The Delta Flyers - Drone

Episode Date: March 7, 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 Drone. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Drone:A transporter accident merges Seven's nanoprobes with The Doctor's mobile emitter, causing an extremely advanced Borg drone to be created; Seven discovers her maternal nature as she raises and educates the young drone.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 BragaAdditionally 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, 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, Mike Devlin, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Amber Eason, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Nathan Walker, Shambhavi Kadam, John Mann, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Bronwen Duffield, Elly Post, Brandon May, Jeremy Mcgraw, & Jason BonnettAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, 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, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Justin Weir, Normandy Madden, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Michael "Klink" Klinckhardt, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Robert Picard, Craig M. Nakashian, Julie McCain, & Will ForgThank 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 myself, Garrett Wong, and Robert Duncan McNeil. I know everyone's listening going. Hey, everybody. Hi. What is happening? We're actually in the same room.

together. We're in the same space. It's crazy. It is crazy. It really is crazy. But we're here. We're here in Utah. Garrett had come up for a surprise visit. And so here we are recording an episode from the kitchen in Utah. Yeah, that's it. And we should say what it's about. We should say what the surprise visit is. Robbie clearly is a huge Georgia Bulldogs fan wearing my cap today. The national championship was yesterday. I know when you guys see this episode, be later, but it was yesterday. And as a surprise, I booked a ticket, rented a car, drove to his house. I don't even know where I trusted my navigation. I could have been lost, right? He showed up and surprised him. And he was truly surprised. He had no clue. And the funny thing was the day before

Robbie was like, we really need to, we really need to make sure we get some more episodes recorded and banked and everything. And so can we record tomorrow? And I said, I've got a full slate of appointments that I've got to make all day. And he's like, really? What's so important? Yeah, I knew it's so important. We could just do an episode. We need to get an episode done.

It was so funny. He's like, I don't know. Let me see if I can squeeze. I said, let me see if I can see. I could at least do the intro. And I gave him some times. I said, well, it could be at 8.30 a.m. or 2.30 p.m. Because I knew I would get to his house around 2.30.

And he says, 8.30. I've got a vet appointment. We can't make that. I said, okay, well, we'll do the intro. We're doing the afternoon. Yeah, we'll do the afternoon. And I've been holding this secret in for a couple weeks now because I've booked this ticket for a while. And I'm glad no one spilled the beans, as in Megan.

Megan could have easily spilled the beans, but she didn't, she stuck to it. So thank you, Megan. And we're here. Big surprise. Huge. Yeah. Live and in person, not long distance Zoom. So this is awesome.

It's very cool. So, yeah, so this week's episode is drone. Drone. Drone, that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is the second episode of season five. So we're into season five. And last week, I couldn't believe neither one of us remembered anything.

Another thing. Before we watched it. Yeah. It all came back to us. But yeah, I don't, yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Let's go watch this episode. We're excited to see this episode and do this together.

Yeah. At least this part together. Yeah. All right. And for all of you, Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. Robbie and I are back from watching Dron. Yes. Wow. That was intense. Yeah, I felt like that was a real different episode for us. I don't know why. Something about it, because it did include a lot of our cast. It had all the elements. I don't know what it was. It felt a little different.

In some ways, I thought that was good. In other ways, I thought it was kind of an outlier. So, yeah. I was right about the guest star. I got that right. Yeah, you were right about that. Okay, so what we were not right about was who wrote it. It was not Ken Beller.

It was Brian Fuller and Brandon Braga wrote. And Joe Mnowski wrote. So I was right. I said that. I said it's probably another. because there's a chunk of episode that we've reviewed recently where it's over and over again, it's Braga, Braga and Monoski. So I'm right about that then with the addition of Brian Fuller, right? Yeah. And Brian Fuller. Who's the story by? Story by Brian Fuller and Harry dot

Clore. Harry. Yes. It's interesting because I guess I did a little research. It seems like Harry Doc Clure had pitched a story that they didn't want to buy, but it was it was something about like i think he pitched something about paris goes on a mission and his arm is ripped off and the org help they help regenerate a borg arm and he becomes became like a terminator half borg half human or something and they were like no we don't want to do a gruesome rip off of you know one of our cast members body parts but that gave them this beginning of like all right well if we don't take a if we don't do the horror movie like somebody loses a body part what if it's the doctor and then so i guess harry doc clor went back and took out any gory premise and combined

it with the doctor yeah and that's the story that they kind of went with although i think he he did pitch something like the doctor and seven somehow combine and create a terminator like borg and they didn't want the terminator thing so they were like well we like some of this story but we wanted to have a lot more heart and character and feelings. So then they came up with, what if this is an innocent board, not a Terminator board? And then they were like,

but how do we end it? And I guess Rick Berman was the one that said, you should end it with him having to sacrifice himself, like his human side realizes. So it was kind of a lot of different stories they went through to get here. And a lot of people contributing. I'm going to have to ask,

Harry, who I just saw at the CES show, his company was exhibiting their robot, this Beyond Me robot, this very advanced robot, which is able to open up a Coke bottle and pour. And it was, I don't know how, but James Corton had utilized footage of Harry's robot on his show. They were showing, you know, he was talking about CES was going on. And here's a little clip of something from CES. And that's the only thing he showed was Harry's robot.

So Harry was so excited. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I went to dinner and he showed me, look, look. Look, look, that, you know, James Corden even, you know, gave us this huge, you know, a bit of publicity right there to show our robot. So, wait, Harry.orgh is not a writer. I always thought he was a writer. Well, he's, okay, he is, he's sort of a man of, he's a jack of all trades in a way.

He's like the first guy to get like a double PhD at the same time. It's crazy. Like, he's super, super, super smart. Writing is part of his, you know, repertoire. But he does technology stuff. all kind stuff. This guy is truly unbelievable. All right. Directed by Les Landau. Oh, we were wrong. We said Alan Craker. You and I both thought it was going to be Alan Craker and we were wrong. It was Uncle Les, who has not been directing in a while, right? We haven't seen his

name in quite a while. And I do remember, yeah, there was a long break. And then, you know, every time we saw Les, at least for me, I was always like, Uncle Les. Uncle Les. There you are, buddy. He was a good man. We all liked him a lot. All right. Guest star-wise, just J-Paul-Bomer, right? Jay-Paul-Bomer plays one, the drone. And just to recap, so we saw Jay-Paul Bomer was the Nazi Nazi-captain or something. Yeah, second in command.

In the two-parter. Right. And just a quick recap, he was born in Dayton, Ohio. His first job, as I was like to talk about, was Voyager. Stop. That was his first job. The killing game? Yes, the killing game.

