The Delta Flyers - Course Oblivion

Episode Date: June 20, 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 Course Oblivion. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Course Oblivion:Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres get married, but their honeymoon is interrupted by a phenomenon that breaks down the molecular infrastructure of Voyager and the crew.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, 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, 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, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Shambhavi Kadam, 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, Ian Ramsey, & Jack FineAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, Katherine Hendrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Liza Albright, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, John Mann, Holly R. Schmitt, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Megan Moore, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Craig M. Nakashian, Julie McCain, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Carmen Puente-Garza, Russell Nemhauser, Chris Casiano, Philip Van Vlack, & Lawrence Green You can check out the book, Classics …but make it gay, that Robbie talked about in the intro here: https://www.novaandmali.com/Thank 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 with Tom and Harry. As we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager, your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Trek actor and star of the 1991 season six episode two of L.A. Law, Mr. Robert. Duncan McNeil and myself, your favorite Ferberance and Garrett Wong. How do you like that one? That was good. L.A. Law. I'm just pulling deep as far as deep as I can go.

You really are. Did you have fun on L.A. Law? Did you have fun on L.A. Law? I did. I had a really great time. One of the producers on the show, Elity Keene was her name. She directed the episode.

And I've known Elity since, ever since then. Wow. A wonderful director and directed at a time when there weren't a lot of female directors. Correct. So it was great to work with Elity. And, you know, L.A. Law was filled with lots of drama and big, you know, court cases. And so I had some nice scenes in that. It was fun.

I had a good time. That was a big hit back then. It was a massive show. Were your scenes with Corbyn Benson or who did you have most of your scenes? I can't remember. I can't remember which lawyers I had. I don't know, but it was two brothers. I could totally be wrong about this.

It was two brothers fighting over the estate of their parents, two adult brothers. And I think I was the younger brother. And I can't remember what they wanted to do with the estate. But there was a lot of emotion about, you know, the parents and their relationship as brothers. and things like that. It was good. It was fun. You had a positive experience working on L.A.

A very positive experience. Okay, good. It was filmed at 20th century Fox Studios over near Century City. And this was in the early 90s where Fox had not, they had not renovated that studio. So it was kind of dumpy over there.

It was very old school. And I've worked there since and they've got all kinds of new buildings and all kinds of things and stuff. But back then it was. But not back then. No. It was kind of a dumpy over there.

jump i remember but yeah it was okay all right hey you have something to show us you have a little show and i wanted to yeah so we had uh rebecca and i had a couple of friends of ours uh nova and molly um two of our friends uh came to visit us and we were talking about what they do there are publishers of a book and the book is called classics but make it gay and it's classic art from art history that they reimagine with, you know, works like ancient Greek works or Norman Rockwell works or all kinds of things, but they imagine it with LGBTQ or people of color, non-traditional, you know, kinds of images. And it's the kind of thing that just seems to fit into the Star Trek sort of universe in terms of diversity. Yeah. Infinite diversity and infinite combination.

Yeah. I see. I think that's a very cool idea. They did all the artwork on this. Is that, They commissioned artists. I'm showing if you're a patron member, you can see some of the work. But it's classic art. It's really just beautiful stuff. And I love the fact that they find ways of for people who identify in a non-traditional way, they can see themselves. They can see themselves in these works of art.

And I just think it's really beautiful. It touched my heart. It's inspiring. and I will say that, you know, if you want to check out the books, they have a website. It is Nova and Malley.com, and I'm going to spell it. That's N-O-V-A-A-N-D-M-A-L-I dot com. Nova and Mali.com. Check out their book.

It's really cool. I found it really inspiring, and it just felt like something that our fans would be interested in. So check it out. Yeah, and it looks like something that would look very nice on a coffee table. It looks like something that's very classy looking and belongs in a front and center in someone's coffee table. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful book.

The art they commissioned from lots of emerging and, you know, young artists. It's just beautiful work. It's really beautiful work. It looks great. Okay, check it out, everybody. All right, let's talk about this week's episode. It is course oblivion. Corse Oblivion. What a name.

Sounds very important. It sounds very important. Very ominous. All right. So, Robbie, let's go ahead and watch this episode, and we'll come back with our recap and discussion. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. Hey, everyone, we're back from watching Course Oblivion. Course Oblivion.

It was not the comedy that I. remember. No, it's not. It's not funny. But boy, I guessed right. Oh, my God. I can't believe you remembered Anson Williams director. I don't remember it. It was a just, it was a shot in the dark. It was completely because the thing I knew, I know this. The prior episode was Livingston. So I felt if this was shot in, if this was aired correctly in the shooting order, this would not be livingston again. So I said, it's not Livingston. And like I said, I thought it would be Cliff, you know, I would say Cliff Ball, but we already established he has retired. And then you threw Craker out, which was going to be my choice. So then I thought, all right, if he's going with Craker,

