The Delta Flyers - Emissary

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

The Delta Flyers is a weekly podcast hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell & Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This week’s episode is Emissary.Emissary: When the troubled Commander Sisko takes command of a surrendered space station, he learns that it borders a unique stable wormhole.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Executive ProducersStephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Janet K Harlow, Brian Barrow, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Vikki Williams, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Lisa Robinson, Alex Mednis, James H. Morrow, Roxane Ray, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Matt Norris, & Izzy JafferOur amazing Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Luz R., Chris Knapp, Dannielle Kaminski, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Mary Jac Greer, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Jenna Appleton, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Mary Burch, Sandra Stengel, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, Christopher Arzeberger, Tae Phoenix, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Steven Lugo, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Mars DeVore, Stephanie Lee, & David SmithAnd our amazing Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Equus ferus - Wild Horse Photography, Trip Lives, Ann Marie Segal, Samantha Weddle, Chloe E, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Fillmon, Chad Awkerman, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Cindy Ring, Alicia Kulp, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Samantha Hunter, Jamason Isenburg, Ashley Stokey, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Jennifer Jelf, Louise Storer, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Aaron Ogitis, Ryan Benoit, Rachel Shapiro, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Tim Neumark, Will Forg, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Akash Patel, Linda Daireaux, Jennifer Vaughn, Cameron Wilkins, Ken McCleskey, Walkerius Logos, PJ Pick, Preston Meyer, Lisa Hill, Benjamin Bulfer, Stacy Davis, Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cook-Feltz, Karen Galleski, Pamela Miller, & Rik MoranThank 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

Welcome to the Delta Flyers as we journey through the wormhole. Your hosts along this journey are my fellow esteemed Star Trek actors, Terry Farrell, Armin Sherman, Robbie McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong. To receive the complete version of this podcast, please go to patreon.com. forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron. Welcome to our newest co-host, Armin and Terry. Hello. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. I have goosebumps. I'm so excited. Yeah. We're launching. I can't believe it. We are launching.

And not only are we launching this new chapter, but the Delta Flyers is a podcast. I want to say this right at front. We paused because of the strike. Now that the SAG After Strike is over, we are, for the first time, an official SAG After After podcast. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

I'm so excited about that. Yeah, it's going to be a great journey. We've already watched the pilot episode that we're going to talk about today. Wow. It's going to be so many things happened in that pilot relationships. you know, the stakes of what's going on. Setting the story. Setting the story.

Setting the story, yeah. Introducing the characters. All right. First order of business is to wish people happy birthday. That's one of our new segments. So, Robby, who do you have? For our Patreon subscribers, one of the perks is birthdays on this podcast. So our first one is Sandra Stengold on December 4th.

birthday. Happy birthday. Yes. Happy birthday. And Maria Roselle, December 6th, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, Maria. And we also have to say happy birthday to Terry because Terry's birthday was yesterday. So happy birthday to Terry. Thank you.

Happy birthday, Terry. Okay. We also want to welcome all of our prophets that have signed up. Thank you for signing up. Robbie, who do you have? Our profits for this new chapter in our podcast. includes Stephanie Baker, Jason Oaken, Marie Bergoin, Chris Hansen, Janet Harlow, Brian Burrow, Heidi McClellan, Rich Gross, Mike Gou, Terrapollin, Vicki Williams, and Holly Smith.

Who are our other prophets, Garrett? We have AJC, Nicholas Russell, Lisa Robinson, Alex Medniss, James Morrow, Roxanne Ray, Andrew Duncan, for us a meta Jonathan Brooks Gemma Lader and Matt Norris congratulations all of you on BIAs

thank you guys for your support of the podcast and our Patreon supporters we thank all of you and we watch the pilot episode

we're excited to talk about it we're going to take a quick break for a moment with a sponsor and we'll be right back

with our recap and discussion of emissary if you want to go even deeper into Voyager and or Deep Space 9

check us out at Patreon We have tiers ranging from $3 to $260 a month, fun perks, including all bonus segments, like our ratings of the episodes, winner and loser picks for the episodes, our ideas for a missing scene for each episode, and answering Patreon member submitted questions. You can watch the video version of the podcast and see reaction clips from the host as they watch and react to the episodes in real time. Plus, you can participate in Patreon polls for the bonus segments.

We have guest interviews, monthly blooper reels, birthday shoutouts on the podcast. You can even get autographs and cool swag mailed right to you. Plus, we have monthly Zooms where you can join us and Armin or Terry for relaxed discussion and Q&A. Go to www.com forward slash the Delta Flyers forward slash membership to check out what we have to offer and pick a tier. right everyone we are back now what we used to do is we would introduce each episode robbie and i would introduce each episode with a poetry synopsis we're going to continue that tradition so robbie why don't you take it away with your limerick for emissary part one and yes my limerick i was blown away by this episode uh to me this episode was very much a cisco story it really centered around that was the heartbeat of

this episode. So my poem, my limerick, is going to honor Cisco this time. Here we go. There's a tragedy at Wolf 359 that leaves Cisco quite far from fine. Now he's commander of the station. It won't be a vacation. The new Star Trek series is officially online. Ooh. Lovely. Yes. Thank you. There's my first DS9 limerick. There you go. Now, we have told both Armin and Terry, if they want to contribute and throw in a haiku or limerick for any of these episodes upcoming, they are more than welcome to do that. My haiku for emissary, part one and two. Ben, haunted by past, he must help unite Bayjor. It's not linear.

Wow. That's a linear. It's three syllables, right? Linear. It's three syllables. Linear. Okay. It fits. Thanks. Okay. I am not a talented writer, but I thought I want to be part of the team.

You came up with something. Oh, my gosh. Go, go. And I want to go before Armand because he's very talented. Cisco is stuck in a rut. His trauma, it is in his gut. Giving lessons in linear time, beings give him the key to his mind. And now his personal mission is clear.

Commander Sisko is action in high gear. Oh, wow. Nice. Bravo. That is beautiful. All right. That's wonderful. I'm so excited.

You're doing poetry. I did not expect this. Okay. Yay. So I am not going to compete with all you poets. I'm a novelist. I'm not a poet. So what I want to do from now until the end of this is to actually find a word and define it, usually a word in the title.

So obviously the title of this episode is called emissary. This from the Oxford English Dictionary, emissary, a person sent on a special mission, especially to gain information or promote a cause, which I think is a perfect. title for this particular episode yeah that's etymology right the study of language and words yes interesting i love that you're our resident entomologist entomologist i think an entomologist is someone used for bugs i could be wrong i could no you're not i don't even know what entomologist don't put ento it's etymologist see yes that's why we need armin here to make keep us on track If it's arcane words, I know them. If it's arcane words, I know them.

Okay, so emissary was written by Michael Pillar, story by Michael Pillar and Rick Berman, directed by David Carson. Any thoughts on the writers and director before we get into the episode itself that you guys have? The Terry go first, and then I have some thoughts. Yeah. Terry.

I was shotgun hired, so I think it's probably to hear from Armand first because I came in to the, yeah. Did you audition for David Carson, the director? Do you remember any feedback or anything in your audition process with the director? I just, I remember Rick Berman pretty much talking when I was auditioning. So I really think that David Carson, I don't remember meeting. I mean, might have been there. But my guess is he was probably on the set working while I was.

having my audition. Oh, I see. I could be wrong. So it was a table full of people and a bunch of suits, right? But I only remember Berman talking to me. Yeah. How many auditions did you have for DS9? A bazillion. Oh, like me. I'll at the end. No, it felt like a bazillion. They wouldn't see me for a really long time through the summer. And so in August, they still hadn't found Dax. And so they had me come in. And I did test twice. I didn't have to, but it was like I tested one week and one gal didn't show up and I had tested against or with her against her um on several several other projects so I was not going to um you know leave that up to fate I had to yeah I felt like I had to still show up and have my face wow so they said to you we're going to test with a girl that wasn't

there uh you're welcome to come back and be there you don't have to come back and in fact with sag you you really it's it's not supposed to they can't ask you to but I've I've I've I've volunteered to yeah there's certain things that it's undue stress that they can't put us under were you the last person cast in the yes you were okay and arman do you know the order of who was first second in terms of i know who was first yeah who would i was oh wow okay i was first um and i do we have time for this i was first because uh burman told me after i auditioned for the last time for the suits, Berman said to me, we wrote the part for you. So they knew they were going to use me. Wow. So I was first. Who was second, third, fourth? I don't know. But I know Terry

was the last. And there is a line in the episode that I kind of love because it refers, I think, to Terry, or at least Dax not being cast yet, which is... Oh, that's funny. The Cisco says, any news on our science officer yet? You know what's funny? When I heard that line, I was wondering, was that ironic? Because I knew that she got cast late. That's funny. A little of both.

A little of like, I mean, we started. We didn't have a DAX. It was true. Terry wasn't part of the cast at the first day. She certainly became part of the cast immediately after and was, If I may say so, the best part of the cast. Oh. I love.

So the true line should have been any word from our casting director about our science officer? It should have been the actual line. That was the original line. That was the original line, but it was too long, so they cut it. It was too long. It was too long. I heard something about, just to finish some casting memories and rumors, I heard something that about that Avery,

wasn't going to come in for for ds9 and that david livingston's the one that said send him the script he was in new mexico or somewhere make sure avery gets the script send it to his house directly from us like david livingston really thought that was the right fit did you hear any of that i don't i don't know any of that uh i do know another story tangential to that uh whether it's true or not i don't know so it may be apocryphal there was they had some discussion about about another actor for the role. Avery was perfect for the role, so we're very glad it turned out the way it did.

Yeah. But the other choice may have been James Earl Jones. Wow. Oh, goodness. That's interesting. Wow. Oh, he feels like a warm hug, though, doesn't he? Yeah.

Very, I don't know. Both very skilled and strong personalities, but very different tonally, you know. Yeah, for sure. Now I'm just starting, now through my head just running every prominent African-American actor. Denzel Washington as Cisco. I'm just going through all these things, but...

That'd be way too expensive. James Jones. My goodness. James or Jones. Wow. Wow. Very cool. Any other thoughts about our directors and writers, Michael Pillar or...

But David Carson was very gentle director, very kind. He had all the shots worked out in his head. He approached us all with a very gentle touch. I'm sorry we didn't have more episodes where David directed. What people may not know is the original, I don't know if it applies to syndication. It does apply to prime time,

and Robbie may know better than I, that the original director of a show gets residuals for all the episodes because he sets the tone, he sets the look, or she sets the look and therefore is entitled to residuals from the DGA of so David got residuals for seven years from us yeah wow yeah it's it's a it's a modest amount I don't want to overplay that that royalty that gets paid out to pilot directors but it adds up over time you're absolutely right David it's like being a guest star if you do enough guest stars eventually it starts to feel like

starts adding good income yeah yeah yeah yeah so David Carson got paid a modest amount, but every time an episode was produced, David Carson received a royalty. Yeah, for that, so being a pilot. And Michael, you can tell Michael Pillar wrote this episode because there's a lot of it about baseball. I know, I know. And there wasn't a greater fan of baseball than Michael Pillar.

I remember seeing him when he had a collection of antique baseball cards that were just gobsmackingly wonderful to look at. So I smile every time I hear the speech about Cisco talking about baseball because that's straight from Michael Pillar's lips. Absolutely. Yeah, I went to a couple Dodger games with Michael Pillar. He had season tickets. He always wore that Dodger cap.

I don't know if you remember. He always had a good doctor cap on. 100%. Yeah. And he was real philosophical about baseball. You're right. So that that love of baseball fits right into this pilot episode. beautiful. Before we jump into everything, I have a question for our DS9 actors. Now, in pronunciation

of words, one of the things that drives me nuts is that when people pronounce the capital of China, they mispronounce it. 99% say Beijing, they josh it up, but it's actually Beijing. It's just straight J. There's no ZH sound, but everyone goes Beijing. But in this episode, some people say Bejor, and some say Bejor. So there's a juh, and a an an Anandja in this episode. For instance, Patrick Stewart says Bejor. So he just is just a J. And other people I've heard say Bejor.

Bejor. What is it? Which one is the proper pronunciation? I would say Bejure. Me too. I would say that. And there's a third pronunciation, if I may, which is Patrick Stewart who says Bejor. Bejor, excuse me.

Wow. Interesting. Okay. So Bayjor, Bejor, and Bejure. And you say Bejure. Bejure. So there's a show there. And listen to Sid pronounce my character's name.

He never says quark. He says quark, quark. See, that's the other, that is the other name, Armin, because in there, there's, it's quark with an A. And also, I think I hear sometimes quark, like more of an O sounding. How do you pronounce the proper pronunciation of your character? Paycheck. Nice. Yes.

Exactly. I don't care how you pronounce it. Just crazy. Okay. Quark, quark, quark. Okay. All right. All right.

Let's start right. So we begin. The opening scene, the opening shot is basically a scroll, a Star Wars-like scroll of words, talking about Borg Picard leading the Borg attack at Starfleet Wolf 359. And that is exactly how the Voyager pilot began, too. We also had a scroll of words. And it's, I don't know, maybe that's a theme. I don't know.

No, wait, uh-uh. We can't just pass by this. I can't stand that it copies Star Wars. Well, it's a little different, though. I have the same feeling. Star Wars is tilted at an angle going away from you. This is going straight up. So there's a tiny difference.

Okay. It felt a little derivative. I wonder if the pilot of TNG, what was the title of that? Farpoint? Encounter at Farpoint. Encounter at Farpoint. Did they have a scrolling title? I don't know.

I don't put that out to the fans. I don't think. But I wonder if if it, you know, because they did it on ours. They did it on yours too. Yeah. So I wonder if that was a thing. That was a thing. Yeah, a thing with the pilots of these, that generation of Star Trek shows.

