The Delta Flyers - Critical Care

Episode Date: March 27, 2023

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Critical Care. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Critical Care:The Doctor must sidestep a tyrannical hospital administrator who kidnaps him and forces him to treat only privileged patients.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 Fuller, & John EspinosaAdditionally 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, Michelle Z, 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, 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, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Jeremy Mcgraw, Ali S, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, & Matt Norris And 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, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, 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, Kevin Hooker, Ryan Benoit, 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, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Ryan Tomei, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, & James Rothwell 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

Greetings and salutations, 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 Voyager actor, who, in 2004, directed two episodes of the television show The Days, 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. Tell me about that show. I don't even remember that show. The days. Yeah, what was that?

So it was ABC, what was it, 2004 you said? Yes. Mm-hmm. You did two episodes. 2004, ABC was like the bottom of the ratings. They had no hits on. They had nothing. Lost hadn't premiered.

Desperate Housewives hadn't premiered. they just didn't have any hits yeah they were hurting they were hurting they were the lowest rated network and they came up with this plan to partner with advertisers and basically produce shows that the advertisers would own and produce and they'd air them in the summer so they'd give the advertisers instead of selling ad time directly to them they just give them an hour on the network and they could do whatever they want. They just had to provide free content for ABC. It was literally like, what do we do when we have really bad ratings and no hits? And so this show that the advertisers basically produced, it was a conglomerate of ad buyers called, was it Unilever or I can't

remember the name of it. And they bought the nine o'clock hour on Sunday night or whatever it was, not a great hour. ABC gave it to him for a price. And then they produced a show called The Days. Oh. And it was, I think, six episodes. It was a summer short series, six or eight episodes. I can't even remember.

Yeah. And they were going straight to series, no pilot, super low budget. And yeah, they made the show. But it was awesome. It was about a family called The Days. and they just had all this wacky stuff happened to them in the first episode and then they're sort of dealing.

Like, you know, the mother who's been raising kids decides she wants a career, gets a job, and on the first day of work, sees her ex is a co-worker of hers. And the husband who's worked all his life decides to quit his job because the wife's going back to work, but then something happened to him.

He quits his job. And then the oldest daughter realizes she's pregnant and still in high school and the youngest kid has panic attack and I don't know it was just all this you know yeah high stakes things happen simultaneously everybody's dealing with it yeah but it was it was kind of comedic it was like the whole tone of it was kind of comedic and anyway it was fun it was really so you enjoyed your experience on it yeah we had some great first time actors Laura Ramsey, I think, was the teenage girl. She went on to do some big stuff.

Evan Peters, his very first job. So Evan Peters just, I think, won an Emmy or something for, or a Golden Globe for that murderer, the cannibal story. Jeffrey Dahmer. Jeffrey Dahmer story. Evan Peters was phenomenal in it. But his very first job was the day. So that's where you directed him. yeah it was okay yeah wow okay um i thought the days was got it i thought it referred to as in the days

of the week but the day the days is the family name that was their last name and it was and i think evan peters as the middle child or the you know the the uh the emo kind of kid right he was the narrator of the show oh okay he sort of said my family's kind of it was like it was almost like the wonder Wonder years, yeah. That totally dysfunctional family. Okay. Yeah, it was that. With the voiceover.

All right. Cool. Well, thank you for, you know, filling in the blanks for me there. I had no clue. When I saw that credit, I said, who? Huh? What? It was a very unusual network show that wasn't really a network show.

And then that was the summer before Lost and Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy all premiered that year. And then ABC was like, no, we're not doing this anymore. But we had good ratings. And when we finished the days, there was an expectation that we would do more of the next summer. But ABC took off and they're like, nope, we're not giving away our ad time anymore. It's valuable now. Yeah, the days got kiboshed.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you for sharing that with us. Yeah. And let us talk about this week's episode. Okay. Let's do. What is it?

It's critical care. Let's go watch this show. We'll be right back with our recap and discussion of critical care for our Patreon patrons. Sounds like a medical show. Is it a medical show? It does sound like a medical show. Did we just go from a sci-fi show to a medical show? I think we did.

Okay. I think we did. So we'll be right back with our recap discussion of critical care for our for our patron patrons. Please stay tuned for your bonus material. All right. We are back for watching Critical Care. Yes. I don't remember seeing this episode at all.

This is my first time seeing this episode. Definitely my first time seeing it. I'm shocked because remember in the beginning I said, I saw all of them. I saw every single one, Robbie. I watched them all. No, I didn't watch this one. And it's funny because I actually enjoyed this episode

and maybe it broke the rules. Like, we didn't see seven until the very last scene, right? I am so happy you said that. Oh, really? Yes. You know why? Why? because of because the director I felt that you were going to come be critical of him well I can start breaking this down no no I did but as an overall experience yes as an overall experience I actually kind of enjoyed this one I thought the actors were good our guest stars were really good I agree and your words are warming my heart right now they really are I'm very surprised and I'm very happy to hear you say that because the overall experience

experience was a good one was a good one yes it's not it's not in my top 10 episodes no no no but i'm gonna say it's a good episode i enjoyed it i was entertained by it and i'd never seen it right and the guest stars pulled out all the stops they didn't phone it in you know everyone was doing a really great job and the other thing i had no idea john cassier was in this oh yeah clue that he was and i've known john for eons because i never saw this episode and because i didn't work when he worked clearly. No, we didn't work with any of these actors. I didn't know clue John was even here and I'm a huge fan of Jonkis

here, definitely. Well, let's talk about stuff. Let's first do our poetry synopsis. You want to go that route? Okay. Yeah, this is I'm so excited. I thought we would jump right into guest stars. This is our brand. We are a creative, poetic couple you and I. We are. Here we go. My haiku for

critical care. Yes. And I'm happy that you call us a couple. in a strange, bizarre kind of weird way. Here we go. My haiku for critical care. EMH stolen. The doctor bonds with R12. Ethics conundrum.

Ooh, wow. I got really poetry. Yeah, you did. And you got it all in there. Okay, here we go. Here we go with our limerick. Limerick synopsis for critical care. It goes a little something like this.

Very excited. Doc's mobile emitter is stolen based on a falsehood. He learns medical ethics are not easily understood. Tuvok is Janeway's man. Doc comes up with a clever plan that sometimes you must break the rules for the greater good. Very nice. I had to get Tuvok was Janeway's man because. Because that moment, that took, I'm sorry, that took the case.

It took the, that was the best moment in this entire episode. It was so good. Clearly, watching Kate grab Tim Russ's his hand. Here's my man and keep holding it and kept holding it. And I'm sure that's probably your, yeah, I. It was a highlight for this episode. It truly was. Thank you for that.

All right. We have a ton of guest stars. I'm going to go through our credits and I'm going to give really quickly their first job because we could spend a whole episode just on. our guest stars, but we can't. Okay, teleplay by James Kahn. James Kahn actually wrote like four. He has.

Do you remember him, meeting him? Nope. Do not at all. Because I think I asked you that question, and you said, I think this is an outside assignment or something like that, right? But this guy was there, clearly. He was there the last season, I think,

but he only wrote, I don't remember what else he wrote. Okay. He wrote this. Yeah. His specialty as a writer, he was a medical special. He started his very first job was on St. Elsewhere, the hospital series back in 1984. James Kahn wrote this teleplay for this. The story was by Bob Doherty and Ken Biller, who we know well.