I'll pick Anson because that's the only name. I was going to say Terry Windell, but I thought, no, no, I think I feel, it feels more possibly like it could be Anson than Terry. And I was right on the money. Bullseye. Good job. So excited to see that. All right, here we go with my haiku for course oblivion yes haiku poetry synopsis two years left till home ship and crew start to degrade real crew finds nothing wow yeah that's a sad haiku like a sad episode it is it's a sad episode. Gosh. All right. Let's hear the limerick. Here's the limerick, our poetry synopsis for course oblivion. Okay. We start off with a fun and happy wedding, but there are copies with a gooey disease spreading. Balana dies. Tom almost cries. Chacote's death makes Janeway

futilely change their heading. Oh, wow. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I got a everything in there and we got it covered we got it covered good job in fact we got the part where tom almost cries i was i got to be honest i hated my performance in this episode wow i'm just gonna say no let's get let's not talk about it here let's get to it when we get to that scene and i okay i got to but i'm saying in the whole episode oh my gosh i'm saying in the whole episode i feel like i was off i was all over the place oh man well you know we're often the most critical of our own performances and I'm definitely guilty of that and you're definitely guilty of that because I honestly I didn't sit there and think that there was and I it didn't pull me out really you know no it really

didn't so I guess I would I would say that not only was I critical of my performance but yeah some of our fellow castmates I felt like the the thing I was critical about was I felt like continuity wise like in terms of a smooth journey of you know making sure that I was tracking where I was coming from going to the levels of things I didn't feel I feel like I was just like shooting scenes as they as we shot them and I wasn't connecting the dots very well and I felt that way a little bit with some of the rest of the cast like within scenes sometimes some actors were playing one sort of tone and other actors were playing a different tone and to me it felt a little lacking in focus and continuity in terms of performances.

It was just my general, that's my general wash of the episode. Okay. All right. Interesting enough, we don't have a single guest star on the zero episode, which is very rare for us to not have a single guest star. I know. And normally I would be like, oh, it's focused on our cast. Everybody's got something to do, which is true.

that's usually like a slam dunk that's going to be a great episode for me but for me this one because of the lack of consistency okay and the lack of the fact that we were all playing the same tone and the same scenes okay i feel like it was a little all over the place for me all right that's again general very general you are entitled to that opinion okay so tell a play by Brian Fuller and Nick Sagan, story by the talented Brian Fuller and directed by Anson Williams. I can't believe you remembered that. Yes, it's an interesting concept, this idea of telling a story that we think is about our characters when really it's the copies from a previous episode.

I love the concept, but it's a tricky one. It's a tricky one because we're sort of, as soon, as soon as we realize that in this episode to me, I'm like, oh, well, this isn't our real character, so how invested am I? Yeah. Like if I know that they're not, if they're copies, and we don't know the journey since they were created. Once we realize we put the pieces together, we're like, oh, well, they're not the real people

that we've come to watch all these adventures with. Right. Their copies. And they've had their own adventures that we've never seen. That we didn't even, yes. So this could be the spin-off. this is going to be this spinoff show right star trek voyager memetic copies i will say harry is really a copy of a copy i know i thought of that did you think about that so maybe

that's why harry was still alive at the very end because he was a copy of a copy i don't know maybe that i don't know i have no clue why harry stayed to the very end with seven and neelix and everyone else died before them i'm not even the doctor you know the doctor's gone exactly Well, they did say at one point early on, the doctor says the people that were closest to the warp core seemed to be getting sick quicker. He said that when Balana first, when he had his first few patients, he's like, so maybe the people that were around the warp core more. But then how would that explain Chiquet going so quickly? He's never near there. And seven was in the, by the warp core all the time.

She should have been done. Yeah, she should have been one of the earliest ones to go after Bala. so it's a little yeah so there it's not even consistent there either you know that's what I'm saying okay all right let's talk about the very first opening scene we're in the mess hall this is Tom's wedding duplicate Tom's wedding and why isn't everyone in dress uniform why are just weird it's just the principle it's like well first of all I thought we saw Harry's first okay so the wedding yeah we see we see we see wear it at some kind of celebration we don't really know what's going on as the thing opens but the

camera pans over and there's harry playing some music on his clarinet with some other musicians and harry is in this weird outfit this uniform which i thought looked like his marching band uniform he was like oh he's in his band camp uniform okay that's what you thought when he first saw at first i was like why is he wearing his band camp uniform okay uh anyway So he's playing some music. And then we see the doctor taking pictures with the biggest camera I've seen since. It's that hollow imager again. Yeah.

Say hi to the 1970s for me. It was so big. I remember when we shot the scene. It's bigger than a Polaroid camera. It was like, what? And I remember when we shot the scene. Yeah. I remember commenting, like people were even commenting when we shot it in 99 or whatever year this was.

Yeah. We were like, this is big even. for them. It's huge. Okay. Yeah, it is. My only note about this scene is that I am the most comfortable playing the clarinet in this scene than any other time playing the clarinet.

I felt that I'd finally felt completely at ease with that instrument, you know. Well, even when you play, then there's the ceremony. And then when you go back over to play again, they'd like, Posh you the clarinet. The guy on, yeah, smooth. My other guy, my other musician, he just throws it at me and I, I catch it out of mid. Midair. Oh, it was very cool.

Very smooth. That must have been, gosh, who, I'm just wondering if that was a, if that was a directorial. Yeah, maybe Anson was like, let's spice this up a little bit. I bet that was a you call. I would say like, hey, you think I brought it to me. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

I have to quote one line in the scene when, uh, when, uh, congratulations. No, when the, when the doctor says to seven, uh, something about the wedding and seven's response is, given the volatile nature of the relationship, one might have predicted homicide rather than matrimon. I love that line. I don't remember hearing that line. The line I wrote down was after she caught the bouquet and then you hear congratulations.

And seven goes, for what? And Tuvok says, you may not know. He says, you may not want to know. Yes, that was funny. This scene actually, I was like, I had fun with the scene, actually. I thought the wedding, all the characters were fun. The energy was light and fun and happy. And I felt like everybody was relaxed and playing the scene really well.

And then it just ruined by the floor distorting. Yeah, the carp is distorting. And the rice is falling through the floor. Ropping floor, exactly. So a great scene that ends with this jeopardy that we're like, what's going on? What the heck? Did you know what was happening at that point? No.

