The Delta Flyers - Civil Defense

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell & Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This week’s episode, Civil Defense, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, & Armin Shimerman.Civil Defense: O'Brien and Jake accidentally activate an automated multi-level security program, and each phase brings the station closer to destruction.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers Megan Elise & 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, Tom Paynter, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Lisa Robinson, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Roxane Ray, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Tim Neumark, Randy Hawke, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Izzy Jaffer, Jan Hanford, Francesca Garibaldi, Thomas Irvin, Jonathan Capps, & Sean T.Our Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Mary Burch, Sandra Stengel, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Tae Phoenix, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Danie Crofoot, Steve Lugo, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Andrew Cano, Kevin Harlow, Hailey L., & Mariette KarrAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Trip Lives, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Fillmon, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Vikki Williams, Cindy Ring, Alicia Kulp, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Shanyn Behn, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Justin Weir, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Crystal Powell, Rachel Shapiro, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Annie Davey, Mark Lacey, Jeremy Gaskin, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Carmen Puente, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Robert Allen Stifflerf, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, Ryan Mahieu, Karen Galleski, Zackery Voss, Jeremy Conoley-Mayes, Loretta Reyes, Timothy McMichens, Dawn Colleen Smith, Cassandra Girard, Andrea Wilson, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, & Douglas Lawrence-Plant, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, & Oscar FernandezThank 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 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

Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers journey through the wormhole with Cork, 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, Arm and Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong. Hi. Hi, everybody. For the complete and exciting and amazing and extra special version of this podcast, check us out at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. Sign up to become a patron today, and you can get tons and tons of amazing bonus material.

Welcome, everybody. Welcome. And I just have to ask Garrett to do the Delta Flyers sign again. Yeah, he's got a Delta Flyers sign again. flyers journey through the wormhole, which was Hawaiian to you before, which it is kind of like a Hawaiian move. It is. But I will say, gentlemen, that was when you guys all went, hi, it just reminded me I was on a

flight. This lady took her three-year-old daughter to the washroom in the front of the plane. And as they're walking back, this little girl had to do this to every row. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. She was just walking down saying hi to each person on every aisle seat.

And the mom was like, okay, okay, you don't, okay, Lindsay, you don't have to say hi to every single one of them. And she just kept going. Yeah, so that was like our highs in the beginning. You know what it reminded me of when Armin said hi and then I said hi. When I was a kid, I used to love the original Mickey Mouse Club. When they would introduce them, hi, I'm Bobby or I'm, yeah, felt like we were doing a Mickey Mouse Club intro. I saw a play yesterday. It's called Carvas, where Disney was the lead character that,

And these two actors, Leo Marks and Ann Noble, extraordinary acting. I've seen lots of Broadway shows. I've seen lots of major regional theater. I've never seen acting like I saw yesterday. And Leo played Disney, and it was incredible. And is it a, it's a new play? It's a new play, and it's at the Victory Theater. And if anyone's, I think they're probably closed by now.

But it, extraordinary performance. It's a level of performance that all of us would try to strive for. Wow. That's a very impressive recommendation. Wow. When you mentioned Disney, it's called crevasse. Cravasse. And it's written by a man named Tom Jacobson, I believe I have been incorrect.

And this was a very intellectual. That's about what's the German filmmaker, the Nazi filmmaker, Lina. Rivenstock. that's it yeah Lenny Riefenstahl Lenny Riefenstahl yeah so that was the female

all of them played several parts but she that was the aunt played that brilliantly and Leo played Disney brilliantly wow and I wouldn't rave about this

except I've never seen acting like that wow I know I want to go see this and it's closed well it's not closed now but by now it's closed because we're so far January

the fourth, it'll be closed. And the lady who runs the theater, she and I went to college together. But she's, it's her theater, but I believe it's a rental. And it's extraordinary. Two character play, where they play several characters.

And, oh my God, a gobsmacked by that. What's the name of it again? Cravas. Cravas. It's very heady and very moving and very surprising. All right, it's time to say

happy birthday to some people. So let's start off with Jenna Appleton. Jenna Appleton, birthday, December 31st, is your birthday. Happy turn of the year and your birthday. Yes, happy, Happy New Year's Eve and happy birthday. Exactly. We also have Rebecca Leary on January 1st.

Happy New Year's to Rebecca and happy birthday, Rebecca. Turning a new leaf, Rebecca. Happy birthday. Happy birthday, Rebecca, January 1st. Also on January 2nd, we have Francesca Garibaldi. Happy birthday, Francesca. Happy birthday, Francesca. many happy returns.

Happy birthday, Francesca. We also have Mike Gou on January 4th. Happy birthday, Mike. Happy birthday, Mike. Happy birthday, Mike. And finally, we have Mickey T. The next day after Mike Gou on January 5th. Happy birthday, Mickey.

Happy birthday, Mickey. Happy birthday, Mickey. All right, it's time for our poetry synopsis, starting with Robbie's Limerick. Can't wait. Here we go, my poetry synopsis for Civil Defense. A Cardassian alert is a surprise. It looks like the whole station's about to vaporize. With a complicated scheme, they all work as a team.

In the end, it's okay. No one dies. Nice. I beg to differ. Some people did. Oh, yes. The red shirt. on the bridge. Oh, that one guy.

That's enough. Oh, he got vaporized too. No, Robbie, you should have changed it. In the end, it's okay. One guy dies. That's what you should have said. Only one guy dies. One guy dies.

It's okay. Only one guy dies. You know, when we were airing, when we were airing, we got a horrible award as the most, the most lethal show on TV. They said more people died on our show than any other program on television. fishing. Really? Wow. Oh, man. Star Trek is always blowing up planets. Planets. Ships and planets.

Yeah, but DS9 takes the cake on that one. More than Voyager and TNG and everyone else. Yeah. And there's one scene where I go, really? Really? You're going to risk all those people's lives? Okay. Okay. Here's my haiku. Or worker revolt. Ducotte arrives once to deal Cisco

Saves them all Nice Very nice Doesn't he always save them all Doesn't he always? He does What kind of etymology do you have for us today, Armine? Well, I looked up the word civil

Which is interesting to me Because it's from the Latin This isn't from the old French But from the Latin Civillus and if it means of or pertaining to citizens it has there are dozens of variations of definitions listed in the Oxford English Dictionary about civil I've written down a couple of or belonging to citizens constituting consisting of citizens of men dwelling together in a community as in civil

society another definition is civil educated well-bred refined polished, polite. And I want to talk about that later. And another one I have is polite or courteous in behavior to others, the ordinary minimum standard of courtesy. All of those, I think, apply to this episode. Yeah. Yeah, the Kardashians were not very courteous to the people they gave this place to.

No. No. Not very civil at all. No. And there's a Shakespearean joke where Shakespeare, because it's probably pronounced the same way civil is pronounced the same way

as Seville, which is a city in Spain. Oh, right, right, right, right. As something as a Seville Orange, one of the characters is. Oh, funny. Who worked on this episode, Garrett? No, just looking at like

it's a definition of civil defense. Civil defense or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state, from human-made and natural disasters. That's just something that just popped up when I was... This isn't human-made, but it's Cardassian-made. Yes. Yes, it is.

It is Ducat-Made. It is Ducat. I will, before we get into credits, I'm just going to give a full disclosure here. What are you going to do? Well? This is so far my least favorite episode of your show. What the?

Yes. Really? Yes. And I'm not going to whine about it the whole time. I just want to get that out there. So I don't feel like I'm holding on to a secret. Well, now I feel like you just gave a spoiler on your own opinion in a way. Why are you telling us this now? Well, I want to, because I think it's important. Because as we go through my, yeah, my thoughts were just like, wow. All right. Can I just read this little tidbit. This episode had an extremely difficult gestation, according. to Iris Stephen Bear, it was one of those back-breaking, horrible, horrible experiences, although he does acknowledge that it was terrific at the end. The original pitch was by Mike Crone and was intended as a bottle show, and while the basic man-against machine element of the plot was fine, the problem, according to Ron Moore,

was in trying to find a way to make the jeopardy intriguing, to find the inner story, By the time of production, virtually every writer on the staff had had a go at the script. So this is one of those... It felt that way to me. Yes, it felt all over the place.

But every single draft was rejected by Michael Pillar. According to Bear, Pillar called him at 8 a.m. on a Monday morning to tell him, I hate to say this, Ira, but I'm not buying any of it. It's not working. I'm with Michael.

Okay. In the end, after much work the staff finally got together a script which Pillar approved and the episode was greenlit but even then there were more problems according to Bayer the writing process turned out as painful and disgusting

as we thought it would be however he does acknowledge that in the end it turned out solid with some nice twist and some great stuff for Garrick and Descartes and the paired up teams so there's already issues right off the bat I can feel it I'm not surprised Yeah. And from the performance level, I had some real problems with it.

