The Delta Flyers - False Profits

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is False Profits. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.False Profits:Voyager discovers a pair of Ferengi who control the economy of a primitive world; nearby is an unstable wormhole that leads back home.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Ann Marie Segal, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, William McEvoy, Holly Smith, Jesse Noriega, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, Lucas Shuck, PJ Tomas, and Nicholaus RussellAnd our Producers:Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Ann Harding, Laura Swanson, Luz R, Josh Johnson, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, York Lee, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Elaine Ferguson, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Megan Hurwitt, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Robert Hess, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Ming Xie, Mark G Hamilton, Heather Chappelle, Kevin Selman, Heather Choe, Kelly Havlik, Richard Sandnesaunet, Justin Weir, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, and Kevin Hooker Thank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager, your two hosts along this journey are myself, Garrett Wong, and my co-host, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil. Robbie. Hello, hello, sir. How are you? Oh, I'm good. I see you're wearing your new hat.

I am. Yeah, yes. This is from Michelle Z. Yeah. She sent us these hats. Garrett, you talked about this. I want to thank Michelle. That is such a kind thing for her to do. So I also want to thank another one of our fans and listeners. His name is Nate Lawson. He's from England. He's a robotics engineer designer. And he sent out a challenge to our Delta Flyers fans. They had designed this robot that cleans windows. on the side of buildings where, you know, it's dangerous, I guess, for people to repair windows, cracked windows, I think. Yeah, that's what it did. It didn't just clean. It repaired cracks or nicks or things like that. So they didn't have to go on the side of a building.

I put out this challenge, hey, let's name this new robot that I built. And I responded, I said, you should name it the Paris. which would be an acronym for pinpoint and repair in seconds. I thought that was a funny pinpoint and repair in seconds. So he actually, I guess, proposed that to his boss, his company. They did name it the Paris. They changed the last name because I guess it takes more than seconds to this. So they renamed it, the Paris, standing for pinpoint and repair in sequence.

so um yeah so my so i got the i got the naming of this and i want to say after i i uh we they came up with that name um uh he sent me a gift and it is a piece of glass that is etched and and and seals um some kind of gas so that when you turn it on the star trek logo and it says the delta flyers with The Star Trek logo, and it comes up like, it looks kind of like, all right, there, whoops, well, there's the Paris. There's the Paris. There's the Paris for those that have got video on this. That's the Paris.

It's a photo of the Paris on a piece of glass. Yeah. Then it looks like that's Nate right there. There's Nate. Give a big shout out. Oh, and look, see the gas inside of that, that glass that I guess his robot repairs, the gas when you send some electricity to it, it lights up the etchings inside. So it reveals this sort of hologram.

It's kind of cool. So he sent a little thank you for that. And I'm going to take the cue of a future episode where Harry Kim doesn't get a promotion and someone else that we know gets one on the bridge. And Harry goes, where's my PIP? Where's my promotion, whatever, right? I'm going to say, where's my little gift glass? Where's my robot?

Nate, where's my role? First of all, when you said pinpoint and repair in seconds and you said that it takes longer than seconds, I thought the next thing that you were going to say is they change it to parham, pinpoint and repair in minutes, but no, they kept the Paris. They kept this pretty cool. It's kind of cool. And if it was just, it's very cool. There's a robot named Paris.

And I was in my weirdo head, I thought, man, could it have been called Kim? and now that I know it's a repairing thing I thought it was just a cleaning thing right so because I may not I'm not very smart about robotics so I may have misunderstood it but it was repair that's right I remember he said

it fixes damaged windows or something well if someone makes an automatic robot that just cleans they should call it the Kim and then that acronym could stand for clean it mofo is what I would go clean with a K a little bit more you know I have one more

thank you. I want to send out for a lot of people out there. You guys know that Rebecca and I got married and Eve England sent Rebecca and I a virtual wedding card. Congratulations cards. So I just want to thank Eve England and all the fans that sent out

their wishes and best wishes and congratulations for our wedding. It was wonderful. Little elopement wedding and we appreciate all the love and support you guys sent. So thank you. Yes. You sent me some pictures. You guys had to brave the elements out there.

Windy, cold. It's everything. But you know what? Crazy elements doesn't stop. No. No, it doesn't. We started, we had a pop-up tent from my show, like a, you know, a tent, no sides on it so we could see. And we had that just in case the weather was bad, which it was.

