The Delta Flyers - For the Uniform

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

The Delta Flyers is 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, For the Uniform, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Terry Farrell.For the Uniform: After being humiliated in his quest to capture his traitorous former security chief, Michael Eddington, Sisko realizes he himself must think like a rouge.We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Nicki T, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jenny Cordina, Izzy Jaffer, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Sean T, Cindy Woodford, Tamara Evans, & Shawn RobbinsOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, David Wei Liu, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Andrew Duncan, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Matt Norris, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cano, Robby Hill, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, Chris Garis, & Jeff Allen.And our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Kelly Brown, Sarah Thompson, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Kilian Trapp, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Andrew Golden, Daniel Friend, Damien O’Donnell, Michael Bourguignon, & Luke PachaThank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“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, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Sponsors:* Check out Progressive: https://progressive.com* Check out Quince: https://quince.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Delta Flyers Journey Through the Wormhole, Quark, Dax, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host for today are my fellow Trek actors Terry Farrell, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong. For the complete and exciting version of this podcast, check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers, and sign up to become a patron today. Hello, friends. Hello, Rana. Hi.

Rana? Rana? Rana? You're Gawa. I'm tearfare. And Robbie is. I thought it was Rommick. Rommick.

That's why it's so hurt for me. Like, Rana. Where's the Naa from? Neil. From McNeil, the Neal part? Yeah, maybe. That'd be Rani. Rani.

Oh, I don't want to be Ronnie. No, you'll be Ronnie. I'm Rommick. I'm back on. That's exciting for me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. so glad. And do you get to stay home for a while? Yes, I think so. This whole traveling thing of showbiz,

I don't know if I like it anymore. I don't. I like being home. Yeah, me too. I feel weird saying that. It's not that I think if I got a job in the business that my life would turn into a hurricane because of my age and just I know how much that's not in your control. When I was young, I love traveling, like getting jobs and traveling and go, go, go. And I think I'm no. noticing that as I'm getting older, I really like me home. Yeah. Yeah. A normal pace.

Yeah. Familiar, routine. And not so much drama in the day-to-day experience. What do you think, Gawa? Yeah, I just feel like for me, my last 15, 20 years has been traveling so much that I don't even know what's anything different than that. That's become my regular. But it has been trying when I end up hitting some weird delays.

I had a, I flew to Salt Lake and I had a five hour delay, a five hour layover. Wow. Yeah, it's crazy. So Calgary, Salt Lake, Salt Lake. I was almost going to rent a car and drive to you because I was so, yeah. Well, you should have called me if you knew you had a five hour. Yeah. That's time to go.

I know. I thought for lunch for sure. You go downtown. Yeah. Then there was an airplane mechanical delay. So the total delay that I was in Salt Lake was nine and a half hours, Robbie. Oh my goodness. And I just sat there.

And each hour I kept thinking, I could have called Robbie an hour ago. I could have called him an hour ago and still seen him and come back. Oh, it was bad. I'm less than an hour from the airport. You were so close. I know. You are? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I want to plan a road trip to your house just to have. Yes, please. How long would that drive be? New Mexico to salt?

Eight or nine hours. Eight or nine, yeah. Maybe it stops. I think it's eight hours to Vegas. Are you going through mountainous terrain that could be detrimental to your... Don't do it this time of year. Oh, gosh, no. I can't.

I have a Prius, but I did drive cross-country and through Utah to L.A. Oh. When Max and I moved back to L.A. in 2017. It's the most extraordinary landscape. It is. It's beautiful. I don't know how there isn't a series, sci-fi series being shot there because you're, really?

Because I would. Let's just do it. Why not? Could that serve as the Martian planet then? Max and I talked about that when we were driving through. I was like, this is the perfect place. For an alien landscape. Yeah, you don't have to work at it.

I mean, you have to get there. There's a town in southern Utah near Zion where back in the 50s, they made a lot of the B monster movies. Oh. And there's a walk of fame in this tiny little town. It's like only the B monster movies and some of the westerns were made there because it was such a, yeah, yeah. There's like a little like a Hollywood walk of fame there from the 50s.

Is there a music? museum there too? Yes, there is a, there's like a movie museum of all the movies that were shot down. I forget the name of the town, but it's near Zion. I want to go check this out. Wow, that sounds great. It's a cool little town. Well, good to see you. We should do some birthdays. I'm so excited. I have the first birthday. Happy birthday to our friend, Daniel, friend. March 9th. Happy, happy, happy, happy birthday, Daniel. All right, next we have Neil McRae. on a very special day. March 13th is your birthday. Happy birthday, Neil. Happy lucky 13, Neil. Happy birthday, Neil. And we have another birthday on March 15th. Isela is March 15th. Our little

Isela. Happy birthday, Asela. Happy, happy birthday, Asela. Oh, Isela, we've known you since birth until now. And you're turning into a very, very, very beautiful, smart young lady. Happy birthday to you, Selah. I have a beautiful poem. I'm on a roll lately. I'm feeling really good. Sometimes they start bumpy, but lately I feel like I've been in a groove, so I'm very proud of myself. And you don't have training wheels on either. And you should be. No, no. I'm finally a real poet. Well, you'd be the judge of this. Here we go. All right. To capture a traitor in the end, Cisco crossed lines. He swore he'd defend. When Eddington fled, Something snapped in his head, so Eddington finally would bend.

I love it. Damn. Thank you. Really good job. I love it. Really good job. Tara, do you have a poem? I do.

And it's kind of long. Here we go. Cisco, Cisco, what should he do? Cisco, Cisco, he's in a stew. The bad guy is on the run. Playing by the rules is no fun. Cisco, Cisco, break all the rules.

Cisco, Cisco, you have the tools. We are all free and the bad guy can't flee. Cisco, Cisco, your integrity shot. Cisco, Cisco. We love you a lot.

I love that. I like it a lot. Well, because you've found a tempo or rhythm almost like a cheer, you know. Those are also great song lyrics or even a rap, you know, because just the way it is, it has that little rhythm to it, which would be really super cool.

I love it. Oh, my God. Thank you, guys. Hikoo time. Let's hear a high coo. Aiku time for the uniform. It's for the uniform. Here we go.

It's for squared the uniform. Cisco's obsession. Chase for Eddington ramps up. An eye for an eye. Hmm. Nice. Wow. Thank you.

Thank you. This is written by Peter. Alan Fields and directed by Victor Lobel. What I really liked about Victor is he talked to us about wanting it to feel the chaos, so us kind of not stepping on each other, but really on top of things. And there was a little more background going on than normal. Because the defiant wasn't working properly. You had to everybody could have vocally kind of talk to each other more than usual.