I don't know. Well, I do remember when I auditioned, they said that deep space would be the dark Star Trek and that we would be the Star Trek. and that we would be the Star Wars of Star Trek's to think of it that way. Because of the promenade and quarks being like the bar at in the first Star Wars that we all saw. Yeah. Because, you know, you saw the aliens and how they lived their lives. And it's more all of us matriculated together.

Interesting. Yeah. And we see that. Well, we haven't gotten there yet. So I'll be quiet. Wait, Terry. Wait. There's so much more to go.

All right. So after that scroll. Oh, we do have a view screen shot of Borg, Bacard, ordering Starfleet ships to disarm their weapons and escort the Borg to sector 001 or be destroyed. Then we have a tight shot on Cisco. And then we see the captain of the Starfleet vessel is a Vulcan who just happens to be somebody very familiar to all of us. G. Herzler. My goodness. And you know what's interesting?

I thought that maybe Cisco was not on the same ship, but they're on the same ship because it almost seems like they're co-captaining to me. I was like, wait, who's the real captain here in a way, right? I think J.G. is the captain. Yes. And I may be wrong, but I think Cisco is supposed to be number one. So he's the FO. He's the first officer. Okay.

Yeah. All right. Well, Cisco does give the order to move into position after J.G. says load torpedo bays and ready phasers. And they, you know, they engage in this massive battle. We have this awesome cool exterior shot of battle in space. which, Robbie in our prior discussion, this is really good. I loved it. Gosh.

I love this whole opening from here until, spoiler alert, until everything explodes. I thought it was action-packed. And I was very impressed with all the shaking. The camera was shaking. You guys, everybody in the scenes were shaking beautifully. And this is pre-CGI, all that exterior shots, right? You know, all the exterior shots were models. So the camera movement around any ships or anything happening had to be practical model work.

I was very impressed with it. I thought it was great. Yeah. You guys, your thoughts on the visual effects, Armin and Terry? Very impressive. A great way to start the show and get people hooked into watching. Yeah. Especially, I think, a note to make about when we're watching this show again is that in that

time we tried to do everything or the production did everything they could to be as technologically advanced as they could be. And so there are things that we have to kind of not be quite so hard on as we're watching it because we don't have the advantage of doing everything by computer. You know, there are a couple things in this that we do by computer and they were very expensive at that particular time. Yeah. 30 years ago. Yeah. And you were shooting on film, you know, like us. Yes. On Voyager. You were shooting on 30. 5 millimeter film, it wasn't digital, wasn't HD, there were no computer, CG ways to deal with things.

So, yeah, it was very impressive. No shortcuts. Yes, it does not go well for any of the Starfleet ships. They're just simply outmatched. And during all the explosions and mayhem, I'm pretty sure I saw Dennis Madelone fly through the air because it doesn't matter what alien garb Dennis Mal, what alien Dennis happens to be, I always know by his physicality. that's Dennis Danger Matelone right there.

And am I correct to say that he was the stunt coordinator for both DS9 and Voyager concurrently at the same time? Probably was. He certainly was for Deep Space Nine. Yes, yes. And the ship that Cisco is on sustains critical damage, War Corbulus containment within five minutes. Vulcan JG is dead.

Cisco gives the command to evacuate the civilians to escape pods. He's struggling through these corridors. And there is a constant handheld, shaky camera work, courtesy of Marvin. rush our DP who is your DP in the beginning and we just we see the mayhem he finds his wife he finds Jake pinned under some wreckage pulls him out he finds his wife also under some fallen beams but after being scanned by the boleian commander we find out that she's already passed away Sisko doesn't want to leave she was yeah she's under she's underneath all this this rubble and I made it note she looks great she's very glamour she like he's stunning no blood

She's stunning. She is. It's like a glamour shot. It is. Like you know what? Like sleeping beauty, right? Like sleeping freaking beauty. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, maybe that's why Cisco didn't believe she was dead. She's like, no, she looks too good. Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy.

But yeah, everything else was like a disaster. Like the biggest action movie I've ever seen. Right. And then you cut to her and she's like glowing. She's like a blue. Not even. Not even dirt.

No, like, there isn't even a smudge on her face, right? Okay. Not a triple blood, no. He's pulled away by his Bolian commander and they end up in an escape pod with Cisco's there, Jake's there, some others. And there's a really super cool shot of when the escape pot is launched from the vessel. I love that shot. It's just so, they're out, they're gone.

And of course, at that point, all the shaking stops, right? is there now on a vessel that's not being destroyed. I did notice, by the way, when Cisco is calling for help to the Bolian, yes. The way that he said, he's got this line where he says, help. No, no, no, he goes, Robbie, he goes, help me. He extends the me. And this is, yes, this is the beginning.

Yes. Because that is like, he's just gutted. Yeah, he's gutted. But his line delivery is so different. It's so unconventional. That is the first time that you hear something. Whoa, that's not what I expected. So that's already something.

Welcome to your introduction to Avery Brooks. I know that's what I'm saying. That was the first line. I just want to make sure we comment on that because it caught my attention, the way he called for the help. Yes. And it felt like jazz. We've talked about this.

Very jazzing off the air. But Avery is kind of unconventional. conventional approach to you know the delivery in this language he has a conventional approach to the he does he thinks you're absolutely right he's a jazz musician and he thinks in jazz patterns and his stream of consciousness is is the most unique one i have ever encountered yeah wow it's poetic it's poetic there's just such an authenticity to how he is gutted and that is how it comes out vocally. It's not anything he would have planned. It's just so, and as we're talking about the jazz, every moment is so authentically real and happening for him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that I just,

that caught my attention. So anyway, back on the, we're on the escape pod. Yeah. So after their shot out, there is that shot on Cisco staring out the window. And Cisco, the look on his face to me looks like 110% anger in a way I would have liked to have seen 60% shock 30% grief with a dash of 10% anger but to me it kind of read as just he's just pissed and I I was a little taken back by that I don't know what anyone else thinks on that though I thought I thought the shock and the and the anger at the Borg killing his wife made sense to me I wish he had hugged his son that was the thing that I missed in a moment if he was holding yes he was just holding his son really tight yeah It would have tied into the theme better to me, but otherwise, I thought that whole opening up until here was great.

Yeah. All right. Cool. We jump forward in time. Three years later, we see an older Jake sitting on a dock fishing. And Ben finds him, and he asks how the fishing is going. And I love how. And this is Sirok.

This is our first shot of Surrog. But let's just say, the casting of Sorok, he does look like Jennifer. But I do love how Jake responded to his dad because he almost gave a. Cisco Avery-like dialogue. His very first dialogue, he responds after Ben says, how's the fishing going? He says, small fries, threw him back, want to go for a swim? So it was very jazzy to me.

And I thought, wow, that's interesting. But Jake's not happy about living on a space station. And Cisco tries to allay his fears. They walk out of the holodeck. We realize it's a holodeck. They walk out arm in arm. And they walk to a window where we have a nice clear view of the Deep Space Nine station for the very first time.

With the music swelling up. The theme, the first time appearing in the episode, the theme music appears with that shot. Yes, with that shot. And then it segues into the actual opening sequence, correct? I love your theme music, by the way. This is the first time I watched your entire opening credits. I had it turned up loud.

Yeah. It's epic. It's royal. There's something regal. It's majestic. And it's inspiring, is the other thing. Yes, inspiring. I have told fans for many, many years.

I said, I love Voyager's theme music, but Deep Space 9 to me is just as good. It's amazing. And DS9 and Voyager are the two best. And TNG sounds like a high school marching band, is what I always say. That's my little knock on them. You know, they were the ones to get it all started. They were the ones. Oh, but they got, okay, Enterprise's their theme music is even worse.

Wait, wait, wait, wait. Armand started on NextGen 2. On TNG? That's true. Don't forget. Yeah, no. That's true. I get that.

I get that. But our music is way better. Yeah, come on. You know where my true alliance is. So, yes, I started there. I do. And that's another program altogether. But, yes, I started there.

And as I said earlier, because I started there, they wrote the part of Quark for me. Yeah. I love that. All right. After the wonderful intro music, we have an exterior shot showing the station, as well as the enterprise docked at DSS. 9. There's a station log from Commander Sisko explaining that the Bajoran provisional government has requested a federation presence after the withdrawal of the Cardassian occupational forces.

And it's a nice shot because you notice the scale of how big the station is in relation to enterprise being docked there. You understand how big the station is. It's enormous. It's massive. We have a shot of Cisco with. Jake tagging along, being debriefed by O'Brien. When we first come in, this is the first time I see those doors. Oh, the doors. The Cardassian door opening up like that. Portals.

The portals. The portals. How was that working? Because I'm so used to, we had the doors that just did this. It's like a gear of a machine is what it is, right? Isn't that what it is, guys? It's just. Yeah.

And like the doors on your show, they're operated the same way. It's two crew guys on the side pulling, you know. pulling strings strings um did you ever have trouble with those they seemed like they were i don't i don't ever remember my character did terry probably did but my character rarely went through the i mean i hardly ever left station so i i have i have memories of going through open doors right but not having them open for you wow terry what about you did the doors ever bounce or do weird things and you had to go again no it was me i was me i was step on the threshold and hit my head i have i swear i still have a bump on my head from those doors and it

invariably some crew member as soon as i would hit my head would go watch your head thanks thanks a lot for that yeah you know i never had that problem terry i don't know why i don't know why yeah the doors yeah what why even if i had terry i would never have felt it so it's okay no because you're It's on the rubber. I was with you. I was with you. That first shot of the doors opening to me, I felt like those doors were probably challenging for actors,

for the crew to get through sometimes, those round portal, if they're carrying a camera, a steady cam shot or something, I bet that was a challenge, an ongoing challenge. Yeah. Still a cool looking door regardless.

Such a cool looking door. Right. All right. And O'Brien, O'Brien is in this scene, right? Yeah, he is. Well, Brian, I didn't realize he did 52 episodes of TNG. Yeah.

He did a lot of episodes. I mean, basically, he's being dropped off. This is his, he leaves enterprise. He leaves TNG and he, and the baton is passed to DS9, basically. That's what's happening. So they walk through the rubble and the damage in the promenade. And the Kardashians have basically have decided to trash the place as they were leaving. And it's interesting because in my world of like looking at real estate properties in Los Angeles,

Every now and then you'll see a property which the person defaulted on his loan and because they're mad, they, oh my gosh, like they mess everything up inside the house. Oh, classic. It's just angry. And that's what the Kardashians did. But we do. I'm going to stop you right there to add something. I think one of the things I like about it thematically about the trashed set is that for the original Star Trek, for tng the ships everything was always immaculate everything was perfect there was no dust uh you know

yes when they got attacked there was flares of things but everything else was perfect it's like a cleaning crew came in a moment before they turned the camera on yeah but i i think as as terry said earlier we were going to be the dark show and and everything is at sixes and sevens on this on this ship And that's the big sort of an indication to the audience. This is going to be a different Star Trek. This is going to be a radically different where things are not in place, where things don't go together well, where things have to be massaged to get them to work. Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right.

Thematically, it's it's right on point, especially. And also with Cisco's internal life. I mean, his life has been destroyed. It's in a mess itself, right? Yeah. I agree. Yeah, I agree. It's great.

As they're walking through the promenade, we do get our first glimpse of Quark and other Frangy packing up the belongings of their business. And as they walk on, a Bajoran elder sort of approaches Cisco to welcome him and asks him to enter since the prophets await him. Well, Ben looks at him strangely and says, well, no, maybe another time. So he declines and walks away. The classic hero's journey move. It's like, hey, hey, your adventure calls.

I'm not ready. I'm not ready. Yes, yes. And Robbie does talk a lot about the, who's the author that does the. Joseph Campbell's journey kind of work. I love, I love the models of that and just the archetypes in there. Right. Yeah, the monk that comes by, by the way, do we know him?

When Cisco passes, when Cisco rejects him, yeah, the monk gives him a really creepy, ominous look. He does. Yes. And aren't you, it's like, oh, good, don't follow him. Yes, he's scared me. Like he's planning to mug Cisco, right? Follow me around this corner as my friends beat you up and we take your money. Okay.

Ben Jake and Miles enter Cisco's quarters. It is also a complete mess. Jake complains about the lack of betting and the broken food replicator. But I love this little segment here. Ben takes Jake aside and he says, we're going to have to rough it until we get things up and running, okay? And then little Jake goes, okay. And then Cisco goes, okay. He mocks him right there.

And again, I think that's an Avery Brooksism right there. I don't think that was even into that. I think that would that have been in the script? Oh, too long ago to remember. Yeah. But I, Terry worked more with Avery than I did. But that seems so unlike Avery to do something like that. To do an ad lib, you mean?

Okay. Not an ad lib, but to do a child. a child's voice and to mock that that seemed very unusual to me but as i said terry spent more time with him than i do well no i agree with you that feels very um i remember that hit me like my childhood like oh yeah and and it's such a way of shaming and i don't think of avery as being that kind of parent and and that kind of friend i mean because he's yeah he kind of felt mentorish to me on a and on a parental level because he's enough older than me so but I don't think he would I mean he would kind of like you know but he wouldn't he would mock his son's

way of saying that so did I mean you guys have the script sorry Robbie you guys have the script still right the first script I'm just wondering at some point oh you don't do you have your first script a pilot script I might have it but certainly I haven't seen it in 30 years oh my goodness Well, let me ask you this, though. Let me ask you this. Did they allow, did Avery or anyone, were you allowed to add lines? We were so tight. You know, you could not say.

We couldn't say anything different. If or the or, uh, or anything. It had to be everything scripted. What? What did Judy Brown used to say? DLP. DLP. What does that mean?