It was, it started off raining, and then it started hailing. there was hail and sleet happening in the middle we almost we were the the officiant was like should we keep going like maybe we should go get some cover but we had the tent so the hail's coming down and then by the time we finished just as we finished everything cleared up and the sun came out so we basically had all the experiences of weather in about 25 minutes yeah and you've been in Canada long enough hail is a big issue yeah up here as i'm sure in certain northern states in the u.s probably in other parts of the world but good lord like i there's always you know there's always a time that megan will point something else you're like that car hail damage at the show point you know

you're sitting on the side of the road with all these dents in there yeah it's like you don't get your car in a cover in hail in canada you are in for a shock yeah it's like the entire car is just the whole hood the the the the the the roof everything is just it's horrible dinged up. Indentation. Yeah, completely dinged up. Well, congratulations again, buddy. Thank you.

And here in space where you're sitting, I see space behind you and next to my Delta Flyer shuttle behind me. Yeah. There is no weather. It's always beautiful. It is always a balmy, 69, 70 degrees. Until the meteor shower starts or the cloud of comets. that and yeah anyway okay let's go let's go we're caught up on our gifts and our thank you yeah yeah and all of that um let's dive into an episode let's go and watch this

episode awesome and um for all of our our patreon patrons stay tuned for what do we remember Hey guys, we are back from watching False Prophets. False Prophets, yes. You know, I am just going to jump right at it and say, this may be one of my least favorite episodes of the series so far. I'm going to be honest with you. Okay. And I didn't remember much about it.

I really didn't remember that I had a lot to do because Chakotay and I are down on the planet for a lot of the time. Didn't remember that. But I got to say on so many levels, I was, this was my least favorite so far in three seasons, three and a half, or whatever it's been, two and a half seasons. We're halfway through season three, I think, almost. Yeah, not my favorite. Didn't like it. We'll talk about it. Not my favorite.

Well, on a scale of 1 to 10, what are you rating this? Two. Ah. Ouch. Yeah. I don't know if I'd go that low, but, hmm. Okay. Yep.

All right. Let's go ahead and start the way we always start. Let's start with our haiku and limerick synopsis. Synopsies. Okay. Here we go. The haiku for False Prophets, Season 3 of Voyager. Fake Ferengi God.

wormhole to alpha quadrant crew remains stranded there you go oh I envy the days when I only had to come up with a haiku I know like every single this is what's so damn funny like every single every single every single episode of Delta Flyers since I've taken over Limerick like Robbie and I will go watch and Robbie's always like okay I'm done watching. You ready to go back on and discuss? And I'm like, yeah, I'm done too. Just working on the limerick. Still working on the limerick. 20 minutes later, still working on the damn limerick. Okay. Here we go. My limerick for false prophets goes as such. We track a wormhole which recently disappeared. A nearby planet ruled by two Ferengis that are feared. Holy sages are gods they portray using replicators to perform miracles they say ascended to the heavens the takarians cheered wow wow you got a lot into that limerick oh man i got as much as i could you know i did i said i'm going to cram as much as i can into this limerick you did that was a very full limerick well congratulations on

that one um thank you all right so let's talk about this cliff goal directed this episode He did, Cliff Ball. I always love Cliff Bull, but I got to say, this was not Cliff's best work. I'm sorry, let's just be honest. Are you saying that he phoned it in on this one? I don't know, it was just, it was, I don't know. It didn't visually, it was not very dynamic visually. In fact, it was underwhelming in a number of places.

The whole market area of this planet was, way underpopulated like it felt like there were 10 extras in the whole scene where you wanted to have like 200 people out there in the crowd and I know we wouldn't have had 200 extras but we should have had more than whatever 10 or 15 or whatever

there should have been 50 people out there should have been full and it was not and well also Robbie if Voyager was filmed today CGI is cheap enough that you could fill that entire you could replicate yeah you could do crowd duplication, things like that. But there's also ways to shoot, even if you did only have 15 extras, there's ways to shoot it with long lenses and compressing the frame and all kinds

of things that Cliff could have made it feel a little more authentically like a marketplace. And it just felt like you felt like you had 10 or 12 people wandering around in a circle. Anyway, not very dynamic. I thought the script. Yeah, I thought the script was a bit of a mess. our writer. Well, the story was George Brozak. Teleplay was Joe Monoski. So, which again, I'm a big Joe Minoski fan, but this was not great work.

It really wasn't. All right. Well, let's start on the very beginning. We're on the bridge. We're tracking this wormhole. Tuvac then detects there is a use of a replicator on an M-Class planet nearby. The reason why he discovers that Janeway sort of makes the decree. Let's see if we can find out what's going on.

Maybe someone nearby can help us with this wormhole. And that's when we find this replicator signature, which is very exciting for the fans, because now we know there's somebody here. From the alpha quadrant, yes, which is where we want to go. I love when they're talking about this wormhole that's moving, that it seems to be fixed on the other end, but moving on our end. Right.

