The Delta Flyers - Collective

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

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

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers to Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Voyager actor, who also in 2005 directed his then teenage daughter Taylor, an episode of the television series Summerland, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil and myself. your favorite forever, Ensign Garrett Wong. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. Wow. That's pulling out of the old deep dive bin.

How was that directing Taylor? Was she easy to direct? It was awkward. Dad, you don't know what you're talking about. Was it kind of a teenage girl thing? A little bit, yeah, definitely a teenage girl. Like, don't talk to me too much, dad. And here's the thing, she was doing like, you know, community theater and things like that.

And I think it was like her dabbling and, oh, well, dad's in the business. Maybe I could try it, you know, that'll be an inn. And so I remember, I told the casting director, I said, I'd love my daughter to come in, but don't tell anyone that it's my daughter. Just have her come in and read. And then the showrunner reached out to me after he saw the tapes. And he said, so I like this person. I like that person for the other roles. And he said, for the teenage girl, he goes, you know, there are a lot of good choices.

But I really liked this Taylor McNeil. Is she related to you? He was like, he really didn't know. He's like, that would be so weird. I said, yeah, it's my daughter. And so he goes, wow, well, that's the one that I like. So awesome. Oh, my goodness.

Did you coach her on the audition as well? Very little. I mean, maybe she read it with me once or twice. I don't even think I did that. I don't remember. I was trying to stay out of it. Oh, my God. And she got this part.

It was like one line, I think, with a bunch of the other regular actors who, you know, were very used to this. So she was the fourth person in this double date scene. And I remember she was nervous. Like, I had never seen Taylor. Usually socially, she was really comfortable and confident. Yeah, she was, yeah, she's confident in her skin. of an extrovert i would say not an introvert but she was she was having the nerves big she had a meltdown she was like couldn't remember a line oh no apologizing oh no wait a minute

how old was she at this point so 2000 she was born in what she was born in what year was this again 2005 so she was 14 okay same age as kelly right now yeah yeah yeah oh my god so how did you help her when she was did you help when she's breaking down if you guys google i think that scene it's Summerland. Jesse McCartney was the big name in it. And Taylor McNeil, it's a, it's, they're going on a double date. Right. And, and I think her line was something like, no, uh, I like the ones that you like or something. It was like a real teenager lie. Yeah, that's, that's my daughter. It's on YouTube. You can find the clip. Oh my God. I've seen it before and sent it to Taylor. I'm like, it never goes away, Taylor. Oh, my goodness. That is.

crazy i know yeah so there was a little bit of tension there because you're a dad and she wanted to be cool with the other younger actors she wanted to be cool with the other actors she stayed in touch with the uh the female uh actress the lead yeah is this where she met jack osborne on this project no that was on dawson's creek she came to visit one time and jack was guest starring got you yeah that's funny funny that you remember i remember all these little things yes about taylor So, yeah, well, I just want to, first of all, just say, happy birthday to one of our admirals. Yes, so one of our-

Happy birthday to Shannon down in Australia. Our youngest admiral level patron, actually. She's, I think she's maybe 22 now or something like that, or 21 today. So December 10th, happy birthday, fellow Sagittarian, just like myself, Sagittarian and Megan. So there's half of the Delta Flyers team are Sagittarians. And so we just want to wish you a very happy birthday. And this week's episode is Collective. And we are going to run off and go watch this.

We'll be right back with our review and discussion of the episode Collective. And Patreon, patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. We are back. My goodness, this is a dense episode in terms of technical babble. Yes. And, okay, you know I've been dealing with having a bit of a cold. And so just to give you a little recap of how long this took me, typically we, we a lot about a two-hour time period to watch it, you know, pause, make notes, do our video recording reaction videos. This one was hard.

This one was hard. But I'm going to tell you how long this took me dealing with a cold because you remember, I stopped. the recording after the intro without filming the entire intro. So that's how, you know, foggy my brain is. Yeah. So it took me a grand total of five hours to finish this. Wow. A 45-minute episode. Wow. Wow. That's a record, I think, because I don't think I've ever taken five hours. No, usually I was the one done first texting you going, are you done? Are you done? Are you done? Yes. You ready? You ready? That's you. So five hours.

Wow. Yeah. But this one was hard not just because of your cold thing, but also it was hard on my end because there is a lot of like Borg techno stuff and just a lot of little nuance and detail that made it hard to recap unless you, you know, really pull apart some of that detail. So it was tricky.

It was tricky. Okay. Let's do our poetry. Let's do it. Let's start with our poetry. Here we go with my haiku for collective. Away team captured. Borg teens calling the shots now.

Seven, the nanny. That was good. You like that. I was good. I can always tell when you like it. You have a different reaction. Yeah, that was funny. You give me a courtesy laugh every now and then.

But then every now and then it's a more like, oh. No, that was good. Yeah, yeah, okay. Seven's the nanny. I like that. Seven, the nanny. There we go. All right.

Oh, is it better as seven's the nanny? Or I just said seven the nanny like that. I like seven the nanny. Okay, so that's fine too. That's more poetic. Let's hear the limerick. Let's hear the limerick. Here's the limerick.

Here's the limerick. Neelix wins all the away team's poker chips till the Borg have them caught in their grip. Borg kids are in charge. then first dies by electric charge. Seven shows the kids true companionship. Ah. Yeah.

Very good. Yeah. Okay. Did that take a while or is that tough for you to get? It took a little while. It did. I wanted to get Neelix conning on the poker game. I know you were going to get that.

Yeah. We had to get us playing poker. That was very important. Yeah. And it was so, oh my gosh. We'll get to it. We'll get to it. Yeah.

Okay. So let's go through. everything the teleplay story director and guest stars let's go all right so michael taylor wrote the teleplay he he's the writer of the script itself both of us were wrong yeah both of us were wrong i took bonaski and you took braga raga i think just because it was a borg episode i was like oh i bet this is but no it was michael taylor a story was andrew shepherd price and mark gaberman no idea don't know who they are do you know who they are they're clearly a writing duo yes they must have come in and pitched some story and it got bought

and then rewritten by the room by the writing staff and and michael taylor got the it's you know tv is a team effort that's the bottom line yeah television is a team sport directed by i'm going to get to this though directed alice alison litty alison lyddy brown a dear friend of mine so alice he's not credited as Liddy Brown. She's just Allison Liddy. She was Allison Liddy before. Then she married her wife, her partner of many, many years. Wonderful. And took on a hyphenated name after she directed for us. So Allison Liddy Brown, or Alison Liddy, as she's credited on our show, I met when we were doing Star Trek and I was shadowing on our show. And then I got an opportunity to shadow on a Nickelodeon kid show

called The Journey of Alan Strange. Okay. And my kids watched the show, and I was a fan of it. And I was like, oh, I'd love to shadow. Maybe I could direct one of those, which ultimately I did. But Allison Liddy Brown was one of the directors that I shadowed over on Alan Strange at Nickelodeon. Okay. And I thought she was so good.

I recommended her to Mary Howard and Rick Berman. And so she directed our show because I had met her. and made that recommendation. And I remember the actors loved Allison, my memory. Yeah. So you were integral in her directing this episode. Yeah. And I don't know why she didn't direct more because she was just,

she's such a good director. I've worked with Allison a bunch. Her first job, I just want to say, her first TV show that she ever directed was another Nickelodeon show called The Secret World of Alex Mac. And that show was very popular. Yeah.

She started on Alex Mac. and then moved on to Alan Strange and then has done a ton of things, including I brought her on to Chuck. She directed multiple episodes of Chuck. I brought her on to The Gifted. I brought her on. Resident Alien? Never Resident Alien.

I've tried to get her a couple of times. She's just, she's really busy and she's good. So she's hard to get these days. But she's awesome. I do remember that all the cast did enjoy working with her. So that is kind of weird how they didn't bring her back. Great with actors. Yeah.

So she only directed this one app. This is the only one she directed. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Good with that. She was great. Our guest stars, Ryan Spahn, plays first, the leader of the kids.

His first job was 1998, a comedy drama called Polish Wedding with Jeffrey Nordling was the star of that. Oh. Sounds like an indie sort of, like an indie film, maybe it was his first. We have Manu in Icheb is introduced. Manu and Taramey. Originally we know him as second. Right. But then we'll learn in the end that his name is Echab.

