The Delta Flyers - Business as Usual

Episode Date: April 14, 2026

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell, and Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.This week’s episode, Business as Usual, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Armin Shimerman.Business as Usual: Quark becomes involved with his cousin Gaila’s arms-dealing business, until a rare attack of conscience puts him in a bind. We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Nicki T, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jenny Cordina, Izzy Jaffer, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Chris Garis, Sean T, Cindy Woodford, Tamara Evans, & Shawn RobbinsOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, David Wei Liu, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Andrew Duncan, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cano, Robby Hill, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, Jeff Allen, & Londyn HenningAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, E & John, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Kelly Brown, Sarah Thompson, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jason Eberl, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Cade Solsbery, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Kilian Trapp, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Andrew Golden, Damien O’Donnell, Michael Bourguignon, & Luke PachaThank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Sponsors:* Check out Peace Corps: https://peacecorps.gov/serveAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers journey through the wormhole with Quark Dax and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armin, Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong, I don't know I'm singing this way. For the complete and exciting version of this podcast, please check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. you won't regret it. Well, that was a nice little song. Yes, it was a little musical. It was a little folksy as well.

It was impromptu, and I wanted to do that to entertain the both of you to begin. But I missed the hand gestures, Garrett. I missed the hand gestures. You were looking down at the time. He's going to miss it. So that's why I didn't do the typical Delta Flyer journey to the wormhole. But I could do that next time. Yeah.

All right. Well, thank you, Garrett. We thank you from our hearts. Thank you, Garrett. It doesn't even make us fart. Thank you, Garrett. It's fun to say, this is going to be a great podcast day.

Woo! It was my song. I like that song. And at some point, if Armin wants to riff on a song later in this podcast episode, he can. We know that. Thank you. I won't.

Armine, I have a question for you. Yeah. All right, in our pre-show banter here. Yes. I just watched the movie Hamnet last night for the first time. tore me up. It tore me up. But I also was thinking about the true history of all of this and thinking,

this is probably very imagined the details of this story, although the general idea of Hamnet, which is William Shakespeare's young son who died at 10 or 11 years old. 11. 11. Wow. The general facts of that movie. are true, but the beautiful poetry that they created in that film really got to me. It was a beautifully

shot movie. I must say the book is even more beautiful. If you ever get the opportunity, read the book. It is a gorgeous movie. It is well, well acted. I didn't like it. Oh, okay. That's what I was asking. That's why I wanted to ask. Because the ending doesn't make sense. The ending really doesn't make sense. It makes sense in the book. It's the same ending. But The way O'Flaherty wrote the book, it does make sense. The way they shot it doesn't make sense. And it was a beautiful movie, and I hope it wins whatever awards that it should. It's one of a bunch of awards, yeah.

But the idea that she goes to the theater and is moved by the performance of Hamlet because she thinks it relates to her son really doesn't work from me. me because Hamlet is the story of the loss of a father, not the loss of a son. If they wanted to do it and the play was written about the same time, it isn't Hamlet that should move her. It's King John, which is the loss of a son, which is written about the same time, would have made more sense. But that reaching out and everything very theatrical, very moving, very nice, impossible. Well, Armin, would it be correct to say that you like that? You'd like that.

everything up until the ending. Yes, sir. That's exactly. I liked everything up until the ending. I thought it was beautiful, really, to watch and I was moved. And they got the plague just right, and they got everything right, and the distance between husband and wife was just right. What I would have liked to have seen in the movie is not that her being moved by the

plague, but rather her being, her understanding why her husband, could not come back in time to to be with her and their son when he was passing away. That's what I sort of missed in the movie and sort of got in the book. And they went in a different direction, which just to me just didn't make sense. But it's still, I know too much. It's a theatrical. Yeah, you know a lot about that time. And so I'm sure your wheels were turning as you watched the film in a way. that I know some of that time,

but I know the general ideas. And to me, the poetry that was brought to trying to tie those general ideas together, I thought was just beautiful. It was indeed. And the other thing that bothered me,

and I don't want to go on too much about this, is that the theater, which is supposed to be at the globe, didn't look anything like the globe. It's like we're watching a movie about New York. And all we're seeing is, exteriors that are from Los Angeles. Yes.

We've all seen that. Yeah. It looked smaller. That didn't work for me. But what did work was the nature and the sense of being in the woods and the way people lived, the, the dirt on their hands. The, the, it's just some of that detail in the early parts of the film. I felt like, wow, I feel like I'm back there in a small Elizabeth. Elizabethan village with people just struggling to survive.

Yeah, I totally agree. So it was a lovely movie until the end. Yeah. Is this a new release? Yeah. It came out this last, in the last few months. Okay. Yeah.

This is the first I've heard of it. This is the first I've heard of it. Hamnet, please. Everyone go see it and have your thoughts about it, but it's worth seeing for sure. AJM and E.T. Hamlet. And just because I know too much, Hamnet is. is named after a William Shakespeare's good friend,

Hamlet Sadler, who was a good friend and neighbor to William Shakespeare. Hamnet. And Hamlet is Prince of Denmark. Based on a play that had been around for a while, Hamlet is not the original play. There is another Hamlet that perhaps Shakespeare, well, one doesn't know for sure. But it was a previous play that our Hamlet,

is based on. Yeah. They may not have been written by Shakespeare. Probably not, but it could have been. Birthday's time. Birthdays. We have birthdays. April 9th is the day that Luke Pesha was born. Happy birthday, Luke. Happy birthday, Luke.

Happy birthday, Luke. Also, on April 14th is Steph Davies' birthday. So we wish you a very happy birthday, Steph. Steph, happy birthday. Everybody say happy birthday to Nick Russell on April. April 15th, happy birthday, Nick. Nick, happy birthday. Get those returns in.

Happy birthday, Nick. And also, someone else that needs to get their returns in on April 15th is Farosa Mehta's birthday. Happy birthday, Farosa. Forosa, from the bottom of my heart, happy birthday. Happy birthday to you.

Forosa. Happy birthday, Feroza. Last but not least, we have. Nikki T. Three days after Tax Day and three days after Nick and Forosa birthday, happy birthday to Nikki Tee in North Portland. Happy birthday, Nikki T. I love Portland. Happy birthday, Nikki. We also want to welcome a new prophet. Sean Robbins.

Welcome, Sean as a new prophet to the Delta Flyers. Welcome, Sean. I feel like we have to have some horns. Welcome, Sean. Time for some poetry. Go ahead, Robbie. Here is my limerick for business as usual. On the station called Deep Space Nine, Quark said, it's just business. The profit will be mine. But when he saw the cost and the lives that would be lost,

it made profit feel much less than fine. Excellent, excellent, excellent. That was a nice, it started like a classic limerick. It did. On the station called Deep Space Nine, Cork said. Jesus. Okay. Here is my haiku for business as usual.

Quark has lost it all. Cousin Gala provides hope. A conscience prevails. Garrett, excellent. Oh, I got an excellent. Yeah. Excellent. That was wonderful.

Thank you. Because the one thing that I want to talk more about, during our podcast is the fact that he's gone broke. And you included that. Yes. He's gone broke. He's got nothing. He's got nothing.

Yeah. And we will get to that for sure. Can we hear for a little bit of etymology from you? It's more than a little, unfortunately. Okay. Can we hear a lot of etymology from you? Okay. All right.

So we start with the word business, business as usual. Business is from the old English. Bizickness. Bezikness is the original. pronunciation from the stem word busy, which was originally spelt BUSI, not well I, but BUSI. The definition is the state of being busily engaged in anything, industry, diligence, and was first used in 1350. The next word is as, A.S, my initials.

Old English from the North. Northern dialect, al-Awa, al-z, al-A-Wol, al-Sul. Those were all the original words for as. Wow. And the means of quantity in that degree to the extent that's first used, to the extent of. And that word was first used. Ready? 1,000 AD.

Oh, wow. Long time ago. And then the last one is usual, and that is from the old French. I'm not going to pronounce it and I'm going to spell it for you US UEL the definition is commonly observed or practiced

current prevalent and that word was first used in 1396 in Scotland Wow Scotland is kind of usual from Scotland usual from Scotland usual although it's a French

it's a French origin French and the Scots were very friendly tight and very friendly. I did not know that. Yes. Mary Queen of Scots, for instance, was raised in France before she became the queen of Scotland. So they were tightly knit because the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Yes, exactly. They both hated the English. Yes. When you broke down business, when you gave us the etymology for business, you talked about the origin being old English, and you mentioned that it was business. And at that point, I was like, hmm, that sounds more Germanic from German origins, but it's not. It's just old English. It may have a touch of Dutch in it. Dutch may.

I read in the dictionary. Okay. But they didn't focus too much on it. They did briefly mention about that. Got it. Great. Let's get into some of these details here. This episode was written by Bradley Thompson and David Weddle, directed by Sidig El Fadil, or Alexander

Sidig. I believe at this time, the credits were showing Alexander Siddig. So it's interesting that he used his real name or his non-stage name for the directorial credit. I believe that's true. So as an actor, he's credited as Alexander Siddh, but as a director, he's Siddig al-Fadil. Yes, and take it from me, his name goes on for more than Siddick. It's a very long name.

So that is just the tip of the iceberg? Oh, just the tip of the iceberg. Tell me. Yeah. Okay. I did look up Sid's full birth name. Are you ready? Yes, please.

Sidig El Tahrir, El-Fadil, El-Sidig, Abdurahamon, Mohammed Ahmed Abdel, Karim El-Madi. That is his full birth name. And you can understand why we just called him. said. Yes. Yeah. Wow.

