The Delta Flyers - Bride of Chaotica

Episode Date: May 16, 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 Bride of Chaotica!. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Bride of Chaotica!:Chaos erupts when aliens from the Fifth Dimension interpret Lt. Paris' "Captain Proton" holographic novel as reality.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 BragaAdditionally 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, 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, 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, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Nathan Walker, Shambhavi Kadam, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Brandon May, Jeremy Mcgraw, & Jason BonnettAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, Katherine Hendrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, 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, Liza Albright, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Normandy Madden, Mike Chow, John Mann, Holly R. Schmitt, 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, Julie McCain, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Estelle Keller, & Russell NemhauserThank 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 star of the 1992 television series going to extremes, Robert Duncan McNeil and myself, your favorite, Forever Ensign, and Garrett Wong. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. 92, going to extremes. Whoa. Woo-hoo, doggie. That's deep. Well, Robbie, I mean, I got to say, one of your most exciting, adventuresome stories was from when you were filming.

Going to extremes when you had to fight off intruders in your rental house. I had hand-to-hand combat with catburn. burglars, two of them, two of them in my condominium unit where I was living while we filmed that show on a cliff. On a cliff. It was built on the side of a cliff looking down at the water below. I mean, the cliff was probably, you know, 20 feet high. And there was a little bit of room to walk between the building and the edge of the cliff, like five feet or so. Right. Right. Yeah, it was a, it was a second floor condo on that cliff. Yeah. woke up, didn't know what was happening, heard noise, woke up, and I jumped up like a caveman.

Noises came out of me that I never knew existed. And then there was this sort of like scuffling. Right. But they had entered into the master bedroom window, correct? Isn't that the window they came into? So that's the sound you heard. Because we had left that open for the, for the nice ocean. For the ocean, breeze, exactly.

And I'm thinking we were on the second floor. Yeah. In a secure, you know, guard-gated condominium complex, we thought it would be safe, but no. No. They had found their way in and, you know, scuffled. And anyway, they escaped. I, you know, scuffled with them. But I don't know what I would have done if I had been able to hold on to one of them.

I don't know what was I going to do with them. But you didn't tell you didn't explain why you weren't able to hold on to one of them. Well, the reason. So I guess because of tourism, they know a lot of tourists are coming with no. weapons or self-defense other than, you know, nothing. There's no guns or knives or anything coming in the country. So they decide they put on little bikini bathing suits or whatever. Speedos. And they grease their body so that if you do wake up like I did and you get your hands on them, you can't hold on. If you grease up your body, it's like you can't, you know,

there's no grabbing or holding. They can pull off and run. And that's what happened. And it was surreal. I didn't know what was happening. I'm like trying to grab and, you know, hold one down. And I can't hold on. It just, yeah, it was, it was surreal. The whole thing was very surreal. I feel like there might be some up-and-coming MMA fighters that are listening to this and thinking, oh, this is how I win.

I'm going to slather myself with Crisco. Grisco, Greece, or I don't know what it would have been, but it was very, yeah, it was. Yeah. And I didn't know that's what it was until after it was over and a local make and told me, oh, that's, you know, that's a technique they used. It's a common technique for cat burglaring. Yeah. And you did turn into the cave. And there's no clothes or anything to hold on to. Right. Because they're in these little bikini speedos. Yeah. Yeah. And you told me that at this point, it was you, your wife at the time and your one child. You didn't have anyone. You only had

one child. You only had little tailor. And she was two just turned two. Right. And she was sleeping in in the bed between us. And she slept. the whole thing oh she didn't even wake up during the grapple oh interesting but i'm shocked that i don't know that scene i feel like she might have like been traumatized as a two-year-old not knowing like knowing this is scary and so she just shut down and shut her eyes or something yeah i don't know somewhere deep in her subconscious i'm sure my daughter was traumatized because it was a scary thing oh definitely and to turn into that protector caveman protector which you did uh at least you got him out of there Yeah.

I think there's the noises I made, scared them. Oh, you were grunt. What did you do? It was like a, so you sounded like Bigfoot, is what you're trying to say. It wasn't words. It wasn't. It was just sound.

It was like animalistic sound. It was the mating call of Sasquatch. I'm really, really impressed with that. Okay. All right. Anyway, I'm glad you shared that story with all of our listeners. It is truly one of the more amazing story. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ret traumatize you on that one.

But I have to have a new intro until we finish all the episodes. So I've got to pull from very obscure things such as going to extremes. And I'm going to find even more. So, okay. So this week's episode, thank goodness, we're here finally, bride of chaotica. My goodness. So excited. So excited.

Okay. So let's just, you know, let's go and watch this. I can't wait to watch this. I'm so excited. Yes, it has been a while. All right, everyone. We will be right back with our review, recap, and discussion of Bride of Chaotica. Oh, oh, oh, everybody, we are back from watching Bride of Chaotica.

Oh, that's a chock full episode. My goodness. Huge. It's a huge app. So much action, so many things happening. And a lot of little tiny details I never, never noticed. So I have a lot of things. I'm sure you have a lot of things to talk about.

Oh, yeah. It was great. All right. Let's just dive right into this, starting with our poetry synopsis. Here we go. This is my haiku for Bride of Chaotica. Proton won't shut down Fifth Dimension

battles doom Death ray disabled You covered a lot I did it was very difficult because this episode was so full of everything and it was so difficult to come up with just the essence of this episode

I'm very impressed I got to say this was the hardest limerick to ever do in your entire... And I still feel like, yes, I went back and forth. I changed the rhyming words so many times, trying to figure it out. But, uh... Wow.

We'll see. I think, you know, this one covers as much as I could possibly cover. But, uh, we'll see. All right, here we go with a limerick. Let's hear it. Chaotica rules the fortress of doom. Voyager is stuck and can't resume. Tom enlist Janeway.

Captain Proton versus. the death ray and victory is clinched by the queen's perfume oh there you go yeah very nice very nice but you were struggling with what were the other words you were trying to rhyme with other than doom you were trying to I've deleted them all but it was just everything you know oh my goodness yeah well you still came through in the end that's all that matters it was close it was close let's talk about the uh the behind the scenes and the actors first teleplay by Brian Fuller and Michael Taylor. I know Brian Fuller love this episode, and we will be talking to Brian about this episode

for our Patreon patrons. That'll be in the bonus material, but really excited to hear his thoughts about writing this episode. So much fun. Brian and Michael did a great job. Well, okay. So Brian and Michael collaborated on the teleplay, but the story idea is, Fuller's ideas.

It's all Brian Fuller on this one. So can't wait to talk to him. That'll be super, super, super cool and super fun. Really fun. Alan Craker directed the episode. So good. There's a couple of scenes in here that I feel like,

again, a master class. He just did such a beautiful job of staging and shopmaking in the scenes that Alan just did a great job. And his energy, you know, Alan was always like, he'd get really passionate.

Yes, he would. had a ton of energy. And I feel like for this kind of melodrama of Captain Proton, he was the perfect director. Yeah, we needed that. Yeah, he helped the actors to find the comedy and, and the energy. It was really good. Yeah. Yeah. So our guest stars, Martin Rainer as Dr. Chaotica. We loved Martin. So, so good. We will also be talking to Martin about this episode. so again you know uh if you're not signed up sign up for patreon and you can get the bonus interviews and the bonus material on our patreon site but martin rayner did a phenomenal job in the episode um he did his first job that i could find was in the movie victor victoria he was the

concierge in that movie so um yeah that's a pretty auspicious start that's a that's an iconic film, Victor Victoria. Yeah, who's the star of that? Julie Andrews? Julie Andrews, yes. Playing the cross-dressing performer. She performs as a man, but she's a woman playing Victor and Victoria. So great film.