She says something like wagging around the universe, like the tail of, of a dog. I love that line. Oh, is that your attempt at Janeway's accent? Wagoning around the universe like a tail of a dog. That's pretty good. Thank you. That's not bad.

I don't know why her reading on that line just made me laugh. Yeah. So you basically talked about a line that Janeway delivers in the science lab. So you jumped ahead a little bit. Oh, did I? Because, yeah, because we're on the bridge. And Harry is assigned to go work with Balana. Again with it.

Again, right? Gee, Louie. Look, Halana is a reality. It's a real thing. Halana is a real thing, Harry and Balana. Paris is assigned with Chacote. So Paccote or Cheris is assigned to go down to the planet. Mm-hmm.

Okay? Not a lot of scenes with Pocote, really. The Pocote pairing is not common. No. No, it's not common at all. And especially, you know, I found it interesting that Paris and Chocote had some, some conflict in season two. And obviously, Paris, the backstory was he was pretending to be this rebel and have all these difficulties. But we never really saw the reconciliation. We never there's, you know, we don't really deal with that. By the way, I got to say, I think this was one

of the episodes filmed in season two that was aired in season three. I think that this is one of those episodes along with Sacred Ground, which I directed my first directing experience. After the rewatch, do you recall where the town square was shot at, the palace, the temple? I don't, but remember, remember we were talking about that before we watched the episode. And I do think it was like on another stage that we didn't normally use. Okay. Similar to when we filmed the thaw with Michael McKean, that was on a stage we really never really used. So yeah, all right, maybe it was that stage. It could have, I don't think it was that far over.

I feel like it was much closer to our regular stages, but it definitely was on a stage different than we normally used. Maybe it was stage six or 10 or something, very close to us. Yeah, all right. So let's go back to the other scene that we jumped over. We then, after the bridge, we get our assignments. Then we're in the Takar, Town Square. the town of Takar, where we find out about the song of the sages.

So there's a little bit of singing of the song of the sages by one of the guest stars. And we meet who I have called Creepy Shoe Guy. Creepy shoe guy comes out and he looks at your shoes and Chakote's shoes and talks about how they're very fine shoes. And you can tell a great deal about a man from his shoes, which immediately made me think about my own. life. When I was young, I guess my grandfather was criticizing my tennis shoes that I was wearing, yeah, because he said that no gentleman should be caught dead in any shoes other than leather

shoes. That showed your status if you had proper leather shoes. And if you wore tennis shoes, which, you know, like canvas converse chucks, those are for peasants. Like if you wear tennis shoes, just not respectable shoes. I do want to say that Tom Paris is dressed like Aladdin. I love the pants. I'm wearing hammer pants. You are wearing Hammer Aladdin slash Aladdin. I love.

That was Chikote. Yeah, it's like parachute pants, MC Hammer pants. I love the hammer pants. I noticed that right away. Yep. With the vest and the purple coloring. It did look like Aladdin. Very Aladdin-esque.

I love it. Oh, goodness. Yeah. but creepy shoe guy then turns into creepy ear cellar guy like you know you discover that you have to be wearing an ear in order to go into the temple and you guys are like what so i do remember that actor being very nervous or i remember when i saw the episode and seeing that actor i just had such vivid memories of him um i think having struggling a bit with either nerves or anxiety or something and I remember shooting those scenes and maybe because he had so many lines and I don't know yeah I don't know what it was I wish I could I'd love to find out it didn't come off that way though no he didn't look uncomfortable and the only reason why I call him creepy shoe guy or creepy earseller guy is just the laugh that he he affected on as that character he had

this really kind of freaky look sounding laugh I thought he was great I thought he was really good and um but i did vividly remember and i'm not sure exactly what it was that there was just some nervousness or anxiety or i i remember some some sort of struggle when we were filming those scenes with him yeah that it was um yeah that i that my heart you know i felt i felt bad for him on some level but i don't recall the details of that but i knew i feel like it was kind of nervousness or maybe struggling to remember lines things like that that's That's always hard when we had guest stars and they would struggle. You just feel like, hey, just relax.

Like, you know, just have fun. It's going to be okay. Well, you know, if you think about it, as a guest star, you're showing up. It's almost like you're a transfer to a high school, a new high school. Yeah. Where everyone else already knows everybody, you know. And this could have been very well. This gentleman's very first guest starring gig, period, right?

And when that happens, the nerves are just. you can't even imagine how nervous you are at that point, right? It's just like, oh my gosh, I want to do well. I don't want these serious regulars to look at me and think that I'm not up to the job, that I can't do my job and this and that and all kinds of stuff. I thought he did a good job and you do too in terms of the final product, right? But it's interesting that that struggle was there. Then we go to the science lab where the immortal wagging the tail line from Janeway comes out.