That's just, are they listing all the prior patriarchs of each generation? Is that what that is? Yes, from what I understand. Wow. Islamic culture, that that's very important to name the father, whose father was this, whose father was that, the son of this, the son of this, the son of that. Keep on going. I thought Robert Duncan McNeil was a long name.

I know. I used to think that too, but not compared to that. No, Sid wins. Yeah, Sid wins every time. Okay, so during their very first pitch session, Bradley Thompson and David Weddle were told by Iris Stephen Bear that he wanted a story where Quark runs up against the limits of his greed. This episode was the result. As Hans Bimler explains, Quark is a Ferengi businessman.

That's something he's proud of that has significance to him. He's not a weasel. Business as usual is a great story because it tells us how far quark has been pushed and to what depths he's willing to go that he would take the role of an arms dealer. And he's never completely comfortable with it. He kids himself for a while. He's in denial. But when they start talking about killing 28 million people, he becomes a man in tremendous turmoil.

I have a question for you, Armin, about that, a man in tremendous turmoil. Is that typical? Do you think the typical, the average? Ferengi would have the same crisis of conscience that... No, and I'll tell you why. I may have said this before in previous episodes. It's because Quark lives in a Starfleet community. Because he lives with aliens, he lives outside of his community.

Remember, his community has exiled him. There's a big thing all during the shots of Quark's bar, you can see the Ferengi document that says, no Ferengi can do business with Quark. He's been exiled, and he's taken on some of the qualities of the people he lives with. His conscience has been affected by the fact that he's dealing with humans and majorans and Starfleet. And that's a natural thing to a core. That's nothing wrong.

But this episode is about the conflict between these new principles that he's acquired while living on the station and the ingrained principles that were taught him when he was a young child. Which I think is a testament to the power and strength of Star Trek, that you see these different cultures coming together and that there's value in each of those cultures, strong value in every individual culture, but there's greater value, in my opinion, in the combinations of those values.

You bring Ferengi culture and mix it with some Starfleet, and you have great value in that, you know, to do commerce and to have principles that maybe you wouldn't have if you weren't combined with a different culture. So I think that's great. Yeah, I think the average Ferengi would probably just make the deals. That would be my guess. I mean, we have only to look at Gala, who has no problems whatsoever. Just take quark out of the equation.

Look what happens to Rom. Rom is a different person altogether because he's lived on the station with other cultures. Nog, again, just a different culture, a person altogether. So it is absolutely true. When you live in a different society, you acquire those aspects of the community that appeal to you. So, Armand, those quotes of yours from back in the day, one of them was about culture being affected by Starfleet, so I will not read that. We just talked about that.

But the other one you said was, quote, I'm perhaps the proudest of business as usual because that I believe was the most three-dimensional performance I've given as the character. It was actually a combination of elements. It had a well-thought-out script, a non-comic script for Quark. Sid directed it, and he was very amenable to my making changes in the focus, in the thrust of the character. We also had terrific guest stars. It turned out to be a very enjoyable experience for me. It's the single show of all of them I'm most proud of, end quote.

I agree with very little of that, but I do agree with some of it. Okay. Watching it again, I am very happy that they came up with this story. It gave me an opportunity to be a more three-dimensional character, which I was very grateful. I don't think originally it was meant to be a comic episode, but watching it again, I think comedy sort of seeped its way into it, and that was a fault of mine, perhaps. a fault of SIDS or perhaps also a fault of the writers who just couldn't get over the fact that they were writing for a comic character. I like this episode a lot, a lot, but I think they could

have gone further. I think the question of whether or not it's a moral thing to sell arms could have been more investigated. We often see characters dealing with moral questions on Star Trek. This was a moral question for Quark and for the viewers. And I wish they had gone deeper into the pros and cons of that argument. Yeah, it's interesting. I think that's going to be when we get to our bonus material, I have some thoughts about that, just exactly what you're talking about. But we'll get into that when we get there. And whereas in the, in your quote, I say it was a delightful experience. It was anything but. Oh. Okay. Yes, we will. Let me read a, uh, a, uh, let me read a, uh, a quote from Sid.

Sid said, there's a hundred thousand things I'd love to go and do again. But by and large, I was very happy with it. Armin was fabulous. It was a technically complicated part for him. Thank God for him, or I'd have been in all sorts of trouble. Yes, he would have. And not because of my acting. We're going to get into that.

Okay. Not because of my acting. Okay. Guest stars, Josh Pace, as Gala, Tim Halligan, as Farak, or was Was it Farak? I can't remember now. I think it's Farrak. Okay. All right.

And Lawrence Tierney as the regent of Palomar. So there we go. Wait, wait. You forgot the main guest star. Yes. Special guest star, yes. Special guest star is Stephen Berkhoff as Haggith. And we also have a co-star, Eric Kedora, as a customer.

And an uncredited lady who played Herrick's accomplice. who was a companion or whatever. Yes. Do you remember her? I'm just trying to see. Uncredited co-stars. Talora maybe? Tolora.

Tolora. Talura is the character's name. That sounds right? Okay. Her name was Charlie Curtis, so she had a male first name. All right. Now, before you go on to the next thing,

I want to tell you about three of these actors because it's important. Okay. I'm going to start with Josh Pace, who played game. And I thought did a really good job. And actually, I wish they had given him a little bit more. I really liked working with Josh.

But he grew up in New York City in Alphabet City, which is a really sort of hard place to grow up. It's a tough neighborhood back then. Now it's very hip and cool, but back then it was a tough neighbor. It was a tough place to grow up. So I think some of the performance comes from his early days. His father was a theoretical physicist who worked with Albert Einstein for 11 years. Wow. His mother was a writer and a poet.

And he very much involved himself with a vanguard theater. And you can see that in his performance. He makes some wonderfully strange choices that I think are good colors that were added to the palette of the show. So, you know, kudos to him. Is that his regular voice or did he do some affectation? I think the teeth as always changed the timber of the voice. As I watched the show, and I don't remember this, but as I watched the episode this week,

I began to see that he was having some difficulties getting around the teeth. That was obvious to me. I noticed that as well. Yeah. He kept sucking things in because it's strange to have all those appliances in your mouth. Yeah. He was definitely having issues with that. But overall, just his voice sound, to me, sounded like a small town country, country doctor kind of guy.

You know, just that's what I got from his voice quality and just how he was speaking. The truth is I don't remember his real voice. Yeah. But again, having all those appliances does change your voice as it changed mine and Maxis. The next person I want to talk about is Stephen Berkhoff. And for those of us who work in the theater, Burkhoff is a huge name. Huge. But Berkhoff is an incredible playwright who is studied in England.

He's a phenomenal writer, but bizarre. He writes very strange and sexually overt plays, plays with incredibly blue language in it. He is highly respected. He's very volatile. He's enormously volatile. About a year ago, I went to a play about a Stephen Berkhoff,

about a production of a birthday party that was done in Los Angeles that eventually was canceled because of Mr. Berkhov's shenanigans. And I'll talk more about that later. But he's a presence backstage, and I spent most of the week with him. It's like living with Godzilla. Well, he's also been around forever for a very, very long time. In fact, he acted with Sid, uncle, Malcolm McDowell in a clockwork orange in that film. So, you know, a long pedigree.

And he's been fired from many a show. He has a very volatile behavior. He's not easy to be around. Got it. Yeah, he's got a very important place in theater history, as you said. I mean, he's literally created a style of theater that I think has got his name on it, you know, like Berkhov style healthy at her. Yes, he's, he's, he's been very influential, my guess. Yeah, he's written plays like metamorphosis, the Greeks, lots of plays, and, and they're very, you're sitting in the audience with your mouth open because you can't believe the actors are doing what they're doing or saying what they're saying because it's, it's so off the wall. Yeah. And the last person is Lawrence Tierney, who played the regent. He was born in Bed Stuyveson in 19,

He died in 2002. He'd had a stroke in 1995. We did this episode either in 96 or beginning of 97. And that was obvious to sit and I, as we were working with him, the stroke. And I'll get more into that when we do his scene. But he also was a very volatile personality. Wow. He has been arrested many, many times.

He spent time in jail. he's been accused and convicted of attacks. He broke a young man's jaw once. It's not the first person he attacked. Wow. He was, he was a, he was a well-known batty in 1940s movies.

And I think the last thing he did was, was reservoir dogs with Tarantino. And he behaved so badly in that film that Tarantino never hired him again. I think I think I heard. heard that he got into like a physical fight with Tarantino on that film on Reservoir Dogs. Yeah. It was touch and go the entire episode.

It sounds like it. I mean, the luck of having one volatile person, you get two volatile actors to have to juggle and kind of shepherd along during this process of making this episode. Oh, my goodness. And this is a beginning director. That's what I was going to say. Oh my God. They're like running over him, aren't they?

Oh, my goodness. It was very hard to watch. And especially the scene with Mr. Tierney, which I'll get into when we do that scene. But I spent the entire week keeping Burk off from quitting the episode. Oh, my goodness. he he spent most of his time with me and he was constantly berating the show the director everything about star trek and always on the verge of quitting all i was constantly begging him to stay a little bit longer a little bit longer i was babysitting this ego this should

have been producers down there there should have been producers doing that work not you should not have left sit alone with these people no they should not they should especially He's a fledgling director. They gave him really difficult actors that most mature directors either worked with and then never used again or fired while they were working with it. This was a lot for him to have to do with. I can't wait to hear scene by scene some of these stories. Yeah. When we get there, I'll try to tell you.