No. Okay. All right. I didn't remember. We have a captain's log. Captain says with all the celebrating, we have lots to celebrate. We've got Kruman Harper's new baby. So they're a baby born.

Yeah, baby. We have this new warp drive, she says. And we're really two years from home. We're super close. Then we go into her ready room. She's talking with Chkote, about there were only two years from home. And did you notice Cape Mulgrews sort of touching of Robert Beltran? She had her finger on his chest and was sort of like, I thought, oh, JC moment is happening right now.

Yeah, it is. Now, I just want to step back a little bit to that captain's log. And you're talking about, you know, her saying that. a baby was born. Now, I'm trying to think about this. The only way that anyone is alive is they are a memetic compound copy of the original. So wouldn't the baby have... How did they have a baby? Exactly. Exactly. Interesting. It's like that doesn't make sense to me. Like, you would have to be a memetic compound of a baby that's already in existence. Like, how could two memetic compounds actually create a real child.

That's interesting catch. I did not catch that. That's something that I just caught just now in this conversation that we've had. But all right, let's move on. So like we said, we're in the ready room again. It's two years, 11 days, six hours away from actually getting back to the Alpha Quadrant

because of this enhanced warp drive. Now were you thinking that this is something? Like when you're watching, where you're like, wait a minute, how's this happening? Like, were you? I felt like we definitely had missed something. Okay.

Yeah. But I was like, I couldn't remember the episode. So I was like, oh, well, they'll fill us in on what we missed. Right. Because we do jump time. Yeah. We do that. That's a huge.

That's a big, big, big jump. Oh, yeah. How do we get this super duper warp drive where we're going home in two years? We jumped to the mess hall. And Neelix is now suggesting honeymoon locations to Paris to go on the holiday. And he's got these awesome, very exotic place. to go to different, you know, places in our galaxy, our universe. And then, you know, Tom is like, I don't know, I think Earth has the best, best vacation

spots, especially 1920s Chicago. And so, you know, this is the, it's a nice scene. It's cute. It's good. It's cute. It's cute. Yeah. Yeah, it's cute.

He goes into a lot of detail about Chicago. Tom really knows his 20th century history. He does. But he sets that up, which will come back late. later when he's talking to Balana about the Chicago honeymoon. We go into engineering next and Balana's filling seven in on what needs to be done while she's on her honeymoon. Yeah.

And she, Balana says to seven, I've never been away from engineering for more than a couple of days. Certainly not a week. Right. So this is, you know, she's very reluctant to leave her little baby.

She even talks about the work drive having a personality like seven. It's not just a device. This is, this has got a personality. And, you know, you may think you know all the data, but you don't know its personality. There's an alert, a minor fluctuation in the subsidiary injector ports. And Seven says, I'll take care of it. And I'm like, no, no, no, let me come with you.

I'm, I grabs her bag and off they go. Still 20 minutes on her duty shift. That's right. Yeah, she's still into it. They're in the Jeffries tube. And they open up one section. They notice that the entire Jeffries tube in that section is losing molecular cohesion. This is a big, big problem.

We go to the briefing room, and we discover it's our warp field. The enhanced drive is emitting some form of subspace radiation, and that is affecting Voyager's infrastructure, and not only Voyager, but we soon learn everyone's infrastructure is being affected by this subspace radiation. And Bologna and Seven are sort of explaining this to the room. I did notice in the scene in the briefing room. Yeah.

The difference between directors, you know, like I kept thinking about Alan Craker in directing scenes in the briefing room and how there was just energy and movement. And then I thought about David Livingston and his sort of wide lenses and sometimes, you know, a bit forced in the blocking, but still his style. This one felt very simplistic to me, this briefing scene. I don't know how it's okay. I felt like, yeah, it's okay. okay you know it didn't feel like the the photography match the jeopardy that was being set up and in fact at the end janeway dismisses the crew and then chokote walks over and this was the beginning of i also noticed in this episode a lot of these long pauses at ends of scenes because chokote walked over she's dismissed the crew janeway and chokote stand there in front of the monitor and you see you even see kate start to go like she's about to say something and then is speechless and it just it lingers on and I was like that's an odd moment like why didn't they cut out of this faster it doesn't it just doesn't feel like a dramatic oh my god kind of

moment or what's happening or I don't know I mean do you have ideas of how you would have shot it then in terms of to to increase the escalate the attention well I think if they're going to stand there silently the camera should be moving I mean this was a Rick Berman quote you know from way back when i remember it's moving pictures it's not talking pictures yep and and if the if the if the actors aren't moving the camera should be moving and if you know the camera's not moving then the actors should be moving and this is one of those moments where i was like no there's just two people standing there and nothing yeah and it's awkward it's it's going on a little too long but okay where are we now where it bologna's well actually it's both of your quarters right don't you

it is now that we're married in this story balana goes in she's leaving a a log. She basically says in her chief engineers log supplemental that she can't figure out what is wrong. She's run all these different diagnostics and she has not figured out why we're losing this type of cohesion. And then she goes into the, the washroom area. That's how she gets the chills. Oh, that's right. That's right. She's like, oh, all of a sudden, she suddenly gets the chills. And she's like, computer, raise its temperature by five degrees. That's right. And then she goes in. Now, one thing I want to comment on this is, again, it's going to sound like I'm piling

on this episode, but I, this one just struggled. I struggled in this one. Okay. So she gets the chills suddenly, and now she's starting to have the effects of this thing. Right. But I didn't see any other characters start to get the chills. I didn't see, like, there was a lack of consistency. Yeah, like everyone should be freezing then, right?

