The Delta Flyers - Elogium

Episode Date: September 7, 2020

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

Hey everyone, welcome to the Delta Flyers. We are a weekly podcast that discusses episodes of Star Trek Voyager in chronological order. Your two fabulous hosts along this podcast journey are myself, Garrett Wong, aka Ensign Harry Kim, and Robert Duncan McNeil, who portrayed Lieutenant Thomas Eugene Parris. If you're interested in either an extended version of this podcast or the extended video version of this podcast, both of which include added, fantastic bonus segments, check out our Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron. Wow, that was a really, I don't know exactly how to capture the spirit of that one. And that was like, it was a sensitive introduction.

It was a very, it was a very sensitive heartfelt introduction. Yeah, you know, my, what inspired me was, there's a whole segment out there of recordings, audio recordings. And I can't remember how they refer to them where, and it's mostly women, and they sit there and they say, like, I'm going to brush my hair. And you hear like this very, like, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, relaxed. What is it, EMD? There's a, there's a name for it. Yeah, there's a name for it. People that are like either sexually aroused by, by like sound pops. Yes, the sound of,

but it's not just sexually. It's just, it's, it's also a lot too. It's relaxing or something like that. Right. So I thought like I might be sound popping a little too much. All right. You know, work out. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Yeah. No, I think we're good. We're good to go. Good. It's Corona quarantine 2020. And here we are. Everything's falling apart.

But we've got the Delta Flyers podcast. So what could be so bad? That's not falling apart. No matter what, the Delta Flyers podcast will survive. We are surviving. I am a little bit perturbed that you got a new green screen without actually consulting me. You're, you know what, Rebecca ordered it. She ordered it because we're,

We're hitting the road in a couple of weeks from Atlanta in the RV. We're heading up to British Columbia and Vancouver. We're going to hopefully take a little slower trip than than we did last year. But I'm heading back to work. So I'll be up there starting my quarantine and I need travel greenscreen. That's what I understand that. And I'm going to now help everyone else out there who's watching this and have decided they want to do some type of podcasting or game. or whatever, Twitch, and they need a good green screen.

I'm going to recommend you the green screen, which I should have recommended Robbie. It's with a company called Valera, V-A-L-E-R-A, and they are portable, ultra-portable. And we are not, they're not sponsoring the show, by the way. They are not sponsoring the show. I'm just trying to. Retroactively, I'd like to get a couple bucks from them

for this advertisement for Valera, because, you know, I don't even know what brand mine is. I'm going to look. No, I have that. Yeah, the green screen you have now is your second green screen. That was my first green screen that I bought for Alpha Quadrant. And the issue with that is it's not exactly wide enough because you have to really adjust it and it has to be really up close to you. Because like right now, your head is bigger than mine because you have to pull it.

You've got to be closer. I'm going to come back here. The problem is if I come back here, though, now see, this is all the, this is behind the curtain. You guys are seeing all the behind the curtain. See, now I got to bring my microphone way up here because I'll be. too far away and then Jesse will get mad at me and okay what happened to your what happened to your vertical orientation of your microphone remember that was supposed to be up front it's everything's different because of the non-valera green screen that I that I order we're trying to be consistent here like but

you know what it is you're spontaneous like with with the microphone you didn't listen to my recommendation you just quickly on Amazon ordered your blue at Yeti without even consulting Garrett I am the operations officer you are the spontaneous pilot and as the pilot on Voyager, you just sort of go and do it. Yeah, I got to react. I don't react. I just got to react. There's a, there's a plasma field up ahead. I just got to fly through it. You know what? Damn the consequences. It doesn't even matter. You don't have time to research, you know, whether that that subspace anomaly in front of us is going to, you know, blow us up. I just got to react. I got to fly, I got to figure it out. Right. Right. And I'm going to

say that I'm not going to criticize or judge you for that but I am going to to take this time to like I said I'm not pitch we're not being paid for this pitch I just wanted people to know I've spent the time I've done the due diligence I've looked at all the green screens and this company started by a father and son in California it's kind of cool you know the son was like dad you know I need a better green screen and they they just started a company and that's what they do so and it's just super portable they were totally out of stock when I first try to order and so they're very popular. So that's, you know, so maybe, maybe you did the right move in that if you did try my recommendation, you may not have gotten it in time to go on your road trip. Might still be

waiting on it. Exactly. Okay. Okay. So, um, hey guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. For everybody, for everybody who happens to be a Patreon patron, we are about to play a little game of what do we remember. Stay tuned while Robbie and I go watch Elogium. Thanks guys. Hey guys, we are back from our review, or at least our watching, not the review, but our watching of the episode, Elogium. We have successfully viewed the episode Elosion. Before I ask you for a synopsis, I just want to, we kind of talked about this briefly in the intro.

We talked about those quiet videos. I did a little research on that. That's why I took a little longer to get back to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is called ASMR. ASMR, autonomous sensory meridian response. So they're talking about ASMR, the world of ASMR, in this corner of the internet, dozens of video makers record themselves doing something as simple as whispering to elaborate

sci-fi role plays and developing storylines about time travel and demons and millions of viewers gobble it all up. So what is ASMR? AMR. ASMR is the term for the sensation people get when they watch stimulating videos or take part in other activities, usually ones that involve personal attention. Many people describe the feeling as tingles that run through the back of someone's head and spine. Others say the feeling is deeply relaxing and can even cause them to fall asleep. Although the term ASMR may sound very technical, there's actually no good science or research behind the phenomenon. The term is believed to have been coined in 2010 by Jennifer Allen, who started a Facebook group. dedicated to finding out more about it. The term quickly caught on as people finally had a way to reference the pleasurable feeling they had been experiencing. So how does ASMR work?

ASMR varies greatly from person to person. Some, perhaps most people, don't get it at all. And the science on ASMR is basically non-existent. So our understanding of it so far based on anecdotes from around the Internet. People get the feeling of ASMR from various triggers. Some people enjoy role plays in which someone gives. close personal attention and whispers, while others like videos that show incredibly mundane tasks such as spraying a water bottle, tapping, stirring a bowl of soup, or crinkling wrapping paper.

Others are triggered by more elaborate role plays, which can vary from someone acting like a doctor, hello, I'm the doctor, to getting a haircut. I tend to prefer simpler videos, which I find very soothing and tingle-inducing. The feeling isn't usually sexual, although some of the people are triggered by videos that appear sexual others that I have talked to, experience ASMR emphasized that the tingles and feelings of relaxation have nothing to do with sex. But ASMR is a little similar to sexual turn-ons and that some people are very specific in what they like. And many people tend to grow tired of experiencing the same thing over and over.