Yeah, I noticed that for sure. And way, way, way tighter. So I remember really being happy about it because it felt more realistic period. I made a note later in those scenes. I wish the Defiant and Voyager were always like that. Me too. That should be normal, like people talking to each other. And yeah, even when the captain's talking to someone, you know, one-on-one, there should be people in the background in normal scenes.

Yeah, talking in different departments. Yeah, that was great. There should be a sense of urgency nearly all the time so that the space of quiet makes you go, what's wrong? Yeah. Yeah. I liked that in this episode a lot. Yeah.

So I felt like Victor Loebel gave Deep Space Nine a huge gift. And unfortunately, that didn't carry through. But I really, really loved how he directed. And I remember being kind and funny and just really easy to be around. You know what's weird, Robbie? I never clocked that when we were filming. that the fact that there should be some dialogue that we hear of people walking behind this because we're on a, you know, we're on a vessel.

They're not taking their turn to talk. People are doing jobs constantly. Wow. But even if you add it for ADR, there should be a hum of ADR voices in the background. Yeah, some loop group dialogue back there that make. Not when we're filming, so we have to worry about just looping the entire thing. But I remember there was a spot where core, gnaug is relaying and I thought oh I can't stand that I can't just hear him faintly in the background

repeating Avery because it was an urgent it was one of the last ones it was super urgent we should have overheard him talking to but we do let some of it in there you do hear yeah yeah yeah no he definitely got so I just wanted to say that about him perfect yeah perfect I just want to say about peter Allen fields who this is written by he was a co-producer during season one and a producer during season two of DS9. So Fields, he wrote a number of episodes over the course of the first two seasons, but he was retired from the television business when he wrote this particular episode. He lied about his age to join the Marines during the Korean War. What? Wow. So he was a 14, 13 year? What was he? Well, he, you had to be 18, I think. Okay. So he was 16 years old. He

lied about his age to fight in the Korean War. He fought in the Battle of Incheon and was captured and spent several months as a prisoner of war. Whoa. Oh, my gosh. That's crazy. Yeah. How terrifying. Guest stars, of course.

Kenneth Marshall as Michael Eddington. Eric Pierpoint as Sanders and Aaron Eisenberg as Nag. Great to see Aaron in this episode. He did great. Yeah. He did great. Kenneth Marshall. Oh, my gosh.

Such a great actor. Yeah. All right. A little bit of trivia. Talking about all the people that are in this episode, the people that are not in this episode, we have no Armin Schimmerman, we have no Alexander Siddig, and we have no Sirak Lofton. So those are three series regulars that are not in this episode. A little bit of trivia.

Cisco's actions in for the uniform generated a lot of discussion. Ronald D. Moore commented, now we've stirred it up and let people. really argue about this. Cisco took an action and took a step that probably Picard wouldn't have. That's what made it an interesting episode. I could see Kirk taking this action. It seemed to me like what Cisco did was basically leveled the playing field again. That's a quote from Ron Moore. Mm-hmm. What Cisco did. All right. So we start off with a captain's log, Star Date 50485.2. And I just want to talk about star date for a minute. Go. It's a star date, which was Gene Roddenberry's idea. He didn't want to use

the calendar that we use. He wanted some futuristic time system for Star Trek. And so he used Julian Day's system of calculating a star date, which was designed to be independent of Earth's Gregorian calendar and the count for the relativistic time shifts in space. So this is all star date is Gene Roddenberry's idea. That's amazing. It's made up, but it is real in that when you read it out, I think you can say, okay, this comes from this time period. Do you know what I'm saying? The numbers are not random. It comes from a real thing. It comes from a real thing. But it's still a little twisted. Like in the original series, they used very simplistic numbers. Next Gen became a little more

structured and then as as it moves into the movies and other series it became more Kelvin influence so it's it's not consistent star dates exactly but right so is it like a location as the date i guess it's relative time with the way the stars move it's this guy it's this guy that sounds like a book you need to read about how this is all i'm putting this out to the fans julian day the astronomer Julian Day's system, I would like you guys to do a deep dive into Star Dates, please. Is it D-A-Y-E or D-A-Y? It is D-A-Y, which is ironic that he came with a calendar system and his name is Jay.

Julian Day. I wonder if he felt obligated. Okay. The only thing funny, it would be Julian Gregorian if that was his name. Or calendar. Julian calendar. Well, there you go, fans. Robbie's giving you a homework assignment.

Someone's got to come up with a TED talk about Star Dates. So do it. There's a lot more there than I ever knew. Yes. Caught my attention. Me too. So thanks for bringing that up. Yeah.

Me too. All right. All right. Cisco's got a captain's log. He says, I've come to Marva 4, a planet near the badlands, to rendezvous with an informer who claims to have information on the whereabouts of a Maki leader and former Starfleet officer Michael Eddington.

Bumpabom. So we know we're going to be on the hunt for Michael Eddington. here. We go into a planet hell cave set, refugee camp. He's walking through the caves. This Cisco, all by himself, by the way. And I noticed there was a welding gag. Did you see the guy welding and he sort of stops and nods to, that's the old welding gag. Whenever you need like, you know, low tech, interactive, something cool, they pull out this thing. The special effects department pulls out this thing that creates sparks and they're like, anybody can do it. Anybody can do it. Actors can do it background.

I remember doing it before. So that's an old chestnut, the old welding gag. The old people use the gag in the cave. Right. It means low tech. Yeah, they're a real low tech. Yeah. Anyway, Cisco's looking for Sincta?

Singta, yeah. Who is Sinta? I was like, yeah, who is Sinta? It must be his code name. It's a code name. Honestly, it sounds like, well, it sounds like a T that I had a couple of weeks ago, actually. A brood tea, the Sing-Tah, you know, green tea. Oh, yeah.

It does sound like a good tea. Anyway, the welder guy points to a curtain. He says, go look. It doesn't have any lines. So it must be background with the welder thing. He's welding, though. Anybody can do it. It was a small thing.

So how he understood it was that curtain. Anyway, Cisco goes through the curtain. Why is he by himself? If this is such a dangerous... No, I think... Number one. That felt dangerous. Yeah.

So he's in civilian clothes. So he's undercover. on top of being by himself. And now you're thinking... But he still looks like himself. Well, right off the bat, this is something that Cisco, as the captain of DS9, the station, would not do himself. I'm sorry, this would be somebody else doing this, not him. It does show that it's his obsession, though, that he's obsessed with Eddington.