We also have Nicholas Worth played Lonzac, the head henchman. I can't believe I even remembered his name. Do you remember that? I was like, hey, Lonzac, that I ingrained in my memory. memory now. Nicholas Worth was so good. Again, another, everyone in this episode was great. Sadly, Nicholas Worth passed away in 2007. 69 years old, passed away. He was from St. Louis, Missouri. So his sort of big theatrical, slightly British accent, obviously was from his theater training or just as an actor. He did a

great job with that because he's from St. Louis, Missouri, Midwestern guy. Nicholas' first job was a movie called for Pete's sake in 1960. Okay. 66 when you were two. And I just want to mention Tarik, Tarik Ergen who played the robot, did a great job. He did.

Very funny interaction. I have some memories of that. And he also played Lieutenant Ayella. So he had two roles in this episode. He was the robot and Ayela because he had a little exchange with Neelix and the mess where Neelix was talking to him.

So he was all over this episode. He was. He was. Now, I could not find the actor's names who played the photonic aliens as men in black. I couldn't find him. They're not in the, they're not listed. I could not find them. How's that even possible?

They had so much dialogue that the main guy had a lot of dialogue. Yeah. He's not in there. I could not find him listed. Wow. That is a mystery to me, but I thought he did a great job. and our photonic aliens were wonderful. Yes.

Yeah, that's all I got. Oh, and we have Kirsten Turner as Constance Goodhart, Captain Proton's secretary. That's true. We've seen her before. Now we see her again. And we also will be talking to Kirsten Turner later. So please check out the Patreon feed and you'll be able to get everything regarding this show. Do you know what? I was looking before, and I was looking before,

and I must have overlooked it because our photonic alien, the actor's name is Jim Crestalude. Jim Crestalude. Yes, he was a day player originally hired on the movie

Star Trek Generations. Oh. Yes. Okay. And he also appeared with McKenzie Westmore, Michael Westmore's daughter, on the soap opera Passion. Passions. Okay. So Jim Crestleude.

I did find it. Sorry. I must have just overlooked that. That's okay. Jim Crestolude. Okay. Did the other alien speak at all, or was it just Jim? Okay.

Just Jim. The other one sort of nodded and got shot. Noted and got shot. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. So that's our actors, our writer, our director, our amazing group of behind the scenes and on camera people.

Let's talk about the story. Here we go. Let's jump in. Let's jump in. First thing is the amazing opening credits of Captain Proton. I immediately started giggling. I was just laughing. I love that they open on kind of old-fashioned credits.

And I got to say, after I finished this episode, I thought they spent a lot of time in a black and white story. And that's a big risk for a studio and a network because black and white, a lot of people, if they're flipping channels and they see something in black and white, they just don't like black and white old stuff. And so they'll flip right by it. So I think the studio network felt like creatively it was the right thing to

do to show this in black and white, but they knew they were going to lose some viewers that would just flip by because they just don't like black and white stuff. So I was amazed at how much of this episode, most of the episode was in Captain Proton in the black and white world. I would say easily half, if not more. Right. But I'm going to say that I think those fears are unfounded because once again, this is still the most popular. One of the most popular holodeck programs in Star Trek history is Captain Proton. And whether it's in black and white or color, it doesn't really matter. And frankly, from when it comes down to T-shirts, you know, over the years I've sort of had T-shirts for sale, the Captain Proton T-shirt, which I gave

you one, you have one of my Captain Proton shirts, has been hands down, the most popular shirt. Really? Hands down, yes. And so I want to do a quick plug here. If any of you want a Captain Proton t-shirt, ladies cut or unisex, forever ensign.com. Check it out. You can get your very own. I told you one time I was in Atlanta when I was living in Atlanta. I went to the dog park and there was somebody in the dog park with your shirt on. I was like, yes, you did say that. Out in the wild, I've seen a t-shirt out in the wild. Refresh my memory. Did you walk up to them and talk to them? Or no, you just saw, okay, you just saw it and went, there it is. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So the opening credits come up, and there's a narrator who's kind of setting the table, setting the scene for this episode of Captain Proton.

Who is that narrator? I don't know. I, for a second, for a split second, I thought it was Cosmo. Really? I did. Because I was like, God, that kind of sounds like Cosmo. It does kind of sound like Cosmo. But I think that they would have used someone in the loop group.

And the loop group is the people that do ADO. or, you know, recording dialogue after the show is cut together for group scenes or, you know, mess hall, rumble, you know, mumbling in the mess hall or whatever. Background chatter. They use some people called loop group. And there's usually a half dozen or so people in there. And they will make it sound like a bigger group or a small group. Right.

And they'll sometimes pull people out a loop group for off-camera lines. Okay. And I bet you that they have someone who's one of them. Yeah. Well, whoever it is, they did a great job. Yeah. They did a great job. We come in on Captain Proton's ship and Buster Kincaid and Captain Proton, Harry Kim and Tom Parris,

they're watching this screen that's filling them in on the game they're about to play, the episode they're about to play. And I just made a note, the set deck and props and everything as they reveal this place. Again, amazing, really amazing scenic work. These sets were incredible. The set designer just went above and beyond and just, I would say almost every single element, not only just set design, but Bob Blackman's wardrobe. My gosh.

I mean, the wardrobe was amazing for Chaotica, for Arachnia. And then the music in the background, that was the symphony. Wasn't the symphony? Yeah, the music was phenomenal, right? It was David, David, I forget his name. I made a note of it later. I think it's David Bell, I think. Okay.

Something like. Anyway, the music was phenomenal. Yeah. The music was really, because it was that classic, old Hollywood. So they didn't take stock footage or stock music from, you know, like a Flash Gordon from 1930s. They actually composed and recorded a, our regular background symphony that does all our music. They did that for this too. So you know what?

They probably had a blast doing this too. If you think about it, they're like, oh my gosh, we get to do what? Vintage sort of sci-fi music. Vintage style sci-fi music. Yeah, yeah. Really good job. We do learn that the setup, the narrator tells us, as Tom Paris and Harry Kim are watching the setup for the game they're about to play, that Constance Goodhart has been kidnapped by Dr. Keotica. And he's going to sacrifice her to Queen Arachnia.

She's the queen of the swighter people. We've never met them before. We also hear that Captain Proton has traveled millions of miles, which made me laugh. And in the recap, he said something about, and he burst into flames. The ship crashed and burst into flames. And so as we come out of the recap and the narrator disappears, and by the way, it's Harry, and it's like, what? We didn't burst into flames in that last chapter.

Yeah, he goes, yeah, we didn't burst into flames. And then he said, that didn't happen. And Harry says, oh, yeah, cliffhangers. And Paris says, the lost art of hyperbole, which is a classic already. They're sort of nodding to a self-aware. Like, that's what we do on track. We have cliffhangers at the end of an act before commercial break. We have cliffhangers.

We don't have previously on Star Trek. We didn't do that. Right. But there's always these cliffhangers. And Brian Fuller and Michael Taylor, wrote that all these kind of references about how we do what we do on Star Trek wrote it in.

Yeah. It was great. I also love when the recap went away. The view screen looked like it was this round view screen in the Capututon thing. And it looked like the old, remember when television used to,

you're probably maybe too young, but when I was a little kid, yeah, TV went off the air like midnight or 1230 or something. It would go off the air. They'd say signing off. They'd play the Star Spangled banner. And then this thing would come up that look like that.