Yeah, they don't have to all get this disease simultaneously, but when they do, there should be steps that happen for each. of them where you kind of go oh no somebody's just got the chills right now they're gonna they're gonna go yeah it felt a little lack lacking in continuity okay but anyway she goes into the mirror into the bathroom and suddenly her face starts moving yeah the distortions are happening now in her cheek so now we see the same thing that happened on in the jeffreys tube is now happening to her cheek and we jump to the corridor where we have a scene with tom and harry buddy buddy kind of joking around and talking about married life exactly Harry drops off Tom at Tom and

Balana's quarters and he enters to find a bent over Torres who's now in major pain and he takes her to sickbay we enter sick bay and the doctor says that we're dealing with an epidemic this is acute cellular degradation so every part of our cells are just part of her cells are now degrading and there are a couple of other patients there and it just turns out out that these patients are also from engineering. And that's where we get this theory of those closest to the warp core are affected first. And he also, the doctor scans Janeway while they're talking. And he does say, this is going to happen to everyone. Yeah, everyone is going to get this, including the captain, he says. That's right. And I noticed in this scene, it was all shot

through that curved glass in the doctor's office. And I remember early on how hard we struggled to shoot to look that direction because of the reflections yeah you remember that like that curved glass you would either see the camera or the crew or lights or yeah something but i thought this this just reminded me of how by the time we got into the show a few seasons in the reflections were not an issue anymore like they figured out i don't know how they did it i don't know if they hung the lights or i remember sometimes the camera crew would wear black clothes and they drape black fabric over them so that they would not,

you couldn't tell what you were seeing in the reflection. So you actually remember a time when the reflection sort of subsided where we didn't have that many issues? I remember early on it was hard. Like we would take hours sometimes to figure out how to see it. Yeah, my memory is that we've dealt with that issue

for the entire seven years. Maybe I'm wrong, but I always recall like everyone was so you know that was the number one thing are there reflections not only in that room but anywhere else that we shot everything was always like hey are there any reflections are there any reflections and there was always issues that we had to deal with but um if you recall that i remember it getting better okay it was always an issue but they kind of figured out how to get around it yeah how to get around it okay all right now we're in mess hall and nilix is showing Tuvac and Chiquotay, everything that was brought on board that wasn't...

By the way, did you notice when the door opened and Tuvac and Neelix enter, Chikote is coming in behind them? Yeah. As they walk through the door on the right side of the frame, there was this thing. For a second, I had to pause it. I looked at it. I was like, is that a drinking fountain? What?

It's not a drinking fountain. But there's like a site table and it had something like a metal thing on it or something. It looked like a drinking fountain to me. It was like, wow, I don't remember a drinking fountain in the, on the ship, but it was not a drinking fountain. Is that in your video reaction? I don't think so. Okay. All right.

All right. Yeah, I didn't see that. Did not catch that. But anyway, Neelix is just showing, you know, all the things that were brought aboard the ship that have, you know, that haven't been on the ship forever and that have recently brought aboard. And none of them are degrading. They are totally in shape, but there's no degradation whatsoever. and this is yet another mystery for the crew to solve. We go to astrometrics and Tuvok and Chakotay.

They're looking for any interactions that we've had with alien species that may have possibly contributed to the current situation that we're in. They're just going through one after another. They're just beginning this search. Yeah, they start eight months, 17 days ago, the commado first contact. Yeah, but they're just beginning their search in astrometrics for a theory. Like, how far back can we go? Can we see when things, yeah, they're looking for the beginnings of this.

Then we go to Sick Bay and Tom is standing by Balana. He says, how's my old lady? Because they just got married. And she basically says, don't ever call me that again. Yeah, I'll kill you. I'm good enough to still knock you, knock your block off basically. Yes, if you call me that again. He goes through.

It's a very sweet scene, very tender. It's a little slow for me. Do you think that you, okay, as you're watching this scene, do you feel like you wanted to have more emotion, like in terms of, like, you wish that you had started crying in this one? Or, I mean, what is your feeling overall in this scene? I know you're not happy with it. I'm not really happy with this scene.

Part of it is just structural in the writing, like the fact that, that I had to go over, do the romance. Then we had to go through, oh, my God, she's dying, accepting the death. And then the doctor beginning an autopsy, all happening in one scene. And literally, I stood in one place. I was like, I was like, this was a tough scene. I wrote down because it went from this quiet stuff to the romantic phase, to the urgent death's part, to the autopsy.

And I literally was standing in the same place. Like, I didn't like the blocking. I didn't. The fact that, like, I think he would have. If this were in a hospital show, they would have called orderlies in to restrain the person who was getting emotional, but we didn't have anybody around. So I couldn't get out of control enough to be restrained because there's nobody else there. And I don't know. I just feel like the blocking was lackluster.

I literally stood in one spot for all of the parts of this scene. Okay. Yeah, I think my emotional level, if I'd gone to tears, there wasn't time for tears because the doctor's going, I've got to do an autopsy. And then the fact that I stood there, or I wish he had dragged me away from the bed, or I don't know, I just felt like, this felt like a scene where they're like, we got to do this shoot this quick. Yeah. So let's keep it simple. I do keep it simple. I do like the dialogue when you are going through all the honeymoon preparations, though.

I do like that because everything, you know, everything you're telling her, she's listening, but you can tell she's fading, like every single comment. And it's just, it's very bittersweet, you know. I don't have a problem with the dialogue there. I do think that that was effective. And I do feel like people were like buying into that going, oh, my gosh, this is horrible, you know. Yeah, no, I think the writing was very romantic and it was very sweet. And there were some really nice moments in it.