It was hard for me to even kind of evaluate that because I was not buying a lot of the jeopardy that was going on. It just seemed arbitrary sometimes and not well explained and seemed like there were ways around it. I don't know. Okay. This one was tough for me. All right. But now that we know that, that's difficult for you, I wanted to give the flip side of the coin. this is a positive, this is a positive take on this episode.

Boyan Kim, who is a writer that, when Aaron Eisenberg and I had a podcast together, we interviewed her for Alpha Quadrant. Bo Yon Kim is a writer on Discovery. And Bo Yon said, there's always that one episode where everything just clicks for you. The one that makes you realize when you're helplessly in love with a show, this was that episode for me with DS9. It had a wonderful balance of action and. comedy vaguely disguised as a bottle show, for which I have a great affinity, through which somehow every character was given an opportunity to shine. It also brilliantly utilized

the space station and its notorious history as a Cardassian station, creating quite literally a ticking time bomb. So that's one person who loves this show. Yeah, I've heard, anecdotally, that the fans really love this episode, that it's a very popular episode. That it's a very popular episode actually but I just I didn't quite connect with it that way so understood yeah understood so it may explain this the problem that you said that Ira and Michael had with it may explain why I have this script what that ends at Act 3 and it goes no further so that's explained to everybody that's script you found of this episode yes it's the original script I got as an actor right show for Civil

defense and and it only goes to act three this never happens we always get all five acts but this script only goes to act three wow um and and maybe because they were still working on it even as they were handing the scripts out to the actors yeah that's what i think happened yeah all right well this was written by mike crone directed by resa badi and here's a quick comment from David Livingston who said, cool episode. And poor Reza had no time to prep, no prep time. Because they hadn't written it. Nothing written. Can you imagine that, Rob? Just explain to people how difficult that is. If you're coming in. It's very difficult. I will use a sidebar to explain it. I did a show called Medium years ago. I remember that show. And yeah, very popular show,

good show. And when I came in, actually, Renei Achevaria was on the staff of Medium, and I had known him peripherally because of Star Trek. And he pulled me in his office on my first day of prep, and he said, let me just explain how this show works. And I think Renee wrote my script technically, I think. He goes, we write a script, and then we hand it to the showrunner, Glenn Gordon-Karon, was his name, very famous showrunner who created Moonlighting. He said, we give it to Glenn, and then we won't really hear anything until maybe the day before you start shooting, where he'll start sending out pages. He said, so don't fall in love with the script that you've got in your hand because it's going to

change. And he was absolutely right. The night before we started filming, we got complete rewrites for the next day's work on stage, and then that pattern continued through the entire shoot. we would get pages either the night before for the morning's work. Sometimes we'd be shooting in the morning. I remember once we were shooting on stage in the morning, we got pages for the afternoon. He had written a scene in a coffee shop cafe, you know, sidewalk cafe.

We literally went to the scenic department and got some tables and chairs, set them outside of the stage office doors and created this thing for the afternoon's work because the scene wasn't written until 11 a.m. so it does happen it's it's painful it's not fair to all the other departments that contribute that you know they can't do their best work locations and art department and costume department and acting and it takes a little time to memorize lines patricia arquette on that show who had most of the work was just beside herself beside herself sometimes but yeah it happens rarely on star

our show Voyager they were really good about getting scripts out i think at least in time for us to prepare the story and you know and absorb it a little bit but um yeah some shows are really bad this sounds like this was that situation yeah you know i didn't know that you directed that series how was she to work with patricia she was awesome she was awesome and the actor that played her husband, Jake Weber. Jake Weber had gone to acting school a couple, two, two years behind me. So I had met him briefly a little bit at acting school. So I knew Jake.

Yeah. It was fine. I did a 3D episode of that show. So all of her visions, she was a medium was the concept. Right. And she would have these visions of solving crimes. And in this episode, her visions, were shot in 3D and you had to put on glasses and they gave them out at 7-Elevens or something.

And so there was a lot to prep and not getting our pages when you're shooting 3D elements, special, you know, a sweeps episode, I think it was. It was a big episode for them. And yeah, we got pages the day of. In the middle of shooting, you're getting all new scenes. Yeah, crazy. I had first seen Patricia Arquette in that film, True Romance, 1993, with Christian Slater, fell in love with that character, played by her.

And during, I don't know if you remember this, but during the filming of Voyager, I crashed my car. Do you remember this? My M3 was in the shop. Vagely. Okay. Well, I got into this massive accident because I saw who I thought was her. Yes, literally. And I was like, I'm going to go and, I'm going to go and.

turn around. So I got, I was getting in the left turn lane. This other car came right in just not, yeah, the bejesus out of me right there. So Patricia Archerkin was the reason why, yeah, almost, I almost died. So, because I thought I saw her and, well, the, someone that looked like her character from the movie, basically. It wasn't, it wasn't her. I was like, I'm going to go see who that is and I'm going to get over that. And then, yeah. That was a great film. It was a good film. This director, Reza, Reza. Yeah. Reza. Yeah. I'm going to say Reza. Yeah. All right. All right. So Reza. Reza. Reza. Yeah. So Reza. Yes. Andrew Robinson is Garrick, of course. Mark Alamo is Golda Kott. Denny Goldring is Kell. That's Leggett Kel. That would be that final

video, automated video, basically. Danny Goldring also appeared as Chief Burke and DS9 Nor the Battle to the Strong, a future episode. As Carr in Voyager, the killing game and the killing game part two, Robbie. We've worked with Danny Goldring. And also as the Nossican captain at Enterprise episode, fortunate son, and also as the Takrit Captain Enterprise episode, The Cat Walk. And Goldring guest starred in The Evisible Man in 2001 with Armin. I want to say something about Star Trek and what you just said, which is that one of the things Star Trek did that no other show did, at least in my career or time in Hollywood, is that they would hire an actor to play different parts. it didn't matter in most shows if you've played a part no matter how big or how small it is

for the most part you don't get hired again unless that character comes back they just know we've already used him or her we're not going to use them again star trek allowed actors to play multiple roles and i am one of the the crowd people who had that opportunity i went from a small role as a prop, a talking prop in my first appearance on Next Generation and then two weeks later two weeks later

was asked to play a totally different role of the first Ferengi. That's amazing. So thank you Star Trek for having that policy. Yeah, very rare. Most shows, you're absolutely right. One and done, you know.

Armand, what is this Invisible Man project that you did? It was a series, and I, that was, I think it lasted for maybe two seasons, maybe three, I can't remember, shot in San Diego. I played a villain who was the nemesis for the Invisible Man. Who played The Invisible Man? His name was not. Household name, no. It wasn't a household name.

Vincent was the actor's first name. And I don't remember his last name on. I should. He was very nice. The set was very, very nice. And I had a lot of makeup, not prosthetic makeup, but regular. But a lot of, because I was slightly grotesque. Oh.

I think that's why they hired me. And I was blind. So I had to wear, I had to wear white contact lenses. And I think I did about three or four episodes. I got to say, I have no recollection of this series whatsoever. So I thought it was a feature film. Robbie, do you remember this? No.

The one I did was a TV series. I remember the TV series because I auditioned for it or maybe got an episode and then couldn't do it or something. I do remember. On Star Trek, we weren't allowed to say anything that wasn't on the page. It was, if you didn't get it right, you had to do it over. That's right. These guys ad-libbed all the time.

And the first episode I did, I was in a chair tied to a chair with my arms, tied behind my back. And Paul went off on some bizarre thing about, I can't remember, some Italian cooking. And he went on for like two minutes and finally the director yelled cut. And he said, whose line is it? I said, it's mine, but I don't know how I say my line

after what he just said. After what you just. That's funny. You're like, I come from Star Trek production. We don't do this. We don't do this at all. That's great. And many times on that show, I either would be part of just an ad lib session or I would

sometimes watch the show and I go, that's an adlet. That wasn't written. And it wasn't just a word or two. It was a speech. It was two speeches. It was three speech. And because Paul started it, Vincent started to do it too, the writers must have been pulling their hair out.

Oh, funny. That'd be interesting if you do a show where everything is ad-led where you just ad-led the entire thing. Whose line is it anyway? Isn't that an ad-lid show? I love that show. Yeah.

I love it. Yeah. All right. All right. Shall we jump into this one? Let's jump into the story. So we start off in this ore processing unit. Two stories high, big shoot

running down the middle of the room. I love this big set. It was beautiful. Do you recall where that might have been filmed, Armie? No. No. I wondered if they, repurposed like the

Bajoran temple or something? No, I think I don't think so because it was two stories. I think it might have had to have been on our extra stage. The one you had to walk to.

