs
so we have george who's half pomeranian half husky so because he's husky huskies grow fur
between the pads of their on their oh so there's an extra protection for them so he's okay
but then we've got the little one who's half chihuahua and half yorky which she doesn't have
any protection no very delicate dog yes so booties are definitely needed for the small little
dog. Yeah. Yeah. So this week's episode is before and after. Before and after. So everyone,
please stay tuned while Robbie and I go watch the show. We'll be right back for all of our
Patreon patrons. Thank you so much for your patronage. Please stay tuned for your bonus material.
We'll be right back. See you in a minute.
All righty. Robbie and I are back from watching before and after.
Yes. Hey, how's it going, Daddy?
Granddad to you.
No, no, no, you're my daddy.
Okay.
Oh, that's right, right, right.
My kid is your grandson.
So that's what I caught you.
This whole episode was really hard for me to follow.
Oh, my gosh.
The timeline.
I mean, I guess I would say that for me, it reminded me of these kind of
time jumpy stories are really hard for me like yeah this is going to sound crazy but i'm a big
musical theater fan and there are two of my favorite musicals that i just don't think work because
they involve playing with time one is called merrily we roll along it's a stephen sonheim musical
where it goes backwards it starts from the end of the story in the beginning and then goes
with with these three these this group of friends as old people and then goes all the way
back to when they first met as young people. And it's just it it intellectually I get the idea,
but when you watch this musical, it just doesn't work. And there's another another musical called
the last five years about a couple and the male character tells the story in normal order
and the female character tells the story in the backwards order. And they meet only for a moment
right before intermission and then they continue on.
So you hear his side of the story
from the beginning to the end
and hear her side of the story
starting at the end and great.
It's very, anyway, I just thought of both of those things
as I was watching this episode going,
I get it intellectually,
but I was having trouble getting engaged emotionally
because it's, the rules are so messed up.
I hear you.
It sounds like those two musicals,
it's just very difficult as an audience member
to track what's happening, you start getting confused. And it's the same thing with this episode.
I actually had to watch it more than one time for me to kind of like understand what was happening
and pick up on what's going on because you are definitely confused right from the get-go.
Like very first scene, you're like, what is happening? And even when you sort of say like,
okay, I'm kind of getting it, there's still scenes that pop up where you're going, wait,
what's happening again? You're still asking that question again. So let's jump into it with our
poetry synopsis. Yes, let's do, because starting with some poetry is a really lovely way to calm
down and get focused in a way that it was hard to focus on this. Okay. My haiku for this episode
goes a little something like this. Kess moving backwards. Alternate reality. Prepare for
Crenum.
Okay, there you go.
It's short and sweet.
All right.
Here we go with my limerick for before and after.
Here we go.
Kess wakes up, she's a grandmother, a life that seems like another's.
She keeps jumping back, solution she lacks 1.47 to recover.
Ooh, nice.
You like that, puppy?
Hey.
That was a good one.
You got focused in on this.
I did, man.
And I was like, I got to get this sucker down, good.
Yeah.
So this is written by Ken Biller and directed by, would this be the very first episode that Alan Croker directed?
I think so.
I think it was.
I don't remember him directing in our rewatch.
I haven't seen his name pop up.
Alan, as we know, became one of our regular directors.
He directed a lot of episodes after this.
But I think this was the first time.
He may have directed Deep Space Nine.
I think that's where he started in Star Trek.
That was his entree.
It was D.S. 9. Okay. Well, I will say about Alan is that he's one of those directors that I
definitely look forward to working with on a basis. You know, just one of those all around great
guys, always kind of telling jokes and really lighthearted, you know, when the camera was
rolling. Just someone who you would have a beer with. That's what I would say Alan is like.
Somebody you would enjoy having conversation with. Yeah. And he also, I thought, was always very
passionate about the work.
Oh, yes.
Most definitely.
Get into a scene.
He would really collaborate with the actors.
He wouldn't be stuck on shots that, you know, you have to stand here and don't turn until
this moment.
Yeah.
He was very organic in the way that he liked to work with the actors on scenes.
But he had a perspective.
He had something about the scene that he wanted to create and that he felt was important.
And I appreciated his passion.
I know Marvin loved him because he and Marvin would get into the.
these handheld scenes where, you know, actors would move around and the camera would whip over here
and they do these really fun and complicated handheld sequences with Alan. So yeah, it was great
to see his name pop up there. Passion is a good way of describing it. I would also say just
excitement. Like when he's on the set, it almost seems like this is his first time directing. Like every
time he's there, he's so into it, which really as an actor, that makes you feel like, well, I'm going to
do better. Or I'm going to be as into it as he is. That energy is infectious. And I just loved
the, you know, how he set the tone when he showed up to director. Yeah. So,
what's funny because probably 10 years after this, after this episode, cut to 10 years later,
I was on the first season of Chuck, producing Chuck, the TV show Chuck, and directing on that.
But we had a director fall out in the first season, very last minute. And we were
looking around for directors, and I said to the studio, I said, do you know Alan Craker?
And they were like, no, this was Warner Brothers. And they said, no, we've never worked with that
director. We don't know him. And I said, well, I worked with him on Star Trek. He's really
awesome. And he's available right now. He could jump into this last minute slot. And so they met with
him. And he came on. He got the job and was able to direct on Chuck the first season. And he became
one of our most, you know, regular directors. I know Zach Levi loved him in particular, really
loved Alan. Wow. You know, I came to visit you so many times when you were working on Chuck.
I missed Alan. I didn't see him. He did a lot of episodes. Huh. Okay. And also there is a difference in
the pronunciation of his name. Some people say Craker. Some people say Croker. You know, so there is a little
bit of a delineation between how you pronounce that name. I say Alan Craker, but I don't know if
I could be, even though I've known him for a long, long time. Well, okay, if you look at the spelling of
the name, the O and the E, essentially that is a German spelling. Yes. And so it is where
the umlaut should go. So if you think about Walter Koenig's name, right? It's K-O-E-N-I-G, right?
So it's really an O with an accent, the umlaut, the double, the double dots are above the O.