But it was trying to be a lot of things in this one scene. And I wish we had gotten more specific about the way we staged it and kind of the levels and the turns in the scene and really hit the highs and the lows because it felt a little bit like, I just wrote down, I think we were shooting this quickly. It feels to me like we sort of kept it simple. Let's get through it quickly.

Yeah. Keep it simple. Yeah. But it's nice. There's some nice moments in it. Yeah. But she dies. Yeah, Balana does die.

She dies. And the doctor says we've got to do this autopsy before her cells begin degrading any further and try to figure out what's going on. She dies pretty quickly. Yeah. Compared to other people who get this degradation. That's the other thing I started going, all right, well, if that's how this works, then as soon as we see it on people, they're going to be gone in a couple of scenes, but no, they last for weeks, months, you know? It's weird.

So did you know what was happening yet in this scene? No. Yes, I kind of did. You kind of felt it. Yeah, I started remembering. All right. All right. We go to back to astrometrics, I think, at this point, right? They do finally get back to the demon class planet. Yeah. 10 months, 11 days ago. 10 months, 11 days ago, they go through the logs and are reminded of this silver blood that creates duplicates. And you see this all kind of starting to make sense to them, although they don't articulate it in this scene completely. But no, they're on the right trail. They're on the right trail. And yeah, so this was for me, it was a turning point. I'm like, I see where we're going over here. Yes, that biobemic compound. Yeah, but this is also where I started kind of, it started losing me a little bit because that's where I'm like, wait,

okay, so we're not really watching Tom and Harry and Bologna and we're watching duplicates. And we've missed a bunch. I don't know where this warp drive came from. I don't know whose baby that is. I don't know, like, why is Janeway touching Chiquete like this? Did they have a connection that we missed? You know what is so damn funny right now is that you right now, Robbie McNeil, are turning into Tom Paris on this, in this episode, becoming sort of like, last.

lackluster, lackadaisical. Why am I even doing this? Why are we even here? Like, I don't even, this episode is just, I'm not invested in watching this episode any longer. You've turned into Tom Paris. Why are we even taking orders from her? Like that? Yeah. Why am I even recording this podcast? Yeah. Yeah, Tom did get very bitter after. Yes. And you were doing, you were paralleling your own character in terms of your review of this episode. It's very interesting. All right. So now we're in sickbay. And, you know, the income Chakotay and Tuvok, and they're just, you know, they're on a mission.

They've got, they've got this lead that they think maybe. Yeah. And they ask the doctor to scan for traces of deuterium, hydrogen sulfate, and dichromates. The doctor's a little perplexed. And he realizes they're all present, all those compounds that they asked the doctor to scan for. And Chkote says, look, we got to know. you need to inject her with the dichromate catalyst right now. And the doctor again, perplexed.

He's like, okay, he does so. And now she reverts to the silver liquid to the bio-o-medical. She dissolves into a puddle in the bed. Yes. I made it. And it wasn't a total puddle. She looked more like a, it was sort of. Like a seed of rubber.

Yeah, she was, she looked, you know what it looked like? It kind of looked like, um, do you remember those fruit roll-ups? Like you would. Yeah. She's like a giant silvery fruit roll-up is what she was. I made a note here. This was not great VFX to me. Okay.

All right. The melting and stuff because to do a pure CG puddle of silver compound. Silver compound. Yeah. On a three-dimensional real bed is hard to do now. Yes. In 2022. It's expensive.

It's a hard CG Vizifact. and back then we didn't have the you know the technology or the money to really do it well yeah I wish that they had put some practical you know silver compound on the bed so that just the sort of melting in the transition would have left her in a puddle of something real rather than something virtual which they cut away from very quickly yeah yeah yeah because it was expensive that's why they cut away from it so quickly yeah the transition was a little bumble but I wish in the end they had used some physical elements in this vis-effect shot because it was it was just okay for me. Okay. Well, we have a passage of time. We're still in sick bay. Janeway is now

in sick bay and she's being debriefed. She's got a lesion on her face. Yeah, she does. Chikote suggests that maybe the plan of attack is to head back to the demon class planet. And Janeway, you know, says, okay, well, I want to adjust the environmental controls to simulate a class Y planet to help slow the rate of degradation. So, you know, this is a pretty good theory, I think. And she also says, in the meantime, let's search for a class Y planet that we can possibly land on and use that as a safe harbor because it will probably be to our, or at least to this compound's liking to be on this class Y planet. And at that point, we can regroup. Not a crazy idea, but Chocote does say, maybe we should just turn around.

We're all copies. Let's go back to where we came from. And she does not want to go back. No. She's still stuck on, we've got to make it back to the Alpha Quadrant. We've got to get to Earth. Yeah. So they're in search of a class white planet for Safe Harbor.

Then we go to the mess hall, which is going to tell everybody. And we see there's some cots on the floor and people are starting to get sick. Harry asks if everything about them is fake. And she does say to Harry in here, she says, if you feel something, if you remember something, then it's, who am I to tell you it's not real? It's real. Right. Yeah.

That's all I know. Tom's bitter. Yeah. Harry tries to give his condolences to Tom and Tom, you know, bitter, bitter, upset Tom. Tom's like, there's no one here by that name. Yeah. You're just mean to Harry in this. Yeah.

You're very mean. I said, that's exactly what I wrote down. Tom is mean. He was. He's like, drop the good soldier routine. Yeah. He's, yeah, Tom's bitter. He's angry about Bala's dead.