And you already talked about it, but I was going to say that Tierney did have a stroke and that he had a little bit of issues delivering or remembering lines. when we get there more than a little. Okay. What Sid did, I've never seen Don on a set before. He had to do it, and I'll tell you about it. Okay, we'll talk about when we get there, right, on those scenes. Okay, perfect. Let's jump right into this then.

All right, let's dive into the scenes. We start in Quarks. Dax and Quark are playing Tongo. Quark is very distracted while they're playing because he lost his entire fortune because of a war. And then his cousin Gala shows up. It's not just the war. It's also the-

stock market. Yeah. Yes. He has futures. He also talks about, he talks about Quadro, do you catch this probably? Quadro Triticali futures. So that was what was in the hold of the trouble with triples episode. That's right.

That's right. That's right. That grain. So I thought that was cute. But yeah, it was every investment, every stock, every future that he had completely tanked. He's busted. He's completely. He's busted.

He's busted. There's nothing left. Yeah, literally. There's nothing left. That's when Gaila shows up. Gaila, his cousin, wants him to help sell weapons. Gala, who tried to kill him. Who tried to kill him, yeah.

Yes, with a fault of shuttle. Quark immediately is a little bit like, I don't want to get into weapons trading and selling. And Gaila says, no, just host my clients. Just do your thing. Be a host. So he's kind of not being honest here, honestly. He's not just hosting that you end up doing. He wants you doing much more later on.

But for now, Quark says, okay, if that's all I got to do, maybe I'll be richer than ever. I think it's not so much that he wants to be richer than ever. He just wants to get out of the hole that is dug for himself. This is the bottom. And I wish we had either more of dialogue or Cid had done something. I think really the writer should have done something to really lay that foundation that he was busted. That there's no further. He can't go down any further.

he's bankrupt and and he's out of business he's failed not only failed as a human being but he's failed as a Ferengi to fail business wise is the worst thing that can happen to a Ferranchi and really where does he go he can't go back to home he can't go back to Ferengenard they've exiled him he has no friends it is really the bottom of the bottom I wish they had done a little bit more to let the audience know that Well, you do say at one point in this first scene, you say, I'm up to my lobes in debt, which I loved, you know, most people are familiar with them up to my ears in debt. And that line jumped out at me and I thought to myself, where does that saying come from,

up to my ears? It literally comes from the 17, 1800s, I think, drowning, that you were drowning in water, that you were, it comes from, yeah, when people sailed boats and traveled by boat, mostly, it's drowning. So you're right. It should have been, it should have landed more graphically and more emotionally.

And not Terry's fault, but the line that she says, oh, it can't be that bad. And I wish they had not written that line, but given her something and said, oh, God, quirk, this is terrible. Yeah. She just passes, oh, it can't be that bad.

But it is. And I wish that had landed more because that would make people understand the dilemma that he was in. Yeah, and I feel like, you know, you're saying if you could just have more dialogue, this and that, another thing that could have really helped is just wardrobe, more disheveled,

not as well, you know, camped as cork normally looks. You're at the end of your wits end. Everything should be just about to just, you're about to lose it, including the way you'd look. And I think that's the quickest way for Pete, the audience to go, oh, something's off with cork. He is not his normal sartorial self. I mean, you know, look at him now.

He's completely, he's disheveled. He's never disheveled. So I don't know. That's one way. That would have helped. Yeah. Absolutely. All right.

Well, we go to O'Brien's quarters next. I wrote down that the place looks like a toy store. There's toys everywhere. We get it. There's a baby. There's toys everywhere. But Miles is pacing with the baby. He's walking with a baby.

Jake comes in looking for Kako. He says something about Professor. And I was like, wait, what? Is she a professor? Did I miss that? Yeah. This is you. Yeah.

Yeah. She's a, she's not a professor. O'Brien, when is Professor O'Brien? Maybe she is. Maybe she is. Yeah. I thought she just had the school and she was like a teacher and a botanist. You know, she was his teacher.

So she could call it. He could call it. Professor. I thought that was an upgrade. Yeah. Anyway, Professor O'Brien. So Keko's gone. She's not going to be back for a week or two.

And Jake sees that, you know, Miles is trying to get Kerioshi. This is the first time I remember hearing that name, by the way, Kira Yoshi, which I thought was great. And they refer to the baby as Yoshi, but the full name is Kira because Kira carried the baby, I assume. Right? Yeah, but is that what they were planning on? because I think Kyrioshi is also a Japanese name as well. You know what I'm saying? But why not,

why choose that name? Yeah. No, obviously. Yeah. So that's, I mean, this is the first time I realized. I was like,

oh, this was an homage to Kira. That's the, so I saw the same thing you did, Robbie. But I also felt like, I think that's also a Japanese name. Probably is a real Japanese name.

By itself. Great choice. I thought it was great. Yeah. I agreed. But Jake offers to babysit the baby. And Miles agrees. Uh,

they try it. Jake holds a baby. the baby wakes up immediately. And then Miles takes the baby back. He's like, I'll just take the baby to work. So clearly, Miles is a little overwhelmed with this baby. He also says that the usual babysitter is, I think, sick and can't do it. That's right.

Yes. Did you hear Jake talk about his babysitting experience where he says, I babysat Ensign Prans hatchlings a couple of times? I like that. Yes. That's funny. Anyway, anytime we can get non-human with these aliens and, And our Strait-Tric Alien World, it's great.

It's very cool, yeah. We go back to Quarks. Quark is very paranoid. He's shaking the chairs. He's looking at the bar. He thinks Odo could shape-shift now. So a great reminder that Odo has got his shapeshifting abilities back. And Gala introduces Haggeth, who is the buyer, the weapons trader, guy they're going to be dealing with it.

And I was very surprised to see Stephen Berkhov come in. And I was like, whoa, that's a big personality. That's all I knew about Stephen Berkhoff. Yeah. Let me ask you a question, Robbie. In that moment, when Berkhov comes in, we see him come in. Yes. And then the very next moment, Gaila blocks the image of him.

He's standing in the doorway and then Gaila blocks him. What was that about? I don't know. It was an odd. I did notice it. I thought maybe Gail is trying to hide and make a, you know, kind of duck out of the way to make it a theatrical introduction of some kind, but it didn't play that way.

It felt like odd staging to me. I felt like generally, since we're talking about staging, I felt like generally in this episode, there was a lot more movement by the actors than often happens on your show or on any of our Star Trek shows. And often movement can take a lot more time to film. And I wondered if because Sid was relatively new

to directing that he allowed the actors to sort of move wherever they wanted and didn't economize the blocking as much as you normally do. Sometimes that movement, I thought, was helpful to the scene and to the dramatic to telling the story. And sometimes in this episode, I thought the movement was extraneous and distracting and probably took a lot more time to film. As much as I liked Josh's performance, I think he moved a little bit more, like he wanted to be an alien.

you know yes um and and and i think this might have been one time when he just got in the way of the lens where he shouldn't have blocked uh haggath from coming in uh because most of the time yes uh burkhoff did move but he was also at times very still as well there's times when he's just perfectly still and that was good to me yeah well we go to the hollow suite next i didn't know it was the hollow suite right away yes that's intentional that's intentional yeah yes and there's weapons all laid out, and they're looking at all these weapons, when Haggith takes a rifle and shoots Quark, which I was like, oh, my God, this horrible evil person just shot our friend,

and then we realize it's a holodeck, it's a hologram, weapon. It's not going to hurt anybody. Not as a surprise. We play it as a surprise. Yes, and it worked. This was Quark's idea, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah.

But he says it's Quark's idea, Gaylor does. Yeah, he says it's Quarks. And you're right. It could have been, it could not have been. It could have been Gala's idea, and he gives it, and he praises Quark for it. But it could have been half and half. It probably wasn't all Quark's idea. Probably a lot of it was Gailas.

Actually, Quark says at the very end, why did you tell him it was my idea? So you're right. It was Gailas idea. It was Gailas. Yeah. Is this where Haggith gives him the warning of Don't Cross Me? Is this here? Oh, yes.

Yes. Don't ever cross me, understood. Yeah. And I have to tell you, I don't know what the sequence of scenes was. Yeah. When Stephen Burkhoff says that to you, you hear it. Right. Oh, yeah.

Especially what was happening all week long. You know, when he said, don't cross me, I was playing it for real. They said it's when he delivered that line, just sent chills and crew and cast alike when he said that. The line itself is a homage to the 1983 film Scarface. in which Paul Shinar's character warns Al Pacino's with almost a nearly identical threat of not crossing him. I'd be interested in knowing whether Brookoff knew that or not. I don't think he needed to, but he might have.

Yeah, he definitely needed to. He played that perfectly. Well, Gaila does say at the end of the scene, I told him it was your idea because I want him to like you. It seems like he's just looking out for you at this point. It does. But he wasn't looking out for me backstage because it was nowhere to be seen when I was dealing with Burke off for eight days. Oh, no. It should have been a producer. Oh, my gosh. I always,

when I'm producing on a TV show, I tell the actors and I tell department heads, do not try to manage problems. If there's a challenging actor or anything going on, tell the ADs to get us down there and we'll come down and fix it. I don't want you trying to solve interpersonal stuff with crew members or between castmates. I don't do it. Like, it's never going to be a good thing. I have to tell you, in my opinion, if a producer had come down, he would have quit. He would have quit. I was bending over backwards to make it easy for him. And I probably didn't tell anybody I was having problems because I thought I was the only one that could solve this problem. Yeah. I understand your impulse and your effort and you're probably right. He probably would have quit if the producers

would come down. But maybe that would have been a good thing for the show. Maybe. Who would have handled that? Like which producer, would that have been a Brad Eucobian or a Mary Howard? Or Rick Berman should have run down there. Rick Berman should have run down there. Rick wouldn't have come down. It should have been Ira, the showrunner. It should have been Ira, the showrunner. She'd come down and go, what's going on?