So the real spelling should be K-O-N-I-G with the O with the two dots.
So Kroker or Krakers' last name should be K-R-O with the umlaut, K-E-R without the E.
The E is just to symbolize that there should be an umlout over the O.
So the way you pronounce, for instance, Walter's lame, yeah, the um-naut, Walter Kainig, is really
Kernik, Kernik in German. So er is the sound of the O.E. Yeah. So it should be Kroker. Krakur is what it should be. But that's
very German and not anglicized. And so I think when he got to Canada, he's Canadian. So he just said,
you know what, just pronounce a Krakur, you know, right? Or Kroker, whatever. So he sort of slides on
however people pronounce that because there are different ways of pronouncing it. Well, I loved him. He's a, he's
great, great guy. Okay. So we start off in sick bay. And the first thing we see is old age makeup. And I just
to make a comment that the only people that have gone through old age makeup until this point,
season three, the middle of, towards the end of season three would be myself.
Harry Kim had to go through old age makeup when we did the thaw, when Michael McKean was in that
episode.
And that was my time to put on all the prosthetics.
And then now Kess is the only other person to put a full face of, because you can tell
every bit of her face is a other prosthetic.
And that would have taken approximately three.
to maybe four hours to apply everything on her.
And she was in a lot of seeing half the episode
in that old age makeup.
So she was in that chair a lot.
Yeah.
So she was a trooper for sure on this one.
So she's lying on the biobed
and in pops Christopher Aguilar's character
who plays Andrew.
And he's like, Grandma, I brought you a present.
I'm sorry, I'm late.
Here's my present.
And she's looking at him and just has no clue
who he is.
Absolutely not.
And so that's when young Andrew calls for Dr. Van Gogh.
And now we see, this is the name that the doctor is chosen in this reality, this timeline.
He's chosen Van Gogh.
And he has hair.
Yeah.
And she can't remember a thing except for, the only thing she can remember is a biotemporal chamber, which she was in.
But then the doctor's like, wait a minute, I don't even know what you're talking about because he hasn't put her in that chamber yet in this point, right?
So her amnesia is pretty bad.
Chacote shows up and he arrives to basically discuss the biotemporal chamber procedure.
And when Chacote, there's a lot of little details in here.
Like when Chacote shows up, Andrew calls him captain.
That's right.
That's right.
He calls him captain.
And you're like, wait a minute.
That's right.
How's that happening?
How does that happen?
And even going back in that very opening shot, her POV, before we even see her face on the biobed,
we just see the blurry POV going around.
and we hear Tom's voice saying, you know, come on, kids, or something like that, he says,
but you can, you can hear that it's Tom off.
I didn't catch that at all.
Let's get out of here.
The doctor says, you know, you guys all have to leave.
I've got to do this procedure.
And you hear Tom's voice.
Okay.
Say, hey, let's get out of here.
I don't know if he says kids, but it's just a lot of little detailed clues.
Yeah, the doctor's hair.
And already I was kind of going, wait, we're in the future somehow.
But when we jumped, are we going backwards?
Like I immediately thought from that point of view, because when it jumps from the point
of view into the scene where they talk about the biotemporal chamber.
Yeah.
And Kess says, you said something about the biotemporal chamber.
And the doctor says, oh, no, not yet.
We talked about it, but we haven't done that yet.
But in the previous moment, he was starting to do it.
So I was like, wait, we got to be going backwards.
Yeah, yeah. A little confusing for sure. But this whole chamber is in order to help prolong her life. That's the whole issue with this suggestion of using this chamber. Yeah, the doctor says to Chacote, he goes a nine-year-old Ocampin, you know, this could be normal. This, you know, this, what's happening for her could be normal with Ocampans, but this biotemporal chamber is untested. Right. It's experimental. So then now she gets cold and we realize this is.
is one of the things that happens right before she flashes that she starts getting cold,
her temperature starts dropping, and then she flashes and boom.
She's no longer in signal.
She jumps.
Now she's waking up in her own bed in her quarters, and she overhears Andrew, and who we later
discovered to be Linus talking, and she gets up and she walks over, and she doesn't know
who Linus is, no clue.
And Linus has earlier said mom called her mom.
So the audience sort of knows, oh, this must be her daughter in this timeline.
Right.
And, you know, the daughter tells her, you know, remember when you used to work in sick bay?
And she doesn't remember that.
So every time she jumps, she has no memory of any other timeline at all.
She's completely, except the future that she just jumped from.
Exactly.
Linus even says in this scene when Kess kind of explains, well, what about the biotemporal chamber?
And we were in sick bay.
And Linus says none of those things that you remember.
before you just woke up ever happened.
They haven't happened.
They haven't even happened yet, which is crazy.
Yeah, so we've seen her jump twice now,
from that opening scene to the sick bay scene now to this scene.
So she's jumping backwards in time.
Right.
Start to kind of figure that out.
So Linus is concerned.
So she escorts Kess towards sickbay because she feels that, you know,
her mom is confused and that maybe her mother is dreaming.
And now they're in sick bay.
and the doctor is scanning her
and realizes that she's lost more than 98%
of her memory engrams.
So the onset of more elogium,
I guess more is just tagged out
at the front of elogium, right?
More allogium.
It's not like M-O-R-E.
I think it's Morillogium
is the name of the Ocampan name for it, right?
For what's happening.
Yeah, the final phase of Ocompanic.
The final phase of life, yeah.
Yes, and so the doctor's scanning her.
Tom enters in this scene.
With Andrew and Harry.
Yeah.
Yeah, and Harry, and we realize that Tom is her husband.
Yes.
We, this, this comes out.
Yes.
And we realize that Linus is their daughter.
So, can we just time out for a second?
So Linus is clearly full grown.
She's an adult.
I did the math.
Okay.
Go ahead.
I'm wondering, is it because she's half Ocampon, she is maturing faster than
has to be?
That's the only explanation.