His very first job was 1997 in Pacific Blue, the syndicated action cop show, Pacific Blue. And that was cops in Venice Beach. On bicycles. On bicycles and rollerblades. It's kind of a silly. show um but pacific blue was very popular in the syndicate it was like a bay watch kind of show yeah but they were they were you wait a minute i think they were the rollerblades i think they were also about the rollerblades or not i think they might have been on rollerblades too uh richard heard was in

pacific blue though oh really another wow all right okay we have marley s mclean who's the young girl which will learn is mazotti yes and i think she pronounced she pronounced she pronounced was her last name, McLean. McLean. Marley S. McLean. She was wonderful, by the way. Oh, man. She was so good.

By the way, yeah, I felt that she, for her, because she's clearly the youngest of the entire, you know, quintet, is that how we say for five? Yes. She's the youngest, but yet I felt that she delivered the most powerhouse performance. She was great. Oh, such a good deal. What I found out is she did go to law school,

So she may be a lawyer now. Yes, yes. She also went to undergrad for theater at UCLA, my own lawyer. So she was there. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, her first job was in 1996 on Fresh Prince of Bel Air. Oh, my God.

Are you kidding? And she only has maybe, you know, six or eight credits. She didn't do it for long, right? She just kind of like jumped in, dabble as a kid, took off. Yeah. Our last two of the quintet are Kurt and Cody Wetherell. They are twins. They are twins.

And they both had their very first job in a, I guess, a TV show called Safe Harbor that Rue McClanahan starred in. I do not remember that. Yeah. The year before this in 1999, they were on Safe Harbor. And now Kurt works in Electrics, and he's a DOP. He's directed a short film. So he's going more behind the scenes.

Wow. And same with his brother Cody. Cody became a location man. Wow. Yeah. They've all grown up, those bored kids. Yeah, they're all adults now. That's for sure.

They've gone off to the collective and just living their collective life. Okay, let's talk about the episode. Okay, so, you know, we start out with basically an exterior space shot of the Delta Flyer flying through space. And then we cut to the interior of the Delta Flyer. we see Chkote, Mulex, Tom, and Harry playing poker. And man, how this is such a funny scene. It's cute. Ethan Phillips, pretending that he has no clue of what's going on in this game.

He's saying out loud what he has. Like, what he's going hard, hard, hard, hard. So funny. Yeah. I remember right out of the gate, I'm going to give Alison Liddy Brown some props here. I remember her having us really play poker. She's like, no, no, no, really play. I want you guys to really, like, while we're lighting or rehearsing,

she wanted us to really play a game. And it was great. It was the kind of thing that rarely, you know, directors rarely did sort of give you some acting exercise or, you know, getting in the mood for the scene beforehand. So I remember it was just really fun to shoot the scene. The whole thing was really fun. It was kind of the boys night out. Yeah.

On the Delta Fly show. And we're sitting, we're sitting on the floor back there. playing on the floor, which I remember when Allison pitched that to us. We were all like, whoa, that's different. Yeah, what are you? You want us to do what? But I love Ethan Phillips's reaction after he gets his other, his final card. He makes that, oh, he makes that sound, you know, that his reaction is just priceless.

Love it. And everybody's faces were hilarious. So funny. They were. Speaking of faces, then Paris, when it's his turn to bet or, you know, fold, he looks up at the window. and Chocote turns around, everybody looks, and there's a Borg cube

heading right toward us. And Chocote yells battle stations, and we like step on the chips. Chips are flying, cards are flying. And then we also hear that Tom had a full house.

Yes, Tom's got the last. He's got the blow, as we say in comedy. That's the last line that's a joke. There you go. It's called the blow. So he gets the funny line at the end. I don't even know. that is that that why do they call it that um and last but the fun the button is what you would use

in one hour you know okay but in comedy you call it's called the blow yeah because you want to give blown away the audience what do you yeah you want you want a big laugh at the end yeah you want to go out of the actor out of the scene and I want to laugh I never knew that terminology so thank you for educating me today I appreciate that I wrote down that cube looked like it was about to crash into us It was so close. How did we survive? I just don't know. I have no idea.

All right. So then we basically go to the intro credits. After we come back from that, we are back in the Delta Flyer interior. We're trying to evade the cube. We're taking hits. We're taking damage. Neelix asked why our sensors didn't detect them. Harry says, well, they used a dispersal field to mask their approach.

So while we were engaged in poker, that's how they snuck up on us. We don't have warp drive because there's just too much damage to the plasma injectors. Chacote orders Harry to work on that problem trying to get those plasma injectors repaired so that we can have warp drive again. Now we, in the process of this sort of evasion

and we're firing back at them, we do knock out their propulsion system with photon torpedoes, which I guess we still have an endless supply of them. They have us in a tractor beam. Chocote asked for warp drive, at which point Harry says, Is he still working on?

And then this huge explosion happens. By the way, so Harry's working on the deflector shields. Yes. He's in a Jeffreys tube. Yeah. Did the Delta Flyer have Jeffries tubes? I, this is the one and only time I ever remember seeing that a Jeffreys tube on a Delta fly on the Delta flyer.

It was like, why didn't I just build a little set that was the Delta Flyer version of a Jeffries Tube instead of recycling the Jeffries Tube set that we have standing by for every Jeffries Tube scene. It just didn't, it didn't feel like you were on the Delta Flyer. Yeah. You needed a more, a different design, a more compact Jeffery's Tube maybe because, you know, whenever I tried to validate things where, for instance, I look at something and say, there's no way that there is that much space on the Delta Flyer for a full-sized Jeffery's Tube, I immediately think about. Well, it's like Doctor Who. It's like the TARDIS. It's bigger on the inside. That's the only way that I can validate it. It just, but you're a thousand percent right. No one has ever

worked on a Jeffries tube inside the Delta Flyers until this episode and Harry on there. Or even on a regular shuttle. Like I've just never seen a Jeffries tube. It just seems like they should have made a much smaller set out of that. And it just seemed, it seems strange to me. I agree. But what you're working on the deflector shield does blow up. There's a big hit. Yep. And Harry is knocked out. Yeah. Knocked out cold. Yep. And we go back up front. Chacote's calling for Harry and then the lights go out. Yeah. And the Borg call us and they have their famous their famous Borg. Yes. That we're going to be assimilated. I'm wondering, is that just like an automated message? Because that's, right? Because the only Borg left are the juvenile Borg. So it's not

their voice. This is an adult voice, board voice. So it must be just the automated message they press. Yes, it is. Okay. It's like when you call the phone company and you have to get press one. It's that. It's the same computer as that. We are the board. Press one if you want to be assimilated. Press two if you. Yes. Okay, fine. But they say we're going to be assimilated. This big hole opens up in the cube and sort of sucking us in with a red light, which I thought was. What is that? Is that like turbo boost? That's, I thought that was like turbo tractor. It was sort of like you have regular tractor beam.

And once it turns, which is always, you know, a green color for the board. Yeah. And once it turns red, that's like super tractor. That's what I thought. It was an unusual color. It was. I thought it was strange. What's happening?

Why are they doing that? We go, we're now we kind of fade into a Borg hallway and we see Borg walking by. It's kind of a fuzzy lens. It's like someone's POV walking down the hall. Fuzzy dream sequence, really. Yeah, right? Yeah, and then we see Chocote from behind. He turns around and then you just hear him say, Neelix.

Neelix, he's waking. When he turns around, Chocote has all this Borg stuff on his head. That's right. That's right. He's starting to become a Borg. And then you hear Neelix sort of telepathically. And then Neelix wakes up and you realize it was a dream. Neelix was having a nightmare.

And now they're, they look like themselves. They're in the assimilation chamber. Paris is there with Neelix and Chiquete. Harry's not there. No. I don't remember that at all. No, I don't. What the, yeah. I don't remember much of any of this except that poker scene. I remember filming that. Oh, and by the way, you know in the intro for the patron on patrons, I was talking about how leaving the playing card. So I was right on that one, right? I said I had a playing card. Yes. And the main reason why I remember that is because I printed up, I printed up a couple of photos from still photographer. The still photographer took a

couple, you know, he came on set a couple days. And I, I printed up a photo with, um, me holding a playing card that I post for him holding it to take to conventions. And I also printed up the photo of me sitting against the ball kid like kind of, you know, out with the board stuff on me. Uh, that photo, not one fan selected that photo. Yeah, because they're, because I thought, oh, look, look at the detailing on that little silver stuff going on on my face. This will be super cool but I just think that you know the selection of a shot of me basically unconscious really made no sense for anyone to buy so yeah they're just like uh you look dead I don't think I want to put that on my wall of fame you know in my in my office my Star Trek office so yeah so that's how I

remembered this episode so clearly because I printed up photos specifically that helps sometimes yeah which then became you know they basically were not used because no one wanted them it was like Kind of sad. But let's go back to the episode. Okay, so we're in the assimilation chamber. We reveal Paris is there too. Everybody looks normal. And Paris is really amped up.