So they'd come up with a story. James was assigned to write it. The director is Terry Wendell. Yeah. We've talked about Terry before. I almost guessed him. I almost did. Yes, I really came close to guess.

I didn't realize he directed so many. he directed like four well it's going to be just like your thought of uh of uh colby not coming back later and he keeps coming back so this is like a windell terry windle wendell colby connection for you it's weird yeah but you did guess um we got did you guess biller i did yeah so you got that right yeah no wait no i said brian fuller didn't i oh you did that's yeah no i was wrong all around but doherty one of my favorite writers he's there so i'm happy for that okay here we go with our guest stars. I'm going to bang through him real quick because there's a ton of them. John Casier as Gar. He was the trader. His first job, first time on television was in 1984 on the

competitive talent show Star Search. He beat Sinbad, the comic. What? Star Search. That was his first game. I used to watch that religiously. Wait a minute. He beat Sinbad. Yes, he did. I completely forgot. He was he was doing stand-up comedy. Is that what it was? Yeah. Yeah. He was in the stand-up comedy section. Oh my God. So funding, huh? Yeah. All right. Banging through these guest stars. Greg Getson. Greg Getson plays Dysick, the blue level surgeon. Yeah. Greg Getson passed away just in July. Oh, 74 years old. He was very good friends with Bob Picardo. I just want to, you know, take a moment about Greg Getson because Greg Hitson was an awesome actor, good friends with Picardo. I went with Bob to see him in a play one time. That's a sad.

Great man and very sad. Yeah. He got some kind of infection from a surgery that happened. Oh, so this was an untimely and not meant to happen thing. Yeah, just happened this past July in 2022. So sad to not have Greg Hudson around because he was such a talented actor. His first job was a mini-series called Backstairs at the White House. And he played a White House tour guide.

it was, I think, eight episodes behind the scenes of people that work at the White House. So it was... That sounds like a great show. The lower decks. The lower decks of the White House dramas. Wow.

And that was Gregson's first appearance on film that I'm aware of. Okay, we had Paul Shearer playing Vosge. His first job was... And he was the Red Decks Head Doctors. Red Degs Head Doctor, yeah, Vogue. His very first job was 1988 on the Van Dyke show playing Eric and I guess it was a sitcom Dick Van Dyke

and his real real life son Matt Matthew something Van Dyke I think was his name they played a father and son just like themselves in a sitcom and Eric's first job was that so that was Paul Shear's first job was that Eric Then we have Tebbis Tebbis was the poor young man who wanted to be a doctor Dublin

James his first job. That's his first name? Dublin? Dublin James, yes. Wow. First job, 1996 in the sitcom revival of Saved by the Bell called Saved by the Bell, the New Class.

It was like the next generation of Saved by the Bell. Saved by the Bell, TNG. The new class. TNC. That's right. TNC. Okay. And then we also had Larry Drake playing Chelik,

who was kind of the administrator guy. very well known for LA law that was his big I think you may have won an Emmy for that or something and we have some co-stars I'm just going to bang through these here we go level blue nurse the lady that got the medicine upstairs Christine Christina Choncy Christina Choncy

her first job 1993 in the heat of the night which was filmed outside of Atlanta I remember that show yeah that was a good show I like yeah she was a local Atlanta wannabe actor got in a show and then brought her out to

to L.A. her experience. She's like your cousin. Yeah. Yeah. Next is the MedTech, very, uh, kind of a small role early on. Uh, in red with Vogue. I think so. Yes. Yes. Yeah. MedTech was Stephen O. Mahoney. Yeah. Stephen O. Mahoney. His first job was in 1999, a B movie called murder cycle. Murder cycle. about a bicycle that murders people. So is this the motorcycle, killer motorcycle? Okay, I've envisioned like a 10 speed bike murdering people. No, Bob McAardo's mountain bike murdering people. That's what I envisioned.

Okay, we have the husband on screen. We saw a few like kind of bits, comedy bits, right, when we were on the bridge. The husband, he was very funny to me. Yeah. His name is Jim O'Hare. He's from Chicago, his first job in 1993. The Untouchables, which was filmed in Chicago. No, the series.

Oh. After the movie, they made a TV series, short-lived. Filmed in Chicago. Jim O'Hare. The movie was great. Yeah. Okay. Next was the alien minor, also on the view screen.

He was the first one they talked to. He was in the big makeup, the big white makeup. Wait, which guy? The alien minor is what it's called in the credits. He's, he was on screen. The first one they talked to. about did you oh that guy yes he wanted his

deuterium back or whatever he wanted he wanted that back okay alien minor John Durbin his first film was a real low budget movie in 1983 called rock and roll and roll hotel it was a musical about a battle of the bands in some rundown hotel I would like to watch that

sounds like a music video made into a movie into a movie yeah which is why i would like to watch that 1983 okay next is the wife who was on screen played by debbie a monahan uh her first job 1984 a tv series called first and 10 which o j simpson was on it was about a fictional professional football team and behind the scenes i remember that show first and 10 uh Debbie a A. Monaghan. Then we have, our last one is Kip, one of the aliens somewhere here. John Franklin was the actor, young actor, his first job.

He's from England, I think. I think. But his first job was in 1984, the movie Children of the Corn. Oh, the horror film, yeah. Yeah. One of those kids? Yeah, he was one of the kids. Oh, I didn't know Linda was in that.

He was like The Kid. I think he was best known. Oh, okay. Yeah. There we go. I'm exhausted. That's a lot. It is a lot of guest stars, a lot of first jobs, a lot of trivia.

Yeah. We did it. We did it. Let's get into this story. Yeah. Jump into it. You go. Okay.

So the first thing we see is a space flyby of an alien ship. Did you like that shot? Yeah. Yes. Okay. I did. I did very much. We see the alien ship fly by.

It's approaching a stormy planet with lots of rundown buildings. There's lightning in the sky. And as it's approaching the city, I made a note. Yeah. They clearly don't like windows on this planet because there's not a window in sight. All these buildings of the city. And I'm like, where are the windows? You catch the weirdest stuff, Robbie.

I didn't see that at all. No windows. Oh, my God. All right. But I was relieved when they had a night shot of this planet and you could see some windows lit up. I was like, oh, thank God. They've got windows. You couldn't see it in the first shot.

How about they only come on at nighttime? Maybe that's what it is. I think so. It's so hot that they have to have no windows during the day and it just gets translucent at night. There you go. I think so. Yeah, but we also see there's a floating building or it's a hospital. It's like a, yeah, it's a complex.

It's not just like a little, it's massive. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. So we go inside this hospital. And the first thing I noticed here is, wow, it's mostly humans in here. There's no alien makeup. There's no.

I was like, make makeup budget maybe problems. They all look very human. But we do see an alien walk in. We'll learn this is Gar. He walks in and he's scanned. He's scanned, you know, in a scanner. They say lift your arms. And Gar, this alien, to me, my first thought was it looks like beast from Beauty

and the Beast. Yes. It has kind of the, you know, kind of a beast look on it. But it also has a mouth that looks like the Joker from Batman. Yeah. Yeah. And then my last thought about it. that makeup. I went, what is it? No, it's not the beast. It's not the Joker. It's, it is a character

from the musical cats. That's what I realized. That's why I was so traumatized by it, because everyone knows I hate the musical cats. You do. And that Gar looks like he belongs in the musical cats. Oh, yeah. I thought he was Gnossacken in the beginning, but he's not. No, he's cat. Then I thought he's, then I thought he kind of looks like the predator guy, but no, he's, he's a cat. he's cat that's why i hated him because he's from the musical cats right off the bat i couldn't see him sorry anyway yeah yeah there you go um so there he goes in and he uh he comes up to um one of the aliens who does have some alien makeup on they were so random what the ones that had it and didn't mostly they didn't but he walks up to uh who we learn as an administrator

named chelik yes this is larry drake and i was like oh my god Drake Drake is in this, the administrator. He has a long resume, that Larry Drake. Yes, and Larry Drake, aka Chelek, says, you know, I don't want your junk, you know, I've gotten junk from you in the past, don't want it. And Gar's like, no, I got something. It is not junk. And he pulls out the doctor's hollow emitter.