Dead letter perfect. DLP. Lovie. I love that. So that's another reason. Judy Brown. Judy's awesome. Not to think that he would have ad-libbed it because not that he's not that kind of actor.

Yeah. Right? Because he is. It just wouldn't allow it. It's just not the set we were on. Yeah. Okay. All right.

There had been problems with ad-libs, as I understand it, from next generation. And Berman just didn't want to have those problems over again. Oh, so it was the TNG guys that ruined it for all of us then. Thanks TNG. guys. There's so much we can attribute to TNG. Oh, yes. And Armin, you've shared that with us as well. Well, that's why there's no DS9 movie or probably avoid your movie. All right. So Ben and Miles then walk into, do you guys call that the control center? What do you guys call that? Is that operations? Is that what that? Yes. Okay. So they walk into the operations area, which is in complete shambles as well. Cisco eventually walks into this side office to meet Major Kira, who is on a heated call with

a Bajoran leader on the Bayjor planet surface. She is in a bad mood. Cisco asked what's bothering her. You can tell she's in the bad mood because her hair is got off. She does always, it's always about the hair on Star Trek. Who gave her that hair to? Sorry.

I don't know. It wasn't as bad. It wasn't as big or bad or fluffy or whatever through the whole episode. But in this particular scene, it was extra. It's like she was going out. It didn't look like her. at all. It looked like I'm dressed up to go out for dinner. But it also looked like the hair started to go one way with the hair, and then they changed their mind and the other part

of her hair changed to a different hairstyle. Like, there's multiple hairstyles going on in the same head of hair. But she's in a horrible mood. Sisko asks what's bothering her. She doesn't, she doesn't believe that the Federation even belongs there. She doesn't want the Federation there. And she continues her ramp. Which again, is indicative of that theme that I mentioned before, that this is not your your daddy's uh star trek this is she's off she's saying i don't want the federation here which you never hear on star trek exactly no yeah and it already begins in that state of like uh of tension and drama to begin with right off the bat she continues this rant with cisco trying to smooth things out and they are interrupted by an alert and she contacts odo about a break in a 14

he doesn't read it because his security array has been down for a couple of hours but he'll meet her there. And Ben follows, even though she says, you don't need to come along. He still tags along and follows after her. I personally, the minute this, you know, we see Nana for the first time, Robbie, I thought, Balana Torres, ta-da. It was very much like Roxanne's character of just defiant and just, you know, ready to duel, I felt very much. Essence of Torres. It's a tribute. It's a tribute to Michael Pillar, and Nanah said this often. It's a tribute to Michael Pillar that they created he created with with the studios okay a very powerful woman figure there as as Nana said often when she first read the script she thought it was a man

she didn't think it was a woman um but michael was trying to make a point and michael was a feminist michael wanted to make a point that that women could be as powerful as man and we had not seen that a lot on American TV up until this point. So he was creating a character that would be a role model for many women to come. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting, too, the Bajorans, I did a little, went down a rabbit hole about Bajorans, because I was like, where did this whole Bajoran-Cardassian war and everything,

the history of that, where did that start? And it started on TNG in the fifth season. Okay. introduced the pejorans and originally i i read the concept was that the bejurans were at a in uh in a war with the romulans that was the original concept okay and burman was just like ah romulans we've seen a lot of robin let's use the cardassian let's do that so it's it's just yeah it's very interesting the history of of how that came into the canon of star trek and the the thejoran history and this this very spiritual alien species that had religion was so deeply embedded in them that was not something

that had been explored before too so to see the evolution on your show with her character and the whole the whole story how it's really at the heart of your series i think is very right we we were we went into an area called religion which again uh the other star trek shows had had avoided as as much as they could. Oh, yeah. We were going to go into areas that had never been explored before. We were boldly going into those areas. Yeah. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. Religion and spirituality, you're right. I don't ever think I saw any of that little episodes here and there. Yeah. With guest stars, with guest cast, but not the main cast. Not built into the DNA of your show. It was built into your show. Well, and also, they were all one-offs that you could pretty much watch. It was built into how you were going to

have the overall feeling of our show, right? We were confronting it all the time. It wasn't like, okay, well, we handle it in episode 36. We don't need to deal with it for the rest of them. It keeps popping up. It keeps popping up. It's a through line to the bloodline of our show, right? Yeah, okay.

Remember, the name of the episode is emissary, which becomes enormously important at the end of our series when what happens to Cisco at the end. Don't tell me. Don't tell me. I haven't seen either. No spoilers. I haven't seen the seventh season.

Okay. That's going to be so weird for me. Yes. Okay. So in a couple years. All right. Let's get back to the story. We're in Section A14.

We see Nog now. We don't know it's Nog, but I know it's Nog. He's keeping watch while his partner in crime is loading items into a bag. As they exit the shop, they're confronted by Odo. And as they try to run away, Kira. and then block their escape route. They turn, the alien turns around, looks at Odo and starts swinging some type of medieval looking weapon, tosses it, and it goes through Odo's face because he's a changeling,

and I know that was not cheap to do, and it sticks into the wall, right? So, um, he turns around and he now tackles, he tackles the alien. Odo, yes, he, Odo, I want to talk about when Odo tackles him. That's immediately a stunt double. You can tell that's not, it is not Renee. Oh, my God. And they even, they even, after he's got him against the wall, they had the stunt double turn towards camera as well.

And you can see even more clearly that that is not Renee. It's not Renee. No. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh my gosh. So much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after trip.

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to stop the fight. And Odo is completely taken aback that this is the new Starfleet commander of the station because he has a rule, no weapons on the promenade, not even phasers. I wonder if the stunt double, to me that jumped out, there's two shots with a really bad match. It's clearly not Renee where the stunt double's tackling. Yeah. Like back then, there wasn't HD television. It was standard definition. It was we were editing. I don't know what your show edited on in the beginning. But when we started Voyager, they were editing on some old system called the montage where it was videotapes. And like, I just wonder if the resolutions back then, they didn't even catch it.

Like now we catch all that stuff. But back then it probably like Terry was saying, the technology just wasn't. the same standards that we have now. So that was probably something that would have blown by everybody. And even if they did notice it, I imagine it would have been too, like, this isn't important enough to reshoot. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. We got to keep going.

Yeah. How expensive was our pilot? It was enormous at the time. I remember it being like, what? It was like a big deal, how much they spent on deep space nine at the time. Yeah. Yeah. The other question I have about this for you guys, Terri.

Norman nobody drew a phaser in that when they stopped nog and the and the and the um and his cohort uh rene didn't draw a weapon no one drew a weapon was there a rule about weapons on your ship well odo didn't allow weapons on the ship right there were weapons that on occasion we saw weapons on the ship but but uh odo's policy was that there should be no weapons um and he as far as I know I don't think he ever drew a weapon in any of the episodes. I could be wrong,

but I don't think so. That's a detail I didn't know. Like on our show, we drew weapons all the time. We were always shooting and firefights and things. Yeah, that's a detail I wasn't aware of. So in that scene, it kind of threw me. I'm like, wait, they're trying to stop a bad guy. Why aren't they drawing their

phasers? Well, Avery certainly did. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But then that's Starfle you know and that that's we were just talking and he's new he's a new being in starfleet yeah yeah okay uh now cork makes his entrance so armin we get to see armin for the very first oh not the first time the second time we see armin and he walks in to say that since they're departing the station tomorrow he will gladly take custody of his nephew and discipline him in the ferengi ways of discipline and cisco says no no no no i'm sorry cork uh odo take gnaug to the brig and he basically wants to use nog as leverage in dealing with cork so who's the real

ferengi in this scene every is already manipulating so oh yes yes well said he is he's he's out who is the true ferengi yeah he is the ferengi in this scene as this do you think quark knew he was being ferenged in that moment uh i don't think so but but he could have he could have he doesn't Always tell me everything. Robbie, you just made it a verb. Did you know that he's been fringy at this moment? You were fringied. Okay.

I want to just say, I really love how they wrote this into Cisco's character that this really demonstrates to us how intelligent he is, how forethinking he is. I mean, he's thinking the long game. He's not thinking the short game. Like, and this is him and Kara together. She is the short game. He is the long game. Correct.

Right. Well, that's great. Great observation. Yeah. That's true. And if I may add something as well, tangential to this, is we've already seen the opening shots of how important family is to Cisco. Again, we get family.

Again, we get Quark and Nog and the mention of the brother who hasn't been mentioned yet. The name, Rom, hasn't been said yet. But we know that there's a brother now involved. And O'Brien talks about his family as well. this is going to be a show about family yes which again is not something we've seen a lot of in either the original series or in tng the family is really important again diverging from the from the regular blueprint of star trek right yeah and we're living on a space station so that's what's real people are living there they're living lives that we live on a planet they're

living in a space station yeah i've always said we weren't about both going anywhere, we were about boldly living together. I love that. Boldly living together. Yes. Wow. I love that. I boldly love you, Armand.

And that's very bold of you to say so. As long as none of us tried to boldly phrengey anyone else. We don't want to do that. Leave that to me. So as Cisco and Kira walk and talk, O'Brien Hale Cisco, telling him that Picard wants to have a chat. and that look on Cisco's face is like, uh-oh, it's about to hit the fan.

Oh, yeah, you can tell. You can tell he's like, he does not want to see Picard. No, because all he can think about is bored Picard. He doesn't think about Picard as Picard. So Cisco walks into, yes. He thinks that Picard killed his wife. Yes, of course.

Yeah, Picard is a killer, basically, to him. Cisco walks into the conference room. Is that what you would call that area? I guess it's a meeting. It's like a meeting room, the lounge. Yeah. He informs Picard that they've already met. at Wolf. And I love how he delivers it at Wolf three, five, nine. Like, he separates all the numbers.

Picard tells Cisco that it's his job to make the Bajorans ready for insurance into the Federation. Cisco says that he will do his job to the best of his ability until a replacement is found. So he's made it known that he doesn't want to be there at all. And he just lays, you know, and honestly, Picard can't really say anything because he knows. He knows the damage and destruction and death that he caused. so he's just kind of like that's my question he knows he caused general damage and distress but does he it seems like when cisco says i was on the saratoga at wolf three five nine yes in that moment paccard goes oh you were in that battle but does pacard know that his wife died no he doesn't i don't think he does he doesn't yeah so cisco's grudge is personal whereas card probably just thinks yeah

Oh, this is kind of a general, it's, you know, it's not as specific to Picard as it is. And I'm glad that that was left unsaid. I don't think he needed to say, and you killed my wife. Like, that's just, that's not a good part to that. That wasn't been good dialogue. Yeah, yeah, it was done. Okay. I'm surprised that they didn't unpack that a little bit, though.

Yeah, you think that the audience already knew that. So, you know, it's what you've already just said, both of all of you, that it doesn't need to be said. We know it. The audience knows it. Yeah. And the actor is. capable of showing you that. Correct.

So it doesn't need to be said. No, you don't need any lines of exposition at this point. So it's fine. We are now in Odo's office is what it looks like, right? Cisco wants Cork to stay. Cork is no faith in this Bajoran provisional government. And he's basically trying to, Cisco is basically trying to keep people from leaving.

And he needs Cork to set an example for others to stay. Cisco wants Cork to be the community leader. And that laugh was beautiful. Coming out of you, it was just like, oh, it was so delicious, that laugh that you did. And to the point where I want to make a T-shirt that has Armand's character, Quark, on there and community leader. I feel like that would be super, super funny shirt and awesome. And he's basically using Nog as leverage. If Quark stays, Nog gets released.

Do you think Quark realized the pharinging that was going on in this scene? is that where it became i do yeah i do um yes i do i think i think the look uh is indicative of that i think i certainly me and the character both thought that uh i was being manipulated here so um yeah i i definitely thought that and and but what it does it also made me think uh i have new respect for this guy from starfleet uh he's operating on my terms. Yeah. And it's more than just an empty uniform.

There's actually a mind in there that you need to reckon with. Did you notice, I noticed in this scene as I watched it, that the sound was very echoy. And then I thought, oh, our sets always had carpet because they didn't want the sound to, you know, we had very soft surfaces everywhere. that was carpet in every room. But this scene had a lot of echoes in it. I wonder if that was something. Did you have carpet on your sets anywhere?

I think I don't remember Odo's room. Very thin, very thin carpet. Yeah. But you were also in the jail. Jail. We were in Odo's office, yeah. Yeah. Odo's office.

It was just very echoy. It felt like something that would happen on a pilot when you're in a new set that next time you go in that set, let's make sure it's not so echoey put some blankets or yeah understand it was all wood uh and there was one of those portal doors uh into odos office right so uh everything was probably bouncing off the wood okay yeah it'll be interesting for us to pay attention the next time we're in his office if we know to see how the sound is yeah to me that that scene it surprised me uh on voyager

they would make us loop everything that had sound that wasn't perfect. We would have to loop walk and talks, the entire walk and talk, if they could hear any noise or, you know. So I was surprised in that one that it was as echoy as it was and they left it in. I didn't know if that was a choice to say, oh, the place is kind of a disaster. And so that echoey sound in some ways sort of supported that idea that the station was a bit of a mess right now. you know i don't know just a little detail it's just funny that we had all that carpet in in our ship because if you talk about navy vessels or submarines oh there's no

made no sense carpet in their hallways it's just that's very funny there was no carpet there was no carpet carpet in quarks bar there was carpet on the promenade okay i don't think i don't terry help me out here i don't think all of the floors were covered in carpet on the in the promenade but certainly the central area was what about the The upper walkway, upper walkway in the prom. Carpet. Carpet. Carpet. Okay. Carpet. Yeah. But there was this, I think it was in Quarks.

