The Delta Flyers - Child's Play

Episode Date: January 2, 2023

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

Hello, everyone, welcome. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Voyager actor, who also played the role of Mike Riley in the 1991 season six episode of LA Law, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself your favorite for reverence and garret Wong remember you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the delta flyers L.A. Law. L.A. law. Yeah. Who are all your scenes with? Who is the, was it Jimmy Smiths or was it a Corbyn Benson Benson? I don't remember. I don't remember. All I remember is all I remember is about that L.A. law episode.

Yes. And it was a pretty good episode, as I remember. I don't. I think I watched it when it was on the air. But what I remember was the courtroom scenes, and it was a story about like two brothers fighting over an inheritance or something. And it was, I was kind of playing like the selfish younger brother. Interesting. I was not a very sympathetic character. And I remember I had only played nice guys for a long time. And this was the third. remember going yeah yeah and he wasn't bad he was just like fighting with his brother like over this inheritance and and he had a little like he wasn't the most sympathetic the older brother was the one who was being reasonable yeah okay thoughtful and yeah i was like oh that's it's fun to play these it's fun to play those kind of guys yeah no you're right that's that's all i remember the courtroom stuff and some of that that's the first time i'd ever done a big courtroom scene with yeah it just goes on and on and on all the coverage all the shots in there it's like the bridge for us the courtroom seems for these uh law shows so you did not your character did not say please eat me he

didn't say that in la law maybe he said i'd like to say that hey me is what he said okay i'd like to say please eat me in every show that i work on i think that would be like that would be my catchphrase like when i'm directing i can go okay all right instead of action i'll go okay we set and eat me Eat me. Maybe I could do that. Yes. I got to have like a thing, right? That's your thing.

You know, you need a trademark. You need to make yourself a brand. How do you brand yourself? You come up with and eat me instead of action. That's wonderful. Exactly. The other thing I remember is it was the first show I ever did on the Fox lot, which is over in West L.A. Yeah, it's off a Pico or Olympic, right?

Pico, yeah. Now that lot has modern buildings. buildings and it's really been renovated. But I remember when I went on that lot, it was about the worst, dumpiest lot I had ever been on. I was like, this place is a dump. Like, all the buildings were old and needed renovation. Did it still have that, that massive mural of Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader? Was that there? Okay, that was cool. That's cool. That was in the 80s. That was cool. Yeah, but it was still very rundown, is what you're saying. It was really rundown. They have renovated it since. Oh, yeah. Now it's a very nice lot. It's a little small because Fox used to own all the land

that Century City, that giant office and, you know, that development. But they sold it. That was their back lot. Yes. And they sold it. And that's where Century City Mall came about and all those office buildings. There's a mall. There's office buildings. There's condos and all kinds of stuff where they used to have pirate villages and western towns and things like that. I know. God. Gosh. Yeah. I can't believe they did that. It's horrible. I visited you on that lot when you were- Oh, you did. Yes, when you were directing on the Orville. The Orville, Mr. Seth MacFarlane show. And I came to watch you more than once, actually, probably two different episodes. Yeah. Yeah. That was a lot of fun. That was a lot of fun. And the lot had been fixed up quite a bit since the 80s. The stages were much improved. The offices and the support buildings were much. much improved parking was better. I directed a show called standoff in the early 2000. That was at Fox 2. It was a Fox network show on the Fox lot. And they were building a lot of this stuff that now is complete. So I remember the 80s, LA law, it was a dump. Early 2000s,

it was a lot better, but under a lot of construction. And then by the time I did the Orville, yeah, that lot's in great shape now. Okay. This week's episode is Child's Play. So let us go watch child's play. We'll be right back with our recap and discussion of the episode. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. Robbie and I are back from watching Child's Play. Yes, we are. Oh my goodness. Okay. So both of us were wrong when it came to director and the writer. Yeah, we were complete misses there, Airball. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Teleplay by Rafe Green. I'm going to say Raff.

Raff. Do you remember Raff? Not at all. No, I don't either. Or I'm going to say Royal Air Force. Royal Air Force Green. Raff Green. Okay.

I do not remember him and that's horrible. You know, we should remember all these people. That's all right. That's teleplay. So he was clearly on the writing staff that we can't remember. I'm sorry, Raff or Rave, if you're listening to this, we apologize. Story by Paul Brown. Must have been an outside pitch or an outside submission or something.

I did go to college with the Paul Brown. I don't think that's him, though. I'm just going to say, probably not him. Directed by Mike Vahar. The lovely Mike Veyhar. We missed. I love Mike Vajar. He's such a, just a calm, pleasant man.

Yeah. Give me some guest stars. Why don't we talk about those guys? We have Echib again, played by Manu in Taramey. We did talk about Manu before his first job was Pacific Blue, the classic sort of spin-off of Baywatch kind of thing. And his most recent thing, I'll add, was a movie called Bad President with Eddie Griffin.

He played a role in that, which was in 2021. I'm an Eddie Griffin fan. Yeah, Eddie Griffin's funny. Canadian actress named Tracy Ellis plays the mom, IFA. Her very first job was in 1988, the classic film Necromancer. Oh, my gosh. The low-budget horror film

I remember that film You do? I do, yes I watched a lot of low-budget horror films when I was a kid I did 1988 She was a student number four In Necromancer

Dad, Lucan is Mark Shepard Now Mark Shepard He's listed as Mark A Shepard Which is weird Because I don't think That's how he's credited

In any of his more recent role I think you changed his credits at some point because I did notice it changed, but now he's Mark A. Shepard. I think he started it as Mark Shepard. He started in 1992 was his first job in the classic TV show, Silk Stockings. Oh gosh. I remember that show too. Yeah. Silk Stockings was like a midnight, late night CBS show or something. Was it like, did it go like Silk Stockings and then Renegade, you know? Yeah, something like that. Okay. Those syndicated low budget TV shows. He was in two episodes of that.

What year was that for? 92. 92. Wow. What's crazy is that I didn't even realize that Mark had done this role. I didn't either. Had no clue. I saw him.

I'm like, I go, Mark, Shepherd? Yep, it is Mark. I had no clue at all. Well, I worked with Mark on Chuck. He did two episodes of Chuck. He played the ring director, bad guy. Yeah. I also worked with him on Supernatural.

He's made an entire village playing the bad guy over the years. And he's so, so good at it. He really is. He really is. And to see him in this, because I just saw him at DragonCon just recently. And to see him in this and how young and handsome he looks right now. And doing an American accent. Oh, and doing an American.

That's a whole other thing that I forgot to say is that he's, he's British. He's from the UK. So that accent. Great job, Mark. It's not easy to do. Fun to see him. Everybody else we pretty much have seen before. Scarlet Palmer's.