Part one and two was his first. first TV. He was a theater guy. I cannot. Wow. So we were his first job. So since I can't, you know, quote a different first job, I'm going to go to his most recent job. And that was the movie Them. It was that kind of horror suspense film. He also recently, kind of recently was on the Orville. So we were his first job. And recently he was in the movie Them and the Orville. So that was Jay Paul Bomer. But there was another guest star, Todd Batchel. Abcock who played Mulcahy and he was he was in the transporter room and then Balana says, hey, come with me.

Yes, yes, yes. And of course you know, as soon as we introduce someone who's speaking, who we've never met before, we've never met him on the ship. Yeah. Something's going to go back for him. Yeah. Todd Babcock, that was the guy. He was born in Jackson, Michigan.

Jackson, Michigan. Okay. And his first TV job was in 1996, a TV. a TV movie called What Love Sees. It was a period film with Richard Thomas, I think, from the Waltons. That was Todd Babcock. What Love C's TV movie. So there you go.

What was that? Did you have, did you say? Oh, 1996. So really, this voyage was pretty early in his career as well. Yeah. Right? This episode would have been filmed either in 97 or 98, I guess. Interesting. Okay. Thank you for the guest star first job and most recent job explanation.

Let's go to the show. My haiku for drone. Transporter problem. Futuristic drone is born. Gives his life for us. Oh. Yeah. That's a sad ending. It is a sad ending. This episode is a very sad ending. Yes, it does. It really does. Yeah. I think that was a very well done piece of poetry. I would call that art. Thank you. I would say that is art.

Thank you. Okay, let's go for our limerick. I'm so ready for this. Here we go. Prototype and Tuvix plots mixed into one. A drone is born. He's Seven's new son. He's curious and smart.

Too soon he must depart. Though short, his life was very well done. Oh, so impressive. Especially with the Tuvix and prototype reference. titles from earlier episodes of Voyager. You have to do your homework to come up with that limerick. Bam. Mic drop. Hello.

Great job. Robieca. Good job. Okay. Let's start off right now with the very first scene, Cargo Bay. And it's Cargo Bay 2. I asked you in a prior episode. Is she in Cargo Bay 1 or 2?

It's 2. Cargo Bay 2. 7 is looking at her reflection. She's looking in a mirror. Yeah. And she's practicing. smiling. He's making smiling faces. It's very awkward, actually. And then the doctor walks in and he's like, how's my favorite new board? Super friendly. Yeah. And she's super annoyed at him. She's like, I'm annoyed. I was like, why is she so annoyed? We realized that they're about to start a mission with Balana and Tom and

go to some proto nebula that's emerging and survey it. And she's like, why are you coming? And the doctor says, well, I'm going to study the effects on the humans, on the crew. Yeah. And I love at the end of this. So they're like, let's go. And she's annoyed that he showed up. I guess I guess she's annoyed because she was making these goofy faces and she feels embarrassed. Maybe.

Or is she just generally annoyed in life? I just, yeah, I don't know. It's a tough call because if you think about it, like it later on when they're actually in the shuttle, The doctor's not doing any studies. He's like he's trying to take selfies. So it's sort of, you know, so it seems like he's just going on a joy ride. So I'm annoyed. I'm annoyed with seven, to be honest.

Are you annoyed again at the doctor? I am annoyed. This is a pattern. It's not a pattern. No, I'm just, I'm just calling it like it is. No. I don't hate the doctor. I don't hate the doctor.

It's funny that you say that because you're like, you're annoyed at the doctor. Seven's annoyed at the doctor. I'm annoyed at seven. I'm like, why? You could be annoyed at seven. And by the way, like, this episode proves my point. Yeah. Because this new Borg drone is born.

Yeah. He's not annoyed at everybody. So why is seven? Just because he's Borg doesn't give her license to be rude and snappy. Okay. And annoyed all the time. Okay. There's a brand new board.

And he is like enthusiastic and he's earnest and he's kind and he's nice and he's polite. So you're saying seven. should take a take a cue from the new Borg, right? From the new Borg and be a little friendlier. It is possible for a Borg, a Borg human combo hybrid. Yes. To be friendly to people.

Oh, all right. That's what I would say. That's valid. That's a valid argument. All right. So now they're going through the corridor. The doctor talks about how he's going to study the effect of the nebula on the crew. Now there's an exterior shot of the shuttle in space.

And then it's, then we go to a shuttle. interior, we go to the shuttle interior, and Torres is complaining about how cramped it is in a class two shuttle. What is interesting is Seven says perhaps you should design a new shuttle, larger, more efficient. And Torres goes, not a bad idea. Now, this is the beginnings of the Delta Flyer is what I'm thinking, right? What I'm thinking is this moment, was when a podcast was born this is when it that's what i'm saying well i'm going to say this is the moment when a podcast name is born a podcast name is born not the podcast itself but this is the fertilization this is the furtile this is the seed being sowed right but it starts with seven i had no clue that this was

i had no memory that seven was the one that threw this in your head like it starts to germinate here right with that one comment. I didn't remember this either, but this is definitely setting that up. Well, let's be fair and say it's her comment plus Torres's affirmation of that comment when she said, not a bad idea. One thing I just wanted to talk about was I was looking at the four of us in this shuttle, the old, the Class 2 shuttle. Yes.

And I remember that set. You know, the only way we could get in and out was the back door. And it was a hat. Yeah, it was a hat that came down. It didn't go up. It came down. It went down to let us out. It would come up and seal. We walked on it, though, right? To get out.

We walked on the back wall, basically. That's right. That's right. But if they were shooting towards that, you had to go inside and then they had to shut it. Yes. And it was a little claustrophobic. Very much so. And so you put four people in there. And then I also noticed some angles where there was glass because they could take the glass in or out for reflections. So sometimes you would have glass in. Sometimes they'd take it out. it depended. So if you put the glass in that set up front by where you're driving,

and then you shut the door in the back and you put four people in there and a camera operator and assistant and stuff, it got really crowded. I don't know if you remember. I was in that shuttle quite a bit. Yeah. And I would get so claustrophobic sometimes because you would feel trapped in that shuttle because of the way the set was designed. There was just no, if they put the glass in the door up, it would get hot. Everybody's breath is like heat. it up. It was just, and the lights and everything. Anyway, that's, I started having a panic attack from now. Watch that scene because I was like, I remember that. It was so claustrophobic. Oh, my goodness. All the memories there. I know. All right. So back to the plot. So after, you know,

this idea of this new shuttle comes from seven, Torres agrees. Then the doctor decides to take a group photo, which seven refuses. Seraf's like, no, I'm not going to do this. And that's when we have a huge plasma shear that happens. Shuttle tries to get away, but it's caught in this gravimetric shear. Engines are down. They're in trouble. We flash, we jump back to the bridge on Voyager.

Harry picks up a distress call from the away team. So clearly, Tom has sent this distress call because he cannot pilot out of this shear. And Janeway says, beam him out. Beam him out right now. Right. So we cut to the transporter room and we meet Ensign Mulcahy.