It looked like just black and white. I don't know what it was. And I do remember that. I'm not young enough for that. I'm not too young for that. I do recall that. Yeah. So, yeah, so basically we're heading to Planet X to confront Chaotica.

And now Tom and Harry are just kind of walking around on the planet. And we end up, well, at least Harry is the one that catches it. He sees this very strange anomaly. He calls Tom over. And now we're staring at. some energy anomaly. We don't know what it is. It's just formed.

And clearly this is not part of the program. Something is wrong. We jump to the bridge. Before we do that, I just want to say, when we're walking by the caves, it's our old cave set. It's the same cave set

that was built for the next generation. Yes. It's the same cave set that we've been using. It was a pretty big set, but it wasn't that big. When we would film episodes, you would reuse the same.

tunnel entrance and the same, you know, open area and the same, you'd use, so there's some dialogue in here where Harry says, as we're walking by, he goes, he goes, boy, Planet X looks kind of familiar. What's the last place? He goes, what's the last place we went to? And Paris goes, the minds of mercury. And Harry goes, they're identical. And Paris goes, yeah, sets were expensive. They literally are writing in. They're writing in what we are dealing with on our own show, which is brilliant. What Voyager dealt with, the same sets are expensive.

We're going to keep writing to the same. And he wrote it into the dialogue. Anyway, I loved it. I love it. Okay, so we jumped to the bridge. And now we've dropped out of warp. Gravometric forces are all around the ship. And these forces are disrupting our power flow.

To VAC reports, we have no access to communications, deflector weapons. Janeway's perplexed. She's like, wait a minute. Well, scan for vessels, tractor beams, anything that might explain what is holding us here, why we cannot move. Then we jump back to the proton set. We have Buster Kincaid and Captain Proton walking along.

And Lonzac appears with two henchmen. Paris does not have time for this because we're trying to figure out what's going on. So he literally goes, I don't have time for this. And shoots Lonzac. He just pulls out as laser gun. I'm going to call it a laser gun or ray gun his ray gun there he goes pulls out his ray gun he's like I don't have time for this pulls out his ray gun shoots one of them right but Lonzac Lonzac has such an amazing monologue in the beginning and he's doing a great job with that you know how oh I escaped and I can't wait for the day to revenge to have revenge against you and you shoot him right yeah it's a big dramatic thing I don't have time the henchmen are shocked even the henchmen are like wait a minute like he's not done with his mind analog. And then of course, Harry pulls out his ray gun and shoots one of the other henchmen while

Tom takes out the other henchman. You saw my little thing that I added in, right? A little extra shot. Yeah. Not only the little extra shot, but. Oh, blows the smoke. Yes, the blowing of the fictitious smoke. There's no smoke. But I remember, I remember, I remember, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to kind of twirl my little ray gun. I'm going to blow away the smoke. And let's just see what Alan says about that because I didn't tell him I was going to do it beforehand. And then when he said cut, he came over. He's like, nice touch. He actually liked it. I was like, okay, good. So you're not going to make me do this again? He's like, nope, I think it's great. I'm like, all right. Love you, Alan. So we kept that in. But it totally fits. That's what's so fun about this episode and this

holiday program is all of that kind of fun, silly stuff can work. Yes. Yes. Yes. And the extra shot was very funny too. And it's also notable that, you know, these ray guns, you need multiple shots to really take somebody out. It's like a slow stun. It's like, the first one like stings a little. And the second one. And everybody has a very dramatic death from all of them. It's always a fun, fun death to watch. Most definitely. We go back to the bridge. There's a layer of subspace. We realize that's disrupting our warp field. We try impulse. Yeah. And nope, that doesn't work. Well, we try full thrusters, actually, full impulse and nothing.

Yeah. And in fact, it's about to overload. So we've basically entered, we've entered a layer of subspace. So we're kind of half in subspace, half in regular space is what I understood from that conversation. Yeah, exactly. We go back to the holodeck. We're on the Captain Proton's rocket ship bridge. And Paris can't disengage the program.

I love that we're using this periscope viewer to look outside. And we use this periscope. We see another distortion appear and a third. Light energies are still there and starting to multiply. And so Paris comes up with a site-to-site transport that we're going to get out of the, we can't shut the program down. But he has access to transporters. Has access to transporters.

So we'll do the side-to-site transport. We end up in the hallway. Yeah. We appear in the hall. Yeah. But I noticed we appeared in the exact same position we were. in when you did the site to site beaming because you're hunched over turned away from me and you're standing by the periscope exactly in that motion and we don't do that enough because if you recall

from the from the prior episode from a prior episode counterpoint when we beamed in paris's alien salamander cousin to rot from his ship the guy with the nose thing yeah he was sitting down he was sitting down remember he was looking back at us from his view screen point he was sitting down but when we beam him aboard he's not in a he's standing up he's not in reality he should have been in a seated position and then fall to the ground but we don't we don't really it's not we don't do it enough yes we should know we should make sure that we always do that i agree although it's too late because we filmed these episodes 25 years ago so there's nothing we can do about it now it's done but in the future yeah the future when we make more voyager episodes

of course we will follow the yes yes we'll stay consistent All right. We go to astrometrics now. Janeway, Paris, 7 is there. Balana's there. Balana says, basically, she describes what the subspace thing we're stuck in. She says, we're basically like stuck on a subspace sandbar. Right.

And it's causing a loss of control of all these systems. Yeah. My note was when she says we've run a ground on a subspace sandbar, I started saying Paris is really influencing Torres because typically Torres doesn't talk in layman's terms. Yeah. She's very technical. No, but all of a sudden she's, she's almost spouting, you know, she's talking as if Tom is talking. Yes, that's how you would say that.

Made it simple for anybody can understand. Yes. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point. That shows the, the, the, the, the, the, how well you guys are in sync now. That's what I saw from that. Yeah. We learned that our computers offline, tactical holodex, everything.

We can't control. There's no access to any of this stuff. Nothing. Nothing. And Janeway is trying to figure out what to do. She talks about an experience. she had on the on the albatani yes and you do remember the last time we hear about the albatani when did we hear about that the pilot episode when you are walking with janeway in the new zealand penal

colony she's talking about like you know i i serve with your father on the albatani like that's that was the last time we heard about it from caretaker when she was a science officer and now they bring it back up again which is cool right very cool yeah yeah so she's explaining basically Janeway is heading to the point she's going to make where maybe if we turn off all our systems and we can kind of sneak out of here. And before and she's she's getting to her point. Balanis starting to agree with her and letting her finish. And then Seven just interrupts her.

It's like, it's like, here's what we should do. Yes. Janeway's response is, you took the words right out of my mouth. It made me laugh. And then Torres goes, and now that we have your permission or something along those lines, I guess we're good to go. So everyone is kind of very tongue and cheek and playing with seven in a way, you know, and her bluntness, how blunt she is.

So essentially their idea is that our own warp field may be the problem why the gravimetric forces are happening. We need to shut down the warp core. Shut it down and just use minimal thrusters and maybe we'll break free. So that's the strategy. Next we go to the holodeck again, and we see these light, the light that we saw, the colorful light that we saw inside the cave system before, now the light starts forming into, I would describe it as like men in black with fedoras on. They look like, kind of like either gangsters or it's the photonic aliens taking on a holodeck character. Right, taking on a holodeck form. and so they materialize in these bodies with their suits

and very men in black looking and their hats. They're great faces. They looked so perfectly cast. They get the makeup that was done on the lead guys face. It was almost like white. It was like extra pale or something. Yeah, it was sort of like Bella Legosi. You know, it was very, very specific makeup that was given to them.

