The Delta Flyers - Gravity

Episode Date: May 23, 2022

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Gravity. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Gravity:Tuvok's Vulcan training is tested when the shuttle he, Paris and the Doctor are travelling in disappears.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, & Brannon BragaAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Nathan Walker, Shambhavi Kadam, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Brandon May, Jeremy Mcgraw, & Jason BonnettAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, Katherine Hendrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Liza Albright, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Normandy Madden, Mike Chow, John Mann, Holly R. Schmitt, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Megan Moore, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Craig M. Nakashian, Julie McCain, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Estelle Keller, & Russell NemhauserThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail].”Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everyone, welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Trek actor and the person who portrayed the teen on the bus in the 1981 movie Sharky's Machine, Robert Duncan McKin. Neil and myself. Yes. Your favorite ensign, Garrett Wong. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up

to become a Patreon at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. Teen on the bus. That was me. That was my first time in front of a camera ever. That's why I had to throw that out there because it is important.

This is your first role. Yeah, I was like, you think about it. 15, 14, 15 or something. And this movie comes through town. They shot in Atlanta. Sharky's machine. Shot in Atlanta.

I don't know how I got hooked up with, they were looking for extras and featured extras. This was not even really a role. Okay. But I did have to go in and audition because they wanted to see if you could act like you were a hostage. Gotcha. It was a scene where the bad guys come on the bus and come to take the bus hostage briefly. And so they wanted to see if we could act terrified. Yes. Yes.

They cast me and a friend of mine, Barbara Sorraldo, as the teen couple. and we shot a couple of days because they had stunts and stuff in the sequence. Did you make the final cut? Are you in the final cut? Can we see you? I think so. You know what?

This feels like homework. I should go look at Sharkey's machine, find that scene and see if I can freeze frame and maybe see me. I'd love to see it. I'm guessing, is your hair similar to Masters of the universe? Yeah,

probably that kind of long. That longer kind of, you know, shaggy look. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing that that, brings up for me is my very first time working on a film set and i i don't know how i did this but i started talking with the d p because i didn't know what you're supposed to do or not do right so

oh my goodness the d p's name was william fraker or bill fraker now if people look up bill fraker he is a legendary dp i had no idea he was one of the top dps in the history of that time in Hollywood. William Fraker, legendary. I started chatting with him. I even got invited by Bill Fraker to a screening of a movie that had not even come out yet. He had directed it actually. Bill Fraker had directed this movie. It was like Buffalo Bill or Wild Bill. I forget. I'd have to look it up. But I remember going to a private screening. My mom, dropping me off because I had chatted with the DP so much

and asked so many questions. And it's funny because that's my memory of that is that I immediately was drawn to, how are you making these movies? What does a DP do? What do you... Little did I know that, you know, many years later, that I would be drawn to the behind the scenes

even more as a director. That's the beginnings of Robert Duncan. Robert Duncan McNeil, the director, the beginnings of him. I think so. But I wasn't even aware of it. I don't I think I consciously thought, oh, maybe I can work behind the scenes. You were just chatty. I was 14 or 15 years old.

I was just like curious, never thinking that could be a career. It did not occur to me that I would go into show business, particularly film and television, because I'm from Atlanta, Georgia. Like, you don't do that. Right. But you left enough of an impression, a good impression, that he invited you to a private screen. And why would he even do that if you were some punk kid that was kind of bothering him?

But clearly, you know, you had the chops of how to social. interact with somebody at that time at 14. I don't know. I must have been asking the right questions. He must have seen like, oh, this kid's interested in filmmaking. Yeah. I'll invite him to my movies. I mean, some of the movies that he was the DP on was Monty Walsh, Incubis, looking for Mr. Goodbar, paint your wagon, the musical Day of the Dolphin, which I had seen, the freshman with Marlon Brando, American Hot Wax, 1941. Oh, yeah. Classic big movie.