The mobile hollow emitter. He activates it. The doctor pops in and is like, I think he says, please state the nature of the medical emergency. Yeah, he's like, what? And he's like, where have you taken me? And we go out to our credits there. So he's stolen the mobile emitter.

We, yeah, we know that that's docs in trouble. We come back from our credits. Doctors demanding to go back on the ship. He's like, why did you kidnap me? He's not too concerned about being kidnapped, though. I felt like he was like, eh, you know, don't you know the rules of fair, play kind of a yes yeah he didn't guess yeah it did seem a little less it did seem i think there were a couple moments where i was like surprised that bob picardo didn't react bigger this one

when he's first kidnapped but he was playing it cool i could buy that the other is when uh later on spoiler alert when balana and tuvok show up he seemed distracted but i guess because he was he was trying to save people. Doc is there. He demands to go back. Suddenly there's an announcement. Lots of injured are coming in. There was an explosion in some mining facility. Gar basically says to the doctor that he can either, you know, treat the wounded patients or he'll just dismantle his program and sell his subroutines one part at a time. Right. So the doctor goes over to help the first injured patient ask for a hypospray. They hand him. Well, they didn't even know what that was. They were like, a what?

They were confused. Yeah. Yeah. But he, you know, he's handed this primitive tool. It looks painful. And he says something like this might hurt a little or something like that. Yeah. The whole scene was shot handheld, by the way.

Oh. Which is not unusual for us. But my first thought as I was watching this handheld photography and the way it was staged, I was like, oh, it's like ER. ER was kind of a hit back then. It was a big hit. So I was like, oh, they're imitating ER. which totally worked by the way no yeah and and there is similar types of energy and motion in the

first star trek movie when there's a bunch of you know they're taking a lot of hits and explosions and a lot of medical people running around that same very you know kinetic type of um shot so yes all right are we out of this scene we are we go to a space fly by a voyager and we cut inside the hallway and there is Tom and Harry walking around the corner in hockey uniforms futuristic hockey uniforms

let's just say that did you notice the numbers that we had no I didn't even look at that at all you were number seven I was number eight I don't want seven I'll take eight in Chinese culture eight is lucky eight is lucky I know I thought about that seven is what you do not want

well that's why you had the bumps and bruises because you had the unlucky number I had the lucky number. I was sevening out basically. You had like bruises on your face. And I was walking with a limp. Did you see that? I had a bit of a limp as well. I think that we looked good in those hockey uniforms. I do remember they were very hot because the material that they used was like plastic suits. Yeah, didn't breathe at all. It was like we were going to wear, it was almost like wearing a sweatsuit, you know, to lose weight or lose water weight. Yeah, those sonous, the plastic sonnasies. Yes, yes. That's what it looked like.

Or that's how it was operating. There was no breathability to those suits. But we discussed, you know, heading to sick bay to get some treatment for our bumps and bruises. And Harry's like, oh, no, we should go, you know, how he feels about our juvenile hollow programs. Right. And Tom goes, don't worry, I'll come up with something. And so we go into sick bay and... I throw you under the bus.

You throw me under the... Tell them, Tom. You tell them. I actually liked this little exchange. It was great. It was a good one. You could see, like, I was looking down, like, trying to think of a story, even from the moment we came in. Yeah, there's a lot of layers that we put into this.

I was proud of you, and I was proud of myself in this scene. Yeah, it was a nice little scene. Very nice, yes. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh, my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane, trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes.

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slash TDF. Up front payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan, taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. But I tell the doctor that, you know, we were running very serious invasion scenarios, you know, practicing, you know, for for our jobs. I wanted to make it sound like that. And then he just acts weird. He's like, please state the nature of the medical emergency.

He says it again. Yeah. Yeah. And we're like, are you okay? And he says, he says, take an analgesic and return to sick bay. He's not even responding to you. the program's on a loop and it's not him so but it's but our reaction was it made the scene at the end too yeah it was good it was nice we go off of his malfunctioning into the briefing room and balana

says that that this is a replicated fake this is not the real doctor's program that the real doctor is missing and um janeway wants to know how did gar uh take him how did this happened she's pissed in fact she even tosses the mobile emitter did you like that move you like that blocking move of her tossing because i thought it was very uncharacteristic like why would jane even do that like it well it's junk right it is junk but i would have just still say this is useless and i would have put it down i wouldn't have thrown it in anger i don't know maybe that's her way of like um just dealing and coping i suppose well she's she's she's kind of pissed she takes it out on tewok a little bit you know yeah um and then nilix jumps in and says no no no maybe it was

me i uh i was trying to you know impress him with some some good food in my cooking and he may have gotten food poisoning yes yeah so neelix thinks that you know that could have been the problem that the food poisoning led him to the doctor and then the doctor was so great that that's that's how he discovered the doctor and yeah so neelick feels responsible and right and that really really doesn't come out until the next scene in the corridor. I mean, that, you know what I'm saying? I mean, he talks about how Gar was in sick bay and he might have got food poisoning, but he doesn't really say like, hey, this is a whole. He goes, yeah, he goes out, they go out in the hallway and Neelix is walking with Janeway next and. Oh, and before that happens, Janeway does say

scan for his eye on trail. So that's what we're going to do. We're going to find this person and, you know, get to the bottom of this. Yeah, we're trying to find this guy, Gar, the guy from cats. Yeah, Neelix and Janeway go out in the hall. Neelix continues to, you know, feels guilty. I like when she says at the end of the scene, she says something like, I'm sure when the opportunity arises that you'll make the most of it. Yes, I did like that too.

I knew as soon as she said that, Neelix was going to do something later that was, ah, ha, ha, ha, it was like, so obvious to me. Yes, you knew. He feels bad. So he'll have a callback later where he comes to the rescue or helps in some way. Yeah.

Then we go to another planet shot. A floating hospital is there. The doctor is talking to Vosge, I think. Yes. They're in the red level at this point. Yes, down in the red level. Vogue is super, super impressed with the doctor. He's like, wow, that's the most impressive cortical bypass that I've ever seen.

The doctor's like, well, it's just the basic skills. And Boj is like, well, if I had those basic skills, they would move me up to level blue. And then that's when you start thinking, what the heck's level blue? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. It's all color coordinated. It's sort of like the ranks of Star Trek. Yeah, they're in the red level right now, doctor. And the doctor does mention their low on supplies. And he says something like, you know, maybe we can get more supplies from Voyager. If you tie your allocator computer into the Voyager computer. So he's trying to, you know, connect with Voyager, get back in communication with them here a little bit. But we learned that this is a very bureaucratic place because I think Vodier's,

says something like, well, you've got to fill out forms. There's triplicate forms. And so we sort of established that this allocator thing is running. Yeah. It's performing millions of calculations probably per second and then saying, okay, so this is what has to happen now. Well, the doctor even says something like, oh, let me talk to him or something. Right.