Mazadi, the young girl. Marley McLean. The twins, Azon, and Rebbe, Kurt, Weatherill, and Cody Weatherill. We did have one new guest star, Eric Ritter, playing Yavelle. He was down on the planet. Oh, he's the brother or whatever, right? Or cousin. Yeah.

Okay. He doesn't have any credits for him. Eric Ritter. Rick Ritter. Yeah, but he was that character. Here we go with my haiku for child's play. Echib's parents found, resistant at first, he stays, weapon to end Borg. You got it.

You covered it. Here we go with our limerick synopsies. I can't wait. Here we go. We start with the Voyager Science Fair, but Sevens worried about Echibb. welfare. She calls Janeway at 3 a.m. says we really can't trust them because the Brunali really stink at child care. I love that one. That was sweet. It's pretty good. I'm going to give you, I'm going to be, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to start rating you like an Olympic

judge. So when you do your limerick, I'm going to come up and just proverbally, I'm going to hold up the sign. And I want to say that was a 9.2. So I'm going to give you a 9.2 on your record. Good job. It was pretty good. Yeah. I had to get Janeway coming in with coffee at 3 a.m. Yes, you did. That was perfect. I had to get that in there. Yeah. Good job. Okay. So we start in the mess hall at the first annual Voyager Science Fair. And I'm going to say right off the bat, the best two opening lines of any Voyager episode are Janeway saying, lie potatoes. And seven replies, their first idea was to clone Naomi. But I suggested they start with something smaller. It was very funny. It was very funny. Great. The two twin board kids are standing there. And all I could think about was they

look like the twins from the shiny. Oh, the male version? They're just kind of the male version. They're just, they don't say anything. They just stare. I was like, creepy twins. Let's move on from the twins. I was too tickled pink with the, you know, they were going to clone Naomi line and they suggested something smaller. I was laughing at that. I didn't really think about the creepiness of them standing there. I was very creeped out by them.

All right. We go to Mazadi. She's got an ant farm. Terranian ant colony. Terranian ant colony. Yes. And she talks about the queen that they're all drawn to the queen or something. And Janeway makes a comment about,

I thought we were trying to get away from the board or something. Yes. And it's in a cube. It's like in a Borg cube, even the ant farm. It's very, a lot of catch. I didn't even think about that. A lot of Borg imagery, Borg suggestive type of shapes. I get that.

Chacote Torres and Seven and Janeway comment on Naomi's project. Very cool little planet that we're looking at. And it's showing the geophysical and atmospheric conditions of her father's home planet. She's half guitarian. So it's Catarist that they're looking at. Or Catarist, however you want to pronounce it. Tomato tomato tomato. And it looks really cool.

I think it was a good idea. But of course, they move on to the... E. Chebs. Yes, the most intricate of all the science fair displays. And ECHB displays a high-resolution gravimetric sensor array, which will augment our ability to scan for the neutrino flux associated with wormholes. So it could help Voyager find a faster way home. Yeah.

Torres, your lady, says, ambitious. Janeway impressed. Seven says that he hopes to earn a permanent posting in astrometrics. And Janeway says that's not possible. Seven's confused. And then Janeway says we've made contact with his parents. Which I had no clue. I was like, what's going on here?

What's happening? I have to say, Seven's response seemed a little dramatic to me. And I was like, wait, did I miss something? Oh, because you felt she was getting. emotional? Yeah. Yeah. I felt like it seemed very out of character for seven. Okay. I'm going to say this. I feel like there's a huge time jump between the last time we saw these kids and now. I feel like they've been there for months is my feeling. And so she has a bond now. But you felt it was out of character that she would even be concerned. I was confused. I was confused with her character's response. And I was like,

wait, did I miss a whole episode where they super bonded somehow? Right. I don't. I think it's just a given. It's a given. Why does you even care? You because you have to. Clearly, I know you're missing scene. So yeah, why does she even care? I hear you. Make sense. Let's go to Astrometrics and Echab's now in there with a map. He's got on some fancy clothes. He's got on this like square. They're like it looks like a quilts. Yeah. It looks like squares off of a quilt. A quilt shirt. I was like, yeah, that's pretty stylish. It is. Like, we never get fancy clothes like that.

No, we just get horrible ill-fitting uniforms that. Yeah. So I was very impressed with his fancy, stylish clothes. Yeah, each square has these, like, intricate design. I didn't even notice that. Oh, I totally did. Good eye, probably. But he's working on this map, and seven comes in.

And she says, you've exceeded your lot of time. By an hour. By an hour you need to regenerate. Boy, he is super excited about a star forming in the orpice nebula. Seven says, you know, that nebula is out of sensor range. And Eechb comes up with, hey, I increase the resolution of the long range sensors. He's like a genius. He's a genius child right now.

And Seven is very impressed. And then Eichab, of course, ask, oh, what was it that you want to talk about? And she cannot bear to tell him the truth because she was already emotional in that earlier scene. So she's definitely bonded and she's connected to this character of Echab. So she just says, it's time for you to regenerate. That's her cop out. She can't say the real deal. She can't tell him.

And I'm going to say that in this close up, it's time for you to regenerate. Yeah. I noticed a different kind of filter on the camera. Interesting. And I will bring it up a few more times. I think that they were trying out a different filter for seven and for Janeway. but often for seven when it comes into the her close-up it gets very super glamour filter like her hair gets a little softer right

everything's just a little glowier which started from the pilot when Rick Colby was directing yeah and all those early first season one episodes when Kobe directed there was definitely glamour filter on it for sure yeah well I think they were trying some new filter and I recall when we made the show that at some point I remember Marvin was changing filter and trying some new things. And I think in this episode, they were trying something new for Jerry. Yeah.

And I noticed it. I noticed it. Well, if you noticed it, did you notice it good notice or bad notice? No, bad. Really? Yeah. Okay.

So what do you see? It was way too heavy. It was. Oh. And I was like, is it fuzzy on her? Is it fuzzy on her? It's soft and glowing.

Yeah. I was like, if they're going to switch to that filter every time they go for close up on her, why don't they do that on everybody? And they don't. No, they don't, right? They don't. Okay.

So it pulled you out a little bit. It totally did. I'm sorry. Too much filter. Yeah. TMF? Can we say that for now? Too much filter.

TMF. Yeah. Yes. Okay. We go to Janeway's quarters and seven wants the data that Janeway has on Echip's family to prepare him for reassimulation, she says. And Janeway responds, maybe we could refer to it as getting reacquainted with his family, which I thought was very funny.

