The Delta Flyers - Cold Fire

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Cold Fire. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Cold Fire:The crew encounters new hope of returning home when Ocampa colonists lead them to a mysterious female entity who may have the ability to help them.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise, and Rebecca Jayne, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Peter Patch, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Ann Marie Segal, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Jason Self, Daniel Adam, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Megan Hurwitt, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Shannyn Bourke, and Holly SmithAnd our Producers: Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Deborah Schander, Eleanor Lamb, Thomas Melfi, Breana Harris, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Father Andrew Kinstetter, Ann Harding, Gay Kleven-Lundstrom, Gregory Kinstetter, Laura Swanson, Máia W, Luz R, Charity Ponton, Josh Johnson, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Katie Johnson, Craig Sweaton, Maggie Moore, Ryan Hammond, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, York Lee, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, Dave Grad, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Katherine Puterbaugh, Claire Deans, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Cutler, Crystal Komenda, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Oliver Campbell, Anna Post, Evette Rowley, Robert Hess, Vikki Williams, Cindy Ring, Nathan Butler, Terry Lee Hammons, Andrei Dunca, James Keel, Daniel Owen, Brian Jordan, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, and Ming Xie Thank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are myself, Garrett Wong, and my co-host, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil. Who-hoo, the beardless. The beardless, the much more Tom Perrisy. Look at that. Yeah, I had to shave this week. It looks good, actually. I haven't seen you without a beard in probably 10, 15 years, it seems. Yeah, I think it's been about 12 years.

I think I shaved once, like in 2015, I had a really thick beard. I had a long one. I directed this pilot, and I remember I didn't shave the whole time after I got the job because I was like, it's good luck. This is my good luck beard. So I had a nice long hipster beard, and I shaved it all. off to nothing. And then I was like, what did I do?

Well, what's the reason why you shaved this time? So the reason I had to shave this time is the show that I'm finishing up, producing and directing is called Resident Alien. It's with Alan Tudik. And we have to fly in helicopters up to a glacier on Tuesday and go film for a day on Wednesday all day at the glacier. Nice. Because of COVID, the company, the corporate, you know, the corporation, you know, the parent corporation, which is Comcast, was like, you guys can't fly in helicopters. It's too confined to space.

And so we were like, well, we have to fly in a helicopter because we've got to shoot. Like, this is part of the story. Right. There's stuff we owe for the episodes that we have to be on in the snow. And the only place to get snow right now is up on a glacier. So at one point they said, no, we were going to cancel it. and try to do with all visual effects. It was, that was getting complicated.

And, and then I said to them, I said, well, wait a minute. I said, how do nurses go to work every day? Like, what do nurses in the COVID wing do when they've got to go to work? They can't stop working. And, you know, I said, we'll put on those suits, those hazmat suits. And then Comcast was like, well, you're right. Like maybe. So we settled on these respirators that we're going to wear that are super.

strong and we have to wear goggles but now we can get five people in the helicopter at once so we can take the crew of 30 people that are filming that day up there but we had to get fitted this week for our respirator yeah so I had to shave on Wednesday and then we film next Wednesday so until we shoot I got to keep my face clean shaving yeah because you need a secure seal yes exactly and if you have facial hair it's going to actually compromise the safety of that unit to that vice. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so everybody, I saw some of the,

some of the guys on the crew are Dolly Grip. Chris is his name. I've known him for a long time. He's always had a beer. I've never seen it. I was like, I didn't recognize him. Or one of our AD's, Gurgit, is his name. Gertit I've known for five or six years.

Never seen him without a beard. I was like, who are you? So, yeah, there's a lot of people on the crew that I'm like, oh my God, that's what you look like. I'm sure they're doing the same with me. I am. I'm actually staring at your chin and your upper lip. Everything is just new to me.

Even though, of course, I knew you as clean-shaven on the show. You're a clean-shaven younger man then. Well, you know, what's funny is I said to somebody after I shave this week, somebody said, oh, my God, you look like Tom Paris now. They go, I never noticed it. Like, I couldn't imagine, because I've only known you with a beard. It never made sense. But now they're like, I recognize I see.