Yeah. Baby boom. Wasn't 1941 Spielberg directed? Heaven Can Wait was another. Rosemary's baby he worked on. Huge, huge. These are really big movies. Space camp, war games.

I mean, he did a ton. And the movie he directed was called the Legend of the Lone Ranger. That's the movie that I went, which was a box office flop. But I went to the screening, the private screening of that. Yeah. 1981 came out. And when you were done, your mom was waiting for you in the car to pick up. you up. Yes, I think so. Okay, good. I think so. Yeah, I don't think I, I wasn't driving. I'm sure I was

not driving myself to go through this. Anyway, hey, Bill, um, my mom dropped me off, but she can't come get me. Can you drop me off at home after the screening? I remember my mom dropping me off and she, but she was like, why are you doing this? Yeah. Like how? Why are you being invited to this? She's like, are you sure this is real? Wait, she thought it was nefarious, like something like kind of Yeah. She was like, is this some scam? Like, is this real? Like, how did you get invited to a private screening? And by private, I mean, there were probably 50 or 60 people there. You know, it was crew and, you know, it wasn't just Bill Fraker and me watching his movie. It was, you know, maybe maybe even 100 people. But it was for the industry before it came out in the theater. Yeah, but this is still your mom. She's going to have concern. She's going to think this is, she's going to be kidnapped. Hollywood. He's going to be sentenced to this. Yeah, he's going to be in a white. slavery ring after this is what's going to happen. Totally. But yeah, but before for your age, you were a teenager. She was probably a little perplexed. She was thinking, I don't understand why he's going to this. Why did they invite him? This is my son. He's still in high

school. You know, what are we talking about here? But still, very, very exciting for you, I'm sure. You must have. Yeah, it was. Sharky's machine. Do you remember what you wore? That's the way back machine. It is. Way, way, way back. Did you remember what you wore to that screening? Did you wear like a nice little suit or something? Yeah, I might have worn my church outfit. I don't know what I wore. I have no idea. Robbie and his Sunday best.

I love it. Okay. So this week's episode is Gravity. Ooh. Gravity. This is Jimmy Diggs' storyline. We had a couple interviews with Jimmy Diggs who contributed lots of stories and had great behind the scenes. stories about his experience with Star Trek, starting being an intern on Next Generation.

That's right, the writing staff, yes. Yeah, and those interviews are awesome. Patreon patrons, you know you've got access to that. So if you're not signed up for Patreon, check it out, stuff like that, like Jimmy Diggs, actors, behind the scenes, people are all there. But yeah, Gravity is one of his. Yes, it is. Yes, it is.

All right. So let's go watch Gravity. We'll be right back with our discussion, recap of Gravity. everyone we are back from watching gravity yes we are by the way when i first started this episode yeah you know i go i sit down get ready to make my notes and i and i go back to uh now i'm watching the show on paramount plus right is where i'm watching it right and i went back to try to put it on and every time i hit voyager it kept starting bride of chaotica over and over and over so i just want everybody to know even even my TV wants more captain proton there you go it just kept

starting right of chaotic i kept hitting gravity but it kept it wanted more captain i think i think the universe is sending us the message right now mm-hmm okay wow yeah let's just jump right into it now let's start with our poetry synopsis my haiku for gravity yes shuttle crash landing eight spiders repel attacks probe used to transport nice thanks you got a lot of information in there i feel like you were an extra syllable or two i'm gonna i'm gonna be honest eat spiders repel attacks that's seven probe used to transport that's five shuttle crash landing that's five five seven five i'm sticking with it man oh yeah you did okay yeah you know like more because you got so much in there. I would never allow an extra syllable to go in there. Okay. Here we go with our

limerick for gravity. Tuvok, Tom, and Doc are stuck in slow motion with Noss. Back on Voyager for a moment, Harry gets to be the boss. Tuvok won't let himself feel. Only through a mind meld can he reveal that love is a line you sometimes can't cross. Oh, very creative. Bam, huh? Yeah. Good bam. You know, the entire time, because her character's name is Nas, right? Yeah. That's the name of a rapper. Do you know, Nas, the rapper? Playing that song, if I rule the world. This was like really big back in the 90s when we were filming actually. Yeah. This is like one of the songs that I remember I would be dancing to at the nightclubs. So, uh, yeah, I kept, I kept thinking about that song and that, yes. You thought Lori Petty's going to wrap and break out and rap. I kept thinking she was to wrap. Yes.