Maria, who oversees the gentle whispering channel, which has more than 1.3 million subscribers on YouTube. That's a lot of subscribers. Gentle by phone. Gentle whispering. Whispering. Yes, on YouTube. Gentle whispering. He told me by phone in 2015 that people's experiences can even vary by the day or

depending on their mood. I've noticed that one day you'll be more sensitive toward role playing than another. You'll be more sensitive to swishing sounds, she said. It really varies. People also appear to grow tolerant of triggers if they listen or watch them too much. So it's important for ASMR video makers to keep things fresh and for viewers to to make sure they don't overplay that one amazingly tingly video. I had no idea.

So I sort of knew what you were talking about. I feel like I heard a news article or read a news article or something about people being stimulated, and I thought it was sexually, but maybe it's just less that than just generally sort of aroused or relaxed in some way or triggered, like you said, goosebumps. I've heard of this thing. Yeah. It's crazy that it's that big. And it's also crazy that only got sort of categorized in 2010 or whenever they said this lady

sort of in the phrase. Yeah. Wow. And I'm going to say that Voyager was, you know, Voyager episodes are kind of almost like the original ASMR videos because there's so many people that are insomniacs that tell me at conventions that they have to have Voyager running in the background for them to even fall asleep. Wow. Not to say that our content is boring, but it's just that it soothes them.

It calms them and helps them go to sleep. We had a video, we had an admiral's chat recently, and do you recall one of our admirals talking about how Janeway's voice sounds so much like his mother's voice? Yes, I do. And that it helps him relax when he watches his voyager. Well, it's also interesting that, so when you make a television show, you film the picture, the photographs that people see. but you also record the dialogue.

And often when you're making a TV show, you're recording dialogue and there's traffic noise if you're on the street or there's, you know, if the scene is set in a newspaper office, there's lots of noise in the office or, you know, a coffee shop, there's lots of noise. They were very militant about Voyager and the sound being completely like space,

like a vacuum, that the ship would not have footsteps you would not hear footsteps you would not hear noise that's why there was carpet everywhere that's why the sets were built so sturdily is because Rick Berman and the producers in the studio felt like the spaceship should not have any of that extraneous noise that it would be silent like space like in space it would really you wouldn't hear you might hear the hum of the engine but you wouldn't hear distracting noises and I wonder if Like what you're describing, this, this, um, ASMR syndrome or whatever, this, this characteristic. If that's, our, our show sort of falls into something that's very relaxing and very precise because

there was no, you know, office noise. There was no clanking and rumbling. There weren't even footsteps of people walking around. It was very specific and very precise. And I remember, remember the sound in our sound department, Greg Agassoff is our boom operator for most of the series. They were very, had very high standards about getting precise sound. So I wonder if that has anything to do with the relaxing quality of our show that somehow is subconsciously it sort of stimulates this very calm, safe, quiet world in some way. I think it does. So let's go ahead and give everybody the quick synopsis, you know, off the cuff. Okay, eulogium. This is an episode, the Delta, the Voyager, not the Delta Flyers, that's us. The Voyager is still in the

Delta Quadrant, heading home, and it starts off with a little introduction of crew extracurricular activities. The Chikote walks into it, a turbo lift, the door opens, and a couple is making out in the turbo lift. And he sort of notices this ends up talking with Janeway about, you know, maybe we should, maybe we should encourage some fraternization. They also stumble upon a swarm of these unusual aliens kind of swarming around in space and they go to investigate. While they go to investigate, we see that Kess is starting to have some sort of strange behavior. She's eating lots of food. eating, eating, eating, everything she can.

Turns out that she's actually experiencing the mating cycle, the fertile period that the Ocampans go through. Turns out once in their life, usually around the age of five or so, they become fertile and they mate and they have a baby once in their life. And that's happening to her much too early. And they realize in the ship that it might have something to do with a swarm of aliens that's also behaving strangely with the ship. And they're sort of misinterpreting the ship as a mate.

And they suck it into their swarm and they're trying to mate with it. Long story short, turns out in my short synopsis, I'll say that Voyager has to figure out a way to trick the swarm of aliens into realizing that the ship itself is not a mate and focus your attention elsewhere. Go mate with somebody else. they can escape and Kess and Neelix together have to face a decision of whether or not to have a child and to mate and to become parents very prematurely that they weren't expecting to have to make

this decision. They have to face that decision. That's a synopsis. It's about love and sex and being out in space and what do you do? How's that? All right, man. I'll take that. That's a longer synopsis. Yeah, it was longer than I thought. I was going into it. I thought it was going to make real short, but that's okay. So I'm going to haiku this one. My haiku synopsis, once again, everyone, it's five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables. And of course, you don't have to rhyme. If you do end up rhyming at the end, great. But if you don't, it doesn't matter. It's just five-seven-five. So let's do it. Yes, can't stop eating. Neelix always worrying. Swarm was the culprit.

Ah, nice. Thank you. The haiku. The haiku. The haiku. You know, I prefer the haiku. Well, I prefer the haiku because I kind of scramble around grasping and trying to make some linear sense of it all and make sure I don't forget any detail.

The haiku, the whole point of the haiku is it shouldn't have detail. That's true. It's just one simple idea. But I like you're more detailed. synopsis because as we do this more, you will get better at this. Well, you also will become more. Probably not. Okay. All right. Maybe not. But I think that you would end up becoming more succinct or better at it. But some people would, some people prefer more detailed synopsis. They want to know full, like for instance, when we read that, when I read that

Netflix one-liner, good Lord. That doesn't tell us anything. I mean, you don't know who the main players are in this episode. You don't know anything. So, you don't know anything. So, Yours is the most detailed. And then mine is the art, the artists, you know, the more artistic. The impressionistic version. Yes, the impressionistic version of synops. It's funny because speaking of that Netflix review and our pre-show where we tried to remember something, I was on to something. I was on to something with Cass, it was a cast story.

Yes, yes, yes. So there you go. There was some cast in there. I was onto something that Neelix probably had something to do with. that because Ethan Phillips always talked about eulogium. Yeah. We'd always make some funny jokes about elope. He would always refer to this episode.

And I don't remember it, but I figured it was a, that meant it was a big Neelix episode. Yeah. Probably Kess. Yeah. And I was right to guess that there is jealousy involved. As you were. Once again, it happened. Yep.