Yeah. He wants to find Harry. He's like, he's looking around. They find this botched assimilation, this creepy corpse. They lift the arm up. Yeah. Paris is just really amped up. Chikote even says, Tom, you've got to calm down.

He tries to calm him down. Yeah. Tricote says there's a force field. We've got to find a way to disable it. But here's my thing. Yes. I feel like this threw me a bit. It doesn't seem like Tom would be.

He's not someone who gets amped up. He like always covers with a joke or like Neil was freaking out would have made sense. Yeah. It just felt like we were out of character. This is the beginning for me. And I'll say this is a general note. Okay. I felt like the dialogue and things often felt very out of character in this episode.

Yes. I agree. Paris basically yelling, they've got three more potential drones here, screaming that out. And I thought, huh, I don't know why he's doing that right now. It didn't seem characteristic for Tom Paris to do that. No. But I do have a question for you. When you put, when you guys look at the deceased alien, the assimilation was botched, you pick up the arm, which looks, that arm looked very lifelike. Was that actually a background actor that was a live person that was lying there? Yes. I think so. Yeah, it had to be. And that's always tricky when you have a corpse in a scene and you have a live actor playing a corpse because they have to breathe. They have to breathe, yes. That's true. I think I remember now that you mentioned this, I do remember like trying to time with that person

when we went over there for that shot to like, okay, make sure you breathe before they walk towards you so that you can hold your breath while they're there. It's always tricky. It just reminds me of back when season two episode or maybe it was season one, emanations yes emanations when harry dies season one when harry dies and comes back to life and they shoot the scene where and then harry's dead and here i am like okay don't breathe don't breathe don't and i know my eyes are closed and i'm sitting here like don't breathe and they the director is always going to

get a little bit more extra footage they're not going to just cut it short so just remember having to to really control and hold your breath for an extended period of time so that was not the easiest thing for whoever was playing that corpse yeah yeah chakotay basically wants paris to keep It's cool, and again, very uncharacteristic. Chikote says that they need to try and disable the force field around this room. We jumped to an exterior space shot of Voyager flying through space, and then we cut to the Voyager Bridge, where Tuvok says that the Delta Flyers Ion Trail ends right here. And it's Bologna, who is at Harry Station.

Yeah, she's there the whole episode. She is. Pretty much, right? Yeah, she set up shop in operations. and she detects one more vessel, a Borg cube. Janeway immediately goes to Red Alert and orders adjusting shield to rotating frequencies to protect against the Borg.

Seven says that their propulsion system is offline, but it's strange because drones... Yeah, she's like, wait a minute, this damage. It's not severe. So drones should have repaired it by now, so I don't know what's happening. And then they start firing at us. First, they fire it like our impulse engines.

Or core first, actually. And then the sensor array. And Bologna's like, they can't seem to make up their mind. And Seven's very confused. She says their attack strategy is erratic. That's right. It's just not, it doesn't make sense. This is not how a Borg collective would behave.

Yes. Or a Borg cube. We do knock their weapons offline. And Tuvok detects three non-Borg life signs. One, Tlaxian, definitely. And probably the other two are humanoid. But that's already kind of disturbing because now you're thinking, well, maybe Harry's dead. I mean, if you're only detecting three lifelines, what's going on here?

Jainway wants a transporter lock on these three life signs, but their shields are interfering. So Janeway says to target their shield generators. And seven, she only picks up five Borg life signs when there should be thousands. And Tuvok says, those shield generators that you want me to target captain, just too deep within the vessel to reach with our weapons. So that's when Janeway opens a channel and she starts communicating with the cube. She says that, you know, you guys are holding our crewmen and I'm willing to cease fire if you return our people.

And of course, the Borg voice says negotiation is irrelevant. You will be assimilated. And Janeway says, not today and not by you. I love that line. Yeah, it was a great line. It's so sassy. So Janeway sets the term. She says, agree, or I'm going to resume firing.

And the Borg scan Voyager and offer a return of our crew, a trade, yeah, for a piece of technology. Janeway says, well, what do you want? They said, yeah, navigational deflector. Janeway mutes the call, the audio, and Tuvok says, well, yeah, if we give them that, we can't even go to war. And Seven says, well, what they want from this deflector is to reestablish a little. link to the collective. Right. So clearly they've, you know, something's happened to them.

Seven gets it. They're trying to reconnect with the rest of the collective and they need that piece of technology. Right. Because their communications array was damaged in our technology. They can modify it so that they can then contact the collective directly. Jamie says that we have to stall them until we find another way out of this predicament. And she resumes audio and says that she will consider the exchange, but she wants proof.

I want proof that Mike Truman are unharmed and alive She's like, I want to come see them in person See them in person The Borg say that, look, you know, we've scanned the vessel You've already scanned the vessel And Janeway says, well that's, our scans are inconclusive where they're not thorough enough

We want to see them and the Borg agree One individual to transport over Janeway designates seven Seven goes off the turbo left Of course seven of course Well, let's see But probably in this episode that does make the most sense.

You know, in other episodes. Because if we had seven on our ship and send someone else, then we'd have Seven's insight right there next to us. Once we send her over, we don't have the same contact with hers. I don't know. I didn't even look at it that way. There's that.

Yes, there's that version. There's also a version of Balana's on the bridge the whole time. And she's always in engineering. We call her for this stuff. Yeah. So, like, why, this is some of the stuff that's out of character to me. It's like, why is Balana never in engineering this whole episode? Like, it just seems like that's where she always is.

Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying, and that does make sense. It's weird. She's always in engineering. Why is she at operations? But I do feel that the situation that Voyager is in, that everyone is dealing with in this episode is so dire that they really, that Jane Wade really needed somebody at the operations and communications console to handle a business. And the next best person, really, after Harry, is Balana.

She is the, you know, the all-star Starfleet employees. So I, it doesn't bother me to see it. I'd buy that. Next, we have a space shot, a cool shot. We're kind of over Voyager in this shot. Yeah. And we can see the cube. This is the first time we really see it that I noticed well.

And you start to see a lot of like damage on the cube. I thought it was interesting. It was a cool shot. It was a cool shot. So, and, you know, to have Voyager, sort of facing off with the cube was cool as well. And if you looked at the upper, I guess at the upper left section of the cube,

there's almost like some green plasma that's oozing out at the top. I don't know if you saw that or not. So I wonder if, but, you know, we eventually find out that it's a virus that killed everybody. It wasn't, it wasn't a battle. So I wonder if, like,

is that damage just from us? From the, from, maybe that's the damage to Delta Flyers. from the Delta Flyer and also from Voyager. Voyager's been shooting at them too. So most definitely. Because I remember when I saw this, I was like, oh, they killed somebody, you know, they all died in a battle was kind of my thinking at that point.

And then later on, we find out it was this virus. Right. But anyway, cool shot outside. We go in the hallway. Seven is walking down an empty hallway of the Borg cube. And she's looking, it's very creepy. she's looking there's dead drones everywhere yeah drones on the ground drones laying on a console yeah did you notice the background music it had a weird it had a weird

like synthesizer sound well it was very reminiscent of the original series music in the back oh interesting yeah it was kind of an homage to that i did notice the music seemed a little different this episode so seven gets a call in this hallway and uh the borg message says go to a certain area a grid 63 subsection 01. So she heads to that place. And we realize it's the Borg maturation chamber. Super creepy because there's babies in fish tanks. There's a little Borg baby in a fish tank.

I did not know what to write. I wrote down. She sees an infant Borg in a. And then I sat there. It's like, what do I call that? It's a fish tank. It looks like a fish tank. I wrote a maturation tube.