And of course, Torres and Kim are together. Halana are together once again. We go back to the Takar Town Square and we see Rob LaBelle, guest star Rob LaBelle, who was also a guest star earlier on Voyager in the episode where he played a Tlaxian. And he was trapped in the prison of the Videans, right? The Vidians were basically experimenting or using all the prisoners for their parts. and Rob LaBelle shows up again and that really that really uh well he was a friend of Ken Billers too right wasn't Roba Rob was a good friend I think they were a good friend yeah I think

so but but I just wanted to point out the fact that oftentimes actors are used over and over again you know as long as you don't screw up the first time you show up the powers that be the producers and writers of Voyager and other Trek shows keep using different actors and the great thing is you can put people into prosthetic makeup and use them again because obviously he's not he's not a Ferengi or Talaxian in this episode he is a human a humanoid um so now we are introduced to the two Ferengi sages Erador and Cole uh Paris makes a comment about how how he doesn't really like this town, this town square. And then after the announcement of the frangy and all the women come out and Paris has that one line. On the other hand, so that was

his sexist remark. Exactly. As we were talking about before we watched the show, as soon as I saw that the guys come out, I was like, oh my God, yes, that's exactly what it was. It was like so dare I say exploitive it just felt like it was unnecessary it just felt unnecessary and distracting and that whole first scene with the low angles and the and the skimpy outfits I just thought why I don't know I'm all for like beautiful people men women whatever like bodies are beautiful and all that I'm not I don't think we should cover up out of shame for whoever we are whatever kind of body we have but something about that just felt so like old-fashioned exploitation i was just like oh yeah which is part of the thing that like ruins this episode for me it's like okay so many things

don't fit i don't think that was necessary i think the the broadness of performances so i'm going to go generic for you know global for a minute but like the performances were way too big even even including mine and chakotay's down on the bridge i think janeway here's my laundry list I'm going to vomit it all out. I think Janeway makes a foolish decision. We have a way to get home in the wormhole. And she twists her logic to say, well, Starfleet somehow is responsible

for these Ferengis being here. Like, dude, just take care of your crew and you got a wormhole. Like, if it weren't for that decision, we might have been home. There's that story problem to me. I felt like, God, Neelix, I'm just vomiting all this out,

but like, Neelix giving up his whole undercover mission so easily is a huge hit to him a hero like how can he ever be a hero again yeah at this moment where he just like spit everything out instead of trying in a heroic way to accomplish his mission i thought that was a huge mistake i don't know i could go on and on this is why i gave it two two out wow you just jumped the gun and jumped all over this episode there's no chronological there's no chronological order to this no we're just going to just jump all over the place just spit it all out so you see well to go Back to your you see where I'm coming from. Yes, we see where you're coming from. Okay. And you, you know, the sages talk about exploitation begins at home, but Robbie McNeil talks about exploitation begins on the set of this episode. Yes, exactly. By the way, I actually befriended, I think a couple of those background actors. I remember. Of course you did, Garrett. Of course. Robbie, this is such a random memory, but.

I remember at the time, a friend of mine was a club promoter and he had an evening at a club on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles in Hollywood, West Hollywood, actually. And I was helping him out. So I invited them to come to that evening. And I was at the door and it was just so hectic. Like all these people were trying to get in. And then, I don't know, a couple hours after I was standing out there, two of the gals showed up. And they were like, hey, Garrett. I'm like, oh, yeah, hey, hey, but I was just so stressed out because people were just, you know, tugging at your coattails, basically.

Yeah. But I do remember befriending at least two of them. But I never dated them. It was not an Akraterian thing. It was not an Akraterians would never do that. No. Which is coming up soon, by the way. Coming up soon.

Yeah, it is. It is. Okay. So we go to the briefing room. Yes. And we learn about this wormhole that seven years ago, the Starship Enterprise hosted negotiations. for ownership of the bars on wormhole. And to me, I started thinking, that is, that's crazy.

Like, they would actually sell the rights to a wormhole? I mean, is this, is this status quo? Is this something that's commonplace? It doesn't sound like Starfleet. It doesn't sound, it doesn't sound like something we would have done. I'm sure the writers have some reasoning why they came up with this story. but it just ready it all sounds like we're making crap up a little bit just to give us an excuse to have some ferengi in the delta quadrant we're sort of bending rules and making crap up i've never seen

starfleet auction off parts of space ever it just made me think about maybe like a an hg tv show about you know remodeling wormholes or so it's just like it's just buying wormholes and flipping them you know it's like okay weird I just didn't even think that that was Starfleet would auction something for profit that sounds like a Ferengi thing to do but not a Starfleet thing they're about treaties and agreements