You're absolutely right. Yeah. So we were, even though we were kind of ignorant, pretty much didn't know anything, we sort of guessed pretty good in our you know we kind of wandered into something there so we did yeah i i just want to start off by saying that i love how in the opening scene i love how um chocote refers to the makeout session as indiscreet shipboard fraternization which is such a techno babo way to say making out making out yeah and so now yeah by the way i think chocote has had the best lines a number of times in this episode. We'll get to that, but he had some amazing

lines. I was like, oh my God, I can't believe he pulled that off of the straight thing. So for all of our listeners who happened to be serving in the U.S. Navy at this time, or anybody in the world that happens to be serving in a Navy for their country that are listening to this, you can now refer to making out with another, you know, crew member as indiscreet shipboard fraternization. You could say, hey, are you up for some ISF? And they're like, ISF, what is that? Indiscreet, shipboard fraternization. So I just think it's kind of cute.

Yeah. I also may note, Robbie, you show up 25 seconds into the episode. That's your first line. Your first line is it 25 seconds. I know. I came in pretty fast. Although you're kind of creepy because you respond saying like, but I missed it.

Deadcomit. I really wanted to watch the make out. Remember that? Sorry, I missed it is what you say. I thought I had a funny face as the door shut. and you know as the door shut with Chocote and we're in the turbo left i mean yeah i'm i always am a big fan of when our show has humor and they're funny i thought i actually thought that early on um jennifer lean did some really funny stuff like when we didn't know what was going on like her

expressions and her her sort of over overblown eating of the food and stuff i found to be really funny and I never I never remembered that Jennifer lean was I don't think of her as a comic actress I didn't think of that character as ever being funny and I was actually early on like oh my god she's really funny like that's pretty goofy so impressed by her comedic skills and just that whole scene with her munching on the food I mean it was great it was directed well you know speaking of directors this was directed by Rick Colby. Rick Colby directed this. The story was by Jimmy Diggs.

Do you know Jimmy Diggs and Stephen J.K.? I think you might have met Jimmy. He's sort of a middle-aged African-American gentleman, about six foot four. He would come by at different conventions that we were at and just say, Oh, yes, I have met him. Jimmy Diggs had received, I think,

a kidney transplant from someone's daughter named Samantha Wildman. Oh, get out of here. Really? Is that the story? Oh, my gosh. And he wanted to, that's why this character is named Samantha Wildman, Nancy Howard's character.

And I will look that up again to try and make sure that I am correct. But yeah, the writer Jimmy Diggs decided to honor the child's memory by naming a Voyager persona after the little girl. Because the real Samantha Wildman had been fond of animals, Jimmy Diggs, thus made Ensign Winson, Wildman, the head of Voyager's Ceno Biology Department. What? Yeah.

Whoa. Her character in the series is named after a real-life seven-year-old girl who had died in an accident. The little girl's parents decided to donate her organs, and the ailing wife, the ailing wife of one of Voyager writers received the girl's kidneys. Yeah, that's what it was. Jimmy Diggs' wife. That's really cool.

I love that story. I thought that was really interesting. Yep. Well, Robbie, if you end up, you know, donating any of your organs to me, I'm going to name my son, Robbie Duncan McNeil Wong. I'm just going to use your whole entire name as his first name. Please do. Please, please show.

So Jimmy Diggs and Steve K. Steve J.K. are the story contributors. The teleplay was by Ken Biller and Jerry Taylor, directed by Rick Colby. I just wanted to go back to the scene on the bridge where Chacote talks to Janeway about the fraternization. He brings up the kissing couple. Janeway then talks to Jokote and says that people will begin pairing off. He then asks her, well, does that include you too?

Now, during this whole conversation, if you watch this conversation, Kate looks a lot at Robert Beltran's lips. Mouth, yes, I noticed that. Okay, now I'm going to bring this up. I can't recall if this was something that I saw online. I had a conversation with somebody about this, but I had learned at one point that if you are having a conversation with somebody and you start looking at their mouth,

that means you are sexually attracted to that person. So if that is indeed something that is part of human behavior, legitimate human behavior, then it looks like Kate Mulgrews giving off those vibes to Robert Beltran. I totally got those, that energy. I felt like she was very flustered when love and sex came up. And by the way, at the end of the episode, she says to Chacote, she says, in the future,

if I ever have any questions about mating behavior, I'll know where to go, Janeway says. Yes. That's right. It seemed very clear that they had written and Kate Mulgrew had amplified this idea that Chucote and Janeway would become an item later on.

She also mentions in that same, and I'm jumping to the end, but she mentions Mark, her boyfriend back on earth. Yeah. So it's very confusing for the actor knowing how to play it. I was reading some reviews from are from the podcast, just the general podcast, and somebody was talking about how I like this podcast, but if Garrett keeps on doing his Janeway impersonation, you know, all bets off. Like,

I'm not going to listen anymore. Like literally he talked about my impersonation being like finger nails on a chalkboard and I'm going, oh, crap. Okay, I'm going to try it lighter. So yeah, just a little less. Here we go. Yeah. In a future, if I have any questions about mating behavior, I don't know where to go. It's a little lighter. It's a little lighter, all right. But don't do it again, because you might drive away all our fans. I might drive away all our fans. So I don't.

I take reviews, especially critical reviews, very seriously. I know. You take it very personally. We've talked about this. We've talked about this. Like when we were on the show, you know, filming the show back in the olden times, you would go on those chat rooms and stay up all night long, like debating with fans on the chat boards and stuff.

And I remember saying to you like, Garrett, stop going on the chat rooms. Like, everybody's going to have an opinion and it just put your head down to your work. It wasn't just opinions about me. I was also sticking up for like other, like if someone was bragging on Nelix, I'd be like, well, you don't understand, you know, blah, blah, blah. I was sitting here trying to defend everybody. So it was a very long, arduous process.

So during this whole conversation where Janeway staring at Chakotay's lips, if you watch Chakotay, he pretty much just only looks at her eyes. eyes only one time does he not look at her eyes and he looks at her hair interesting what is that all about maybe maybe just like he's just noticing that this is hairstyle number seven B you know yeah probably I'm looking at your hair right now what does that mean how do you even see my hair I know know yeah what does that mean what does that mean there's my hair whoa oh my gosh what's going I don't want to. I don't know.

Oh my goodness. And so since you brought up Wildman, my hair, my hair's out of control. I don't know why I did that. Robby, please don't scare the children out there. Just keep that covered.

We stop. Ensign Wildman makes her first appearance here. Nancy Hauer is on the bridge. Now, Nancy Hauer, by the way, had been to Julia. She'd gone to school at Julia.