Well, I thought I remembered that Allison Liddy Brown directed this. It is not Allison Liddy Brown. Harry Wendell, who you did mention recently in one of the previous episode we recorded. You had guessed Terry Wendell. I figured he came around this time, which actually, this is his very first episode. Okay. I looked him up. I feel like he directed a lot of our show after this.

I think he directed around 10 or 11, 10 voice. and I think he directed on Enterprise as well. This was his very first Star Trek. I didn't know that. And I remember Terry came from visual effects. He directed like a visual effects supervisor. Like everything was composed and framed. And my memory was that initially I didn't feel like Terry was great with actors, to be honest.

Okay. But his shopmaking and stuff like that, his plans for any visual effects components was really, really good. but obviously he directed some good stuff and ended up coming back 10 times with us teleplay by Nick Sagan and Brian Fuller and story by Jimmy Diggs and Brian Fuller and Nick Sagan's.

I thought it was really well written, especially when you've got to deal with. So when Tuvac and Paris and the doctor down on this planet, time is moving at a very different pace, right? So much more time is passing on the planet than on Voyager. So the whole story on the planet was like two or three months or something. But on Voyager, it was only two days, not even two days.

Correct. So I think that's a hard, getting back to the screenplay, that's a hard story to write, like to keep your times and like. It is. It's difficult. And it's a theme that we revisit again in an episode called Blink of an Eye. But you're right. It's not easy for the writers to write for this type of.

predicament. To digress for one second, I read a book years ago called, it's a, it's like a academic textbook from college or something like psychiatry courses or philosophy courses. It was all about, it was called time and the art of living. And it was basically a philosophical kind of perspective on time as time not being real. That time is, that time is, like all time is now. and now is all time. Now is the future. And it really blew my mind. I can't possibly describe this book and brief description, but it blew my mind when I started reading about time and like how we look at time and that time is just a perception. And we sort of all agree on what time is, but yet time is very different for each of us. How fast, you know, our memories, how clear our memories are,

how much we're attached to the future or have a vision for the future, how much we're, really in the present moment, we're all kind of in and out of our own timelines in a weird way. Yeah. Anyway, it makes me think of that. That's an interesting book. I'd like to take a look at that. But I remember just reading this book, blowing moment. And that's what this story feels like to me.

Like jumping back and forth between the ship's time and the time on the planet and the flashbacks to Tuvok's childhood. All of it is sort of time. Time is definitely a big part of this story. Right. And for me watching this, it just gave me thoughts of the Bermuda Triangle, which again is an area where time is distorted. And again, similar to the gravity well, the gravimetric shear, boats, planes, you name it, have been lost in the Bermuda Triangle because of some type of forces, similar, not unlike what these forces that we are dealing with in this episode. So I just kept thinking Bermuda Triangle, Bermuda Triangle, this entire episode.

That's funny. Okay, so our guest stars on this episode, the Vulcan Master in the flashback for Tuvok, that actor was Joseph Ruskin. Yes. And Joseph Ruskin was originally from Haverhill, Massachusetts. Sad to say he passed away in 2013. Oh. Yeah.

But he had an incredible career. And as I like to do, first job that I could find for Joseph Ruskin, our Vulcan master, was on the sitcom The Honeymooners in 1955. Oh, my goodness. He was a raccoon lodge participant or something. It must have been like, you know, a Shriners or a Moose Lodge thing. But he was in a scene on the Honeymooners. Oh, gosh. He had a very full career.