Bala was a duplicate. We're all impostors, Harry. I think Harry should have slapped Tom, like really hard and shaking him. Like, get out of this funk. We've got to do the best we can with what we have. Come on, Tommy, boy. You know, some little pep talk to sort of, you know, get you out of this. Yeah.

This grief that you're in, I guess. You're still grieving. And you're confused, too, right? Tom's just confused, grieving. What is real? You doesn't know what's up or down anymore. Yeah. It's like me watching the episode.

I was confused. I don't know what's happening here. Who's real? What's real? Okay. Let's go to Janeway's quarters next. Yeah. Chicken papra kash.

Chicken papra kash. Her grandmother's recipe. Yeah. Then she says, well, not really, you know. Not really my grandmother, but still tasty. Still delicious. Yes, yes. He does tell her three more people have died and he asks again.

Like, I think we need to head back. You got to go back. He says home is a class why planet in the Delta Quadrant. Home is not. You almost said plonet. Just like I say plaza. Plaza. Ah, okay.

Home is a class why planet. Planet. She does say that she will not. kill her crew in the process of trying to get them home and so we're sort of left on a conflict here with these two like he's going I think we really you need to reconsider and you need to go back and she's like no we're going home we're going to figure this out and I won't kill them I'm still Janeway I'm not going to kill my crew right and then she's like maybe this dinner wasn't such a good idea after me yeah um sad JC is falling apart J's no JCP moment there

Nope. Mess hall. Mess hall. Yeah, doctor has an idea. Find the original Voyager. And then we could sample the real Captain Janeway's DNA and imprint it onto copy Janeway's memetic pattern. This is his solution, which again, nice theory.

It's possibly going to work. He's still got to go back and find the original day. Exactly. Where are we going to find original Janeway for goodness sake? You have no clue because they don't know. No. And the Dr. Fritz is in the scene. So you realize that his.

is, you know, emitters are starting to destabilize and fall apart. Even his time is limited as well. Yep. We go to the bridge. Everybody's getting worse now. The makeup has gone up a notch. By the way, can I just say real quickly, how on earth did that memetic compound duplicate the doctor if he's a hologram?

You know what I'm saying? Well, it duplicated his emitters. That's what he said. Oh, is that what it? Okay. He said the things. All right. Yeah, it's not him.

It's the emitters, just like the ship. copy Tom looks okay on the bridge though I gotta say like Tom's fine down front he's bitter but he's fine Janeways Janeway's got like her makeup's gone up a notch they put the thing that covers the half of the eye over her and now her face is drooping basically at least half of it is droop she's her portrayal is like she's tired yeah which again there's a lack of con there there is because not everyone did that tired thing no and I remember there's some scenes where I did talk tired because I guess I kind of fed off of Kate and there's other scenes where I didn't talk tired. I was like, eh, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like that needed some guidance. We needed some,

like, we needed a flow chart so that we're all playing the same rules. Yes. Because I was not playing anything. No, except for snarky. That's what you're playing. I wrote that down. Tom is snarked. But we do approach this planet. There's a vessel approaching that states that this planet is under the Ord-Murit mining treaty? Yeah, something like that. Something like that. And we're fired upon. These guys...

Get out of here. Yeah. By the way, it's an ugly ship, that ship. Their ship was ugly. It's just an ugly ship. I, you know what? You're just all around just down on this episode. I thought that ship looked fine.

I have no qualms with that. It looked like a satellite. It looked like a, like it looked like Sputnik. No, it did not. It looked old school. No. So you are letting your disappointment with this episode affect everything about your review of this episode. I thought it looked cool.

I had no issues with that. It looked like Sputnik. It looked like a Sputnik. No. Like a satellite to me. Didn't even look like a ship. Fine. Snarky, Robbie.

Go ahead. Let's go ahead. So, yeah, they fire. Well, we have a chance to take, we can, yet, we could do something. But then Janeway doesn't want to destroy them, basically. Yeah. We could fire on them. We could, whatever.

we could destroy them, but she says, no, we're still Starfleet, even though we're copies, we're still Starfleet. We're not going to kill people. And their ship, Voyager, you know, copy Voyager is destabilizing. Jan Lee says that. She just said, we're still Starfleet copies is what she should have said. She says, break orbit. Let's get out of here. Let's go. Let's go. Paris has a line where he says, I'm not sure why we're still all taking orders from you. You, yeah. Look at you. Oh, you, you So Cochette says follow orders or get off the bridge. So you're snarkalicious is what you are.

Yes, Paris does follow orders. They do leave. They leave the Sputnik ship does not pursue them. And yeah, Tom's got a line where he says, well, what direction do you want me to go? Am I going backward, right, left? What do you want? He's just bitter, bitter, better, better. He's not happy.

So Janeway is now with Jacote in her ready room. And Chocote is still pleading with the captain. We've got to go back. We've got to go back. And this is the scene where he starts to disintegrate and having weird stuff fluctuating on his face. And I got to say when that happened in any of these scenes when people's faces started going,

that was good VFX. That was pretty cool. I thought it was good too. I got to say the good stuff too. That was pretty good. It was hard to watch. I was like, oh, it looked really good. Yes, it looked good.