It looked like Legos, kind of. Like they were the little bump-ups from the Legos. It was a black with little circles everywhere. Oh, like a rubber flooring or something. Yeah. With some type of pattern on there to not slip, right? That's what I remember. Yeah, but otherwise, I think we had carpet.

And speaking of flooring, if I may, I remember Herman Zimmerman, who designed the sets, was very cognizant that in TNG, everything had, the floor sort of sloped. They weren't stairs. There weren't levels. So it made it very difficult for Marvin and the camera crew to set up their cameras on slopes. So Herman purposely put a lot of different steps, different levels, so that there would be places to put the camera. so that you get different attitudes as you look at the actors. Interesting.

Oh, it was a very, yeah, complex set, much more complex than our set was or their TNG set for sure. And unlike TNG, and I don't know about Voyager, but unlike TNG, when you walked onto the promenade, it was the promenade. It wasn't divided up into little pods. It was one huge job. Yeah.

I remember that set. Yeah, it was giant. Like a mall. The entire set. It was there. It was all there. So I remember my first entrance onto that sound stage, sound stage seven. And my God, it was all there.

Yeah. It was all there. It was a different world altogether. And as Terry said, it had cost God knows how much money to create this. Yeah. Yeah. It was sturdy. You could have jumped up and down on those railings because they were metal.

Wow. And the ops was the same thing. It was just like, like an opera stage. Yeah. Yeah. My girlfriend at the time, her father was a massive Trek fan. And so he flew out to visit. So I gave him the set tour of Voyager.

And he's also a DS9 fan too. So I said, yeah, let's walk over DS9. And that was my first time really looking at all the different nooks and crannies of your set. And we came in on the promenade. I was just going, whoa. I mean, it's really impressive. It really is. And he was like, oh,

He was like a little kid in a candy shop. He was so happy to see all of that. So very impressive set. So, Cisco now- Speaking of the promenade, we go to the promenade. Yes, we go to the promenade. She's, she's, she's, she's there in the promenade, and Cisco gets his hands dirty in helping clear debris.

And she believes that civil war is going to break out amongst the pejorians once this, this provisional government falls. And that the only way to stop this is their spiritual leader, Opaka, aka the Kai. That is the only person who can stop this. but she lives in seclusion and rarely sees anyone. Their conversation is interrupted by the same Bajoran elder from earlier being even more creepy. He just kind of pops his head in and he says to Cisco, it is time. And Cisco follows him out with Major Kira going, what just happened and they leave?

Well, I like the fact that she brings up this Opaka and the Kai and she's starting to kind of crack that door open of spirituality of the Bajorans. And that's when the monk shows up again, which I thought. I thought it was, I thought it was great. And now they're less nefarious. Now they don't, now they seem a little bit more gentle, a little bit more concerned. That's right. Yeah. He didn't seem as creepy to me the second time.

No. Okay. Just the first time. He scared me the first time. I don't blame Cisco for not wanting to go with them the first time. No, exactly. Well, he clearly travels down to the planet surface because we do have an exterior shot of Bejor. And it looks.

Beautiful shot. Nice. It looks really nice. too beautiful. You wanted to be in more ruins then? Because you do make out. There are some walls that have been knocked down and whatnots, but it still looks very nice regardless.

It looks very, very nice. I thought this is a world that's been, you know, decimated and manhandled by the Kardashians. It should not look that pretty. It should look like a promenade, right, where everything was just a mess. They just said that they stripped it of all, ways, all means for the

Bajorans to take care of themselves. So that looked like ancient Roman ruins that have been overgrown for years, not a brand new. Yeah, it's funny, Armin, that you... I hadn't thought about that, Armin. I think you're right. It should have been destroyed.

But the thing that I did get from the shot that's in there is that sort of the comfort of spirituality. It felt like a spiritual place. It felt a little bit like yeah the the culture of religion and spirituality to me was captured in that image which was a good helpful transition to going into the monastery next that was the upside of it but i agree with you it should have been yeah well the monastery could have looked like they've pulled it together yeah

and reveal an open safe place for people we have in that in that big exterior shot you do see the temple on the on the top of the mountain there and that's clearly where Cisco goes he grows that is clearly where Cisco goes and he is greeted by Opaka who apologizes for the rubble around them and you know I wish that there were some type of

it's so weird because she just comes up and starts touching his face yeah and it's just in his ear and I felt like he kind of stops her but there should have been some other dialogue like hey I'm trying something on you but it just it's a weird exchange but she asked if Cisco made me uncomfortable she asked if Cisco has ever explored his pa, aka his life force. And I wrote down, she performs some type of Bajoran mind meld

on him and discovers that the one who is destined to be the emissary does not want to be there in the first place. So that's curious to her, that he has no will at all to stay here or be here. And she says, come with me. And she hits her little remote control and the water disappears. So cool. And they walked down this thing. It was very James Bondish to me, I thought. I love this, yeah. And they walk down into the secret shaft and they enter to the area where they hold the tear of the prophet. Who was the actress? Who was the actress?

I can't pronounce Camille's last name, but Camille Saviola. Saviola, yes, Saviola. I did a workshop of a musical with her in 1983 or so. Yeah, and it was a brief like four days in a rehearsal studio kind of thing. A lovely, lovely lady, and very sweet and very kind and great to be around. And I'm sorry we didn't see more of her. I mean, she has a couple more episodes, but then they went a different way. She's a great singer, by the way.

My memory of doing a musical with her, she blew us away. She's got some pipes on her. Oh, yeah, she was great. What I noticed, Robbie, and you're going to remember this, we had an episode where we had some amalians come in, and one of them had a British accent, and the other one had a very distinct New York accent, but even more distinct than Opac, the actress playing Opaca, we had a guy that was, he was talking like this, you know, like a really heavy, heavy New York accent. And you can hear, you can hear in Camille's voice at times when she says, a little New York

Italian, definitely, you know, instead of saying orb, she's like orb, the orb, you know, so that's there. And so it just made me tickled inside a little bit. it reminded me of the episode in Voyager with the accent there. Yeah, you know, aliens also have neighborhoods, you know, they're a neighborhood. She's from the lower east side of Bejor. That's where she's from. Okay, I get it. I get it. Well, as they're in the secret cavern, you know, he's talking about how he doesn't have the power to help out with the, and she says, look, I cannot give you what you deny yourself. You have to look for solutions within yourself. So very cryptic and very, you know, what is this?

She shows him the tier, the tier of the prophet. It opens up. And you're going to say something, Rob, yeah, the orb. The orb, the orb. The orb is inside. I have a question, though. Yeah. So you, they're in the caves here.

Now, for us, we had on stage 16 a bunch of caves. Is that where you guys also shot on the caves in 16? It might have been there. It might have been on planet hell, which I believe was 16. Yeah, TNG called it Planet Hell. Yeah, you guys shared that off, you know, 16 with us, right? But we also had 18. You had 18 as well?

It might have been on 18. And there were a lot of caves in 18, so it could have been 18. Yeah, 18 was just for people who don't know. It was our normal planet hell. And in TNG, when we were filming at the same time as TNG, TNG had 16, and we had stage 18. 18. So it was 4, 17, and 18, all of the four. All three stages were next to each other.

Not 17. Seven. Seven. Really? Seven. We were on seven. Okay. So when we looked at you guys across the way, you were on four and seven.

And when you walked out of your sound stage, you saw us on eight and nine, correct? And then you also used 16 like we did for random planet surfaces. Right. But we used. But we used to. But we used to. There's another one, 18. I didn't know this.

Four, seven and 18. We had our own. planet hell because remember before you guys were there yeah we had a couple of years while tNG was shooting at the same time we were so when they were using chance the stage 16 yeah we were on stage 18 so when you came you inherited 16 yeah and we were still on 18 did you guys never used 16 at all then you always did we used it occasionally in the beginning in the beginning but terry's right then we just went to 18 caves and everything they were all built into 18 okay for all I know.

They could have been moved from one soundstage. Right. But I'm guessing is 18. I worked on them a lot. Was 18 close to 16 then? Is 18 in the same? Yes. It's right across the street.

It's right across the street. Oh, I wish I never went to 18 to look at your planet health set. God, that would have been awesome. I did. This is brand new. I didn't know this. Maybe we could do an episode someday. Yes.

Four of us are back in L.A. And we do a tour of at least the sound stage sort of take a walk on here. Oh, that'd be interesting. I haven't been on the paramount. Yeah, just to kind of see what it is. And then we could go eat in the commissary. Oh, wow. And at least in my experience, as close as all the shows were,

and really, it was just a tiny little street that divided us. And by street, I mean, really, Elaine, it wasn't. I rarely got a chance to go across the street and talk to you guys or talk to the TNG people. um i rarely did that and and i don't know about you terry but i don't think there was a lot of cross-pollination we knew each other but but we didn't go to visit very often at least i didn't no no i didn't either i don't remember we were too busy we were too busy working and our set was so serious yeah but something did happen because there was some cross-visitation because there was a memo sent out saying voyage actors stay with your own craft service and your

own set there what do you guys remember this really But I bet it was because of you. It was probably you. The whole thing was just your note, Garrett. It was probably me and Aaron Eisenberg. I think we both crossed into each other's areas is what happened. Yeah. I don't remember.

There was a note that said stay on your own side. Okay. It says so much. Don't eat our food. Don't eat our food. This food is only for DS9 actors. Stay away. I'm like, okay.

I think that maybe you should note that none of us got that note. So maybe you're the only one who got it. You guys, you guys are funny and funny. Okay. All right. So as he opens up this box that's holding the orb, the tier of the prophet, now he's transported into this beach scene, which is the very first time that he actually meets his wife.

So he's back into the past. And again, we get more Ciscoisms coming out of Cisco. All the sound effects. Oh, my God. the hot sense, like all kinds of things that you would never hear from Picard or Janeway, you hear from Cisco, which to me, it's refreshing to me. It's like, wow, he's kind of outside the box in a way in terms of his line delivery and his sound effects that come out of him. So I liked it personally. But he is, you know, he's trying to make sense of what's going on. But a part of

him, you just see the joy that he is experiencing in seeing his wife again alive, you know. So it's kind of a nice moment as well to see him on the beach there. Those are always complicated scenes, I think, when you've got sort of a fantasy of something that you've lost, I think for actors and when I've directed things like that, because there's a part of it that's also very sad. Like if I were to go see my mother passed away when I was 18 years old, if I were to suddenly in an instant be thrown into a moment with my mother, I would, yes, feel joy. it would be a complicated reunion.

I would feel joy. I would feel the grief come back. I would feel all of those things. This was a complicated one to me because I was like, I appreciate the joy on one hand, but it's a complex, it's filled with so much more stuff. So yeah,

it was a tricky scene, I thought, for him to play. I think at the very beginning, though, when he first sits there, you see him have, uh,

where am i uh how do i handle this yeah you see it has to be quick unfortunately but you do see that i'm sure he or he and david carson had a conversation about it and i think that's what i like about his acting in this scene as you're seeing those some as much as he can give you a complicated uh storytelling around the unexplainable or the un how do you describe how you would be feeling i think he does a really good job in that moment. Oh, I do too. I do too, but it's a challenging scene. Watching him do it, I was thinking, wow, the conversations they must have had, the choices they had to make. And the idea that he can sort of revisit and relive this incredible moment in his life is powerful, too.

So, yeah, it was a, it was a great scene. Yeah. When he's pulled back from the speech scene, the beach scene back into the present, Opaka explains that nine orbs. Nine orbs have appeared in the skies in the past 10,000 years and the Cardassians took all of the other ones. So this is the last one remaining. And Apaka says to Cisco,

you have to find the celestial temple before they do because they're probably going to destroy it. And this is going to shake the Bajoran foundation to its very core if the celestial temple is destroyed. And we learn that this is the path. This is the path or the destiny that Cisco is going to have to take and finding this celestial temple any other thoughts on the or any of that because orbs are pretty important for your series i i'm getting the feeling uh they

are and they aren't they do occur here they do occur in a couple of other episodes they don't show up as much that i think the idea the orbs was an idea that they had at the beginning uh they fell out of love they backed off from yeah yeah uh as the show show went in different areas. Religion was always a part of the show, but the orbs I don't think had as much to do it. I got a sense that these orbs are going to be a key to the whole show in some way. But maybe, yeah, maybe that was their intention, but then they, you know, course, corrected a bit. Yeah. I think there are a lot of episodes that are coming up that I know for a fact that I didn't really pay that close attention to because it didn't have to do with my storyline.

And when you're trying to live a life during a series, it's no, it's no small feet. But I think we might be surprised at some episodes that might be eye-opening to what this orb experience is going to be for our players. All right. All right. Good. Okay. So the next scene, we're in Jake's room.

Jake is sleeping on the floor. And he's got a baseball glove with him, which is our first, I think the first appearance of baseball as an idea in this episode. And Cisco is kind of watching him. You know, he tells Jake that he makes him think about his mom and how much he looks like his mom when Kira calls and says that there's something on the promenade you might want to see. And so he heads off. So there's a nice moment after, I love this scene with just this not much dialogue, but a nice father, son moment after. Family, family.

Family, yeah, spiritual journey and going to the beach and all of that. with the orbs that he comes back to his son. That's the first place he goes. We go to the promenade next, though, and Quark's bar is packed with people. It's packed with people. We see some Dabo girls. The pit boss is having people step up. It's just the place is packed. Quark's doing his job. Do you remember shooting this scene? Was this the first scene that you shot with a place packed like that? I don't remember. Oh, interesting. I don't remember. It is the first time we see Rom.

Yes, it's first time we see him. We don't call him out, but we see him. And Rom wasn't Rom wasn't Rom in the script. It was just Quark's brother. He wasn't. Quark's brother at this point. Yeah. Cool.