And if we can't do those things, then are you okay to continue working without this drama or do we need to find someone else? And probably that would have been a better thing because I don't think he ever wanted to be on that set. Yeah. Interesting. So then you would have had an actor that was not well known, but very grateful to be there, you know, to replace him. I've had that conversation before where, you know, do I need to get a plane ticket? Like, do we need to make a change? Because, you know, this is what we need to do. That's how you said it to the person.

I've said that before. Yeah. You said that to call studio travel and do we need to? Ooh. Hardball, Robbie. Yeah. But that's, it's not hardball. It's just sometimes. that's the reality of like, if this is not working for you, because it's not working for us,

this process with the drama that you're creating or the distraction to the rest of our show family, that's not good for us. That's mutually end us. So, yeah, if that, if you can't change, if we can't fix what your problems are and you can't change the way that you're managing these problems, then we should make a change. It'd be best for everybody. Yeah, because I find that kind of that negative distraction and self-absorbed behavior to be very destructive to shows. It's not good for the culture of the show or anyone else's work.

On the other hand, the glass being half full, because of all that, I had a real distinctive inner fear of him that plays throughout the episode. Yes, yes, yes. yes yeah it does i mean and again i as a producer i would have pulled you aside and said are you okay with this yeah because and i and i being dutiful as mr brooks once said would have said yes yeah but at least we would have had that conversation and you would have felt not alone in it even if nothing changed yeah even if you said i i'm i'm going to be dutiful i'm going to i'll continue to talk to him i don't mind it's and here's the glass half full side of it it's working helping my performance. And I would have said as a producer, all right, but you let me know,

because I've got your back. And if things, if you need a backup here, I'll be there, you know. And so I think that was what was missing maybe in your. It probably is absolutely right. And I probably also had a feeling that I had to help Sid. Yeah. You know, this, this was either his first or second directorial job. And, and I probably didn't want to lay that on Sid. He had enough to worry about. Yeah, I really want to find out if this is his first or second. Yeah, can you look that up, please? Because it's killing me. I know, it's killing me too.

I thought we already reviewed one. We talked about, oh, this is his first one, and he wants to use Siddig al-Fadil and not Alexander Sadeg as a name. There's another episode that I distinctly remember where he, it was scenes between Quark and Mugie, between he and his mother. And that, and that was seen. We've done a Quark Muggy one, right? Is that one?

That's it might be his first. Business as usual was his first. Profit in lace was his second. Profit in lace. Oh, so then this is first one. Because he was a prince during profit and lace. We did things that were wonderful that eventually the producers didn't like, but Sid and I and Cessaly liked a lot. I love it.

We're in the holodeck at a weapons range. Quark is now with a new customer showing off a weapon called the Breen CRM-14. So the alien starts using it. Quark cues up first a vessel, which then he blows out of the sky with this very elaborate explosion. And then a human robotic figure starts marching towards them, and he blows that up with the same very, very elaborate explosion. And you know what?

Haggith and Gala are standing off to the side. They're very pleased with what Quark has done. he's doing his job. So good job to Quark, and they're very excited. And they break out some champagne. I think they celebrate. Yeah, he's going to buy 2,000 of them. Yeah, he's going to buy some weapons. Yeah. In the script, actually, it's minor, but in the script, he's supposed to open a champagne bottle, but I don't think they have time for that. So they just have glasses. They just bring it. Glasses ready to go. Yeah. We go to Haggis Quarters next. And Haggith is watching the stock market, I guess.

He's got like all these monitors and he's looking at the stock market. Okay. He's looking at the stock market and court comes in to see why he hasn't been paid yet. Haggith says, well, I'm paying your debtors first because I don't want someone working for me who's in debt like this. So I'm going to pay off your debts first and then once that's all done, then you'll start making some money. But in the meantime, here's a gift. he gives him some glass beads that Cork seems very thrilled about

he knows that these beads are Andarian glass beads worth of fortune. Which is the very stock that Haggith was looking at on the stock market. Oh, really? Oh. Oh, interesting. You know, Robbie on Voyager, no one ever mentions the stock market, right?

I mean, no one ever says, oh, yeah, I invested in it. Only on DS9. This is an awesome show. It puts a stake into the idea that there is no money on Star Trek. The way you just described it, Robbie, you said he'll pay off his debts, he'll do that. That's all money. Everybody's trading money.

Everybody's dealing in money. I don't hear credits. It could be credits, but it's all money, money, money, money. So when Michael Dorn and others said, well, there's no money in Star Trek, I went, yeah, well, not on my show. That's right. There's no money on all shows but Diasigned. How's that? Quark seems thrilled with the Andorian glass beads.

And you're right, Armin, he does say in the very beginning, who would have thought you could make so much money with Andorian glass beads? So first line out of his mouth, he talks about the enduring glass beads. Then he gives you some. So you know there's money to be made there. You even show the woman. I made a note. You turn and show.

To Laura. To Laura. Look, but there's no close up of you. You know, maybe because there's no look in the script. Oh. Oh, I see. You just did that on your own. But as soon as you do that,

Sid should know he needs a close-up of you there, even if it's an ad lib and the editor should know that. I don't know. It was strange to me that you have a moment where you turn. That should have been the blow or the button of the scene was you turn back to her in a close-up and you hold it up. Look. Right.

The script says, Quark looks genuinely touched by the, this gift. That is the way the scene ends. But there still was no close-up of you, even before the look. There should have been a close-up. That's the button of the scene. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with you.

Yeah. Hey, all the behind-the-scenes, things that we're now being made aware of, Robbie, probably didn't afford them the time to shoot that close-up, unfortunately. Well, it would have supported, a close-up would have supported your big note, Armin, that it's all about money. He wouldn't even be. dealing with this if he wasn't broke, if he wasn't drowning.

Yes. And so that close up could have supported the, there's hope. There's hope for me. I can pay off debts with this. Yeah. And that's the button for the end of the scene, right? Should be.

Yeah. I think. Okay. I agree. I think that's it. That would make a much more character-driven and on story. Whereas I don't know this woman who doesn't have a line in the episode. Why do I care about Quarks back?

and looking at her reaction to these beads, who cares about that? Right. So we're in Quarks. Bashir and O'Brien are having their typical darts game. O'Brien kind of teases Bashir about the fact that he has to stand further back

because he's genetically engineered. He has Yoshi with him. And Bashir's kind of shocked, like, what the heck, you know, why don't you just put the baby down? And it's funny because every time O'Brien is not holding Yoshi, He is crying.

So if someone else is holding him, Yoshi cries. If he puts Yoshi down, he Yoshi cries. So this is something that he has to deal with. So he actually is playing and throwing darts holding Yoshi. So everything he's doing, whether it's work or at home, is holding that child. What is this, the 24th century? I know in the 21st century, in the 20th century, they have slings. Yes.

They put babies in so you don't have to hold them. They can still be by your body. And that will let you play darts all you like. I don't know if you should be playing darts with a baby that close. Darts are sharp. Yeah. I'm just saying. Yeah.

It seemed irresponsible to me. Or some type of levitating crib at that point that sort of follows you around, you know, that you don't have to hold the child the whole time. Or take the baby to the holodeck, pay cork a little money. He could do a hologram of yourself. Oh, that's right. That wouldn't work. Because he needs to feel the warmth and the,

in the heartbeat and the... No, but Robbie has a point. If he programmed himself, O'Brien, a holographical Brian, to babysit the baby, it's the same thing. You could make it warm, couldn't you? It's still a body. Maybe you could. Sure, I could use the money.

Yeah, you could use the money. Let me, I'm trying to help you out. Yes. Yes. We go to Haggut's quarters. Tolora is giving Quirk a little UMox here. So that's nice for you. Yeah.

Upside down. Umox, by the way. Because, because, uh, maybe the blood going to the, you know, the lobes is better when you tilt backwards. Yeah. Upside down. Um, box. Uh, the doorbell rings and it's Odo.

Upside down. Upside down POV. I love that. I like that. It's good. I did like that. Okay. Good.

Uh, Odo says he needs, uh, and needs him to go to the security office ASAP. So that's not, that's never good. No. Never a good message. And this should have, you know, we're talking about reactions, and we don't want to make this a two-hour show, but still, there should have been a look from me saying, uh-oh. Yes, yes. If I was looking for Odo in an earlier scene because something could happen, when he does show

up, there should be an uh-oh moment. You know, what's this about? We cut to the security office and Oda says, I know what you're doing, and I am going to hold you accountable for this. And Cisco and Kira arrive and they say, nope, let him go. Let court go. The Bajorans insists that Haggath be free to do business because he helped the resistance. Haggith and his associates. And his associates, yep. Let them do business because they helped the resistance when they were fighting the Cardassians. So Haggith, to them is a good guy. Let him do his thing. Which I can understand Cisco being upset with that we're letting, uh, armed

dealers off the, but I didn't quite understand why Kira was as antithetical to Quark at this moment, considering that those guns helped her in her rebellion. Yes, agreed. I also thought the level of Cisco's anger directed at Quark in this scene was too much. Agreed. Oh yeah. And again, with the history of what has already happened with Cisco. and cork bonding and kind of seeing eye to eye in prior episodes, all of that backstory is gone in that scene where he just, he spins you around like you're a fifth grader and just barks at you, like you were the rebellious kid in fifth grade,

and that's your school teacher, getting all crazy on you. It was too much. Next scene is in Hageth's quarters, and they're celebrating this really smart strategy of selling to the Bajorans, how, you know, Haggoth was so brilliant, you know, invest in a winner. Everyone told him invest in a winner,

sell to the Kardashians, but his smart strategy was sell to the Bajorans and it's paying off now. Suddenly the doorbell rings. And Farak, Farak, I think it is, right? Is that right? Farak arrives, yes. Haggith thinks he blew deals

and was just playing on Riza and he fires him. This was, this guy, working for him. Who was a human, by the way? Yes, I was looking for... I was looking for pejorian, anything? No, he's human. But I didn't understand how a human was working. It just seems

like they didn't have the money for a makeup or something. Hagef is human. There's nothing alien about him. No, that's true. Yes. There's nothing alien about him, is there? Oh, Stephen Burkhoff would have loved to put on some prosthetic makeup. That would... Over the top. Please don't make my day harder than already was.