But that's not. you're better with the fish tank you're right it looks like a maturation built in built into the wall it's like a window into a tank behind a wall that the baby's floating in yes and uh yeah so she's there and suddenly she's creeped out by this and suddenly she turns around and there's a little girl yeah who will learn is mazati marley mclean yeah she's there and then she goes to join her other borg friends we see there five of them right Right. There's five. There's Mazadi there. There's first, Icheb, Azon, and Revenue. Well, second. Remember, he's second at this point. Second at this point. Yeah, we don't know any of their names.

No. And they ask her her designation. She says she's seven of nine. And they're speaking telepathically, I think at this point, aren't they? Aren't they? Oh, in the very beginning. The kids, they're not, they're not saying words until first finally speaks. And he says, the others, he starts telepathically saying, the others have been, and then when he gets to the word deactivated, he starts speaking English. Yeah. And I wondered why they did that. Like, I don't know. Was it just creepier? I, yeah.

Were they just learning English? Are they? Well, this comes back to what I said earlier. Like, do they have an automated message where it says, we are the Borg, you know, you'll be assimilated. So, yeah, I think they did it because it was creepier. That sounds more like it. It's just creepy.

Yeah. Because the others have been all telepathically and then deactivated. He just came out. But they do realize that she is Borg too, but that, you know, they say that her infrastructure has been compromised and that they can fix her, which is kind of funny. She's damaged. Yeah, she's damaged. But then Seven says all of you, you need to return to your rooms or your maturation chambers.

Yes. And the lead Borg first says that they've matured enough. I love that they still are like part whatever alien they were. And part, like they're not fully developed. It's true. Like the younger kids have hair. Yes. The girl still has her hair.

Yes. Echib has sort of some fuzz left. Yeah. He's got some, like half bald. And then first, the lead guy is the most matured Borg. He is totally bald and yeah. And looks most. you know, the most like a Borg, a full Borg.

Yeah, and it's also interesting. Not only are they not completely mature, but their clothing is not completely on. Like you can see like gaps, like you can see their leg and their skin, you know, so that was interesting too. Yeah. So I loved after after the lead Borg says that they've matured enough, seven says, well, your thoracic nodes haven't even formed yet. And second slash Echip looks down at his chest.

He's like, oh, you know, I, it's sort of like, I don't even have chest hair yet. You know, so that was a, that was a cute moment there. Yeah, that's cute. One drone does say that they, they tried to reenter their chambers, but the chambers were offline and seven asked what happened to the adult drones, and they don't know. They're completely clueless. They don't know what happened. And she goes to a console, and she starts punching some buttons and realizes that the

cube is severely damaged and that they won't be able to repair it alone. So she says that she can help them and that they must release the hospital. hostages in return. And the lead drone first says, well, this is not the agreement. And that's when Seven says, well, the agreement has been modified because I did not realize I am dealing with children. And Seven basically says that she wants to be taken to them at this point. And first says, okay, she first orders the others to take Seven over to our away team, or at least three members of our way team. And he does say, if she tries to resist, assimilate her. So we know right off the bat, this teenager means business. We go out to the hallway and seven and each ever kind of walking

and chatting. And did you notice how slow they were walking? Very. It was like the last walk. It was like, I'm sure it was because they only had, you know, 20 feet of a set. They had no, they had no set to do it and basically. Not enough set to walk and get all this dialogue out. So their solution was to walk slowly, but I hate that solution because they would not be walking that slowly. But as they walk, seven says to Echb, do you have a designation? And he says second. And she says, she says something like, oh, so you were the second to come out. And he goes, no, I was the first, but I couldn't establish order. So I became second. Right. I love the close up of Echab, by the way, because they put that fuzzy hair on his prosthetic bald cap and it looks super cool.

No, it looked great. It was like a split mohawk or something. It looked great. Half his head was bald. It looked very authentic and cool. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm going to say after Mazadi, after Marley McLean's performance,

I'm going to say that the performance by Manu was the second best of the four kids in terms of it. He maintained, first to me was so petulant teenager that it annoyed the grip out of me. Really? Whereas I think Manu really, you know. kept it there, focused, and he didn't go overboard. I just, I just feel like, I feel like first, but really, first was pushing because he was in charge. He was that, you know, he was the big bully.

I suppose, yeah, I bought it all. Okay. Yeah, that's fine. That's fine. But second did play a good second because he's more, he's not as, you know. Yes. Yes, he was less secure with himself. Yes.

Yes. He was calmer in his delivery of lines, more quiet, you know, more sedate and introverted. So I thought that was good too. But I guess maybe because, you know, in my real life, I deal with a teenager. So I kind of like, when I hear that kind of like talk or that attitude, I'm like, no, uh-uh. You know, I don't want to hear that right now. So I'm a little biased against first. All right.

Assimilation Chamber, seven basically arrives and tells Chakotay that the board kids are in control. The board girl detects that one of the captives was attempting to disconnect the security field, which was Tom Paris. So she sends a shock through to you. Very good reaction, Robbie. You really sold it for me. You did. Thank you very much.

And you flew back and Phillips had to catch you as you flew the bulkhead with where's that. So tell us a little bit about that scene. Do you remember any of this filming? I don't remember any of this. I really don't. But I did think the little stunted fake, you know, shock was good. And I love her line when she says, he's not permanently damaged. he's learned his lesson right right right actually i think he's not permanently damaged came from echip

and then she said yeah and she said he learned his lesson and again the way she delivered that being the youngest kid on that set was it was gold it was good it was good and she gives you that look too yeah and lydia uses a lot of close-ups in this in this episode right just like really really tight which yeah i we don't see that all the time and i thought it was cool i like It was really cool. Yeah. So Seven tells Chocote that the board are prepared to negotiate for their release and that she will return. And Chocote, the last line, as Seven is leaving with the other board juveniles, he says, give my regards to Harry. And then I wrote in my notes, question mark,

question mark, question mark. What was, what did you get out of that? That was him reminding seven that they don't know where he's at so she needs to look around but she didn't that's what I got from okay yeah because I was like he's not here you need to keep looking for him he's somewhere else okay okay all right and they they clearly and the kids don't realize that he's here so we know he's somewhere like he can't say it out loud because the kids are there the drones are there. So it makes sense. Thank you for clearing that. I was completely confused. Okay. We go out in the hall next and second now demands the deflector that she's seen the hostages. And she says, well, I'm not authorized to give you that. I was just sent here. You know,

my only job was to confirm that they're here. Confirm. And I must go back and report. That's it. Yes. Yes. Yes. And then she asks second, she says she wants to take one of the dead drones back. to figure out why they're all dead because whatever killed them could be a danger to all of them. Right. So they think about it for a second and then they agree to that.

They don't even, it's not even a second. I mean, it's just such a, to me, it's such a difference in dealing with second as opposed to dealing with first.

Like, first is just so difficult. And second's just so easy. Like, you know, he says, deflect her array. She's like, oh, no, no, no,

I'm not authorized you. He's like, okay. He's totally okay with it. And then she says, Okay. And also when I go back, I need an adult drone and a data node to take back to Voyager for analysis. And Mazadi says, well, why? And seven says, oh, something happened on this vessel that no one understands. All the adult drones are deactivated. And if it happens again, it could endanger all of you. And quickly, they're both like, yep, go right ahead. So I love this scene because first is not in it. And second and Mazadi are so easy to deal with. That's the kind of teenager you want. The cooperative teenager. Yes. Any teenagers, listen. listening out there, just take the lead of Mazadi and ECHEV and just, you know, cooperate.

Cooperate. It's just going to be easier on your parents and yourself in the long run if you cooperate. That's all. We have a space shot of the cube in Voyager again. We go to a hallway scene. Different angle, though, right? It was a different angle. Different angle this time.

They do go back and reuse the first shot once later on. But Janeway and Tuvac are in the hallway. They're trying to figure out where Harry is and how to retrieve him. and Tuvok thinks, well, maybe he ejected. That's why we can't detect him. Maybe he's not even, you know, in the cube, maybe somewhere else. We cut inside Sick Bay and the doctor is scanning a dead drone. Do you know who that was on the table?

It's Keith, who was off in my stand-in. It's so funny. It doesn't matter what alien makeup you put on Keith. Both Robbie and I are going to know immediately. That's Keith. There he is. He's a board. He's a Klingon.