Yes.
the one thing we know is Kess is nine years old. The doctor said that right now. Correct. Now,
in our show, Kess is three, right? Right, right. So at three years old, by two or three years old,
you are a grown person. Oh, okay. Yes. That makes sense. Two or three years old. And we know
that she's nine now. So that means there's about six years to play with in here, which means that in those
six years, this year of hell had to have happened. Belana had to have died. A spoiler alert.
I'm going to jump through some plot point in this in this five or six years yes
Lana had to have died Cass helped Tom get over it they got married let's say now we're
we're out of our five years let's say we're a year into that yeah uh they get married they have a
baby a year later now their baby is two or three grows up because she's two or three now like
like Kess was in our show.
She's an adult.
You marry her.
You guys have a kid a year ago
because I think the doctor says something
like he's a year old,
even though he looks 14.
So he has accelerated growth as well,
my kid,
even though he's only a quarter,
he's not only a quarter of Compton at this point, correct?
That's the thing.
I think that they're just saying
if you got any Ocampan in you,
this happens.
That's the only way the math works.
Okay.
With all this.
But yes, it's a brain teaser
and I have the same issue.
It's sure.
is. So let's just go back to that one scene and the doctor walks away with Tom and explains to him
what's going on with this experimental treatment. Linus walks over and argues that no, no, no, no, mom
wouldn't want this. She has accepted the length of her lifespan. It's nine years and she doesn't want
to extend anything. She's, you know, don't do this. And both Tom and Harry argue with Linus that,
hey, wait a minute, if there's anything we can do to extend her life, we need to do this. Yeah, I get a
say when Tom argued, I don't know why I yelled at her so harshly.
At Linus?
Yes, I yelled at Linus.
And I'm thinking as I'm watching it, like, why did I choose as an actor to play it so hot?
Because that's my daughter.
And I should know, you know, have compassion.
Yeah.
Also, you know, suffering.
And I should have been more empathetic, I guess.
I didn't like the way that I, most of this whole episode, I was happy with, you know, my
performance.
But that moment I was like, nah, I wish we had another version.
Yeah, I almost feel like our connection with Linus, both your connection and my connection,
weren't fleshed out as much as we could have. I think we, I think we were more shocked that
as actors, we were filming this episode and boom, hey, you've got a daughter. Boom. Hey, Harry,
that daughter is now your wife. And we literally were thrown into this to the point that we were
kind of shocked or not prepared as well. You know what I'm saying? In terms of
drawing that sort of relationship that, okay, this is definitely, this is my daughter, and which
if you had a stronger connection or had done more backstory, maybe, you wouldn't have yelled at
her as much. But I feel like that, all of a sudden, you know, we were served up with a family
immediately. Like, I have a son, you have a daughter, your daughter is my wife. And it's just like,
whoa, you know, we, it's a lot. It's a process. It's a process as actors, as young actors.
Yeah. And we were both in our, you know, in our, you were in your early 30s. I was in my late
20s at the point at the time and so I think we were just kind of um ambushed we're trying to absorb
the entire we were trying to figure out the script ourselves probably I did right as I watched this I
remember it was very confusing I was like definitely yeah a lot of things were confusing I remember as
we shot it Kess in this scene also uh you know the doctor goes over and explains some of what's going
on we go over to to talk to Kess all of us and and she says that doesn't explain her
jumping around like the jumps don't make sense to her. So she's kind of tracking these jumps
of her journey backwards in time that no one else is aware of. And that's another thing that
made this difficult is that Kess was the only one that was kind of going in a consistent direction.
Because every time she jumped, we went back into slow motion forwards time. You know what I mean?
Like we jumped to a point and now we're heading forwards again until she jumps back and now we all
have to get caught up. So all the other characters were as confused as her. Yeah. Or more confused
than her. You know what I mean? Like they're like, what are you talking about? You know, the title of
this is before and after. It should have been discombobulated is the name of this episode. And so
she's asking what's happening to her. And as she's talking to the doctor, she flashes yet again.
Again. Now she's now she's in mess hall. And Neelix is bringing out her birthday cake for her ninth
birthday right neelix is in a uniform by the way he's in a starfleet uniform he's in a starfleet uniform and they're
singing yes for for he's a jolly good fellow for he's a jolly good fellow yeah he's a jolly good fellow
which i remember when we shot the scene i'm like why are we singing this song and they said oh because
the birthday's the happy birthday to you song is copyrighted and they didn't want to pay the money
to the whoever they would have to you know pay for the back then are you serious yeah you had to pay a
royalty so they wouldn't sing it and i'm like what like this is her birth like there's so many other
confusing things why are we singing for he's the jolly good fellow you're telling me the the traditional
happy birthday to you song is actually was written by somebody that own the rights to that and it
only became public domain in the last few years oh my
So when we were making Voyager, you had to pay. It was not public domain. Yeah, you had to pay for it. Now it's public domain. Now you can sing it. That's why you'll probably see it on a lot more TV shows. But then you didn't see it very often because they charged an arm and a leg. It was a crazy amount of money. Wow. I do like Neelix's line after Kess blows out the candles. And he says, it's good to see that old lung is still working. Kessie. He calls her Kessie, first of all. We don't hear that. But he's referring to the fact that she had to give up one of her lungs after Neelix had his lung, removed.
moved by the Vdians.
Remember that?
So that's a little,
and we don't have a lot of lines
that kind of refer back to episodes
in the past.
So I found that interesting
and unique and kind of cool
to hear that.
And didn't Ken Biller write
that episode with the Videans?
He might have.
I think he may have written it.
So, yeah.
So Ken would have made that.
Kudos to Ken.
Yeah, he would have made that connection.
But yes, we do find out
that Neelix of Security.
And Kess tries to ask
Andrew questions to get the box, you know, to sort of like figure out what's happening with
their situation. Where was he? Where were you? Did you come straight here? She's trying to figure out
the timeline. Right. But the doctor interrupts. The doctor interrupts that whole conversation.