He was now the transporter operator. We've never met him before, but he's got lines with your friend. But I just want to say, we lost that shuttle, right? That shuttle's gone. Oh, yeah. I guess. I mean, we've got, we go through so many shuttles. And it's just like, hey, let's just beam them off of the shuttle.

We don't even care about the show. What about beaming the entire shuttle into the, into the shuttle bay? In the shuttle bay, you know, save that shuttle's life, but no, that shuttle's gone. And right, we meet Ensign Mokahey. and he's the he's the transporter chief at the time and of course the as he's trying to beam everyone in there's some some issues with the patterns of of everyone sort of like can't quite get a lot yeah they're going in and out radiation and finally everyone comes in right everyone comes in but the doctor fritzes or mcneals he mcneals and his mobile remitter is damaged and i wrote down

well that's what you get for going on a group mission to take group photo is what I said on that one. Like, you didn't take one study. All you did was take photos. So that's what you get. Which I can relate to. I love taking a nice,

you know, travel shot for my Instagram. Maybe he was doing it for his Instagram. All right. You can always play devil's advocate. Yeah. Yeah. He's got a very,

a lot of followers on his Instagram and he wanted to show this nebula and their trip. All right. We'd go to the science lab. Torres and Mokkehi walk in there. Bala runs a diagnostic. on the damage mobile emitter.

And as they leave, by the way, I just want to say, so this new guy, Mulkehi, who we've never met, is running the transporter. We've never seen him. We've never seen him. And he's talking all over the place. And then Balana comes in and she's like,

Mulcahy, follow me. I'm like, since when did the transport guy become your number two? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Clearly you're setting him up. It's Balana's fault that this whole thing happened. I don't know.

Maybe Mokai and her have a special relationship. Maybe. Oh, wait a minute. All the P.T. shippers are like, what's happening with this Mokaii? It can't be M.T. It's always P.T. Right. Harris Torres, not Mokaii Torres.

Mokahey Torres doesn't even flow off the tongue. It doesn't flow. It doesn't work. No. But it's true. Like, where do we have never seen this guy. But clearly, this is her best engineer, right? He has to go with her.

She's got to drag him from the transporter that he should be operating with her immediately because he's so important, even though we've never seen him before. Anyway, they go to the science lab. The diagnostic is run on the damaged mobile emitter. As they're leaving, we have a close-up shot of the board tubes, tubules shooting out of the mobile emitter and attaching to the console. So now we're like, oh, no. So the audience knows, you know, something is afoot here. The next shot is the exterior Voyager in front of the nebula. Which was a digital ship, a digital ship.

We were starting at this point in our show to kind of go back and forth between the model shots and some digital ship. But it looked cool. It was a cool angle. Are you able to easily see that it's digital instead of a real? I mean, to me, there's a difference. It just looks a little too perfect, the digital version, whereas the practical, the model shots, we only have, you know, maybe 10 shots, you know, the camera panning this way, the camera pan. And so they reuse those shots in different kinds of backgrounds all the time.

And they started using these digital shots for new angles. So if you see an angle that seems kind of new, unfamiliar or specific at this point, it's probably a digital. They didn't go back and shoot the models again. Okay. Oh, so to continue the captain's log, she's talking about how the proto-neutral, Nebula seems to have a mind of its own. It's still expanding with no end in sight and Voyager is holding at a safe distance to monitor its growth. So we can learn more about it since we are scientists and explorers. We need to know more about this proto nebula. So now we are in Bologna's

quarters. She's asleep. It's 0600. But the doctor chimes in. The doctor chimes in because he is completely, completely obsessed or concerned is a better word, about the fact that his mobile emitter may be damaged beyond repair. He's panicking because this will end his freedom, right? He's used to not being confined to sick pay. So this is why he's he's messaging Torres at 0600. Now, did you notice this is the first time we really see anything revealing that Torres. Torres has always pretty covered up through the whole series.

Yeah, she's in a, she's in kind of a spaghetti strap like a chasmus or something, right? And she says, okay, I'll be right there. I got to get dressed. From behind, we see her take off. The slip slides down. We see her bare back. That's when she walks in the bathroom. Very rare stimulated nudity from our regulars. I had Janeway do it in Sacred Ground. I actually added that moment for the vulnerability of Janeway. I wanted her to be very vulnerable and human when she went through her vision quest. Yes. This felt a little bit more like retuitous. Yeah, we really see any of our series regular's skin. We don't see their skin very much. We were always covered up. But I thought it was a funny bit. It felt a slightly retuitous to get

her naked and then have her throw the towel over the screen. Right. Because he follows her. The doctor follows her from the monitor in her bedroom to the monitor in her in her her bathroom area. And again, to show this desperation of he's like, I need to know if this thing is working. I need to know if I'm going to have freedom. Yeah. And he pops into the bathroom and she's like, what are you doing? And he's, I love his line, I'm a doctor, not a peeping Tom. Yes.

Which was very funny. And then you see her, the POV of the camera that, you know, that he's looking at. Right. You see her toss the towel on there. So now we jump to science lab. And the mobile emitter is now turning the entire console into, you see Borg symbols. now board instead of the starfleet symbols you see borg symbols on there and uh cargo bay two it jumps to seven awaking uh suddenly i mean she awakes before her regeneration cycle yeah the computer says uh incomplete

regeneration cycle so she has incomplete sleep she's woken up right and you can tell that something is wrong you can tell you know and she leaves cargo bay too we cut to the bridge next harry is in the captain's chair again. Look at that. Wham, bam, bam. He's been in command during the night shift, right? He's been in command and Chacote comes in to talk to him and ask how things are. And I made a note here, Harry is super smiley for being up all night. He's so happy to be in that chair. And then Chacote's super smiley. He's giving compliments left and right. He is. Everybody rumor is, you're really good at this. And I wrote, are they flirting with each other?

There's so many smiles and compliments. I'm like, what is this like a competition? What's going on? I actually felt like you guys were goofing off before they said action because there was a sense of like you were just about to laugh. There was so much smiling. I felt like I feel like you guys were something was going on. Okay.

Well, this scene is the closest to our true off-camera real life. relationship, at least with Chikote and I. You know, I don't know if we were joking around beforehand or not, but, but definitely it was a very lighthearted scene. I think, I think Harry's, good chemistry in it. Yeah, it was good chemistry, but Harry's really excited because he had something to do, because typically during the night shift, there's nothing going on, but he tells Chacote, he had to adjust course 11 times because of how quickly this nebula is expanding to stay away at a safe distance. And, you know, that line that Chocote says, Is it true you make them call you, Captain Kim?