The planet hell stage. Yeah. Well, beautiful set. We see O'Brien's trying to convert some Cardassian ore processor technology into a deuterium refinery. And Jake's there helping. He's deleting some files from

old thing. Cisco arrives. He's like, you're going to make it for dinner? So obviously, Jake's been there a long time. Dad's come to make sure he eats. He shows up like a ninja, though, doesn't he? Just like, hey. Like in the shadows. Where do he come from? Was there a secret sliding door? I don't know. I suppose it could have been materialized. He could have just beamed in. Site to site transport. Okay. True. Thank you. Yeah. Well, he shows up in the shadows. And then Miles just just before they're about to leave, Miles sees this unknown file on the computer, tries to transfer to the main computer in ops, take a look at it tomorrow, he says. This alarm goes off. Suddenly the door slam. They're locked inside. The computer thinks it's like a Bajoran worker revolt.

And then this message from Gold Duccott comes up. What does he say? Gold Dukot? Oh, I've got it right here. I just have to wait. Your attempt to seize control of this facility is going to fail. You are valuable workers, and we wish you no harm. However, if you do not return control of the unit to your Cardassian supervisors, we will be forced to take action. Consider your options carefully. Your lives depend on it.

You have eight minutes to make your decision. Wow. Okay. I loved Golda Kutz, Mark Alamo's voice, his pitch, his tone, in all of these messages. It's so kind and just, it's, it's, gentle almost, the way he's speaking, which is so contrary to what's about to happen, right? Yeah, what he's saying, yes.

Yeah, and then there's a comment later, we haven't even got to it where, where Cisco was like, oh, he's like, I can't stand that voice or something. I'm like, no, he's been pretty nice. I don't think that voice is that grading to me. I think it's a very pleasant voice. Mark always thought he was the hero of the show. He did. I believe it.

Did he really? Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. And that's what makes his performance so really wonderful. He never sees himself as a villain. That's the best performances of villains when they don't, they're not playing the bad guy. They're playing the hero.

It's great. Yeah. It's a smart choice. Well, they're locked inside. We come back after the opening credits. Miles is trying to force this. The doors open. No luck at all there.

They call, I think they call Kira or? No, they call. Kira calls Cisco. Oh, Ops calls Cisco. Yeah, Kira calls Cisco. Basically, Cisco says we're trapped in here. Can you beam us out? They try to beam them out, but they don't have this Kardashian security code to do it.

Then Odo calls Ops, and Odo is trying to override with his code and security office, but he doesn't have high enough clearance. I love this when Quark comes in. Court comes in. He saw the message. He's very unhappy because his customers are nervous. They're just not spending money because Giscott's message has got them all freaked out. Oda says, can I help?

And Odo's like, well, if you have a level seven security clearance or something, Quark happens to have a level seven security clearance. Well, I have up to seven, you know. Yeah. He said, well, and Odo says, I only have up to six. Well, if you want to negotiate. Negotiate. Exactly.

Very funny. There is some funny stuff in here. There is. I will admit, starting out with Jeopardy, like this? I didn't have a problem yet. It's just that it seems to just tread water a lot. And there's not much of a lesson for anyone. I'm not sure in the end. Like, what is the takeaway that, anyway, that's, that's, I'll frame up my criticism. And maybe now's my chance to say this. I think the reason why the emergency doesn't seem like an emergency is that the Starfleet

actors never play scared they never play that then we're going to that this is going to be the end of their lives they never play that and it may be that uh the director didn't tell them they had to do that um and because they don't feel like they're in um in dire trouble um i never felt like they were in dire trouble yeah they just never played it they may have had some inclination okay well you know we have to do this um concern but it didn't but it didn't but But it was just this Starfleet assurance that everything is going to turn out right. It's one of the things I don't like about Starfleet is that they're not human. They're not human.

They're godlike. Yeah. That's my problem. Well, okay. Armand, you know how in, if you're talking about Meisner-based acting, where you're listening to, yeah, where you listen literally to what the words are being spoken to you, it doesn't matter how they're spoken to. you. So if the other actor is the shittiest actor on the planet, it doesn't matter. You're just listening to the words. And that's kind of how I was in watching this episode. I didn't, I glossed over the fact that the Starfleet personnel were not in any major jeopardy. It didn't look like

they were in me. But I, because I just listened to what I was hearing, which is, Neuricene gas is going to come in. Everyone's going to die. So I bought it. I bought it 1,000 percent because I don't you know I'm not going to I'm not going to let my opinion be swayed by whether or not an actor portrayed peril or not it's so hard for me to watch I don't know for you guys but for me to watch episodes and not have my actor brain or my director brain my producer brain or even my writer brain like I just can't not look at it and go oh why didn't they do this yeah I love when I get caught up in it, when I am transported by the performance and the writing and the execution, where I forget, where I suspend my disbelief completely because I'm so moved

by the story and performance. This didn't do that for me, this particular episode. I was constantly aware of what I saw were missed opportunities, I guess. Well, then, Robbie, maybe you need to watch it three times in a row. First time is to be critical as a director. second time critical was an actor third time to watch it as a fan. That's always the...

I mean, I get... I wanted to feel like diehard in this. I wanted to feel like, you know, how diehard's got comedy, but it's got jeopardy, and it's got emotion in the end. Diehard is almost a perfect movie to me. It's so good.

And I wanted this to have those elements. And it attempted now and then, but it just in the end didn't feel like a full meal to me. And come on, we knew the station was never going to blow up. Exactly, yeah. It's the third season. It's the station is not going to blow up. Enterprise could blow up.

The Enterprise could blow up and they could replace it, but you can't replace DS-N-N. Yeah, I do like the scene with Odo and Quark. In fact, that was some of my favorite stuff, honestly, Armand. It's not just because you're here. I think you guys didn't have a lot to do in this episode, but I enjoyed watching your stuff, and it did feel like there was some nice. But because we were trapped together, it was the first time in my memory, if I look back, where I actually thought, oh, this is an episode where Renee and I can have a good time together.

We weren't just passing or yelling at each other or carping at each other, but we actually got scenes to play where we were in jeopardy together. And I rather enjoy that this was like a first for me, or at least an increase in the relationship between Odo and Quark. Yeah. And I think, you know, having Odo just recently gone through his discovery of changelings and the founders and all of that, I think his character has changed enough that it helps that relationship with Quark. he's got a bit more of self-awareness and assurance or something or just you know it was nice to see i thought your your work together was really good thank you when uh odo tells quark at the very very end and he's he's like well who are the other people that are more devious than me he's like well gala your cousin this but he starts going through all these names of all

these people rom rom rom yeah your fifth cousin whatever i mean just random names it was very funny yeah yeah uh from security we go back to the ore processing unit cisco's trying to uh access the door on this tall stack of crates i was very nervous for avery brooks up there it seemed very high and then he had to climb down i was like oh i don't know it was my actor nervousness see there was there was jeopardy for there was jeopardy for there was jeopardy. Yeah, it was more about Avery Brooks, the human being. Is he going to fall or slip off that thing? That's almost a stunt. It was so high. It really was risky. But he can't open this escape hatch. Another Dukop video comes up. They've got to surrender or they're going to be gassed with this neurocene gas. So Cisco has a clever idea. He tells the computer that he's the leader of this rebellion and that they surrender. They all surrender. And Duccott says, smart choice. Cardassian security is going to come get you. So it's bottom a little time. Then they're looking at this tube up the middle of it's like a shoot for the

ore processing. And they say, well, we can't fit in that shoot. You know, where does it go? Maybe we can get out. But we can't fit. And Jake says, I can fit in there. So they pull off the hatch. He climbs up and around. Cisco's kind of banging on the wall to tell him where to go. And he does open the panel and just in time as the gas comes out, Jake opens a hatch. Just in time. Just in time. Yeah. You see down as the gas is going around the floor and Miles is the last one out. But I had an issue because so they say to this tube, well, we can't fit in there. Jake's got to do it. And yet it's the same tube that the three of them come out in the next scene. Like the next thing we see them. really the same size tube okay and I was just like yeah

should have made not that I want to put sarac in a tiny tube but it felt like it should have been a different piece of scenic yeah material and they just use the same plastic conventional tube so it was stuff like that where I was like you're just and I when the gas is coming up I'm thinking and no one is affected by the gas you know yes o'brien is the last one in shouldn't some of that gas have gotten into the passageway that they've opened shouldn't there be some coughing shouldn't there be some reaction to the gas again the jeopardy just it wasn't real to me yeah yeah you you notice the gas I noticed the tube sizes it ultimately felt like it wasn't real exactly well they get out go back up to

ops. Dax is trying to bypass the security program that's been started when suddenly an alarm comes on and the computer says that workers have escaped the processing unit and now a station wide counterinsurgency protocol has been activated. Door slam on in ops, doors slam everywhere. Basically, the whole station is in lockdown. Yeah. And Dukot comes back with his, his Mr. He's got like Mr. Rogers messages. It's like, attention, pejoran workers. I will not allow this rebellion to succeed. If you do not surrender immediately, I will be forced to kill every Bajoran on this station.