Yeah. Which kind of was right on. It was right on the money because it made us all feel like, okay, these are aliens trying to manifest in the human forms of the characters in this holodeck program and it's a little bit off. You know what I'm saying? They're not exactly on. The makeup makes them look quite gaunt and pale and this and that.

So very good job, I think. Yeah, they were great. They appear and they run into Lonsat here. He says, lower the drawbridge. He calls back on the communicator watch, which I loved, by the way. It was like a big, it looked like a miniature version of the country. of speakers you put in a drive-in movie theater back in the day that you would hang in the window those big metal speakers so he was wearing one of those on his wrist every millennial

listening to this is like what what's a driving movie theater just google it just google it you'll know but what's important is the aliens say to lonsac we intend no harm like they're not they're not here to conquer anybody at all and of course Lonzac arrests them and man has his two henchmen manhandle them. Yes. I love the henchman, by the way. They have sort of these like almost like, what do you call them, like ski masks or something underneath their helmets.

Yeah, it was awesome. It was a great. Again, another amazing touch, you know, put in there by the wardrobe department. All right. So now we are at Chaotica's Fortress of Doom. Lonzac brings in the prisoners who claim to be from another dimension. The fifth dimension. Well, first, he doesn't bring the prisoners in.

He just comes in by himself. Oh, right. Ciotica's like, where's proton? Yeah. He's upset. Yeah. And he's like, where's proton? Lanzac has failed, basically.

And the robot starts to, he's like, you know, arrest him or, you know, lock him up or something. And the robot starts to come over. Then he says, no, I've got prisoners. Right. And Chaotica says, wait, more earthlings? And he says, Lonzac says, no, they claim to be from the fifth. He says another dimension. He says another dimension.

Yes. Yeah. Chaotica says, wait a minute. They're from the fifth dimension. Yes. And he says, bring them in. And so Lonzac claps his hands, like a clap on, clap off lights. I love that they're just waiting outside.

And when Lonzak's like, he claps and the door opens up. Royal wipers. And so I can think about. All right. He claps open the doors. I love it. This is the force to the knees scene right here. chaotica asked why have they invaded his planet and they come up with to contact other

photonic life forms to learn from their explorers they are explorers they are the photonic version of starfleet is what i wrote down yes totally chaotica says no you're a vanguard of an invading army and like no we're explorers and the aliens say that this contact must be terminated because Chaotica is hostile. Chaotica orders Lonzac to execute them. Lonzac does shoot, and I'm assuming, vaporizes one of them, right? That's the he's gone for good. And that is when that is when the other, does he have a name?

The lead, does he even have it? No, he doesn't even have a name. Okay. He's just a photonic alien. And he punches a few buttons and beams himself out of there. But before this, Chaotica says something about, oh, you're from the fifth dimension. Well, you're no match for my space. Force.

Right. And I went, oh, the space force. This was the original space force. Here you go. You know, it was a Steve Carell show. And it was reality. Space Force has become, yes. It all started with Dr. Chaotica and his space force.

Good call. Good call. So he shoots one of them. The other one escapes with some kind of beam device. And he says, power the death ray. He wants arachnia to join him and rain destruct. down on the fifth dimension. Yeah, so he orders, he orders the robot, Satan's robot, to take Constance Goodhart to

Arachnia, I guess as a sort of like a, here, this is my goodwill gesture, have this prisoner, and I want to invite you to join me in my battle against the fifth dimension. So that's what that was. And then Constance screams for the 200th time so far. She even screams when the, when the photonic alien dies. I'm like, wait a minute, this is not even danger to you at all. like what you're screaming here, too. That's amazing.

It's just, she's a one-note kind of character, but she delivers every time with the screams, the crazy scream. Yep. Anyway, we have a captain's log here where Janeway says, we learned that we've been stuck here, and we've been spinning our wheels for three days, she says. Which, by the way, that three days is the same amount of time that they were spinning their wheels on the Albatani.

She was talking about how it took three days to get rid of that dense to get out of that dense proto nebula and then we have another three days here. Three days. I love this next scene in the mess hall. No, gosh. Neelix has a joke at the top where he's talking to Tariq,

who's also our robot in the robot outfit. He's talking to Tarek and he's giving him some kind of like seaweed food or something. Something very unappetizing looking. Something unappetitizing. And as we come in from that captain's log, Neelik says to Tarek, he goes, well, look on the bright side.

there's only three meals a day and he gives him a big smile and i thought i wondered if he added that because well i texted him i texted Ethan Phillips yeah and uh and i and i sent a little clip of that and i said did you add this or was this in the script and he texted back right away he said no i added that absolutely i love it he got away with he got a little joke in there and it totally fit this episode, the tone of the episode. It did. There's only four functioning lavatories on a ship for 150. Oh, my God.

Yes. But before that, Janeway needs coffee. Before that, Janeway steps over and says, and the Alex is like, hey, what can I get you? And she says, coffee. And he says, he starts talking. And she comes over and she comes over and like basically puts her hand up and on him and says, no, no, no, stop. Yeah.

Coffee. I want coffee. coffee, hot coffee, black. And so then he walks across the mess hall to a replicator and orders coffee black. And I thought to myself, why didn't she just walk in the door and go to the replica? Why did you have to go to him, order it, order it again. But it's a funny bit. Then he hands her the black coffee.

And he starts to talk. And she goes, no, no, no, no. Coffee first. And so he stops. And she's drinking her coffee. and enjoying coffee, like, I've never seen anyone enjoy coffee. So, it's so good. And you see him like, he's nervous.

He's like kind of actively silently standing. Yeah. It was funny. It was just the whole coffee bit that they ordered caught. She wanted coffee like three or four times. She kept saying coffee, coffee, coffee. Okay, now they talk about the bathroom. Now they talk about four functioning lavatories for a ship of 150 people.

Evidently, that's how many people we have left. We had 170 or something, right? or 200 or whatever. Yeah, I feel like the numbers. We've been whittling away. I feel like he's ballparking this. Okay, he might have ballpark that. And Janeway's just like, you know what?

I'm just going to leave it in your capable hands. I'm sure you'll make the right decision. I need to go. And she gets out of there. And the best part of this scene is, and I'm sure this is his ad lib physicality. He looks down at her cup, picks it up and just drinks the rest of it.

And it's like either, yeah, it's either A, he's thinking we can't waste the replicated rations like that. Or B, it's just, that's just Ethan Phillips being Ethan Phillips with his very funny physicality. It was very funny. It was very funny. So I think we go to the bridge now. Yes, we're on the bridge. And we're going to start to get out of here slowly.