That made me laugh. Exactly. I will say this. Kate in the beginning is reading a book. And this entire scene, she is so relaxed and just, you know, she's sprawled out. And it's just, it's kind of nice to see her not in the midst of battle trying to save the ship, you know, and to see her really calm. Yeah, she's very calm. She's reading this book, though.

And I will say, it's a big, thick book. It looks like an older, you know, antique sort of book. There's no title on the cover. or the spine. It's just decorated. So I was like, what is she reading that's so super secret? And then I thought,

oh, it must be confidential Starfleet manuals that only the captain can read. That's what it was. That would not be my answer. I would go with, she was reading a book that Michael Sullivan gave to her.

But why isn't there a title on the cover then? Because it just is so old that the title just wore off. You can't even. There should be a title on the cover. Every book has a title on the cover. There really should be. Or on the spine.

If you don't have it on the cover, if it's like one of those fancy library books, they put it on the spine somewhere. There was no title. It felt like a prop to me. It felt like, oh, we're going with the generic book that we're not going to name what it is. I stand corrected. You were right. It's a secret book.

It's only captain's right. That's why I had to find some logic of why there's no title. It's the confidential start. It's a confident. Yeah. It's a section 31 manual, basically. It's all about the secret. of Starfleet. Okay. So Janeway does say that she will transfer the files to astrometrics. And as

Seven starts to leave, Janeway asked how he took the news. How did ECHIP take the news of finding his parents? But from her reaction, it's very clear to Janeway that she knew that Seven did not say anything as of yet. And Seven asks for advice. And Janeway uses essentially a psychologist strategy of getting her to answer her own question by questioning her, you know, answering her question with a question until seven realizes, okay, well, this is what I'm going to do. And Janeway approves a good strategy. And we move to Cargo Bay, too. And Seven arrives to tell each of the news.

And he basically says, I don't even remember my parents. And Seven says that after her parents were assimilated, she never saw them again. And each of is darn lucky to have this second chance, this chance to see his parents. And he asked what will happen to the other board kids who depend on him, his leadership. Yeah, yeah. She says they will adapt. And Seven says that she's been studying Brunali culture. They are an agrarian society.

So they are probably vegan. They are capable of space travel. But most of their ships have been destroyed by the Borg, the numerous or multiple Borg attacks that have happened. And they're not warp capable. Their technology is very limited. So in this, you realize that like Echab, who was like science fair golden child, is not going to have any of that technology. The stuff that he loves is not going to be there. It's going to be farming and no spaceships that are warp capable.

That's what makes him ask, how will he be able to continue his studies? And Seven says she doesn't know. In that point, you can tell Echip is upset. So he just walks over to his alcove and starts to regenerate. But before he closes his eyes to regenerate, you see the redness on his skin kind of come up where he's angry. Like you can see. Oh, really? Yes.

There's actually a physical. reaction on the actor's face. Yeah, he's getting flushed. And that's a, you know, you can't make that up. You don't have makeup come in and just flush you. I mean, that's his real flushing. So I saw this. Yeah, so he did a good job there. I felt. Seven also has another dramatic emotional close up at the end, a little push in. And I think that fuzzy was back on. I got to watch this again now. I did not like it. All right. Did not like that filter. We are on the bridge and Kim detects that there are scattered enclaves on the northern continent. Tuvok says the evidence of residual gamma radiation shows that they have

suffered attacks by the Borg in the past decade. Seven says that there is a Borg trans-warp conduit, less than a light year away. So Janeway quickly tells Tupac to run continuous scans for the Borg. She also tells Tom to put Voyager in a synchronous orbit with the Brunali home planet. She tells Seven to go fetch E. Cheb. And do you have any comments on camera angle or anything in this scene? There is another close-up of seven at the end with that damn filter. Why? Oh, my gosh. It just, there wasn't a close-up of you with a filter or Tuvok or anybody else.

That's what, it just was like, why are we doing this? I don't understand it. Hey, if they were very different than most episodes. Okay, let me ask you, if they were to remaster this, could they essentially put in that sharpened it out? No, but put that, give us the same treatment. Could we get that? Yeah, they could definitely put a filter on everybody else's close-up,

but I don't know if they could take it off. Right, that's my point. So then just make everyone match her, and then you won't be so freaked out about it. I wouldn't be because then it would just be a, it would be a consistent rule. Oh, when we go into close-ups, it's a little, got a certain look to it.

Yeah. But it was only consistent with her, which felt strange. I mean, Janeway did get the same filter in this episode quite a few times, but not as consistently or heavy-handedly, I think, as I saw the same filter. Yeah. And I feel like it's a filter they were trying and they abandoned, because I don't remember this in the series. We'll see as we-

TMF, man, too much filter. TmF, unbelievable. We moved to Sick Bay, and there's a really nice little scene with Echip and the doctor. I love scans him. I love how he's scanning him slowly. Yeah. And he says, he says, you're in perfect health. You're in perfect health as he scans him very professional slowly.

stomach's feeling strange. Yes. And then he does a weird kind of loop-de-loop scan. He's like around his stomach. And he says, oh, yes, of course. You have butterflies. Yes. And Egypt's like, I mean, I've never assimilated butterflies.

Right. But just that scanning technique where he just does that with a flourish. It's almost like he never seen him do that. It's like a Harry Potter wand and he's doing a spell. And I'm like, what is happening here? You're right. He's never gone that quickly. But I thought it was.

It was very interesting and a very funny and cute choice by Bob to do that. Yeah, it was great. The doctor explains that he's nervous and he says it's natural for you to be nervous to meet your family. Echip talks back. He says, well, parents are irrelevant and the doctor tries to prove him wrong. And Echib even uses the argument the doctor doesn't even have parents. And finally, Seven sort of breaks the tension.

She arrives to escort Echib down to his home planet. I like when she walks in, she arrives and she says to the doctor, is he damaged? yeah that's that's borg that's borg talk i like borg speak yes and it's a nice little button on the scene when the doctor tells e cheb hey the butterflies will go away they will trust me brunali settlement tuvac janeway seven and echeb beam in and the settlement it looks like it's located on the outskirts of what was a very modern city in the distance and that city is in ruins it's just completely just rubble it's nice vis effects here i mean i i i felt like there was a lot of Dan Curry, you know,

Matt paintings by hand. Dan did a lot of that. And I feel like there was a lot of that, but it was really, it told a lot of story in these Viz effects of, yeah, they destroyed the blown out factories and buildings and they're down in this crater-like spot.

Yeah, it looked good. Rebuild. I couldn't figure out where they filmed this because none of us. So you don't think it's Vasquez rocks then? No. And there's like water flowing. There was a creek going. and it was all real, that stuff.

So I feel like it, to me, it was like... Disney Ranch? No, I think it was like the desert out in Lancaster, Palmdale. Okay. Something like that. All right. And we now meet the parents. Marks, I wrote down.