And basically, I got to say one thing about Alan Craker's direction. I noticed immediately
that he was doing some really interesting things, moving the actors, blocking the actors with
movement, but it felt very authentic. I really like the blocking in this mess hall scene with
Kess moving to Andrew and then the doctor joining and then them moving and, you know,
falling into one position and then turning to the to the bar. That kind of staging by directors
keeps the frame interesting just to the eye, just looking, watching a scene as you see people
moving through space or settling into new positions, changing directions, things like that.
he did a great job of doing that without it feeling
forced in any way. I thought it was... Yeah, very organic. There was a super
nice flow to this scene for sure. So the next part is she
confides in the doctor that, listen, this is going to sound crazy, but please
hear me out. And he's like, please, I'll listen to anything. And she says,
my memories do not coincide with anyone else's. No one remembers any
the things that I remember. So the doctor's like, well, wait a minute,
that's strange. And then she brings up the bio.
temporal chamber, which shocks the doctor because he only thought of that that morning and hadn't
even explained this new experimental treatment to Kess yet. So now he realizes, okay, something
is truly going on with her. And that's when they hit to sickbay. Yeah, we're in sick pay. The doctor
says she's lost 95% of her memory. And presumably, presumably she's just remembering the future
events where she's jumping from. That's it. She's not remembering anything else.
right yeah she remembers andrew giving her a birthday present and then later andra was working on the
birthday present so she definitely starts to realize that that she's going you know that she's
remembering things backwards and the doctor thinks that Kess may have developed some kind
of precognition that allows her to see the future and events that haven't that's how they're
interpreting it right now right um so chokote says to Paris that you know they should go
work on scanning for temporal anomalies that may be causing this, you know, her to experience
events from the future. And she decides, and Kess decides she wants to help herself. And she
tells the doctor, she wants to look at all of her old medical record. So she pops up and goes
over to the computer to start looking for that. So everybody's starting in this timeline,
Cigpe for this moment, starting to understand that she's, you know, what's happening. Yeah. So this is,
Yeah, this scene is literally the scene
that everyone else realizes
something very wrong is happening
or something out of the ordinary
is happening with Kess.
But this is the hard part of this whole story
is they're all realizing in this scene
in this moment, they're wrapping their heads around
oh Kess has got precognition
or something is happening, some temporal weirdness
that she knows what's in the future.
But they're realizing it in this timeline.
But as soon as she jumps back to a new timeline,
they're starting all over again.
They won't know it.
And that was the part that was for me, like, wait, they already learned that.
Oh, no, we've jumped back further.
So they've got to learn it again and again and again.
So a lot of repetitive lines from Kess explaining everyone over and over again what happens, right?
But she doesn't, I mean, she doesn't jump that quickly.
And this, this.
No, no, because we go to Kess's quarters from here.
Yeah.
And Paris comes in.
She's looking at logs about her life.
and she doesn't remember.
She says, you know, I must have lived.
It looks like I lived a really full life,
but I don't remember any of it.
And this is where you share that you had a crush on her
from the beginning.
Oh, man.
You were lying the whole time when you were fighting me.
I guess so.
I didn't know that back then.
But in this timeline,
Paris says he had a crush on her since he first met her
and Neelix was super jealous.
Yeah.
And he denied it, but Neelix was right
that he really did have a crush.
And she listens and she's like, I don't remember any of this.
Yeah.
And he says he brings up the year of hell for the first time, which is I love that they're
putting in some of this.
It's a great opportunity to put in some of this, what episodes that are going to happen
in the future.
Okay.
So this is definitely an episode that was not recorded before, not filmed before this
episode, correct?
They're referring to the episode, Year of Hell, which is still to be recorded.
Correct? Is that what they're doing? So the writers, I thought, they kind of were writing by the seat of their pants, but maybe not. Maybe they already had everything worked out where they knew. I think they had some big episodes planned and they knew somewhere down the line. They wanted to do something called the Year of Hell about, you know, and they'd start laying in some of the foundations of that now. But Tom says to her, you know, Balana was lost. She doesn't remember Balana. She doesn't remember Janeway.
Carrie was lost.
Tom even says Bolano was someone who was very special to me and then you helped me through it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And she goes, I just, I don't remember any that.
I don't have any feelings about any of this.
And Tom says, I've got enough feelings for the both of us.
Yeah, that's after you try to touch her face and she moved away, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, he's a sensitive guy.
That was a nice line.
That was a very non-Tom Paris, very non-niclicarno line for you to say, I have enough feelings for both of them.
us. Yeah, he's a feeling guy. Yeah, okay. But this is where she discovers that she did have
radiation poisoning in the past because of this story about year of hell. And that's when both
Paris and Cass come to the conclusion that chronoton torpedo fragments leaked radiation
into the ship, penetrated our shields because the torpedoes were in a constant state of temporal
flux. And that's when they say, hey, we better tell the doctor what's going on. So they head
down the corridor to Sick Bay and the flashing happens again.
Another jump again. Bye-bye. Yeah, she's gone. Another jump.
Now we're in Harry and Linus's quarters, right? So we're in Harry and Linus's quarters and
Harry is in the process of taking a picture of Kess and baby Andrew. Kess asks the date
and realizes the jump was a six-month jump. So she grabs Tom and heads to sickbay.
It's sort of like the continuation of heading to sickbay. There's a moment. There's a moment in
the scene though where uh where harry says something like well how does it feel to be does it feel
or he said i can't i didn't write the line down but it was something like does it is it strange to be
now now to know that you're a granddad or something and paris goes not as strange as having you
as a son-in-law or something like that i don't think you said son-law you said as a son as a son yeah
that was funny it is that's why i called you daddy at the beginning in this this this brief little exchange
but it made me laugh.
Yeah, so we go back to Sick Bay
and Kess says that she's jumped five times so far.
Random jumps.
They're not, you know, they're not, you know,
the same each time, the same amount of time.
And we learned that she was inoculated
for this radiation, this chronotone radiation,
like everybody else was three years ago.
They were all inoculated during the year of health.
But there are residual trace amounts of chronotone.
that have reactivated in Kess.
And yes.
They talk about this idea,
maybe this biotemporal chamber thing
that you are talking about,
maybe that reactivated these particles.
And there, again,
everybody's wrapping their heads around.
She's traveling backwards in time.
Yeah.