He's the this. We know every time Keith is on camera. He's very, his face is very unique as well, I think. So it's hard to not know that it's Keith, but you're right. Go ahead. Yeah, he was the dead drone there. I do remember he always loved doing the drone stuff. He loved getting him.

Did he really? He did. I think partially because obviously he gets paid more money. Yeah, of course. Yeah, he's a featured extra at that point. He's a featured extra and he's making more money for the time he spends with the makeup and all that stuff. Yeah. But Jane Wayne Tuvok enter.

The doctor shows them his analysis. that there was a space-borne pathogen that adapted to the Borg physiology, and the doctor reassures them, it's, you know, it's inert now. It's not a danger. But the death of all of these drones is what triggered the maturation chambers to open. That's why the kids were safe from the virus. And then when they all died, somehow these chambers open and freed the kids. Right. And the doctor also says it only attacks cybergenic organisms so it's not going to hurt them right and seven is in this scene as well

she's the one that says the maturation chamber was designed to protect developing drones so she's sort of off to the side really yeah she's there but then Tuvac I can't believe it he says well what if we revive this virus and neutralize the five bore yeah I was like what again out of character like Tuvok I just don't see him being the one to say

well, let's use a bio weapon and kill these innocent children. It just seemed really out of character. True. And it's a little also out of character for the doctor to protest as well. I mean, the doctor immediately is like, he's still a program. You know what I'm saying? So for him to go like, oh, these are children. And that would be murder.

It was like, why are you talking like that? Yeah, it seemed out of character. A lot of things in this scene. Janeway asked Seven if she thinks that they'll kill our people or the hostages. and Seven says, yes, I think they will. So Janeway says, prepare this pathogen. Let's have it if we need it. Yeah, as an option.

So she's clearly, yeah, she's not, you know, she's not going to do it right off the match. She's going to wait. Yeah. But she wants to see the drones herself. So now we cut over to the mysterious Jeffries tube in the back of the Delta flyer. Of the Delta TARDIS, yes, okay.

And Harry wakes up. he regains consciousness and why does he do it for the constant chirping of his com badge so he crawls out and once again uh i looked so uncomfortable crawling out and i've talked about this before it is so much um pain on your knees and i and towards the end i would say i need the knee pads so i would put on knee pads from um production would provide me with these two you know knee pads that i would put on and and that was the only way well there was like this this waffle grading on the floor It was this really, yeah, uncomfortable grate on the floor that didn't really read as a great. I don't know why it had to be so.

Yeah, and it wasn't metal and it wasn't soft, but it was hard plastic. Yeah, so that was just, you know, the worst. Yeah. So I crawled. But Harry comes out and he does talk to the computer. He asks the computer, who is it? It's Voyager. He tells the computer to respond on the same carrier wave that they are transmitting on.

And so it will stay under the radar. Right. The computer says that's going to be a significant modification. And Harry responds, I am way ahead of you. So he's making the modifications. He's on his way to communicating. Yeah. And I like how Harry enters the Delta Flyer cockpit.

He has his phaser drawn. He's all ready. Ready for action. Yeah, he's ready for action. And he does push a few buttons and looks out of the window. And we have this awesome shot, which reveals it's sort of a, pullback from the cockpit you see in the cockpit inside the cube you see that it's locked into the tractor beam kind of spot being held by these clamps or this energy and it's clearly and as the

shot keeps pulling out further and further you see two other alien ships that are also in housed in this cavernous board hangar bay basically I mean this thing is massive it's the size of like I don't know, 100 football fields, it looks like. And, but it's interesting because you're like, wow, look, there's other aliens that they just captured. Yeah. And cool shot, though. Yeah, very cool shot. We come back from commercial break with another exterior shot of Voyager next to the cube. And then we jump.

Repeat, repeat. That was a repeated shot. Repeated shot. That's fine. We haven't moved. Yep. Then we're now back into the interior of the board cube. Janeway and seven are now with the five board kids.

Janeway is trying to reason with first the lead drone, and she has a new proposal. She says, look, you don't have to rejoin the hive. You were all individuals not too long ago. And then she starts sort of speaking to their individuality. She says, you. She looks at Icheb or second and says, you're Bernali. And she looks over at Mazadi or at this point, young female drone, yeah, and says, you're norcadian and she's trying to sort of like

and doesn't the young the young girl when she says you're narcadian the young girl remembers she does remember the planet yeah theta class planet yeah with binary stars she does remember some stuff so Janeway's doing the right exactly the right strategy she's trying to speak to her first gets pissed off he's like he sees that Janeway's getting to them oh so he he grabs her oh my goodness And he's, with his borgarm, kind of presses her up against the wall or something. I just kept fit.

You disrespectful teenager. Don't you know Janeway pays the bills here? Okay. That roof over your head because of Janeway. What are you thinking? So I was upset. Yeah. But she's smart.

She says, you know, you cannot have it yet. Yeah. And if you assimilate me right now, you'll never get it. Well, actually, she says she can't give it to them. She didn't say, yeah. She goes, I can't give you the deflector. But maybe we can help you repair your damage on your communications. array. I can't give it to you. And Janeway, um, he basically, he sits there and he thinks for a second.

And he says, first, he says, okay, two hours. And then the hostages die. So he gives us a time limit now. Yeah. Another exterior space shot of Voyager and the cube. Another repeat, probably. Yeah, probably. Probably. Voyager bridge now. Janeway says she's bought two hours. She asked Tuvok about the pathogen. He says it will be ready in two hours. Torres does. does ask Janeway if she saw the away team. So now there is a little bit of concern for Tom Paris from his love. Finally. Finally, because we've seen in earlier episodes where, honestly, Tom could have been a complete stranger.

It seems like she had no concern for him. But now, for all you PT shippers out there, you see Torres genuinely concerned about her boyfriend. So I like that. She doesn't call him out individually. No, she goes, did you see the away team? did you see Tom, which would have been a little, which that wouldn't have been, I don't think that would have been the right way that Torres would have said that anyway, right?

Maybe not. Yeah. Okay. She also says there, she can't believe that they're negotiating with children. Like she's like, I can't believe we're doing this, which was very belong. I love Tuvok's line. He says, the juvenile drones are contemptuous of authority, convinced that they are superior, typical adolescent behavior for any species, and 1,000 percent correct.

then there's a transmission from Harry yes yes they think it's from the cube from the drones but no Balana picks it up and it's Harry calling in Janeway asks Tuvac has isolated his coordinates and Janeway asked how far

he is from the shield generator and Tuvok says 800 meters so she asked Harry if there are any plasma charges aboard the flyer and if he's willing to go take a walk a hike Tuvok will guide Harry to the field generator because yes, there were plasma charges there

and Janeway says if he destroys the field generator he won't have to make the trip back. So that's that's the one plus I suppose. And I almost feel like I didn't play this the correct way. Really? Yeah, I felt like I should have, when she asked like, are you willing to go on a walk right now

through this bored cube? I think there should have been a little moment of like hesitation of like, oh, F myself. Like, what am I getting myself into? Well, especially because he's so freaked out when we see him in the hallway later. Yes, yes. So that would have helped because it just almost seemed like Janeway. Yeah, if Janeway was saying, hey, you want to go go for a hike in the holiday

later with me where we hike over in Lake Tahoe? And Harry's like, yeah, sounds great. I mean, that was the reaction that I felt that I gave here. I didn't catch that, but that makes sense what you're saying. Yeah. We go out to the hallway, each. shows up with seven. He says, I've got the technology you wanted. They start talking and he says to seven that he knows she was a drone for 18 years and that he accessed her data file and

he knows that she was a juvenile when she was assimilated like him. She says, yes, she was a juvenile. And then they keep talking. She's trying to get him to remember when he was assimil. Yeah, his childhood memories. And it's funny because he doesn't even know what childhood means like he's not even sure what that is you're like what but when she when she starts questioning him his voice starts to tremble yeah there's a there's a i say his i wrote down his voice sounds digitalized did you is that a good way to say yeah it sort of it has a digital quality to it but i i felt it was emotion that he was starting to feel emotion oh and that's why his voice was getting okay yeah yeah you know that's a that's a good explanation for it too yeah but she says

I can repair your sub vocal processor, so she starts to scan him. At first, he's a little nervous about it. Yeah. Then he says it won't hurt. She says it won't hurt. And so she scans him to try to correct his sub vocal processor. Yeah. And he comments, he looks at her hair.