I was like, oh, my God, marks in this episode. Yeah, that was amazing. And he's doing his American accent. It was just very funny. It's so good. And just how young he looks, too. It's just like, hmm. vintage and

you know handsome Mark Sheppery and it's a very awkward even with that big ass thing in the middle of his nose is that's sticking out he still looks like a handsome Brunali guy

and you know it's a very awkward meeting that ends with each basically saying that he wants to return to Voyager and we cut over on the look of both of his parents' faces and they're just befuddled

they don't know what to say they're like what you're going to leave I did notice before we go to the briefing room You know, so it's this awkward, you know, meeting and there's an awkward question about Seven's name that, you know, oh, you, oh, yeah, your designation is a board name. Your designation is a board name. And she says, yes, I was, I was liberated like your son, like each of. And then the dad introduces, I didn't know if it was brothers or friends or whatever. Yeah. And he says, they're so excited to have you back. And why aren't they standing next to him? Exactly. I was like, why are they a. mile away, yelling, and then they go back to their conversation. I'm like, yeah, that doesn't seem that excited, but. Yeah, but maybe that's by design to show that there's a little bit of something amiss here. Something's off. You know, something's off. It's a little stepfordy. So we don't know.

We're now in the briefing room where we have Janeway 7. And curiously enough, there's a security dude also there. Yes, who is that? I don't know who that. I'm not sure who it was. I can't remember his name, but just still kind of weird that there's a, there's a armed security guard, basically. Oh, that's kind of watching over this meeting. I don't know why he was there. I feel like he escorted them from the transporter room. No, he was already standing there from what I saw. He was already in the room and they came in. Well, maybe he walked in first and I didn't see that, but it looked like he was there. And Lucan and Iife just walk in through the door from the bridge, which is, again, odd why they would come in that way. And so they ask where Ichab is.

Jainway says that it might be better if they talked first to help with Echib's transition. And Seven basically grills the Brunali couple. Oh, she's angry. She's like about Echip's special needs. Oh my gosh. Educational requirements. She's like, how are you going to care for Echab in terms of his regeneration needs? Like, what about that?

Yeah. And his education. Dad's like, we can teach him. We, you know. And then she talks about his safety, you know, that they should, you know, relocate and leave this planet. and you're too close to a board conduit. You know, he could get assimilated again.

She's so skeptical over his safety, whether they can ensure his safety. And Janeway is so not happy with Seven's big position. No, she orders her. You know, she's like, listen, just wait for me in my ready room now. And Janeway apologizes for Seven's brusque behavior and recommends that they stay on Voyager for a while to give each have a chance to get to know them in a familiar environment.

And she adds that Neelix will make sure that they are, during their Voyager, extended stay. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Now, in the ready room, Janeway is dressing down seven. She comes in mad. She's so mad. Yeah, very mad.

Seven argues that she's just concerned for Echib's well-being. That's it. So it escalates to the point where seven blurts out anyone who valids their own goals over the safety of their children is irresponsible. And Janeway comes back with, are we talking about Echab's parents or yours? Seven says both. So she admits to it. Janeway's impressed that she admits to this.

It's the first time she would ever do that. She's ever done that. So, you know, it's a tough scene here to see this tension here. It really is. Janeway basically says, you know, let's leave it up to him. He can decide if he wants to stay on Voyager or go back with his family. You know, that's not for us to decide. And so seven, seven agrees.

Yeah, she does. And we go to the Borg Alcoves next. Yeah, Congo Bay 2. Yeah, Cargo Bay 2. each up's working at a console Naomi's playing Catascott with Rebbe and Azon Azon, Azan

Mazadi's riding some kind of scooter around Echab as he's working on this at this console and did it have a noise? It sounded like it was a motorized little Yeah, there seems to be something going on Yeah, yeah. But she's just asking

questions. She's like, is your mother pretty? Yeah. What are they like? What are your parents like? Are you going to go with your parents if you leave like who's going to help us with their science project she's just bam bam bam question each other's just annoyed he's annoyed he's like stop asking questions or i'm going to put you in a cargo container and transport you back to the board nice he's uh he's had it with the little kids asking so many questions seven comes in yep and says they're going to go to dinner and he's like no and she goes your attendance is not optional hey we said that like the board just

yes we did we go to mess hall yeah and if a is coming out of the kitchen followed by nilix and they've got it looks like meat pies or something but it obviously is traditional ifei's been in there yeah it's brinaleigh fair it's brinali food exactly neelix helped her out seven in each up walk in yeah and seven says okay enjoy your meal and sends him over to his parents yeah and it's called poma is the name of this dish. Yeah, Poma. And it was each... Poma. Poma. And they say that this was

Egypt's favorite dish when he was young. Yeah. And he says, I'm not young anymore. Yeah. And he also says, I'm not hungry. He, you know, acts like a typical teenager. Exactly. And dad says, you know, your mother worked very hard on this. Please try it. And I thought, what about Nelix? Neelix worked very hard too. Yeah, Mom worked hard, but Nelix did too. Let's give

Neelix never gets any credit here. He doesn't, but we give him credit. We do. We do. But he does taste it. And you see like he tastes it and all of a sudden he remembers this flavor. Good job by Manu interraiming and selling that. He really did sell the fact that this was a homemade dish that he loved as a child.

You can see that across his face. Good job. And you see Neelix and Seven off in the background. Neelix says to Seven, you know, it's so nice to see the family back together again. But Seven does not seem happy. No. And just the way the background music was, it was definitely a very foreboding horror movie. Yeah, it was like, dun, dun, da.

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All right. Brnolly settlement. Looks like he's giving me a tour of the, you know, the facilities and showing you. It's like a greenhouse or something. Yeah, yeah. It's like where they're growing the plants or maybe the, you know, the base for all their farming that they're doing around. Yeah. Dad says that, you know, the Borg didn't leave them much to work with, but they have their ingenuity and they're going to make the best of what they've got.

And each of refers to some kind of machine in this greenhouse, some kind of computer-looking thing. And Lucan informs him that it's a genetic resequencer. Yeah. And they use that to genetically alter crops so they can thrive in certain environments that would normally kill them. And they built it from damaged parts from the damaged vessels that they didn't waste anything. And Echab's very impressed with this technology. Yeah.

Because obviously he's the science fair golden child. So he's excited. There is some technology here. There sure is. And I just want to pause and say, all right, let me step back for a minute about this episode. Yeah. I'll admit already. This was not one of my favorite episodes.