And so from that scene, we jumped to sick pay where we see the passing of our first officer scene. Chikote dies in that one. We jump back to the bridge, and now there's a eulogy for Chikote by Janeway. Janeway is talking about how much he meant to her and that he was able to always call her on her BS, you know. And he was a sounding board and also a very long,

pause friend like she says that at the very end there's a lot of something else in there yeah i feel like i missed a couple pauses at the end of scenes but this is like it's it's this episode was slow for me and it was partially because of the the editorial pace of it okay you know sometimes we may shoot scenes with all these dramatic pauses but the editors will tighten it up so yeah they'll pull it out but in this one they didn't they left a lot of this air in there and maybe the episode was short i was going to say this the exact same thing. The episode must have been short. And whenever it's short, they got to find either, they either have to shoot new scenes or extend scenes. Add a few seconds here, add a few

seconds there. It adds up. And I think that's what they did. They just let all these moments play. But I don't know that it was helpful. It was. Right. All right. Well, but at this point, because Chocote passes, Jane Ways, like, she tells Kim to bring the enhanced warp drive online and to set a course for the demon planet. So she found. Finally, we're going to go back. She does. She says he was a fine officer and a friend who wasn't afraid to tell me when I was wrong. She literally, and because that's her way of admitting, I was wrong.

Set a course for the demon planet. Off to go. Exterior shot of degrading ship. Captain's log supplemental. We've lost 63 crewmen. Systems are continuing to fail. And five weeks still to get to the demon planet. So it's still a big distance to get back there.

And she does say we've lost the doctor at this point, too. Yeah, did, bye-bye doctor. We saw five more weeks to the demon planet. And when we cut inside the, was a briefing room? Actually, oh, yeah, actually, that's where we find out we lost the doctor. So in the briefing room, yeah. In the briefing room. I kind of say the makeup is insane in this.

It is like full zombie, like half of Janeway's face is gone. Neelix's hair looks nutty. Seven is degrading to. But her color is like greener than everybody else. I don't know if you noticed that. I did notice that. Her makeup is different. Yeah.

Ours was kind of black and blue and gray, I guess. Mostly black and gray. Hers was green. And then Janeway's face starts moving in this scene. But she also gives the job of chief medical officer to Neelix. All right. So Janeway's face distorts. And she wants to download the ship's database and personal logs into a signal beacon.

So there is some record of our accomplishments in case we do not survive. So great plan, wonderful plan. And it's basically, I think seven suggests that, okay, I can construct this beacon from parts that were not, you know, memetic compound parts, basically. Yeah. And we can shoot off basically a time capsule. Yeah, a time capsule. And Janeway says at the end of this, she says, none of you deserve to be forgotten,

which was kind of a sweet moment. I mean, even though I was a reluctant participant in this story, you know, I had trouble investing in these characters because of the fundamental nature that they're copied. I just, it was always hard for me to go, well, if they're copies, I just felt like I knew where it was going. They're not going to make it. And we're going to get back to our real people that we really know.

But when she said, none of you deserve to be forgotten, I was like, oh, I can feel that. you got pulled in a little bit a little bit even though i don't know these copies at all their story all the logs that they're going to send out in this time capsule even though i don't know any of that i i could feel the sadness of no because nobody deserves to be forgotten no no very relatable feeling yep we're on the bridge now and the deflector is offline interstellar dust is contaminating the warp field janeway says purge it seven says no, we can't because the exhaust manifolds

have disintegrated. So then the command reroute auxiliary power to the deflector and the warp field almost fails but is stabilized by Harry Kim and it's this point that we lose Janeway. Janeway dies in the captain

She dies in the captain's ship. She goes down with the ship with her boots on. With her boots on. With her space boots on. She's like a cowboy. Yes. Sad moment again and now we have a montage of the ship exterior, corridors, acting captain's log, Harry Kim, talking about the situation is getting worse every day. More than 80% of the ship is uninhabitable and most of the crew are gone. Now, Harry is sitting on the bridge and he's asking the computer for hull status.

Hull integrity is now only at 45%. Cargo Bay 2 actually decompresses while he's on the bridge. Harry then tries to erect a level 10 force field around the bridge. The computer cannot comply. So he asked seven for more power. Seven is able to give a little more power enough for that force field to go in place. It's now surrounding the deck. And Seven says it's, oh, Harry then asks about the time capsule. And Seven says, it's ready for launch.

But then as Harry commands seven to launch it, the launch sequencer has misfired. And then Harry says, well, re-initialize it. And then the launch mechanism has now demolecularized. And then the probe itself is gone. But this is confusing to me because I thought the probe was made of material that has nothing to do. It was. It's the launch mechanism. They can't launch it because.

Yeah. So now it's just it's not able to even be. But then they talk about the probe is being being, they talk about the probe disappearing as well, though. That's what that's what kind of confused me. It's a little confusing and like, and not to give a spoiler here, because I'm going to jump ahead for a second, but when the real Voyager sees all these little, this debris or the, you know, the goo floating in space, wouldn't they see all the things that like Neelix was showing in the mess hall? Like the things that they collected. Yes. Some of those items would still be there. Evidence. Yeah. Wouldn't wouldn't all just be this silver goo. And the time capsule should be there too, basically. So, yeah. It's a little confusing. It's a lack of continuity of rules. And we also detect a vessel 22 light years away.

We see it on the view screen and I can't believe that Harry doesn't go, that's the real Voyager because even though it's a little fritzed, it's a little fritzy, but you can tell. Yeah. You can tell. And so Harry goes down to the con, which by the way, you sit in my chair. How did that feel? I felt wonderful.

Was it nice? It's a nice chair. Yeah, you know, and I was. I was very envious of all the times that you got to move around. It slides around. It's really nifty. So I had a little fun in that chair, for sure. Harry tries to hail the vessel that's 22 lights years away,

which is clearly the real Voyager, but the subspace transceiver is malfunctioning like everything else on the ship. And Harry comes up with the idea, hey, we need to go to Impulse to send a message. And we can't even go to Impulse. We're locked in this. The warp drive does not respond to the controls. No. So Harry says the only other option is to eject the core.