It's just like, no, it's not a him. Yeah, it's not. It's not, you can't talk to him. It's our main computer. So. So that we learn that this allocator thing is, is kind of running the show. show and that's when we meet, I think, Tevis, right? Yeah, because there's an old guy that's coughing, right? There's a, there's a background actor that's going, and then the doctor says, like,

why hasn't this patient been treated yet? And that's when Tevis goes, well, he's waiting for proton imaging and there are a lot of people in front of him. And so that's when the doctor's like, oh, it's nice to see someone knows what's going on. Like Tebis kind of knows the dialogue and the vocabulary of medicine in a way. Well, because we learn that he's an aspiring doctor. Exactly. He wants to be a doctor. The doc wants to give Vosch some more medicine. And he goes, oh, I don't have enough TC for more medicine. Right.

We don't know what the heck T.C is at this point. What is T.C? So we do hear this term TC, which we're going to learn is treatment coefficient? Treatment coefficient. Is that correct? Something like that. I think that's right. Oh, my gosh.

We learn that. But Chelek interrupts and tells the doctor that, you know what? He's negotiated with Gar. and to acquire the program. And the doctor basically says, well, you can't force me. Right, because Chelex has come with me. And the dog basis is, I will not.

And that's when he talks about being illegally detained and gets a little side quip in there or hasn't the rule of law reached this society yet. So that's this little dig at them. But again, he's still very, very calm in the face of what's going on, I feel, the doctor is.

Doctor's very calm, but he's not really cooperating yet, but he's not resisting dramatically. He's just expecting he's going to be rescued. But Chelek says the allocator has decided that you need to go to level blue, and the allocator is what, you know, decides what services are required, how our medicine is allocated, all that stuff. So then they go into, don't they go to like a turbolift kind of vibe? Yeah, they go to a turbolift, but, you know, as an audience, remember, you're thinking, okay, so this must be where the worst cases are, because he's so good, he has to go to the blue level. It must be even more tragic cases coming in. Yeah. And the doctor's like, oh, I assume level blue is your critical air care area. That's right. Yeah, and Chellex has

something like, well, that's where we have to provide the best care. Yes. And then we get off, and it's like a spa. It is. It's like, it is basically a spa. Yeah. It's crazy. It's beautiful. And Chelek tells the doctor, now this is your, you know, chief responsibility is to take care of these patients. They have a higher TC, he says, than anyone else. And that's when Chellick says, explains a TC is a treatment coefficient.

That's right. The allocator, the computer, the artificial intelligence. Yep. Which is, by the way, just to pause about this, like talking about, to me, I was obsessed this week with this story in the news about Bing, Microsoft's artificial intelligence software. I didn't see it. What's happening? Well, they have changed their search engine or are in the process of changing it from the kind of search engine that we know, which is you put in a question, you get a bunch of links

with the sources of like you can go see an article in the New York Times or you can see something on a, whatever. Bing, and this artificial intelligence now is going to answer your inquiry directly, but it won't give you the sources. It will give you the answer in kind of a, as if the computer is talking back to you. So it will scour the internet, pull out all the pieces, and decide how to communicate that back to you in just a simple summary, I guess. But the danger there is the artificial intelligence is choosing which sources are good.

So it could choose a false source is essentially what it could do. It's a fascinating game changer in terms of our interaction with the Internet and how we interact with it and how things are edited or what's the word I'm looking for, like curated for us by artificial intelligence. And as I don't like that, Robbie. I don't know. I don't know how I feel about it. But this episode, the allocator, I kept thinking of Bing and this Microsoft thing, like, oh, the allocator is choosing who gets to live and who gets to die. The allocator is deciding. Like, all the people are just, they're not questioning the allocator.

There's no human empathy built into it. Or if there is, it's overridden by, you know, the coefficient data. I don't know. It's crazy. I'm just so hesitant and I'm not a fan of what you just told me because I do feel like that's like the beginning of the Terminator movie. Linda Hamilton really is going to have to take out Skynet because of this. Yeah.

You know, so it's. Well, Microsoft's got Bing and it's a game changer. Now Google has announced that they're doing a similar thing. And it's called something else? Yeah, it's called something else. So everybody's Apple's, I'm sure, going to have it built into their Safari browser. Like, it's just this, this will be the. the game changing shift in the way that we search the internet and wow it's going to be

okay okay and it's going to be called the allocator okay is that google's decision it's possible wouldn't that be funny the programmers are chart trick fans and they said okay we're going to call this allocator yeah could happen yeah anyway where were we so yeah he finds out what the treatment coefficient is yeah and it's all and it basically it's a it's a formula The more important you are to society, whatever position you hold at your workplace, then you have a higher treatment coefficient, which then entitles you to better, well, not even better. It entitles you to all the drugs that you need, to get better, to help you, all the medicine you need. And this is the crem de la creme area, that blue area that he enters into. The medicine, all of that is kind of prioritized for these people because supposedly the allocator,

decides that they have more value value yeah which is horrible and by the way did you did you notice that this fancy pants sick bay that they're in looks a lot like our sick bay lay out like our sick bay redressed basically is it really i think so you didn't think it was i didn't know but it definitely looked a lot like our sick bay that's what i thought immediately so you think it's a whole other set they built i think it's another set okay i'll tell i'll tell you what i do think yeah the red level is down on the mess the mess hall set oh that's redress then yes that's a redress the mess hall set well we have the mess hall on one side yes in a hallway in the middle and then a kind of an empty room right empty room that looks like yeah yeah we build in quarters yeah different different things there

you think that's where it was that yeah they took that big room okay sure i'll buy that that's what i think anyway yeah this is where we meet uh dysick who is the chief of medicine He says that there used to be a dying race, that there were ecological disasters here. But once the allocator was introduced, things started to turn around. They're trying to save their society, basically. And they also hired Chelek, another alien from a different race, to come and sort of be the manager in a way. He's the guy that's going to, yeah, to make all these decisions and help things move along. Yeah.

We go to space. We see a fly by a Voyager at this point. And on the bridge, we drop out of warp. We find that there's just a probe on screen. Yeah, we follow the end of the ion trail. And guess what? There's no ship. It's just a little beacon sitting there.

Yeah. Yeah. And Tuvok suggests that when Gar traded them, the iridium ore, or it has a brief half-life. And so he can't be far, basically, too, makes it. It's like the Oridymour only has a three light year or three light year half-life or something, a brief half-life. And so he's got to be within a radius of three years, basically, is what Chewok suggests. Right. Janeway asked for scans, long-range scans.

Kim comes up with two planets, no atmosphere or tech, T-class nebula. And here, oh, here's something, an asteroid with approximately 200 humanoid life signs, subterranean structures. and Chocote says that sounds like a mining operation and two bucks as well you know, Gar acquired the iridium if that's where he got the iridium from well they may be able to help us find him so we head on out

she asked Tom to head over to this mining operation that we found on the long range scans. We head out for this asteroid we have a little space flyby with a moon planet that look kind of cool there and then we come back on the bridge a little time cut and they're arriving

at this planet, this mining planet. And they're hailed. Asteroid, not a planet. Or, yeah, asteroid. And they're hailed by a very angry alien. Very angry. Did you like his makeup? Yes or no?

Yeah, I did like his makeup. I did like it. And they asked about the guy that they traded with Gar. And he says, you mean thief? Yeah. He's not a traitor. He's a thief. They stole my eridium.