and respect and all that stuff but still it's still bizarre that you could have ownership of a wormhole I mean it's so that that concept is so foreign and so bizarre to me but yet we have you know it's a path through space but yet on on planet earth we own roads like private roads and private man that's true i guess you could very that makes sense um tuvac objects to the interference saying that

it's you know it's it's it's in direct opposition um to starfleet protocol we can't we cannot interfere um we can't deal with this janeway then comes up with her her uh reasoning which you object to uh which is since Starfleet was supposedly hosting the negotiations for the ownership of this wormhole, we are directly responsible for these Ferengi being shot into the Delta Quadrant and that we need to take care of this situation, which everyone agrees to. Nobody, nobody objects to that other than Tuvok in the beginning. But even Tuvok says your logic is sound or something. I don't agree the logic is sound.

gets twisted and it's yeah at least the ferengi have the uh you know commentaries and judgments from the the rules of acquisition to turn to like we didn't have a book of starflea protocol to say ah are we responsible or not no just whatever she says goes so no exactly um we go back down to the palatial temple and eridore and cole are upset about the prophets being down from the gina province we finally learn rob labell has a name his name is khaar which if you take the first letter k and change it to a j now jafar is a character from aladdin so it's sort of there's a lot of there's a lot of Aladdin going on yep yeah look at the shoes that cole and eridor wearing that kind of upward twisty sort of Aladdin-esque type of shoe wear.

It's just so many little references I felt to Aladdin. We go to the transporter room and we basically have transported these two Ferengi up to Voyager. They're freaking out. They're like, what's going on? We explained to him, we explained to them that we're taking them back to the Alpha Quadrant. and we're going to bombard the local subspace instability with verteron particles. And this is how we're going to attract the wormhole back to us. It should reappear because of that.

But then, of course, the Ferengis then start complaining. And their argument is what happens to a people when they lose their gods? Despair, fear, confusion. You're going to leave them with darkness, doubt, and hopelessness if you take us. So Janeway's like, you're right. We'll let you go. But unbeknownst to the Ferengi, we are hatching a plan to make it more profitable to leave. Or as Janeway says, less profitable to stay.

And her famous, I love that line where she says, we have to out Ferengi, the Ferengi. And she does a little bit of an eyebrow raise at the end there. Mm-hmm. You know. Yep. And then we're at the temple. the Ferengue have set up an ionic disruption field around the Temple Square to prevent any unauthorized beam outs. The Grand Proxy, as played by Neelix, is now the messenger of the Grand Nagis, who basically rules over all Ferengi,

and he comes with the order that they must be recalled back to the Alpha Quadrant. Let me ask you this. So Neelix beams down to the planet, and he has altered his. appearance to look like a Ferengi and um and he acts puts on this cover this act to look like to act like a Ferengi um yeah have we done that on our show before have we altered anyone's appearance any character like as Janeway altered herself i mean maybe you know done her hair differently worn different clothes but has she i can't think of another episode where any of our series regulars

have altered their appearance. And what I'm getting at is... We did. We did, though, Robbie. When? We did. Chiquotay. What did he do? He altered his appearance to look like a Videon. The same one that Rob LaBelle

was in. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember that? Yeah. Isn't that funny? Look at that connection. Because he had to come down. Remember, he was a jailer. He was a Vidian jailer. Yeah. So what was your point? My point, though, is I think that that's a very dangerous line to cross as a show because we're already in a fantastic made-up world anyway. And as soon as you start saying, oh, well, we'll just change the way Ethan Phillips looks from a Talaxian to a to a Ferengi and let him play this fake character, I guess I don't like it because I don't ever like when characters have. have to act like different people because a it's saying that oh our character of neelix is a good

actor he can go in and pretend to be somebody he's not i just think that it's always dangerous to do like acting within acting you know what i mean like Ethan is playing a character who's playing another character it gets confusing and then you change his whole look i just think it makes the show in general feel like more fake when we were able just to change our appearance and pretend we're somebody else and all of our all of our you know crew members are good actors that they can just go act like whoever they want i think it makes the whole show feel more fake so that was one of my other problems by the way i was okay i was googling just to pause on the plot for a minute i was googling this episode and i saw a quote where cliff bowl the director

he said you know i think the studio was really or the network was really mad with me uh i regret directing it so silly that I let the actors go so broad and so silly that we were trying to be funny, but I think we went too far. And I think the studio and network felt that way too. I thought that was an interesting thing to read because I agree. I think it was maybe they thought they were being funny, but it went so broad that it wasn't even funny anymore. Yeah. You know, like the funniest things are things that feel true and authentic. That's when people really laugh, I think. And this didn't feel true or authentic on so many levels.