So we're going like, you know, five meters per second, three meters per second, five minutes. We start moving a little bit. And it seems to be working this plan. And then all of a sudden we start slowing down again. Right. And Balana reads a power source. surge with a weapon signature and an unknown source an unknown source so tuvok does a scan and he locates the source of the weapon signature it's it's basically the holodeck is what he's you know he

says whatever deck it's on says the there's no life signs there though there's there's weapon signature but no life signs and jane way says tovok go check it out mr paris join him and so we go back to the fortress yeah and there's tuvok in paris back outside the fortress but it looks like a battle took place here and also we say in the scene that Holodex don't normally run themselves

you know that they don't run by themselves so why is this still running why are the henchmen and Constance dead on the ground Paris says she's one of the good guys like good guys never get killed in old Hollywood movies the good guys always won right

that was the cliche so I just want to address the image of when you guys are on the inside the holiday program you look up at the fortress of doom and there's clearly it's one of the towers is smoking and damaged and i was thinking after you know after watching this whole thing i was thinking how's that possible the lightning shield would have stopped that you know what i'm saying so how was that damage even happening that that was kind of like hmm continuity continuity yeah the old lightning shield should have been up because it's never down clearly so his entire

palace the entire fortress should have been protected so uh yes but i all know how a lightning shield works yes we do so i guess that was a little bit of a undersight there they should have maybe not had that damage going on there um satan's robot appears paris finds they find satan's robot and paris says i'm going to i'm going to fix this guy up repair his vocalizer um and he finds a burned out resistor and tuvok says a what and um paris explains, well, this is, you know, circuitry before neutronic circuitry. They use resistors and tubes. He pulls out a tube, hands it to Tuvok. His look was very funny. Pyrr fixes the wires and tries to turn him on. And then he slams the body of the robot and then the robot works. Classic old school,

if it's not working, just hit it. Just hit it. Hit it. The robot then says that they're, basically the invaders from the fifth dimension came through the portal and this battle has ensued. Paris asked the robot to show them, to show Tuvok and himself where the portal is. And they arrive. They see that same energy anomaly that Harry and Tom saw earlier. But now out of these little anomalies or these portals come these photonic charges. They're getting shot at. Paris and Tuvok take cover.

and Paris basically says that he needs to head to his rocket ship because there are sensors aboard that he can utilize to determine what's been going on here. So they leave Paris, Tuvok, and Satan's robot leave for the rocket ship. And I love when they leave and Satan's robot runs. His run was very funny. And I had a flashback when I saw him running to when I was like four years old, I was a robot for Halloween.

Oh. And we made my costume. to them out of cardboard boxes. And I remember when I was running one time from one house to another, I tripped and fell. And I couldn't get up because it was all cardboard boxes. It's like once you're down,

you're down. And I was traumatized as a four-year-old stuck on the ground in my robot outfit. I'm sorry to laugh at your trauma. It's just the image. When I saw Tark running, when I saw a robot running, I was like, petrified. I'm like, don't fall.

You'll never get up. but anyway I just love that like me seeing that scene I'm like all right cool scene and you're watching that scene going no

I was having a whole childhood flashback it all came back to you your PTSD from falling and not getting up with that cardboard costume that's interesting

you were a robot I was a robot when I was four years old yeah oh my God very cool okay and we covered it in tinfoil

we took cardboard boxes right and covered them in tin floor So it looked like metal, robot, I guess. Is there a photo of that that exists? I don't know. I don't think so.

I've looked for one. Ask your sister if she has something like that. Yeah, she may have some photos. That would, oh my God. To see that, that would be amazing. All right. Where are we now? Astromatrix.

Yes. She establishes a visual link with a holodeck. And we see these lights firing. And it appears that this attack is coming from subspace. That's right. And then there's some lightning that strikes. And Harry's like, that's chaotic as death ray. He recognizes that. That's the kid. Wait a minute. What's happening? Yeah. So Harry pulls up the fortress. The visual link for the fortress. Yeah. There's Martin Rainer being very dramatic talking about full power to the death ray. Yeah. And so 7 is not having this

dramatic audio in the background. So she turns the sound off. She did. Well, he's calling to Araknea as well, right, in this scene. Yeah, he's calling to Aragnaa. But I love on the big astrometric screen, she's like, audio, computer audio off. You see Martin Rainer like dramatically, you know, talking behind her. And she's in the foreground just dryly talking about, you know, business. Yeah.

And I wrote down what she said, the little dialogue between Seven and Harry. She says, it seems your infantile scenario now poses. security risk. And then Harry says, it's just supposed to be a little harmless entertainment. And Seven replies, entertainment, another frivolous human endeavor. And then I laugh in the background. And you see my face? I'm like, I'm laughing at her, actually. Yes. And that's one thing that I noted in a lot of these scenes. There's a lot of like laughter going on with everyone around, especially in the Everybody had fun. Everybody had fun making this episode.

Really fun episode. Yeah. So now we go back to Captain Proton's ship and there's Paris pulling out a telegram message from the president. What would you call that? Would you call that a ticker tape? Is that what that's called? Yeah. Perfect.

Yeah. The ticker tape's kind of coming out. You see this glass covered old machine with wheels turning in the ticker tape. But did you notice the ticker tape wasn't coming out of the machine? And I remember this. They had sort of faked it. They had faked it on the front side so that I could just pull it out.

But it wasn't really coming out of it. It wasn't really coming out of the machine. Okay. But anyway, we do get this message from the president of Earth is intercepted communications between chaotica and arachnia. Yes.

And chaoticas at war with aliens from the fifth dimension. So we're picking all this up. We're getting caught up by this ticker tape telegram. Yeah. And I love how you're reading it like in the old days.

uh, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, stop. And then Tuvac's like, stop. He said stop, too. He can't take it any longer. Just summarize it, will you? I love that a little bit. There was a little continuity in the edit, a continuity thing. Because when Paris stands up in the close-up, when I stood up and was talking to Tuvok, I kind of, I was standing up facing him and I even put one of my hands on my hip to talk to him. But when it cut back to the two shot, I was still leaning down. Oh, you're still leaning down. I was like, oh, I hate when that happens. I hate when those little continuity errors happen, but... You caught one there.

Yeah. I think this is when you get interrupted by the main photonic alien, right? You guys hear a little sound coming from the door, the hatch. Oh, we hear... That's right. Yeah. And the robot says, invaders, invaders. And Tuvok makes a comment, like, there's no security.

Like, anyone can just walk into the ship, and you're like, eh, these are different times or something like that, is what you said. And the main photonic alien comes in. he informs you that 53 of his people have been killed and paris is like i didn't kill anybody we didn't kill anybody paris and tuvac try their hardest to explain the proton is a simulation he then scans tuvok and paris who do not register his life forms on his tech so you guys are the simulation to him he's you guys aren't even real yeah you don't show up as photonic energy so you you must not be real yes and again he explains that we are what did he what did he call us carbon based

Life forms. Carbon-based life forms. But I want to go back just as they were coming in the door. And Paris and Tuvok and the robot are there. And the robot says, invaders, intruders, intruders, or invaders. And then Paris is like quiet. And he keeps saying invaders, invaders, invaders. And he keeps saying invaders, invaders. And Paris hits him. And Paris hits him. But I remember when I hit that thing. There was a mesh. And he sort of mumbles. Invaders. No, he totally gets small with that. Yes. That's in my video reaction. But I remember when I hit that thing, there was a mesh. screen up here. You dented it. I did. You sure did dent it. You dented Satan's robot, Robbie. They had to fix it. I remember it was like, oops, I hit it right in the eye socket part.

Whoopsy. And they had to take the whole thing off and they had to refix it and Tariq was sitting there like, I can't see out of it. It's so that was a whole thing. Oh my gosh. I love the robot's line. He's going damage, damage, require maintenance. Help.

Help. Help. And he's just standing there. And you walk away from him. And Paris and Tuvac both sort of dryly, just disgusted stare. And then I just walk away, which I thought was funny. How mean of you. And that happened because the robot tried to attack the photonic alien. And he stuns him. Now, by the way, look how advanced these guys are.