And she agrees to give it back, which will only be a, about half the amount that Garstole. If he in return can tell her where the induction units that he also stole came from. He says that it was a planetoid called Velos, I think.

I love Kate's reaction in this whole storyline. She just seems exhausted by everyone. She's like constantly like big sides and her hands are going in her head and her eyes are rolling. I loved her performance. I think she did a great job. in this episode.

It was very funny. Yeah. It was entertaining. It was kind of like the doctor had the dramatic story and the rest of us were on this like clue mission of comedy. You know, it was just. But that's what made this, that's what made this episode great, though, I think, a good one because of the weird thing happening, right?

It was two separate episodes almost. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. So we come back to level blue, back where the doctor's being. held. Dysik is there. The doctor comments that Dysik has amazing surgical skills. They basically complement each other. Dysk says, well, you obviously had experience with cellular repair. So there's two doctors just, you know, gloating for each other, you know, giving each other praise

and saying how wonderful they are. Yes. So we see that they're bonding a little bit, which is going to pay off later. There is a nurse who's requesting a cytoglobin injection for patient B3 and the allocator approves it. It's authorized. And then that catches the doctor's attention because he knows that that is what you treat chromoviral infection from, which is what Tebis has. And so he was like, what Tebis has down on the red level. But Dysik says, no, up here, we just use it to prevent arterial aging. It's basically Botox, right? So you're trying to, it's just, it's something That's for vanity purposes, right? Yeah, the doctor's like, her arteries are in perfect health.

Like, she doesn't need this, but you got somebody downstairs that does need it. Right. And he says the boy on the red level would die if he's untreated. And yet he's denied it. And here you're giving it to this person, you know, who doesn't need it. It's not critical. Yeah. Dysick basically defers.

He says, you know, we're just following the allocator's protocols. and if Tebis' treatment coefficient rises, his T.C. rises, then he'll get this treatment as well. Right. But he, you know, so they're kind of in a catch-22 down there because they're sick. Their treatment coefficient is never going to get better because they're sick. They're not going to accomplish more things. They're not going to raise that. No.

So their T-C's going down when they need it most. Agreed. We go down to level red. This is where I made a note. This is definitely the set of course. from mess hall um okay doctors looking at tabas again his his uh condition is deteriorated even further yeah vogue says it's because his uh co-enzyme allotment has been reduced because his tc's low so this is where that cash 22 is catching up with him is he's getting less valuable so getting

the less medicine that he needs yeah and um doctor says well how can we raise it can't we just put in more data. Foge doesn't like it. He says, uh, you know, he tries it. He does try it in front of the EMH. And guess what? The allocator just sort of denies it. It's like, nope, you can't verify that this patient is, uh, an expert in neutronics or whatever has knowledge of neutronics. So yeah, you can't fool the allocator. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And then Tebis wakes up and he knows he's done. Tebis knows that. Yeah. And, uh, he even, you know, offers to give, uh, the doctor a clean conscious here he says there's nothing you can do doctor you know thank you but there's no treat somebody else yeah yeah yeah tebis says you're wasting your time doctor you know you could be spending with other patients

tebis i love tebis he's awesome by the way what a good guy and a good actor too yeah but he says it's not your fault there's nothing you can do and we go back up to the blue level and the doctor's there he goes to talk to the nurse and he says to the nurse about one of the blue patients like hey why didn't that patient get the additional side of globin? And she's like, wait, what? Additional. And he goes, yes, if you look at her chart,

you'll see I've increased her dosage. And the nurse is like, well, the other doctors didn't say anything. And the doctor's like, do you want me to tell them you're not doing your job? Sure, I'll. He is totally conning and scamming. You recognize this sort of pattern of dialogue?

This happens in more than one episode where a character on Voyager say like do you want me to tell your superior this you say that to the lackey right you know and they're like afraid and they're like oh no no no so this is before yeah but it's a nice move by the doctor it is it is he goes up to where he knows he can get the medicine for tell us yeah he lies cons cons the nurse into helping him get some medicine and i loved at the end of this he's she's like can i assist you he goes no no no i'll do it myself you may go she leaves and he pretends to put it yeah yeah like a magician he does he's like yes yes

He was David Copperfield. It was very smooth, smooth operator. Flips it under his hand. I think it was a really good move because that's tough because people look at that and say, well, that's nothing. What do he do? Well, there's a lot of issues when you're dealing with props. You know, you can mishandle it and it can fall out of your hand.

But I don't know how many takes it did of that. Maybe he did it on the first time. But it looks so, it looks very good. Yes. I agree. Nice little detail. Let me go back to Red Level. and he takes that medicine back to the red level,

walks right past a bunch of other sick patients, goes right to Tebis, gives him the shot. And I love this camera move. It pushed in to Bob Picardo's face in a really tight, dramatic close-up that I thought was just really nice to see a variety of shots, you know, in this episode. We go to a space shot.

Voyager's flying over a planet. We're on the bridge. we're still following Gar's trail. And this is where we meet Kip, who is on screen. He is a merchant on Velos. And he says that he convinced me to take the induction units on consignment. This was more than 10 days ago, and I haven't heard from him since. So Tuvac says, well, you seem very experienced.

Why would you even trust somebody like Gar? And Kip says, well, he was highly recommended. And basically in the scene, we realize that Tuvok is on the trail, getting closer to Gar. So first he talks to Kip. And the one thing about the scene when he's talking to Kip, Tuvok leaves his station and comes down to the middle of the bridge. Do you remember this? Yeah. And I know what they're trying to set up later.

But it's like, Tuvok never walks. Like, he should have just already been there. Yes. I knew you're going to say. you don't just leave your station and sort of walk down to the railing meander over meander over he should they should have just had somebody at his station he should have been down there you know by chukote and janeway or something and then it would have been in the right position for later but maybe he was doing performance art and he was the he was symbolizing a a babbling brook just meandering down

the marriage okay all right we have a quick jump so they talked to kip and we jumped to the the buyer that they're talking about. We don't do this on our show very often, this sort of jump cutty, like, oh, we're talking to Kip and then suddenly we're talking to the next guy. We jump up to the husband, yeah. To the husband. We're on the trail, yeah. Yeah, the buyer who knows that he knows it was a mistake to, to, you know, play his part in

this. Yeah, it was, he says a suggestion to his wife who's now even left him. Yeah, he said basically, you know, he recommended Gar to Kip because he couldn't say no to his wife and so she's the one that said you have to you have to definitely trust gar and so guess what she left him the husband with because gar is who she's truly in love with so this we we have this very soap opera sort of bee story line here that's very funny though well Tuvok says something like Tuvok goes well she must know him very well if you trusted oh and he goes yeah there and he goes friends friends

benefits basically so and then she's janeway goes do you know where we could find her and he starts crying yeah she left she loved me oh funny so funny and then we jump to her on the view screen again something we never do very rarely right very rarely jump cut to the wife she says she ran off with gar left the husband right no but the way she starts off is hilarious she's like you're a woman telling janeway that she's like you're a woman you saw my husband with your own eyes overweight depressed you would have left him too especially if you've met someone exciting and wonderful as gar so that's i love that just dialogue right there i really enjoyed it was very funny yeah and janeway's like yes he's very exciting rolling her eyes he's so funny

and then the the wife is like wait you're that's why you're looking for him you want him for yourself and it was like no no no no i don't have any sure you no interest none and and the wife goes wait is he not good enough for you and Janeway's like no no it's not it's just and then she grabs Tuvok's hands he says I already have a man I already have a man and it was the most awkward sort of funny two box expression no totally because Tim is standing there so with such erect posture his hand is just out holding her hand like that he's not even moving anywhere closer to her right he's not showing no emotion which yeah that's why it's so dang They're an awkward couple.