Yeah. And he says, your hair is like my mother's. Yeah. This color. Yeah, his exact lines, this color. My mother's hair is this color. And I thought that that was very forward of him. and somewhat inappropriate to actually touch her hair while he was doing.

But he doesn't know. But he doesn't know that. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought this was great because she was triggering his memories and starting to bring out the humanity in him. And of course, as soon as that happens, first has got to come in, mess it up. And he says, no irrelevant conversation, return to your station.

Second takes on. Oh, you know what he says also? He goes, not only no irrelevant conversation, you know what the punishment is for that. And then second says deactivation. Basically, it's death. If you have a relevant conversation, it is death. But he doesn't kill him at this point. Nope, it doesn't happen.

And he does. I would have been dead a long time ago. So I got killed for all my conversation is irrelevant. So that's the only conversation I know. You would not have made a good drone. You would have been deactivated day one. So that's not. I go off on tangents all the time.

Anyway. But the important thing about this scene, though, Robbie, is this is the very, very first time. that we have a sense of bonding between the character of Seven and Second, who we later learn is Echip. I mean, this is their beginning of the bonding of their relationship together, of the trust that is beginning to form between those two, those two characters. Yeah. We go to the ready room next. Seven comes in, right?

She hands Janeway a padda-da-da-da, as you so famously called it. And she has discovered some information, some saucy information in the communication records. the collective did receive the drone's initial distress call, but the collective declared these Neo-NATO drones as irrelevant and severed their connection to the hive permanently. So they're basically dead to the hive to the rest of the board collective. And the drones are completely unaware of this because they do not have the ability

because they're not completely mature to decrypt the message. Janeway says that if they knew that they were rejected, they wouldn't need the deflector and they might be willing to release the hostages. And Seven says normally, when drones learn that they are irrelevant, they automatically without any hesitation,

deactivate themselves. But that these drones, these juvenile drones are completely unpredictable and they may not adhere to these board protocols. So basically, Janeway, you know, Janeway wants to keep this information close to her vest for now,

but she says there's another option. We could invite them to Voyager. Mm-hmm. They can come on over. Seven says, Seven's like, that's not going to be easy. No. It's not going to be easy at all to turn them into individuals.

And then Seven has this great speech about her own assimilation. Yeah. And basically, as the camera pushes in on this long, very well-done speech, she says it was the Borg sense of order that helped me discover my individuality. Yeah. If I had not gone through. the full maturation process if I had not become a board and been able to manage the the feelings and the emotions that have come up for me as I you know find my humanity yeah I wouldn't

have survived and she says the kids don't have that they haven't they have not matured to a full sense of board order so it's really a it's a pickle that seven she's kind of saying you know we can't just throw them out you know in into opening up their individuality, they won't be able to process. And Seven ends that whole long, awesome speech with not all drones can be saved, Captain. And Janeway orders seven

to continue her repairs in the cube. Hold on to this new information for now. Don't divulge it to the juvenile drones. But Janeway tells Seven as she's exiting the ready room, she says the drones do have one thing going for them. You. There's anyone who can reach them.

It's you. So, you know, that was a nice little tag. Nice Janeway. All right. So next we go back to the BoreCube and you see Harry and Harry is placing playing cards inside different parts of it. He says three of hearts on a trans work conduit, king of clubs on a power coupling. And Harry's basically marking his route with playing cards in case he has to come back the same way. And Tuvok, you hear Tuvok's voice and he says, you shouldn't distract yourself, Ensign. And Harry says, you know what, I need a little distraction. And this hike is bringing up some bad memories. Then we cut to a shot of Tuvok in astrometrics with the view screen in astrometrics, showing sort of a map of the cube and a little red dot is Harry, I guess, and he's sort of guiding Harry through this cube.

And then, you know, Tuvok makes a quip like, oh, like bad memories, like the last time that you were at a Borg cube or something? Yeah, you think Harry's talking about a really bad Borg encounter. And Harry goes, no, no, no, it was a haunted house. house that my parents took me to when I was six years old. Yeah. So, yeah, I do like Harry's backpack. It's a cool looking space, modern looking backpack. Yeah. Yeah. For the final shot there, the final moments of that scene. Back in another part of the board queue, we have seven continuing repairs, and she informs first that the residence field has collapsed, and it will take an hour

to re-initialize. And first, again, just loses it. He's like, wait, these delays. These are all intentional. You're stalling. You're doing this on purpose. She shows him the data on the pad to do, says this data is flawed. And she even says, your understanding of this data is flawed. Exactly. I love how she puts them in his place every time.

And when she says that, though, and she says, your understanding of this is flawed. That's a, that's a real, you know, tough criticism. You know, but the thing is, I think first understands, he's not completely matured. He doesn't have all the information to handle being a full adult drone. And she's calling him out on it. And her saying that his understanding of quadric field theory is flawed. That's the reason that everything is that he doesn't understand it. And I think he gets it.

And he's just like, okay. But he's trying to play the tough leader guide. He says, he tells the other drones to ignore her. She's trying to divide us. But you can see that that when she. says your understanding is flawed, the other drones turn. They're all like,

oh boy. How dare her? I can't believe she said that. She's saying that. And then she continues. She says that she remembers the unity of the collective, the common goals, the quest for perfection. But she says, you don't have to remain drones to

experience those things. You can come back to Voyager and have common goals and be a part of a collective. So she's really starting to plant these seeds with all the other drones, these kids. Yeah. And before, you know, she can succeed at that, an alarm sounds.

Yep. The maturation chamber is failing. And one of the Borg infants is dying, basically, you know, they're going to have to save it. And this is the little doll robot puppet doll in the fish tank. Yeah. And, but first says immediately, first says, it will adapt. It is bored, but yet it's not adapting.

It's not adapting. says let seven help and here is the beginning of where he's starting to like okay realize he's way in he's way in this above it's way over his head he can't handle any of this stuff so he does step aside and he lets seven work work on this he tries to use a stasis field but then the stasis field starts to degrade and so now seven says you know we've got to transport this infant drone to an incubation pod the minute that seven beams this little infant drone into the incubation pod the pod starts malfunctioning so seven says basically she pulls it out of the pod and it's you can hear this like you know very belabored breathing from this little infant mazati asked what's happening she goes well

its respiratory function is impaired and the infant needs to be transported to voyager with proper medical, you know, facility to treat this infant drone. First says no. This drone is part of our collective. And second says, not if it dies. So again, this is the beginnings of all the other, you know, younger drones sort of kind of now talking back. Because, you know, they realize that first is not all he is cracked up to be. So now we're back in the board corridors.

We see Harry. He's setting the plasma charge. His transmission with Tuvok fritzes out. And he can't hear Tuvok at all. He hears a sound. He quickly jumps. You know, it's very jumpy. He turns and he's freaked out.

There's the little girl. Well, actually, he didn't see the girl first. He turns to the left where the sound comes from. And then he's like, okay, it's cool. That was nothing. He turns to the right and there's the little girl. A little girl right there. Boy, is she scary.

She's almost like those two little girls twins from the shining that are at the end of the hallway. Yeah, exactly. She's sitting there. And she pulls out all. hold the card. She's like, um, I found these. You left these. And I'm like, uh, okay. And then she takes the queen of hearts. And she says, this looks like seven. Yeah, I like her. She reminds me of seven. And she's saying this in a totally straight voice, right? Good job by Marley S. McLean in this scene. Harry slowly reaches first phaser. And she's, and again, very nonchalantly,

uh, Mazotti says, your weapon won't work here. Dampening field. And that's Harry, It's like, oh, my God, I'm screwed at this point. We're in the hallway, Tuvok tells Janeway that he's lost Harry's signal. Janeway says, keep looking. And suddenly the doctor calls, please report to sick bay, captain. So we go to sick bay. And there's the baby. They did transport the baby over.

And the doctor has saved this baby. Robbie, did you think, when you were watching the scene, did you think, hey, who knew we had a Starfleet crib on board? I mean, a little, like, why is that there? I mean, was that there? I guess we used it for Naomi. Is that right? I don't know.

It was just very funny that we had. Yeah, doctor's got a big closet. And the doctor asked Janeway to, well, first Janeway says seven must have sent her over. So let's take care of this baby. Yeah. The doctor says, hold this baby while he works. Yeah. Because the baby's crying and struggling.