Their tricorder and their phaser are all in one unit. Why couldn't Starfleet have come up with this type of the function? Goodness, gracious. Well, I think that what that says is that in the future, our smartphones are going to have a phaser built into it, too. That it's going to be a smartphone plus a weapon. Are you trying to say the iPhone 300 is going to have a phaser attachment to it and a tricorder too? Yeah, all of that. All in one.

That's super cool. Yeah. We go to the briefing room, and this was one of my favorite scenes in the episode. I love this scene. And partially why I loved it was because Alan Craker did a phenomenal job, just like in our last episode. I think I was talking about Mike Vahar, how he staged scenes where the blocking just folded into beautifully choreographed shots and scenes. Aren't you sitting on the table in this one? I'm sitting on the table.

So it starts with Janeway saying, you know, she's basically saying, okay, so let me get this straight. Transdimensional aliens have mistaken your captain proton simulation for reality. and now armed conflict is broken out between these aliens and Chaotica's holographic army. Yes, that's what she says. So go ahead with the staging. Yeah, and she comes around

and she's asking, is this what I, do I understand this right? And Paris is like, yep, yep. And I forget the line. This is what you say. Yes, ma'am, his army of evil. Like, this is what you say. This army of evil.

It was just, I was very proud of my delivery. You did. I could see, I could see Robert and Jerry Ryan in the past. background, look at each other, they almost lost it. No, they're trying not to laugh. They're trying, but they are smiling. To try to get them to laugh.

And I almost got him on that first line. Well, he does smile. He does smile. You could, if you look at, in the first line, you don't get them. But later when you talk about the death ray, you do see Chikote's smiling in the background. And even Janeway is smiling throughout this scene, which is rare. You don't see this kind of. For me, what I loved about the comedy of this is that Paris.

was the only one in the room who's like, yeah, this is absolutely. Yeah, yeah, you're completely serious. Yeah, this is, this is, there's nothing funny about this. Yeah, there's not funny to you. It's an army of evil. Yeah. Yeah, it's the queen of Ragnia, queen of spider people.

Yeah. It was so, he was so, like, just matter of fact. Yes. Absolutely. And they were like, what? It's called a what? Yeah. Which, by the way, for Star Trek fans, like, I'm sure,

Star Trek people have tried to explain to non-Star Trek people like yeah so there's a starship and it's part of this thing Starfleet and you know you're just explaining it and they go warp thing go warp you know one two three whatever they have phasers and you know there's Klingons

who I'm sure you know to non-starred Trump people they listen to us talk or whatever and they're like what? Yeah it's the same reaction as the crew to your story about Captain Brod That's what I love about this whole thing. That's why there needs to be more Kevin.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And Tuvok is so tongue-in-cheek when he goes, like, it's a shame we don't have a death ray. And that's when he laughs in the background. But the plan, the planets for Araknea to disable the lightning shield from inside the fortress of doom. And then the destructo beam on Captain Proton's rocket ship will then disable the death ray. That's the plan. And then we have to figure out, you know, Janeway said, well, somebody's got to play Arachnia. and she looks towards seven of nine.

Yes. And I kept thinking, I started thinking, oh, my gosh, I bet you the audience was thinking, oh, my God, seven of nine is going to be Araknia. And then it's flipped. And then I started thinking, that would not have worked as well at all with Jerry Ryan as Iraqi. It had to be Kate. It had to be Kate on this one.

Oh. And now you throw in there a reference to actors that was written in there. The role of a lifetime. It's the role of a lifetime. Oh, my God. He thinks about it. She's kind of coy. I love her.

She goes, okay, all right. I'm a size four. Yes, the I'm a size four dialogue written by, by Brian and Michael Taylor. Oh, perfect, perfect. Really funny. So she's going to go in there and play along. We go to sick bay. Balana comes in, the doctor's call to her.

He's very excited because he says he's been enlisted into this holodeck mission. Undercover. And he's going to go under cover. cover and we hear he's going to be portraying the president of earth and he needs some new clothing parameters so he's having her having her adjust that for just that and she also does an actor thing she says break a leg she says break a leg yes yes it's all the big performance yeah the origin is from victorian times of that phrase you know really yeah it is and i i love that it's a it's you know For Balana, this character is not an actor.

No. And she's also way in the future from this. Yes. To be able to whip this out and go, hey, Doc, break a leg. But again, I wrote that up to Paris Torres relationship. This is the PT thing going on here, you know? She's used to Tom Paris's sort of love of ancient or not ancient, 20th century conversation types of subject matter.

So I thought it was good. I loved it. It was great. Yeah. We go to a hallway scene. Paris is walking with Janeway, and he's filling her in on a number of different sections of the hall. We keep jumping. Did you write down continuity issue on this one?

No, I didn't. Okay. Well, what it was is we talk about the briefing room that her job is to disable the lightning shield. But in the hallway, then she's talking about, oh, all I have to do is find the controls to the death ray and disable it. So it's like, wait a minute. You guys are talking about the death ray, disobey? disabling it? Because that's protons. No, you're supposed to fire your destructo beam to disable to disable the death. Her job is just the lightning shield. But yet in the hallway, she's talking to you about, oh, so my job is to disable the death rate. So I felt like how did no one catch that? Yeah. It was a little, yeah. But again, but the dialogue afterwards, wonderful between you and Janeway. I love this. I didn't write down any of the dialogue because it's all gold. Yeah. I see it. Okay. So because you're talking about. about how because Chaotica is a megalomaniac, it's a good idea to appeal to his ego, use grandiose

language. He likes to be called sire, and it helps to say things like, the clever fiendishness of your evil plan is brilliant. And remember, Raygun, not phaser, a magic, what was it, imagizer, not view screen, and earthlings, not terrans. And then uncork the pheromones as a last resort. And then when you yell at her, you're like, I'll see you at the fortress of doom. And remember, You're the queen. All I can think of a, do you remember that scene in Princess Bride when they're leaving Miracle Max? And it's Billy Crystal and Carol Kane. Carol Kane says, bye, bye, boys.

And then Billy Crystal says, have fun storming the castle. And then that's exactly how I felt when you kind of send Jane way off. Oh, that's funny. I don't think I was thinking of that when I did it. But it was such a fun scene. I vividly remember this scene. We had to do it a lot because it. As you recall, in the hallway, it was all about timing.

Yes. You know, you'd round a corner, start the dialogue. You'd have to finish it precisely at a certain point for the shot to work. So I remember we had to do these scenes, these sections a lot. Yeah. And it was always fun. I remember this. I remember there were a lot of words because it was all me, basically.

Like it was a long monologue with her throwing. Her nodding the whole time. Her nodding or going, uh-huh. What? What is that? Yeah. It was, you carry that scene, yes. I remember it just being so much fun.

And even though we had to do it over and over, I was having so much fun doing it and playing and trying to get her to laugh and get a reaction out of her that I was just, I had a blast doing it. But, you know, over two decades later, I'm still smiling ear to ear listening about how excited and how much fun you had filming this scene. Yeah, it's just, it was great. It was really, really fun.

I can't get enough of it. Okay. We do go to next to the fortress of doom. Yes. And Dr. Keataka is about to fire the death ray. He's getting it, he's getting it all ready to go. And then he's going to make an announcement to the citizens of the fifth dimension. I love how he takes the microphone and he takes the cord and he whips it.

And you hear the whip sound too, right? They put it in a which later on, which later on, Janeway does the same move, which I love. Yes, she does do that. But again, this is something that I never thought they would include into an episode of Voyager, you know, these type of very campy kind of things, but you can do it with Captain Proton.