Yes. Oh, my gosh. The wife or the ex-wife, the adulterous wife, says, okay, he's on his way to a gambling tournament. Yeah. And when you see him, tell him to hurry home. Oh, my gosh. So we do have that.

And then we cut back to Janway and Tuvok. They sort of awkwardly let go of hands. It was very funny. So good. And she sighs. I think another one where they let go the hands, they look at each other. Then she sighs and puts her head down. Like, she had to.

Oh, that was painful to have to play. Oh, my gosh. Very funny. Loved it. So we go back to the floating hospital. We're on the red level. We see that Tevis is feeling better. And he says to the doctor, why did I get cytoglobin?

Why did I get the medicine? And he asked if the doctor had done anything wrong. And he broken any rules or anything. The doctor lies. Yeah. He doesn't tell him the truth. But he does say you're going to need several more injections. And he says he's convinced.

Chellick to recalculate his TC number. And now he's authorized for more cytoglobin. And Tebis still is like, you know, there's, there's, I'm worried because there's other people that are more deserving than me of this treatment. He's, Tevis is such a good guy. He is. He's just a good guy. So good that he actually offers to help the doctor inject more people. We do see that the doctor goes over to Vos, that he's got more cytoglobin down there. Vogue is freaking out. Vogue is He's like, what the heck, you stole this? What are you doing? Huh?

Yeah. So, but Vosge does join in at the end. Vos does. Okay, I'll do it. Yeah. Vosge does join in and they're going to go finish before they're caught. So we cut back up to the blue level. And this is where Dysick finally is starting to figure it out.

Dysik says to the doctor, you know, why are you prescribing all of this unnecessary medication for my patients? Right. And then the doctor starts, this is a great. sort of turn on the con by the way he flips the yeah he flips the table on him right here the doctor flips the table because dicex uncovered it but the doctor says hey you've been very successful right you don't need as many as much medicine because you're doing such a great job so he's playing to his ego right saying because of that they're not going to give you as much allocation for next month you might come up short because of you're doing such a good job yeah and then if you come up short you're

going to fail with less medicine. Your curates are going to go down. Yeah. And if your curates are down, you could get demoted. So you might go down to red level. He says, you know, you should pad these numbers and get more medicine just to keep, make sure you've got plenty of medicine around. Just then Chella comes in, asks if there's a problem. And Dysick has an opportunity to turn the doctor in, but you see that moment of decision. Dysik says, no, no problem. He says something at the end, like, the doctor is learning this system very well. Yes, he is. We go back down to the red level, and the patients are starting to look better.

There's more people up and around. Some are virus-free we learn. Sick people are getting better. Vosje even now is like into this. He wants more medicine diverted. The doctor says, Dysik and I have a professional understanding now. I like the doctor's line when Vosje, is, you know, at first he didn't want anything to do with this. Now he wants more. Yeah. And the doctor says

that feeling when healing someone, it's infectious, isn't it? Yes. I thought that was a clever. Oh, yeah. It was a clever way to say it. Yeah. Tebis is feeling much better now. He fixes some kind of medical scanner. Yeah, it was like a tricorder. A medical tricorder. It looks like a medical, yeah, medical's tricorder. And he says he wants the doctor, even though he's feeling all better and basically cured. Yeah. He wants the doctor to say that he's still sick so he can he can stay there he doesn't have to go back to the factory or the mind or wherever the heck he's working at so he can just be there to assist and learn from the doctor yeah yeah the doctor says well i don't want to stay here long enough to you know teach you medicine i hope i'm

gone much sooner than that but you can learn from vogue yeah we leave that scene we see you know the doctor's assistant seems to be working and his con game seems to be working we go to space we see Voyager fly by and the crew run some scans. They do find Gar's ship and his biosignature. And Tuvok suggests

actually I think Chikote may suggest that we drop out a warp and latch onto him really quick. Like just fly right up there and drop out just before he can get away. Yeah, because Kim says, should I hail Gar and Janeway is afraid that he might try to slay away. Chikote does suggest that. Yeah.

Let's just sneak up on him. Let's creep up on him. sneak up on him, creep up on him, and then come out of, drop out of work just in time to Tractor beam him, yeah. Cool shot, though, when we did that, though, right? It's like very cool shot. I like Janeway's reaction too when Chacote suggests that she's like, I like it. It had like a little extra sauce on it when she did that. I like it.

So does that count as a JC moment? I think so. Yeah, I think so too. Okay. We go to space. We do see this tractor moment. It was very cool. It was.

We go back on the bridge. Gar is hailing us and, you know, Janeway demands the doctor be returned. And he says, I don't know anything about it. Yeah. And we scan the ship. We don't find the doctor on his ship. He says, see, I don't have it. I told you.

And he tries to break the tractor with a feedback pulse. And Janeway has just lost patience. And she's like, just beam him to the brig. Yeah. We should do that more often. Just beam him direct. Don't even fight this guy. No.

Beam him directly to the brig. No compensating Harry. Just beam him right to the brig. Yeah. Which Harry does. Which Harry does. And by the way, so when we say beam him to the brig right away, it goes back to Gar and he sort of looks over his shoulder, almost as if he hears the, I don't know. It was a weird.

Like he hears the beam out? Yeah. Like, oh, is that a transport beam I hear? I like that, though. It was a weird. It's a weird choice, but again, oh, come on. I felt like, what is he doing? I just didn't understand it.

Like, nobody's walking. We're not going to his ship. Don't pick on my friend John. I don't know. Okay. Okay. So we go to the Planet Hospital at night now, and this is where it's a different shot from down on the ground level at night.

We do see the windows, and these people have windows. I was very relieved. Yes. And then we're back in the red level. Yeah. And the doctor sneaks in, and he kind of turns on a light over by Tebis's. He's going to go treat some patients with him.

And Tebis is gone. Just an old lady in the bed. And he asks the computer, he's like, locate patient R12. Yeah. And then Vos enters. We learned that Tebis was transferred to Level White. Level white.

Yeah. And doctors like, oh, is that good? Like, is what is level white? Yeah, recovery area? Recovery. And he goes, no, it's the morgue. Dun, dun, dun, dun. Poor Tevis.

Gosh, darn it. Poor Tevis. He was just a good guy. What do you think of this, Robbie? I mean, R12 is the patient, right? That's what Tevis was known as. Does that remind you of anything currently on television? R12.

No. Stranger Things. 11. That's her patient number. And they call her 11 on the show. So I'm just wondering if maybe the those brothers that produce and the showrunners of Stranger Things, maybe are Star Trek fans and maybe. Maybe. This episode sort of

worked on their subconscious, maybe. Maybe. I'll throw that out. I'll throw that out. I will say that the B4, whatever the blue level patient was a much higher letter and a lower number. So I feel like if you're patient A1, you're

super duper. And if you're patient Z-1,000, you're getting no care at all. You're sitting on the sidewalk outside the hospital. Yeah. Okay. All right. Anyway, we go to the blue level, and the doctor is pissed off. He goes to Chelek, demands an explanation, wants to know why.