Immediately shown that this is personal. You know this is personal. This is not business at all. No, and his ego's wrapped up in it. Oh, yeah. Why isn't anybody else there to be back up? He cannot separate his ego at all. It's just so wrapped up in this situation.

Well, he walks behind the curtain and suddenly there's a disruptor to his head. We revealed that it's Eddington with a disruptor. And Singta was who Sisko was supposed to meet. We never meet Singta because Eddington says, oh, Singta had an accident. But he's not dead because he's not a killer, Eddington. He just stranded him on a nasty planet. says that he betrayed the maquis, this Singta guy. And Cisco, he starts telling him, well, you know about betrayal.

And Eddington thinks Cisco is embarrassed that he lost Eddington on his watch, that this is personal. Cisco says, no, it's about treason. Eddington gives a little speech about how the refugees were treated very unfairly. He says, don't follow me anymore or you're going to regret it. Gives him a real threat there. And he beams out. And Kira traces a signal to a Maki ship.

Cisco says, beam me back on board and let's pursue battle stations. That's the opening scene. I thought it was a little flat, to be honest. I wish, and as we've all said nice things about Victor Loebuck, the director, I will say I'm going to be critical of him in this episode because it was all sort of very middle of the road. There were no highs and lows in terms of, you know, this is the opening teaser. This should just like make us go, oh my gosh.

You've got to watch this episode. Okay. Yeah. It didn't pop for you at all. So, okay. No, I mean, neither. And I didn't feel like he was in real danger, even though, as we're describing this, he should have. Yeah, should have felt that way.

I'm going to pitch as we go through this episode. Yeah. And no disrespect to Victor Lobo because I do think he's a lovely man and had a lot of good ideas here. But I'm going to pitch some ways that you could have directed this differently. So this scene, if it had been handheld, if they hadn't just. stood still the whole time to talk. But if Eddington had been circling around him and moving and you felt like, oh, my God, Cisco's really in danger, it would have helped.

You know, when he says, look out the curtain. It should have been more aggressive than threatening, like put the gun to his head. Just I feel like this scene, because the teaser, needed more energy and stakes. And it didn't feel that way. It felt like a couple of people standing still and talking. And I think Eddington should have been, even though he's saying all these things, I felt like he should have been more scary, more threatening. Yes.

In his tone, in his body, even if he's that calm, that's okay that you're calm, but there needs to be this danger bubbling behind what he's saying. Like I could, I'm not a killer, but I could kill you. Yes, exactly. I didn't have so much of an issue with what, how he was saying. Again, what Robbie said is in terms of the way it was shot, it was so strong. just very, very dull. And if there was more movement,

I really think that maybe your opinion would change a little bit. Marvin Rush was great at this of like Marvin would put the camera on his shoulder and shoot it. He would operate the camera himself. He loved handheld shots. By the way, a little tangent.

Marvin Rush started as a teenager as what they call a news stringer. So back in the days, back in the old days, independent reporters, almost like YouTubers now, I guess, or whatever. Marvin was one of these guys called a stringer

where he would take a film camera. He had his own little 16mm film camera, and he'd have a scanner at home, and he'd hear the police radio or the fire radio say, there's a fire at a warehouse. Marvin would take his own personal camera and go film the fire,

and then he would sell that footage to news stations as a teenager. That was Marvin. Wow. That's freaking genius. Marvin on the scanner heard about the Patty Hurst bank robbery. You remember this? Patty Hurst in the valley. And he went over and got footage that became iconic footage. Marvin Rush.

Wow. Footage as a young man, his own little 16 millimeter film camera. He got iconic footage of the shootout with Patty Hurst and the Symbionese Liberation Army, the SLA, whatever. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. that she was a part of for a while. Yeah. That's crazy, dude.

That kind of energy would have been great for this scene. Marvin would have knocked it out of the way. The other thing that, I don't know if you clock this or not either of you, but the other distracting and non-threatening thing was Eddington's disruptor. It was like wood grain. You could tell it was fake. Well, Kira Daxon Warf are there. So there's got to be some action happening.

It ought to be. Yeah, they're on the defiant following Eddington at maximum war. Francisco calls a nearby Starfleet ship. and we are introduced to this new hollow communicator where people, instead of being on a screen, are kind of holograms on the Defiant Bridge. What did you guys think? I have...

Yeah, I want to hear your opinion, and I'm also going to read something, too, about it, too, at some point. So, Tara Fair, what do you think about the hollow communication? First of all, I didn't really put that together what the hell was going on when that happened. I think it should have been, like, something maybe Chief O'Brien was really excited about installing, so we knew about it because that was confusing.

I thought he had beamed aboard when I was watching the first time. It was like, yeah, I think that they should have kept it sort of. And I realize obviously in the scene. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. They should have kept it sort of fritzy, the hologram. So that it kept, because it felt like they were right there. Yeah.

And I have a bunch of problems with it. I don't think it continued. Did you keep this? I don't think so. I like the screen because that's what we're all used to. Everybody's seeing it. This episode marks the first use and mention of the hollow communicator. The idea to use this device was Ronald D. Moore's.

That's something I had been pushing for because I just think it's so absurd that in the 24th century, they have holodeck technology that allows them to recreate ancient Rome, but everybody talks to each other on television monitors. It's just so lame. The view screens have been around for over 30 years. can we move to something a little bit more interesting, but it's like pulling teeth. Then Ira Stephen Bear was completely behind Moore's idea. Viewscreen scenes are always difficult to pull off.

The longer they are, the more boring they are. And having a character talk to someone on a view screen is very distancing. And it did work in this episode. We never could have had Eddington on the view screen for all of his scenes. It would have been dramatic death. Despite this, however, the hollow communicator. was not seen as successful in this episode. Something alluded to by Gary Hutzel.

Gary Hutzel was quoted as saying, it was a terrible idea from the get-go. The idea was to create this amazing 3-D image, but TV's a 2D medium, so it's hard to show that it's three-dimensional. So you have to move the camera around so that the audience can see that it's 3D, but then it could look to them like the guy just beamed in.

So you have to find a way to deal with that. It created all these problems that the writers hadn't thought about, and it missed the whole point of why Gene Roddenberry wanted a view screen. So you could avoid unnecessary expense. The hollow communicator would be seen only once more in Cisco's office on D-Space 9. So that's it. There's one more appearance and it's done. But I mean, in the new Star Trek's, they do this. But they do it well because it's a little bit of the technology, though.