It's like he's smiling through every word that he's saying. I love it. Mark doesn't want to play the villain. No, you're right. That's why he's so damn good. We love him. And let's remember what he just says, yeah. We will kill every Bajoran.

on the station event and we're talking about a lot of people on this station we don't get to see them a lot but we we understand that there are a lot of pejorans on this station yeah and yet we never see any of them really except one no once once once brief moment and actually if i'm correct there was a scene with some of these civilians and i think it was cut i'm trying to remember whether i saw it or not oh in the script the three-act script that you have in the in the three-act script I have. There's a the civilians actually have something going on and then that was cut

so that it episode looks like it's only a jeopardy to our series regulars. Yeah. Not to the hundreds and thousands of people on the station. Yeah, like for example if the opening teaser had been a

Bajoran holiday being celebrated on the promenade or something and you see everyone celebrated and then this thing happens and the goal is we've got to save all of these thousands of bejorns that are celebrating this holiday today or something it would have made them more heroic if they had a purpose outside of themselves yeah it didn't feel like anyone else was in jeopardy except they're saving their own skins yes exactly and and and we're not really involved with the the hundreds again thousands of people that are on this station yeah all right well

Well, Ops is screwed because they're locked down and door slammed shut. Bashir says, now what? Back in the oarloading bay. So not the main place where they escape the gas, but now they're coming out of this tube. And that's where I was like, oh, it's the same tube that they said they couldn't fit in. Anyway, they climbed out of the tube.

They're in this new area. It looks like an old-fashioned, like miners, little cart, you know, on the track that you see the classic iconic sort of mining trolley or whatever those are called. Trolley, I think that's the right word, yeah. Yeah, yeah. There's one of those right there. They're in a loading dock for this ore, I guess.

It's a dead end. Their com badges don't work. Cisco tries the door, but it's locked. They can't get out. What do we do now, says Jake. Doesn't look good. Yeah, we're back in ops. Kira gets her phaser, decides to use her weapon because the door.

are still locked. I love how she points the weapon at Bashir, who's standing, working on a panel. And she says, out of the way or move or something. Or maybe she just says, doctor. And he's got a gun pointed at him. Yeah. And then he takes two steps. He's right there. If someone were firing a real gun in real life, I would not want that gun pointed at me. It just, I didn't buy that moment. just a lack of jeopardy actors are not playing jeopardy they're just yeah you should be like what what are you doing run run run if you want they did run out of the way they did run out of the way he took two steps what literally stayed in that little corridor and stepped away from the panel and then she shot the panel it but there were other people standing at the panel that high tailed it they ran

there are other yeah yeah one of the people that eventually will get yes one of the background actors They tithailed it, but not the doctor. In this moment? Okay, wait, hold on, Robbie. Are we in the wrong place? Is this where she shoots the panel to knock the life support out? Yeah. Yes.

Yeah. Not life support to try to get out the door. Get the door. Oh, no. She tries to get out the door. The life support when people run that they get that. That's when people run. Okay.

Yeah, yeah. This one. And that was funny. Right. That's what Bashir should have done in this moment. He should have run. He should have been like, ah. Yes.

Or he just stepped a couple steps. because he realized that on DS9, characters are able to dodge phasers. We've already seen that. We've seen O'Brien do it. We've seen Cisco just do it a little quick turn. True. They're all like they're on the Matrix.

They're so good at just dodging phasers. It's unbelievable. So maybe that's what was going through Bershear's mind. He's like, I'm totally safe because everyone has dodged. Because I can dodge this. I can dodge it very easily. Because I'm a series regular. I'm a series regular.

I will be able to dodge this one. That weapon can't possibly hurt me. Anyway, she blows up the little panel They do manually open the door But there's a force field I love how Nana sort of walks through the door And boom, falls back

That was funny There's a lot of little funny moments for sure Can't get out Dax goes down into the pit To try to wipe the security program From the computer Bashir's bum Because he said, I was just starting to feel like

At home here I liked that little comment And Kira tells Bashir You know, the Cardassians built this place, don't forget it. So Dax is going to work in the pit. I always like when they go down in the pit. There's good shots down there up and down. It's a good part of the set. We are back in the security office. Yes, we are. Cork and Odo, a very funny interaction because Cork is now sort of asking Odo, you're a shapeshifter. Why don't you change shapes and get us out of

here? And basically, Odo says, it's not going to work. There are force fields on top of force fields. I can get through one part, but then I'm going to get stopped. I get blocked. There's no way that I can shape shift into anything that can get us out of here. I like Armin when he said when you said

you're a shapeshifter. Oh, excuse me, a changeling. I love that reminder that Odo, we know more about Odo now and he's not he's not our word for him. He is their word. Changeling is the right word. And

And I just, I thought it was good writing because it seemed to me that that would be the obvious next move that he could shape shift and get underneath or through the door somehow or go into the ventilation system or something. And they closed that door on you and I thought, oh, that's good. That's smart. Yeah. And that's the thing. I mean, I like this episode because of all the doors that keep a door opens briefly and they just get slammed shut over and over and over again. So to me, lots of hurdles and a lot of, you know, drama happening. Okay, the door closed, and you're absolutely right, Garrett.

But, and my dear friend, one of the consummate actors who I ever worked with, Reneau Bergen-Wa, doesn't seem at all perturbed that he can't get out. Yeah. That's true. That's very true. He's quite content. He's quite okay with it, isn't he? Yeah.

Maybe the threat hasn't materialized yet. Maybe the idea that the ship is going to blow up hasn't materialized yet, so there's no reason for him to be concerned. Maybe. But again, it's not. Even Renee was not playing the Jeopardy. But also, can I just say that... Neither was I, for that matter. Neither was I.

But if they was neuroscient gas released in the security office, I don't think Odo would perish from that. Am I right? I mean, he doesn't breathe. He doesn't breathe the air. But if you think about it, he does not eat. He does not drink. So he's liquid.

Maybe he doesn't breathe. I don't think he breathes. He only regenerates in a liquid state every 16 hours. That's it. There's a future episode where we're out in a snow-covered mountain. We should see if there's breath coming out of his mouth. Oh, that would be interesting, yeah. Then we would catch it.

Okay. Or if we ever notice, as we're watching an episode, if Renee, the actor, has a reaction where he goes, then he breathes. Or if he goes like that, then we know. Or sneezes or anything respiratory. We're going to be on the lookout for that now. Very funny.

Okay. We go back to the or loading bay area. They're using this cart to ram into the door. Okay. It was cool, but to me, it was like, wait a minute, is this cart on a track? Why is it moving? So they're just using the track that's already in place to run that thing in? Is that what it was?

I thought it was on a track, like in a mining tunnel. It would be on a trolley. If it's a trolley, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was. Were they exerting themselves? No. It didn't seem that heavy.

No. But they're slamming it. It doesn't work. Cisco wonders if the uridium might work because it's very unstable. O'Brien says, well, we'd need a strong electrical charge to have it react,

but I don't have any tools. Cisco breaks with his super power strength breaks a handle off of this alien metal mining trolley breaks the handle off and tosses it to Miles here's your tools go to work how nice

forgive me I need to go back to the scene with Odo and Quark yes do in my script that I have here in front of me and I don't remember if this is in the in the version that we see on TV it says

and this is it says civilians it's all it says is civilians help us what's going on the turbo lifts aren't working there's no way off the promenade what are we supposed to do odos says stay calm find a comfortable spot remain there try not to move around help is on the way does this happen in this in the episode i don't remember no no no the civilians say when how long is it going to take can't you get out of there let us in quark says didn't you hear them then he's talking quark's talking to the crowd didn't you hear them go sit down we've got problems of our own go on move it um so uh there was a scene where i sort of heard the voice of the other people of the other people yep i wish that was filmed yeah well it was written but it wasn't

filmed wow now that's a shame that's that's that's white pages god knows when the blue pages and the purple pages and the in the coral yeah they may have They may have not even filmed it and just cut it from the scripts and never filmed it. Wow. Yeah, I would have liked that. I would have liked that a lot. Well, yes, so the battering ram, they're using this trolley. Cisco is superhuman.