The death of R12. Yes. Chelek demands an explanation, and Chellick says that Tebbis died of an untreated secondary infection. Secondary infection, yeah. He should have died from the chromavirus, but someone gave him cytoglobin injections that they weren't supposed to. Yeah. And Chalick is like, I know what you're up to. And the doctor gets really emotional here.

Yeah. And says, you know, I'm trying to save this boy. And Chelik says, I'm trying to save a society. Yeah. So it's that fundamental question of like, you know, is, you know, sacrifice the one for the greater, the great, greater many or, you know, it's that classic argument. What is the argument? How does it go? It's the Borg argument.

it is it's the board argument it is but there's a we're not getting it right though i can't i can't remember it and you can't remember it clearly so we're both like how does it go okay all right but it's the idea of like you know is the greater good more important than the individual do the lives of does the lives of the individual outweigh the lives of the of the masses of the yeah i don't know we're really messing we are anyway they have this debate they have this you know ethical debate ethical debate and chela says i was hired to make difficult decisions that other people didn't want to have to make which is very true a lot of times we we you know send off the hard decisions especially medical life and death stuff yeah to you know

nursing homes or doctor we've you know we want to wash our hands of it and the doctor is kind of fighting for the individual and right there in the front line. So it's a great scene, I thought. It is a good scene. And this whole episode just reminds me of, of, you know, unjust things that happen in our own medical system.

You know, when it comes to insurance and all that. So yeah, all right. But at the end of this debate, Chelek basically tells the doctor that now you are restricted to only level blue and that you're going to be directly connected your hollow emitter is going to be connected to the allocator.

The allocator will move you around, yeah. We'll decide what you do and how long you have to do it. And AI is going to make all the decisions now, just like Microsoft Bing. Okay. The doctor gets sort of transferred over. You have six minutes to treat patient B3. I do like the, they use the different effect. Did you notice that?

Like in terms of the on the B-man or whatever. The minute he's connected to the allocator computer, now when he fritzes from one to place to another, it looks different than when he, you know, fritzes out normally without being connected to the allocator. Yeah, with us, exactly. Yeah, pretty cool. We go to the space flyby next.

And then inside the brig, Tuvok is interrogating Gar in the scene. He's not getting very far. He threatens a mind meld, which Gar is like, what is that? Yeah. Tuvok says, well, it's an invasive, very disturbing procedure. And you better cooperate.

And then Neelix pops in. It's dinner time. And I love Neelix in this scene. He's very cool. He seems like he's being so helpful. He hands him that bowl of what looks like twigs. It just looks like twigs and just unedible things, essentially. But not to Gar.

Gar. Gar. Gar. It's like he's eating beef stroganoff. He's so excited. He's like, so excited. Neelix is super cool and smooth about it. And Neelix says something like, I'm glad it wasn't my cooking that made you sick because, you know, I felt so bad. Neelix said until I realized it was just a ruse for you to get close to the doctor. So Neelix kind of, you know, calls it and he doesn't deny it. Yeah. But he says, yeah, I'm glad you like this. I use telaxian worm root as. the base yeah and he goes i you know some people react badly and when they cut to the reaction shot of agar i thought i saw his head change color a little bit and i thought no that's just i don't know

it's just the lighting changed or something when he we adjusted his head or something because they didn't they definitely did not do visual effects for that where it that made his skin turn a different color a little bit or darker i don't think that happened that was just i don't think lighting effect yeah yeah okay but he does give him the the uh telaxian worm root and uh it's affecting you can see it yeah he explains oh this gives some people a horrible reaction and it could be very painful abdominal spasms which increase in severity for 30 hours 40 at the most so this is more than a day of pain which gets yeah he's he's going to be really really sick he realizes and And Neelix is just cool and collected.

Yeah. And then Tuvac calls sickbay. And Neelix says, oh, oh, don't, you know, don't worry, Mr. Tuvok. It's not fatal. It's just horribly unpleasant. But he does say there's an antidote and Gar wants the antidote. Immediately. And Neelik says, well, unfortunately, our doctor's the only one that can administer it.

So you better, you know, turn him over. Tell us where he's at. And then Tewvok takes Neelix to the side. This is one of those shots where I felt like we went from a two shot of Neelix and Gar just five feet away as if they're having a private conversation in the same shot. And I was like, this should have been shot a little differently. So it felt a little more intimate and separate from Gar. It just felt like they didn't have much time. So they were just doing the simplest way.

But yeah, it just felt flatly. I made a note, you know. It just felt flat all around the shots in this. brig. So this aside, Tuvok is asking Neelix whether he deliberately poisoned Gar. And Neelix is like, no, no, just relax. He's just having gas pains. And Tuvok is like, your actions are not only against regulations. And then Neelix cuts in, well, didn't I hear someone threaten a mind melt? So they're having this tete a tete. Yeah, they both are trying to con him. And, and, you know, Tuvok. Tuvok's trying to say, you know, Neelix, you can't do that. You can't poison him. And he's like,

now it's just a it's a con and so was your mind meld you know he just needs encouraging he says something like i think he needs all the encouragement he can get or something like yeah anyway cute little scene clearly they're getting some information they're putting the pressure on on gar right then we go to the red level yeah and um and dr vogue is working on a patient when uh a nurse informs him that he's got to prepare that patient for discharge right and vogue who's now gone to that ethical side with the doctor is like he's mad he's mad he's very angry that you know yeah he's he's being asked to discharge a patient and it's not even you know at the end of the shift and his shift is not over yet right so he says you can discharge him at the end of the shift he's not even over yet so he's very adamant about

this new information from chelik yeah then the allocator calls out to vote Vosjean says report to level blue to assist Dr. Dysick and surgery. Right. So we go up to level blue. Level blue. The doctor is scanning a patient up there and Vos enters and he never saw this level before. Which is kind of shocking. He's like, whoa, this is how it is on level blue.

But Vosge goes to talk to the doctor and the doctor basically says, hey, I want you to smuggle my holameter off this blue level. Yeah. And it was the doctor who actually. sent that message. It wasn't Dysick. So it was a false. It wasn't Dysk. Yeah, it was a fake message. And he has a little kit with some tools. He asked Vos to smuggle him out. And then suddenly the allocator moves him across the room, which I thought was funny. Yeah, it was. I guess there's like 12 patients that are being sent home and will probably die. Yeah. As the computer is like counting

down the time that he's going to be shut down, that the doctor's hollow emitter will be shut down. finally vogue agrees to take it there's like 10 seconds left or something yeah he takes yeah he agrees of the very last second basically yeah the doctor says just trust me and so he does he takes the mobile emitter okay so now we go back to level red and there's a boom up at the top of the scene out of black kind of it was a good transition i'll give terry wendella thumbs up for that it was a nice camera movement and transition tell it basically says to the doctor you know what you're just too much trouble and I'm going to have to deactivate you and just then the doctor sort of swings him around and injects him with this this like chromovirus and blood factors from

tebis so now he's same thing tevis had he's injected basically turning him into yeah yeah he's turning him into the same exact situation that tevis was in and uh and he he basically wants Chalas to experience what these sacrificial patients were experiencing down below. And he says, now you're going to be a patient in your own hospital. Right. And

he puts him on a bed. The allocator now scans him and thinks that he's Tebis. Right. Because he has the blood factor in there. And the doctor demands from chelis, a supply of cytoglobin that's being used as this preventative treatment. Treatment denied.

Yeah. Yeah. Treatment denied. And then we have a space flyby. We go onto the bridge. Paris says we're entering orbit. So they're finally getting close to the doctor. Janeway orders a scan for the doctor. We cut down to the red level.