I'm going to admit it already. And I'm going to say that this technology is such a critical part of our story. It is. And it's blown by and never dealt with again. And I feel like in this kind of story where there's a big mystery turn, that I feel like there should be some clues for the audience to kind of go, hmm wait a minute that's weird or hmm that should i be suspicious about this and there was none of that really i felt like it just structurally was not built in a way to pay off i mean there are you know

there's this genetic resequencer machine and but echip just walks by it and then they blow by it and we don't deal with it anymore yeah for such a huge part of the the story later on so i don't That bothered you as well, for sure. I will say, at this point, I was starting to feel like, where's the rest of our crew? Like, why aren't we a part of this story? We're spending time with Echab and his family and people we haven't really gotten to know and don't really care about. And our crew's not doing very much as a crew. Yeah, because if you think about it, you are now revolving this entire episode around a recurring character.

Yeah. It's not one of the... Who hadn't even recurred much yet. Correct. Like, we had just met him. We barely, we don't really have a lot invested. And there's not a lot of empathy for the character as of yet, because we just met him. We really did.

And all of a sudden, now he gets, you know, this huge episode about him. I guess you could say this is really more a seven episode because it's about her dealing with the loss. It is. You know, her charge. But this is the only reason I step back at this scene was, This is where I started, it started to lose me. Okay. I'm like, I am, I'm not invested in this.

And we're following people that I, and I love Mark Shepard and Manu and they're great. But my rule is you've got to have the cast involved. Like everybody's got to have something to do. And we didn't. So this is where I started to kind of go, I don't think I'm going to like this one. Anyway, there we go. Well, noted. We have that for sure.

Thank you for giving us your opinion. Lucan basically says that someday they're going to have ships that rival Voyager, but we need young people like yourself to help us. Get to that point. And all of a sudden, evil, his brother, cousin, whoever it is, evil can evil, heels out, Echab, how are you? From a far, far, whatever it is, a promontory or whatever. And Echab's like, well, thank you.

And I'm thinking these people, they have the technology to have ships, but yet they have no comb badges whatsoever. It's just, you got to yell from a mile away. mile away. He invites him to play a game called Paula. And I thought, wow, everything in there. Is it Paula or Bala? Okay. If it's Bala, whatever. I thought it was Bala. It's like, oh, it's a ball. It's a sport with a ball. So let's call it Bala. It was not the most creative name from the writers. But if you remember, what was his favorite food? Pola. Poma. So Poma was the food. Bala was the, yeah, so everything ends in a. I'm surprised. His name is an Icheba. So, you know, it was a little bit, hey, you didn't think too much about this in terms of,

I was starting to get bored with this story. Well, I'm going to be the contrary opinion. I was not bored at this point. Okay. It didn't pull me out. I was still enjoying it. Echip says he doesn't remember how to play Paula. And evil says, oh, it'll come back to you, Bala.

He'll come back to you. And Lucan, his dad says, you know, you used to be quite an athlete. I mean, you can make a difference here, Echib. So he's based, everyone's basically super nice and trying to include him and make him feel at home. And you can see on Echip's face, he's starting to buy the story. You know, he's starting to buy the whole thing, hook, line, and sinker. He's into it. And then seven beams in.

Like, it's like she's been eavesdropping. Like, enough of this. The nanny arrives. Yeah, the nanny's here to take back her. Time to go back. You must leave. The babysitter must bring back the baby. and you know echip says no i'm going to stay here tonight and seven's like well there's no

regeneration unit yeah and lucon says well you know we're going to have to install one eventually might as well do it now and seven says well i'm i don't even know if he's decided to remain here yet and lucan says well he wants to stay tonight so seven says fine come back to the ship with me we will prepare a regeneration unit for echeb so now we're in cargo bay too big scene important scene between seven and Lucan. And they're, you know, she's talking about the, basically the technology that they have to make

regeneration units happen. She's putting together like a portable regeneration. Yeah, a little small one. Yeah, we just kind of whipped that up. Yeah, it's very easy. It's very easy. It's seven. She can do anything, remember? Exactly. Yes. And so Lucan starts going through the story

of how, you know, how difficult it was. And she's thank, you know, they're thankful for everything that, Voyager and Seven have done for their son and basically seven asked how how was he assimilated and Lucan says well you know my son heard me talking about this new fertilization array that we just constructed in this lower field he wanted to see it I told him we take him but he was impatient boys are like that and he just wandered off and guess what the alarm sounded and by time they got down to that field each have had been assimilated along with everyone else that was in that same

location in the field. And, you know, and you have a little bit of emotion coming out of Mark Shepard where he says, his voice breaks a little bit when he says, if only I'd kept a closer eye on him. He has a little bit of a frog in his throat there. So good job there on the part of Mark She says. Yeah. And so when she hears the story, she knows the parent, you know, he didn't abandon his son. Correct. It's just E. Chepp's curiosity. So she says, don't blame yourself. It's not your fault. Yeah. And then he asks, how were you with him? she says well it wasn't like echeb my parents were there when i was taken and and then his response is very emotional oh it must have been you know yeah and imagine what it was like for them

watching you get assimilated and being so helpless and then she begins to get emotional there she does you know so we see that this connection of each have's family and her feelings about her parents or just keep those buttons keep getting pushed most definitely So she's getting emotional. She changes the subject to regeneration. Yep. And she says that he'll need six uninterrupted hours of regeneration and that he's very, you know, impatient.

Echab's very impatient with these things. And she's had to deal with that. So he's going to have to insist that each of spend the six uninterrupted hours. And Leukon laughs kind of at how they both get teenage boys. Yes. exactly. Yeah, it's a nice scene. Mm-hmm. We're now on the Brunali home world back at Echib's home, and Leucon and Efe are basically just showing Echb the different constellations that you can see from the Brunali homeworld.

And talking about the orderless cluster, the great horn, and Efe says, well, you inherited the love of the stars from your father. So again, more bonding moments, more moments of like, look, look how sweet we are and how much we love you and look how smart you are and you're just like pops, you're into stars. But then, you know, she also, she's very smart. She says, our little window can't compare to Voyager's astrometrics lab. So kind of saying that, you know, that must be so much nicer. But Egypt is really coming

around. He's like, no, it doesn't, but it's still nice. So you can see he's really getting convinced at this point. And dad says, you know, Seven told me about your science project and they talk about the technology that each have invented how it detects wormholes that can get them home and she asked why do they want to go home so much and each up says it's their home because it's home so he's seeing the value you know seeing why they would want to go home because he's feeling it here being at home he's feeling this and just sense of family and home yeah and lucan has a great ending line here he says with all their technology

Their opportunity to explore the galaxy, the thing they want most is to get home. So now we see that even Voyager is similar to Echab, and that home is where they want to go. So he's trying to like get, you know, imprint this upon his son's mind that it's okay to go home. And we are now in astrometrics lab. Eichab says, good morning. And seven says, did you regenerate successfully? Chib says, yes. He slept under the stars.

he wants seven to try it out seven says he didn't make class in the morning and all the other bored kids sort of missed him and echip says he was helping his dad and he has something to discuss with seven and seven looking at eachib realizes that she knows he's decided to stay she knows yeah and so seven you know she feels it but she there's nothing she can do so she says well i'm sure you're going to want to say goodbye to the other children we jump over to the transporter room we don't even see the goodbye with the other kids. No, we skipped the goodbye with the other kids. We skipped the goodbye entirely.