Floating. Yeah. They couldn't do it back then. They couldn't do that when we were shooting. Also, it probably would have been too expensive, but I like it when they have somebody on the screen initially, but then we go on to their ship. Yes. Yes. Because then there's enough stuff going on. They were standing there without their ship around them and they were reaching over and touching buttons that were invisible. That looked weird. It's weird. Yeah. We needed to be in their ship. That would have been more powerful too because we're not.

not seeing the marquee, we're not seeing what their ship looks like. That was bothering me. As a viewer, I wanted to see his army. The first one we see is Sanders, who's a captain of a ship. Cisco's sitting in his captain's chair, but Sanders is standing there. Like he would be sitting in his captain. I thought he was on the station. He would be sitting in his chair. Oh, he would be sitting as well. Yeah. And then I was thinking when Sanders is standing there. No, but I thought he was literally there. No, no, no. He was literally there. No, no. At what, Oh, the first time he was? The first time was he?

No, he comes into ops. Sanders comes into ops later. Later. He's a hologram. He is. He would be sitting in his chair. And then I started thinking, oh, Sanders on his ship, because he says, oh, it looks like you're on my bridge or something. Yeah.

That's right. And then Cisco sitting in his chair. And I thought, well, if Sanders is on his bridge, he's looking at Cisco just sitting in midair because it would be weird. Like what a Sanders looking at? Yeah, he would be look. Yeah, it's almost like he has nothing underneath him, correct? He would just be seated position floating there is what it would look at. Yeah, it would be weird.

Yeah. Anyway, not a success, this hollow communicator. Sanders says, I'll help you. I'll go intercept, you know, Eddington and the Maquis. And suddenly the Maquis ship with Eddington reverses course, drops out a warp and turns around. And they're heading straight for them. And Cisco prepares to fire when suddenly every.

Everything shuts down. The lights kind of flicker and there's a massive computer failure on the Defiant. And Eddington pops on to this hollow communicator now. And he says, I left a cascade virus and I could destroy you right now, but I won't. I'm not a killer. And Cisco, he says, Cisco, don't make this personal. Just leave me alone and I'll leave you alone and he disappears. I felt like this cascade virus because it's so major should have been a bigger deal than just flicker. lights. That's my note there. It was like, okay. Yep. That makes sense. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Like literally the lights just flickered and suddenly they're disabled. We've seen them in battle with like sparks and all kinds of things and they've fought through that. So well or suddenly everything is almost black in there because how do we have lights? How do you even have lights? Yeah. Yeah. Like then the generator power should go on or emergency power source. and red alert. How we have red alert.

Yes, automatically because. Yeah. That would have been good. Yeah. Very quickly about Pierpoint. That's the actor that plays Captain Sanders. Iris Stephen Bear specifically sought out Eric Pierpoint for the role of Captain Sanders with the intention of having him become a recurring character, possibly killing him off later in season six.

However, Bear never got around to putting his idea into action, and Sanders was never seen again. So it was sort of like, I know. Oh, that's too bad. But he did come back in Enterprise. So he did four or five episodes of the Enterprise. So not as Sanders. It just didn't work in the scripts. Right.

That's probably it. I liked him. I thought he was good. I did too. Me too. Yeah. All right. We go to another captain's log, start 850488.2.

The defiant has returned to the station, but not under its own power. The starship Melanchet. Malinche? Yeah, Malinche. Malinche. It almost sounds like a Spanish word or something. Melinche. Yeah, that's true.

The starship Malinche had to tow us home. So we see the defiant at the station. We go to ops. I love this shot. Victor Lobel did a long lens walk and talk. O'Brien's filling them in on the Cascade virus. Takes them right into the captain's office. O'Brien says it's going to be two weeks to fix it.

He heads off. Odo said he found a similar virus on the station, and he could have disabled the entire station. and so Cisco sends them off to take care of that. Oda says, remind Starfleet, as he's leaving, I love this. He goes, remind Starfleet that they sent Eddington because they didn't trust me. He's reminding them of that. Right.

I like that. I love Odo getting that dig in right there. I am so happy. He said it too because I wasn't even thinking about it because it was such a long time ago. So it was really great the writers added that in. Yeah. War fills us in the two Bollium freighters carrying selenium and rhodium. rhodium nootrate

noitrate a couple chemicals I like noitrate I'd go with noitrators with a bunch of chemicals disappeared not very valuable he says but

Worf goes to to meet up with Dax to try to figure out why Sanders arrives this is where he's in person he's not a hologram and he says tells Cisco that Starfleet has

reassigned him to get Eddington, not Cisco anymore. Because they think it's too long. They think eight months is too long, and you should have found it by now. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. But beyond that, is it odd that Starfleet didn't tell Cisco directly to have another captain tell him? It was just reason to give him another scene with Cisco, because that felt really

unprofessional to me. Like, I would expect Rick Berman to tell me something as, you know. And not the actor that was coming. in to take over your job. Right. Yeah. That would be like. That would be good.

Yeah. It just seemed unprofessional. Maybe they wanted someone in person rather than a phone call or something. Well, now they have these holographic things. Then they could have whatever the ambassador or whoever's in charge of. I can't remember the actor. There's a regular actor who comes on. Oh, yeah.

It was like the admiral. Yeah. Why not have the admiral tell him? I just thought that that stood up. out to me. To me, that was a rewrite for me. Well, Cisco is not happy about it. Sanders is going to be the one to find Eddington. And Cisco tells him good hunting as he leaves. So this, right after this scene ends, this is where the cut scene went. There's a scene in the engine room. Did they shoot it? Well, it says a deleted or unfilmed scene. So maybe they did shoot it. So O'Brien and Bashir discuss

Eddington and their opinion of him. The scene also mentions that Starfleet accounting gets bills from Quark. O'Brien also tells Bashir a story. Eddington told him about an Orion slave girl and a Toulorian quadrupedal species. At the end of the scene, the pair realized they actually liked Eddington.

So that's what the scene was in there for, to give Eddington a little bit of support. A little bit of love. Yeah, a little bit of love. Yeah. Of course we were all fooled. That's interesting. I mean, I think it complicates things, which can be good sometimes.

So you feel a little torn. Yeah, I'm kind of torn. You understand, too, why Cisco didn't pick up on anything. That shows that he was just a normal crew member that everybody liked. Exactly. He fooled everybody, not just Cisco. I'll be honest, I would have kept the scene in. I would have kept this scene in.