Bosje is scanning Chelek and says, you know, he's dying, basically. Well, I mean, the doctor is basically saying that, you know, when we get the cytoclobe that I requested, we'll be able to treat everybody, yeah, including Chellick as well. Yeah, because now you're Chellick, you're a cellic, you're part of this group that you've been ignoring, the people that are dying and getting sick because of your allocator quotients or whatever, you're now one of them. How does it feel? Yeah. And Shelly like, please, I need the medicine now. And Vogue says, I only have level red clearance.

I can't give it to you. I'm not authorized. And Shelly says, well, find someone who is. Find someone who is. Now we're on the bridge again. Torres finds the doctor's signature Voyager. finally has found his program, but she can't get a lock on him. Taurus can't get a lock because his program has been interfaced with the ships, the hospital ship's computer. So it's being blocked out. And on the bridge, the allocation module actually answers when they hail. Yeah, it's the allocator.

Is the allocator talking to them? And I was like, who is that, who did that voice? Did you find that? No, I don't know. Okay. I wonder if it was someone in the loop group because I didn't recognize that voice. I mean either. Yeah.

Yeah. But we learned that the allocator can't talk to them because Chellick is the only one that's authorized to communicate with alien species. And Chellick, yeah, we're in a catch 22 here. Chellick is clearly unable to talk to anybody. He's lying on a hospital bed right now. Yeah. So we jump back to Level Red and Dysick is, Dysick comes in. and then says, are we having a problem here?

And Chalick is, I love this scene. Chelek is like, Dysk, finally. So, Chelek feels like he's saved, right? And Vosges says, like, look, I'm sorry. I had to tell him. And Chelech says, well, what are you waiting for? Give me the cytoglobin. And Dysk says, like, I don't think I can.

And he's like, what? He's like, Cytoclobin is not authorized for level red patients. So all that policy that was put in place by Chelek is now operating against him, which is such a wonderful. you know everyone's watching this going yes a little bit of redemption here you know dice he keeps saying he doesn't want to break the rules uh and chelik says i'm the one that made the rules though he's getting very frustrated he said well then you should be pleased i help them in such high regard so he's sticking to it uh but we jump out out of that scene back to the bridge

and torres says that she cannot transport him without damaging his matrix so jayway basically tells everybody that we have to go get him that's what has to happen so she orders chokote and Chiquotay goes to Torres, yeah. So you're lady. Torres and Chiquotay head down. And we go back to level red. Yeah. Basically, Dysik says, you know, he's not, he's not conspiring with the doctor, but he does think that the doctor's insights into their system are profound.

The whole resources thing. If he doesn't request enough resources for level below, right, that he won't get what he needs, the next month. So Cheleck thinks this is ridiculous. He's like, what are you talking about? He doesn't know the doctor essentially conned Dysik at this point. So right in the middle of Dysik basically saying like the way the rules are set up right now, I have to, you know, game the system a bit. And we need to change the system. And just then Torres and Chico de beam in. And the doctor here, this is where he goes, you know what? I'm busy with a patient right now and turns back. Do we have an agreement, he says?

But very importantly, we totally forgot about this. The way he works it, he flips it on him again. The doctor says, I know at least a dozen people who should be treated for arterial aging. Saving their lives would just be a side effect. So he's going with the arterial aging thing to transfer these allocated resources. It's almost like in America on your health insurance forms. It's like when doctors, And we've all been through this where the doctor says, well, if I check off that it's a skin rash,

then I can give you this medicine. Like, they're all gaming the system. Yes. You know, well, insurance will cover it if I say that it's this. But it's like, why don't we just help people instead of creating these systems that people have to have to game, you know? I mean, watching this episode did make you think of our frustrating, frustrating medical system, correct? Health insurance.

Oh, my gosh. For sure. Don't get me started. The allocator. Yeah. But Chelek finally does agree to change, you know, to address this situation. He agrees. They have a deal.

Yeah. And then we go to Sick Bay. There's a space flyby. We go to sick pay. This is Seven's first scene in the episode. No. It's upside to the world. I can't believe she's not been in the episode.

Stranger things. Okay. Yeah. The doctor says, the whole time I've been away, you've stayed pretty healthy. it looks like she's like doc you've only been gone for four days but in his mind it's just been this epic journey yeah he's been gone for months and he's like well a lot can happen in four days you know yeah but she's fine and then and then he says hey before you leave could you maybe run a checkup on my program she's like why is there

some problem you've experienced and he says no no but he just wants a routine checkup you know he was interfaced with this alien computer maybe it's smart and yeah um she does a little checkup and says no you're good nothing's everything is 100% yeah and he and she says hmm you seem disappointed you know was he expecting some kind of malfunction yeah and he was he was hoping for it because he said uh he intentionally poisoned a man yeah he came clean to her right there i was surprised that that the character did that. I was like, okay. Because he injected

Chelek with the virus or the illness that could have killed him. That's right. But he said he did it for you know, for the greater good to save dozens of patients' lives. And that's, you know,

that didn't feel good to him. Yeah. Didn't feel ethically right. And it ends on that note, pretty much, right? I mean, that's sort of like, oh, okay, I'm not malfunctioning. So that's why the conundrum came in my haiku, because it is sort of like, okay, so how do you deal with this? You know, it's just.

Yeah. Yeah, he didn't malfunction. She basically says that's what in my mind, I thought she says, you have a clean bill of health in the end. I felt like what she's saying is that was the right thing to do. Oh, so she's absolving him? You felt like she was absolving him? A little bit of like, yeah, there's nothing wrong with you. What you did was the right thing.

I didn't hear it that way. but okay i can see i can see where you i can see the other side of the coin now what do you rate this thing i enjoyed this episode actually is you know i may have some complaints about i want yeah go i am going to give this a 7.5 oh nice yeah it's not a it's not a rave it's not one of my top tens but it's solid solid episode and i've never seen it before didn't remember anything about it so 7.5 i will join you you in the sevens and I'm going to say seven point four I'll go one less than you just a little bit but I'm ballpark with you I'm your neighbor all right let's bring up

pulling up the captains and admirals average rating is 7.6 oh we were closer we're in then yeah we're all neighbors then almost we've ever been been yeah that's wonderful As both of us together, you and I were both very close. And the capital average was very close, too. What was your lesson? My lesson, I basically wrote down, sometimes you have to break the rules for a higher moral value, something that is more important than the rules. The rules usually keep us all in line and on track, but not always.

Sometimes we have to step outside of them. Okay. What about you? mine's going to be more along the lines of don't let bureaucratic red tape get you down because it happens in almost every part of life in some way shape or four so well there you go a good episode a solid seven something for all of us honestly i thought you were going to trash it i did oh really and you didn't so i'm actually excited that you didn't no i didn't i thought the actors were really good It sort of involved all of us a little bit, mostly in a B story, but it wasn't, you know, but it wasn't just one of our characters hanging out on a planet with one other character. Those are the ones where I feel it's so small. This was the doctor interacting with a lot of interesting characters in that world felt fully fleshed out in a way that I didn't miss the fact that we didn't have a ton of screen time for our. character. But Janeway was hilarious to me.

All right, everyone, thanks for tuning in to our recap and discussion of the episode Critical Care. And join us next week when Robbie and I will be recapping and discussing the season seven episode Inside Man. Yes. Let's see you then. So, I'm doing Burt B. Bhop

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