He breaks it off. You know, in times of stress, they've proven that sometimes you can get superhuman strength when you're extremely strong. In times of stress, that means he'd have to be stressed. It has to be stressed. Okay. The circumstances are very stressful, whether or not they're played by the actors. That's another thing. But it's still stressful enough. On the inside, on the inside, he was very stressed out. He just didn't want to show Jake. He didn't want his son to be nervous. Exactly. Where in the scene is he worried about his son? He does have a little bit. He's got a not in this scene. Not in this one, but he's in this earlier scene. Yes, in the earlier scene. He's got some moments. Jake does. Jake hurts, Jake bumps into. something right and he's like ow and he's like son are you everything okay there like he's he is

kind of concerned there yeah yeah i mean yes but again and he's you know jake keeps volunteering for things his father kept saying no you can't do that and then being convinced that yes you should do that um i just i'm now i'm nitpicking i'm so sorry that's no but i yeah there's an opportunity to really have an emotional like to see his concern. I can't lose you too, son. There could have been moments that were emotionally based rather than intellectually based. There was a lot of focus in this story on plot movement and how computers work. And it just, yeah, it didn't grab me. Emotionally, didn't grab me. What happens next, Garrett, in ops? We go to ops. I don't need to know. Where are we? Dex gets secondary burns

on our hands. She triggers this explosion inside the pit, down in the pit. Yeah. Which is, okay, that's good. That's Jeopardy. Yeah. That's good. And credit to Terry, she played the burns.

She played the pain. She did. So she's the one person who played Jeopardy. So far. So far she was really playing that, yeah, the physical pain. Dukot comes on the monitor again, says if the Bajorans don't surrender in five minutes, they're going to pump nursing gas into ops. No, sorry.

Not ops. Habitat ring, right? The entire living your family. Exactly. Everybody. Yeah. Think of your families

as you consider your course of that. You know what? He almost sounds like who's the guy that, oh my gosh. Phil Hartman. That's kind of what

Descartes sounds like to me in a way. You know what I'm saying? Phil Hartman's voice, right? Yeah. That's very funny. And credit to the Kira character, he says,

it must be something we can do, we can't just sit here and let those people die. Okay, good. That helps. And now we know there's hundreds of people in their quarters, hundreds in the habitat ring. And they're all trapped too, right? These force fields have gone up everywhere. The turbulence don't work. Right. Nothing's working. Nothing's working. Well, just after this, yeah, after this message, Garrick shows. Yeah. Yeah, Garrick shows up. He has a code to enter, but he says it only works when he passes through. So Garrick arrives to help them. He's got a code to come into the ops, but we see it go off and come right back on. So it only works for a second. And it only works at that level because Dukot didn't trust him with any more codes, any higher level codes.

So Garrick suggests destroying the life support. system to save them that they the nursing gas that would be pumped in would go through the life support system so if you destroy it they won't be able to poison them and this is when kira turns around towards those background actors and points are gone again at people but this time they do run does she say get down is that what she said so get down get down that means like doc is what that means but they ran out they like scampered yeah get out of there is that her normal weapon i feel like the Bajoran weapon is a different looking weapon. It is a different.

And that was a different. That is a Bajorn weapon. And it's different from the Starfleet weapon. Yeah. Okay. But it's bigger. It also looks different from the other Bajoran phasers that I've seen, which are a little more slender looking and curved.

This was a very boxy-looking, tase-gun-looking thing. Mm-hmm. In my script, it says this time the beam is bigger and more powerful. Mm-hmm. And the console explodes. She takes out life support. destroys the life support computer and then Dukot's

video pops up again he says it looks like the station has been overtaken he initiates a self-destruct sequence that they have two hours left that's it yeah I also like the line on that Ducat has in all

likelihood I am dead or otherwise incapacitated so it's just like yes just again I loved Ducat in this And we are supposed to feel a tiny bit sorry for Dukot that he's been incapacitated. Poor, poor, God. Back in the security office, Cork is standing there firing a phaser at the door.

Odo steps in and takes it away from him. Cork is very depressed. He feels like a failure. Odo says, something nice to him. He says, you may not be the richest, but you are the most devious phryngi I've ever met. and Cork is very touched by this moment. I love that. Yeah, I like this runner with you guys that's going on.

It's good for the characters, you know. Yeah, it's a little longer than usual than we usually have, and I've, for one, appreciated that a great deal. And I get to say the 75th rule of acquisition. Home is where the heart is, but the stars are made of Latin. Home is where the heart is. Yes. I do feel like this is the first time that Odo has actually shown compassion for quark, I guess, or empathy or friendliness towards, I feel like this is a, they've turned a corner in this episode.

This is what I said earlier is that there's a development in our relationship in this episode, which I was very happy about when we were shooting it. Yeah. And again, the comedy that's interesting. interlaced in these scenes between the two of you, like these little, last little, little buttons of these last lines, you know, the very end of this scene, Quark says, well, that means a lot to me. Now, can I have a phaser back? And Odo's like, no. It's just like, you're not going to keep back.

Like one step forward, two steps back. Yes. Yes. Armand, I have a question for you when you were watching this. When I first saw Quark in this episode, it looked to me like the sculpting on your makeup was a slightly different than I'd noticed. Did you notice any difference? No, I didn't. And I don't remember them ever saying to me, we're working on, we're changing your makeup. They changed Odo's makeup during the course of the show. But I don't, they may have done it,

and they just didn't tell me, but it might have been the shadows or lighting or something. And again, let us remember, Jonathan West is the new DP, and it might indeed been the lighting. Yeah. Yeah. It looked a little, some of the wrinkles in the cheap. and things seemed a little deeper, a little more pronounced than I'd noticed before, but it might have just been lighting. Armand, I have a follow-up question for you. In the time that you worked on DS9, was there ever a day where Karen Westerfield was sick with Mono or something where she was not? There were about two or three days during the course of seven years that Karen was sick or something. How was that? Now, how was that makeup application when, yes, when those people filled in

for her those three or four times could you tell the difference in makeup application like that is not a karen westerfield application right yes yes and okay did it and i did i would say uh no that's you have to do that over again oh so you made them redo it yeah yeah you have to fix that that's that does because of that i mean that's all i did for the first two and a half years is staring in the in the mirror yeah you everything so and and i didn't always pay attention but i was facing the mirror constantly so I could tell when things were slightly off and I could help with them although I'm sure they had pictures too and I'm sure Michael had told them things as well okay but yes yes there were times about three maybe I think altogether like for you

Robbie did you feel like that too when someone else did it other than your normal that they weren't as good or they did it differently I mean mine was not complicated and yeah I'm a human the hardest thing on me was putting the fake sideburns on okay yeah got it uh we go to ops next garrick has got the station working not garret wong but garrick is uh he's got things working but he's got things working but he says his code only allows him to look around he can't actually do anything about this this emergency situation dac suggests maybe he can fool the the computer into thinking that he's Dukot. Garrick says the computer is going to scan for Dukot's DNA,

and Dax says maybe we can take the sensors offline, so it can't scan. And Bashir sort of smiles while Garrick is working, which I like this little moment. He thinks that Garrick reprogramming this Cardassian security system is awesome. He seems very happy about that. So I liked that tracking that. And one of the things to add to that is, one, the brilliance of Dax.

Dax is arguably the smartest person. on the station. But two, something we haven't talked about that is essential to this whole episode is teamwork. They are working as a team and they are bouncing ideas off of each other and finding remedies because of the teamwork they're doing together. And that is Star Trek at its best, is the idea that individually you are alone. But if you work as a team, you can come up with a resolution.

You can find a way out. Mm-hmm. Yes. I like that theme. I don't know that I got that theme. It's the only theme that I see in this episode. Yes. Yeah. I got to say, Dax is the winner of most techno babble in this episode. Yeah, she's got a lot of techno battle. Because she keeps coming up with suggestions, which then the door gets closed on her as well, being the science officer. Over and over again, she's trying to find the science answer.

And, yeah. Well, she's working hard here to shut down the life support or the sensor, DNA sensor, whatever. Garrick says, how much time do you need to you're done? Dax says, I got 10 more minutes until I can get this, you know, the sensors shut down. And Garrick says he doesn't have enough time. That's when a computer alarm goes off. The computer thinks there's a counter, or there's an insurgency going on. So it initiates a counterinsurgency program level four.

So these levels keep going up every time from the very beginning. And that's when this automated weapon starts firing in the replicator, vaporizes our poor red shirt. That's our only death, though, that we witness here. It's also super, it's super cool if you think about this. It's a weapon that gets replicated in the replicator and starts shooting from the replicator. It's like, who does that? We've never had seen anything like that on Voyager. You can just replicate.