You know, we had that episode, Robbie, if you recall, on Voyager with the Ferengis, and the Ferengis were the masters of the entire planet. Not Ferenguees. Ferengue is coral? Oh, my goodness. Okay. Well, thank you. we had that episode with the Ferengi

where they were the masters of the planet remember that Robbie and they had they had Davo girls kind of around there too and I did not know that the under cleavage was started in DS9 it's not on I thought wow look they've got under cleavage but

that is a theme already here where you showed not the top part but almost the bottom of the I think the original series had a costume like that with under cleavage? Yes okay yes all right I remember talking to Bob Blackman about it because I remember that being a thing. And he said, yeah, I took that from the original series.

There was some costume back in the 60s. And Bob did your wardrobe as well, too. As the employer of the Dabo girls, Quark being the employer, we had a very hard time keeping the same Dabo girls to come back because once they were hired, they weren't told about the costume. They were usually very voluptuous ladies. And when they got to the set, and saw what they had to wear. They wore it because they needed to get the day's salary. They rarely ever came back.

Wow. Especially in the beginning. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. It seems like they would have been paid. The extras that were daubo girls would have been paid a little more for wearing those costumes and being a daubo girl as opposed to just being a general crowd person. Like an extra bump.

Probably, but it doesn't mean that you feel comfortable as a one doing that. And it's not fair. yes it's not fair that they weren't told before yeah they had no clue they came in and this is what you're wearing and they were like great i'm here what am i going to do right okay yeah well quark is uh behind the bar the place is jumping and cisco shows up so quark basically says he doesn't trust cisco and cisco asks about the local synthale sinth is it cynthale is that what you call him and quark says oh you won't like it he basically tells him he doesn't trust him in this scene that was my takeaway from this scene. This is where I think Quark has put together, you were

farangying me. Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, he didn't want to stay. He wanted to leave. Yeah. He's forced to stay in order to, you know, get his nephew's freedom, but it's not something he really wants to do. He has been indeed ferengied. Also, we mentioned the introduction of Rom. There's another character who's also introduced in the quark scenes that we never hear from but he's always there and that's morn morn is there and mourn is a unique figure on our show he's a background person and that's what we call extras nowadays uh he's a background person who has his own action figure doll but never had a line um and was was part of the bar scene as long as i was and wasn't the same person playing ever had a line the whole never had a person they attempted once or

twice to give mark shepherd who played morn uh the opportunity to say something but um and they and he we we did shoot his heart mark shepherd mark shepherd the the the actor from allan shepherd not mark allen who's the actor but mark shepherd uh i think i had there i think the allan is for the actor okay mark allen uh mourn i can't remember one of them has an allen in the middle And they just edited it out. They never even. That's crazy. Which was really hard for him.

You're going to see it. Yeah. You're going to see a surprise somewhere down the line with Dax and him, too. Okay. Really? Well, speaking of Dax, so we have a space shot. We have a station log that the Enterprise has been ordered to the Lopolis system. And they're scheduled to depart at 0,500 hours after.

offloading three runabout class vessels. And meanwhile, our medical and science officers are arriving, and I'm looking forward to a reunion with a very old friend. We hear Cisco say, a very old friend turns out to be Dax and Bashir coming out of a very young Terry Farrow. That's not an old. That's not old at all. If I'm not mistaken, with a lot of blush, there was a lot of blush on your cheeks in that. Was there? Yes. I didn't know that. Was that the first scene that you shot, like in filming order? Oh, I do not remember. I feel like Ops was the first place I was actually at, but it could be wrong.

I think I was traumatized in Ops first. Yeah, this is a scene where Dax and Bashir come off, and Bashir is smitten in this scene with Dax. And I love he, I love his when he says, maybe we can go for dinner or, or, or, or, or or or a drink stuttering he's just tripping over himself he's just oh and i'm just letting him i'm not talking about you're just letting it yeah very funny very funny it was a it was a great introduction for him and for you oh very sweet it was such a great scene and a moment and then there's a walk and talk with cisco and dax and this is where cisco we realized this old friend

Because Cisco says, well, he's a little young for you. And Dax says, he's 27. I'm 28. And Cisco says, 328, maybe. Did you tell him about the slug inside of you? So all this information is coming out very quickly. We realize that Dax is a trill and that she is, you know, 300. How old were you?

Dax is more than a trill. Yes, she's a thrill. for uh yes oh and i know it couldn't have been my first scene i know there's a makeup reason why that would not have happened okay because i used to have a forehead i had a forehead in the original yes the original makeup they tried to give me the trill makeup from the next generation the trill was first seen and it was an episode with uh gates macfadden starring in it and it It was her love interest.

I'm sorry, I don't remember the title of that. But I had, he had quite a prominent forehead. And so they tried to do the same thing on me. And Kerry McCluggage called and whatever, I don't know his exact words. No forehead. No rubber on your head. Yes, no rubber on my head. So it was bumpy.

Which actually brings up to me, too, that at the beginning of this episode, which I did not mention, you see that Nana has her nose, but she also had a piece of here. And it is not what ends up being in the show either. It ends up just being her nose. She doesn't have that piece anymore. Which cleans up the look a lot. Yeah. I forgot about that piece. And I went down a rabbit hole again before we recorded and saw that Michelle Forbes had played

Bajoran on TNG and that they had some talks with her about maybe coming on to DS9 or something. When I saw the pictures, yeah, there was that. forehead piece. It was a different makeup in that pejoran look. And they wanted Framka Jansen to play Dax. And Michael, Michael Westmore took the spots from the character that Fomka played on the next gen to put on me. They were, I guess, think they were a little different, but that's where the inspiration came from. Oh, wow. Fomka was a, was a trill on TNG? Is that what you're saying? No, she was a different character. She's a different alien. And she had a A different alien, but she had spots and they thought those were sexy.

So that's how they, but that also added another week to, like we shot for a day. They saw the dailies and that said, no, get rid of it. And then we had to do more makeup tests with me, which made, which stalled me another week. So everything given it crunched and crunched to that me shooting this episode of one and two in like a matter of a week. all of my stuff did your pilot episode get extended like armin do you remember yes it was longer than eight days eight shooting days yeah yeah oh wow yeah i i'm i i'm i'm probably lying to you here but my mind tells me it was like two three weeks yeah ours was 31 days we had 31 days no it was you guys must have had at least longer yeah it was july and august i think it was

I don't think you may be right, but I don't remember it that way. Yeah, I feel like on our show, because we had the captain switch, there was a shutdown at one point. We were trying to fill the days with scenes. We had to reshoot some things. I remember that. Oh, yeah. So I would imagine on your show with these makeup decisions and things like that, the same thing probably happened. Let's reshoot.

They added days. It just sort of drifts into, you know, longer than they anticipate. I would guess. And perhaps the reason Terry remembers it longer than I do is they probably shot all my stuff and didn't have to reshoot it. And so I had just had the days off. Oh, interesting. It didn't occur to me that they did.

Oh, because we didn't have any scenes together. No. Not yet. No. Right on. Dax and Cisco take a walk. And I had a question, did Cisco request Dax coming on this because of their past history? It's in his specific.

It's, you know, we don't, and we can't tell from his reaction whether this was somebody he expected or whether this is a surprise. He might have requested, he requested, you know, a Bajoran first, but it was hard for me to tell. I didn't know if this was a surprise or if she had been assigned, if Dax had been assigned by someone else and it was just coincidence that they knew each other. it was hard to know whether this was well there is a scene when we're in the science office that i don't think we really see a whole lot of after but i think there's a scene in the science office that comes up after this where i thank him for being okay with it oh so maybe it is it was maybe it was really the pejorin and then i was glad that he picked me to come in yeah yeah and it's interesting because he hasn't embraced this job yet

He still, you know, thinks he's, I think at this point. And my prior host wasn't a science officer. That's Judziah. Judziah is a science officer, but Curzon was not a science officer. All right. Well, they take their walk and talk and, you know, Dax assures him on the same old Dax, more or less, even though I've got a different body now. So next we go to the infirmary where Bashir and Kira are talking about security problems. And Bashir is thrilled to be here.

because it's frontier medicine. This is exactly what he was looking for. I love his stuttering in this scene again. Does he do this in the whole series? No, no, no. That disappears pretty quickly. Oh, that's a shame. That's a shame.

I was like, this is a great brand. Like, what a great bit that he stutters and he's kind of nervous and fumbly. Is it called an infirmary because you're on a space station and not a ship? Because we say sick bay. Do you guys say, was it called infirmary for you guys? We never called it sickbay. Maybe that's a delineation. Infermary.

On a ship, it's a sick bay, on a station, or on the land, it's infirmary? Yes. Okay. I love the end of this scene when Kira leaves and Bashir looks back at her in the face he makes. He's just funny. He's like, I was like, I had no idea that said it was the comic relief of this show. But in this, so far, he was very. funny to me. Yeah, he's very funny in it. I find that scene wonderful because I know the future

relationship of the two actors. Right. Yes. I thought about that too. As doing all now. There is no chemistry whatsoever, really. And I'm thinking, oh, you know, what time will make a difference. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yeah. That is funny. Next we go to the lab. We're in the lab. Cisco and Dax are in there. They're looking, uh, they're using their computers to try. to pull data out of these orbs or, you know, analyze these orbs. And Cisco feels like the Bajoran monks have been studying this for 10,000 years, but maybe our technology can give us some new information and Dax decides to create a database. So we see that, you know, that they're starting to, you know, crack the code of this thing. They're going to, Dax is going to get some

information from it. And then she's talking to the computer and then Dax decides to turn off the force field and I thought, why would you turn off the force field on an orb? It could be radioactive. Like, you don't know. I don't know. For me, I was like, no, don't do it. But she does. Oh, my gosh. You're so funny. You don't assume that he would have told me before he left the room or at some point about this experience. Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. But I don't know. I would just be like, if I got had some alien thing that we didn't know what it was, I was like, no, but she turns it off. And the force field goes off. So she can. have her that star fleet all over they just do whatever they want to do they just boldly go

they just boldly i'm a maverick i am a science maverick is what i are you and bashear with his frontier medical stuff he's into that too but uh yeah turn off the force field and suddenly there's a flash kind of like Cisco had and she goes into a memory uh hallucination kind of memory of being in the operating room. And she's getting this transfer, I guess, of the slug. Of the symbion. The symbiont, thank you. Dax.

She's getting to Dax. That is Dax. That is Dax. Did you notice they didn't spell that right in the script that we're looking at, Robbie? They said symbiote. That's not right. S-Y-M-B-O-T, the symbiot? It's a symbiont, right?

Isn't it S-Y-M-B-I-N-T? maybe? Armin is our resident etymologist. Yeah. We'll refer to Armin. And Garrett is, I believe, absolutely right. It's symbient. Yeah.

Symbient. But this is a happy memory that she's having. It's a really happy memory, which I thought was great. She's the opposite of giving birth. She's the opposite of giving birth. Yeah. And then he's gone. Then my mentor's gone.

Yeah. So then you see that moment where I'm like a little sad. Like, it's a little bittersweet for me too. Yeah. A very nice moment, Terry. very nice i agree i thought it was i'm glad you turn off the force field it was kind of fun to shoot too because it was a weird off like a one of sort of cheating sets where they have like don't even have all the walls or something i love when the symbion is inserted into you it looks like you have

like a kangaroo pouch is what it is how they put it like there's no blood there's nothing it's just like whoop your little envelope opens up it goes in it goes right in yeah it's like hey i'm at home now it's like really cool was that symbion like a puppet what was it the prop do you remember it it's like this um rubber yeah rubber creation that um some amazing artists made because it really it looked pretty fleshy and was there animatronics in there did it move did it move actually have any movement to it because i think it was pretty still it was stationary i don't think in that scene okay but just the the the viscosity of the rubber wasn't like hard rubber it was uh i don't know how to describe it like rubber glue yeah it had a movement to it okay it was jiggly it was jiggly yes

it was a little jiggly armad you were going to say something i said it was like jello okay like jello i i have a i have a hope that sometime in this series you know i don't yet that this symbion is just like walking down the hallway. Like we just see it walking down the I just want to see

it moving around. Yeah, I just want it on its own. Just a little slug just going down the hall. I don't know if it'll happen, but I can dream. I think that's Orville.

That's what you're afraid to do now. Okay. All right. We go to the bridge. It's the night shift on the Enterprise Bridge. And O'Brien is there kind of looking around

very nostalgic about his time on the Enterprise. And this was the moment that led me to go down the rabbit hole of O'Brien had been on 55 episodes of TNG or something. I had no idea about that. You didn't know that either, Robbie?

No, I didn't. All right. And there's someone on the bridge, a lieutenant, a woman that says the captain's in the ready room, you want to go see him? And O'Brien's like, no, I'm good. That's okay. And he goes to the transporter room on the Enterprise. He's about to leave when Picard shows up.

Yeah. And they have a nice, they have a nice moment. And this was the moment where I was like, oh, my gosh, I must have missed something. on tn g why do you think o'brien was trying to leave without saying goodbye to picard though that's a little weird because o'brien o'brien is the working joe on our show and was indeed the working joe on tng all right so that that's the captain he's just the yes he has a rank but but he he wasn't something i learned as well he wasn't part of usually of the of the away team of the The senior staff, the senior crew.

He's the guy that gets you from one place to the next. Yes, he had episodes, but he's not part of the main team. Got it. And so as such, you feel, well, I don't want to disturb the captain. He was like a lower decker. He was a lower decker. Yeah, he was a lower decker. Yeah, he was a lower decker.