So we go ahead and do that. And we see Nelix getting jolted by this. And we see Harry sort of just standing on the bridge and in that final moment, which is so sad, really. But evidently the message, some message got through to Voyager because Voyager is making its way to this stranded vessel. It was a distress call. It was a distress call.

that all that's all that they got was a distress call they don't know who it's from no any more details than that no um but as the ship is tearing itself apart breaking up dissolving all you know it's just it's the final moments uh we cut over to the real voyager bridge and everything's calm and it looks great yeah and uh no no no nothing like no goo no nothing and we don't know when we leave harry on the on the copy bridge if they are going to to make it or not so we cut over to the real bridge things are calm you feel like maybe there's a chance they're going to get there in time but then when they uh they pick up on sensors the the ship

uh they put on the view screen and it's just the the silver goo just a field of goo everywhere right yeah and so they didn't they were so close didn't quite make it janeway does make a note of the encounter in the ship's log and she does have an odd oddly kind of moved moment like she does like she doesn't know what happened but she's just got a feeling which is yeah i thought was a nice thing i did like that touch yeah by the way when they do show the debris i looked at my face down front and i had one of these faces like yeah whatever whatever yeah it's a bunch of goo no biggie it's just like look at my face is that it was funny i thought it was good. I mean, to me, that was like, yeah, he wouldn't care. He's a bunch of goo.

No biggie. Yeah, it was funny. And she says resume course and off the go. And it's a sad tragic ending. It's just sad. They were that close to meeting up with a real Voyager who they could have, you know, maybe Janeway could have done something, you know, so it's very, very sad. Or at least, or at least if they had somehow gotten that buoy, that time capsule. Okay. They could have had an understanding of what had happened to these people. That would be wonderful. Or if you just saw like that lettuce kind of floating in space that was still there or some like some item that Neelix was shot.

The lettuce. Yeah. Like one piece of lettuce is floating in space. There you go. What's your lesson behind this episode? Here's my lesson. There is a lesson here. Oh, good.

Yes. I think it's the lesson that Janeway copy learned, which is don't wait until it's too late to change direction. That's a lesson we can all. Oh, look at you. I love it. I love it. I'm going to give that to Rebecca, because we were talking at the end, and I'm like, what is the lesson

here? And she sort of pointed out that idea, and I was like, yes, that is a good lesson. Bravo, Rebecca Jane. Wow. Because I sat there, and I was like, I'm going to let Robbie take this one, because I have no. My only lesson was never, never land on a demon class planet.

So this would never have happened in the beginning. I mean, I had no other thing to go to. But, hey, it's a good lesson. I love that. So say that again. Let me say that again. It is what I wrote it down, don't wait until it's too late to change your course. Don't wait until it's too late to change your course.

Yeah. Yeah, because sometimes you're so intent on one, you see, you kind of have like blinders on where you only see one thing. And you're like, I must do it this way. I must do it this way. And all, everyone else can see that you're going, it's a sinking ship, that this is not the way to go. But the person engaged in, in the action is so, so focused on one thing and one thing only that they don't see everything else around. It's too late.

Sometimes it is too late. Like if you can, if you can realize your mistakes or you can listen to Chikote and turn around the first time. me suggest it. Yeah. Maybe they would have made it back. They would have made it back. Exactly. So that's a good lesson.

All right. What's your rating? Hey, yay. Yay. I cannot wait to hear this one from you. Give us a real honest rating for you. Come on. Don't.

6.2. 6.2 was my original rating. Then I went up to the 6.9. But 6.2 is where I was. There's some really good ideas in here. Like independently, there's some good moments and things. Yeah. But I feel like,

For me, the lack of continuity and the rules of what was happening and the lack of continuity and performances by actors, including myself. But I think that that is true in ways of some of the other actors, too, that there was sort of, it was, everybody was doing their own thing of it, their own version of this story. Okay. It felt a little disconnected. All right. So six point, what?

Would you get six point two? I feel as if I feel like I'm going to guess what our captains and admirals are going to go for. I feel like they're going to be less critical and I feel like they're going to be closer to around 7.5 is what I think. So what are you? Me personally. Yeah, I'm going to leave it that too. Me personally, 7.5. I like the overall idea of this.

I think this is a cool sci-fi idea. I like the fact that, you know, this is a crew of biomimetic compound individuals. Yeah. I do like that. And it's very bittersweet at the end. Um, I like some of the other interactions that have happened. So I'll say 7.5 for myself. Okay.

So I got a 6.2. Yeah. We got a 7.5. Yep. And our captain and admiral's average rating from course oblivion is 8.1. Woo-hoo. Even higher. So this was a very well-liked episode by a lot of the fans.

So, which I get, I think, because of the reasons you said, that it is a cool sci-fi premise. There are some really cool ideas and there's some really great moments. There's a lot of, I mean, even from the first scene, like seeing Tom and Bologna get married, even though it's a copy, it's cool. It's still cool. Seeing Harry playing the clarinet and having fun. Still cool. yeah cool there's some cool stuff there are some cool stuff but for me i just kept like like tom the character i kept going hmm what's the point what's the point it's copies okay you know we're not

going to put you through any more pain let's let's just keep it going let's move it on all right so thank you everyone for tuning in to our recap and critique of this episode and join us next week when hopefully we will have a more consistent episode for Robbie's sake. Better continuity, please. Yes, yes. We're looking for continuity. Play by the rules.

Everybody has to play by the rules. Join us next week when Robbie and I review the fight. Thanks, everyone. And for the Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. See ya. Thanks, everybody. I don't know.