I don't know why they took it out. Time. Well, yes, that's probably it. Good catch, Robbie. Yes, yes. Time. All right. We go to a hollow suite.

where Cisco is boxing and Dax is holding the bag. Do you remember shooting the scene, Terry? It was a challenge to hold that bag. He was hitting it hard. He was not letting, he was not, you was not, you wasn't going easy on me. He wasn't going easy on you at all. Because there's times when you're in middle of your dialogue, you're like, and the, like, you were like the air is being knocked out of you. And I thought, oh.

But that's great because it felt more real. Yes. The good thing is, honestly, thank goodness, I'm six feet tall. And thank goodness, I'm as strong as I am. Yeah. Was. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I think the activity is a great idea. Again, here, I wish Victor Lobel had shot this handheld. Oh, yeah. The thing that was all very smooth and elegant and I think this could have had like the, the camera could have had the energy of Cisco's frustration. Yeah. Make it a little rough and tumble. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Scenes like this, as the director, I think it's always really helpful to know where the point of view of the scene is. This is a Cisco point of view. We should feel what he's feeling. Correct. And then try to use the camera in that point of view, you know. And so if this is Cisco all angry, it should have been, you know, whip pans and handheld and more energetic.

And the camera work was pretty middle of the road. It was neutral. What's too bad is it's, is it like forgetting that every tool you have is a character in the scene, like the music, the camera, the lighting, hair and makeup, the work, everything. We need everything to make it feel how we want the audience to feel. Everybody's important. Yep. Yeah.

Well, he's boxing hard. He's super mad at himself. And Dax basically in the scene says, let it go. It's not your problem anymore. You've got to let it go. Kira calls. She's got some news about Eddington. We go up to Ops. Eddington has attacked a Cardassian colony with Cobalt Dicelladineid. I don't know what it's called. Cobalt. It's a made up bad thing. Yes, Cobalt deselanide. There we go. So Eddington has attacked a Cardassian colony with Cobalt to Celanide and all the Kardashians are evacuating. Dax says he used the store. stolen chemicals to reformulate the poison and Eddington plans to attack every colony in the sector.

And only the Melanchet can stop them. So Sanders ship. Because we're too far away. And our defiance broke. And he's been taken off this hunt. He's been told Sanders is the one to do it. But Cisco says, well, there is another ship that can stop them in docking bay three. We know what he's talking about.

It's the defiant. and he heads to the lift. And without him even inviting his team, they all support him. They jump on the turbo lift. And Cisco says, defiant. And then they head out. I like the button of that scene. That was nice.

Yeah. I did too. I also wish we had more scenes like Avery boxing or just being in his civilian clothes, just to make it feel like he lives there instead of always just works there. Work. And also how we all just filed in. It felt like a little bit like Mod Squad or, you know. Yes, it was a little Ocean's 11.

Here goes the team. Yes, exactly. I liked it. It was sexy. Yeah. We go to the engine room. So engine room on the Defiant, Miles says only half of the Defiant is working. Even the comms are down.

So Miles had an idea to send orders. He brought Nog along. because his hearing during battle and during explosions can pick up the captain's orders and he can be the one voice to carry all these messages. And I like to Aaron's line as he heads off. Cisco says, do you think you're ready for that, cadet? No, he says, sir, yes, sir, absolutely.

Cisco says, glad to hear it. Report to the bridge. He says, aye, sir. And then as he's heading out, he goes, exploding. He's just like to himself. He's very worried about the explosion. explosions. So he heads out. Miles has more bad news, more broken stuff. He lists all the broken stuff. But the good news is the hollow communicator is working just fine. I wrote down great.

Oh, I think, what is the hollow communicator? I didn't know what that was. I know we talked about it, but it was just such a weird. It is weird. I'm like, somebody explain it right now. I don't know what you're talking about. But, I mean, it does make sense what I read earlier, right? Oh, yeah, it totally does. We just couldn't achieve it. In the corridor, Cisco tells Dax, just say it. Say he's crazy.

Say I'm crazy. Cisco says, and Dax says, you know, you're more like Curzon every day. So proud of him. I know. You're very proud. And Dax says, just try and remember this when I do something a little crazy. So it's a nice little scene on the walk. Yes.

You and you and Cisco have a lot of connecting moments in this episode, which I really liked. Thank you. I did feel like, I don't know if it was this one, but there were a couple of scenes where it felt like they took from different takes. Like my tone changes really different. And it's like, oh, that could be true. It just jointed to me. Yeah. Yeah.

When it feels jumpy, it's often because they're taking performances from different takes and trying to make it seem like, one scene, but sometimes they can be very different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of like when you do ADR and, you know, you're trying to match the vocal performance and it's not the same performance anymore, the same energy. So yeah. No, and if they want you to lift the energy, but your whole body isn't doing it, it looks like you're, to, you're separated because you are. Yeah. Yeah, it's disconnected. Out of body. Well, after the Wogga Talk, we go to the bridge. Nog is basically on a cell phone. Did you see that little thing?

So, relaying messages. That or a TV remote control. Yeah, they look like a little tiny, like about, you know, five, six inches little remote control. Well, that's what they used to look like then, too, didn't they? Yeah.

The cell phones? You either had the flip phone from Motorola. Motorola or the Nokia. Or everything else was like one. piece. Yeah, the Nokia, that was one piece. Quick trivia. The scenes on the USS Defiant Bridge showing the crew operating the ship manually and relaying communications through Nog were written as an homage to a similar scene in the 1958 Robert Wise movie,

Run Silent, Run Deep. Iris Stephen Bear commented, great idea, I loved it. We wanted it to feel like a submarine movie, and we kept talking about Run Silent, Run Deep for those scenes. Wow. I'll have to watch that movie. I don't know that movie. I don't know it either. Any other. Cool. Well, Nog's on the cell phone. He tells engineering relays to engineering to standby impulse. We go to the engine room to see that. So we see that he's, Nog is the one communicating, relaying all this, which I love.

I just want to say how much I loved when I had to give all, I mean, it was a lot to memorize, but I did it to all the tiny things about directing the ship. Yeah. When we left deep space, and I said half circle now, and then we flipped and we, I mean, that was super cool shot. Yeah. But I love that I had to manually tell the ship what to do. I did too. I wish that happened all the time. Well, because let's face it, we don't, in all Star Trek episodes or films, everyone just touches controls and it just happens.

And now you get a play-by-play from Dax. Stax is just saying, okay, and then this coefficient of this number has to happen. And you're like, wow, this is so cool. Yeah, it feels so much more legit. Yes. For sure. Yeah. Yeah.