Wow. Joseph Ruskin did a great job in the episode. 1995. So the honeymooners was his Sharky's machine. Yes, exactly. Oh, my gosh. That's great. We also have the young Tuvok played by Leroy D. Brazil.

And Leroy's first job ever was Voyager. Was this episode. this was his first job wow that's incredible yeah well good going for it didn't seem like his first job it seemed like he was a seasoned professional he did a great job but i do i do wonder because usually when actors utilize a middle name such as yourself it's because there already exists a robert mcneal in the screen actors guild okay so then the question is with a name like leroy brazil i would think that that's unique enough that there aren't any other Leroy Braziels out there. So it's interesting that he included his middle name there, the D.

Yeah, the middle initial at least. Yeah, maybe he just liked, maybe that's the way he, you know, I know a lot of times for most of my life, I've signed Robert D. McNeil. You have? Yeah. Before, I mean, before acting or anything. Wow. Robert D. McNeil.

Yeah. A familiar face to our show, Paul Eckstein. Paul Eckstein plays Yost, the, I guess, the superintendent. Yes, supervisor. Supervisor, supervisor, yes. His first job, I think we've said this before. His first job was law and order. But Paul Eckstein was mostly a writer in his career.

He'd been an actor. He'd done a lot of things. Mostly, I think, in the last 10 years, decade or so, he's been a writer. And our last guest star, last but not. not least is Laurie Petty. And Lori Petty did a phenomenal job in this. She's very well known to the fandom as Tank Girl. That's one of her biggest, you know, everybody. And I knew her from Tank. I had audition for Tank Girl, actually. I went in a couple times for that movie. I did too. Oh, yeah. That was around their generation. Robbie. Yes. Yes. That's a cult favorite.

Yeah. Her breakthrough moment came in the film Point Break. With Keanu Reeves? Yeah. That's her breakthrough? That was her kind of breakthrough. What? That can't be her first credit. There's no way, man. That was when she really, she's from Chattanooga, Tennessee, by the way. Okay. And she broke into acting in the 80s right around the time when I started acting. Right. In fact, I think Lori Petty and I are the same age, I think. And she's from Tennessee. She's from Chattanooga. Also in Tennessee.

So, all right. Okay. Now, here's the funny thing. Her very first job ever was on the soap opera, all my children. Oh. In 1985. Wow. I thought you're going to say Sharkey's Machine. I, she was a female punk was what she's credited as with all my children.

Wow. But that means she was on all my children just around the same. time that I was, because I was on all my children from 85 to 88. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, so we could have crossed the past back on. You think she was on the same soundstage as you were? Oh, she definitely was. She was on the same sets.

Yeah. But I don't remember working with her there. She did all my children, her very first TV credit. Well, look at that. Look at all the similarities we have here. Lori Petty. There you go. That's our guest stars.

Okay, let's just jump in with our recap. here. We start off in the Vulcan caves. We have Young Tuvok, played by Leroy D. Brazil. We learn of the Kohl Uchan. This is the cornerstone of Vulcan beliefs. And that translates as infinite diversity in infinite combinations. And I've mentioned this phrase, this Star Trek phrase in the past, not knowing that it has its origin with the Vulcan people. So now I know it's a Vulcan thing. Well, he's been battling with his emotions, and he's been battling with logic. He refuses to deny himself passion. So this is why his seat at his school was revoked.

He's basically kicked out of school. Hicked out of school. His father banished him from the house. And he has a really valid point. He says, if I was meant to deny feelings, why was I born with them? Which makes perfect sense. Where is the logic in that? And then, of course, the Vulcan teacher says, well, it's hidden for you to find or in plain sight for you to ignore.