the Tom Paris. And I said it's funny because when I go to conventions and people see me with a beard, you're like, wait, who are you? Like, you don't look like Tom Paris. I'm like, yeah, but it is. So, that's funny. Oh, very good. I just, I just watched my panel that I moderated for New York Comic Con. I moderated Smallville's 20th anniversary. I know. That was a big panel. It was a big panel, but, you know, I'm, you know, I'm very self-critical. critical of my moderation. And there's a few things that I did that I wish I could have did again. The beginning was awkward because I got a little bit tongue tied because usually if I'm moderating a panel in front of a live audience, I'll say, all right, put your hands

together, give a warm round of applause. And I started saying, give a warm round of applause. And I realized, oh my God, there's nobody here to, you know what I'm saying? Who at home is going to be like, who? I mean, maybe a couple of diehard fans, right? But I kind of, I forklempt myself by saying that and then in my mind going, I shouldn't be saying that. And then I just, so the beginning is a little shaky, I'll admit, but then it picks up, it gets better. And then Michael Rosenbaum told a story about how his grandmother had told him, she had told his grandmother that he was auditioning for Smallville. And she had told him for the very first time, you're going to get it. And she never says that. Wow. She died like a week later, and he ended up getting it, you know, and it was like this

sort of morbid story. And at the end, I was like, thank you for sharing. And I said, awesome. But then Megan was sitting next to me going, are you saying awesome about his grandmother dying? I go, oh, no, no, I didn't mean that. I bet awesome meaning awesome that you shared that. So that was my other mess up. Well, if you'd like, Garrett, we could, we could ask everybody right now for our podcast to give us a warm round of applause for Garrett and Robbie. There you go. That's good. I hear it. I hear it. I hear it. Can you hear it? I can hear it a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's, I can hear it in the, I can feel the applause. I can feel it, exactly. All right, so let's, let's go ahead and play a little game of what do we remember for our patrons and for everybody else. Stay tuned. Robbie and I are going to go watch this episode, come back and give you our two cents worth. Thanks a lot. See you soon.

ladies and gentlemen from reviewing cold fire yes well we didn't review it yet we're not back we're not back from reviewing we're back from rewatching watching and now we were about to review correct i had fun i had fun watching that episode yeah all right before hey before we jump into the review of this episode let me just say that i did call mr robert beltrane yes because because we had questions, at least I had questions. Yes. Last episode that we reviewed tattoo. Right.

First was, number one, did the hawk fly away? We do know that a lot of the interiors were shot on stage. And a lot of the exteriors were shot on stage 16 to make it look like exterior. But they did go to Vasquez Rocks, he said, to film that opening bit. And I asked about, if you recalled about, you know, the hawk actually flying away. and he doesn't remember that one. I don't remember that either. Yeah, but he does remember that is not his backside.

I was right. When we see... Really? Yes, yes. I was right because the hair looked like a wig. And when you saw it from behind, it didn't look like his hair. And I asked him, is that you naked from behind? He's like, no.

Because I refused to do it. A body double. Oh. A body double. Wow. I didn't remember that. He literally, yeah, he said, just, yeah, he said, listen, guys, I'm not going to, I'm not going to shoot this. I refuse to show

my, my backside. Right. You're going to have to find a body double, and that's why they did. And if you see the shot, it's from far away. It's not really a close-up, you know. No, not at all. Yeah, so that was somebody else. Somebody else's digital butt crack. Yeah. Somebody else wearing a flesh-colored tight to the bottom and that they replaced the butt crack later. That's not Robert Beltran's, but... That's funny. So now we have that. It's so funny how, like, each of these episodes, you know, there's...

I mean, it's obvious, but I guess I'll just say it. It's like, you know, in Tattoo, that was a Beltron episode. So he's going to remember a lot more about that than we do. It's like this episode was a Kes episode, and I, you know, I didn't have that much to do in it. So I didn't really remember very much of it. Okay. But, yeah, I really enjoyed this episode, by the way. Really, really did.

I had a lot. Good. I want to hear my limerick? I got a limerick, too. Yes. I'll let you go. I'll let you go. All right.

Shoot your limerick, your synopsis limerick. My synopsis limerick goes something like this. Pess and Tuvok practice some brain work, then run into a second caretaker jerk. Her O'Compin's sidekick fills Kess with some mind tricks, but Voyager survives with some teamwork. Nice. That's my Limerick. Oh man, you went all out on that one. You went all out. Okay. Here we go. Okay. My synopsis limerick for Coldfire. There once was an Ocampon named Kess, who left her home planet no less. A distant cousin appears, helps her surpass her fear.

fears, but left her in such a complete mess. Ah, nice, nice. I'm glad we went total of different directions in that too, so that's good. It's funny with the limerick, because, you know, the rhyme is going to drive where you go, like from the, you know. Exactly. You have to get the rhyme down. I just wanted to start with Kess and Tuvok practice some brainwork.