Oh, no. Yeah, so Hageth is not only smart. He's got good instincts. He's sold to the Bajorans, but he's ruthless. Ruthless. And he fires Farak on the spot. And he wants to, he ends the scene by saying, shall we go back to what we were talking about?

He wants to talk about how smart he was. Yes. There are times in Hageth scenes. Stephen Berkhov is a wonderful playwright, bizarre, but wonderful. He's over the top. He's over the top. Yes, he is.

There are times when I go, that's a little too much. Even scenes with me, that's a little too much. Yes. I'm glad you said that because I felt the same way. And he is a very creatively talented person. I didn't realize until you brought up some of the challenges of his personal character. And I, you know, the fighting on set with Quentin Tarantyneux and I remember hearing about. There's a lot of legal issues that Stephen Burkhoff dealt with in terms of, you know,

of courts and things like that. So, yeah, very volatile personality for sure. And this performance has no boundaries. And it feels like he needed some boundaries. And I don't know if Sid was able to do that. And because of that, it tends to have a slightly comical effect. Because we can't really take him 100% seriously. He was threatening to me personally.

Absolutely. That was real. But on camera, it's still threatening. But because it's over the top, it's not as threatening as some other performances we've seen on any other show. Yes, that are just calculated and cold and straightforward. Yeah. And very naturalistic. Right.

The theatrical quality sort of made it, yes, you're right. You didn't take it as seriously. Yeah. Well, we go to Quarks next. Quark is polishing some glasses. Morin is there at the bar. Of course, without any lines. And Quark is super quiet.

He's drunk at the bar. He's drunk, yes. He's going to sleep at the bar. Yeah, that's why he has no lines because he's asleep. Quarks is very quiet, though. The bar is very quiet because it's off limits for Starfleet. That's what Cisco has decided to do. And Sid has changed the position of the Ferengi document

from the right side of the door to the left side of the door so we can get it in the shot. But continuity-wise, it doesn't make any sense. But there it is in this shot. Okay. I did like when Gaila comes in, Sid chose to shoot these scenes in with longer lenses and close-ups, these over-the-shoulders and close-ups.

And it felt like, so a longer lens, a more telephoto lens, puts the background out of focus and focuses in on just a shorter field of focus there. And I like that choice, the longer lenses here, because it felt like you and Gaila were really in a private. conversation in a nice way. I thought that was an elegant and smart choice. Is this depth of field talk?

Is that what you're going to be? Yes, depth of field. Yeah, the depth of field on a longer lens or more telephoto lens is going to be shallower depth of field. Got it. Okay. And there's some lenses called anamorphic lenses that in a longer lens of an anamorphic lens where it squeezes the image and then you have to unsquease it.

Isn't anamorphic the fish eye lens? No. No. Okay. Anamorphic is a technique of a lens that. that actually squeezes the image. It takes a wider shot, but it squeezes it down. And then in post-production, you have to unsquease it to get the full-size image.

But what those longer lenses than an anamorphic does is it carries a shallow depth of field, but a bigger plane of that depth of field, a bigger plane of focus. So you don't just get like a nose in focus. Sometimes you've seen close-ups where just like the ears are out of focus, you know, of the actor. but the eyes are in focus. The anamorphic lens will hold the ears and the eyes. Everything will be there. So it's a more natural longer lens.

Why would you use that lens though? What would you try to invoke? It's just a better lens. It's a better lens. Use anamorphic, everyone. Anyway. Yeah, I love this scene with you, Armin. Loved it with you and Gaila.

Gala arrives. He says, a big client's coming, a good timing with Quirk's success. And Gala reveals he's stepping back. and Cork has, he wants Cork to step up, take the profit, make more money. But he also mentions in this scene that Farrac's ship, that human we just met, his ship blew up. Whop Corp. Corp. Yeah. Accidentally, don't cross paths as you step up, Cork.

Don't cross paths with Haggeth. Yeah, great scene. A lot of turns and a lot of, a lot of subtext for Cork to play as you're absorbing all this. And I thought you played it beautifully. Thank you. Yeah. So Gail is trying to retire? Is that what's happening?

Yeah. That's he's trying to, yeah. He's like, you can take my place. I think is what the character says. I don't blame you. Yeah, he wants out. Why wouldn't you? He's made enough.

Yeah. All right. We go to the repliment next. Quark is sitting, you sit down ultimately with Dax. You order a double snail juice. You like it extra smooth. Rom likes it with the shells. You try to sit with Dax.

You say, mind if I join you? She says, yeah, actually I do. I never heard Dax be so rude and direct. But you sit anyway. I won't take it personally. She says, I'm busy. And she's mad at you. But she says that people are going to die just because you want to make some money.

Quark begs her to understand. She says, well, you must feel really guilty because you've come to me for forgiveness. What was it? Yes, a nice observation. And a nice kind of lightbulb moment for Quark. I think he recognizes because she points it out. Yeah, you're right. I feel guilty.

But it was a missed opportunity. I agree with you. All that is true. Here was a chance for Quark to once more say, I was busted. I had no other choice. Don't you understand? I think you do, though, Aramond,

because I made a note here. You talk about there's nothing else to do. I was drowning, you say. The water closing over my head and my lungs were about to burst, which I thought was a callback to up to my ears, up to my lobes. It's not in my note.

so thank you for remembering. I think you do. You try, and you did it beautifully. I thought your performance was beautiful, and I thought the callback to the up to my lobes, caught my attention and made me go look at where that saying came from, and then to say I was drowning, it was smart writing here. And let's also give kudos to Terry.

I think she does a very good job in this. Agreed. We're in the infirmary. Miles is getting his baby checked, and guess what? Baby's fine. Nothing going on. No issues, no problems.

O'Brien just can't figure out why this baby won't stop crying. It's constantly, constantly always. What is it when the baby cries a lot? Is it called colic? Collic, yeah, exactly. Yeah, Bejur says, you know, nothing's wrong with the baby, but what about you? His neck, yes. Miles goes, well, my neck is now.

Bishir's like, okay, I'll take care of you. I love the line. He's going to make a great poet. Yeah, yeah, that is a fun line. I just love that. That was a terrific line. Look on the bright side. He'll probably be a great poet.

We go to Haggitt's Quarters next. Cork is showing the dishes that he's going to present to the Regent when he arrives. It goes through all of these fancy dishes. He says it's all the regent's favorites. Looks disgusting to me. I made it know they look and sound horrible. You don't want rock fungi? No, thank you.

Or Condor Snake? Are you sure, Robbie? Don't want any of it. Don't want it. It sounds disgusting. And Haggith tastes it. He agrees with me. He thinks it tastes disgusting.

He thinks he's going to hate it. No, no, Haggith tastes it. I'm wrong. Yeah. It looks disgusting. Yeah. And then he tastes it. That's right.

And it's delicious. Well, he, before that, he goes, he goes, you think he's going to like this. So the prep, the prep or the setup is he hates it. Then he goes, hmm. He goes, out. Love it. So he's all into it then. He thinks Quark is a genius. I think this is unnecessary scene. Okay. Or it's his disliking it or what's the point? He's already demonstrated for 20 minutes that he's a threat. We don't need to be told again that he's a threat. Right. The only value of this scene, but it's not very strong to me, is that Quark is smart. He's looked into what the regent will like, even though no one else would have thought of it. Even Haggoth would never have thought of this because the dishes look disgusting, but quark is right.

It tastes good. And he was smart enough to look into what the regent likes. So it makes quark look smart here. And like he's a competent, you know, air to Gala and running this racket. But you could have had a better scene in here. Yeah. I mean, we've seen it enough. We've seen him lorded over quark several times now.

He does it constantly. We didn't need another one. We could have had a discussion about something else. Yeah. A little time has passed. The food has been just devoured. And the regent is there. The regent who comes off like somebody out of the godfather to me,

or the sopranos or something. Because he is. Or a James Cagney, you know, gangster movie from the 40s or something. It came off very, yeah, very New York, very, yeah. that kind of thing which jump it it took me out of star trek it should now is my time to tell you about what happened oh boy this is something i was aghast at and i have great respect for sid for how he handled the situation here's the situation laurence tyranny couldn't remember his lines not a one and was frustrated with everybody around him and probably himself that he could not remember

any of his lines very quickly he did not want to hear from sid Lawrence Tierney had his nephew i think there with him and he said to sid don't talk to me talk to my cousin or my nephew and the nephew would pass along and Sid was sitting right in front of him would pass along what Sid said to the nephew to Tierney. And because he couldn't remember one line, Sid had to put an hour and a half onto this scene where he would say, okay, we're going to do this one line at a time.