It just felt too big and broad and silly. It felt silly. Well, do you think he was referring to all the scenes in this? Because the only thing that I thought was super broad was that whole fight scene between Neelix and the two Ferengi. That was just like, okay. Well, it's just sort of like, you know. three stooges you know very slapstick right if you think about three stooges and the best versions of three stooges you knew they were never going to truly get hurt but the best version was when

you thought the three stooges were going to get hurt for a second yeah and then you realize oh my god they're okay and then it's even funnier because because it feels like what's happening is real on some level this just i think cliff's comments were his feelings that yeah we just let get broad and silly and not realistic and that was my feelings about the whole episode with everybody it felt that way with my performance it felt that way with uh rob labelle's character i just didn't believe it i didn't think neelix i love johnny phillips and eth you know that i love him but i didn't think this was his best work um because he was having to do something that was just, you know,

Nelix pretending to be a Ferengi pretend. Yeah. I don't know. It was too much. And I will, I mean, I do understand your concern or your dislike of characters being changed to look like a whole other, I get that. But at least we didn't do that in every episode, right?

I mean, we saw it in the Vdian episode quite a while back and now we see it here, but we don't rely upon that. And I know it's a little bit dangerous to go into that territory where you can say yeah you know it doesn't matter who you are we can make you look like any species in the galaxy yeah and that to serve this to make this story fit you know to put this round peg into the square hole we're just going to say bam you know you're going to look like so and so you're right that that is a that's sort of the cop out the cheap the easy way of doing

yeah right so by the way by the way um when i was trying to look up uh a couple things about like this episode and Cliff Bull and some yeah i did notice that um this episode was nominated for an emmy award for best costume design that pop blackman was nominated for the undercleavage concept so maybe i'm wrong maybe you know i mean i'm trying to think what would have earned the costume design it couldn't have been my hammer pants no but i would say it would be it would be yeah be colin aridore's costume I mean, being so elaborate and colorful and, you know, extravagant look of not only Cole and Arodor, but also their harem, you know.

Yeah, it's everything. You get nominated for the whole picture from the Starfleet uniforms to the planet, you know, the population of the planet, the creepy shoe guy and the sea. And even your hammer pants. Even your hammer pants. And my hammer pants and the Aladdin look. Your Aladdin look.

But I think the under-cleavage concept, which I've never seen before or again, by the way, I think was all part of what got a costume nomination for Bob Blackman. So I thought that was interesting. Anyway, let's jump back into our plot. Where were we? Neelix is down on the planet pretending to be the proxy. Right. And he's, you know, he says, I'm going to go.

And he says, listen, guys, you're going to have to prepare a speech to tell these people that you're leaving. And this was the plan that was hatched in the briefing room back up on Voyager that you just can't snatch these people's deities away from them. We need to give them some sort of exit plan. And the best way is to have them say that they're going to be leaving. So Neelix makes the announcement, I'm going to be heading out here into the town square. And when I'm back, I'm going to review your speech. Well, the Ferengi then decide that the only way that they can you know save themselves is by killing the messenger by killing the grand proxy slash neelix the neelix returns and that is when this whole slapstick fight scene happens with the two swords

that they have they're trying to kill neelix with and it's just it's very broad type of you know comedy and and you're right i was bummed out that neelix gave up his cover so quickly it was just like okay okay i'm not i'm not really who you i think who you think i am and then he leaves, they kick him out, they are triumphant that they've, they've foiled Voyager's plans yet again. But that's when, I guess, Neelix, Chiquet, and Tom Paris discuss what to do. They find out that there is a holy pilgrim. They know that there's more songs, yeah, in the songs of the sages, there's more verses which talk about not only the, I mean, obviously the beginning of the Song of Sages talks about the arrival of the sages, but the end of the Song of Sages

talks about the departure of the sages. So this is the opportunity that they've been looking for. And Neelix basically poses as the Holy Pilgrim. And he gets up on the platform, on the steps of the temple. And he starts to say, hello. And then the camera pans across the town square. And never before does it look more barren? And he, it's just like, like five people out there. Five people and they're kind of sleepy and it's later that night and your, you know, your complaint about

how how sparse it looked. It's definitely reinforced in that shot. I mean, that scene is just, it's ridiculous. There's nobody there. But then, yeah, and then even when Neelik speaks, nobody responds. So it's up to you and Chakotay to sort of tell people,

hey, it's the Holy Pilgrim. It's the Holy Pilgrim. So everyone starts to come over and watch. you guys then announced to Voyager to shoot out some Polaron bursts to fulfill this prophecy. Yes, because in the Song of the Sages for their departure, three stars, three new stars appear. Appear. So we create the illusion of three new stars to fit into their religious and, you know, spiritual song of the sages books and stories. Correct. got the the the um the stars appear and then uh they decide okay we got to send them home

on a wings of fire oh this is going to go bad so they start to tie them up and build a bonfire and they're going to burn them alive burned at the stake burn at the stake so paris and chukote run up in the midst of all this chaos right there by the guys tied up which again it just felt cheesy and poorly staged, maybe, and directed and maybe written. I don't know. It just felt silly. Yeah, let's go inside and turn off the things that are blocking us from, what's it called, it was preventing us from beaming back, the Polaron blocker.