Sure. That was a good start. Brainwork. Brainwork started it all off, and then you just stuck with that. It really, really did. The story is by Anthony Williams. The teleplay is by Brennan Braga and directed by Mr. Cliff. Oh, yes.

I loved Cliff. Yeah, Cliff was great. He has, you know, he has, I think he directed 20-some-odd episodes of TNG. He directed dozens of, or a dozen maybe, I think, of DS9, 10 episodes of Voyager. But, you know, he directed his early. early as six million dollar man. You remember that up that series that when we were kids, we were watching that as kids. No, Cliff was a real old school veteran television director from the old school. I remember I shadowed Cliff. I really like Cliff a lot. I shadowed him

to learn about directing. And he had mentioned to me one time that he was going over to do an X-Files episode at Fox on the Fox lot. And I said, wow. I'd love to come shadow, you know, shadowing on Star Trek is great, but I'd love to learn about other shows as well. And if, would that be okay if I came and shadowed you? Yeah. And he said, sure, let me check with the people there. And he did and put me in touch with them. So I got approved to come shadow and shadowed over at X-Files a little bit. Nice. Yeah, Cliff Bull was, because he was so well connected and it had been around a lot, he was a really important person. for me in learning to direct and yeah I just I thought he yeah I thought he was great he had a very

old school kind of personality you know the old director of like I'm the boss do what I say you know it was a little bit of that but I appreciated that like I always felt we were in good hands with Cliff we you know we didn't work as long you know hours weren't as long I just felt like he knew what he wanted he knew how to get it and how to finish day so yeah but cliff what set him apart or at least what i recall of cliff was that he had a very specific style of how he dressed like he would show up on set with like a bolo tie uh denim shirt like a yes you know like a kind of a cowboy yeah yeah so i look at cliff and i thought okay this guy lives in colorado he's like a rancher you know what i'm saying like he looked like that's

That's what his M.O. would be if you saw him but didn't hear him speak, didn't know what he did. You'd think that guy owns a ranch in Colorado, period. End of story. But he was definitely old school Hollywood, been around forever, passed away in 2014. So he's no longer with us. But definitely someone that I look forward to when he did direct, I just knew, okay, this guy's going to be cool. There's a picture of him right there. Yeah. There's Cliff right in the middle. Tuvok is standing there and there's Robbie that is clearly young Robbie from an episode

where they got to go back to planet Earth and Robbie gets to go to the Griffith Park Observatory and hang out with Sarah I'm blanking what's the comedian's name that you worked with? Sarah Silverman. Silverman, exactly.

See, this is the thing Robbie. The older I get, the names just start escaping my brain. Yeah, I know, me too. My mind is not as is solid. There you go. There's Cliff again. Yeah. There's Cliff on directing a ES9. Or DS9. Yeah, it could be DS9, right? So yeah, Cliff Ball. Definitely somebody who, uh, once again, was someone I look forward to. If I saw him on the first day of filming, I go, oh, it's Cliff, cool. Yeah. Just a really

easy to get along with guy, right? Agreed. Agreed. He never put on airs, which is really good. Yeah. Cool. Um, so in this episode, oh, and the other thing about Cliff, He directed the TNG episode Conspiracy, which is where we see the appearance of the aliens known as the Bollians. And Bollians were named after Cliff Boll. Cliff Boll, that's right. Which is, I don't think there's any other director that got, you know. There are no McNeil aliens running around, right?

No. But Bollians are real. I forgot that. I heard that. I remember hearing that that they had named the Bollians after him. such a cool piece of trivia though right I mean to be a director of a sci-by show and then the producers go

guess what we're gonna name these aliens after you it's like huh yeah that's so funny right I would have I would have thought that an alien would be named after an executive producer writer first before like they would be the Braggia

Braggians yes or the yes Bermanononians yes Bermonansans Bermaxians The Bermaxians, yes. But yeah, but Cliff gets his own alien species, which is pretty damn cool.