We skipped the goodbye with the whole crew. Yeah, we don't need to see Harry or Tom or anybody else. No, no, yeah. Who are we anyway, right? So seven hands in my case and it's got pads in it and all types of data on these pads with subjects to allow him to keep studying. And she's also included a high-resolution telescope. It's not astrometric centers.

No, it's still something. And Echib's like, I'm going to use it every single day. Janeway's there. She says goodbye, good luck to Echub. Echip says, thank you. I hope you find a way home. So it's a nice parting goodbye shot and scene. All right.

Cargo Bay 2, Mazzotti steps out of her alcove. Yeah. And she's, you know, she hasn't finished the regeneration cycle. It's incomplete. No, the computer says, morning. Yeah. Regeneration cycle incomplete. Yes.

But she just. Yeah. Now, this is my problem with the scene. I don't understand. She walks over to seven, and all she does is simply tug her arm and seven just opens her eyes. And I'm like, wait a minute, you're deep in regeneration. Is that how, is it that easy to just sort of come out of it like that? Shouldn't there have been some background sounds of things going, yeah, but there was no blip blip.

We didn't even know that she kind of came out of that. So it was a little weird for me. She wakes her up. Yeah. She says she misses Ichab. She misses E. And Seven says, I do too. Yeah, so do I.

Yeah. And she says, but we will adapt. Yes. And she says, you've got to go back to your alcove. You've got to get on with your regeneration. And Mazadi says, I hope you don't find your parents, seven. And she starts to regenerate. And she asked Seven, what if the board try to re-assimilate each of?

Yeah, they assimilate each up again. Seven says, well, the Brunali don't have any resources or technology. They wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't be. interested. The board wouldn't be interested. Right. And Mazadi says, but what if he's on a ship? And, you know, so Masadi's asking questions again. Like you did with H. Seven says, no, it's not very likely. And Mazadi says, well, that's what happened last time. He was on a ship. Seven's like, no, no, no, you're mistaken. Yeah, he was on a surface. He was in a field by a fertilizer array. His dad told me. He wandered over there. His dad told me. And Mazadi's like, no. He's mistaken. He must be mistaken. He must be mistaken. He was on a surface. He was in a field by a fertilizer array. His dad told me. Mazzati's like, No. Mazzotti turns into like a little Borg, auto Borg mode. And she says,

a class one transport was detected in grid 649, one life form, species, Brunale. And now it's, and then she closes her eyes and goes to sleep. Yeah, that's it.

That's not creepy. No. No. Yeah. So there's a, there's a turn there. There's a turn. Here it is.

Parents were lying. We go to Astromatrix 7, studying all these Borg logs and Janeway comes in. Yeah. And this is, this is where Janeway is really, like, tired. Yeah. Isn't it, isn't it, 0,600 now? It's three in the morning.

Yes. But I, when I first are coming in with the coffee, I was like, oh, it must be like six in the morning or she just woke up. No, it's three in the morning. And she says, yeah, she says to seven, translate what's on the screen. I don't read, I don't read Borg. Yeah. And that's when she says, well, this better be important because to bring me out of 3 a.m. at

0300. seven says yes it is very important it's tactical data from the cube when the children were found and it proves that mazadi was telling the truth yeah the father was lying the father was lying each up was on a vessel when he was assimilated yeah jemway does ask why would he do that why would he lie seven says she doesn't know but we definitely have an obligation to find out so jemway asked what are you proposing seven says you know we got to return to the planet we have to find out. We have to ask for an explanation. Why were these lies thrown out at us? So, you know, Janeway feels like, you know, I don't know. I mean, do we need to interrogate these people?

I mean, they've already been through it. It's his family. Yeah. Seven's very skeptical. She insists that he might be in danger and we have to protect him. Yep. She feels like, like if she doesn't protect Egypt, she's going to be like her parents. Yeah. She basically says you know and that's when this whole yeah haunting of her parents like her resentment her anger her right her blaming her parents is coming out she doesn't want to do that to each up and by the way there is a glamour filter party going on at this point bam bam bam bam every close up has the glamour filter to you do you think from that very first scene where you said it was surprising and uncharacteristic to see seven get emotional and that

very opening scene. Maybe it's from the whole issue with her parents again that, you know, has been affected. That's what it is. Yeah. I'm sure it is. Yeah. I'm sure it is, but it just didn't feel set up properly to me. I just was like, what did I miss? Like, I think the writers had a lot of conversations about it, but like, yeah, we're not all in the writer's room to hear their logic. So they need to put it in the script so that we experience it. We see the bonding or we see why she would care. I hear you. So, uh, anyway. So we're back at ECHIP's home. Clammer filter party. Clammer filter party everywhere. And then we go to Echubs family. Yes. Yes. T.MF too much filter. And then, then we have the scene at the Bernali home world in Echip's home. And it's a conversation

between Leukon and Efe. And this was a little bit of a turn for me because I always felt that it was his dad. It was Leukon. That was the worst offender. But yet, you know, in this conversation, Lucan's the one that says, couldn't we at least wait a few days, you know? And then now you're thinking, okay, what's about to happen? She's like, nope. If we wait, it's only going to be harder. Yep. And Lucan's actually arguing for Ichev at this point.

And that shocked me. I had no clue that it was IFA that was the one who's really going to push this through. And we realize that he's not an ordinary child. And we get kind of a, they're kind of beating around the bush. We're not exactly sure what's going on. I'm talking about, honestly. You know, why is he not a special child, not a normal, ordinary child? He's like, we got to do this.

And he goes, no, you know, he's bright. He's hardworking. Maybe he could help us in another way. We don't have to do it this way. And you're like, what way? What are you? She says, he was born for this. Yeah.

So you're like, wait, what? What? It's just. And the dad's like, I don't want to lose him again. Yeah. So you're starting to connect like he was assimilated because of something they're doing, but we don't know. It's confusing.