And I love. She's trying to take some readings. Yeah, trying to scan the baby. And Janeway is holding it. I love the look on Kate. face like the maternal kate came out in the scene you just see she's you know infatuated with this she is she is but here's something that i'm going to bring up now i don't think we ever see that infant ever again no we don't after this episode i mean clearly the doctor has saved the infant right

he's healed the infant the infant's not dying any longer yes but we never see the infant again so i i just you know there's a little bit of a hole in the plot here now Yeah. In the series, excuse me. And that kind of buddy. We could have, yeah. I agree. That's a big deal, especially with all the dramatic looks that Kate had with this baby. You feel like there's a bonding moment. And she's going to take over this, you know, parenting of this thing in the series. And she doesn't. Yeah, like this is going to be the captain's assistant, this little baby, right? So, oh, the doctor does remember that the pathogen is synthesized. And he pulls up this vial of liquid. now here's the thing all right i think that they should have chosen a really fluffy light pink color or or or a sky blue something other than dark it was like a dark brownish you know and it looked like it would be pathogeny but i just thought like you know let's go opposite of what we think pathogens will look like meaning puke green dirty brown you know puke yellow let's let's go with something different yeah pink cotton can

multicolored pink you know would have been nice yeah but he's got that there doctor says i can't believe that you would use this on me still can't believe that this is an option janeway says only if i have to and she looks at the baby and she says let's hope your brothers and sisters don't force my hand so we still have that threat of maybe we're going to kill these kids with the with a bioweapon that's right it'd be horrible that would be bad it's very out of character uh we go to the chamber and first has the plasma charge now that Harry was setting and he's got Harry and I like how he walks over to because he says can you identify this device and she's like plasma charge then he walks over to the other juvenile drones who are standing together like their pins in a bowling alley right

and then they move apart to reveal Harry that's completely you know unconscious semi-borgified Yeah, nanopropes coming out of his face and stuff. He's turning bored. Seven says he needs medical attention to survive. And first says, give me the deflector. And Seven tries to stall again. But he's like, no more delays, no more deceptions. Yeah.

And he says, resistance is futile. And Seven gives him this look like she is about to throw him over her lap and give him an old-fashioned spanking. That was a look that she gave him. But I remember talking to Allison about, we were talking about, we were talking. about how like should I be lying completely flat you know what I'm saying like when they found me on the ground or but then she felt like you know they spent all this time in the makeup department putting on this silver stuff where you kind of see the nanoprobes or yeah congealing or whatever

that they really wanted to showcase that and so that's why we decided that I would sit and I'd be propped up against that bulkhead with my face kind of turned to showcase the showcase the makeup job really Yeah, to make it look good. But I just remember shooting, shooting in that position, I had to have my eyes closed like the entire time. And we come back to this exact same set later when the, you know, the episode starts heading towards the climax. And I was just sitting there. And again, my eyes are closed. And that for me was like, it was like death because I want to see everything.

So having to sit there with my eyes closed while, well, this whole scene. is happening around me was just so frustrating as an actor. I was like, oh, God, but I had to do it. Okay, so we're on the Voyager Bridge and first tells Janeway to comply. Janeway on the view screen. Janeway tells him to return Harry. Then we can talk. First says enough talking, comply or we will assimilate the others. And Janeway says, you know, she just can't give him the deflector. It'll take an hour to dismantle. And he just quickly ends the transmission, the call and locks on a tractor beam tractor beams the deflector they're trying to tear it off the ship yeah we're you know janeway's like we've got to modulate shields we're trying everything to keep them from ripping our ship apart yeah

we go into the chamber again and seven says if they even if they take this deflector shows so she spills the beans yeah even if you take this thing all right we know that you're not going to be able to rejoin the collective they've severed your connection and first can't believe it he's like you're lie. So first responds, no, that can't be possible. You're lying. And seven gives them the encryption code to check for themselves. In Data Grid 426. Yeah. And he doesn't, but second steps forward. Well, he starts towards the console, but first tells him to return to a station. So he hesitates. You know what? But now he's got the confidence. He's bonded with seven a little bit. He's like, whatever. He walks right up to that console, punches in a few things. He's like, wait a minute.

A good job by Manu in playing that, you know, he played the reaction of knowing that they're irrelevant. He played that first. And then he said, he says, it's accurate. It's authentic. And first checks himself. And he still doesn't believe it. He's, no, this is a mistake. And Seven says, you know, the collective doesn't tolerate imperfection.

And he replies with, well, then fine, we will assimilate more species and prove that we're worthy. So still not trying to, you know, go along with the flow. First is still trying to cause problems here. And this just doesn't believe it. We have an exterior space shot of the Borg tractor beam locked on to Voyager's deflector. That's going on. He's trying to rip it off. We're trying to figure out how to save our ship.

Yeah, we're modulating our shields, trying to buy, by, Bologna's, that'll buy us another minute at most. Tuvok detects a fluctuation that could allow them to deploy the pathogen. Yeah. it's a fluctuation that's pushing the bio weapon i don't get it anyway go ahead the uh the fluctuation is so intermittent that we can't beam our voyager heroes out of there but we can deliver we can deploy the bio weapon and you're right i mean tubok is is this he's pushing this strategy calculated yeah death monger in this episode he really hates teenagers doesn't he does he does that's what i think it is he can't

stand teenagers. But Janeway's looking for any alternative. I love Janeway's response to Tuvok when he says that there is no alternative. Janeway says there is always an alternative. We just need to find it. So Janeway, good for her. And she has this revelation. And I love Kate's depiction. Kate's acting in this scene is great. She's totally focused in. And she realizes their tractor beam. It draws power from the same grid as their shield matrix. So Janeway quickly orders Torres to use our deflector to send a feedback pulse along the beam to disrupt their shields. Torres is a little sketchy on that, you know, she thinks, okay.

It was, it was not a warp particles moment. It wasn't. Lana's like, well, she's like, if that doesn't work, it'll do more damage. You know what it was? To us. That's right. It was a warp moment. So it was only half of a lot of particles moment.

But Lana says if it doesn't work, though, that it could do more damage to us than the Cube. But Janeway says, it's going to work. It's got to work. Trust me. She should have said War Particles Moment. Trust me is what she should have said. Exactly. Okay. We go back in the chamber, Seven says, is, you know, reiterating you don't have a future with the collective. Yeah. You're going to have to make decisions for yourself. Right. As individuals. And suddenly the cube shakes and Voyager sending this feedback pulse through. And second goes over. He checks them. monitor to see what's happening and the feedback pulse is overloading their shield matrix and it's going to destroy the cube and first screams adapt he's like he's he just will not give up no we go back

to the bridge two bucks says that both the cube's tractor beam and the shield are weakening so janeway's idea is working yeah and torres says uh they've got a transporter lock on all all the crew members, except for Harry and Seven. So they beam over Chakotay, Neelix, and Paris. From the assimilation chamber where they've been kept, they still can't get a lock on Kim and Seven. There's locations too heavily shielded. So Janeway orders, you know, increase this feedback pulse, you know,

amplify the feedback pulse, make it stronger. Double it up. This is going to work. Double it up. We go to the chamber and the little girl says, oh the three hostages have been beamed out we've lost them second reports that the shields are weakening in the room that they that they're in right now uh the drones all turn to first for for orders but he doesn't know what to do at this point yeah and seven just says drop your shields

nobody nobody uh has to get hurt here if you just drop your shields yeah and he won't do it and now he flips out he grabs some type of i don't know what it is it looked like I don't know, what do that look like? It looks like a buoy or something like that that you would have in the ocean. Well, first, she goes over. He's not going to do it. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes.

Okay. Seven goes over to try to turn off the shields. Like, she's like, drop your shield. Right. He won't do it. He stands there. So she goes over. And then he goes and takes her and throws her on the ground.

Okay. Did you buy that? Because like, she's supposed to, she has menoprobes running in her body. So she's pretty strong. She shouldn't have been able to be thrown like that. No. I didn't buy it as a character. I didn't buy it.

I didn't even buy it. I didn't even buy the way that she did it. It looked like she sort of fell back into a beanbag chair off camera or something. And then the fact that she's supposed to be not unconscious from that, it just, I didn't buy it. Yeah. And then he throws her down. Then he goes and grabs these two giant, what are those? Ostrichag.