So what would happen was Sid would say a line and most of the times... To the nephew. Well, now he was saying it to everybody, but saying a line. Tierney would try to say the line that he was just told, and we're talking about five words, six words at the most. Tierney, most of the time could not repeat the six words.

Wow. And so we did take after take after take with him trying to say the six words of one line. When he finally got the six words, Sid said, okay, that's a take. Now let's go on to the next line. Another 20 minutes of getting those six words. And Tierney getting angrier and angrier and angrier. I mean, everybody on the set thought that he was going to hit somebody, probably Sid. Should have been a producer in there.

Wow. And Sid calmly did his best just to mitigate the situation, just kindly, nicely, charmingly, just said, okay, we're going to get through this one line at a time. And every time he f***ed up, okay, we'll try. it again. We'll try it again. And he was putting time onto the, onto the day. And Tierney was getting angrier and angrier and angrier and lashing out at everybody, even eventually lashed out at his nephew as well. I'm sitting opposite him because I'm in the scene and I have to feed him the cues. And he didn't get angry at me. He was angry at everybody else. But he was

just, man. And I don't know how we got through that. day without someone getting hurt because he was violent he didn't he didn't do anything violent but he was so on the verge of throwing something hurting someone stomping out doing something and sid just kept his cool wow got through it word by literally word by word wow kudos of sit and in fact the latter part of the scene is cut really there's a there's a speech at the end of this scene that I don't think is in the episode. This scene is about three pages in the script, and it certainly isn't that way in the final edit.

This was a long part of the day, because we did get most of it. There's something in here. I was watching the episode, I was looking at the script, and something was deleted, and I can't remember what it was. Yeah. But something was deleted. Tail end of the scene, maybe. Yeah.

Well, if they were doing it line by line, you know, it's going to be hard to cut that together because it's not going to flow like the conversation. It didn't flow at all. And when I saw the episode, I said, how the fuck did they do that? Because it looks fairly natural. Fair, yeah. When I know that it wasn't.

That we spent at least two hours, maybe three. It's so interesting that that happened on Sid's first episode, an actor who couldn't remember lines, because my very first episode, I had some wonderful actors, but they were older and were having trouble remembering lines. Keene Curtis was one of the actors. Yeah, I know Keene. And I love. loved Keene, loved his work as a stage actor, wonderful actor. He's passed away now, but

Keen could not remember any lines. And we struggled, but I had, he was so kind about it. And so his, his heart was so generous. And, you know, he just, there was no anger. He was anti-tyrney, is what you were saying? Yes, he was anti-tyriny. I would have broken if I were Sid on this episode. Oh my God. I would have just... I think anybody would. would. I can't believe his composure. Sid's composure wasn't going to be. This, this guy was, violently. He was yelling at everybody. He certainly didn't like, he didn't like Sid. And also, he'd had the stroke, which I didn't know at the time. Yeah. So maybe he was frustrated at the fact that he couldn't do what he used to do. Correct. There was no reason for that behavior that

no. Absolutely. Taking it out on everyone around him. Horrible. Okay. Just to jump back into it, Robbie. We didn't even talk about the plot of this scene. No, we didn't. So essentially, this whole scene is about the regent saying that one of his best or his most trusted officers in his army or in his regime, Nasik is the best officer that this region has ever had. He was going to basically just canned over everything to her, but she decides to rebel. And he wants to make an example of her by eradicating the entire city that she is from, from. So everybody. So then Gaila's like, well, how many casualties?

The region says, seven or eight million. But then over the next couple of months, I want the death toll to keep rising to about 20 million. And then this is absolutely crazy. Cork is absolutely shocked, exactly. But he wants total 28 million dead. And Cork makes a joke.

He goes, can't we just wound some of them? Because he's so shocked. He goes to, humor. And that's when the region says, I'm here to buy weapons. Are you here to sell them? Haggis tries to cover and saying that this is a Ferengi humor that is not acceptable at this, at this business meeting that they're having. And he kind of apologizes for Quark. Before you go any further, I'm looking at the script. What's written is Quark says 28 million dead, can't we just wound some of them? Then he continues to say, very funny.

I should have known better. After all, who goes around killing 28 million people? And the script says, the regent stops laughing. Well, Mr. Tierney was not anywhere near laughing at this point in the day. Interesting. Yeah, he couldn't perform the emotional side of that script because he couldn't remember the words of the script. But that was because of the stroke, right?

We think. There may have been other reasons, but certainly that was probably it. But at this point, all of us, all the crew, all of us just wanted this scene to be over. Yeah, I bet. Oh, I bet. Well, we go to the promenade next. We're on the upper level. Quarks having a private moment, kind of a crisis of conscience here.

Gala says he wants to retire, but his handpicked successor cannot have a crisis of conscience. And Gala explains, you know, look at all the planets out there. He says, half the planets you're looking at are trying to destroy the other. other half of the planets. Just make money because who's going to notice if one is gone. If one of these planets disappeared, there's so many out there who would even notice. I loved your listening in this scene, Armin. You did a little, like a little head pop when as you're kind of just absorbing his logic and trying to decide what you're, how to how to handle all of this. Yeah. For a moment, it goes, for a moment, I think, well, yeah, I couldn't agree with that.

I loved that. I loved it. I loved it. The behavior was natural and subtle and your listening was great. Thank you. Yeah. And as I'm sure Garrett is about to tell us, this is right out of an Orson Welles movie, I think it's the third man, the same sort of speech. Is that right, Garrett? That is correct. Gala's Speech, Quark, is adapted from Orson Well's speech in Carol Reed's classic 1949 film, The Third Man. Oh, wow. Yeah, the Star Trek writers were big film buffs, and they would often, you know. How often have we said, oh, they liked this movie. They took this line or this moment from that movie. I mean, it happens on every TV show.

It happened. We did it on Chuck every episode. There was a movie that we were basing that, you know, plot on. And the fans love that. They do. It's, they love it. It's an Easter. It's an Easter.

It's an Easter. It's an Easter. Exactly. Yeah. We go to Quark's quarters next. Quark has a nightmare. I wrote down great shots, Sid. I thought this nightmare where he's talking to the rest of the crew.

Cisco's there. He doesn't look so good. Quark mentions it. Cisco says that's because I'm dead. Kira says you're responsible for all of it. Dax says, how much money did you make? You know, Kira, Kira hopes you made enough money to buy a new conscience. So it's just a nightmare.

of a scene. Suddenly they're all around a dabbo table with lots of money and the wheel stops. Sisko says you lose. Quark pops up out of his nightmare. I like this sequence, the disjointed sequence. Great shots. Yeah. Great shots. There's one thing messy, perhaps two. Except for the possibility of

Dax. All of them are not great friends of Quarks at this point. Mm-hmm. The one person that should have been in this nightmare scene that would have made it work is wrong. Yeah. Oh. Oh, yes. The loss of Rom would be a sizable loss to quark. Correct.

Or the loss of Nog would be a sizable loss. Yeah. So how about Rom and Nog, both of them in this? There's the two. Yeah. Agreed. What does he care? What does he care?

Cisco's been less than perfect with him. So, you know, but someone that he adores, someone that is family, someone that means a lot to him, that person being killed, that's a wake up call. Well, I think to your, even more to your point, all of these characters are now really aware of what you're, why would you be having a nightmare about these people when they don't, you're not as close to them as characters? And they're not even involved in your story, really. At best, they're just yelling at you and threatening you. Odo, Cisco, Kira, you know, even Dax, who's aware of this story has not been very sympathetic. So if there had been, instead of a B story that doesn't really do anything,

If there had been seen after scene after scene with not with the quark going to each of these characters earlier and trying to get some help. Some validation. Some validation. Validation and opening up or them giving some advice in a helpful way that he just can't seem to follow yet. And then having this nightmare, it would have, the nightmare would have been loaded much, much better. Right. There should have been a scene, in my opinion, between him either with Dax or with wrong. saying this is where I am.

What am I going to do? And with Rom, Rom, saying you can't do this. You can't sell arms. Dach's saying, you can't sell arms. But then Quark saying,

if I don't do it, I've got nowhere to go. I'm out on the street. I have to do something. I have no other avenue. He needed to explain his predicament in order to make the distress higher. Well, he wakes up out of this nightmare.

says to himself, what have I done? He's hit a bit of a rock bottom here. We go into ops. Everybody's whispering in this scene. Everybody's whispering, which I get the idea of it, but I had trouble hearing them, to be honest. Oh, really? It was hard to hear.

I did not, but okay. Really? Yeah. I had my volume turned all the way up, and I was just like, wait, what did they say? The whole scene they whispered. because the baby is asleep down in the pit where O'Brien works. There was one nice moment I made a note of when all their heads turn nice and sharp together.

Yeah. And Avery raises his voice when he's had enough. Yes, that's true. He does. He does finally at the end. We go to Dax's quarters. Cork has brought the Tongo wheel to give to her. But she says, get out of my quarters.

She ends up going in the better. She doesn't want the Tango wheel. He says goodbye. and realizes that he's got to do this alone. Yeah. Do you think he wanted her help? Is that why he's coming? I didn't really understand the intention.