And it's illogical to deny the existence of emotions, but you must learn to control them. So that's that's the key point there. I mean, you can control them and you can accept that they're there. You accept them and control them. That's what basically he's like, he's kicked out of the house. He's kicked out of school. He's sent away to this reform school, this teacher. right and basically this is a setup for you're going to have a bunch of lessons and learn how to

deal with your emotions and your passions and things yeah also this cave set i did notice when in one of the shots you could see off the set you could see over the rock wall no yeah you could see like the black curtains on the edge of the stage i know i was like yeah no well i was what point when he's when he's talking to when he's kind of looking at the altar where they yeah yeah when he first walks in in the altars there you can see above it and you see above the rock you see the top of the set and you can see that it's not caves like we're not in a a cave how did the camera operator not see that i don't know it didn't look good to me i was looking because this whole set reminded me so much of sacred ground it's it's the same kind of dressing and the same

sort of you know the candles and all of that so next we go to this plan And an exterior shot. So Lori Petty, we're going to learn it's Lori Petty, but this girl, tank girls walking across the... A masked figure. She's a masked figure. But I was like, where is this? And so I actually paused the thing and tried to look up where...

Vasquez Rocks, right? Isn't it? It doesn't... That's what it said in one of the things I looked at. The other thing I found was that it was the call sheet said Palmdale. Palmdale is further than Vasquez, rocks. We rarely shot there, but we did shoot out there sometimes. And what's funny is, as I watched this episode, I'm in it a lot. I'm at that location and everything. I don't remember any of this. I don't remember going to Palmdale. I remember Lori Petty being in an episode and I remember

sort of some crash thing. But when I saw Palmdale and I was like, wait a minute, where I went there? I could not remember any of it. The thing about Palmdale, you know, we used to shoot a lot of Voyager, a lot of Star Trek filmed out at Vasquez Rocks, which is up the Pear Blossom High, or the Antelope Valley. 14. Yes. You go out the 14 for an hour and a half or something.

You get to Vasquez Rocks. And then sometimes we go further out to Palmdale or that area. And sometimes even further out to the dry lake beds, things like that. But back in the 90s, Palmdale, now it's gentrified a lot. I actually drove through Palmdale not too long ago.

Yeah. And it's gentrified a lot. But back then, it was a place to you went, if you didn't want to be a part of civilization, like you kind of want to be left alone. So a lot of people that didn't want to fit into, you know, like a more urban environment and live out, you know, on some acreage out in the desert, you'd go to Palmdale. All right. Let's move on. So there we are on the planet in Palmdale. Yes. I had to stop watching to go, where are we? It's Palmdale. Yeah. There's our mysterious, this woman hunting, what we realize, she's hunting spiders. Right.

I love that she has this sort of tripod or this, this, you know, fork, this giant fork thing. And she waits for the, she sets up this little machine to draw it out. And then when the, when the spider comes out. And that was a CG spider. Right. Had to be. C.G spider. Mm-hmm.

And then she stabs it. And then when she pulls it up by her face, that's a rubber. That's a rubber. That's a rubber spider. Yeah. Yeah. But she hunts these giant spiders. And then behind her, she sees this vortex sort of open up and a spaceship come through. And we realized we cut to her POV later and it's a it's the shuttle. It's a it's a shuttle from Voyager. Right. So we cut to the inside of this crash shuttle. And I said that it looks really dusty like it's been there for months already. but it just came through the vortex.

That's right. That doesn't make sense. Yeah. This seemed like it just happened. So I was a little confused. I got to be honest in the beginning. But she comes in. She's scavenging around and Paris enters.

Yeah. And she points a weapon at Paris. And he's got sort of his top of his uniform off. He's got sort of an open shirt, I guess. I have questions about the layers here. I have questions about how many change of clothes. did people bring. How many layers?

Look at all the layers. There's a tank top. There's a T-shirt. No, that's not, that's everyone. Just so you know, that's not how that really looked for us. We had a one-piece jumpsuit, one piece, not two pieces. Like later you see Tuvok and two pieces. Yeah.