And it made me feel like I looked really like a master of it. I mastered flying. I mean, this was the second character or the second human, I mean, trill that had the life of being a pilot. Yep. She's got that experience. It's silly, but you do kind of want to own it when it's your character. Well, they're preparing all these systems. talking to each other out loud,

which we all love. And there's a lot of steps, a lot more than usual, because of these systems that are down. This scene kind of shows how tricky it's going to be to move the ship around. They almost hit a pylon. That's when you say half rotate or whatever you say.

She's half roll now, and then it goes right there. Yeah, you just miss the pylon and they head off. That would have been bad, right? If you scraped it a little bit, like, No. Cisco gives you this look like, no. This is my Tom Cruise move. Okay, got it.

Yes, exactly. Top Gun. Once they head out, Cisco tells Worf, they're going to need to start doing battle drills. Because of all this communications relay, it's going to be different than the old days than usual. So battle drills are very important. We have a space, captain's log in space. After completing a series of readiness drills, we've entered the plasma fields of the bad and begun our search for Eddington.

Well, the badlands, I thought were very cool, by the way. We're going into the badlands. Wasn't that cool? Yes. The smoky stuff. Yeah, was that the plasma field? I think so. We haven't gotten there yet?

Well, the badlands, that's where we're at, right? That's where we're trying to search for them. Yes. Yes. And I thought that there was a plasma field in there, too. There's probably plasma in the bad. The badlands have all the stuff. All the badlands.

have all the obstacles. It's a tough place to fly. And the defiant is kind of, you know, 50%. So it's going to be tough. Kind of like the witcher going through the woods. Well, that's also... Tifford. That's how our show started.

We get lost in the badlands and sucked into the Delta Quadrant. We're just transported immediately. So we are also... So here we go. Here's a little bit of trivia. Voyager had originally used CGI to create the badlands, but no one really liked them. So to create the badlands in for the uniform. the visual effects team poured liquid nitrogen,

which boils furiously at room temperature, onto a piece of black velvet. Oh, wow. According to Gary Hutzel. That's how they do it. Through the thick plasma fields. There we go. I see it.

Betty, as she goes, watch those gyros. Well, we go back to the bridge. They're pursuing. Kira's got found a neutrino signature from Eddington's ship. They head that way. Suddenly there's an incoming transmission. It's Eddington. on this hollow communicator again.

He's got a very cool jacket on. I just want to comment. I like his jacket. I would like to buy it. Kind of a member's only vibe. So from the auction, someone who is listening to this probably knows the person who has that.

Who has Eddington's jacket? It's cool. You've got to ask, Ken, when you talk to him, it also could have been off the rack, in which case he might know from the tag on the inside. Oh, true.

Like our set jackets where Eddie Bowie. I mean, when we wore normal stuff sometimes. Like, well, ask him. What Cisco wore boxing? He might have been wearing something off the rack. Yeah. Yes, that they took logos off of or.

Yes. We'll ask him. Sure. Why not? Yeah. Or you could just call Bob Blackman and ask him. Yeah. So Eddington pops into the hollow communicator,

says Cisco just can't resist following. He's really enjoying this cat and mouse game. Yes. And he sends a book to Cisco. Oh my gosh. It's Le Miserables. Yeah. And says, pay attention to Inspector Javert.

He spent 20 years chasing a man who just stole some bread. And Cisco doesn't understand what this is why the book, but he locks weapons. Eddington ends his transmission. And we realized that this whole ship was a decoy. This was just a probe. And Cisco wants to continue the chase. through the plasma fields very cool shot of the plasma fields I love love the plasma fields yeah that's wild that's what it was yeah and it liquid

nitrogen very cool but I think Cisco realizes that he's been duped right so he's like let's we got to move now get out of here quickly we have to figure out what's going on yeah and then Kira finds the Melanchi Sandership it was ambushed and it's dead in space So that's not very good news. No. Yep. We have a little time passing, and later they are at the Melanchet, Sanders hologram pops up. He's got dirt all over him.

He's definitely been in a battle, you can see. And Cisco sends a damaged control team over to Sandership to help them out. Nog relays this message. Love Nog in action here. Yeah. The dirt was confusing to me, though. Wasn't it? Yeah, because I kept thinking, were you installing drywall?

Like, what do you do? I mean, it just seemed a little. No, they were in battle. I get that, but it should be singed or something. I don't know. Or torn. It just, it was odd. It was just kind of chocked on like that.

It looked like classic Star Trek battle mode. Okay. That's fine, with the charcoal. But I get what you're saying. You would have liked like a tear or maybe something on his, a scrape on his face. It just seemed a little chalky. Maybe his pants had split open down. Thank you.

I'll go with that. Like down in the bottom somewhere. Yeah. Yeah. He broke his big toe. We just couldn't see it. Okay. He's in nitpick mode right.

I am. Yeah. Sorry. Well, Sanders is mad. He was tricked. He explains how they rigged a Cardassian freighter to appear like it was in distress. And then they attacked when he lowered his shields. So Eddington's clever.

We've been there before. Yeah. I'm going to say Eddington is probably the most brilliant tactician we've come across at this point. I mean, look at all the things he's doing here. unbelievable. I think he has a very high IQ. He is. He is a smart guy. Well, he's going to get out cat and mouse in this episode, wait and see. Wait and see. I'm holding on. Yes, he does, he's mad about it. He tells Cisco to save him a seat at Eddington's court martial, which I liked, signs off. Next scene is another captain's log in space. We hear Cisco say, with the defiance

computers still not fully operational. We're relying on Odo back at Deep Space 9 to decipher the marquee message. In the meantime, we're combing the DMZ in hopes of a chance encounter with Eddington, but with each passing hour, our hopes are fading. So yeah, they found this message, this coded message. Where does they find it? Well, I think that Sanders says, before he checks out in the last scene, He says we intercept a decoded message from one of Eddington's Raiders. Maybe you can decode it. Our computers are down. So Sanders got that information, but they can't decode it.

They need some help. I like some of these tracking shots. Everybody's working on the bridge. They're waiting. There's some voiceover moments here. This is over this captain's log, which is often just in space, it was a nice montage that I think Victor Lobel did here. Suddenly, Odo appears on the hollow communicator that we've all voted we don't like.

He says he's analyzed this Maki message. It appears to be a Breen nursery rhyme. And Odo thinks that it's a signal to a Breen colony, and he needs to keep his unstable weapons cold. That's what Eddington's sending this message about. And the Breen know how to keep things cold so they can help. Odo signs off. Again, Odo's like miming in the background

because we don't see on this hollow communicator any of the set around him. So he's like touching buttons. What a weird song that was listening to that Breen song, hey? That would not put me to sleep. That would like scare me. It's like a little bizarre. They think it might have something to do with the Breen

and Odo keeps working on it, ends the transmission. Cisco has an idea. He says, do we have any sensor relays near Portis 5? Worf says yes to Class 5 intelligence drones. Cisco wants to pull the logs and see who's been visiting the Breen system. So why are they trying to keep these weapons cold? Why are the Breen involved? Put all this together.