Maybe. Is that what you think it is? I don't know. As I was watching, what's your intention here, Armand? I don't know what my intention is. I thought what his intention was, was he knew he was doing something dangerous, the one person that he could tell what he's doing. Sharing, okay. And share it and say, you know,

I think his intention was, I brought you this Tonga wheel. I'm giving it to you because I could die. I'm probably going to die. Here's why. Because I'm not going to let these people die, 28 million people. I'm going to do this thing that's very human. And I don't know if I'm doing the right thing because it's not what my people do. Like that would have been a great conversation.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he might have been able to say, I'm giving you this so you'll remember me. And that's all he'd have to say. So you'll remember me. Well, he does. goes go by himself, he heads down a quarter. Again, Sid did a great shot here. This reflection in the little side panel, the quirk stops, and he turns around, he has second thoughts for a moment,

talks himself, you know, back into it. What's my life compared to the lives of 28 million people. Shot very simply, but elegantly with that reflection. It was a lovely shot. Would it been better? I agree with you. If there had been more of a reflection, if there had been more of a mirror image because it's very faint. The idea is quite, quite good. But I wondered if there was slightly more of a more of a reflection so I could actually really be talking to myself. Yeah. I think it would have. I mean, none of the panels on Voyager reflected very well. It was whenever we tried to do that, it was very difficult. Correct. Was it scripted that he sees his reflection or was that something that I'm curious.

Yeah. I felt, to me, it felt like a director find. Like, you know, Sid and Jonathan West were in the hallway looking at where they could do the scene and they both discovered it and went, wait a minute, that would be cool. Yeah, that makes sense. But it also makes sense that they may have written that he talks to himself in a reflection. Yeah. Quark emerges from Dax quarters and catches his reflection in one of the black com panels on the wall.

Oh. He stops to look at himself. And there is a deletion and a change, actually. I don't remember exactly how the dialogue goes in the episode. But in the script, it says, nervous, can't blame you. What's one life worth compared to the lives of 28 million people? Besides, the worst Haggoth can do is kill you. My note to myself is somehow that was inverted.

Yes, it was. That something that is at the end came first. Yes. The way it plays in the cut is nervous. The worst Haggoth can do is kill you. What's one life compared to the lives of 20 million people? Finishing with the thing that's driving him, the idea that's driving him forward.

Yeah. Oh, we're in Haggitt's quarters now. Haggat Squatters with Tallura. And why is Tallura in this episode? No idea. just because they always like skimpy. She's kind of like the Bond villain girl is what she is in a way. Give her a line, yeah.

Yeah, she needed a line. Quark tells Haggith that he cannot get this retrovirus, but he can get this new experimental biogenic weapon. And Quark plans for a demonstration. Haggit says, do not fail at this. and Quark says, oh, I want to succeed more than anyone. So. Because I'm finally out of debt. Yes.

And now the prophets will come my way. So that's a very important point. That is, you're right. It gets lost. Yes. Well, to me, because I'm with the subtext of what you're playing in this scene, and I know you wanted to, your plan, your secret plan to work more than anybody, but you covered it with the because I'm finally out of debt and I want these profits to keep coming.

So yeah, yeah, that is an important cover. An important piece of information. Yes, it's a cover, but it's an important piece of information. But it's also true. It's 100% true. Yeah. So we would assume that his balance book is now perfect. Perfect in the sense that there's no red ink, but there's no black ink either.

Yes. Just zero. So it's whatever it's called bounced out or whatever the situation is. So we go out in a corridor and Quark and Gail are running to meet someone. And Quark says, I told you, there's somebody I want you to meet. We go in Quark's quarters. Uh-oh, it's Nossack. And there's some freedom fighters in there with her or whatever, soldiers, rebels.

Gaila drags him back out into the hallway. And Gail is panicking here. Quark says they're going to sell to both sides, though. Haggith will be pleased about all of this. The beauty of what Quark has been doing is there are no weapons. It's all holosweet. It's all imaginary things. It's all done with smoke and mirrors.

Yeah. If he's bringing the real thing in, he's now violating the law. That's true. Oh, yeah. Correct. Correct. But you do say we're going to go find a planet that has no life form. So we're going to, you know, we're going to demonstrate it somewhere.

But it's still breaking the law. You're right. It's not, well, now there's, it seems like big trouble because we've got the rebel, we got the regent.

And before getting further, I, again, I love Sid, but I wish there had been a tighter picture of the general and her posse.

I wish we had seen them up front and big and menacing. Yeah. With weapons, or if not weapons, big. What was that episode where Dennis and somebody else were throwing darts at each other?

Something in that vein. Right. So that we knew these were people to deal with. You know, these were menaces. Well, back to one of your earlier notes, you said there's too much comedy and this, you know, literally running down the hall, two Ferengis running down the hall, you pop in the door, you say, Nasik, me, Gela, Gaila, me, Nausik. And then he drags you back out.

It's classic. first, you know, hit, very comic. Classic farce where, yeah, I agree with you. They didn't seem imposing or important because they were just falling off in the background in the middle of a frangy comedy scene. You couldn't even make out what they looked like they were so far away. And the way they were posed, it looked like they were an ad for like Banana Republic or some type of clothing company.

I was like, what's happening here? So you're a good point. Rebel Republic. Yeah. Rebel Republic. They should have been menacing that we were at the door. Who's this at the door? They should have drawn guns.

If they had guns, drawn the guns. You guys should have been dragged in with guns at your heads, like, you know, like that, right? Yes. Good point, Armond. Good point. So Quark ends the scene with his plan. He's going to sell to both sides. And he tells Gaila, keep the general occupy for 20 minutes, then take her to cargo

bay five, and I'll meet you there. And then you did some kind of hand thing. yeah i i remember that was joss's idea that that was josh's idea it looked was it was it like was it was an NBA basketball hand something like that and again i think that was Josh playing the farangie uh yeah i think that was his idea of playing the farangie and i being dutiful just went along with it you were so dutiful you are the most dutiful forangie i've ever met on that week i was yes you were and You should have got a second paycheck as a producer.

Yes, you should have, babysitting. For babysitting, yeah. We go to cargo bay. Quark is kneeling by a container. He can't open the case for some reason. He says he needs a descrambler, and he's going to be right back. So, you know, Haggoth is there, the regent is there. But Quark's got to disappear for a minute for this de-scrambler.

He'll be back shortly. He runs out into the corridor, and there's Gala with Nossack, the general. The Rebel Republic models. Rebel Republic gang. And they're heading right past him, going into Cargo Bay five or six, wherever he was supposed to meet them. Five, five, five. They head in the cargo bay. We hear the regent say, Haggoth, what is she doing here?

It's a trap. We hear some gunfire maybe. Hark runs. As I thought about that scene, forgive me for carping all this. It's all hindsight. It's 30 years of hindsight. I think Cork should have had a camera in that room. I think he should have, he had to leave the room, we understand that,

but he should have been able to know what was happening just to protect himself. Yeah. Just to know what was happening in that room. Yes, he should scurry away as fast as he can, but he should still find out what happened. Because if for some reason it didn't work out the way he thought it would, he would have to adjust in hiding you'd have to adjust yeah i also thought this next scene in the promenade he walks on the promenade and and odo runs by him with security saying there's gunfire

we got to we got to go into cargo bay five seal the area it was a lot of assumption i think it would have been nice to see quark tell odo before this plan hey quark meet me over near cargo bay five i've got to tell you about this like quark could have been smarter and set up a lot of the pieces so that the plan, if you had set up more pieces in our story, I don't think you would have needed a camera because it all would have fallen right into place. Exactly how he planned. It was a little skimpy on the plan.

I agree, that's a lovely idea. He should have set up with Odo. You better check that out. I think something's going to happen. Yes, exactly. And you better take the armed guards with you. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I just think the way that the plan wrapped up was very risky and a little thin. Yeah. Very thin. And I think if Quark had made some other moves to really ensure that this was going to work, that I would have been happier. And the time it takes to go from Cargo Bay 5.

To the Promenade. To the Promenade. They should have all been dead by then. Yeah. I thought the same thing. I don't even know where the Cargo Bay is, but it can't be that close. It can't.

You have to go through the big portal. ring, you know, and then come into the promenade. That's enough time to kill everybody in the room. But, yeah, yes, I agree. Well, Odo's off to, you know, deal with the gunfire, and we cut to the O'Brien's quarters where Worf arrived. Why didn't they have, it's Renee's voice, I'm assuming he was there and said it,

why didn't they have him as a close-up? Why is it so far in the distance, you're not even 100% sure that it is, Odo? Yeah. Because tyranny took up all the time it would have taken. Yes, that's very possible. Shoot close-ups for anybody else. We go into Miles's quarters.

Worf arrives in the O'Brien's quarters, and Miles has a full-time job looking after this baby who just will cry every time he's, you know, he puts the baby down. And Worf's like, you were supposed to be, you were supposed to be modifying the deflector array aboard the defiant. Miles just can't put the baby down. So he hands Wharf the baby for a second.

And when he comes back in, the baby's not crying. Hmm, which I thought was very interesting. Because didn't Worf deliver their first baby? Like, he's got a baby phobia. Worf does. And for Worf to be the one to hold the baby, and that's the only one the baby doesn't cry with. And I will tell you a factual fact.

Yes. anything older than Kiriyoshi would have been crying because they were that close to Michael's makeup. We learned that early on. That's true. If there was anyone older than that, they would cry at seeing the Klingon or the friend. Wow. But in this episode, Worf is the Yoshi Whisperer. It's perfect.

I did like at the end of the scene, not only that Worf is the Yoshi Whisperer, but I like that Worf said, you know, I never saw my son when he was this age. And it's something I'll always regret. That really landed, I thought, in a beautiful way for the Worf character, that he, he was touched by that moment. And he tells Miles, you're a very fortunate man. In the meantime, there's a gunfight going on in Cargo Bay 5. Yeah.