It was just, to me, that was a dig by the writers a little bit, saying like, ha, ha, ha, we're not going to promote you. We're going to, like, we're going to tease this. We're going to, you know, we're going to dangle this in front of you. They just pretend to call you guys. Seven does arrive and then tell, as she tells Chhote, that the proximity receiver in her cranial implant has been activated, which could indicate a board presence nearby. So this is, you know, this is serious stuff.

And she says, well, perhaps the nebula is masking a vessel. The nebula is shielding a vessel. And Harry says, no, there's no way. A ship wouldn't last 10 seconds in there. There's not even, not even a Borg cube would last 10 seconds inside this nebula. And Chacote tells Seven to go to Sick Bay to go get her transceiver checked out in case it's malfunctioning. Well, then she goes to sick bay.

He does. And then Chocote goes to take over in the first officer's chair. And you head back to your station. And he says, well, you know, if you don't mind being an ensign again. Do you remember that line? Yeah. Yeah. That's the very end of the scene is Chikota is like, well, yeah, back to work, Harry.

If you don't mind being an ensign again. Yeah, I thought that was funny. Yeah. Cut to the hall and here's our good friend, dear friend, Kayie. We've known for so long now. We've known him so long and know him so well. He's walking down the hall. He gets to the science lab.

The door opens. and there's a green light inside. And he starts to walk in and he kind of walks toward something. And the first thing I thought was, why is he going in by himself? Like, wouldn't you immediately at the doorway when you see the change, which we don't even ever see what he sees? Yes. Exactly.

But we see the green light. Wouldn't you call for backup or something? And if you're not going to call for backup and you know what everyone in Starfleet knows what a green light is. It's the Borg, right? so why it's sort of it's kind of like wait a minute why are you pulling your tricorder out pull your phaser out man i mean do so i mean get get ready to protect yourself right so i just i don't you know it's like it's like for you you know the colors of alabama the enemy you know that

okay just like okay he should know the colors of the enemy it's green we don't that's not we know that that Alabama has the wrong color red they have crimson and what they need is is Georgia Bulldogs red and black. And Crimson is the enemy. Anyway. The tendrils all of a sudden shoot out into his neck. The tubules. The tubules shoot out into his neck suddenly.

Into his neck. Yeah. Then we jump cut to sick bay at that point. Sick bay, Doc scanning seven. And all of a sudden she feels a proximity alert again. She feels this Borg stuff happening. Right. We go to the bridge.

Harry says there's someone's rerouting power from the warp conduits. He tries to find out where it's coming from. It's from the science lab. And now there's a force field there with a Borg signature, he says. But then Chikote hails Mokey. How does he know that Mokkehi is in the science lab? Did he look at something? See, that was a question.

Maybe he saw on censors that, oh, I'm detecting one Starfleet personnel in science lab. Well, Bona said last night, when they put the thing in the science lab, for the, you know, the data scanning or whatever analysis. She said, okay, he back here at 0600, you know, so that was his assignment. So maybe it's in the crew log, you know, like the assignment law. All right. I'll buy that. I'll buy that.

All right. Censors are being deflected by some kind of force field, which has a Borg signature. Well, time for red alert. Chikote calls for Janeway, sends Tuvacus and a security detail to the science lab. So this is real serious stuff. We don't know what's happening. Seven says she's going to join in and meet the security detail there. And now, you know, we have a shot of seven and Tuvok and the security team.

Twovok and Seven with a security team. It was a really low angle shot pulling down the hallway in front of them. And I thought it was a super cool shot. I love those low angle. It's like it's like the Ocean's 11 kind of shot. You know, I wish they had done it in slow motion. That would have been cool. Oh, that would have been super cool.

walking down the hall. Yeah, yeah. But they looked really badass. And we go into the science lab and in comes to Valkin'7. They approach this console. Yeah. Seven says it looks like a board maturation chamber, but it has unfamiliar elements, she says. And then they see Mulcahy on the ground.

Yeah. And the two holes in his neck from the, the two buels. Yeah. She finds nanoprobes when she scans him, that they're abortions. that there are bored nanoprobes. And not just nanoprobes, nanoprobes that have the same signature as her own nanoprobes.

Yeah. And then she approaches the console. She says, because she's Borg, she can walk through the force fields, which she does, steps right through it, opens this small door

in this Borg adapting console, and she sees this sort of Borg fetus inside, which I thought was a really cool vis effect. That was cool. It looked like it was in some kind of liquid and floating around. Yeah. And Seven says this is different than the usual Borg assimilation.

Yeah. But there's something different about this. Right. So we come back into a little bit later. Still the science lab. Yeah. Still in the science lab. But now we've got this shot that's a point of view from inside the chamber. Such a cool PLV.

Yeah. Not only the point of view, but audio. We're getting audio of distorted as if the fetus is listening and watching and seeing everything. And I made a note. it's a long shot because they play a lot of dialogue from that point of view. And it reminded me that Rick Berman was always very concerned about what the point of view of every shot was. And he must have okayed this choice because I remember pitching shots to him when I was directing. And he'd be like, well, whose point of view is that?

Like that's going to suggest, you know, if I was trying to do a stylized shot of a camera move or something, he'd be like, well, the audience is going to think that that's the point of view of some alien. or something and now let's not do that so he was very conservative usually right so the fact that they played this shot from the baby's point of view for so long means that he had okayed this point of view shot and they wanted to to imply that this baby was starting to get a consciousness and that we were we were supposed to as an audience sort of connect with this baby's point of view in some way yeah what's interesting here my other note is um as we as we have the POV and the audio of the fetus, that you now hear seven talking. She's surmising that the

transporter malfunction caused patterns to merge. It's possible that some of her nanoprobes infected the doctor's mobile emitter and that they assimilated the emitter and then transform the diagnostic station. And Mokea's DNA was sampled using his genetic code as a template to create a life form. So as she's talking about all this stuff, and because you're hearing it from the perspective of the fetus and you've got that that whatever that sound is of the of the of the chamber you know just the chamber mechanics yeah it takes the edge off of seven's voice like seven's voice typically when you hear it it's it's kind of rebellious you know what I'm saying it's sort of like when she talks to Janeway she's almost like has an attitude that attitude is gone when it's when it's

distorted by the, you know, it's a very beautiful and non-confrontational voice. Yeah. When it's interesting. Yes. So that's the one thing I was, oh my goodness. Interesting. Yeah. So that's my one note about this particular scene. Yeah, but they realize that that is probably what happened. And so Janeway orders a level 10 force field and security detail around the science lab. Yep. She does not want to kill this fetus until she knows more about what's going on, right? She doesn't want to end this life. But the other interesting note is, she's like, let's let this thing grow. Right. Let's see what's up. And I was like, I made a note, oh, Janeway. Like, you're going to let the board grow? Like, really? And then from the time that they first