Then each ep comes in. But when he comes in, this is, this is, I would have directed this differently. I would have had him run in, not walk in, and I would have had him much more excited and much more animated because he's no longer bored. Yeah, out of breath. And like, oh my God, we won three games in a row. I would have had that. But instead, he became in still very Borg-like because it would have been even more

devastating to see how he's now opening up. He's now less Borg-like. He's super stoked about winning these three games. So I would have liked to have seen a little bit more emotion from each other. Yeah, it was an odd scene. It felt like we just covered a lot of story in one scene. Like we realized that the parents aren't who we thought they were. We, you know, he runs in.

He's bonded more with everybody's playing sports with them. Yeah. And then all of a sudden they sort of grab him. They ask, tell him to sit down. Yeah. And they sort of, they start talking weird with him. Yeah. You're really important.

He goes, I know what's going on. And then they've got this, you know, syringe or hypostone. spray kind of syringe thing. And Ifei says, if you relax, it won't hurt you. And he's like, you better hold him. Yeah, and dad grabs him and they, and he screams no as they shoot him in the neck with this device and he slumps over. He's unconscious.

And then Ifei says to Lukan, prepare the launch. So they're sending him back out there. we go to space there's a little orbit around the planet and we're going on the bridge and janeway says hail them seven's there as well the bridge crews all there hail them and lucan appears on the screen and i was like wait a minute they don't have any technology they've got view strings in their house like what are you talking about we could just hail them yeah there's uh you know they've got all that technology hidden in their house that's what it is you're right Janeway wants to ask them a few questions on this non-technology view screen

they happen to have in their house. And he says, questions, what are you talking about? And Janeway is like regarding each of in the circumstances of his assimilation. And Seven explains, you know, what they think, you know. Well, he says that, yeah, she says your story is inconsistent with our data, what we know. And Ife gets a little guarded. She's like, we don't know you any. explanations. And Janeway's like, well, that's fine. So let's just talk to Ichab.

Yeah, let's talk to him. Lucan's like, he's not here. Seven's like, huh? Where, what? Where is he? What do you mean? He's not there. And Janeway says, Tuvok scan for him. Yeah. He says, he's not there. He's not in the settlement. No, no life signs of each up there. Seven does a scan and says he's on a Brunali transport ship. Yeah. He's out in space on a ship headed for the Borg transwarp. Connors. to it. That's right. Just like before, just like Mazadi Sen. Yes. And Chikote adds that according to these readings, the ship is traveling at warp 9.8.

And you say it only looks that way. It's been designed to emit a false warp signature, strong enough to penetrate subspace. And Seven goes, oh my goodness, they are using it as bait to attract the Borg. Janeway says, Echip's on that vessel, isn't he? And the Efei says, well, yes, he's fighting for his people. And Seven says, what? Unarmed on a transport? How's that possible? And then Efe says, no, we use our children for, and we use our genetic expertise and our children together. And Janeway realizes what's going on. He's the weapon. Yeah, Janeway says he's not bait. He's a weapon. Yeah, because the first cube. First cube he captured him was infected by a pathogen.

Echib was the carrier, wasn't he was the carrier? He was the pathogen. And that's just, you know, this is a scene which made me start to think like, my gosh, to use children as the way to,

you know, get to, I mean, I would have, I would have got, I would have taken somebody from the Brunali settlement that's 102 on their last leg of life.

And infect them. Put the pathogen in them. Why are you taking your children and putting the pathogen in there? You could have used somebody who's on their deathbed or the terminal illness. Why couldn't you just put a test tube of the pathogen that when the board come in? Exactly. Why do you have to sacrifice people if you can just create these genetic mutations or whatever pathogens? Put it in a test tube, a petri dish.

And then how, why didn't the Borg initially detect that, the cube that did take him the first time? wouldn't they have scanned all the people before they assimilated them? And wouldn't they have seen, oh, he's got a pathogen in him? Like, I just don't see how they, that got by the Borg. I feel like they're very, very thorough in their research. And when they look into what's going on, when they're about to simulate somebody, they scan everybody. They should know this.

But we do find out the Borg Cube is about to emerge from the wormhole. Janeway ends the transmission and goes to Red Alert, battle station she says it was by the way it was a very fast red alert she's like before she got the alert before the uh okay so red on red dot it came out right

it was already turning red the computer that does this I guess is super fast it knows what she's about to stay or it was Coop back there flipping the lights too quickly exactly just a little ahead maybe we go to space Voyagers flying along back on the bridge

moments later we're heading for the transport at maximum warp Harry says that Icheb is aboard and unconscious he sees Janeway orders him to be transported

directly into sickbay but 7 says there's too much interference I can't get a lock on it yeah it's the conduit and he says the Borg vessel is going to emerge in less than 40 seconds Janeway says transfer auxiliary power to the transporter 7 says she still can't establish a lock, not at this distance.

Tuvok then gives us another countdown at 30 seconds. Janeway orders Tom to get us closer to that ship. Tom gives his signature, yes, ma'am. And Tuvok says the conduit's opening, 20 seconds. Janeway's going seven, come on. Seven's like, still out of range. So back and forth, back and forth until the very last second we do finally get a lock on him. Beam him the sick bay, she says.

And then, of course, she quickly says, Mr. Parris, get ready, get ready to go to warp. And we end up getting tractor-beamed with the other vessel. Just before we can go to war. The green tractor beam grabs us both and we're getting pulled in. And this is where shaky cam starts here, by the way. Was it shaky glam cam? Shaky glam cam? I don't know if there were filters at this point.

Okay, all right. But we used to put, if it was like a big shake from a, you know, a photon, torpedo or something. Yeah. They'd just do it with their hands, the camera operators. But if it was a long protracted, like a tractor beam or something,

they had a thing image. They had like a motor. Yeah. They stuck onto the camera. Yeah. It was like a vibration motor. And it would spin and make the whole cameras have this very consistent looking.

I mean, it looks very realistic. I mean, if it's a consistent tractor beam that's getting us, then it should stay like that. It shouldn't be jerky, right? It should be like one consistent.

kind of movement and I think this was there was a lot of heavy duty was there a name for that Robbie that device they used it was just something that that Marvin came up with that you know they must have found something and adapted it for this purpose it was some kind of offset motor that would that would shake depending on how much yeah I don't know I don't know if it was made for film and television or if it was something they adapted but I remember that and you could definitely see it And not only could you see it, you could hear it, too. That thing was loud. I remember we could all hear that while we were filming.

So we do fire. We fire to sort of like try to stop this tractor beam. It doesn't work. And it's seven that comes up with this really cool way of defeating the Borg at this instance. She says, you know, there is a way to get a weapon through their shields. And Jane was like, I'm all ears. And seven says, transport a photon torpedo into the Brnolly vessel, set it to detonate as it gets into the sphere. so a sort of delayed reaction torpedo and Tuvok says okay these are the times that we have seconds left

and Janeway says full reverse thrusters and Janeway does transport this photon torpedo into the Brinale's ship we've got a five four three two countdown and on one Janeway he says now Mr. Paris and of course we see explosion inside the Borg sphere it's not completely blown up but it's definitely damaged yeah Tuvok says the Borg are damaged and they are not pursuing. Right. So we've got Echab back. We got away from the Borg. Close call.