The bullion. So the very first scene is Tuvok training Kess in mind kung fu. Yes, but before that, even before that, there was a recap. Did you see the recap? Yes, the recap. The recap. So I don't ever remember a recap on our show. and in fact, I think it was

Majel's voice. It was her voice. It was Majel's voice doing this recap about the caretaker, which I thought was really interesting because we never had a recap on our show. Yeah, but it's even more interesting because recaps, and typically, when you're watching any type of episodic series,

the recaps happen in a season opener of like season two, episode one. They recap what happened in season one going into season two. we are already into the thick of season two and they throw this recap in you know but i think they really wanted to land the idea that uh the caretaker um they even had a clip of that quote that you mentioned about right there's another you know my partner my mate yeah she does say mate i was wrong i thought it was just a friend you know or a co-worker but it's a mate yeah my mate is out

there my anyway so that yeah the recap i found really interesting because that's unusual for us Yeah, definitely. All Star Trek shows. I don't really remember seeing it on any of the show. No, no. It's a very rare, it's a unicorn, you know, to have a recap on Star Trek. So then in this scene where they're, you know, Tuvok is training casts, then she focuses in and all of a sudden she can hear Neelix,

and then he tells her to just block out all the voices. And then we started hearing about Neelix getting a haircut, which is another thing which we don't even ever, we never see anyone getting a haircut. No. Right. And we don't even, and then we learn about Neelix's very particular about how long his ear hairs need to be. And we're thinking like, I wonder if, but I wonder, you know, because they, I don't know that they wrote the dialogue for Neelix. They probably just said in the script and she hears Neelix's voice. And they probably had, had Ethan Phillips go to the ADR stage and said, oh, just talk about a haircut or something. And I bet you the ear hairs. My guess is that was his improv, that they just said, oh, just, you know, talk like you're getting a haircut and telling him. And he talked started adding the ear hair.

That sounds like an Ethan Phillips. That sounds about right, definitely. It was very peculiar because I don't remember hearing, I don't remember that at all, anything about ear hairs. And then watching that, I started laughing. Yeah. And then she laughed. She laughed. She did.

She giggled. I have to say, I really am enjoying watching these episodes because, I had forgotten how important Kess was these first couple of seasons. She really had a ton. She had a lot more to do than I did on the show than Tom Parris did, honestly. Like she did. I mean, and her stories weren't just interesting character stories. They were tied into the ships, yeah, the arc of the first couple of seasons.

She was really and tied into the development of the doctor character and tied into all kinds of things. I mean, we really could not have become the show we did without that character and without Jennifer Lien's contribution. She was great. Yeah, she was an integral part of the crew. The first bridge scene that we see, there is a point where Janeway glances back at Chacote, who then flashes a very boyish and grin. He's that smile. He's smiling at her a lot in this episode. And it's not really explained. Like, wow. I the only thing it's almost like they had nookie to me it's like you know what I'm saying it's like it's like uh-huh hey like that's funny because um there's a couple times in this episode where

I thought the actors were sort of smiling about things that weren't really a part of the scene like when Gary um when he said um he said well would would you would you guess that I am 14 years old and he's sort of he looks like he's about to laugh and then she looks like she's about to laugh and and she goes well i'm two or something she's like no that's not possible the oldest living ocampin only lives till nine and it felt like in that conversation that it was two actors sort of laughing at how silly it was dialogue i'm 14 and you're two yeah it didn't seem like the characters and then the the the chokote smile throughout this episode Yeah. I couldn't quite place it. And then I thought, well, you know, Robert has not had many lines. Like, he was in a bunch of scenes where he just sort of sat there. So I wonder if he had said to Kate at one point, like, I am in all these scenes and I never say a word. Just look at me. You know, just watch how I, you know, I have nothing to contribute. And so I felt like his smile was almost like, whenever Kate looked at him, he's like, see? I still haven't said anything.

He's trying to sit a word. I felt like that's what that smile was about, because he did it a lot. He did, he did. I just found it interesting because typically Cote's a very, he's a very straight-laced kind of businessy kind of do your character. He's very kind of dry and hard to read. Yes. And then for him to have that.

And it was a very endearing smile. It was warm and it was boyish is the way I pointed it. Agreed. Voyager is known as the ship of death. you remember that scene in the briefing room i gotta go back though when that when the when the the the remains of the caretaker the rock yeah yeah starts making that noise i was like oh my god that is the most irritating sound i've ever heard in my life make it stop pitch that like yeah it was like nails on a chalkboard that the rock made yes and it happened a few

times and I was really glad that Tuvok said, I'm going to make a toxin for this thing. If it keeps making this noise, I'm going to kill it because I was ready to kill it the first time it made that noise. And by the way, Tuvok's quarters where he's teaching Kess, that's Janeway's quarters redressed. It's the same side. Yeah. He just maybe because he's a senior officer, he gets the larger quarters.

I know you and I and Balana. I can't remember who else, but we had smaller quarters over by Sickbay, but Tuvok's quarters had nice windows and he was in the same spot where they would put Janeway's quarters. Yeah, well, we also made mention of when we saw Kess's quarters, not in this episode, but in a prior episode, how they looked larger. Like almost like they were, it was meant for a senior officer that that person died or something happened to them.