It works here. You can get away with it. Exactly. And this is the introduction of arachnia, right? Oh, because he says, on the little microphone, he says, you must surrender fifth dimension. And then you hear a little like someone's responding. And he's like, oh, is this there surrender?

And no, it is arachnia. She wants to see him. Yes. And she enters and there's this beautiful shot pushing into Kate. And she poses like a 1940s movie Hollywood star. Yeah. And you cut back to Martin Rainer, Chaotica, and he shivers. I was there when they filmed this shot when she came in, okay?

And I was, I'm not even in the scene, but I was there to watch this. And when they called Kate on set, she was in character. She did not walk on like Kate Mulgrew. She walked on like Arakneo with this complete air of grandeur. And it was just, she just, she strolled on like royalty. It was the funniest thing I've ever seen. I just remember the entire crew and myself watching Kate. And we were all going, we were, we were mesmerized by this.

It was the best. Loved it. It was really good. Yeah. She does start talking to him. He asks why she's here, and she uses one of the lines that Harris had recommended. She says, I've always admired your clever fiendishness. And he's touched and overwhelmed.

He kisses her hand. And then she moves over. She says, is this the death ray? Is this your death ray? And he goes, no, that's the cradle of persuasion. Yes. And this is the brain probe. I love all the description of these props and tools. Oh, my goodness. She's looking around at all the amazing props and things. And she finds, oh, she goes up to the throne.

Yes. She wants to see his throne. And then she sees the pheromones. Yes. Oh, you've still got that. Yes. And he walks away. And she steals it. She steals it. She sticks it in her sleep. Okay. When she steals it, did you notice the close-up on her fingers? No. Okay. She has the black nails to match. And they match Martin. I didn't even know Martin Raynor has black nail polish as well.

But if you look at her nails, like the standard nail, then beyond the nail, it was, there was an additional added piece of black nail that went on her finger. So it was a very elaborate nail job that was done with this extra part that goes that rides up her finger towards her knuckle. It was so, I was like, what? I don't remember seeing that. Yeah, the detailing was just, I mean, no stone was left unturned by makeup, wardrobe, set design. They went all out. And another thing I noticed later on, there's a 50-50 shot, you know, face-to-face shot of Martin Raynor and Cape Mulgrew. Yeah.

And I know that Martin's a shorter man. Right. And I do remember that they wanted Kate in heels, a bit of heels, and then I was going to raise her up. So they wanted Martin to not be drastically shorter than her. drastically shorter vertically challenged right so they put him in these amazing like platform shoes but yes you don't really you don't see i remember those shoes now yeah they were like like kiss the rock band with their shoes yeah yeah big high shoes um and it goes back to your nail comment there are so many details no stone is left unturned they right thought about that ahead of time yeah got his height up

it also was just a great shoe for his character you don't really see it but but but um It was great. No, yeah. Yeah, so she takes the pheromones, and I made another note here about the score. The score in the scene was phenomenal. So good. Amazing. She does make up a story about, she wants him to turn off the lightning shield, and he's like,

why? Why are you so interested in this? She talks about her spider ships are arriving to join in the fight, and that she wants him to turn off the lightning shield so her spider ships can come and help. help them. And so she, well, she says, turn it off so that my spider ships and my soldiers can pay tribute to you. Pay tribute. Yeah, that's how, because he kept saying, well, just send your ships into the fight, you know, they don't have to come here. So he's trying, she's trying every single way. But I do love when she sits on his throne and she says, well, somehow I feel very comfortable

here. Like it's the captain's chair, right? So funny. Oh, my gosh. He does say he's reluctant to lower these shields, but she could prove her loyalty by becoming his queen, by marrying him. Yeah. And she agrees and she says, but I want my fleet to come and witness this event. Yeah. And so she's trying every way to turn off the lightning shield. Yeah. Because there's even that part when she goes, she goes, and don't forget about the lightning

shield. She still throws that out there. But he's already ready to have the marriage now immediately. He's ready to have it now. And he says, I'll turn it off. and let your ships come when they arrive on on the wedding day the day and he says the day you become bride of chaotica it was amazing it was amazing and we go back out to the rocks area we're in the black and white world this is where this is the point where i was like wow we've

been in this black and white world a lot in this episode right and now we see the doctor we see some footsteps we reveal it's the doctor he is scanned he's He's the president of Earth. It's got a big patch here that says the president of Earth. And they gave him glasses, too. So, yeah, which was interesting. But he's scanned by one of the photonic aliens. Yeah, well, actually, before he does what, how we should talk about that, he, remember, he has the one device, the alien device that Satan's robot had knocked out of the main photonic aliens hand earlier.

So now he uses that to sort of call or bring the alien through the threshold. He sort of beams the alien in. Yeah, and that's when he scans the doctor and realizes, hey, you're alive like me. You're a photonic creature just like being like I am. And the doctor shares with him the fact, and we all know that this is a fact, that the only person that can possibly save them all is Captain Proton. Yeah. He's amazing.

He's the defender of the universe. the scourge oh that was the best line that he goes defender of the universe scourge of intergalactic evil and a competent medic to boot but don't say i said so so that was a very tongue-of-cheek little addition there yeah i wonder if he i think that was written in i don't think he had that was that was written in because oh the medic part or yeah yeah i'm sure that was written yeah i do so uh the doctor says you know if you let captain proton save he'll defeat chaotic and then you can leave safely with confidence that these guys are right but the main point is that he asked them to stop firing because the firing of their photonic weapons is causing us

to get deeper and deeper in this subspace sandbar so uh and the guys agree i mean he's really he's like okay he's a good guy he's a good guy this photonic alien yes he is we go back to the proton ship and harry and paris are working on the bridge paris even says at this point he's like when this is all over I'm deleting this whole program. I know. He's going to shut down the program. He's going to retire his rocket pack. But I love the introductory shot is basically, it's like a ballet.

I mean, it's just like that blocking of the beginning. Harry ducks underneath the robot's arms and goes here. Yeah, you have to duck under his other arm coming around. So it was a nice little dance blocking in the beginning there. It was great. Then the doctor arrives under the approach. Proton's Bridge. He says something about, this feels pretty good. I feel like I want to run for office when this is all over. This feels right to me to be president of Earth, which I thought was

very funny. We go inside the Castle of Doom and there's a wedding ring that Janeway thinks is for her, for Arachnia, but no. It's for him. It's for him. She's told, you will present this to Chaotica at the wedding. they detect proton ship coming in so they start fire they're going to fire the death ray at the ship that's when janeway walks over to the one henchman who's about to fire the death ray and she does a little karate chop to the back of the head which knocks them out right yes and then um janeway grabs the the the ray gun and starts aiming it at chaotica and lonsac and that's when uh chaotica says you know take her out and he fires at her and of course that that that does nothing

to her at all. She laughs. Then he says, the confinement rings. And he calls her an impetuous harlot was the word, the phrase that he uses. But did you notice when he says confinement rings, then they cut back to a shot of the two of, it's basically chaotic and Lonzac. Yes. But it's a little continuity error because he's moving to touch his button before he says confinement rings. And that's what I could. Yeah. So it's sort of like, oh, you sort of anticipated a little bit. Yeah, that was my only issue. I love he's got the button on his belt.

Yeah. And that activates these rings, which is basically a force field around her. She's trapped. And then they do activate the weapon to fire at Captain Proton's ship. We go onto the ships. And then Paris tells the doctor to activate the destructo beam. And the doctor's like, what's that? He goes the button in the middle of the panel.