It's like Such a Cardassian thing to do. Those 3D printers that make those ghost guns or whatever? Ghost guns, yeah.

Yeah. It's like that. And it's fascinating that it was programmed to be on, to be shooting. Not to be turned on, but was on,

the moment it appears. The moment it appears to start shooting. That's good, clever writing. It's good, although my problem was, it's just shooting

like, it feels like randomly. And even though people are hiding from it, it continues shooting destroying the Cardassian's ops station. It's, you know, taking out systems left and right constantly. It didn't seem like a smart weapon to me. And what is what is Kira standing next to to to protect yourself? It's some sort of beam, right? Some sort of beam, yeah. A bulkhead or

something. Now, why isn't that disintegrated? Okay. Well, this place should be, stuff should be blowing up. There should be fire. It should be collapsing. This weapon just keeps going. I know you thought it was completely indiscriminate, Robbie. But I do feel, I mean, he does mention Dakot when he beams in. He talks about how this beam is, it's trained on anyone who isn't Cardass.

Cardassian. Right. And it's probably all going off of movement and also sensing other things in the air. I don't know. So I think it was shooting. where it was supposed to shoot. I just didn't think it was just randomly going on. It felt random to me.

Yeah, I can see your point. I can see both sides. I mean, the logic makes sense that it would only be looking for life signs. Right. But it didn't feel that way. Got it. It felt like it was just.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. And you're right. There should have been more chaos in the room because of these. It was disintegrated. It didn't kill.

It disintegrated the poor redshirt who was shot. Yeah, you're right. After that vaporization, I would think that everyone would be screaming their heads off at that point. You just saw Bill get vaporized, right? Did not anyone have an affinity for Bill? Did anyone say, oh, my God, so and so nothing. Oh, yeah, I'm on the red shirt's done. Clearly, Bill was the jerk of ops.

Yeah, they didn't like him. This was the one that the guy that he stole everyone's lunch that was in the fridge and the work, you know. And yet, and yet he was not a Ferengi. he was not a perengi exactly I think he would always eat Kira's yogurt That's what it was Kira's yeah

That's all that Renee could eat was Yogers soon Yeah we talked about that We're back in the old Or loading bay They do pry open The panel, Miles With his makeshift tool

Prys open the power cable panel They decide they need to pack the Uridium around the door Quick scene in there We're back in ops People are hiding under desks and pillars. It's chaos. Everybody's hiding from these shots.

When suddenly Duccott beams in. The real Duccott. He seems very relaxed when he arrives and very happy. He's all smiles. He's enjoying this. He got a distress signal from himself. He says, got a message from himself. The message was someone tried to duplicate his command code.

And he sees the auto-dust. destruct has started and he says i will turn it off i can turn it off after we discuss a few things and he's taking his time he goes over to the replicator order some red leaf tea the weapon the weapon disappears and the tea shows up but then once he takes it doesn't the weapon come back in and keeps shooting returns to firing oh my goodness um that's when garrick who's been hiding Garrick realizes, oh, this is only targeting non-Cardassians. So he stands up. And then he and Dukot get into this little bickery, Bickerstine argument about his father.

It's just crazy. And one of the lines that Duccott has addresses Garrick, he says, ah, Garrick, droveling in a corner, that makes my trip worthwhile. Now, yes, Andy's in a corner. he's sitting on his butt. Yes, but I would not call that groveling. Yeah. Yeah. So even Andy is not playing, Andy, the consummate actor, even Andy is not playing. It's not playing. The peril. The peril is not being played. They kind of bicker back and forth, which I think was intended to be, it was fun to watch, but not quite achieving funny. And part of it was pace to me. I feel like some of those

exchanges just needed some pace. And doesn't really make sense when people are dying. And maybe pace would have helped it. It's just like, oh, yeah, we have our regular dialogue while all these things are flashing. It felt like this relaxed kind of retread of their personal issues that didn't seem to have urgency to it or comedy pacing to it. Either one. It needed one of the other.

And now that I think of it, I, you know, once Descartes shuts off the weapon, he says, you can all rise now you're safe for the moment major and there was no exhalation of breath by anybody that we're we're fine thank god our savior to cot we're not going to get vaporized there was none of that it was literally you're all safe they were safe before you said you're safe now major in a way so i'm kind of coming to your side a little bit both of you don't come too far it's not a fun side stay on the fun side Yeah, so he turns it off. Kira goes and joins him in the commander's office where he sits in in Cisco's chair.

And first thing he does is knock the baseball off the table. Yes. I want to see if my script goes that far. If that's scripted. Oh, my gosh. Robbie, do you have the actual shooting script on the? Can you please pull that up and see if that was a script correction? I like that bit of business.

If that little bit of Samuel French business was really done by him, I'm pretty impressed too. But I almost feel that that was written in. My skip doesn't go that far. Okay. Robbie. Mine does. I just got to. I feel like it says here.

Yeah. So after we leave the main body of ops, it says interior commander's office, continuous. Do cot and Kira enter? Duccott sits down at the desk, picks up the baseball, glances at it, and then tosses it onto the floor. He looks appraisingly at Kira. So it says that he sort of picks it up, studies it, and then tosses it. What he did was just disrespectfully flick it away. I think it was better.

Better. The way he did it. Better. Yeah. But they basically have a conversation where he demands, you know, he, he wants uh to be allowed to reestablish cardassian troops on the station in exchange for saving the station and cutting this thing off and kira's like that's never going to happen and he he explains well there's 2,000 people that are going to die if you don't accept my

demands and he said i'll uh i'll leave you to think about it for about 30 minutes that's about what's left of the of the uh self-destruct sequence You know, so he says he's going to actually beam back to a ship to let them decide. So 30 minutes is left. So he says, I'll show back up in, let's say, about 25 minutes and see how you, see how you're fair in at that point, right? But right when he tries to beam off now, and another alarm comes on. So this is what I love so much about this episode, because you did not expect this to happen. No.

To decod. But before we get there. Yes. Before, sorry to stop your mid-stop. Go back. Go back. Yes, please. So he says, that.

Thousands of people will die. And she says, you know, we're never going to let that happen, Dukkah. And where does she get off making that godlike rule that, rather, in order not to give in that she's going to sacrifice thousands of lives? Yeah. Where does she get off having that decision? Yeah. And not even thinking about it. Yeah.

Not really. I didn't see anything across Nanaz's face that said, oh my God, that's a jeopardy for all these people that I've come to live with and work with. Nothing. No, I'm not going to give you what you want to cut. And I thought, really? That is so anti-Star Trek. I don't know what is.

Yeah, she says either way. She says, she says to him, let me put this another way. I will destroy this station before I ever give it back. to the Cardassians. Right. 2,000 people. And I understand the problem. But it should have been a problem.

Yeah. It should have been a problem for her to say, I have to think about, good, I'll give you a half an hour to think about it. Great. But no, you're not going to do it. We'd rather all die here. We're going to be the Alamo.

We're going to all die here rather than give you this property. Yeah. Wrong. It's wrong. Yeah, I agree. it seemed very cavalier seemed very cavalier

well yeah Duccott's stuck here he tries to beam off the station and the alarm comes on and Kel appears Oh my God this is great and says

Duccott tried to abandon his post that's what the computer analyzed the computer really is not very smart in this episode No it thinks there's Bajoran rebellions it thinks Duccott's

it's misinterpreted interpreting all of its information. Oh, my God. This computer. You have lost control of terror ignored, disgracing yourself in Cardassia. Your attempt to escape is no doubt a final act of cowardice.

All fail-safes have been eliminated. Your personal access codes have been rescinded. The destruct sequence can no longer be halted. All you can do now is contemplate the depth of your disgrace and try to die like a Cardassian. That final sentence is the best. Come on. Contemplate the depth of your disgrace and try to die like a Cardassian.

I did like the way this was staged with Duccott in this kind of dominant status position. He was sort of up high in the frame and everyone else is gathered around in the room. And he seems to be thinking very highly of himself in that moment he's about to be him out. And then he's completely embarrassed there, which I like the staging of that. And I like the turn. I like this turn, which I didn't see coming. at all. And I love the fact that, oh,

you're stuck here too, Dukot. I really love that. I thought that was an excellent choice by the writers. Yeah. Yeah, very smart. We come back after a commercial break, back into ops. This is the highest, widest shot I've seen of

this set, I think, to open this scene. It seemed like the camera was way up in the roof of the stage. The rafters. It did. But it was really, it was a beautiful angle. I don't think I'd ever seen it before. But we learned in the scene, Dukot can't stop the self-destruct sequence.