Okay. Blue collar. Makes sense. I loved this moment with them when O'Brien and Picard says goodbye to O'Brien because you can feel the subtext of this. pilot as well this pilot episode you can feel Patrick Stewart saying good luck with your next show as much as you know as the characters are saying goodbye as I felt with your show as I with your show when he asked me to do the scene in Voyager I thought the same thing I felt this is me

handing on the baton to the next show wow and that scene was with myself and Robbie that was yeah oh how amazing yes yes yeah yeah um next week we go to ops next and uh there's a cardassian worship on a view screen we learn gold ducat is approaching and cisco says tell gold ducaut i look forward to meeting him and we jump into the commander's office into cisco's office and uh gold ducat first comments how he misses his old office so we realized he was the boss here before. But before you jump into that, can we just say that the casting of Mark Alamo as a Cardassian is perfect? I think just everything about that man's human face just fits Cardassian. Everything was so spot on. I was very happy. Yeah. And I've known Mark for a very long time, long before

TS9. His personality fits to Cardassian. And even his real life personality. I love it. They cast the right actor. They cast the right actor. They cast the right. Okay. Such a great bad guy. Yeah. Wow. Go, Robbie. He never played it as a bad guy, which is a tribute to his.

No. Yes. I was going to say it as though he was the hero of deep space night. Yes. Yes. That's why he was so good. Yeah. Well, let's think about it.

Anybody who is, like you talk about mafia people, they refer themselves as the good guys. They never say they're bad. They don't think that way. All right, Robbie. Continue. Yeah. So the Golda cop misses his old office. He's very charming with Cisco, very warm.

and I thought, yes, his performance, he played it like he was a friend and a hero, but he does want information about this orb. That's why he's here. He wants to find out, you know, what he knows about this orb. And Cisco says, I don't know, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything about an orb. So he's trying to frangy him here a little bit. He's trying to hide his treasure.

DeCat basically says, you know, we, We're going to stay real close if you want to reconsider and tell me about this orb. So a little bit of a chess game there. But I love that scene. I thought they were great together. We go to the lab next. And in this scene, we find Dax has found some record about a ship that was stranded and had some strange experience with a hole opening up. She's found this information on the database, the historical record that she's put together.

And to me, this felt like Dax was discovering like a Bermuda triangle out here in space. It felt like something that was swallowing ships or there was just strange occurrences happening here. But she fills Cisco in on all of this. This is where Dax wonders, is this the celestial temple? Maybe this Bermuda Triangle thing is the celestial temple that the Bjorans talk about. Cisco says, well, what's that? The heavens open up. Yeah. So Cisco's intrigued by this, but he says we got the Cardassians right back, you know, right next to us. We've got to figure out a way to shake them if we're going to go look into this.

Well, actually, this was a surprise to me because what I can't remember which character suggests it, but they moved the station away from Bejour to the wormhole. I had totally forgotten about that. So that, when I was watching the episode, I went, oh, my God, I didn't know that. I didn't know that it was placed right next to the wormhole. I knew that the wormhole was closed, but I didn't know that they had moved it away from Bayshore to that part of space. Yeah, I didn't know that the station moved the way it did. And obviously, there's a lot of tech involved in how they're going to get the engines to travel them fast enough to get there.

But, yeah, that was. Don't worry. I figured it out. Yeah. Yes, you did. Brains and beauty both. she's got it all okay yeah we go to quarks we go to quarks again and it's like a party at quarks the cardassians who've showed up are partying hard having a great time too much latinum on the tables

yeah they're winning too much latin they have not lost one game it looks like they've just there there's like a mountain of latinum there was like what the quark must have been very unhappy with all that latinum on the table yeah but but kira comes in and announces that the party's over, everybody's got to get out of here, they're closing this establishment. Quark protests for a minute. But as he leaves, he's outraged. As he leaves, there's a look between Quark and Kira that I sort of thought, oh, is this a plan? Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And he says, give them, give them something to put their winnings in. And a bag is handed over, a backpack, or whatever it is. And they stuff the latinum in there.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. so for me that's indicative of the history that the two characters have had before the show starts and and for me i can't remember if that was my choice but watching the episode that's what it looks like to me is it's to indicate the the lack of rapport that these two characters have had during their stay on the station because who's to say who is there the long whether it was Kira. Well, Kira's been assigned to it. So obviously, Quark has been there longer. But in the interim, while she's been there, obviously things have not been good between these two characters. That look definitely suggested some kind of history there for sure. Yeah,

it was nice. We go to the warship to the Cardassian worship quarter next, and these Kardassians are putting their knapsack and the knapsack that they put all their winnings into. They're putting it into a locker. And then as they shut the locker, we see that all of a sudden, this knapsack kind of starts to ooze into some orange liquid or something, and it comes out of that locker. And Odo appears, like, out of this goo, Odo, I wrote down, Odo is a real sneaky goo. Can he do this all the time? No, no. In fact, thank you for asking that question. Okay. It was enormously expensive to do the morphs yeah i would honestly expensive so there are two in this episode there's yeah we talked about before where the weapon the thing goes through his head and there's this one

and early on uh in the first season they recognize we can't do that we can't we can't it's too expensive it's too expensive so we're we have an over abundance of riches here we have two morphs in one episode and you'll see that after a while they were very judicious about using that very judicious you rarely ever saw much of that after a while did they write something to that like oh if if odo has to morph it takes so much energy it's dangerous or something like did they yeah uh no i think what they simply did was ignore it and and when he did morph into things i think if i remember correctly uh characters would just say, or he would say, I just did that. So we didn't have to see it. Oh, I see.

It was enormously expensive to do the morphs. From what I remember, too, he would also have to go to his pale to rest. Yeah. So there's a later, we will find out about this later. Yeah, because it seems like that would be, that would be a superpower in a way that would be, could be unmanageable for the budget. I totally get it. Yeah.

If you've got the ability to... And that's the first use of the computer helping us tell the story, right? Yeah. So at that time, it was the cutting edge of the technology that we could use on the show. Certainly the introduction of Odo and the changelings is borrowed heavily, heavily in Picard in the third season. Oh, definitely. Yeah. That's a... That's a nod to our show that the changelings are the villains in that episode in that season.

Yeah. And we all have Terry Mattalus to thank for that. So good old Terry is the one that brought that in. Yes. Next we go to the Rio Grande. Is that the name of the runabout? I think so. One of them.

Yeah, one of them. Cisco and Dax are on this shuttle. They're getting ready to launch. I love the shot in space of this shuttle, of this runabout. It's a cool ship. I know my character was into shuttles. So from Voyager, he loved shuttles and ships and things like that. This one was very cool to me.

I just thought it looked super cool, the design and everything. Yeah, so we see the cool shuttle shot. We go back to ops. O'Brien says scanners are picking up fluctuations of the Cardassians' energy distribution net. So Odo's taking care of things on the Cardassian ship. Kira says the computers are crashing. Shields are down. Odo did it.

Ops to Rio Grande. and we're in the Rio Grande. Kira says, you're in business. And so they launch and Kira and O'Brien talk about the transporter that Odo's going to shut down their transporters. O'Brien doesn't seem to be able to quite make the link work. So he kicks the, kicks the computer. He's Fonsie.

He's Fonsie. He's like Fonzie, exactly. I'm going to hit the jukebox. It's going to work. Yeah. kicks the thing and it works. which I thought was very funny. That doesn't happen more.

Does that continue to happen, guys? Does O'Brien bang on things? Just bang on things throughout this episode. You know what? You're going to have to continue to watch to find out. I love some of the bits, though. That would be a funny bit if O'Brien's always just like banging on things to get them to fix to get them to work.

I thought that was very funny. It was. But, yeah, they shut down the Cardassian transports and now they're safe. and after a break we come back. Dax and Cisco are approaching the grid parameters. And they pick up these high proteins when suddenly this bright hole opens in space and the shuttle is now being sucked into this energy tunnel.

This is Journey Through the Wormhole. This is the name of our podcast. It's happening right there. And it is the introduction to the eighth series regular on the show, which is the Wormhole. oh it is the wormhole is it really is that in a sense yes in a sense i mean it never gets credit of course but but the wormhole is is absolutely essential to the show oh and although it has no lines uh it is it is ever apparent it is always there is omnipresent i think

there should have been a credit saying wormhole as played by geoffrey combs that's that's all i want to see, probably would have been. Yeah, he plays everything. He plays it all. All right. Yeah, but they're sucked into this wormhole, so we don't know if this is good or bad, but they're getting sucked into this very cool, cool wormhole back on O'Brien picks up that there's a major subspace disruption.

Kira doesn't know. They don't know what's happening back on the shuttle. Navigational readings are going crazy. Cisco and Dax don't really know what is going. going on here. And then Dax identifies the closest star system, which is Idrin. The computer says Idrin is based on the analysis conducted in the 22nd century by Quadros 1 probe of the Gamma Quadrant. They realize that they're in a place that 70,000 light years from Bayjure. Is that the number? Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. Because that's what we use in Voyager.

In the first episode, we're thrown 70,000 light years away from Earth, the exact same number. So, okay, look at that. Interesting. That's their favorite number to throw people. They like that number. Yes. So Cisco realizes if the computer has figured out some coordinates here that maybe this is a way out out of this wormhole. And also Cisco says that they may have discovered the very first stable wormhole ever known to exist.

So this is not just a temporary wormhole. this is one that is permanent, I guess. It's always there. So is that part of, Armand, what you're saying, this wormhole, because it's stable, that it becomes this... Yes, it becomes the conduit between the alpha quadrant and the gamma quadrant.

And therefore, it's like finding a, what is it, the passage wave, the Northwest Passage. It is a way to get from one area to another the quickest way and to promote not only interaction between various planets, but also to promote commerce, trade, and all the things that go on when you have new trade markets. That's another knock on, Ravi, do you remember this? Fans will be like, why are you guys trying to make it back to Earth?

Why aren't you just going straight to the gamma quadrant at DS9 and taking the wormhole back to Earth? That's, you know, yeah, why didn't we do that? If that's the right direction. Is that the right direction? Yeah, because it goes alpha, beta, gamma, delta quadrant. The Voyager was in Delta Quadrant. So we can get to gamma, then we can get to alpha really quick through the wormhole next to the S9.

But we didn't even talk about that. We didn't even talk about the captain was eager to explore new worlds. She wanted to see. She wanted to explore every nook and crazy. Really? Did you guys really only want to do two seasons? Really? Because we needed seven seasons.

That's why, Robbie. That's why we didn't go to the gamma quadrant. Okay. But we detect atmosphere. Yes. Do we not? Sir? Yes.

Yes. We detect atmosphere. You detect atmosphere. Yes, you do. Dax says, I'm picking up atmosphere. And Cisco says, what? Inside a wormhole? That means that you could support life in this wormhole, which is also brand new information.

And then suddenly there's a bump or a thud, and it seems like you've landed on something. Or they go outside onto this place that has atmosphere, M-Class. They can walk out. But what they see is completely different. What Cisco is seeing is this rocky, scary looking place. And what Dax sees is a beautiful, idyllic setting. So that was, how did you shoot that, by the way? Did you have to shoot in two different places?

Or was it a green screen? Or how was that? I'm pretty sure there was a green screen for the scary planet. I see. We were in the gorgeous botanical gardens in, I believe, Pasadena. Oh, yeah, there's some botanical. That's where they did fantasy islands.

Huntington Gardens? Is that what you're? Yes. Something. Yeah. It was really pretty. But we had to get there at like 1.30 in the morning. It was just awful. Oh, wow. For hair and makeup and to be ready for the sunrise. Sure. You know the deal.

You know the deal. Yeah, they're seeing totally different things. And then suddenly they see an orb floating nearby. I love the camera move in the scene, by the way. The way it kind of moved around the orb, it was beautiful. And that's why I asked, like, how did you shoot it? Because that was a tricky scene to be two different environments and moving the camera around this orb that's floating.

This was very complex to shoot, for sure. Marvin Rush. Marvin Rush. Marvin is such a... Yeah, he did a great job. And this whole episode, he did a great job. Mm-hmm. Cisco does try to talk to the orb, and then suddenly they're both hit with these bolts and

like green energy bolts or something from the orb. And then both of the environments kind of flicker, and Dax disappears into this energy. And Cisco is just lying on the ground with this white light sort of enveloping him. And I loved this close-up. Again, Marvin Rush did an incredible job of this stylized kind of energy white light around Cisco. And we see into space the wormhole sort of, I guess, opening up in this orb traveling. So we're into this nonlinear time idea, I think, at this point. We go back to the station.

O'Brien says he's got another neutrino disruption. And they've decided to try to move, I think move the station at this point, right? Oh, okay. All I know is all the bottles in my bar fell over when we moved the station. That's all. When we started to move it, I was in that scene. And I remember talking to Chief O'Brien about it. I remember that.

The orb is beamed into the transporter room, and the orb disappears revealing Dax. So Dax is brought back, but Cisco's still in the wormhole there. Yeah, we see Cisco first. In this white nowhere, we see Jennifer on the beach. He has a flash of that, a baseball game. We see Kai Opaka. He has all these flashes. He starts talking to the orb in this white limbo.

And we see a newborn baby here. We see Jake fishing. So all of these images, his whole life, every experience he's ever had is kind of in one moment, in one experience. He starts talking to Jennifer on the beach. He asks, who are you? And Jennifer, now all these characters in his memories are becoming the orb in a way. Jennifer responds, it is corporeal, a physical entity.

And now it's Picard talking to him in the observation lounge. Picard says, it is responding to visual and auditory stimuli, linguistic communication. So they're starting to, this entity is starting to understand Cisco, like Cisco is slowly starting to understand this entity. In the monastery, Opaka says, what are you? Cisco explains, I'm human. I come from Earth. We jump to the fishing pond.