It's like a dampening field or something, yeah. So we go in and Chakotay shoots his laser, phaser, which, by the way, we've had phaser. this whole time? Like, why don't we just stun the guys and drag them home? Like, really? We've had phasers?

Like, oh my God. It's a silly episode. Two out of ten. Two out of ten, I'm telling you. Nelix could have stunned them when he was in there as a grand...

He stunned him and drag him home. Yeah, that could have happened. Oh, my God. So they get, so they get, so they get, everyone gets beams back up to Voyager. And now we have scenes

that jump back and forth between the transporter room and the bridge. There's a security detail waiting. Ensign Murphy. Yes. Ensign Murphy is played by a background actor. I don't know his name, but he is the one person I always say

that blonde people look good in the gold uniform because he's blonde and that gold really kind of... I go with the darker complexion, the olive skin, the warmer skin, the darker hair, I think looks great with the olive. This brings up something that happened later in Voyager with Jerry Ryan. Jerry Ryan was supposed to wear the gold uniform. And she told the producers, I'm not going to wear that. I want to be in a different color. So they put her in teal. And she's

blonde. And when I talk to her about that, I'm like, why are you wearing this color? The script says you're in the gold one. She goes, oh, I'm not going to be wearing that puke yellow because she's noticing what it looked like on me. And the gold doesn't look that good on Asians. But gold looks great on blonde Caucasians. And so she really missed out. on looking fabulous because of how it looked in the gold looks great on like olive skin anyway okay i got to wear red dude so i i red's good though i think red's red's really good okay uh i want to say gets outmaned by the farangi the two but it's not just murphy this murphy this murphy and an asian security detail guy that's the first time i've seen that background

guy and they don't mention him again because they say ensign murphy was found unconscious yeah what about other guy. You know why they don't mention them again? Because those two little Ferengi took out a professional security detail, two unarmed Ferengi took them out, jumped on a shuttle, a Ferengi shuttle, which by the way, can we say that may have been the worst set I've ever seen on our show. The Ferengi shuttle interior was so bad. It was like they took two little half gloves painted set them on on the top of a crappy counter the background looked horrible it was bad it was just on every level i think i'm sorry you know and and some of the fans are saying to me like oh you're just being nice to all the episodes you really always say nice things about no this one no this one stunk

and by the way he has not pulled a punch on this one at all and by the way i love leslie jordan when i saw oh my god leslie jordan's in this episode i love leslie jordan he plays eridor in you know and in this episode when i first saw leslie jordan by the way follow his instagram movies are hilarious his clips are hilarious he was unwilling grace i mean you know everybody knows leslie oh okay he's short he's flamboyant he's hilarious he's smart he's funny when i saw his name i'm like oh my god this is going to be great right even lesley jordan wasn't it just didn't work and i'm a huge fan the set, this this Ferengi shuttle set

oh my God. What do you think they could have done with that set with the Ferengi shuttle set to make it look burned it? It was horrible. It didn't need to be as big or like usually here's my advice to filmmakers out there. When you don't

have enough money to do it right tighten up your shot. Just make your shot tighter. The tighter your shot the less you'll need, the more mystery behind the actors. I would have tightened up the shot if I were Cliff Bowl. I would have tightened up the shot out in that marketplace where you don't have enough of a set.

You don't have enough extras. Tighten up the shot. You don't have the proper environment that's really finished and up to the quality. So don't show it. You know, go in tighter. Less is more. Yes.

Less is more. Yes. Right. Okay. So now, you know, we try to beam the first. We first we try to tractor beam them. Yeah. We try to tractor beam the shuttle back doesn't work.

Then Janeway asked Harry to beam the Ferengi back to Voyager, but then the Ferengi counter. Their chess move is to send out a graviton pulse, which basically stops the transporter from transporting them back. But it also sort of screwed everything up with the wormhole. The graviton pulse then basically attracted the Ferengi shuttle into the wormhole. and it also knocked the wormhole completely off of its subspace axis. Now it's jumping erratically on both ends, on both ends. So it's not static in the alpha quadrant anymore, the other end. So now the question is, what happened to those frengu?