see this drone, and then they called Janeway to come down. And the drone has grown by 17% in that five minutes, you know, whatever it is. And then even seven says the maturation rate is 25 times out of a conventional board. So there's some, there's some really fast growing going on right now. In astromatrics, they start to analyze what they're, you know, all the data they're getting from this fast growing, uh, Borg. Seven says at this point when they're in astrometrics, Bilan is there. The doctor is on a monitor. Tuvac is in there. She says that he's now in the fourth phase of gestation, Borg gestation, which is equal to about a six year old already. Six year old boy already. Yeah. Mm-hmm. The doctor says he's

mostly human. He's only 27% Borg right now. Right. And Tuvok says that the body's composed of polycutonic alloys and the doctor says, oh, that's like my mobile emitter. So his exterior is the mobile emitter, that

very futuristic technology. Yeah. Outside. His emitter is 500 years more advanced than the current technology. So he's more advanced than any current Borg. So we establish. that. The doctor also locates his mobile emitter embedded in his cerebral cortex. Yeah. And they say, well, it would kill this board drone to extract the mobile emitter. Right. Because it's now part of

his central nervous system. Yeah. So it controls all of his autonomous functions. Yeah. And he will die if you remove it. So Tuvok asks, his biggest concern being security chief is, has this board contacted the collective yet? Seven says, no, she's dampened his proximity transceiver. Don't worry. not yet but what about when he matures what about when he matures we're in the captain's ready room janeway reads the specs of the drone reactive body armor multi-dimensional adaptability internal transporter nose internal transporter nose that means he can transport himself anywhere without a transporter which really everything she was reading made me think wow this is a cool cool organism, you know, beings. Amazing. Seven says he's going to be mature in two more hours. That's it.

Less than two hours. Less than two hours. That's right. But he'll have no purpose without instructions from the collective. And Janeway decides she wants to raise this guy, humanize him. Yeah, because seven, yeah, because seven says, she says, well, first she says, hey, his Borg shielding is not active. I mean, he will be fully mature, but his Borg shielding is still not active. So we can terminate this, this Borg now. And you're right, Janeway was like, let's, let's just see what happens, right? We can, we can, you know, if we, well, she first poses the question, what happened, what normally happens when we, when a drone disengages from a maturation chamber and it awaits instructions from the collective? So Janeway feels that she can, or the crew can help, you know,

guide this or raise this drone to, as an individual and to be more human, yeah, as then more human, but she says, seven, I want you to teach him. Right. She gives seven that job. It's going to be like your first contact, she says. Yeah. You're going to be, seven, you're going to be our ambassador. Right.

And teach him about his humanity. And we could show him what it means to be an individual. Yeah. And so seven becomes, he's given the job of tutor, basically, tutor slash parent in a way, right? Yep. Go to the science lab next. And now in the science lab, it has become a full drone. alcove. Yes. We see him fully mature. And Seven hit some buttons to disengage him. And I love how

the tubes pop out. I just think that was a cool thing. And he steps down out of this alcove. And his first words are, we are bored. State our designation. And seven says, no, we are individuals. We are not bored. But the drone doesn't get it. Doesn't understand. So she decides she has to initiate a direct neural interface. And so she then does that and she starts sending instructions to the drone. She tells Tuvac that he did receive the instructions and he understands. But all of a sudden, the drone grabs Seven's arm before she can pull away. And she starts, you know, kind of wincing.

And he's extracting. Basically, he's downloading everything in her brain. Yeah. He's just. All of her human memories, all of her knowledge of Voyager, all of her Borg memories. all of it. And it hurts her. It hurts her because he's all up in her neural pathways at this point, trying to assimilate every bit of seven's knowledge. And she cannot disengage the link. She commands him to terminate the interface, nothing. You must comply, nothing. But then when she says,

you are hurting me, that's what makes him stop. Yeah, he releases her done. But really, attention-filled scene, because you're thinking, is he going to, what's he going to do? And even Tufoc tries to shoot him with a phaser, right? Isn't that? in this scene. I think he's used a bit of a phaser. It doesn't even work. So, tension filled. So he's got the mobile emitter alloy plating or whatever, the futuristic plating. And he has shields. And his skin tone, and he has shields. And his skin tone looks different. It doesn't look quite as blue gray as most

bored. It's got a little pigment in it. And did you notice that the suit was glowing in the little cracks here and there. Yeah, you had like blue lights or something. Yeah, they had these, exactly. I don't remember that ever in a board costume before. I think this was an, you know, an adaptation for this, you know, kind of one-of-a-kind board. Yeah, because regular borgs, they have blinkies. They have lights on them and like, you know, little things that blink. But this had like a glow underneath. Well, if you know, if you saw, there were tubes that were running, like where his ribs were. Oh, is that what it was? Yeah, there were tubules that looked like it was blue fluid that was running through them, you know, so almost like that was his blood or something like that. Yeah, it was cool. Yeah, it was very cool looking. And yeah, I made a note, it looked like, you know, it's like glowstick stuff going through. Yeah, exactly. He's going to a rave.

So 7 of 9 has a daily log, and she has, she says she's in, she has activated the drone's linguistic database, and it is now capable of assimiliting information. A direct neural link is way too dangerous, as she tried before. And she decided that the best way for him to assimilate information is using Borg data, nodes. So that then cues the next scene where in engineering, Neelix brings two Borg data nodes into engineering. And Torres is not happy about this. No, she doesn't trust this drone. She's wisecracking left and right. How many Borg hitchhikers are we going to pick up on this trip? I mean, she's just throwing out all these comments left and right. Seven hails Nelix and ask him to bring the first data node. And Nelix is very optimistic with Boulana, by the way. I love his line when

he says to Belaana when she's saying, I don't trust him. Bilan is like he could become very dangerous for us. And Neelik says it will become what we help it become. I love that line. Yeah. Because that's a great way of looking at the world. Like instead of looking at everything with fear and everyone with distrust, you know, your relationship with people will become, even if you disagree,

even if you assume that we probably, you know, could be enemies or disagree on this topic, your relationship will become what you make it. Yeah. Yeah. That was a great line. It was a very good line. So now we're in the science lab. Seven of nine asked the drone to assimilate the data in the data node.

The drone does not understand. And so seven assists. She taps a few buttons on his arm and two tubules shoot out into the node. And my goodness, Jay Paul Bomer, without any lines, what a wonderful performance. I made the same note. Unbelievable. Look on his face. Silent moment.