He and Garrick start bickering again. Eric, even your own computer program turns against you. I just, the bickering is hilarious. It really is. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's very funny. Kira asks about the self-destruct, and he says, the way it works is the core stabilizers will shut down to the energy core for

station and it will destabilize the core and the core will explode basically or just overload and uh that's going to destroy the station and no one seems worried no they're all just kind of gathered around the circle taking it in yeah there should have been a lot more we're getting i was worried i don't know where we are in the in the the the act structure but at this point in your classical three-act structure you should be at the climactic kind of levels. This is the final, you know, the final stretch here. It should be the worst. This should be the all is lost moment kind of thing. The final countdown? It should be. Yeah, we should be getting there now because Dukak can't, he says I can't shut it down. But Dax does say we could manually shut it

down on level four. We just can't get there because of all these force fields. And they decide, well, we can't, there's no way we can shut down one force field. at a time. We've got to shut them all down at one time. That's the only way we can get to level 34 to shut this off in time. They're going to have to figure out a solution to that. What if they had shut down the force field around the security office, which would have allowed Odo to have gotten out? Then maybe Odo could have changed into some shape-shifted into something. Yeah? That would have been good. but they wanted you guys stuck in that room together

I was grateful for it you probably worked one day on this episode you probably came in did all these scenes in a day would be my guess I think so yeah yeah well we're back in the ore loading bay they finally finish Cisco and his team Jake and Miles they're stacking all of this

rocks there must have been 30 or 40 50 rocks they're stacking around the door door. Miles pulls this cool electrical cable that's got like, it looks like an LED, you know, rope with lights just coming all through it. It was very cool. I kind of want that electrical cable in my house. Yeah. I wish my extension cords did that when I plugged them in. They just kind of lit up all across. That would be nice. I have a charging cord for my, one of my phones, and it is a little LED.

It lights up? Yeah, it lights up, really. Oh, cool. So you know power's going through too, yeah. Oh, that's cool. well Cisco does the honors he touches the lighting the electrical cable yeah to the to the dirt on the floor I guess they crumbled up some some of this ore to be like a fuse and so it I wrote down roadrunner style it looks like it's going across and just like in the roadrunner it explodes but here's my problem when it explodes and we see the shot they must have put 50 rocks around this door. It looked like maybe one or two of the rocks. They even said, don't put too many rocks

because it could blow up the whole station. Why did only one or two of them, why did they have to put 50 if only one or two are enough to do it? Why didn't they just put two or three rocks there instead of 50 that are clearly untouched when the door explodes? I didn't like that moment. Okay, so it works. A hole in the door. Back to ops, Duccott Braggs. He's going to solve this with his superior cardassian mind now so in that when they blow up the rocks yes so they blow a hole in the doorway and my notes are why isn't there a force field around that door especially if that's where the rebellion began that would be close to it because they're in a different room actually but yes yeah but why isn't it if their force feels all over the station that's what

we've been told why isn't there a force field there yes they blowed a hole in the in the door And we've seen Kira blow up other things, and there's force fields there. I'm glad I'm not the only netball. Why is there not a force field there? Go ahead, Gary. That specific type of rock when it explodes, it disables the force field. It's clearly the reason. I see.

Okay. They should have grabbed a bunch of rocks. They should have grabbed a bunch of rocks with them, then. Taking it with them. And Miles should keep that little handle tool because they're going to need it for all the other doors they've got to go through. Anyway. Back in Ops, Duccott is bragging how he's going to solve this problem with his superior Cardassian mind, telling Kira all of this.

And Garrick says something about, you know, you're not going to impress Kira with all this bragging. That seemed odd to me. And he says, you're a married man. And it just seemed like an odd exchange. Like, was he really flirting with Kira? It didn't feel that way to me. No, he, they didn't bother me at all.

It didn't bother. They've touched on this before, Robbie. have there's been a little bit of that oh really yeah okay prior episode let me just read there is a little thing i could read about this hold on where is it uh oh oh yeah maybe maybe there wasn't anything like that before hmm okay so it says this is the first episode where we see ducotte express a desire for kira something that would return many times in the future perhaps seen at its most forceful in the fourth season episode Return to Grace and six

season episode A Time to Stand. So this theme keeps happening comes up. Is this the first time? Yeah, that's what I guess what they're saying. I'm mistaken. I thought we saw something of this before, but maybe I'm wrong. It may be the first time scripted. Scripted, okay.

But I would venture to say Mark's been playing this for a while. Okay. But it says in this episode, however, his attempt to impress her is treated humorously, something which displeased Nana Visitor. According to Visitor, I would have liked my character to make the point that only a few years earlier, Descartes wanting me, would have meant that he could have had me, and I wouldn't

have been able to do a thing about it. So it shouldn't have been seen as a cute moment. It was actually a horrifying moment, one that would make Kira feel disgust and panic. To Kira, to Kira, Descartes is Hitler. She's not ever going to get over that. She can never forgive him, and that is important to me. Kira may have started to see Kardashians as individuals, but she will always hate Dukot. Well, that's a good point.

It's a very fair point. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, Garrick tells Dukot, stop flirting. You're a married man. After Garrick says you're a married man, Descartes. comes back with, I should have had you executed years ago, which is like, what's going on between these two?

Yeah, we've never seen quite this level of backstory between these two at all, not at all. We also have some backstory in an earlier part of the episode where Garrick talks about DuCott's father's trial, where he was convicted of being a traitor. And that, too, is backstory that we've never had before. No, exactly. yeah it's interesting this this these kind of little easter eggs or whatever they're they're interesting details that i hope get explored more in the future yeah dax the smartest one in the room says if we overload the grid maybe it could short out all the force fields um and ducott asked kira if they

took the neutralization emitters offline she says yep we shut those down and ducott's very happy about this because if they were shut down, they weren't affected by this security program. So maybe, you know, Ducotte and Dax's idea combined to use these neutralization emitters with her idea of overloading the power grid maybe could disrupt all of these force fields

that are stopping people from solving this problem. So Dax says she can bring on these neutralization emitters, bring them back online, and make that work. So it looks like they're going to give it a try. They have a plan. Yeah, back in the corridor with Cisco O'Brien and Jake. They must have been looking separately because they meet up at a junction.

You see them sort of at the end of the hallway. And O'Brien says he could only get a couple hundred meters before he was stopped by a force field. Jake says the same thing. Couldn't even get that far. That's when Cisco says, oh, what about a turbolift shaft? Maybe if we can get manually pull the store open, we could climb up the shaft and get back to ops. So that's what they start to do.

The old elevator shaft trick. I've seen that one in the action movies. I'm just thinking what Odo says to Quark. He said the force field is not just in one place. It goes up and down the station. He said it's in the bulkheads. He said it's even in the force fields go through the bulkheads. Yeah.

So, so from the information that we've gotten from Odo, they shouldn't be able to go up and down the turbo shaft, turbo lift shafts. Well, I mean, if they're this way, maybe they can. If they're not this way, right? They're saying they just run north and south, right? I suppose, okay. I suppose. I agree with Armin. Like, it was implied by Odo that these force fields don't just shut doors.

They go through the ceiling. they go through the air vents they go through like because oto could go through a crack he could become liquid or gas almost i mean you know so he's saying i can't even there is nowhere to go and yet yeah and yet o'brien in this scene says oh i got a couple hundred meters and ran into like he got a long ways so it's another another bump for me but yeah yeah anyway we go back to Ops, Ducotta connects the emitters. There's a big rumble, rumble. Again, teamwork.

Now, it's interesting, even the Kardashian Hitler is working with the team. It's teamwork. Yeah. Yeah, big rumble, rumble, bang, shudder, shudder, and then silence. And Kira tries her calm, and it works. Woo-hoo! Paul Cisco bills him in on the main reactor overloading and destroy. throwing the entire station.

So she fills him in very quickly on how the whole place is going to blow up. She, Kara, tells Cisco the only way to stop it is on level 34. Cisco says, maybe I can get there in time. Tells her to start evacuating the station. So another reference to all these thousands of people. Yeah, on what? On a runabout, there are two ships. I was thinking like, wait a minute.

How's that going to work? How's that going to work? Yeah. How's that going to work? and and and who's going to pilot the runabouts yeah but but more importantly remember that episode where they could only get eight people aboard and a runabout yeah you're going to put thousands of people you know do you remember okay you guys know like when the the peaking opera acrobats are performing there's this one thing where there's one person on a bike with like 50

people sit on the same bike and I'm like, okay, that's how it's going to be. They're going to get on the runabout and there's going to be hundreds of people like fanned fanned across the runabout like a peaking opera acrobats. Yeah, stacked on top of people. What? Well, we go back into the

corridor. Cisco wants Jake to go to one of these escape ships. Jake says he's not going to even make it. He wants to go with his dad and they have a nice moment between him. There's a little, Cisco does a little face tap on his side. He's like,

All right, boy, let's go. Yeah. Let's go, Sonny. Yeah, it's nice. Jake's getting to see some of the action, which is fun. Back in the security office with Quark and Odo, there are seven minutes left. Kira calls down to Odo and Quark says that they're evacuating everything. Odo tells her the door is still sealed to security.