That's right. You were there, too. Yeah, I was there too. I was a little bit ahead of Nancy. I think I was. I was one year ahead of her, although I left Juilliard in my second year. So I only really, we cross paths at Juilliard briefly for part of a year, I think. But I did stay good friends with my classmates, and I went back and saw their production.

So I would see Nancy and a lot of other Juilliard students that were around my class over those years. And so it was fun to see her come in. I was like, oh, my God, you know, somebody had a face I knew. I didn't know her well, but it was really nice to see her, you know, people like that show up. So, yeah. Yeah. I would say of our recurring people that showed up, whether you're talking about, you know, Lieutenant Carey or Cesska or, you know.

Ensign Wildman, for me, I think I was probably closest with Nancy Hauer. Oh, wow. I don't know. We just develop a friendship. And I think I might have spoke about. this maybe in our first episode, but to this day, the best Janeway impersonation, Nancy Howard. Really? She scared the bejesus out of me. She called as in the voice of Kate and left the message and it was just frantic. It was just like, you know, Garrett, it's Kate. I need to talk to you

immediately. This is a very important, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I cannot, you know, you have to call me as soon as you get this message. And I thought Kate was dying. I was like, what, is she in the hospital? I mean, it was scared the crap out of me. And, and I'm sitting here, like, listening to this voice film message, and I'm going, oh, my God, where's, do I have Kate's, which number do I have? Which, which, where should I call her? And then at the very end of this frantic message, you hear a pause. And then you hear, it's Nancy, bye. Just kidding.

So she is the best. She's very funny. She went on to create a TV show called 10 items or less that ran on Comedy Central maybe, or I can't remember what. Yeah. She wrote and directed, like, I think, a documentary that won some awards. And she did 10 items or less. So she became a producer, basically. Yeah.

Yeah, she's a very talented, very multi-talented, actress, director, writer, comedian. Yeah, Nancy's super talented. And musician. Oh, yeah, she's a band. Yeah. When you had, like, who did she open for? She opened for some big rock. I can't remember.

Well, I don't think you made it to this party, but Brandon had. had a huge, Brendan Braga had a huge blowout party. Okay, he had a huge blowout party at his house with, I'm talking probably a thousand people were there. Wow. There was a lot of people. I couldn't believe how many people were there. But I get there and Nancy's on stage with her band.

She's actually, I think her band was called wench was the name of it, but she was up there rocking out and I'm just so impressive to see your fellow actors doing things that are creative but not acting, right, such as music or, you know, directing, writing. So she's definitely a Jackie of all trades for sure. So really excited to see her in this episode, her introduction. And I did not know that story that you wrote up about Samantha Wildman being Jimmy Diggs, you know, kidney donor, kidney donor, yeah. Organ donor, yeah. Yeah, that's, I, I just discovered that as I was trying to do some quick research on this. But I also want to say that I, you know, in the, in the teaser, you know, Paris is helping Kess bring some vegetables down to Neelix and Neelix is very

jealous. And then Paris pops back over and says, okay, see you later or something. Stay safe or be well. What did you say? I don't know. It's just like, why are they using him as this utility, you know, like player to make Neelix jealous without without protecting parents. Like they didn't do anything that would sort of buy back or protect. And I know there's some episodes coming up where they're gonna address this and all that,

but I just find it to be like, God, it's like when you write a character popping back in and going, hey, I'll see you later, it's flirty. Like there's no other reason and to ignore the boyfriend. Like, it's really, and it's ballsy, and it's just rude, and I don't know, it's more of like that, oh, like, he could have done the same thing and been more relatable if he had acknowledged the fact that Nelix was there too, and Nelix is just overreacting, or if there had been a scene where they addressed it, I don't know, it's just they used them as a utility to get Nelix jealous and then never, like, protected Paris in that, in that version. By the way, they didn't use the doctor to do the same thing.

When Neelix was frustrated with the doctor, it was about doctoring. It wasn't about the fact that Kess had spent hours and weeks with the doctor. Why wasn't Neelix jealous about that? Why wasn't, you know, like why, again, I think that, you know, it just made me frustrated that they sort of leaned into this very shallow

and dangerous quality of Tom Paris without looking at the harm that was doing. And I, and I, immediately in the teaser was like, there'd they go again. So. If I am hearing you correctly, it sounds like you are taking offense to being used as a pawn by the writers. As a pawn that's actually harming, that is digging the hole for, for me as an actor to have to climb back out of eventually. And I know that he does. I know that I do as an actor and the character does.

But it's just like wasted, damaging time that could have not been, they could have not set him up that so, so badly in such a deep hole. Anyway, I'll leave it. So many questions for the writers when we bring a writer on, don't we have? It's going to be more like the inquisition. We're going to be peppering them with all these questions. Where were you the night of the 31st when you wrote this particular scene? Tell us right now.

That's right. Did you make a note that that teaser was a long teaser? Very long. Yes. So wouldn't you say in general that was twice as long in any other teaser that we've had? I have us coming back into Act 1 at 1145. And I make a note of that because there's a little bit of an homage

to the original series theme in the music. If you go back to about 1145, you'll hear, bomb, bum, it's like just a little bit of the original series theme, and then it goes off. But I was like, wait a minute, what is that in the music? I'm kidding. Yeah, I listened to it twice. I think it's there. I heard it at least.

Wow. Coming back into the first act at 1145, that's very long. Usually the teaser's around five minutes. So that means the first act was almost 10 was about 10 minutes or more. Oh, my God. I had no clue. in the scene where Neelix comes into Kess's room and he's found her eating all that stuff

I love when Neelix when he tries to hit his combat did you catch this he misses it he actually hits too high and then he looks down and he hits the right thing and he's like Neelik to the doctor he did so many Ethan Phillips did so many goofy things in us

that sometimes he's hilarious and sometimes I'm just like oh my God I can't believe he did that like he took the lettuce in the teaser. He took the lettuce in the kitchen and he breaks it in half at one point. Yeah. And then he did something

when she walked out where he hit himself in the face with the lettuce. Yeah. And he goes, ow! Ow! Like the lettuce hurt his face? I was like,

oh my God, I can't believe you're trying to get a joke out of lettuce hurting your face. Like that's just too far. Yeah, he was pushing it at that point. So I would have left it with just missing the Com badge.