So they discover it again for the second time.
The doctor makes that statement.
Your wife is traveling backward through time.
So that's him realizing that again
for the second time.
That's what's happening so far.
Yeah. And now they're in the briefing room and Kess is going through a report of what's happened to her.
We have Kess, we have Linus, Dr. Paris, Tuvok and Chikote and Kim. So it's a full room.
Surprisingly, Linus is the only person who has no lines, but yet she's still there.
And the doc says, you know what, we have to purge all the chronoton particles in her system.
And Kim says, you know what? We need to know the precise temporal variance of the specific torpedo fragment which contaminated the ship.
Tuvok says, well, tactical sensors were not functioning at the time.
So we have zero records, nothing.
So that's kind of a dead end.
How are we going to figure this out?
We don't know.
And then we flash, or we don't flash, we go to the science station.
And Kess is still in the temporal sink for now.
She's still in our time period.
Linus is trying to run a hypothalmic scan.
And she talks about how she had a very good teacher.
And Kess says, Dr. Van Gogh, and she goes, no, you.
Oh, you were my teacher.
You told me well.
It was a sweet moment, which leads to them sort of opening up even more because
Linus reveals that she feels kind of awkward sometimes about being a mom.
That's right.
It's not her comfort zone.
Yeah.
And she doesn't think she's very good at it.
She feels much more comfortable in the science lab or in sickbay.
The doctor comes in to take her to sick bay into a containment field.
He's going to start to keep her in there.
To keep her from jumping again, the containment field.
Yeah, the containment field is going to try to keep her from jumping.
And as she's walking out, she turns back and she says,
Linus, you know, you were a great mom.
Yeah.
Andrew turns out really great.
And that's a sweet moment.
Yeah, it was a good moment.
A good moment for sure.
Yeah.
So we go into the sick bay and she is, Cass is in the containment field.
Paris comes in and we realize that he was also named Mozart for a while.
I thought you settled on Mozart.
Yeah.
Paris is like, Dr. Van Gogh.
I thought you were settled in Mozart.
And he says, well, I guess my attachment to the creative things will go on a bit longer.
Yeah, yeah.
So you asked to enter the containment field, but the doctor says that's not a good idea.
And so then you start telling Kess about the wedding reception that you guys had.
Yeah, Paris goes, how about another installment of Tom and Kess the early years?
Which sounds like they've, he's been trying to remind her, almost like you might with someone with Alzheimer's or something.
tell these stories, see if anything.
And so clearly he's been doing that.
And he talks about the wedding reception.
And that Harry was very nervous at this wedding reception and spilled champagne on Tom's dress uniform.
Yes.
So that must have been a fun wedding reception.
Yeah.
Linus comes in.
She says, I may have found something.
And she's talking about her temperature drops.
They're starting to track these, you know, her,
temperature. Yeah, Linus had found something while studying the effects of the chronotons on other
crew members, and that's the alarm goes off. Her temperature is going down. The doctor tries
elevating her temperature. It's not working. So she flashes again, but you missed a really important
line that Paris says to her. He says, at the time, I thought that was the happiest day of my life,
but every day just got better and better. So it shows this really, really tight and great relationship
that Tom had with Kess in that reality.
He's very romantic in this.
It's very romantic in this reality.
Yeah.
In this reality.
The other thing I noticed, just to pause there,
I remember that moment.
It was a tight close-up of me, of Tom Paris.
But I did notice, even before this,
that Alan Craker, first episode he directed with us,
was doing some tighter close-ups than we typically did.
I noticed a handful of moments
where it got into these really tight close-ups
that we didn't normally do.
No.
And you have one at the end of this.
when she's right before she's flashing or when she's going she's fritzing you scream do something
and it's pretty tight on you right there for that scene yes yeah for sure yeah and he also had in that
i think in that one do something i was looking right into the camera right into the lens
which we don't normally do you know jump into a point of view you know that kind of shot
with the camera looking at an actor and the actor looking right in the lens is really a shot about
Kess's point of view.
That's exactly what Kess sees.
So I was looking in, you know, in that version,
it would be like I was looking right into Kess,
even though I was looking at the camera.
Right.
We didn't normally do that.
No, because when you look into the camera,
you're essentially breaking that fourth wall, right?
You're not supposed to look directly into the camera.
But if it's her POV, would that make sense?
But again, not something that we typically see on Voyager.
So Krakher definitely kind of pulled out all the stops and, you know,
was super creative in this episode for sure.
so I screamed do something looking at the camera and we jump again backwards in time inside a shuttle
I was saying earlier I remembered this scene yes the birthing scene
but what I didn't remember was where do the babies come out of Ocampus somewhere in the back
side I'm clearly looking at her back and trying to pull the baby out and it's the upper back though
because, you know, her uniform is kind of, she's pulled it down just so that now it looks like a halter top, right?
So she put it down that far.
It was a full, it was a full, it was a full, it's a full uniform, Robbie.
She pulled the sleeves off and then she pulled it down so it now her back is showing.
It didn't look like that.
I know it.
They had built something.
Yeah.
Look like a towel wrapped around her.
No.
It does, it does track later.
You do see it.
You see the uniform you do on all the way, right.
By the way, she has some muscles.
That's what I wrote down.
And I was like, my goodness, look at those guns on her.
Her arms are so buff.
It's just like, I don't even recall her working out back then.
I didn't even know.
But she was very fit.
She looked great.
I was like, good Lord, look at those arms.
So, yes.
And we have the baby.
She has the baby.
And that's the baby I was telling you before.
When I pull that baby around, that baby could only work for 20 minutes or whatever was.
They put the goo on the baby.
Right.
I actually didn't notice I remember my memory is that they put some prosthetics on the baby but I couldn't see
I didn't see prosthetics I saw the goo the cottage cheesy kind of stuff that was on the baby
and then yeah and you know honestly it didn't look like anybody was stressed out about working with
the baby but now that I know the story about you guys were we were a little under the gun to get this
baby shot in and quickly Jennifer was not comfortable and you know that's also because
because she was 21 at the time.
She has no children.