I don't know. They were just more. They look like ostrichs. They look like what you put, you know, people that are working for the airlines when they're putting headsets on, the grounds crew that are. Yeah, those been holding things that, yeah, they're wearing. phone, but they were a big round and he's going to go over and hit her on the head. He's going to kill her

and take her out basically. Yeah, he goes over to do that. Second stops first from doing that. He fights him down and, you know, he stands up for seven finally, which is nice to see that happened. First orders him, you know, each step back to his station or second back to his station.

He does not obey the order. Seven finally wakes up from her, not so rough fall basically just from a standing position to down on the ground. I don't know why that knocked her out so much. Yeah. She says we're going to be destroyed any second. Yeah. And first runs over to a console

trying one more thing to prevent this from happening. The console explodes. Just sends a shock through him, I think. Yeah. So he short circuits basically. Yeah. And he falls down. That was not a bad fall when he gets the shock yeah it was it was not bad it's pretty good not bad and but for me i'm gonna say right now that i felt that that performance because it was in my estimation so one note i have no problem with him being sassy in the beginning but i feel like if he if there are more levels going on

where he was questioning himself you know throughout the throughout all the interactions with seven where maybe it showed a little bit of like you know hesitation and doubt and this and that and that maybe, you know, he's feeling like he's taking the wrong stance in dealing and dealing with this, then we maybe would have bought in a little bit more and we would have cared about him a little bit more when he got shocked and it would have been sadder. It would have been more of a tearjerker to see him pass away. You know, that's all. I just felt it was a little too one note.

Well, it's sad because when he does go down and Seven says she can't help him, his cortical implants are depolarizing. Yeah. And he reaches up and takes her hand and looks her in the eyes and says, we are bored. Yeah. And it's a sweet moment. And it's for seven, it's a really sweet moment because you see that she's feeling this caretaking and connection with these young, you know, bored kids. Right. But he dies. Yeah. I mean, it's written to be the tearjerker moment. It is. Right. And but you don't, for me, I didn't get that feeling because it wasn't like I said, if you set me up earlier where yes, he looks like the crazy. Brash, you know, rebellious, teenager. And then, but yet, then he doubts himself. So maybe I'm not doing the right thing. Maybe Seven is trying to help us.

So if he showed that struggle a little bit more, I think I would have been more, you know, prone to maybe cry a little bit over his death and that line. You know, we are bored. But, you know, you can't have everything, I guess. Well, it was sad to me. It was very sweet. And his hand drops down after he dies. The kids all stare at him.

and then seven orders the shields to be lowered and second does it yeah and we go to a space shot there's a captain's log but janeway says that harry's recovering in sick bay and the doc removed most of his implants but he's got some recovery left and the kids have also had their most of their implants removed but the kids are very troubled is the word jane w uses we have four troubled kids here. And we go to the ready room. And Janeway has sent, she tells seven that she's sent hails to any ships in the area from their planets, the Bernalis, the Narcadians, and the twins. They don't even know what species they're from. So they're going to have to find that out before they can send hails to try to, you know, reunite them with the people that they're from. And Janeway says

they need someone to help them until they can find, you know, their people. Yeah. And then Seven goes, I've never been responsible for children. You see, she's like, she's like, I don't want to do this. Yeah. And Janeway says, well, you can help them avoid the pitfalls that you faced. Right. When you were severed from the collective.

And I love Jerry's exit when she's like, she takes a deep breath. And then she sort of rolls her off. She walks out the door. It's not sentimental at all. I thought it was very funny. It just made me laugh. It's like, yeah, that's how seven would feel. I didn't like, oh, I got to deal with these teenagers.

My note, though, there's a little bit of an inconsistency for me because seven after we take her out of her borgness and we take the implants out, that skin tight suit is supposedly dermal, you know, it's medical a reason why she's willing. it. So I feel like all those juveniles should have been in very similar Olympic speed skating like suits. They should have been in, it should have matched what Seven was wearing, but they didn't do that. No, that's a good catch. Yeah, it bothered me a little bit. Okay, so we're in the cargo bay and the kids are all there dressed in their blue clothes. They kind of look more like seven now with just some little pieces of nanoprobes. They look more like kids. Yeah. And

seven gives each of them a pad that gives some of the data that she's downloaded from the cube about each of them. Yeah. And she says second's name is Echib. Right. Did you notice how many times he hit that pad? No. And I always joke about this. I say, I say

like guest stars always, and well, he's a recurring, but they always either push too few buttons or too many. He grabs the pad and does this. He does this. He does this. And so then, of course, I did notice that. Yeah. So they had to put in that sound effect of him hitting it. It's just like, dude, you've never even seen a pad before. You're not going to

know how to operate it that quickly. You know, so no. Anyway, so we know he's Echab. Yes. Yeah. And he says that was my father's second name. So he, you know, he's getting, all these kids are getting a little bit of information. And then it's triggering these memories for each of them. Yeah. So, yeah, seven says to Mazadi that your name is Mazadi. And she kind of goes, wow, that. That's a pretty name. Yep. And the twins we learn are Azon or Azon and Rebbe. And she says, I'll tell you more about them tomorrow, but it's time ready to bed.

And so they go into their alcoves and close their eyes and basically go to sleep for regeneration. And seven has the computer dim the lights. And she says, sleep tight. good night she says in sweet dreams yeah and she walks out and takes a little sweet look back at them it's very sweet yeah do you remember us talking about i think we in a or an episode much earlier than this we talked about how why are there all these extra board kittles i thought about that yeah yeah oh it's convenient that we have that we have those extra uh board recharging stations there and yeah now we know just in case we've picked

We pick up a bunch of straight straight Borg drones. We have them. And in fact, we did. So there we go. Okay. Well, what is your lesson or what is your? This was a tough one for me. My theme, I wrote down two different thoughts that I had.

One is just the idea that growing up is hard. Growing up is not easy. That was one takeaway for me. It's not easy for anybody, especially bored kids. The other theme I got, maybe this is a reach, but that we all have that sort of inner child inside of us, even when we're older, even when we may have forgotten a lot of things,

that there's that we all have an inner child somewhere in us that has those memories and feelings and connections. And that's what I took from this, is that each of these kids had sort of forgotten that inner child, forgotten their names, their families, who they really were. and so learning how to kind of go back and remember who that is for them was relatable for me. That's a different angle. Yeah, I like that.

I think for me overall, it's just a lesson in patience is you just have to have patience when you're dealing with teenagers. And you can't immediately, you know, scream and yell back and go to, you know, match their level. It does nothing, you know, to do that. and, you know, physical discipline, that's out, that's been gone for a while. I think also a theme is like, don't try not to use bio weapons on teenagers. Yeah. Teenagers, that would be a takeaway. So really, that is the lesson.

You don't need to go nuclear on when your teenager at home, you know, gives you sass, which they do every day, right? So you need to have patience and not use a bio weapon on your teenager. don't do it don't do it it's a very simple lesson yeah uh ratings my rating for this i have to be honest uh the premise is interesting the kids were all good yeah i thought there was a lot of things out of character in this episode yeah and it just it didn't even though the idea of these you know stow away or these bored kids us having to deal with board kids the idea is cool it just didn't something about it didn't quite gel for me so i'm going to give it

a seven if you were if those inconsistencies and character were not in this episode what would you have given it probably an eight eight and a half eight five or something I agree

but I think it just it just never quite landed for me because of those inconsistencies so I kept wanting it to work better the idea was cool I wanted yeah I just wanted a little more out of it and so I'm gonna I'll stick with the seven

what about you I'm going to ignore the inconsistencies in character, and I'm going to give it an 8.2. Oh, nice. Yeah. All right. Well, let's see what our captain and admiral ratings for collective this week. The average rating is 7.5. Ah.

Wow. Okay. That's right about in between you and me. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I would go to 7.5 even, you know, yeah. Well, well, cool.

There it is. Well, that was fun. What is next week's episode? Next week is basically the sequel to Fairhaven, Spirit Folk. Oh, yes, yes. Oh, boy, okay. And I hope you remember some of this stuff. I hope you do.

Well, we'll see. We'll see. We'll talk about it as we get into it. Yeah, yeah. All right. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. And all of you, Patreon, patrons, please stay tuned. Thank you.

So, you know, B. B. B. B. B. B.

Bhop B B I'm going to be able to be.