They could have been tossed anywhere. Right? So anyway, they could be in fluidic space. Yeah. Yeah. And Janeway says, options. And Kim sits there and very ominously says, there are none. and we realized we're screwed

we could have gotten home we were that close that's what I'm saying Garrett that's what I'm saying Janeway twisted the logic to stick us around to deal with these Ferengis

when Prime Directive says this is a planet with their own beliefs and they're going to work it out they're going to figure it maybe they would have learned a lesson if we had not tried to shoot fake photon burst

to create fake stars and trick them because that's really what we did we tricked them maybe they would have learned their lesson that their song of sages was a fiction and maybe they should stop believing in that fantasy and they would have learned the lesson but we prevented them from learning their lesson that they should have learned i guess because we tricked them so and and we could have gotten home so i give this a big thumbs down Okay. Well, we all know how you feel about this episode. I'm saying.

You're probably going to rename this episode. You wouldn't even call it Foss Proffas. You would just call it Skirtin the Prime Directive. That's right. Thumbs down. Thumbs down on this app. Yeah. Okay.

What was your, what's your theme from this hall? What's your lesson? Do not film this episode. Yes, my lesson is just don't film it. My lesson for this episode is, I wrote down magical thinking can make people do crazy things

but like the beliefs that this planet these people had made them excuse horrible you know exploit exploitation starts at home like that's insanity why would you exploit your own family

unless you have some magical thinking that's going to make you okay these are profits I guess I should yeah magical thinking can make people do crazy things that would be my that would be my my theme for this yeah I like that yeah that's a lesson that's good what's your theme I have I don't know if I have a theme for this this episode you know I was thinking like along the lines of you know I mean what is

this what is the allegory here is there an allegory I mean clearly these have taken advantage of these people to the point where, you know, they are living off the high hog and everyone else is just in a state of poverty, really. And, you know, I just, I just, I just wonder if, you know, the theme here is, is sort of like not having a caste system or not having, or knowing that when you have one group that has all the power that, you know, that what does that, who does that serve? it serves nobody except for that one group that has all the power basically

and you know in the society that we that we live in now the world that we live in now it is becoming kind of like this episode in terms of you know the Uber rich keep getting richer

you know so the Bezos is out there the the jobs the Steve jobs out there in the world their wealth just keeps increasing exponentially and there's such a huge divide between the the uber wealthy in America and the people just trying to make ends meet month to month well look in that yeah and

in the end this was just a big con game by these two Ferengi who were just exploiting everybody and everybody on this planet had nothing they were you know desperate for shoes they were desperate for just food to feed their family. So yeah, you're right. The gap between the haves and the have-nots in this episode with clearly extraordinary the gap. Maybe the lesson is not to follow blindly, to do your due diligence.

You know what I'm saying? Like someone can come out and say, hey, I'm here to tell you I have the answer for everything. Follow me. And people sometimes are just like, hey, we should follow him. And everyone just goes in this sort of, this, proud mentality of just like, yeah, let's follow the, let's go this way. And everyone goes that way.

And then no one actually does any research into what's happening. And they don't, they don't sit there and say, hey. But this, this episode, though, their, their willingness to believe started because they had a story. Right. The song in the stages, they have this story that was there before. Correct. And the Ferengi just sort of came down and exploited the story and fit into the story.

but if they didn't have this magical story that they believe this magical fiction that they believe these two pharynge would have shown up and they would have been been able to have more of a sober look at like who are you how did you get here what is a wormhole we don't understand wormholes yet but

you know it's that magical thinking it's the magical thinking can be a can make you do crazy things Yeah. By the way, one of the funnier lines, very true, one of the funnier lines for me was when early in the episode, the one citizen comes up talking about, I'm not making ends meet as a sandal maker. I need help and this and that. And at the end, they basically say they replicate a copy of the rules of acquisition. And the one Frankie says, replicate a copy of the rules of acquisition. Cheapest binding possible is what he said, that line, cheapest binding possible. It's just like, oh, my God, that's so farangi. Yeah. So farangy. Well, we've come to that point where we have ended our review of this episode.

Yes, we have. We've covered it, and I'm glad to put it behind me because this was definitely not one of my favorites. Well, I'm sure, Robbie, we're going to get some flak online. I'm sure there are some people who do enjoy this episode. I'm sure there are. That's fine. God bless you. You know, everyone to each his own.

and I know that, you know, we had Ferengi in the episode, and they were a very popular, you know, part of Star Trek. Species. Yeah, they were a very popular species and a very popular part of our mythology and our, in our Star Trek world to a lot of people. I think there's just been better Ferengi stories and better Ferengi characters, I guess, are stories or Brails or also. Yeah, not one of my favorite.

This may not be one of your favorite. Robby, but next week when we review, remember, that might be one of your favorites. That may be one of my favorites. Never know. I can't wait to remember, remember.