And so then Kess got that, you know. Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Did she share quarters with Neelix? I always assume. I assume so, but I don't know. I don't. That's a good question.

I don't know if we ever saw them together. Like, did they sleep in the same bed? They were a couple. So I would. Yeah. Okay, well, maybe that's why they have the bigger quarters, right? Maybe. For some reason, I feel like they weren't in the same quarters.

I don't know. Good question for the people out there. It is a good question. So this life form. We call it a sporescystian life form. Yes. Caretaker is a sporescystian life form. And so I was like, I looked this up.

And it's not a real thing. But it does say in the interwebs, a spore cystian life form was dubbed caretaker. And it's capable of holographic projection and matter manipulation on a huge scale. The spore cystian life form was abandoned by his mate when he began a lifelong project of caring out of guilt for the Ocampan people. planet's surface had been destroyed accidentally by the caretakers' technology. So a sporescystian life form. It sounds super authentic, but it's just totally made up. It's totally made up. Yeah. A holographic projection, capable of holographic projection. Yeah.

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speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan taxes and fees extra see mint mobile for details and we learn that suspiria is the name of the caretakers mate and suspiria just sounds like another type of sweetener used for official sweetener it says stevia suspiria yeah can i have a coffee with two packs of suspiria and some cream thanks exactly And now we know the race of the caretaker aliens is the Nassin, Nassin is what they were called, the Nassin. Yeah, I wrote that down. What sounds like an Arabic first name, but Nassine, and I had to keep relining it because I was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was it, was there an N-A-N at the end? I think there's an N-I-N-I-N-I-N-I-N, I think there's an N-I-N. I think it's N-A-C-I-E-N, or N-A-C-E-N, is how I spelled it, but I don't know if that's how it is.

Nasine, nasian is what I thought they said. Okay. Telepathic abilities, they can enhance life and holographic projection, manipulate matter, very much on a small scale, like what the Ocampin can do. Obviously tied into the Ocampin, you know, getting more telepathic powers and longer lives because they've sold their soul to this this caretaker type creature. Kess also says to him at one point she says there's over 150 people on board so again another number like we keep throwing out different numbers yeah of how many people are on board I thought there were over 200 people but she says to to Gary Graham in this episode over 150 people's numbers which would mean less than 200 yeah yeah definitely and Gary Graham's character is base tennis is his name like the sport bit, Tannis, tennis.

Tennis. Some say tennis, some said Tannis. So there was a little bit of a variation there. He reminded me of Gath, the main hedonistic alien, the Sicarian from prime factors that was all trying to lure us in. And so this guy is also kind of trying to lure,

well, one person, Kess, in... I just, did you get the sense? It was very creepy. Very creepy, yeah. That Tannis and the way that he was obsessed with Kess because even when he spoke to the caretaker lady um and he's and she said you know you can have the girl i just want the ship oh yeah and you're like why does he want this particular o'compans so bad like yeah it was a little creepy and because of you know he's 14 which is

you know if they said their average lifespan is is up to nine that's the oldest though that would be the oldest that's like a 90 year old is the oldest right he's 140 years old yeah he's going after a 20 year old like she's two right yeah we did our math correct yeah he's a 140 year old going after a 20 year old it's kind of creepy yeah and and it felt very romantic and flirty and all of his yeah his interactions were very kind of yeah i felt i felt i felt bad for kiss i wanted to protect her and punch him in the face and i kept well yeah but i I kept thinking, for God's sake, why isn't Neelix getting jealous of Gary Graham's character? I mean, obviously, tennis is making the move.

And, you know, Neil is just like, doop do, do I'm just going to watch while you train her. Well, it's hard when you're an actor. Like, there's Ethan Phillips sitting in the mess hall. And he says at one point, oh, can I interrupt him? Yeah. Can I talk for, can I speak for a second? And all he wants to do is say, I am so proud of you for, for, you know, growing your telepathic ability

that's all he ultimately wanted to do Gary Graham's character is like no we're not done yet you know yeah very very dismissive yeah it's very dismissive it's hard as an actor to to you know to protect your own character

when the writers write things like that where you're you're you know behaving in a you know yeah a non active way or you know they put they put And he looks in a corner there. It's tough for Ethan to save him in that situation.