So she doesn't know how to hold a baby, you know?
So she has the baby.
She sits down and all of a sudden there's a call from Voyager.
We're under attack.
Under attack, yes.
What the what?
Yeah.
Under attack.
So we jumped back to Voyager and we're coming out of the shuttle bay.
Neelix is helping us, congratulating us.
And he's going to take Kess to Mess Hall because this battle is nasty.
and she remembers, Kess, as he's describing this battle,
she remembers that in the future,
one of her earlier jumps,
when she was in the future,
they referred to the year of hell,
and she realizes this must be what they're talking about.
And she even says to Tom, remember you told me about it?
He goes, you know, how did you hear about that?
And she goes, remember you told me?
And he goes, no, I doesn't remember.
And she's like, it's a long story.
She doesn't want to get into, I'm jumping.
backwards in time. Right. And the reason why you don't go to the mess hall is because Neelix says
Captain Chikote has sent Tom on a mission to go to the weapons array to modulate the targeting
scanners to a parametric frequency to knock out the Coronaton torpedo launchers. That is a mouthful.
And so that is your job. So now as Kess is going to the mess hall with Neelix, she then tells
everything that's happened on the way to the mess hall. And that's when Chakotay and Tom joined later.
and now they are a prize of the situation via Nelix and Kess tells him that she needs the exact temporal
variance of the torpedo fragment but Chkote goes through this list of extensive damage that Voyager
has suffered yeah and says like look we don't even have sick bay the doctor's offline we don't have
the resources we can't we can't do this yeah we can't do anything at all he says only three decks
have life support yeah yeah only three decks out of 14 have life support so she flashes again at
this point. And she's now, and then jumps. Boom. Resort program. Here we are. Yeah. She sees Tom and she says
she needs to talk and that's when Blana comes up and gives her a kiss. And I love this scene. She's like,
gives him a kiss. Yeah, sorry. Bala comes up and gives Tom a kiss. And then she's a little bit taken
back and she goes, oh, you must be Bala, which to Bala, this is hilarious because she's like,
okay, you're a comedian. You're a comedian now, kiss. The last time I checked. Yeah. I'm still
of Bolana. Yeah. So it's very funny. And so. But clearly in this, in this timeline, in this moment,
in this timeline, this is when Paris and Bolana have gotten together, which hasn't even happened
on the show yet. There are a couple. There are a couple. But now the ship is under attack again. So this is
now we're flashing back to the very first attack from the Krenum. So I think that when we first
see Tom and Kess board Voyager with the newborn baby, that was after
months or however weeks of attacks, right? So now
we see the initial attack happens while you guys
are the resort program. So you guys rush to the bridge and Kess
is the one who informs Captain Janeway, who is now
captain, of course, she's still alive, that the Krenum are the people that
are attacking and she explains what's going on with the torpedoes. The first time we've
seen Janeway, by the way. That's right. It's the first time in the episode that we've seen
Janeway, which to me honestly, it just felt strange that we hadn't seen. Something felt off about
the episode besides the complex story. And part of it was that Janeway wasn't a part of it. Yeah, I was
okay with it. It didn't bother me. And I think Kate Mulgrew the actress was pretty happy to have time
off. So she was probably thinking, this is great for me. Yeah. But it didn't pull me out. It didn't
really know. Well, Kess explains to Janeway who they are, the cram. She explains that these are
chronoton-based torpedoes in a state of temporal flux, that's why they're passing through the
shields. That's right. That's why you're not able to, you know, defend yourselves. And Janeway goes over
with Torres to one of the side stations. And that's when a torpedo hits. Yes, and that's when the
torpedo hits. And we have some stunt actors for Janeway. Yeah. I think, Robbie, though, just to just to
rewind a second. I think they are already at that station when Kess is explaining why these
torpedoes are working, because she's standing to the side of the station kind of blocked by a
bulkhead, so she's protected from that torpedo that causes that station to explode, right? So
it explodes. It was a great stunt. It was. And I was like, was that Roxanne that did her own stuff?
Probably not. No. I don't know. Because it looked, because what happened is she gets blown back.
Right. She gets blown back, but there isn't a cut. It's a direct.
The scene continues with Kess rushing in to feel their pulse, you know, to see if they're still alive.
And it looked a lot like Roxanne. I thought, oh, that might be her. But chances are, like you said,
that was probably a stunt person for both Janeway and Torres. And we find it they're dead. Yeah. And they're
dead. They're both dead. Tom comes over, very distraught. And Chacote, by the way, Chiquote comes over
first and Tom follows. Yeah. But both of them are very distraught, which I thought for the, you know,
Janeway, J.C. Shippers, another moment. He was very, very moved and very upset with her.
But Chikote says, I need you at the con, and they're back to work. Chikote's got to figure out what to do,
and he asks Kess, because she seems to know. And she says, try remodulating the targeting
scanners. So we do. We try, and Harry remodulates the targeting scanners, using a parametric
frequency. He says that may work and it and it does. It works. The the ship blows up. The
Crenum ship is destroyed by this this remodulating the targeting can. I want to add in here that
when you guys are kind of bent over Janeway and Torres and their dad clearly and when Tocote
says, Tom, we need you at the con, you know, he's kind of saying, look, I know this is this is your
your gal and but you need to you need to get with the program right now and just we're in a battle
we're in a battle right and you say two words you say i sir but the way you delivered that i sir
was great oh yeah it was a very i remember that moment it was a very small it was a very small
voice that you that came out which was a voice of pain a voice of loss and a voice of acceptance
that you had to go back to duty and it was a very small icer and it just it was perfect it was a perfect
tone and so that was good acting on your part thank you yes you're welcome yeah so so we blow up the ship
put outside and by the way that ship explosion was very cool I love the way it was it was blew up and you
saw the parts of the ship blowing away yeah yeah um you know some some some of these space shots are better
than others I thought that was great it was a good one it was a good one epic yeah all right we find us
in Mess Hall now, and Harry is giving the damage report to Chkote. Tom is treating crew members
and is still in a state of shock from losing Torres. Kess consoles Tom and then speaks to Nelix
and finds out that the torpedo fragment is lodged in a Jeffries tube on Deck 11, Section 2. Kess says
she has to go there. And Neelik says, no, no, no, no, you're going to be burned to a crisp if you go,
which is a little confusing because that's not what ends up happening when she, when she,
She goes there, so I was thinking. She is sort of getting sick. She's getting, she's coughing, but she's not being burnt to a crisp. I thought, oh, I don't know why it was written like that. Maybe he would have said, like, the radiation poisoning will be too much for you is what he should have said instead of saying that she's going to be burned to a crisp, right? Interesting. Yeah. So she's in the Jeffries tube and she's coughing. She's crawling along, not burned to a crisp. Her tricorder locks on to the phase variance finally. And she realizes it's 1.47. That's the number she needs.