Yeah. he goes the big button in the middle of the panel yeah so the doctors are to push a button and both harry and tom in unison go the other panel yeah the other panel we we scream it like i want to know what that other button that he almost push does i'm curious what was that maybe that's the one where the eject we eject out of the ship or something like that i don't know but that was very funny the other panel we scream at him yeah and we go to the bridge we are getting pulled deeper into sub-space still at this point. Because of the fire, the alien weapons.

Yeah. Well, really Chaotica's weapon firing at at the proton ship. Yeah. The doctor says, incoming here, we go back to the fortress. Janeway is opening up her pheromones at this point. Yes. She's chained to the wall. Right. She's not in the

energy. I mean, but her purpose was to sort of release these pheromones so that chaotica is affected but chaotic leaves the scene or he moves further away and Lonsack replaces him

and he's the one that starts smelling the the pheromones and he's like sniffing and it cuts back to her and then he's sniffing some more and he starts walking towards her yeah he's slowly walking and sniffing and smelling

and he's under her spell and he says your beauty is maddening. Entangle me in your web. He says, which I love. Yes. Yes. And she says,

free me, which he does. And then she fires the ray gun at the minions. And now she's got the ray gun up. She tells Chaotica to lower his shields. Yes. His lightning shield, which he does. She shoots him and

he bounces, the way that he bounces around and finally falls, the most dramatic death i've ever seen in my life now when he deactivates the shield did you notice anything with that sound effect no it i'm pretty sure it is the sound effect from the old pacman game because he goes bo bo bo bo bo bo bo like that like that when you lose when you lose it when you get you know eaten by the little things that are chasing your pacman your when it when your pacman folds down to nothing it goes do do do do do like that bloop like that oh yeah just didn't have the

bloop at the very end. But the do-do-do-do-do first part is very Pac-Bank-Berry. Yes, yes. It was pretty good. I saw him like, he went down to deactivate the lightning shield. He turned the knob to the left and then he turned it back fast to the right. And I was like, that's a weird knob. You got to go kind of slow one way and then turn it back the other way fast.

It was kind of funny. I didn't catch that. I'll buy anything. Yeah, yeah. Sure. Why not? She grabs the microphone. to talk to Captain Proton.

She's still, she whips the chord. We hear the whip sound, and she's still in character. She's like, a rackneyed to Proton. She doesn't say, you know, Jane Wade, to Paris. She's still in character, which is amazing. It's amazing. The background symphony.

Yeah, it's still happening. Great job. The music is still going. She does say to him, I don't know how to tell you this, but when she fires at him earlier. Yeah. I don't know how to tell you this. Bang, she shoots him.

but the wedding is off. Which I love. Uh-huh. Really good. Yeah. Paris calls for the destructo beam. Yeah. Doctor pushes it.

He pushes the same button that turns it on. So really pushing that button would turn it off if you're thinking of that. It's like it's Chaotica's knob that works both ways. It's the same. Yeah. Pretty old technology. Mm-hmm. So Chaotica dies really big.

It was amazing. And, and then, then Jane Wai says, Chiquote calls and says things are good, you know, it seems like... Distortions are closing. We're realigning with the normal space. That's the shot from the bridge. And then she says, give me a minute, which was an odd little... Yes. Like, why does she... Yes, that's what I put a question mark there. Like, why did she ask for that minute there? Yeah, give me a minute. Sort of, sort of to give some homage to him for being as, as, you know,

amazing as he was, as an evil conqueror? I don't know. I'm not sure what's going on there. But Proton, Buster Kincaid, the president, and Satan's robot bursts through the doors. We all run in there. And the robot's running faster than he ran before, I noticed. Yeah, he's doing good. Printed in there. Keautica speaks one last time. He still has a little last breath of life in him. And then he expires. And he does say you have not seen the last. Last of me, of chaotica. Right. But then we're drawn to some sounds from the imagizer,

and we walk over there and we see it broadcast the end. And then a question mark at the end with Keonica's evil laugh at the end there. Yes. Oh, my God. Very good. Really good. Great episode. I don't even know.

Did you come up with a lesson? I did. You did? I do have a lesson. Go. My theme or my lesson from this episode is, is that you can take care of business and have fun at the same time. That's the lesson I got.

Like, we took care of business. We, you know, we dealt with our mission of the week, but we had fun doing it. And why not? Why not? That's my lesson. Okay. I don't have a lesson. I was too engaged in the episode to even think of a lesson, to be honest.

This was just an entertaining. This was just a fun, yeah. This was just all about entertainment and fun. And, you know, this was our, I don't know how you, how would you even describe this? It's an amazing episode. Amazing, yeah, it's just an amazing episode. It had the whole cast involved. It had comedy.

I mean, I guess, you know, maybe one complaint is there weren't really deep stakes. I mean, I guess there were, but, you know, the shit we were getting pulled into subspace. maybe that could have been amplified a little bit so the stakes felt a little more serious. But we spent most of our time in the fun, entertaining world. Yeah, we did. We did. What's your rating? Oh, I just asked you.

What is your rating since this is Captain Proton? I'm going to go with you first. Okay. I'm going to give this. I'm going to give this a 9.5. Wow! Yes. I think this is one of our best episodes ever.

goodness okay it's just right up my alley aside from the fact that yes i had a a bit of you know work to do in the episode but that i don't always that's not why i value episodes whether i had a big role or small role i think this was just a really good episode i think a lot of it rests on martin reiner's shoulders he centered it in a way but the whole cast our lonsack or everybody was so good um okay you were great bob was great everybody was really good constance goodhart was great um yeah i think it was i'm going to give it a 9.5 what about you i'm going to give it i'm not going to go as high as you but i'm still going to go high i'm going to say 8.99 okay okay 8.99 that's what i'm going to give it all right

All right. So we're both pretty high. Okay. I would say between you and I are averages about 9.2. 9.2. Okay. So that's the average of team of the flyers, yes. So here I have the Admiral and Captain Rating for Bride of Chaotica. Their average, we were 9.2 average, their average, 8.7.

Oh, wow. 8.7. Interesting. Yeah. So closer to my original. it was going to go higher than that. I think, you know, I think one of the reasons, I mean, if I had to be super picky, I think that it's always hard in a holodeck because you're playing a character.

Yeah. But you also have to play that you're still your character. Right. You know, our crew members, Janeway and Paris and Harry, those characters aren't actors. They're real people on a starship in our story. So they shouldn't be great actors in any holodeck. They should still be pretty much themselves, a version of themselves. And I guess, you know, you might take away some points for the fact that all of us sort of dove into these characters a bit and were play acting.

Definitely, I think Paris does quite often dive into the Captain Proton role. Kate as Janeway diving into Arachnia, she definitely embraced that character. But so I guess if that bothers you that the characters are able to act like other characters in the Hall of Act, maybe that's a criticism. Maybe the stakes weren't high enough that the subspace danger was really significant in some way. But regardless, 8.7 is still a very high rating, though. You can't say that that's like horrible. That's still very, very good. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There you go. All right. There you go, everybody. That's our discussion on Kat. Bride of K. I almost said Captain Proton.

That is a question on Bride of Chaotica. Woo-hoo. Yeah. All right. And Patreon, patrons, please stick around for your bonus material where we will have our conversations with our guest stars. Oh, yeah. Oh, and join us next week when we will be reviewing the episode, Gravity. Ooh, that'll be exciting.

Awesome. Thanks, everybody. Bye. You know,