Kind of cold to awareness. feeling the human side of things and not just the human all of it he's getting every the whole lifetime of experience yeah in this couple of moments and he played it beautifully so well acted and you know all you aspiring actors out here you know watch this scene because this is a huge a huge moment and the look on his face is he's receiving this information priceless i mean you just can't warm it's sweet it's he's he's he's It's the excitement, the wonder, the awe of it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You could feel it. One thousand percent, right? And once he receives this information, now he's, he's, he's off to the race. He's like, I want to see more. And I come with me. I want to see more. Show me. Your destination is seven of nine. Your designation is Neelix Talaxian. This is a laboratory on a vessel. I mean, he's like a little kid, right, in a candy store. I am traveling through interstellar space. Why? And then this here becomes the, the newborn or the, or the young,

child trying to just get more information. Why are we traveling? Well, this is a ship of exploration. Oh, well, then I am an explorer. And you're an individual and your thoughts are your own. And all this stuff is coming to him. And it's just a wonderful scene, wonderful scene. He wants to get more information. He wants to simulate more. Seven says, no, not yet. Your neuropathways require time to process this information. And plus, you will need to regenerate soon. So she says that she's going to go and adapt one of the Alcoves in Cargo Bay, too, to his technology so that she can, he can regenerate there. So she tells Neelix to take the drone to the doctor for a medical analysis.

And she says to go with Neelix, but he follows her instead like a child as she's walking away. And like a child, she reassures him. I'll be back soon. Yes, I will. Yeah, you stay in school. Yeah, you go to kindergarten with Uncle Neelix, and I will see you later after school. So he's okay with it.

Wonderful scene with Neelix and the drone walking through the corridor. The two security guards are behind them. And we see the drones. I got to say, this was a moment where I was like, all right, we've moved very quickly with our trust of this drone. Yes. They've got this two-man security team unarmed. Yeah. I don't know if they're unarmed.

They're definitely not holding weapons on him, though. They're just walking. I didn't see a weapon near. I mean, maybe they had a phaser on their belt that I didn't see, but they certainly didn't have phaser rifles or anything significant. And I thought, this is a problem for me because I was like, I think Janeway and Tuvok and everyone would be incredibly cautious with this drone. And to walk him around the entire ship with just Nelix and two unarmed security guys,

I don't know. Okay. Well, here's my question for you. when we are in that corridor scene, one of the shots that we see is the drone's perspective of the corridor, which is a little bit warped. Is that, what lens is that?

I don't know what lens they're using to create that. I don't know, probably a fish eye lens or a very, very wide angle lens, and they may have added a little Borg, CG, you know, visor effects to the POV. But I did notice in this scene, it's a very long steady cam scene because it goes all the way down the hall

with no coverage, with a long conversation, and then the sick bay door opens and they go in, the camera keeps following them in. I was thinking about the steady cam operator, you know, that's a heavy camera and rig to carry. And he carried it a long time. It's a very long shot and very impressive for a steady cam operator to hold the camera that long. And for the actors to perform the scene so well without needing close-ups and, you know, other takes to cut into. I just thought it was great.

Yeah. But they talk about Nelix, basically, the scene is about Nelix saying you needed a name. Yeah, you need to choose a name. And he says, there's only one of you, which gives him this idea of one. One. As his designation. So that's where it comes from, the conversation with me. Yeah, yeah.

But once we're in sick bay, the doctor starts analyzing him. And our drone won, wants his origin story. He wants to know where he came from. And so the doctor's kind of resistant at first, but then says there was a transporter malfunction. Well, wait, he didn't, he's resistant, but the drone is persistent. Because remember, he says, describe my origins. And then the doctor says, well, that's a very long story. And he goes like, describe it now.

Like he's really, you tell me now, doctor. Yes, the doctor goes into that there was a transporter malfunction, which then the drone picks up on, oh, I was an accident. And they says, no, call it a random convergence of technologies. And then the drone asks, am I unwelcome here? And it is, I mean, the awareness and just the, and the scene was, it was a good scene. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, it was a great scene.

I did like the doctor's line. No, you're very welcome here. And he goes, after all, you've got my mobile emitter driving your neocortex. You're bound to make a dazzling impression. Exactly. Yeah. And then he explains, that's a joke. Yeah, he goes, that's called a joke.

And I love how the drone in this entire episode is always a joke, a verbal comment or gesture designed to provoke laughter. And then he says, the doctor says, I see you've got your mother's sense of humor. So it's like, clever lines in here. Clever lines, clever lines. We go to engineering next, and Seven is now giving him a tour of engineering. Balana's annoyed. She's like, this is not a classroom. Right.

She says, I've got one hour to control the expansion of this nebula, or Jamie's going to end this whole survey. And the drone is sort of watching what she's doing. He goes, well, I can fix that. Apply a multis spatial algorithm. And Seven is very proud. You see this proud mama moment. And Balana goes, okay, give it a shot. Yeah.

He steps in there. And Lana's a little surprise, too. Yeah. That he's like, well, this out. Interesting. Yeah. So he steps up to the panel, starts hitting a bunch of buttons and it works.

Yes. So he's showing his, that he can be an asset here for us and be helpful and trustworthy and all those things. Yeah. We go to the ready room next and the drone is there and he introduces himself. He says our design. Seven brings him to meet Janeway. Yep. Seven brings him in there to meet Janeway.

He's introducing himself. He says, our designation is. And then he catches himself. and he goes my designation yeah which i love that little yeah that was a great moment great and i made a note here he almost seems more human than seven like he's been here for one day and he's he's more rude he's more emotional uh yeah um he's enthusiastic yeah and i just thought wow he's he obviously has a lot like the doctor does say he's only 27% bored where she was 100% Borg and slowly becoming human.

Right. But it's a confusing thing because he looks more Borg than she does, but he's acting more human than she is. It's an odd balance there. I love the line that he says to Janeway. She's like, well, how are you getting along? And he's like, well, I've assimilated information on a vast variety of subjects, including particle physics, comparable humanoid anatomy,

warp field theory, and the culinary delights of the Delta Quadrant. And so then seven's like, he's been having. hanging out with me, Alex. He asked Janeway, how is your assessment of me? And Janeway's like, no, no, no, I just wanted to meet you. Oh, well, in that case, I mean, I ask you for permission to be excused. And so not only is he more human, he's more polite than seven to mind. It has been permission to be excused to assist Lieutenant Torres to increase the efficiency of the Bissard collectors. And you, and the look on Janeway's face in this entire scene is like, wow, why can't Seven be like you? Like that. This is like this. And,

It also came to my mind that, all right, so this board drone is 27% board and what's left, 73% human. But the board drone was actually created from seven and the doctor. So it's not like he got more humanity, you know, from dad. Well, let's be precise here. It's not seven in the doctor. It's seven in Mulcahy with the doctor's mobile meter. It's the mobile meter.

It has nothing to do with the doctor, except for his. That's true, the cortex. That's right. Okay. Because my mind was like, how did the combining the doctor's mobile emitter in seven make a more human? How did you give him more human yet? No, it's really, it's okay. That's where it came from.