That makes it. sense. I mean, that's happened to me before. I don't know if that's, has that happened to you before? Were you trying to get your comp badge? You couldn't, whoops, I missed it. Yeah. Yeah. They should just made a larger comb badge, you know, like the size of a frisbee. Then nobody will miss it. It's a big, big button. She says, I just wish you could trust me. And then Neelix responds with, it has nothing to do with trusting you. It's him I don't trust, which is the age old, you know, jealous person's explanation for everything because if you do trust the person you're not going to get you're not going to flip out and become jealous right you're going to trust that person is able to

fend off any advances from that other well this is what this is what i'm saying is like if if neelix if it was about neelix jealous neelix's jealousy then he would have been just as jealous of the doctor he would have been just as jealous as anyone else yeah but what they really were writing was was that there is an actual character defect in Tom Paris that he cannot be trusted around women. And that's a really unlikable quality for them to camera home episode after episode after episode. It's not likable.

I don't know why they continued to play that same note. Okay, I'm gonna play devil's advocate and I'm gonna say right now that I think a lot of the viewers are probably, they can see your, they will be able to see your side of this, but I don't think anybody's going to go like, oh, God, Tom Paris was definitely the most unlikable character on Voyager. I don't think that's going to come out of their mouths. And I think that as human beings, we tend to be so self-critical and much more critical of our own issues than

anybody else watching it. So I want you as a human being to not get too worked about that. And I know you won't, but I'm just saying that people probably looking and going, yeah, I still like Tom, you no, regardless. I thought, by the way, when Neelix discovered the extra bowls in her room, that he was going to go, oh, Paris has been in here having dinner with you. You're hiding. Like, I immediately thought, oh, they're going to do that. That's because you're so touchy about it. I know. I know. I would love to ask Jennifer Raleen if that was her idea to eat the flowers at the end, because that was the best comedic moment in a while that I've seen. It was very funny. Oh, my God, because I don't see Rick Colby telling her to do that. I almost feel like that. It was very

funny her performances she got picked up and whisked out of the room was the best very physical physical comedy and all of that like she committed to it and it was funny i thought she was awesome oh i loved it by the way we skipped over when she ate those bugs in the hydroponics bay yes oh my god i felt like i saw that coming and my spine was already starting to cringe and i saw her hand reach over to that thing of bugs and i think obviously i would assume what they did was they had a thing of bugs. And I do remember they had a bug wrangler. Like when you have animals and dogs and things like that on set, you have a dog trainer or you have a snake handler or whatever. We had a bug handler. We had an animal guy that was doing the bugs. Yeah. Remember that on set. And

Jennifer was very good with those bugs, by the way. I remember when we shot. She wasn't freaked out or anything. Do you think that that was the one that she actually puts in her mouth? That has to, that had to have been a fake bug, right? I mean, the prop, the props department would have come up with the one rubber one or one fake little plastic. I think they got something edible and made it look sort of like a bug. Yeah. You know, and they had her reach over to real bugs in the side shot.

Yeah. And reach into a bowl of real bugs and pick them up. And then they cut to the front shot where she had, you know, fake, I don't know, whatever she had. Probably a prune. A prune probably. Yeah, it could have been something like that and she just ate those. And that's probably how she did it.

When Neelix tastes the mashed potatoes with butter and he's, like, oh, but that's, and we're wondering, maybe his taste buds are different than Kess's, but then we realize Kess has mixed her mashed potatoes with dirt. So that's why he had that reaction. Yep. Dirt mashed potatoes. Mmm, yummy. Yep. Yeah, it was great scene. We come back and Janeway is trying to figure out what to do about these, these swarming alien life forms outside. They can't seem to, they've sort of been, at this point, sucked into the swim. swarm and they don't know how to get out without hurting. You know, Janeway is really, the whole rest of the episode is very concerned with using

the ship's engines to get out. So she doesn't want to go to warp or impulse or anything that might harm these aliens. And I struggled with that because we did come close to them to do some analysis, but they're the ones that sort of brought us in. so part of me is like why like we didn't invade their territory they sort of made this move i just found that her whole janeway's principle of i'm you know we we are the ones that are invading this swarm and and she was willing to risk crew members and all kinds of things yeah on that principle it's a it's a quality that i struggle with as i watch these episodes these rewatches i feel like often like

I felt like Balana was absolutely, she was the first, Balana was the first one to go, this is an aggressive situation. We need to be aggressive. And the captain was like, no. And then eventually even Tuvok says, you know, Balana may be right. Like this is, we're going to have to defend ourselves.

And Janeway just did not want to do anything. So let's talk about the scene with the doctor and Nelix to talk about aggression and de-escalation. So Nelix wants some answers. And he wants the doctor to do something. And they're trying to solve what's going on, why she's eating all this food. And the doctor thinks that there's maybe a vitamin deficiency. And that's why she's the increased electrophoric activity could be the cause of this.

So they're making the first connection to this alien swarm and Kess's behavior. And Nelix is getting more and more escalated. And the doctor finally kicks him out and says, I'm going to call security. Yeah. But there was an escalation. And did the doctor, should the doctor have listened to Nielix? Neelix or did he make the right call getting him out? He made the right call. He deescalated it by kicking him out. But if you watch before what happens, he he escalates with him. And I made a note, this is the first time the doctor yelled at anybody like that. Because like Neelix got louder and louder with each successive plea to the doctor. Like, this is my wife. My sweeting. My sweeting needs help. And then he's not getting the answer he wants. And the doctor then kind of matches. his level. Yeah, it was a very heightened, very escalated scene generally, which you would assume

would then go into fisticuffs, right? But then, of course, if that really did happen, Neelix would swing and miss just like you slapped the doctor in that one episode and completely missed his face, right? So, yes, so the de-escalation happened finally when the doctor just said, just get out. And Neelix didn't accept that. He's like, you can't tell me to do that. He's like, Yes, I can. This is my sickbay. I can tell you. By the way, the word sweeting that he uses, have you ever heard that used in modern? It sounds very old fashioned, almost like from, you know, Shakespearean times or something, which I think, it's cute. Like some old English novel or something. Yeah. It's sweeting to me. I've never heard that before used in modern conversation or vocabulary.

So I just wanted to know if you also knew anything of that. I did not. So Nelix goes on the bridge and tries to tell the captain that, you know, I got kicked out and you need to do something about this. And while he's explaining to the captain, the doctor pipes in and says, you need to get down here. Yeah. So the doctor is there in sick bay. The captain and Nelix go down and they see that Kess has locked herself in the office and has put up a force field and won't let anybody in and they can't talk her down. And her mascara is running and she's sweating and she's climbing around.

She's climbing around on the top of the desk and, yeah, what did you think about that? Well, the first thing I got was a good job by Jennifer Lean and create, as an actress, creating this state of just chaos. But then when the force field has dropped and Janeway goes in and she, it's just such a curious scene because, like, boy, Janeway doesn't know, she has no clue what Kess is going through. What if this is some type of murderous rage that she's going through? And so she just walks right in, opens her arms out, right? And Kess jumps into her arms. And the first thing I noticed after they separate from the embrace is Jennifer Lean leaves this huge makeup stain on Janeway's uniform right there on the shoulder.