And she says, I'll send down a work team as soon as possible. Odo explains the quark. It's probably because they wanted to keep him. in that he might be a security risk. Maybe that's what the Cardassians thought. And Quark says something very nice here. He says that's because you're an honorable man. Yeah.

And there's a very sweet, just for a moment, moment between them. And then Quarks were sentences, and that's going to get us both killed, which made me laugh. I hope you're happy. Yes. I hope you're happy. Yeah, that was fun. I don't understand why the Cardassians.

would think Odo is so much more of a security risk. Well, I think he proved not to be, he proved to be in the middle. And they couldn't trust him going towards the Bajoran revolution or rebellion than staying with the Cardassian command. So I think, and he could be a very powerful weapon. So they wanted to keep him castellated. Got it. All right.

Well, we're back in another corner with Cisco asking Miles, if he, upgraded the deflector shield? Could it absorb all of this energy? Miles says maybe that's not a bad idea. The shields are the only thing on the station that could absorb that much energy. So they head towards the deflector shield controls, I guess, but they run into a bunch of debris in the hallway from that power surge that Duccott had initiated. Things had exploded in the hallway is just completely blocked. So O'Brien says, I know a maintenance conduit, pulls open a hatch, looks inside, there's fire. Not just fire, but green fire, which is even worse than regular fire. Absolutely. Cryptonite fire. Cryptonite fire is what it is. Yes. But they decide to go in,

they rip their shirts, wrap them around their hands because it's going to be so hot. Okay, This is my only nitpick. After they wrap their hands, I'm like, what about your face? You better wrap your face too. I think that's a really important part of skin that needs to be covered from green death fire. Yeah, I mean, people die of smoking elation in fires before they die from being scalded. Yep. Well, they do it anyway with just a little fabric over their hands.

But Cisco tells Jake, you cannot come inside. I mean it this time. You're not going any further. And our ticking clock is down to three minutes. Computer says three minutes are left. And this is the only time, in my opinion, in the episode, where I see some jeopardy from the actors. Yeah.

It did feel this sequence of climbing through with dealing with the fire and all, the way that Colum was reacting to the explosions and getting knocked out in there. Yeah. it felt like an action sequence finally it felt like a real action sequence yeah yeah yeah but yeah they're crawling through O'Brien is knocked out from these fire the green fire and explosions

and then we see Cisco get into the reactor control junction I think is what it's called he calls back to Miles on his on his calm but no answer he tries some buttons the computer says 90 seconds we cut back to Jake Jake decides to go in

and he climbs into the conduit back in the junction. So this goes flipping rods around. I love his technique, pushing buttons, flipping rods. It's like he knew this system really, really well, which I didn't quite understand. Seems like he would need Miles' help to do this. Wouldn't it not make sense for Cisco to succumb to the fire and the fumes and O'Brien to be able, because he would be the knowledgeable one about that?

Yes. Absolutely. That would have made more sense, script. But, of course, Cisco is number one on the call sheet. He's got to be the, yeah, he's got to save the day. Yeah. And he, it felt like drumsticks in his hand. Like he was flipping those tubes, what those things were.

I just, I kept picturing like a... Isolinear tubes, I think they're called. Isolinear tubes. Yes, those. But, Robbie, I think that Cisco had been studying his book that he had gotten recently, which is main fusion reactor control for dummies. So he knew exactly what to do when he was up there, touching everything and poking in. It did look very urgent.

I mean, at this point, it did look urgent. I like making Armand laugh, Robbie. That's all I care about. I live for this. That's it. That was very funny. Very funny. Well, he keeps working.

I love Jake dragging miles away from the green fire. I love Jake, the hero, giving him a hero. moment. I did think about the floors of those Jeffrey's tubes, Garrett. You know, the kinds of, oh, I hate working in those things. Did they have the same as our, did you

see our little bumpy bump on theirs too? It looked like the same kind of. Oh, that hard grilled kind of, yeah. Yeah, it was bad. It hurt. It hurt your skin. It did. Your knees. Cisco works, works, works. Jake pulls O'Brien

out of the conduit. O'Brien wakes up. I love this exchange when O'Brien says, Jake, I thought your father told you to stay out of there. And Jake says, if you don't tell him, I won't. Oh, I love that. I love that. Classic teenage kid. Yeah.

But Cisco's going hard when suddenly, bam, the energy discharges from the station. We cut outside to space. Yeah. We see, like, lightning, all of this energy shooting up, but it does feel like. A plasma ball. You know, one of those plasma balls you buy from Spencer's. whatever. It's like, shooting everywhere. But the shields that Miles and Cisco were talking about, those deflector shields seem to be containing it or absorbing it. Yeah.

Looks like it's worked. Back in the security office, the door's open. Quark is sitting at Odo's computer terminal. I noticed you were off mic in this shot. I think so. Yeah. I think so. The camera was out in the promenade because this is going to be basically the last moment or the last scene where Quark and Odo get released, but you were sitting at the desk and I don't think they had a microphone near you because you were very off mic at the top of the scene. And then as you move forward, it got much better. It's very funny because Cork is basically sitting at the computer reading a evaluation of him by Odo. Odo. Cork reads, a self-important con artist who's nowhere near as clever as he thinks he is. That's the security evaluation.

Yeah. Very insulting. Very insulting. Did I tell you, Armand, by the way, I've officially gone to team quark? Oh, no. Thank you. Welcome. Welcome.

He's passed from one team to another now. Yeah, I've moved on from Bashir. I'm team corner. He's still fond of Bashir, but he is. No, you should be fond of Bashir. He does a lot of good. Cork flag. And I will give you a warning that Garrick has gotten my attention as well.

So I could be moving at some. point to be King Garrick. And as I watch these episodes, I've become much more of a fan of Mark Alamos as well. Oh, great. I just think Mark's doing a very good job. And I'm still in awe of Surrock Lofton, just in all. Agreed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I wish they gave him more to do. That's why I was thrilled. And they will. And they will. He had action in this. The first time I think I've seen him really a part of the action in jeopardy of an episode. This final scene. is, to me, one of the funniest parts of this entire...

Well, it should be. It's from Casablanca. Yeah. So, therefore... Stolen. Stolen from Casablanca. But yet, still funny. So after he reads that evaluation,

Cork says, two hours ago, you told me I was the most devious phrenge you ever met. And that's when Otis says, well, that's when I thought we were going to die. I was just trying to be nice. And then Cork says, well, name one of the foringer who's more devious than I am. And the list just goes on and on, including Rom. Yes. It's just so good.

He's like the Grand Nagas. Okay, another name. Diamond tie. Another one. No, one you know personally. Okay, your brother, Rom? My brother. Your uncle friend, your cousin, Gaila?

Like, everybody is just the one that has the moon? Yes. The one who has the moon. That's very funny. So good. And that's the end of the episode. And that's the end of the episode. There you go.

Beam, moral. lesson of this episode. My theme is teamwork makes the dream work. That's all I could come up with the best I could do. But I agree with you. You mentioned that Armin before. Yeah, that's what Armin said. And I'm going to go with that as well.

So it's a trifecta. Armand, is that your theme? Yes, yes, of course. Teamwork. Yeah. Teamwork, teamwork, teamwork. Okay. We're all the same on that one.

The Patreon poll theme slash lesson slash moral of this episode, as submitted by Katie McCarty is, be careful that you. your actions don't come back to bite you. Hmm. Which act? Oh, or Dakot's actions. DeKat's program, basically, I think. That's an interesting perspective, yeah.

Yeah, it is. You know, we didn't touch on that at all, which is the idea that even Dakot has been betrayed. He's been betrayed by higher-ups in Cardassia. That's, this has to be the first time that's happened. Duccott has always been the primary villain and the highest level of Cardassia for us. With Garrick sort of sneaking in some ideas every now and then. But this is the first time we actually see Ducat having being betrayed by his superiors.

And that's novel. That's novel. Well, thank you, Katie McCarty, for your point of view on actions coming back to bite you. Yeah. Well, thank you, everyone for tuning into this recap and discussion of civil defense with Armand. Thank you once again to Armin for co-hosting. Yes. And join us next week when we will be recapping and discussing the episode, Meridian, with Terry.

Yeah. We'll have the lovely Terry with us then. For all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material and our rating of what this episode is. All right, everyone. Bye. Thanks, everybody. I'm going to be able to be.