We see it on the tri-quarter-the-trade out, which was cool.
Yeah.
We see it kind of going through its scans and lands on 1.47.
And then she finishes.
She jumps again, jumps backwards in time, and she's like, doctor, you've lost your hair.
So we know we're getting back near things we're used to.
And she gives the doctor this 1.47 variance.
Oh, and we learn it's 1.47 microseconds at this point.
We didn't know what the 1.47, what exactly, what is that a measure of?
And now we know it's a measure of microseconds, right?
So then we go to the briefing room and Kess has now jumped six years total into the past.
Janeway talks about how she has never come across any phenomenon quite like this.
Torres suggests that setting up a biotemporal chamber and exposing Kess to a precisely modulated field of anti-chronaton particles
would purge her system and bring her back.
into temporal sync with everyone else.
Kess then on the way out of the briefing room
warns Janeway that she must avoid the Krenum at all costs.
Yep.
And we jumped to sick back.
So, you know, here's how my brain works.
Like she's warning them about the Krenum,
but we've seen Janeway in a battle with the Krenum.
She's already told her that.
So again, Janeway is learning it again in this timeline.
She's learning the same information.
It makes sense.
Right.
Because Cass knows every time she jumps backwards, they don't know what has happened.
So here's the question.
If she tells Janeway this in this scene and then she jumps again, does Janeway not remember this information when we...
She shouldn't.
Well, she clearly doesn't because when we see the crime for the first time, she's like, how do you know, Cass?
How do you know who these people are and blah, blah, blah?
So this warning really was, there's no use for this warning.
There's no effect.
Like this warning never stuck with her, right?
It would only be abuse if we stick in this timeline.
In this timeline only.
She does keep jumping back.
We'll get there.
But, you know, we jump out of this timeline.
Okay.
All right.
So if depending on when this scene happened, if it was in, let's call it our normal timeline,
then she would remember it.
But if it wasn't, if it was anywhere on either side, because timelines aren't linear, right?
If one thing changes, it splits into now this could happen or that could happen.
Yeah, but my thought.
thought process was if she tells her beware of the krenum and she jumps janeway is still in that
old timeline janeway doesn't jump with kest so i would think that she would still retain that knowledge
of the kronom being dangerous because she has never left the timeline and then she goes through
and eventually gets attacked by the kronom down the down the road right so i would assume that this is
the part that just breaks my brain it's why it's why it's hard for me to get emotionally invest
I feel like every timeline is just, it's a fake out because it's not real. Where is real time?
Yes. I mean, they're all real time. I get that that's the whole fundamental basis of time stories.
Correct. But yet, if time is jumping like this, then what's real, is any of it real?
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Okay. She warns them with the cranium. We go to sick bay.
The anti-chronaton treatment begins. It's working. It's working. The one by the way that the doctor has talked about a couple of times.
with a lot of pride, you know, it's his experimental and, dare I say, genius plan to use
this biotemporal chamber. Yeah, he's, he talked about it in a few of the timelines with the same
pride. He's pretty full of himself. He's pretty full of himself. But now we're finally doing
this procedure. And I have to say again, Alan Craker did a phenomenal job of staging Bob moving
around that room, the camera moved with, and eventually landed genius, all this movement
during, it felt like a legit procedure, and then the shot dumped off and landed in a close-up
on Kess for her next jump, which I thought was beautiful staging.
Cricker's like a mad scientist movement guy. You know what I'm saying? He's in, I'm going to do
this and this formula and I'm going to do this. And then we'll end right here. And it's like,
wow, you really did do that.
So yes, I agree.
It was wonderful.
Yeah, it was wonderful.
Lans on a close-up of Kess, and we jump again to a ready room scene, but this is the scene
from the pilot.
The pilot ready-room scene.
Yeah, when Nielix is asking to stay on the ship, it's the same dialogue.
But the makeup and hair is not the same.
You notice that, right?
Kess looks like whoever showed up to do Kess's makeup that day was not around during the
pilot.
I'm thinking that somebody else can.
her hair's her hair looks different her makeup looks different it just was like oh okay yeah
but i you know but neelix is explaining everything the way he did in the original scene though i think
it sounds like that dialogue i remember him saying in that in the pilot episode and i'm here to
anticipate your every need and your first need is me so he did say that exact same dialogue right
but cass in this in this version in this timeline she goes she says i don't belong here yeah and and neelis is like
wait we talked about this yeah he thinks she's chickening out right that she doesn't want to stay with
voyager but he's trying to shut her up and then janeway kind of goes no tell me what tell me what's going on
yeah what's going on and is as uh kess starts to uh explain she jumps again oh yeah jumps to ocampa
i guess comp and home world yeah comp and home world we're in the caves and she's working on a box
of lettuce she's growing some lettuce or something some plant yeah and it's young kess it's a girl
which by the way I think two months old now or whatever she's like yeah she's a baby yeah but she
looked a lot like Jennifer lean I thought that was really good casting good casting girl was really good
and her dad shows up so we meet Kess's dad and yeah I just thought I thought that scene was great
yeah she tries to explain to her father what's happening but of course he thinks she's playing games
and and she also doesn't recognize her father too so she doesn't know who he is and she flashes
again before the explanation is complete.
And now she's in an Ocampan hospital.
And she's being born.
Kess is being born.
And my question...