Yeah. In that scene where Kess is trying to show Tuvok her newfound skills that she learned from tennis. Yeah. And she ends up breaking, I mean, burning the cup and then all of a sudden burning Tuvok. That makeup job, Megan instantly said that Tuvok looks like Michael Jackson in the thriller video. Yeah. And I kept thinking, oh, my God, Tim Russ would be. make an amazing vampire or

werewolf like just with that it did look very werewolfy and kind of yeah that was a cool makeup I was a good one I did I really liked it yeah by the way like when they were walking around in the cargo bay in the flowers and stuff

you know all I kept thinking of in those scenes as you know first it started with small flowers and then they walk around and all of a sudden it's a big grown flowers and then they walk around some more And it's and then she does her telepathy and then she burns the flowers. All I kept thinking was like, oh my God, they have to keep redressing this set with like, like, oh, that's such a pain in the butt to have to stop and then redress the whole set. And yeah.

Because that wasn't CGI. That was actually real plants that they brought in that were more in bloom, right? When they end up getting. Yeah, small plants and then the big plants. Big plants and then the dead plants. Yeah. Yeah. And every time you change, you know, every time that happens, you've got to redress the whole, you've got to stop and redress the whole set. So you can't shoot. You can't film the scenes straight through without stopping and redressing everything. I don't know. That's just, it's hard for me to watch any television anymore. I hear you think about critical.

Critical. Sure. I mean, like, oh, that was hard to shoot that scene. You know, that would have been. Yeah. It's funny because you can probably look at something and go, oh, my God, I know exactly how much time. took you know to redress that set yeah oh god that's that's that's an hour 45 minute redress yeah that alone people don't even know what's happening but it's it's it's time time time um I will say that this is the one time that I disagreed with a director's way of shooting a particular scene oh yeah and it was it was the scene when Janeway goes down to sick Bay to find out what's going on with, you know, Balana and Tuvok and all those guys.

And then she realizes that she, that blood drops under her. Well, that was in engineering. Sorry, sorry, not in, yeah. In engineering, yeah. She looks up and now they're suspended in air and they're kind of unconscious. Now, when I read the script, to me, this was a very, I recall now because of seeing that scene, it reminded me, it queued me, my memories. started to come to the forefront, I remembered reading this script thinking, this is a very

spooky type of a script. It's kind of a, it was very gothicy in a way. To me, it was a horror movie. It was a horror movie. Exactly. And that particular scene, when I watched it, when it aired, and I do remember watching it, that I saw how they were suspended. And I was like, no, why are they like this? Why are they horizontal? They should have been suspended. did this away, literally where their heads were down and their feet were up. Do you see what I'm saying? So that would have been more scary than this kind of laid out like they were just floating on a cloud like they were Superman flying like in a prone position.

It should have been a vertical with the head down, feet up, arms kind of loose hanging down next to their head and the blood dripping off of their, you know, out of their nose or whatever, where ears onto Janeway. I don't know if that bothered you or not or you're okay. with how that scene was shot but it bugged I didn't think about that that's interesting I didn't think about changing their position I did think about how tricky that is to shoot a scene like that and I did think about um I was thinking about like the horror movie aspect and I think that um and I love cliff as a director I think he could have done a few more things cinematically that would have felt

like a horror movie yes you know there's ways there's certain tropes that horror movies use, you know, in terms of like suspense beats of walking in and, you know, feeling like, you know, letting things, letting things breathe for a while and build up the anticipation and, you know, and then the quick turn or, or you think you're going to find something and there's nothing there. And then all of a sudden, boom, it's right behind you the other side. Correct. Like, there could have done things like that. Yeah. Because there were some horror movie opportunities that, that maybe weren't amplified as well as they could have been. I mean, it's funny on our show because that's one thing I loved about Voyager

was week to week we could do tonally very different things. One week we might do a horror movie style show. And the next week, it might be a romantic, you know, a romance of some sort. And then the next week it might be a action movie. You know, the genres were, the tones were different week to week. So it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun for us as actors to do and fun for, I think, the directors to try different genres, you know, depending on the story they got. Yeah. But sometimes because of that changing tone and genres week to week, we didn't always go, you know, super deep into that style.