That makes sense to me then. So he goes and Janeway goes, I want to know more about this guy. Like, Seven's the one now who's cautious. She's like, she's worried. I don't know about this. Did we talk about Janeway commending seven on the job she's done teaching? No, but she doesn't. does. She commends Seven on a great job. And Janeway asks, does he know about his Borg side yet? And Seven goes, nope, not yet. And Janeway wants to tell him and Seven does not right now. She's worried. And so Janeway says, what he's going to have to know about this, the Borg side of his life someday. Like you're teaching him all this human stuff, but, and Voyager information, but you're not teaching him about who the Borg are.

Right. Well, she says we can delay telling him for now, but he's becoming. an individual and he has a right to know. So eventually we're going to have to tell him. We jumped to cargo bay two and I'm going to start calling him one instead of the drone now. So one wants to assimilate more information and seven says, you know, it's enough for one day. She teaches him how to say thank you. And she says, we must regenerate. And I love when he stepped into the alcove the wrong way.

Yeah. And she goes, no, no, no, no, you must face outward. And by the way, I just want to say, is that true? I feel like when we've gone on Borg ships before, we've seen them both ways. It's like, no. What are you talking about?

I think we have. I know, Robbie. I'm telling you. Everybody out there, tell me the truth. I feel like I've seen Borg, not just standing outward,

but many different ways. Let's leave it up to the, let's live up to the listeners and the viewers and see what they say. But I'm almost 100% positive. It was a funny bit in the scene. Like, what looks like the wrong way, but it's not, it's not like that's a rule. I don't think. But anyway, we'll see. But it worked in the scene. It was funny. So now they're standing in the

regeneration chambers. And then one says, seven of nine, thank you. As they begin the regeneration cycle. And, you know, the look on seven's faces, she kind of feels like a feeling of accomplishment. Yeah, very proud. And by the way, Jerry had a lot of great emotions, a lot of silent, very emotional acting in this episode. I thought she did a great job. This episode was the most acting that Jerry has had to do up to date, I think. Yeah. In terms of emotional levels. Yeah. Oh, my God. Instead of just the board, hardboard. Instead of just like, blah, blah, blah, blah. Exactly. She actually has range in this episode, which is so wonderful to see. So as they close their eyes to regenerate, the camera

pushes in to see a new set of blinking lights start blinking. And the music changes to ominous music. And you're like, oh, oh. And the ominous music cuts to an exterior space shot of a Borg sphere. Then you see the interior of the Borg sphere. And you hear the Borg voice, a Borg proximity signal has been detected. But I thought it was super cool because we go inside that Borg sphere and everything is round inside. We're not used to that.

So I thought that was cool. It was really. Yeah. And the interior looks like, it's sort of looked like an apple, an apple core kind of a thing. Yeah, exactly. So then we hear that the board proximity signal has been detected, alter course to intercept. So now we're in trouble. Oh, boy.

Yeah, cargo bay two, seven awakes to see the captain, Tuvok, and a large security team, the entire security team is there. They're armed now, waiting for her to wake up. And Janeway's not happy. Look on her face. She goes, yeah, Janeway says that one has transmitted a board proximity signal. wake him. And upon questioning, one is very innocent. He's like, no, I did not do that. And after a scan, we realized that even though his transceiver was deactivated two days ago, his cranial implants adapted and created a secondary transceiver. Oh, man. I know. It's just

ruins it. It's like, come on. He didn't give up, he didn't give up any of it. He was doing so well. He didn't do it on purpose. But Janeway is okay. She, you know, she's quick to forgive. And then we, On long range sensors have detected a trans warp conduit, a ship is approaching. And one wants to meet. He wants to meet them. He wants to meet them. And Janeway tells seven, okay, it is now time to show. He needs to know about the board.

What the board are all about, right? Exactly. So we go to astrometrics, and there's all this board data on the big screen, and he's downloading all of the data about the board. Right. And again, he's fascinated and excited and in awe. And he says he wants to experience the hive mind. And then Janeway's like, well, you'll no longer be unique.

Right. And he says, and that is undesirable. Right. Which I thought was an interesting, it's an interesting argument. Like, you know, is it undesirable to want to be part of something? There is a human pull to that idea as well to be connected in one of many things. On a lighter note, what is going to be? going on with Janeway's hair.

Hair. I knew you were going to say hair. I knew it. So fluffy. It's a, what is this 70th? Charlie's Angels thing going on? I mean, but it was only in certain angles, oh, Robbie. Like when she walks, because I retract, I rewound into the scene inside the, because I kept

saying, did they shoot this on two separate days? You know, the scene in Cargo Bay 2, and then they go right into astrometrics. It should be the same, you know, five minutes. It should look at the same, but it was shot on separate. days. I guess. I mean, because her hair just in this scene goes really big. But what's crazy, though, Robbie, is when she walks into the first few shots in astrmetric, it's not crazy. But from a certain angle when she's talking to one, it gets poofy. Like within the same scene, it changes. It's just, I don't know what the heck happened. Really big hair. Yeah. Janeway asked one if

if he'll help Voyager resist them. And he asks seven. Seven. Yes. Do you want to rejoin the collective? Do you wish to rejoin the collective? And seven pauses. And then her answer is Voyager is my collective, which I love. I love that. Great line. He really commits to Voyager here.

Yeah, yeah. And we hear battle stations. He doesn't commit yet. He says, I would need time to assimilate this information. He won't, but seven does. Seven does all the way, yes. Seven and one are walking down the hall. And they basically discussed anxiety is what the scene is about.

The fear of assimilation, you know, she tries to explain to him what you're feeling is anxiety. And he says, do you feel it too? And she says, yes. But what I love about her line is when she says, you are experiencing an emotion, anxiety. It is only temporary. That is the key line right there. Yeah. That's the lesson right there, you know, in this part of this episode.

Yeah. Anxiety. It's only temporary. And too many people feel the anxiety and they don't realize that. it will pass you know and people get all worked up over it and it's true temporary um turbillift there one asks what will happen now will voyager be destroyed and we open up on um well actually we have an exterior shot of the bork sphere moving towards the nebula and now we're on the bridge seven says one needs to help enhance our shields by the way so when we come back on the bridge seven and one are

stepping out of the turbo lift with Janeway and a couple other security people. And I said to myself, wait a minute, how did, how did Janeway get there before? Yeah, we just left seven and one in a turbo lift alone. Yeah. And now they're stepping out of it. And she said in the turbo lift, deck one. They're headed to the bridge. So there's a bump in there for me.

Like Janeway should not be in the same turbo lift. No, she wasn't in the turbo lift with them, though. Yes, she was. I'm pretty sure they all walked out of the turbo lift to the top of the scene. What? No, it was just, okay, walking down the hallway talking about anxiety, there's no Janeway there. Janeway took another route and got there before them, which is kind of implausible. No, that's what I'm saying.