You guys keep calling it a gun fight. Phaser fight. But I will say this, though. It is the most substance in terms of dialogue that Worf has had since. Arriving on the show, Robbie. I mean, are you kidding me? You finally say something that means something. But then they undercut it with a joke because he goes, Chief, Chief, and it cuts over and you see Miles is asleep.

So instead of letting Wharf have this moment really land and live, they backed off again, didn't they? They leaned in and backed off. Yes. Okay. Yeah. We go into the captain's office and Cisco has some very serious charges here for, Cork, incitement to riot, endangering public safety, disregard, blah, blah, blah. Quark says, how was I supposed to, you know, know that everybody was going to start shooting?

How was I supposed to be playing very innocent there? And remember, Odo doesn't allow weapons on the station. Yes. Did we see weapons when you ran in and then gave you dragged you out? All we saw was clothes models, yeah. Yeah, it's true. clothes models but cork does say to Cisco here he says well you may not be happy about it but 28 million people are happy about what i did plus one and that's intriguing to me yeah because i would

assume from that line six million people should be 28 million people should be happy and avery says plus one so does that mean him that's what i thought but that's not the way he said the line That's not the way he said it. No. It was 28 minutes plus one. And I went, are you happy or you're not happy? You're not happy. Seems like you're not happy about that other guy who's really happy.

The guy you're angry about. Yeah. But I did get that from him that it was 28 million plus him. So there should have been a tiny bit of crack in the anger there. Exactly. Just for a moment, a moment, but it didn't come. No. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, Cork says, surely, you know, we must be able to come up to some agreement. Cisco says that depends. He shows you the cost of fixing the cargo bay. It costs. Money. The money. Money.

Yes, there is money in Starfleet. It's going to cost them some money. It's a lot of money. But Cork says, well, maybe what about an installment plan? And Cisco agrees that works for me. So they're going to compromise here. So now you're in debt again. Yeah.

Armand, you're going to be in debt. Yes, that's right. That's right. Because we said before, it had evened out. Yes, you broke even. Now he's back in the red again. And yet he seems very happy in the last scene. Yeah.

Will you save 28 million people? You should be proud of yourself. That's what I should have said to him. Yeah. Or to Dax in the next scene. How much are 28 million people worth? The cost of fixing that cargo bay? Oh, yeah.

I like that line. Like that line. We also learn in this scene that Haggith and Gala are on the run now. They're being pursued. And that the regent is dead. That's right. So, General Gnossack was so mad. She sent two purification squads, one to chase after Haggith and Gala,

and the other one was to chase after the regent, who is now dead, right? Yes. So here's a hole in my logic for the riding. Okay. They're in a cargo bay. Yes. Two sides. there's phaser fire.

Somehow, Gala gets out, Haggith gets out, General Nazic gets out, the region gets out. Either they're really bad shots. How did that all happen? Furthermore, how did they leave the station? You can't just, I suppose you can just beam out to somewhere else,

but the logic would be that you'd have to get in your ship and depart the station, which Odo would not have allowed because he and his men ran down to cargo pay five. So they had site-to-site transport. How did they get out? Sight-to-site transporter. That's it. Hand-held transporter.

It does seem to. That's the only way. It's the only way. It seems a little sloppy. There's some holes in that. Yes. I agree. Well, we finished this episode in Dax's quarters with game time, Dax and Quark.

Oh, friends playing a little Tonga. And they seem, you know. perfectly happy. Nothing has happened during the last 43 minutes. Yeah, Quark wants his Tango wheel back in this scene. I think we could do like a Cork

Dax T-T-shirt with retreat, acquire, confront, evade, like Tongo words on there, something like that, right? Don't you think there should have been some wrap-up? She says you're always able to get out. Yeah, I have a knack for that. You're good at that.

That's nice. That's fine. But she should have said, you know, you really shouldn't have done that, quark. and I should have said I had no other choice or something. Or she should have said, so 28 million people, I'm proud of you. Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. That would have been great. Yeah. That would have been great. shows where the writers are really great with, you know, procedural stories, but they don't know how to write the heart of characters. And I've done shows where writers are really good about writing feelings, but don't know how to tell a story that has twists and terms. And sometimes I feel like the Star Trek writers miss out on these, the heartstrings and the

souls of relationships and characters, because they're really good at sci-fi. stories, but they depend on the actors to somehow tell the part of the story that's got heart or got feeling or relationship. I would have loved some more lines about the dilemma of selling arms, having a conscience, and being destitute. I would have loved more lines. Or even, what is the morality of selling guns? It seemed all right to sell to the Bajorans, but it's not all right to sell to the region.

The region wasn't arms. He was using a vaccine to kill off people. That's horrendous. But selling arms, and let's be honest, Starfleet has lots of weapons. What is the Defiant? But a warship with lots of weapons. They don't seem to mind those weapons. But I wanted more of that.

That's why, as I said at the very beginning of this podcast, I loved it when I thought about it years ago. But now that I look at it now, I just see where it could have been better. You know what's interesting though, Armin? Because I've heard so many Star Trek fans say, God, I've seen Voyager a hundred times. I've seen every episode a hundred times.

Why do they watch it over and over? For this very reason, because at different times in your life, you might see it a little differently. And I think it's okay that your feelings before were just as valid as your feelings now, and you may watch it again and have a new understanding or a new insight into something. So that's what I love about Star Trek is you can look at it over and over again.

That's very insightful. And that makes a lot of sense. Different phases of your life. You resonate with different parts of an episode. Yeah. You know, may have been amazing 30 years ago, but now it resonates differently. And not that that's a bad thing. It could be a good thing, too.

Yeah. Exactly. And I don't mean this is a bad thing. But when I talked about it the first time, I was very egocentric. It was a wonderful episode for Armin and Quark. It was a wonderful episode. Because I had a lot of scenes. Yeah, I had a lot of scenes and I had something to do and wasn't all that comic.

It was a wonderful episode, much better than some of the others, in my opinion. Right. But now that I look at it, compared with all the episodes that I've been watching, I go, it doesn't match up to some of the better ones that I've seen other on the show. And you know what, Armin? I will say, when the Star Trek voice. Voyager viewers first saw the episode Threshold. They were shocked and horrified it and thought it was the worst episode they'd ever seen.

But now they watch Threshold and they kind of go, it's not as bad, maybe just the ending. Like, there's some good stuff. So sometimes you can think an episode is horrible and look at it. Stop laughing, Garrett. I know. I'm sorry. It really was one of the most hated episodes. episodes that my character started.

But people have turned and kind of gone, wait a minute. There's some good ideas in there. There's good performance in there. So the ending is kind of silly and ridiculous. It's like how Armin reviewed Hamnet. He doesn't like the ending, but everything else is great. I think everything before in Threshold, it's a good episode, especially for you. But it was universally hated.

Because of the ending, though, Robbie. That's why. I like not the entire. episode. Just the ending was so wacky. That's all. That's all, dude. But now, years later, people are appreciating it. People are appreciating it. So this can happen with Star Trek, and that's what I love about it. It can. All right, Robbie, what is your theme slash lesson, slash moral for this episode? My theme slash lesson slash moral is morals and ethics are more important than short-term profit and that your moral compass will always tell you what's right.

that's what I got from this. I like it. I like it. Armand. I have three. The first one is number 62. The riskier the road, the greater the profit. That's number one. Number two, desperation is like stealing from the mafia. You stand a good chance of attracting annihilation. Number three, if we disregard our principles, we'll open our eyes one day and

won't be able to recognize our world anymore. Okay. I like that one. My theme slash lesson slash moral is also the name of the 1989 Spike Lee film. Do the right thing. Nice. That's it. But what is the right thing?

See, that's what I wish they had. Well, that's what you have to know inside of you. You have to have a moral compass. So was it wrong to sell weapons to the bejornes? It may be wrong for some people. to, that may be wrong. That may be wrong for them. Is it wrong to sell weapons to the Federation?

Is right and wrong objective or subjective? Subjective. I think it is. So what is the right thing? That's what I wanted them to investigate. Yeah. Okay. Our Patreon poll winner for the theme

slash lesson slash moral of this episode is submitted by Lauren. Some things are more important than money. When you're dead broke? When you're drowning, when you're up to your ears. Up to your lobes. Exactly.

Then what do you do? If you're going to drown or... Yeah. Yeah. These ethical questions. And in the beginning, Gaila was just saying, we just need you to be a host.

We just need you to entertain. Right. It's that first step. It's a slippery slope. Yes. I remember once I was on set and there was a moral, ethical question from one of the departments.

And our director of that episode, her father, was a philosophy professor at Harvard, I think. So we said, call your dad and ask him if we're doing, what's the right thing to do? We didn't get a straight answer from him, as you would expect from a philosophy professor. I was like, well, that depends.

Yes, of course. Of course. That's funny. I love that. What's our next episode, Garrett? Yeah, yes, yes, yes, of course. first of all I just want to thank everyone for tuning in to our recap and discussion of this episode business as usual thank you to arman for co-hosting and my apologies for being such a

carping on almost every aspect of this episode i loved your memories and experiences though that's really thank you for sharing all that we appreciate that uh all right so join us next time and we will be recapping and discussing the episode ties of blood and water with tear fair So until that time, for all of the Patreon patrons out there, please stay tuned for your bonus material, a little bit more Armin. And for everyone else, we will see you next time with Terry. Bye.

Bye-bye.