And it's just very visible that you can see. It's the same color that's used, her base applied onto her face. That makeup is just smeared. That sweaty makeup choice, the runny mascara. I don't know how it's to put it. I felt like that was a mistake. I've got to be honest. I think Jennifer Lean was doing some great acting and things like that.

But it was so unpleasant and unappealing. You know, it's like making makeup, it's just strained for an alien to have running makeup. The sweating, it just seemed too, I don't know. I would have honestly gone with, oh, when she's going through this process, she gets more glowy like maybe her hair gets musted up and maybe she's shiny but she's not sweating she's not she actually is more like red around the cheeks or something you know more like blushing more blushing or okay i think that would have been a much more it would have been funnier when things were supposed to be funny uh she would have you know i think the storyline of saying like we've got to do

this now we've got to mate i just think all around it would have been a more palatable version of that story, something about her getting so, I don't know, it's interesting because I was thinking, all right, if this happens, you know, once in an O'Compin's lifetime, it happens every five years, and it's this dramatic and this ugly, like, why would this race even be around? Like, who wants to get involved in this? It's just not, whereas it, there should be something about it that when she says to Nelix, like, it's a lot, it's intense, our mating rituals, 50 hours long, I'm going to have to glue myself to you and we're going to have a kid and everything. But it should be, there should be some appeal to it as well. It shouldn't all be.

It just felt like, oh, she's sweating and her makeup's running and she's falling apart. It's like, why is that negative that she's having this beautiful once in a lifetime thing? It's happening early. She could be reacting to it with panic. She could be react. But it should be a beautiful, dramatically wonderful once in a lifetime thing, rather than this, oh my God, I'm eating bugs and I'm sweating and my makeup's running and I'm climbing on tables and I don't know, it's something about that choice of making it so, I guess I would say in the negative rather than the positive. Why couldn't that? And speaking of that, by the way, I just want to say when that giant alien shows up in the swarm and is now fighting for the

attention of all the smaller aliens that think Voyager, the ship, is who they need to mate with they keep referring to this dominant sexual other alien as he why couldn't it have been a she like why yeah why do we fall into certain assumptions and stereotypes like and i'm just going to say it like the crazy you know cess is having her period or whatever and so she looks crazy and she's a mess and she's hyper emotional and why can't she be why can't that be a wonderful thing why do we have to fall into that stereotype yeah that you know that that that that that that that narrative of what you know there's a lot of things that star trek does so well and starts to open up a new narrative about something but then taking on all these other tropes that are so we've seen it so many

times before i feel like it could have been a better version of that cast story could have been a better version of this alien who's a she maybe the dominant female here is a she it would have been a simple change it wouldn't have changed anything else in the story but in the one star trek show that has a female captain would have been an important change, I think. And just to amend what you just said to the modern era, besides being a he or a she, it could have been a they as well. That would have been nice, but this was mid-90s and people didn't know anything. So that's bottom line. They're the best we could at the time. Yes. I'm not so bothered by her being so sweaty. I really didn't think of it the way you thought about it. I mean, thank you for bringing up that view of how

you saw it. I've never thought of it that way. So it's good to see the other flip side of the coin on that. I did think that it was a nice little bit of backstory that we learned a little bit more about Ocampans that and you know the meaning of the word allogium, the title of this episode is a time of change when the body prepares for fertilization. We learned that a mitral sack is where the Ocampon child will grow and it's located on the back. You know, so instead of having a child gestate inside your belly like humans it's on the back and the upper back for Ocampus which was interesting and I thought and when Janeway Janeway kind of rubs it I'm like wait a minute what you don't even know what you know what you

might have killed the sack you know by doing that what are you touching that thing for exactly so by the way I was thinking if they've if this is the only time she's fertile has Cass and Nelix never had sex like have they never consummated in some sexual way their relationship because she hasn't been fertile so they haven't done this they haven't done this this mating ritual whatever that involves but have they done some other version of sexual connection well I'm sure they have I mean they had they had to have some type of sexual connection because like let's just take the example of humans I mean a woman going through there's a certain period in the month where she is the most

fertile and that's when she gets pregnant all the other times she's not going to get pregnant so you know there's times that you have coitus and and a male and a female and and and there is no baby that that that manifests right but other times it's just i guess i guess what i'm getting at is like the reason that sex is enjoyable is it is an incentive for procreation it's an incentive for humans to keep doing it so that we have babies it doesn't hurt it doesn't it's not unpleasant right so the reason that we have sex the reason that's enjoyable the reason we have sex ultimately is to procreate even though we do it for the enjoyment as well i guess that's what i'm saying is like well if you take that factor out of cass that that her mating happens once in a lifetime and it's not enjoyable

It sounds pretty unpleasant from what it looks like. So there's no pleasure incentive for procreating. Then are they just doing something else that's romantic and affectionate? That we wouldn't call sex? Are they just cuddling and that feels good? But I don't know. It was just an interesting thing because I thought, well, procreation is all tied into physical pleasure.

because that is all an incentive for the species to procreate and keep going. Another question for Ken Biller or Jerry Taylor to answer. One of the writers can help us with this. I'm going to go with Neelix and Kess have never had sex. It's just not part of their, it's not part of their relationship. Okay. I'll buy that. I'll buy that. So just foreplay only with Neelixenks andx. I don't even know if that's for play.

I don't know if that is part of having a relationship. You know, there are people who are asexual who don't, for whatever reason, don't participate in physical sex or things like that. Yeah, like you and I. We have a relationship, but I don't participate in physical sex with you, Robbie. There you go. So Neelix and Kess are like you and I. They have a podcast and they wear cool hats. There are two times that my mind started, I don't want to say I was.

my mind was blown, but it's definitely got me thinking that conversation that Janeway has with, I guess it's Chakotay about it being a generational, like she never thought of this as a generation. Me too. I'm totally with you. Yep. And I started thinking, oh my gosh, and Chacote says, like, yeah, we're going to start having, we're going to start to need replacements for the crew in about half of the 70 years that it takes to get back there. In about 30, 35 years, we're going to be Everyone's going to have to have kids. Yes. And I kept thinking, oh my God, that's so nuts. Like, whoever thought of that? It blew, yeah, it was a mind blower. It was definitely a little like what, right? But it blew my mind too. And so much that I thought that's a really important issue that we never deal with again.