Yeah. We have another log. Cisco says Odo's hunch has proven accurate. The drones detected a Maki freighter entering Portis five three hours ago. And the freighter was last seen headed towards the Dvorvan sector of the DMZ. So they're starting to, you know, piece it together a little. Piece it all together.

They discuss on the bridge possible Kardashian colony targets in Portis Five. There's four colonies that have had recent defense upgrades. But two of them, Cotall and Panora, didn't get defense upgrades. So they focus in on that. Panora is the most helpless with Elise defenses. And Cisco says,

everyone thinks that's where, you know, Worf says, well, they'll probably go to Pinar. It's the most helpless. Cisco goes, no, no, no. It'll be Cattal because Eddington likes to be unpredictable. So we feel Cisco starting to get a little warmer on Eddington's thinking. Yeah, get inside his head a little more. Yeah.

Yeah. We go to Cotall Prime. Eddington has already attacked. Kira finds two Maki Raiders. They engage them, blow up one of them, but the other heads back towards the planet. and it disables a freighter that's evacuating these Cardassians from the colony. And then suddenly Eddington appears and says to Cisco, well, Cisco, you've got a choice. You can chase me, keep trying to get me, or you can save the Kardashians on that freighter

because they are falling back to the planet and they're all going to die. And Cisco reluctantly chooses to help the Kardashians on the freighter. And Eddington escapes again. Oh, I think the reluctant was more him, the anger that he has duped him once again. Once again, he was more prepared. Eddington was more prepared than Cisco. He hadn't played three moves in on the chess game. Yeah.

He played two moves in, not three. Edenton plays five, right? Eddington's a bit cocky, though, because he does call him Javert in the scene. That's not cool. You know, which is kind of like a dig, and Cisco doesn't quite understand it. So that's going to drive Cisco. He said he read the novel, so he does get it then, right? Yeah, but like why is...

Yeah, it's an insult. Yeah. It's an insult. Yeah. Why did he say Javert reminds Cisco that you sent me that book? So we go to the mess hall, Cisco's reading it. Now he's like, this has got to be a clue. Oh.

He's reading the book. Dax joins him in there. Cisco's trying to see what the clues are. And I like Dax's comment. She thinks it's very melodramatic, this literature from this time period. I can't stand Victor Hugo is what she says. I love it. I love that I have an unpopular opinion.

I love. That's fun. Other people think it's a classic? You can't stand it. Well, Cisco realizes that it's not a book about Javier. He keeps calling me Javert. He goes, it's a book about Valjean. And Eddington thinks he's Valjean, this noble hero, that he's a Robin Hood who makes noble sacrifices.

And Cisco decides, I need to play the villain. If he thinks he's the hero, then I will play the villain, not the policeman Javert. I loved being in that scene with him. Again, like great Daxon Cisco scenes, a lot of them in this episode. You're there a lot in his story. Wish we did that stuff more. And I like that we've, at this point, just a comment about the Defiant. We've got the engine room.

We've seen the mess hall now. We've seen the bridge is kind of cool. Quarters. I'm really starting getting quarters. Yeah. And some of the hallways. Like, I think the Defiant was such a smart move for your show. Oh, yeah.

And every year they invested more money in it. Mm-hmm. So I'm sure. Yeah, you see more of it. Right. Each year. That's our ship. Yeah.

Yeah. And that would have been a great. spin-off to have the defiant. The U.S.S. Defiant. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And take a few actors from deep space and then add new actors to go with them.

For sure. Yeah. I feel like they learned, so I'm going to talk about Starfleet Academy real quick. Okay. Okay. I've only seen the first episode. But as I watched the first episode, when Holly Hunter's character

gathers all these students to take them to San Francisco to the school, yes. They talk about this ship, that it's a training ship. And they have a ship. I don't know what the name of it is on Starfleet Academy. But as I'm watching that episode, I'm like, the pilot episode, I was like, I think they learned a lesson from Deep Space 9.

Starfleet Academy is like the space, like DS9, they need a ship. So they're setting it up from the beginning that they're going to have a training ship and you're going to be in school, but you're also going to be out on the ship. I think they learn that from DS9. It's the USS Athena. The USS Athena. Yes, the Athena. Which was very cool with the wings.

Yes. Great name. Oh, I've got to see it. You've got to watch it, tear fair. Yes. I'm going to. They learned that lesson from DS9, the DS9 once they added the defiant. Yeah.

I mean, honestly, when you look at the space, how did we not have a ship to begin with? Yeah. Stuck in space. I mean, holy cow. Yeah, it's a game changer. Too dangerous. Yeah. You need a ship.

You do. Well, speaking of the ship, we go. into the ship's bridge. We go into the defiance bridge and Cisco tells Worf prepare quantum torpedoes. I was like, wait, what? Uh-oh. So this is so horrible because if you detonate a quantum torpedo over a planet, well, now you can't live there. So this is what he's going to do. And he's going to, he's basically going to take out a Machi colony. It's horrible. These are, this is something that is not Starfleet. at all. And the Maquis were Starfleet. These are kind of like your cousins. Like these are your friends. These are your, these are other human beings, most of them, right? So this is bad. Is that a way to attack

a colony without obliterating the planet? It makes it uninhabitable. Right. And they have nowhere else to go. He's becoming the bad guy. Because he said in the previous scene that the best melodramas, uh, in the best melodrama's villains create a situation where the hero is forced to sacrifice himself for the people. So that's his plan. He said it at the end of the law, I'm going to be the villain. I'm going to force him to sacrifice himself in one grand gesture. So this aha moment of him turning into the villain is because of the book that was beamed over. So if Edington didn't beam that darn book, everything would have been fine.

If he didn't call him Haver, yeah, right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Because his ego's wrapped up in it. He didn't take any time to consider it or think about it. Yeah. No.

He's reacting. Yeah. Yeah, he's not responding. He's reacting. Mm-hmm. Also, when he's, you know, arming these quantum torpedoes and things, the crew on the Defiant, they're not aware of this strategy. So they're looking at him like, what are you doing? No, I like, Worf having the hesitation because he's like, this isn't right. Even Worf knows this is not right. Well, do you remember when he went through the crazy thing with the freighter that he didn't see when he was attacking?