Like you wouldn't go full horror movie on our show, even though, even though the story might be a little bit horror movie, we still have to make a Star Trek show, you know, week to week. Yeah. So, yeah, anyway. But I did, I did notice. those horror elements. I saw that too. I just think the reveal would have been so much more effective if they were positioned

in that vertical position as opposed to that horizontal, which just was so confusing to me. You know, I don't think it would have been that much more difficult to shoot it the way that I'm talking, you know, compared to what they're doing, right? Yeah. They could have figured something out. Well, I think they've got the bodies up there. You know, they put them on wires probably. They put some holes in the set and rigged some wires up and pulled people up and had them floating. Right. You could have had them in any way you wanted. Yeah. Once you've rigged the wires, you can then place them in any configuration, right,

that you want the person in. You don't have to have them, you know, prone like that. And I just feel like, like sometimes that'll happen. We being creative people when we read a script, we'll see it a certain way. And, you know, and again, not to knock Cliff Ball. I think Cliff Ball is a great director. It just, I think that this may be when he was reading the script, he just saw it only as a horizontal placement of these characters and didn't even think about going vertically, you know. And whereas my mind was like, oh, God, I would have been much more scared if I saw that vertical, you know, placement of everybody kind of hanging, like they were pieces of meat in a meat locker, you know, hanging from the suspended from the ceiling. That would have scared me more, for sure. I thought, um, speaking of

horror movies, like, it just reminded me in that scene with Tuvok when he had the makeup on and she was, and Kess started screaming. And she was going, ah, ha, screaming really loud. I always find on filming people screaming is really hard. the sound men are like, you know, trying not to be too close because it can get distorted, like microphones can get blown out and, you know, you can overmodulate, I guess, the sound too much noise or something. And I felt that in that moment of like,

it sounded a little bit like she had screamed really loud and blown out the, you know, the mic a little. And I don't know. I don't know if they cleaned it up and did it ADR, but it just reminds me of like whenever... you're acting and you're doing some of those things that require real yelling or screaming, you'll always get these notes from the sound men. Like, it's not maybe a little less or, or if you're the opposite,

if you're doing a scene that's, you know, you're whispering, you know, giving an example. Are you doing ASMR? I am doing ASMR. I thought you were. It looks, no, but when you're doing a really quiet scene, a lot of times the sound men will come over. almost always, and say, hey, can we have a little more volume?

And you're like, dude, I'm supposed to be whispering. Let me just whisper to this person and figure out how to get the sound you want. You know what I mean? Exactly. As opposed to me pretending to whisper, but it's really loud, like, yeah, this is a real whisper. You know, it's really quiet. It's kind of, that's, yeah.

I'm playing with that. Let's just do the show like that. That's funny. But the thing is like, yeah, the loud, I thought about this when Kess screamed, all of those extremes, they're always like when you're filming, they're always saying, oh, not so loud on this line because it's too much for the microphones or a little more on this line because it's, you know, it's too soft what you're saying. Yes. And it's really, when I'm directing, I often tell the sound people like, no, figure it out. You know, like let the actors play the scene as they really would play it. let's figure out our side of the of the street.

Right, right. Okay, so that little, the little girl, I found the little girl part to be very confusing. It almost felt like, why did they make her a little girl? I just didn't understand why she took on that form. Was it just a misdirect so that they would think, oh, this is, this is the caretaker and she's not threatening because this is. Well, do you think, I kind of felt like,

Like, when we saw the caretaker from the pilot episode, he was represented by this very old man on the banjo. And he was dying. So I kind of felt like Suspira, the mate of the caretaker, is not dying, is still full of life. So they represented her in the opposite of an old, old character. They picked the youngest, you know, a female that they could find, a little girl to represent the youthful, not the youthfulness.

That's interesting. I didn't think of it. Yeah, I didn't think of it that way, but that makes sense. I was just thinking of it like, are they just trying to make a scary girl? Like, it seemed arbitrary, but no, that makes sense that she was younger, that Suspira was younger and represented by this youthful. Right. And if they are going down the horror kind of genre take, it is creepier to have a little girl,

as in the shining, you see the two twin girls in the hallway. That's creepy. You know what I'm saying? Well, especially when the voice changed when it went from. It went, yeah, that was creepy. That was pretty creepy. That was a nutty. It also was creepy when the little girl changed into the caretaker.

I guess the real caretaker is like an alien, is like a, like a worm? It's like a tentacle. It's like an octopus tentacle or some type of weird. Is that what it was? I thought it was like a worm. It could be a worm with like little spikes on it or something, but it was just, you know, this kind of weird. And I'm sure, you know, if Voyager was filmed today,

The CGI would be probably much more impressive than what you saw. I mean, that was kind of like, eh, it's like a purple, you know, twizzler stick or something like that. It's just, I don't know. It's not really that scary. The, I want to just bring up, this is on a side note, we last night, Megan was like, I want to watch this show. And it was the haunting of Bly Manor.