Jake says, Earth. Cisco explains, well, this is what my planet looks like, like where Jake is fishing. And he says, you and I are different species. It'll take us a while to understand each other. So they're really starting to get to know each other. They intercut this white limbo that I just love that shot that Marvin did. We go back to to Ops. Dax is back on the station explaining the wormhole to the crew that it's not

ordinary wormhole. It might have been driven by these orbs that may have created it. Kira says, you know, this wormhole is so unique, it might shape, reshape the future of this entire quadrant. So that speaks to Arm into what you were talking about. That Kira gets it as a pejorin. She gets, she gets the power of this, of this wormhole. And she thinks Bajorans have to take a claim to it and that the federation should back it, that if the federation can back this and support her, that this would be an incredible, it would change the dynamic in this part of space. Dax has to figure out how to travel the station back. And this is where she's trying to figure out how to move the station. This is the scene where she and O'Brien talk

about it. O'Brien says, you know, this whole station will break like an egg if if we can't make this work and they're also under a time crunch because the Kardashians are making their move too at this point so they're figuring out how to move this ship they only have six engines by the way this is this ship is made to move but very slowly like station not a station or station yes this station is meant to like it's it's meant to be able to move slowly but not not the speed that they need to get to the coordinates of the wormhole next we cut to a corridor on the station and the team is all heading off Odo catches up with them, and he basically, in this scene, demands to join them.

He's like, I was found in the DeNorius belt, and I don't know where I came from, and I need to know if there's others like me. So this is where we see Odo. For the first time, I felt like Odo was really revealing something a little more vulnerable about himself, that he doesn't know a lot about himself, and that this wormhole could be a key to finding out some of those answers. And that becomes an important theme, as the show goes. goes on. And it's also the beginning of, it is the first creation of the Deep Space Nine

away team. Oh, interesting. The people who join up for this particular mission are the usual away team. For future episodes, this is the team that's going to be going out on, I see. So that way team is comprised of Odo and. Odo, Kira, Cisco, Dax. And I believe that's it. And sometimes, Bashir, when they need a doctor. And sometimes O'Brien. Yeah, but rarely O'Brien, but yes. Yeah, because he was busy doing movies. All right.

Yes, because he's busy doing movies. Exactly. Exactly. In Ireland. Okay, all right, got it. Anywhere. We never knew. We never knew we're calling.

That guy's resume, truly. It's just like, what? Amazing. Yeah. And all from being a transported chief. Yeah. That's crazy. Exactly.

A lower decker. Well, if he did 55 episodes of TMG and you guys did 172 or whatever, it is. He did a lot of Star Trek He did. Yes, he did. And the movies at the same time. Wow. Busy guy. The story comes back to Cisco, basically talking with this entity from the orb about their

differences. The orb comments about Cisco's aggressiveness and thinks that maybe it should destroy Cisco. And Cisco talks about that humans are the sum of their experiences, that it's not just that we're just aggressive, that as we have more experiences, that their past sort of, you know, informs who they become. And so he's starting to describe linear time to this entity that doesn't understand linear time. They think all things are just one thing, but Cisco's going, no, we're more than that. We're our past, our future, that that's the nature

of linear existence. He says, you don't have to fear me. You don't have to be afraid. So I love that conversation very philosophical one of the prominent aspects of star trek all star trek is to comment upon the human condition and what's like to be human that's that's an important part of the ethos of star trek and here we have that in spades uh dealing with this episode yeah as cisco tries to explain humanity to the wormhole aliens yeah it was a great which is not easy you know i mean that's such an abstract concept for someone to try to explain to some aliens that you've never met before, what humanity is about, that we're not there to destroy everything. It's very difficult.

And this is the brilliance of Michael Pillar. Yes. I was going to say this is Michael Pillar at his best. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. And so revealing about Cisco being stuck in his past, stuck at the most traumatic moment of his life.

And I think that is what is my favorite part of the whole show here is showing his journey getting unstuck as he's explaining all of this to these beings that he doesn't know. But it feels like his life is hanging in the balance. Yes. And that I love to that you mentioned about Marvin's, Marvin Rush's making that weird, glowy feeling. beautiful. It made me feel kind of embraced and encapsulated into the whole scene, too, as a watcher. I felt like I was part of the urgency that Cisco, the kind of a, I felt like there was a bit of danger underlying this whole thing. Like if Cisco answers one thing wrong, you don't know what's going to happen. It didn't feel completely safe to me. Yeah. Yeah. But his ability to really take, finally, take in all of how he keeps bringing them back to Jennifer's dying and finally, finally facing all of that trauma and sitting in it.

I mean, I've been in trauma therapy and that is what it's all about, is really sitting there and facing all of that pain and letting it just be. And it's such a hard thing as a human being to sit in pain. we just naturally to heal ourselves want to push things away that hurt us but we have to face them and he does so in such a great tender and eloquent way yeah just i really felt it in my heart watching him we oh this was a beautiful script by michael pillar the the the concepts were very abstract but he found a sci-fi way to really bring them to life so beautifully i thought he did a great job Yeah. Next, we go to ops and we see O'Brien is struggling to free the station and get this force field established so that it can travel on these six engines, these thrusters, to move the station. Armin, like you were saying, in a way that I didn't know it could do. So this is a great kind of techno-babel scene about that, about the force field and stabilization and the field. The field

looks like it's collapsing. The computer says it's going to collapse. And ultimately, he's able to redirect the flow of the deflectors and stabilize the field. And I love the end of the scene where, O'Brien, after fighting all of these challenges, he says to the computer, computer, you and I have to have a little talk. I love at the end how he sort of wraps up one of those techno-babble scenes. Speaking of the computer, I could have sworn the computer voice was Nana. Did that, did you, anybody else? It didn't sound like Majel to me.

It didn't sound like Majel, no. Yeah, it surprised me. Was it somebody different at first, and then they switched to Majel? They might have been major, guys. She, her contract was, it wasn't. It wasn't the last person. Now, we'd have to ask Nana, if it was her voice. But it was a voice close.

to Nana's if it wasn't Nanaus. Yeah, it didn't sound like Majel. I don't know who it was, but that surprised me because I know that Majel did the computer voice for you guys. And she did it for us the entire seven years

for Voyager. Maybe there was something, she wasn't available or they tried something and then decided to go back to Majel. Yeah. Kind of weird. Yeah. We go to the runabout and

Dax and Kira, Bashir is on the runabout. How many runabouts did you have? You had a lot of cool ships. I'm jealous. I wouldn't know. I wasn't on any of them, so I wouldn't know. I thought we only had two.

I thought we had two runabouts, but I could be wrong. Any shuttle in the entire. Never. Never sat on. No, I had a ship of my own for one episode. Oh. But never a shuttle. So instead of a landlubber, you're a station lubber.

You never left there. Oh, my goodness. As Berman explained to me, Quark is the station. Okay. I love it. I love it. Well, that's a very big compliment. It is.

Because I think Berman valued the ships and the stations more than the people often that they were. In fact, I think he said that once to us. He said, you know, the show is called Star Trek Voyager. That's the ship. That's the star of the show. I just wanted to make sure we all knew who was the star. So on this runabout, Dax, Kira Bashir, they're there, Odo's there. Gull Ducotte shows up.

They try to talk him into turning around. They say it's too dangerous, but he doesn't want to listen, and he's going to head towards this wormhole. Any thoughts about shooting on those shuttles? Not from Armand, since he didn't go on. I like shooting on them. I did. I thought they were fun.

And it limited their ability to actually shoot, you know, coverage and everything was difficult. But I think that actually helped the scenes be kind of more simplistic to shoot. So we were sort of in and out, which made it kind of great. But it was fun because it felt like being a kid and pretending. Because like it could be totally in pretend mode. Yeah. Yeah. Golducat does not listen, cuts off the transmission. He's headed to the wormhole. We're back with Cisco and he's still talking to this entity. They hear children playing. Cisco says, yes, nothing could be more beautiful. What could be more beautiful, which I love, that, you know, again, family themes. He talks about the children's laughter.

Jennifer, as the entity and Cisco kiss in this scene. And Jennifer tries kissing her fingers after the kiss, which I thought was a great little detail. The sensation of a kiss, she was trying to understand it, or the entity as Jennifer was trying to understand it. pleasure and physical touch and Cisco says yes good feelings happiness that's what it is so I love that Cisco was sharing with this entity all of the experiences of being human it was very again really well done by by Michael Pillar we're still in Cisco's hallucination let's call it with Jennifer you're still talking about Jennifer well we're on the Saratoga corridor and he's talking to the tactical officer and then

Jennifer appears there, but she's in a bikini on the ship. Do you remember that? Yes, yes. She's still wearing a bikini from the beach. I was just like, why is she in a bikini on this ship? It just felt weird to me. I don't know. The fact that she was there.

They just wanted to see her in her bikini again. I mean, she looked great in a bikini, but something about being on the ship sort of took me out of, I wish she had just, I don't know, if Jennifer had showed up in a different location, but with the appropriate clothes for that location would have. Right. There's another section where she's wearing a dress that is less kind of jarring to be like, what is she wearing? Yeah. You shouldn't have that. That shouldn't take you out of the scene. What someone's wearing. It took me out of the scene a little bit. That's why I made the note about the bikini on the ship. Okay. It did feel a little weird. All right. Cisco's getting very emotional. The entity is saying you exist here. The entity starts as Jennifer starts saying, you exist here. You exist here. And Cisco is getting very moved and emotional by that because he's starting to realize that linear time. He's starting to absorb nonlinear time in the past and all of this is still part of him. So this is the beginnings of that.

We go on to the runabout when suddenly the wormhole opens, but it shuts again. So we don't know what's happening here. We come back to Cisco and he asked the entity, what's happening? Are you still here? The entity says there's more of your kind have showed up. And Cisco asks, is this the wormhole? And the entity doesn't know what a wormhole is, which I found fascinating. The entity's like, what's a wormhole?

What is that? But the entity says, yes, it's terminated. And our existence is disrupted whenever one of yours enters this passage. So this other ship, which was the Cardassians, I think, right, at this point, the Cardassians are the ones that interrupted it. So they're messing everything up as usual. Goldaqat has entered now. Exactly.

And the entity doesn't like that, so they've kind of messed it up. They've ruined this great conversation that Cisco was having. And the entity says, well, there's consequences for your actions, for our choices. And Cisco explains, yes, we're aware that every choice we make has a consequence. Cisco explains we don't know what the consequences of our choices are going to be. So more big ideas. You know, there's so many big philosophical ideas in this conversation with Cisco and the entity. And it's sometimes hard to keep up with it as it jumps around.

And if I may say that particular line, we never know what the consequences of our choices are. It screamed out at me when I watched the show again this week because I thought that was exactly what was in meta time. in they were creating a show that was different and they had no idea what the choices how they what would happen with those choices where would these characters go where would this story go what was going to happen i literally thought that was that was pillar and the writing team subconscious speaking we have no idea where this is going to go but we look forward to the adventure But we don't know where this is going. So that was one of the things I just thought, oh, that has great echoes with me.

Yeah. Very nice, Armin. Yeah, very nice. I think there's a lot of those moments in this pilot where there's a story idea happening, but there's also the idea about this first episode of your series. You know, it kind of resonates on multiple levels. I mean, meta. It's difficult.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, Cisco explains to the entity about his family, about deciding to marry Jennifer, about having a child and not knowing how that's all going to turn out, which brings them to the baseball field. Cisco explains about competition, about games, and about how he and Jake play this game called baseball on the holodeck. And the entity asks, well, what's baseball? And Cisco, I like Cisco's response. He goes, I was afraid you were going to ask that. That sounds like Michael Pillar.

It does. If I were to ask Michael, Michael, explain why you love baseball so much. Here we go. But he does explain the game about hitting the ball. You try to anticipate your opponent's next move. You set a strategy for possibilities. But with each new play comes a new consequence. And that's how the game unfolds and the game of baseball takes shape.

I love that Michael used baseball as part of his explanation of time and consequences and how one thing leads to the next. And it's ironic, again, being meta about this, your series, TNG, they were all enormously linear in the sense you went from one place to another and you dealt with what was there and then you moved on to the next one. we the other hand were not necessarily linear we would go someplace and then we might go back and revisit a relationship because everybody was jam-packed on that station together so it's interesting that for me we are the least linear show whereas the shows around us were very linear yeah well we weren't wrapped in a package that's right it wasn't like we started the show oh look here's the problem we're going to figure out the problem oh, by the end of the show, we're going to fix it all and tie it up in a bow, and there's your show.

Yeah, we broke that pattern. And to the writer's credit, that's what most TV is about nowadays. It's not about solving your problems in 44 minutes. Mm-hmm. Which is far more human. Yes. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so now we have a first officer's log supplemental.

They've rendezvoused with the space station at the coordinates of the wormhole, but their scans reveal no trace of either the wormhole or Golducats' ship. We learn in this log three Cardassian warships cross the border, headed this way. No doubt they're searching for Ducat. Back in ops, we do see that Kardashians are arriving, looking for their missing ship. Dax says that they're flooding subspace with anti-lepton interference to cut off their communications. So basically a space battle is starting to happen here. and the Cardassians want unconditional surrender from the space station or they're going to open fire.

Bashir says he can't believe the Cardassians would attack a Federation outposts like this. That would be a major aggressive move. And I asked myself while watching, why does the space station have shields? What was the purpose of giving a mining station shields? and I went, you know, it makes the story better and is, of course, old style Star Trek technology, but I'm going, really it doesn't make any sense for space nation have shields.

Well, this is my theory. This is my theory. They have shields to protect from asteroid showers, like any type of random crazy. Oh, I like that. Thank you, Gary. Thank you very much. Because it's a mining station.