Like they brought up this one episode. And there's really, I don't think any other kids on the ship, but there's Naomi Wildman comes around and that's it. Right. That is it. There's no other kid until Olana and Tom have a kid, but by then we're heading home. That's so true. Yeah, we would have been screwed if we had tried to, you know, do this whole trip without people having a significant number of kids or figuring something out or, you know, creating them in test tubes. Like I'm sure they had the ability for in vitro kind of, you know, test tube babies or something

at that point. The other my mind was blown moment was Kess giving us further Ocampin backstory, talking about the epasphor, the apasophore is basically... Sticky hands. Yeah, yeah, when she said, like, we have to remain bonded for six days. And I wrote down six days, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation, exclamation point. Like, can you just imagine literally I loved his, I loved Ethan's reaction too. She's like, he's like, they look at the hands and she says, yeah, we have, we have to stay bonded for six days. And it cuts to him and he's just, oh, it was like the longest, like, flat, you know.

Oh, totally. Oh, it was so funny. It was such a subtle, like, deadpan. Well, you know, if you think about engaging in copulation for a six day straight, where you're not, you know, you're not pulling out for six days. And that's, that's insane to think of that. But that was a mind-blown moment, as well as a generational shift conversation. They talk about whether or not to have children.

Neelix is not ready at this point, and he walks out. And it's really kind of, it's troublesome. Like, what are they going to do? She's only got this one shot at having kids, and it's come, you know, unexpectedly. But what's going to happen? Neelix has a great conversation with Tuvok. I love that pairing. I thought that Tuvok's response is about parenthood.

were beautiful. They were just beautiful. Everything. That scene was written beautifully. I thought they both played it beautifully in the mess hall. Even when Tuvok says, you know, I have knowledge of your situation. And I know that you're struggling to make this decision. Like he was so empathetic.

And Neil said something like, is it, you know, satisfying? And, you know, I don't know, he expects some emotions. And Tuvok was like, well, I don't experience those emotions, but I would imagine that. it's true. And it was just such a beautiful, authentic, simple way of hearing about parenthood, even without all of this sentimental drip drap about it, just from Tuvok's side of things. I thought it was beautiful. I loved that scene. Yeah, I liked it too. And what I wrote down was my question for you, since you are a father of three children yourself. Tuvok, I think, has three

children. I talked about that. And oh, you know what's the same ratio? Tuvac has two boys and one girl. You have two boys and one girl. So when you, and your girl is the oldest, Taylor is the oldest. So did you initially have that conversation with your spouse at the time? Like, should we, is this too early? Should we have kids now? How did that, how did that happen? Did you have any of the struggles that, you know, Nelix and Kess were going through?

Yes. Yes. I mean, you know, if I'm honest, it's not like every single move that I made in my life was well thought out. and well planned. I'll leave it like that, you know. Okay. But the decision to sort of embrace parenthood was definitely talked through. And I think, you know, parenthood's a funny thing.

I feel like in hindsight, people said this to me, like, oh, you'll never feel ready to be a parent. And that's true. Like, I, you know, I didn't feel ready at the time. Looking back on it, was I ready? in some ways yes and in other ways no like I did the best I could just like my parents did the best they could and everybody does the best they could not everybody is drawn to having children for me I definitely was and so the opportunity um just like for neelix and cast like even though

it might have been unexpected you know when opportunities come along and you're like whoa maybe you know this could happen right now it was something I was drawn to so I was very very glad to do it. And it's, and it's, you know, for me, the most proudest thing that I've accomplished in my life is being a parent. For better or worse. For better or worse, as, you know, as much therapy as probably my kids will need and that I've needed in my life to try to figure out the why of it all and how to do better. It is the thing that I am, that is the most meaningful to me. And that's part of when we get to the theme of this episode, I'll share my thoughts about the theme. But it's a, yeah, parenthood is a pretty profound and meaningful story area and

subject to talk about. Yeah. Okay. The relicistin ritual. I'm sure you wrote something down about that too. We're one of one of the Ocampan parents have to massage the feet of their child until their tongue begins to swell. Oh my God. I wish I could talk. to Jerry Taylor or Ken Biller about this, like, who wrote this part, about the tongue beginning to swell. When Neelix gets a little freaked out that, like, he's like, why is the doctor doing this? But he's more, he's more upset because the doctor is a hologram and not, you know, somebody with actual, you know, because he was mad about the doctor, the hologram telling

him to leave sickbay. And now he's mad about the doctor performing relicist and the massaging of the feet, you know. And so there's no. But little does he know that. Doc Zimmerman is in love with Kess and would love Kess to be Kess Zimmerman and the rubbing of the feet was kind of creepy, you know what I'm saying?

I mean, it was like, okay. And in a way, it was like, you should, Nelix, where's your jealousy toward the doctor? I know, that's what I'm saying. I felt that way earlier when he was in, you know, in the earlier scene. Yeah. Yeah, I think that

it's an interesting time as Nelix talks to Tuvok and Kess talks to the doctor about parenthood and just sort of experiencing all of those questions and decisions and and the idea of kind of our biology versus our intellectual choices yeah you know how to how to balance the value of both of those things yeah yeah back on the bridge the crew tries to deal with the situation and and Janeway orders an impulse first but the creature doesn't go away and with the impulse burst trying to get out of there,

the creature starts slapping our ship. And we're starting to get into like a slap fight with the big giant alien that they refer to as he, our sexually dominant rival. Yeah. With all of these tiny little sperm aliens that are flying around. So with this aggressive action,

we come back into Act 5 and now we're having to make this decision, like are we going to be defensive? Are we going to use force? thing is hitting us. Well, we haven't, that's not the decision we're making. We've already used for us. We're like, we're matching aggression with aggression. With aggression, yeah.

Till Chikote says, hey, wait a minute. That's right. We need to do something, we need to do something to make it look like we are more submissive and not aggressive. So he suggests mimicking the smaller, what the smaller little, you know, organisms are doing. And then Kim comes up with, hey, venting plasma residue might make us look blue and then that suggestion combined with tom paris's good piloting skills to roll voyager on its belly on its underside that paris kim team up is what saves the day saves the day saves the show

again another another harry tom saving the voyager again happens every week uh yeah so we do the submissive behavior. We vent the war plasma. We turn blue. There's barely enough power doing this to be able to flip over, but we do flip over on our back and look submissive. And all of a sudden, the sperm aliens start ejecting themselves and detaching and going to hang out with the strong, dominant sexual creature, the large guy. And so we've survived. Right. And this is when two Vox says his immortal line. It appears we have lost our sex appeal, Captain. So that, what a wonderful line of comedy from Tuvok right there.