We go out to space. We're at warp again. And some time past we go into sickbay. And Echab lies unconscious. The doctor is scanning him. Janeway and seven are watching. Doc says he does indeed have this pathogen. But his parents didn't infect him with it.

He produces it himself. because he was genetically engineered from birth. Which is even more amazing that that happens. It's just, it's constantly being produced in his body. And it doesn't mess him up. He stays alive, right? It just emits this acid pathogen. It affects everything around it.

So if he was genetically engineered, he's the Bernali. He's the reason that that board cube, everybody died. Yeah. Why didn't the other kids die? Because they were in their maturation chambers. They were protected. Yeah. but he's still producing it.

Like, why doesn't everybody else that's true? How can this, if he was genetically engineered and this pathogen is so powerful, it kills Bore, unless it's just specific to Borg, I don't know. Or maybe, maybe, maybe whatever he produced to destroy that cube, it had to regenerate inside his body to produce more. Like there was a dormant period, you know, where it doesn't give off anything for a while. I guess, but even if. If he's producing a pathogen that is powerful enough to kill Borg,

I don't understand why it doesn't kill everybody. And second of all, if it's powerful enough to kill Borg, these kids were becoming Borg. They would eventually be killed by this. In fact, he was becoming Borg. Like this pathogen would have killed himself once he had turned into Borg. If it was specifically a pathogen for Borg. Very complicated.

It is. Very, very complicated. Let's just put a filter on it. I put a filter on it. It'll be fine. You see everyone, you see why I love Robbie so much, why he makes me laugh every single day

that I talk and interact with him. It's just comments like these that just put a smile on my face. Okay. Oh, yeah, Janeway does say he's going to need help coming to terms with what's happened, especially with those parents. And seven basically says,

you know, she starts to say something. And Janeway says, use your maternal instincts. They weren't before. Yeah. This is new too. When did I,

what did I miss that then all of a sudden is the most maternal person what season did that happen in because I missed it you know what it is the minute you have glam filter you get maternal instincts as well

I guess that comes with it the soft lens means soft heart warm heart for children that's what it was that's why they did there you go go to astrmetrics

each up studying genetics now yeah and he's got another square quilted print shirt. Really? Like a new one? A whole new one? Or it's just the... No, it's not the same one. All right. How come he gets multiple cool style of shirts? Because clearly he left the other one down on the Brunali home planet.

So he had to get a new one. That's important. All right. He's there with his cool shirt. Seven comes in. She says, why aren't you studying spatial harmonics? Yeah. And he says, well, my parents told me that he might, that I might have an aptitude for genetics. So now he's doing genetics. Yeah. He's a genius.

What have you learned? And he says, well, I'm comparing my genome to that of an ordinary Brinale male and see they're different. He talks about the third, the 13th, 17th chromosomes are adjusted. That's what makes this thing, this pathogen so specific to him. He said it's really ingenious what they did. and he almost sides with them in a way because he does say do you think they will ever forgive me is what he says and seven says for what he goes I could have destroyed the sphere I failed them I failed my parents and then seven says you would have been reassimilated and Egypt's like I know but and seven's like but what he was like maybe it was my destiny my destiny to take the board out yeah and seven says you know no it's it's there is no, that isn't your destiny. I mean, you basically choose. You're an individual. You have the right to determine your destiny. Yeah. It's not. You may choose in the future to fight them, but, but you're an

individual. You have the choice. And so, yeah, that's your right to decide, not your parents' right to decide. Yeah. She says, time to regenerate. Time to sleep. And he says, if I prefer to continue studying, and she says, it's your decision. So it's, you're an individual. You can choose. And that's the end of the episode. We're done right there. Do you have a lesson for me? What did you feel? What did you get out of this?

And stop thinking about filter. Don't think about filter right now. What is the lesson that you got out of this? I think the lesson came in that very last scene. Everyone should have the freedom to make choices for themselves. And everyone makes through and everyone can create their own future. Whatever future you can envision for yourself, you can create it. We don't live in a caste system, or at least most of us don't.

I know there are some countries that may still have caste system ties. But for the most part, if you can envision it, you can create it. That's my lesson. Okay. I like it. And don't use kids as weapons. No, do not use kids as weapons. And be careful with glamour filters.

Don't overdo the glamour filter in your life. You know, too much. You don't want to be too glamorous. It's always in moderation. Glamour filter in moderation is key. That's another good lesson. Yeah. What is your rating?

What are you going to, I know you're not going to give it a really good one, but, you know, I almost don't want to say. Oh, no. I mean, this one for me, I, that was like, there was so much character inconsistency. I was like, like I kept saying, I feel like I missed something because it made no sense to me. All right. The crew was not involved. My rule of, like, having all of us involved. The story was not if it was a mystery thriller, it was not structured in a way that felt clear or compelling.

So I'm doing, I'll jump to my rating. four four out of ten i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna stand by oh it's not my favorite episode i was i hear you no i did not it's clear this is the lowest rating you've ever given on the delta flyers i've never heard you go any lower than then well yeah this is the lowest clearly okay i'm gonna give i'm gonna give it a much better rating than you and that's because i did like this episode and i'm giving a little higher higher rating because mark shepherd is one handsome devil 8.1. 8.1 from me. Yes. Oh, yes. Wow. I'm going to double you. I'm going to go. I'm more than double. I want 8.1. Double is just 8.1. I want 0.1. I went that. Wait. And I want to say the

admirals and captains, my guess is they're going to give this a 7.3. Okay. Okay. I'm sticking by my four. Sure. The admiral and captain's average rating for child's play is. seven point four what the did you hear what i said i said seven point four oh i thought you said seven point three no oh did i say three i don't know i thought i said seven point four i was really close oh yeah it's a good call i'd stick by my four this is not i don't like this episode i know you don't and i do so there you go i'm okay with it and they liked it more than me they did on average but I bet there were some other fours in there. Yeah, but also, if the average is seven point,

you know there's some eights and possibly nines. Yeah, probably. Yeah, it is what it is. It is what it is. All right, what's next week? Yeah, next week we're going to be reviewing the episode Good Shepherd. So thank you to everyone. Mark Sheppard.

Yes, so we go from Mark Shepherd to Good Shepherd. Thank you for everyone for tuning into this week's episode. Join Robbie and I when we recap and discuss the sequel to Mark Shepard, Good Shepherd. next week. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. Thank you.