Out of her mom's back.
Her mom's back, right?
Another back baby.
Mm-hmm.
So the question is...
Is infant Kess the same infant that was infant Linus?
I thought about that.
I don't think so.
Okay.
I think they use different baby.
A different baby.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
We flash again.
Back baby.
Yes, we flash again to Kess's mother's womb, where we see Kess as a fetus.
Now we go into like a stylized, crazy, microscopic embryo and cells split in.
Fetis, embryo, single cell.
Yeah, it's going from many, you know, an embryo to many cells to four cells to two cells.
To one cell to nothing.
To nothing.
She doesn't exist.
Pitch black.
Just for a moment.
Yeah, then everything reverses.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now the cells start splitting from one to two to four to the embryo.
to the embryo.
And back baby comes out.
Yep, back baby comes out.
The mother is the mom. Who played the mom?
I don't know. She looked familiar, but I don't know who that is.
And she says, I think one day she'll see the sun.
And that's so true. She does see the sun.
And that flashes, she flashes once again.
And now she's back to the room.
Excuse me, she is back to the chamber.
Yeah, back to Sick Bay where the anti-chronaton treatment is happening.
Again, still happening.
and the chronotons have all been purged.
She is back into temporal sync with everyone.
She's now back to real, real time.
So everything has been real time, but this is real, real time, is what I'm going to say, right?
The real, real reality.
She's there.
And we jump to the resort program where Neelix is musing about his future as a security officer.
Tuvok sort of reigns on his parade and says, well, you know, what Kess is describing is just one possible future.
And Nealus comes back with, oh, good.
So maybe I'm chief of security, actually, so which is hilarious.
Then we kind of, the camera kind of pans over and we see Harry asking Cass if she remembers
all of her memories of the past.
Yes, and Kes's like, I do remember the replicator rations that you owe me.
And I'm like, oh, darn it.
I can't get away from that.
I felt like I blocked Kess a little bit in that move, though.
So I felt like, oh, man, I should have moved a little bit further over.
But, you know, the camera does end up on her.
yeah oh yeah um and everyone is just curious about kess's version of the future everyone's asking you know
what happened with me what happened with me yeah i love chikote's joke about tom joining a monastery
parry sticks up for you i stick up for you saying no no no no no no he'll get married he'll have a
family all right oh yeah and then get married and live in the way ever after but tom's the one that
says look don't tell me i like a little mystery in my life and janeway agrees let's just leave the
future to the future. Tuvok does request that Kess make a report on the Krenum and she says,
I'll get started right away. Janeway says, no, no, no, not now. Enjoy your party. And Kess says,
if there's one thing that this experience has taught me, Captain, is that there is no time like
the present. And as she leaves, we have that final lovely shot of the entire crew watching Kess
leave, which we never have those shots. It's pretty rare to see everybody standing there at attention
in a way. No, I thought it was great. I thought it was really well staged and well directed by, again, by Alan Craker. By Alan. I love the way. I did enjoy the ending of this. I like the way that things sort of wrapped up. Yeah, it was a good wrap up. I agree. But for me, it was a tough episode to track. I just found myself confused. Okay. I've heard that with the fans that this is people either really like this episode or really hate it. I'm not on either extreme because there's a lot of things I liked about it. But,
I don't think it was successful in the end.
Give me your one to ten.
Give me your one to ten rating.
I would give this a five.
I'm right in the middle on this one.
Okay.
Because there were some things like Allen's direction, I thought, was really good.
I think a lot of the performances in the episode were really good.
I thought Chikote was great.
I thought the doctor was funny.
I thought you and I and our guest stars were really good.
I thought everybody, you know, I was happy with my performance.
And Jennifer Lean, you know, did a,
a tour to force, you know, playing all the ages of man there.
But it just didn't work for me as a story.
That's why I'm a solid five, which is not a great number, you know.
No, I'm going to punch it up because of all the positive elements that you mentioned.
I'm going to pump it up.
This is more of a six and a half for me, maybe a seven, just because of, again, you know,
just everyone's performance.
This was kind of a tour to force for Jennifer, a good episode for her to really stretch her.
This is her threshold, really.
you know what I'm saying? Like she got to really stretch in this one. So I'm going to, I'm going to say that I'm going to rate it higher because of that. What about a theme or lesson that you learned from this episode? The theme was beautifully scripted by Ken Biller, the very last line when Kess says there's no time like the present. To me, that's the theme. That's the absolute truth is that. I believe that. There's no time, you know, stay in the moment, stay present. I wrote that down as well. I have, there's no time like the present. But I also.
also wrote down the other lesson comes from early in this episode when Kess is speaking to
Andrew trying to get some facts from Andrew. And she says, like, listen, I need to ask you some
questions and I really need you to think about them before you answer. And little Andrew looks at her
and says, I always think before I speak. You taught me that. And so again, wise Kess, because
this is something that everybody can do with this lesson. Because thinking before you speak can save a lot
of misery in the world. Because I think a lot of people, they run off of emotion and react.
People are reactionary. And you react, you're not thinking, you definitely are not thinking when
you're reactionary. And you're just saying what's going to come out of your mouth. So that was my
other important lesson. That's a good takeaway. That's always, yeah. Yeah. I think there's often
more than one lesson in a Star Trek episode. Yeah. There can be more than one. So that's why I like
to say instead of theme what are the lessons that we've learned for this right great well that was fun
that was a nice little review yeah I'm sorry you gave it such a brain yeah you gave it such a low review
but I understand the story really it was hard for you to get invested it's problematic for me as a story
it's just I understand and it's not that I think Ken could have done anything differently I think it's just
the concept like I don't know that this concept could have yeah elevated the number for me
no matter what.
It's a hard one to wrap my head around.
No problem.
That's your opinion.
And you are entitled to it.
All right.
Well, that was fun.
What's next week?
Do we know?
Yeah, next week is the episode, real life.
Real life, which is funny because we're talking about real life here.
Like, is this the real life or is that not really?
So now next week we are actually reviewing an episode called Real Life.
Yeah.
So that should be exciting.
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See ya.