Yes. Some more sex appeal. Yes, there were some amazing, some amazing lines. Earlier, Chacote said, if the smaller creatures are sexually attracted to our subspace. Are you going to say subspace beacon? I don't know. I wrote down the wrong word in my quote. Then maybe the large one will perceive us as a rival.

I just, I can't believe some of the lines about sex that we're talking about with these aliens that look like sperm and the big, and the big slap fight. It's just too much for me. Yeah. It was very funny. And oh, and then we end on the, on the information that Wildman's pregnant. So, which is, you know, it's a big deal. We end with Wildman coming in and saying she's pregnant, which by the way, makes no sense

because she got pregnant from her husband who was in the Alpha Quadrant. But she's been in the Delta Quadrant, like how long? we're in season two of our show this is still only like a few months though it hasn't been like a year right but she didn't learn that she was pregnant for months like a human person has their period

every 28 day every let's say it's okay but then let's face it women misses women will miss periods and it doesn't mean they're pregnant right I don't know you know what I'm saying like we're literally in season two I know but I think your time is I think you're looking at the time differently

like if this was like a month and a half later after leaving DS9 would that still would you buy it then that she wouldn't maybe but then in a month and a half we've we've we're on I don't know how many episodes 20 some episodes at this point we've done all of those things in a month and a half like literally every other day we're I we would be exhausted by now like if we didn't have some time where nothing happened we're like a couple of weeks went by and we were just flying through space we're like the USR if it's only been a month They're six weeks since we left the Alpha Quadrant. I mean, Captain's hair should be sticking out everywhere.

And we should be walking around like, what's going to happen today? Oh, my God, what's going to happen today? You do remember the U.S. Army commercials. We do more before 6 a.m. than most people do the entire year or something. Well, that's us. We do more in a month and a half than most people do in a decade. Wow. I don't know.

It's just, I found it confusing that we're in season two. And a character walks in the captain's office and says, Hey, my husband back home, I guess we got pregnant before we left. What? We're two years into this show. You're equating season two with the second year, but it's not the second year, Robbie. But you know what I'm saying. I do know what you're saying.

It's the perception. I know that logically we can go through the timeline and go, sure, we've been watching this show for a year and a half, but only, you know, 34 days have gone by. what and if that's true then we should be addressing that that like wow every you know this is like we've only been in space 34 days and all this has happened we're not going to survive seven years like there's no way anyway you get my point okay what's your underlying meaning it's the question of what is the most what is the most important driving point you know driving quality in our lives is it our biological urges, or is it our intellectual will and priorities that we choose?

Biology or choice, you know, nature, nurture. Okay. What about you? Well, I have a couple. Oh, boy. Yeah. It starts with the issue of trust. Yes.

Between Cass and Nelix and Nelix's, you know, comment of, it has nothing to do with trusting you. It's him I don't trust. And so, yes, it has everything to do. do with trusting the other person. So trust is key. You can't, you cannot put that argument, you can't make that that, that argument that, that, that, no, no, it's his fault. I'm not worried about you. It's about him. He's the, he's the dastardly dude who's going to come here and move in on my gal, you know. No, I mean, that's, that's the problem with, with most relationships and the trust issue is that you do have to trust the other person is going to be able to

handle themselves if it turns out to be that the other person is making overtures towards your significant other, right? You have to have that trust. Otherwise, you're going to be living in this crazy state of like, you know, always looking behind your shoulder every second and you just can't live like that, right? Because if someone's going to want to be with somebody else, they're going to go be with somebody else. It doesn't matter, you know, that's just the way it's going it be. So really, I saw that as one of the themes is just trying to, trying to not eradicate, but just control the jealous, green-eyed monster, you know, that is known as jealousy. And part of it, most of it comes from, you have to be 150% aboard on the notion of trust, which is you have to

trust that person unconditionally, unconditional, right? And doesn't matter who else is involved in that situation. It's just you and the other person. My other underlying theme was it had to do more with what happened between the crew or Janeway and the crew and the aliens. Like, you know, so many times people feel like, okay, you know, we must answer this one aggressive move or what we perceive as an aggressive move towards us. We must answer that. with aggression and that is the only way that we will survive and in this case no I mean to take to be passive was the way that we got out of this situation we didn't lose any respect for doing that we didn't lose any lives and none of the none of the alien organisms were killed in the

process you know we it was a peaceful resolution so really I think the underlying messages is messages to as human beings we must constantly search for a peaceful resolution, you know? And then if you take the path that you don't typically take, sometimes the results are amazing. And I'm going to quickly tell you guys about a story when I was on a flight and the flight attendant sat there and I asked her for another, she gave me one ice cube.

I said, could I have a couple more ice? Can I have some more ice? And she looks at me, she goes, do you know how short this flight is? I don't have time to give you any more ice. And I sat there for the next five minutes with a cart. The beverage cart was right next to me with the little ice section where I could have easily scooped up more ice for myself. But I didn't. I just sat there just simmering and just

angry. And I waited until we landed. And the flight was between Vegas and L.A. So it's a 42-minute flight. I get it. It's quick. But she barked at me and I was ready to kind of dress her down. So I waited until everybody got off the flight. And I was the last one on. And I walked up to her. she saw me and I saw her digger heels in I mean she was ready she was ready to just you know just like balana Torres she was ready to go pound for pound and I sat there and I was ready to just dig into her but the last second I changed because I sat there and I said ma'am you know I just what happened earlier over the ice me asking for ice and you telling me no and you know here I am trying to develop you know a relationship with this airlines and get a higher status I've been

flying exclusively on you guys and then I looked at her and I said let me ask you one question and I said to her what is happening right now in your life to cause you to treat a passenger such as myself with that type of disrespect is what I said like is there something going on that I don't know about and she was just waiting for me to call her all types of names and say you this you that how dare you don't you know who I am I didn't I just asked her that one one question. And it just took her off. I mean, literally, it completely, it shocked her. And she looked at me and she was like, and then all this emotion came out of her. She said, I just got, I just got kicked out of my apartment. My mother has cancer. All this stuff came out and she started

crying. And then at the end of it, I just hugged her and I said, listen, you know, we all have problems. We all have problems outside of our job. Try not to take it out on any other passengers this week is what I said. And I hugged her and I walked off the plane. So that was it. I think we covered a lot more territory than I ever expected. We went on tangents. We did. We apologized. We went on a bunch of tangents.

But thank you guys for listening in. Tune in next week when we will be reviewing non-sequitur. Thanks for tuning in, guys. Thanks, guys. See you next week. See you next week.