When seven and one step out of the turbo lift, Janeway steps out with them? Yes. Oh, okay, well, there's a huge hole there then. Yeah, that was a bit of a mistake. Oops. Anyway, they all step out. They head to the battle stations. One is hearing the board collective in his mind, and so does seven.

And she says, resist that voice. Right. Resist it. And he puts his tubes ultimately into the console. Voyager at this point has been tractored or something. Yeah, there's a tractor beam that's been activated, right? But when he does help out, he changes the shield. He remodulates the shields.

And that causes us to break free from this tractor being. So Janeway says, can you enhance our phasers? And he says, yes. And Janeway says, okay, well, once he's done with that, target their propulsion system. And Mr. Paris, be prepared to jump to warp. And you're like, did you say yes, man? Maybe you just nodded. I don't know if I did.

Yeah, maybe just. So as Voyager fires at the sphere, the sphere inverts our phaser with a feedback pulse. So it sort of bounces back at us. back at ourselves. Yeah. And the ship is... Takes out our rock drive. And now one says that Voyager's technology is limited.

He can enhance it any further. But he says that he can interface with the collective. If he can do that, he can disrupt their vessel from within. And Seven looks at him and says, no, they will try to assimilate you. And he says very quickly, they will fail. Like he knows. And then he hits his wrist with his own internal transporter beam. Yeah.

And uses... That what Janeway said earlier, he transports himself right inside the, right? So before he does that, Janeway says, Shaneway says to Harry to lock onto the drone. But my note here is that you don't see Harry at all in the first half of this whole battle scene in the bridge. It's just all the left side of the bridge, really, where Tuvac is and Janeway and you are. But you don't see. So I'm wondering, like, did they not even have me in this scene? But then later you do see a little bit of Harry there. you were there probably they shot at all but didn't put it in the cut they didn't put it in the cut

they didn't put in the cut i thought i was on vacation um but yeah so he beams himself over and it's what was he using when those borg drones were coming up on him was he just repelling them with his that's what he's he doesn't even raise his arms it didn't do anything they just get some energy they go falling down i'm like wow that's pretty cool um he does end up interfacing and he starts steering that Borg sphere into the next over the controls and and starts driving this sphere towards the nebula, great, great space shot as it starts to enter the nebula and you see it just crumbling and falling apart. Yeah. And exploding. Yeah. Huge. And I said to myself, when the thing exploded, I'm like, oh, no, the doctor's hollow emitter is inside that thing.

Right. And it's done. Did you really think that at that time? I did. Yeah. I was like, oh, Doc, because I was in my head. I'm like, how do we get the hollow mirror? I know, I know what we get back. You knew that that wasn't going to happen, but you still thought it. But I thought it like, I didn't know how it was possible for that to survive. How do we retrieve it? When we go back on the bridge, seven is very emotional here.

Yeah, but Harry detects said, hey, one life sign. He's still alive, beam him to sick bay. Seven goes down to sick bay and he's lying on the bio bed. And he, you know, his body plating is still, he's not. crunched. He's still the same, but you do see some, some really major wounds on his head, on his head. And the doctor says his biological systems are failing, but the Borg systems are regenerating here. Right, right. But the doctor says, I have to perform surgery on his other systems to make sure his biological functions to make sure he's okay. And when he reaches in,

his force field comes up to stop the doctor. And seven, like, no, let the doctor. Let the doctor help you and he says well no um when i interface with the borg they now know who i am and they're going to keep chasing you they're going to keep pursuing voyager to get to me and so i can't let that happen i can't let them you know harm you and so he refuses the surgery and that was i don't know it was very sad it was very sad it brought me to tears and it's she's she her lines are like you must comply you know and and she says please you are hurting me which kind of is the call back to earlier. To the earlier one, yes.

You're hurting me. His final line. What is he saying? He says, you will adapt like that. Do you remember that? Yeah. I do now, yeah.

Yeah. Very sad. And Jerry did a great job. She was very affected by his death there. Yeah. She kind of wanders in circles in the sick bay for a moment. She doesn't know what to do. She's just lost.

She's beside herself. Because in reality, this is, you know, this was really her kid. You know, if you think about it, if you look at it that way. And she saw herself in her self in her. in him in many ways, which this mirror shot we're about to get to is very much a part of that of like, who is she? You know, she was connecting with a side of herself. I think the audience has already bought into when they're watching this. They are, they're excited that this could be our secret weapon. You know, like this, this, this crew member is going to be, wow, this will

put us on top where nobody's going to mess with us. We have the most advanced board ever as part of our crew. So you start feeling for this character. You're cheering for this character. And then he sacrifices himself for the crew, and he dies, and you're just gutted. You're absolutely gutted that this has happened, right? And then the scene in Cargo Bay 2 when she goes to turn off the- Turns off the power to his alco. Yeah, to his alco.

Super sad shot. And then she ends up stepping over to the mirror. So we go from the first shot of the episode in the mirror when she's smiling. Yep. To the last shot of the episode in the mirror when she's just crushed. Yeah. So it's a nice bookend. visually I think in your mirror moment really strong episode really strong my theme is regardless of

what you're born into the person that you were born as that you have a choice in life that's my theme that regardless of whether you're born a borg whether you're born a human whoever you're born that you have a unique choice that you can make to be whoever you want to be that was my takeaway what about you uh a couple things things. One lesson is the lesson that Nelix, how Nelix treated this new organism individual. He wasn't afraid. He had open arms. He embraced this new board. And that's something that everyone can learn when dealing with strangers. It's better to have your arms outstretched with your hands open, not clenched fists trying to fight. So that's one lesson. And then,

the other lesson is the lesson of loss of someone that you are familiar with, either family member or friend acquaintance when they pass, that you have to know that or find solace in the fact that you will adapt. You will get, you know, you'll get over it at some point. You'll, you'll be able to get through this difficult period. So, so that's my other lesson too, you know, no matter what happens. What's your score on this out of 10? I'm going to give it a, I'm going to give it an eight and a half. I'm going to get 8.5 on this one. So, yeah, how about you? I'm going to give it a 7.5. Okay. I'm going to give it a 7.5. I enjoyed it a lot. I really did. I don't know, but it did feel a bit like an outlier in some weird way, like kind of a little disconnected from

Harry or Tom or Belong they were all around I guess but I felt like there wasn't a group feeling to this it was very much seven and one do you know what I mean a lot of times we'll be in the briefing room we'll all have a job to do or have a point of view about it and this one even though we popped in and out felt like we were all very disconnected from one's journey and the drone's journey maybe Neelix for a moment or two maybe the doctor for a moment or two a bit here and there. So that's why I give it a 7.5. But still a good episode, very moving.

And I thought Jerry did a phenomenal job. Best performance that I think she's given so far. Definitely. Well, that was fun. Yeah, that was fun. What is next week? Next week's episode is Extreme Risk. Okay.

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