I didn't remember who it was. It was at the Klingons. And then there was a freighter of civilians. It accidentally got hit. That's right. But if he waited, he would have missed what he was, his intention. Yes. But they did that on purpose to trick Wharf.

So this is very similar to me. Yeah. And what Eddington's do. Yeah. And Worf may even have a little bit of flashback PTSD over that whole thing, you know. And now dealing with this, he could be thinking what? Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yes. That's the connection I was trying to make. But also it's, yeah. Honestly, Eddington's goading him the entire time to do something drastic because he knows Cisco plays by the rule. So he's got his nuts in a sling. Like, I got you. No matter what I do, there's nothing you can do. And Cisco's like, mm-mm. Yeah. I'm going to make you let go.

Exactly. Eddington did not think that Cisco would flip like this. No, he didn't. He didn't. Well, Cisco orders the crew to prepare these quantum torpedoes a little bit later. They're preparing to launch. They've gotten to Solosis 3. And the marquee, they sent a message to the marquee. You should leave.

We're going to shoot these torpedoes. And they aren't evacuating. And Hollow Eddington appears. And he doesn't believe he's going to do it. Think Cisco's bluffing. Cisco launches the two torpedoes. That was a very cool shot where you see it sort of spreading out. Yes.

It was purple. Boom, boom. It was, oh, my gosh. Yeah. And Eddington says, you know, you've betrayed your honor. He starts, you can see Eddington start to snap here. He's like, oh, oh, I did not expect this at all. Right.

He talks about his honor. And Cisco says, well, you've already betrayed your honor. And Cisco prepares to fire more quantum torpedoes at another settlement on track in six. and Eddington gets very emotional about this and about the people are innocent. And he says, please call it off. Cisco's ready to fire. And Eddington offers to give up his weapons, these chemicals he's been using. And Cisco says, nope, that's not enough.

And Eddington says, kind of puts his arms out. He's like, take me. Take me. That's what you wanted. Like an offering. And that was a nice low angle. Cisco has one. And we have a captain's log, supplemental resettlement efforts in the DMZ are underway.

Cardassian Maquis colonists who were forced to abandon their homes will make new lives for themselves on planets. On the planets, their counterparts evacuated and the balance in the region will be restored, though the situation remains far from stable. So Cisco's gamble paid off in the airlock we see Oda waiting for them. Cisco comes out with Dex Eddington comes out I had a problem with this If he's like the Hannibal Lecter The evil guy

Why is he just walking around Why isn't he in shackles or something He didn't have his arms No There were no restraints on him I thought he had something on his Two security guys walking behind him Okay well then that's enough

Really? Yeah He should have no I agree He should have had something Really? It should have looked futuristic to be honest with you. Yes, it should have been like futuristic shackles that is our like there's lasers. Yeah. Something. Okay. Something. All right. I would have enjoyed a blue light

around them. A nice blue light. Yes. Thank you. So if he breaks it, his hands come off. Okay. That's one way. That would get me to sit still. Can you imagine? If you struggle against these handcuffs, basically your hands are going to be, yeah, you're going to take your hands on. Yeah. It's fine. Okay. I went all Viking on you. You did.

I liked the very end when basically Dax asks Cisco, she says she's curious about the plan to poison the Maki planets. You didn't clear it with Starfleet first, did you? She says. And Cisco kind of coy says, you know, I knew I'd forgotten to do something. And she likes it. Dax says, sometimes I like it when the bag goes. I win. So it was a nice little banter there at the end about good guys, bad guys. I mean, I know what the writers were trying to do. They're trying to show the banter between

friends that have known each other for a very, very long time. I get that. But it's still glorifying doing the wrong thing in a way, and which I kind of, that bothered me a little bit. Really? It's, well, it's anti-star. Anti-Star. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It really is. And I've bought in hook, hook, line, and sinker into Starfleet and, you know, the Federation. And so when I saw that, when I watched that scene, that bothered me a little. little bit. It did, to be perfectly honest. It bothered me on the heels of the lesson that was taught for the darkness and the light. Oh, right. So we just teach that lesson. And now you show this.

Yes. That was my last episode with you guys. And you had Armin in between. Right. So that's only, there's only one episode to space between the last lesson of murder. Hello. Yeah. They should have known better. I think that Star Trek is really good at showing how complicated life is and that sometimes the lesson can be on the light side. And sometimes the lesson is you've got to go to the dark side to solve this problem. Yeah, you're right. It demonstrates that.

But if you're holding hard to Starfleet, you would imagine he'd be court-martialed and be gone. Yeah, that there's a right way to do things. And Cisco definitely broke the rules here. He wasn't even supposed to be out in the Defiant. They told him to stay away. leave it alone. Yep, but the admiral didn't tell him. It was just the other captain.

Yeah. Well, on the point that we were just discussing, to me, the lesson is sometimes you have to be the bad guy to be the good guy. And I think Cisco sort of learned that. When you're fighting a really bad guy who's really smart, like Eddington, and you keep losing, doing things the good guy way, you may have to be worse than that bad guy to get them to, you know, to give up. So that's my lesson. Okay. Tifer. Wow. That is so more spot on. I wrote, you know, to trust someone, you truly have to get to know them and going back to the uniform.

You can't assume they're on the same page just because you wear the same uniform. You're in the same club and you know each other a certain amount of time. You're just not going to know somebody, I guess. Anyone could betray you at any time. And it only hurts because you really like them or love them or care about them and have a fantasy of who they might be. So when it gets destroyed, like somebody like Eddington, it's almost impossible to believe. So I don't know. What's the moral of the story? You're never going to know somebody completely. Don't judge a book by its cover. You cannot judge a book by its cover. 100%.

My lesson slash moral slash theme of this episode is take everything in moderation. Don't take anything personally. And stop obsessing. I'm going to read our Patreon poll winner for the theme moral of the episode. It is submitted by Martin DePlays. People justify extreme actions

when they believe their cause is righteous. And that's true on both sides. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the end of our episode thing. Thank you everyone for tuning into our recap and discussion of For the Uniform, which, by the way, I did not mention this. This is a sequel to the episode For the Cause, Season 4 with Eddington in it. Because initially I thought, what a silly name for this episode, For the Uniform, but they're trying to play on the fact that it's a sequel to For the Cause.

So anyway, just throw that in. Yeah. The prior season. From the prior season, season four, exactly, where Eddington was in there. So that's what it is. So there should have been a little recap before this episode started. Yes, there really should have been. All right, everyone, for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material.

For everyone else, we will see you next time.