Oh, that's the new haunting of Hillhouse was the old, the first season. Correct. the same people who did haunting a hill house did haunting a blind manner and the setup of this whole series is literally Janeway's holodeck program like

it's this woman going to England at this really this huge mansion of some lord to become the governess of these two children and it's like wait a minute wait a minute the haunting of blind manor were these writers sitting in his faith

yeah were they Voyager fans or were they watching an episode of Voyager? And they go, hell, this is the setup for our next TV series. That's funny. Yeah, I guess for me, first of all, I think, smart of Tuvok to develop this toxin for the sporessistine life form. Good thinking, smart. He's always on a defensive, you know, kind of mindset to have something in our back pocket

just in case we need it, a weapon or a defensive weapon of some kind. So we needed it. And we hit up that little girl with a toxin. and then we put a force field around her. And then Janeway kind of tells her the truth. Look, we didn't kill your dude. You know, we don't want to hurt people. And then Janeway does something that she does a lot in the series.

She risks everything and tells Tuvok take down the force field. Yeah. Let this all powerful, you know, worm that was about to kill all of us, let it out. And let's just hope that it trusts us now that I've talked about. for 10 seconds. Yeah. And I was like, wow, that's risky. And if, you know, I mean, I know this is all fake.

I know this is not a documentary about a real. I get it. But it's like over and over, she takes these risks and you're just like, this could go really bad. Like, what's the downside to letting this thing out? We all die. That's right. She's very risky.

But also, when you take that type of risk and that trust and say just release the force field bring it down that then you know it's a chess it's a chess game it's a chess move and now the alien is like wait a minute you're showing me mercy you know so that that to me was really you know yes it's risky but it's also janeway's already thought this out i feel like you know she's she's three or four steps ahead and she's like let's just let's make this move this is this is like going all in at the poker table like i'm all in like that right so yeah so yeah so yeah so yeah she's definitely very risky. Yeah.

Yeah, so that's basically the end of that caretaker story. Turns into a worm and takes off. And then we don't get any help from it, but we survive. And Kess has had to use this power, this darkness that she's discovered from Gary Graham's character. She's had to use this to sort of defend herself against Gary Graham's character. And he's got, you know, bleeding from the eyes. Ask Mercy gets kind of beamed out by the caretaker and saved by her.

But Kess has stepped into the dark side a little, and I love that scene with her and Tuvac at the end, which really, I guess, for me, captures the theme of the episode of like, you know, the darkness. For me, the theme is what Tuvok stated to her at the end, the lesson, which is we all have a darkness inside of us. And if we don't get in touch with that darkness and accept that part of us. as well we won't know what the light is we how do we know you know how can we appreciate the lightness the light inside of us if we don't also accept the darkness and i thought that was really a great point

yeah i think the lines that they they said they were talking about if you don't acknowledge the dark that that'll give it an opportunity to escape you know what i'm saying you have to say that you do have every person is made of the dark thoughts and the light thoughts and if you acknowledge that the dark thoughts are there. That's how you keep it in control. If you ignore it or suppress it, that's how it escapes. Yeah. Creates crazy people or crazy dictators, you know. I didn't really get what he was training her to do in the final scene when all the flowers get burnt. Like, what was he, was he trying to teach her that you can take the energy, the life force of all these plants by feeling them? And in turn, they end up dying because you kind of take their life

force like what did you get out of that i don't me i felt like because she goes she yeah she was upset that she killed them and he goes he goes it doesn't matter whether they live or die it's it's whether you're in touch with that power inside of you so to me he was all about the power yeah experience of power whether you're whether it's an experience of power that you give more life to these flowers or an experience of power where you kill them he was very much drawn to that dark side very much drawn to the power, the pure power of it all. That's what I got from that. And then when he's gone, when Tannis is gone, Gary Graham's character is gone,

and Kess tries to kind of boil the coffee again, and it doesn't work. So then I start wondering, was that all Tannis doing that to make Kess think she was doing it? You see what I'm saying? So there were some questions for me at the end where I was just a little confused about what was the motive of tannis like what was he trying to do exactly it was sort of like a you know in a star wars analogy come to the dark side luke yeah it was like that very much i could feel that but i still wasn't sure you know did kess really do the burning did she really you know was she just kind of there as a puppet for gary's character too yeah i don't know i'm not sure um but i agree

with the theme, what you came up with on that one. I feel like there's some other theme here that I'm missing, but maybe I'll talk about this on the next episode. That's going to be my thing. Bring up stuff on the next episode where we just talked about. Good to have a follow-up. You've got to have a follow-up. Good to have a follow-up. Yes. Totally is. All right, guys. So join us next week when we re-watch, recap the episode, maneuvers. Manovers. Thanks, Bobby. Thanks, buddy.