You don't want damage from random asteroids. But I don't think we have shields. No. But there are shields. Yeah, you've got to have the shields to be able to move it. I thought O'Brien said that we don't. Oh, we do. No, that's how you, that's how you put the shields around and you use your deflector or something.

That's how you got the ship to move. And later when the Cardassians are firing on D-Space 9, the shields are activated. And they even say shields are down 20%. So there are always been shields. They do, meaning my character says that they're down. Yes, your character is. says that i mean armin i think you're right like why would they have battles shields but i think the writers were so used to exactly constantly having these disaster moments near the end of every episode

where you've got to have certain technologies like shields and well that would make sense you don't know if someone's going to try to overrun the station yeah it also helps write stories every week where there's some yes let's do that scary thing let's do that Yeah, yeah. We go back to Cisco. He's in his quarters now, still talking to the entity. He asks, why did, in his quarters, why did you bring me here? The answer he gets is, you exist here.

So the entity keeps saying you exist here. Yeah. You bring us here. You are the one that keeps bringing us back to the same time and every location. You keep coming back here. Yeah. and finally it hits it hits Cisco yeah that that he's stuck in this moment and he's got to accept that and move on that he's got to stop living in the past stop living in the past

i guess the entity in some ways was saying this is part of you you don't have to hang on to it so tightly it'll always be a part of you but you've got to let go you've got you've got to trust that yes, Jennifer is a part of you, that she is here with you, but you've got to let her go. It's a weird kind of, you know, dichotomy in a way. You've got to be able to grieve and let go at the same time. Isn't it also explaining what they may have been trying to understand him explaining linear time? And yet he's not honoring linear time because he's living in the past. Yeah. Yeah. And this is where I also earlier got way ahead of myself talking about him facing his trauma. Yeah.

But this is the scene, though. Isn't this the scene where the long term's on where he's like, oh, my God, I get it now, right? This is the one I was talking about. So I got way ahead of myself. To me, this was such an, it was the moment I was looking for earlier for Cisco to grieve. And now it made sense to me, oh, he didn't grieve because he wasn't letting go. He was stuck there, but not really allowing him. to feel the way he needed to feel to be able to move on to linear time, to be able to move on

with his life. And it was, he finally started to grieve in this scene in a way that was so healthy and, and he even says, I've never figured out how to live without her. I've never figured out how to move on and live my life without her. So it was a really, yeah, beautiful scene, beautifully written by Michael Pillar. And Avery did a great job. We go to Ops again. Dax says that the lead ship is hailing and wants an answer.

They also, I think, mentioned the six photons in this scene. Yes. Photon torpedoes. Yeah. And O'Brien, Kira's like, fire all six photon torpedoes. And O'Brien's like, we've only got six. Six proton torpedoes, which I loved. We're not going to win this.

why does a mining station have photon torpedoes again to fire at really large asteroids are coming at you so you got to break them apart so that your shields can sort of deflect those can be very dangerous when they break apart yeah is this is not originally a cardassian station it is no it's a mine yes it's a mining station it's a yeah but they are so warlike so warlike so that makes sense that they arm their own station right exactly and what if you're going to try a mining station And we try to steal my mining shit. Okay, okay. I'm only telling you where my mind goes.

That's all. That's all. Everyone would see their own choices. See a Cardassian say on the view screen, don't you try to steal our mining shit. Which is what the Bajorans did eventually. They stole the mining shit. The mining shit.

But they didn't have any more photon torpedoes. Yes. That's right. Because they used them all on the Bjorie. They used them all. Kara shot all six torpedoes in this scene. All six, they're gone. What she was trying to, this is a game of chicken.

She's trying to show them like, hey, watch this. We can do this to you, but not telling them that they have no more photon torpedoes. They're trying to make them think that they have a lot more armaments. They're trying to make them. Yeah. She fires off all six. Yeah. And they hail her.

Basically, he says, if you, you know, you can't defend yourself, we could take you guys in a second. And she's very, she has a ton of bravado. She's very, yeah, she's playing chicken. We will remember that we'll find out a little bit later that is hinted at in this episode, but we will find out later that Akira is a terrorist. And as a terrorist, these are the tactics of a terrorist. Oh.

You make grand gestures with nothing to support it later on. Okay. You try to intimidate. Well, that gives me context. Thank you, Armin. I did not. Yeah, that's important to know. Yeah.

Well, they, they challenge them. The Kardashians scan their station. He says like, okay, your space station could not even defend itself against one Cardassian worship. And then she's like, yeah, you're probably right. And if you were dealing with a Starfleet officer, they probably admit we're in a hopeless cause here. But I'm a Bajoran who's been fighting for her whole life against Cardassian.

So if you want a war, I'll give you one. So that makes him think. He's like, okay, wait a minute. wait a minute oh boy so it's it just again it's just trying to give them more time buying more time because they're trying to make them hesitate right from coming in she's she's really putting on a show but the Kardashians scan the station and they say well they're using a thoron field to block our sensor so we can't penetrate it um what are their defenses jasad asks and then then they say according to our scans they've got 5,000 photon torpedoes phaser banks on all levels

So their scans make it look like the station has thousands of weapons. Right. And is that what Odo left at? Yes. That's why they sent Odo over there to mess with their, you know, scanners and their and their computers. So all these pieces of their strategy in the plan as a team is coming together. And Dax, we go back to ops. Dax says they're sending out messages asking for reinforcements.

So it worked. They think that the station has thousands of weapons, but they don't. Now, it's a Kardashian station. The Kardashians would know what that station is. Yeah. And in fact, they say, how could they have possibly implemented this? There wasn't enough time for them to do this. And that's how they figure out that it was a ruse on our part.

Right. Right. Yeah. And they even say, like, how did they do it without our knowledge? No, they couldn't have. We couldn't have. They just left. It just happened.

Yeah. They do send that subspace message for reinforcements, but in the meantime, they get into attack formation anyway and start firing on the station regardless. They do start firing. And that's when civilians, we cut to the promenade running and screaming. And that must have been a big setup to get all those people and the stunt people. And Dennis Madelone. exactly, everybody involved.

We go back to ops. O'Brien says, well, you know, they must be testing us. And O'Brien thinks he could run a compression wave through the phaser banks, put out a blast that'll maybe slow them down, make them think twice. The Kardashians are doing some damage at this point. We cut back to the promenade and Bashir puts Odo's hand on someone's neck wound. And I love that Odo was very nervous about this. Do you remember this?

Yes. Bashir is like, calm down, Odo. Odo was very yes he was he was very and I never I don't understand that I really don't understand that not ever come back no there's no no no Odo do you I mean do you think that do you think the changelings are grossed out by human blood something along those lines that there's some that's what I was wondering is he's tough on on you know when in his comfort zone but when it comes goes outside of his comfort zone if that's so yeah my memory there is no other occasion where that happens okay where odo was thrown by by medical's blood or by touching another

human god knows he touched me enough times but um of course i wasn't human so maybe that's you were not that was the issue he can touch other aliens but not humans just not humans because they have cooties humans humans have cooties that's why he didn't touch well we do um anyway that was that was very strange for me. I went, where is that coming from? That's out of outer space. So that gave you pause as well when you saw that. That's funny because having not seen the show, to me, I thought, oh, that's an interesting, unexpected quality. Character trait. Yeah, but it doesn't sound like they pursued it. Yeah. We go back to ops. It looks like the Cardassians are going to destroy this station when suddenly there's a neutrino disturbance and on screen the wormhole opens up. We see the runabout.

Cisco's runabout towing this Cardassian warship, towing it out of the wormhole. And Cisco appears on the view screen, and he says, sorry, I'm a little late. Our friend Golducat had some problems on the other side. Golducat signals his ships to disarm. So then we go to the promenade and Cisco's coming out. There's casualties everywhere from that brief battle.

I'm shocked. No one died. I am absolutely shocked. It was just 13 injured. That's it. After all that fate that we see, no fatalities. Yeah. Yeah.

And Cisco sees Jake. And he's got a big smile here. And he calls for Jake. And Jake runs over dad. And they have this hug. So I love Cisco's journey and that he kind of bookends it here with Jake. And this family moment. It was wonderful.

I know it really meant a lot to A. to make sure, especially being a man of color, to show him being a good father. Really important. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it played here. It played really well here. Cisco has a station log.

He says, the life forms who created the wormhole have agreed to allow safe passage for all ships traveling to the gamma quadrant. With the arrival of the enterprise, the Kardashians have left the area. So here we go. Introducing the eighth series regular, the wormhole. We've got a scene in the commander's office with Picard and Cisco again. Cisco says regarding this conversation we had about someone replacing me, I'd prefer that you ignore that. So we realize he's going to stay and they shake hands.

And there's a really nice smile between the two of them, which felt great for the story. And a little bit like Picard and Cisco have a understanding that Cisco's going off with his ship and it was just a nice launching the series moment to me it was a very warm supportive understanding smile between these two captains commander and captain it was a nice moment it felt like mutual respect mutual respect exactly it was great that that happened after the earlier scene i felt was all that anger and tension yeah that was really nice and i love Picard's last line. Good luck, Mr. Cisco. Again, a bit meta

here, but really great. Our very last scene is on the promenade. Bashir is walking with Odo. He says, so where can someone practice with his phaser around here? And

which I liked. Was that line about Odo not wanting weapons on the ship? Is that what that was about? Yeah. Probably. It's so funny to me, because that surprised me in this, like I said earlier, in this show, that there's no weapons because we had weapons everywhere. We were just firing.

Very English, very British to not have weapons for security people. Mm-hmm. A bobby. A bobby, yeah. Yes. We also have Quark and Kira talking, and Kira says you can't cheat every customer that walks in the door. You're the community leader now.

And he says maybe we can discuss these new rules over a drink. And Kira says, if you don't take your hand off. my hip, you'll never be able to raise a glass with it again. So essentially, Cork is kind of making a little bit of a move on... Tries to make a move. Yeah. And as she walks away, Armin's line, oh, I love a woman in uniform.

That's the line. That was the line for me, not only in the episode, but in the audition. Oh, yeah, was your audition scene. Because I auditioned three times, I think. And I knew I had gotten the role when I met the suits and there were like 31 suits the last time I auditioned.

And they all laughed. And I thought, oh, good. Because all through the audition, I'm anticipating getting to that line. Because if they don't laugh, I know I'm in trouble. And so I laughed. And I felt good about myself. and then and then Berman came out.

Armin, in your audition, I think you knocked out of the park because usually in a room full of suits, maybe one or two will laugh, but if you had the entire room laughing, you killed that audition. Well, as I said, they, for the most part, I would assume they already knew that I was going to be on the show. So I was the first person hired and was hired relatively immediately after that audition.

Yeah. One of the things that I loved about this pilot episode was the very last shot, And that was that crane shot that went up and showed the whole promenade. And it was the first time you felt like that I felt like I had seen that whole set that I felt like, oh my gosh, this place is enormous. The potential is enormous. I just felt like that last image was great that we're going to get to see all of these

people's lives and these relationships. And it was framed in a beautiful way. I love the way that David Carson ended the episode. It was great. Yeah. That's great. And that's our episode. Woo!

That's it. It got through it. Look at that. All right. Congratulations. Yeah. Congratulations to us all. If you want to go even deeper into Voyager and or Deep Space Nine, check us out at Patreon.

We have tiers ranging from $3 to $260 a month, fun perks, including all bonus segments, like our ratings of the episodes, winner and loser picks for the episodes, our ideas for a missing season. ideas for a missing scene for each episode and answering Patreon member submitted questions. You can watch the video version of the podcast and see reaction clips from the host as they watch and react to the episodes in real time. Plus, you can participate in Patreon polls for the bonus segments. We have guest interviews, monthly blooper reels, birthday shoutouts on the podcast. You can even get autographs and cool swag mailed right to you. Plus, we have monthly Zooms, where you can join us and Armin, or Terry for relaxed discussion and Q&A.

Go to www. www. patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers, forward slash membership to check out what we have to offer and pick a tear. Once again, we are going to talk about our theme slash lesson that we all get from this episode, because every Star Trek episode has the underlying message to be, how to be a better human being. So, Robbie, do you want to start with your theme, please? Yes. For me, the moral of the story was that we all have a path to walk in life, linear time. We all have fate that we're meant to fulfill and that we have to kind of reconcile our past before we're able to move on. That we can't get stuck in our lives. And until we kind of reconcile that, we can't move on to what we're meant to do. That was my lesson. Mine is similar to yours.

Mine is similar to yours. I'm going to say that if you are so obsessed with the past, you are not living in the present, which means you will have no future. Well, you've got past, present, and future in that team. I like it. I did. All right. Terry, I'm going to ask Terry, what is your lesson?

I am also with the two of you on, I think there has to be self-awareness. for all of us and being present and realizing when you get yourself stuck in the past. You have to pay attention to what triggers you because that's where your lessons are with things that you need to learn. And obviously Cisco being triggered by seeing Captain Picard having to deal with all of that. That's the beginning of seeing what actually is the chasm that he's dealing. with and um i think it's easy for all of us to have things like that that get us stuck yeah cool arman your lesson well that's all those are obviously true and and at the forefront but

but secondarily i would say that we all have to get beyond ourselves and learn to become community leaders i like it bring it all must look beyond ourselves there are things beyond ourselves there are things recognize it and learn to help the community. Yeah. I like that one. I like that one. That's awesome because when you get outside of yourself, generally, that's when your ego gets dropped too, right?

Stop obsessing with it being about you. Your narcissism gets put on the backburn. Perfect. Great. Wow. I'm so excited that everyone is here. But we have done it. We've gone through and we've talked about and discussed and recap the very first and

second episode, the pilot of DS9. So everyone, join us next week when we will be talking about the episode Past Prolog. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. Thanks, everybody. See you next week. Thank you. Bye-bye.