We had one undershirt underneath it. It did not open the way two-box under shirt. We had like a zipper opening. No. And then on top of that, Tuvok has another tank top underneath. top it's just like Paris at one point and then all of a sudden he's got a t-shirt on where I was like where all these

layers of clothing coming from this is not even close to how it really was for us no but anyway Paris comes in she points a weapon at him he tries to say you know talk to her and she's speaking in gibberish yeah and the universal translator is is off I made a note

Paris is always making jokes like yeah you know she she gestures for his stuff he gives her the stuff and she leaves and he's like first day in town and I've already been mugged he like he can't miss an opportunity for like sarcasm or something so but the funnier thing is you're saying that to nobody except for yourself there's no one even there just talking to yourself so my other question to you is have you ever been mugged in real life I have been I was mugged in New York City in 1982 in a phone booth and for those

millennials that don't know what a phone booth is, that's when before cell phones, you used to have to put a dime or a quarter in a machine that had glass around it. So I had gone into this phone booth. Yeah. And it was making a call and I had no money. I was a poor new, you know, fresh to New York. And all of a sudden, I get surrounded by a group of maybe five or six guys. Yes. Tough guys. Roughians. Ruffians. And they surround the phone booths. so that no one can see me inside and i can't see anybody outside interesting and i'm on the phone and they said hey uh you got any money or something they asked like asking yeah and i ignored them right and they said uh hey don't ignore me and one of them punched me just like cold cocked me

and i and i kind of fell down oh my gosh because i was so surprised yeah and i'm down on on the the the ground inside this tiny phone booth. Oh, my goodness. And they made some more threats. I pulled my wallet out and I showed them. I didn't have credit cards. I didn't have anything. Why didn't you just keep the door closed?

There was no door. It had been ripped off. Oh, it was a three-sided phone booth. The door had been ripped off probably long ago. Yeah. And so I was stuck. They had trapped me. I can't get out.

I can't go anywhere. And now they've cold-cocked me. I'm down on the ground. And I pull out my wallet, which had nothing in it. Right. and they go through my wallet and they throw it back at me with the, you know, whatever, my driver's license or whatever is there. And I pull out change.

I had like two subway tokens and some change in my pocket. Oh, my God. I had no dollar bills even. Oh, no. And I was like, here, take this. And they left. You're lucky that they didn't do anything else beyond that because they didn't get anything. But it sounds like this is something that they pulled before.

Like this was a planned attack. They've done it before to other people. Well, it seems strategic, right? You have enough people to surround the booths so that no one else knows. I just think it's a bunch of guys hanging around a phone call. Their buddies probably make a phone call. They don't see that the person inside is being mugged. So, yes, I was mugged.

You should have said when they said, give us your money. You should have said, you're 13 years too early. Wait till I get on Voyager. Then I'll have money is what you should have said. Exactly. Oh, my God. That was my mugging story. That's crazy.

Wow. And that's the only time, right? That's the only time. Okay. And me, have you been mugged? Yes, we talked about this in Atlanta at the, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Remember that? When you were a kid, yeah, yeah.

When I was a kid, I was mugged in probably 1979 or in Atlanta. Wow. So you were there, right? Yes, I was there at the time. You should have helped me, Robbie. You should have helped me. I know. Okay, it's fine.

All right. Now, we're in the exterior barren surface and now we see that Nause is being followed by somebody else, another alien. One alien's behind her, and as she's kind of looking around, she senses something, she turns around, and another alien appears right in front of her. She's being jumped by two aliens. She kind of takes out one, but the other one knocks her down, and it's about to deliver the death blow when she is saved by her gallant knight, Tuvok, with his superior fighting skills.

I mean, I've never seen Tuvok fight that well. That was a good fight. Yeah, really good. A really good fight scene. really good fight. Two of us the hero here. He has a bunch of good moves. It was shot very well. Again, Terry Wendell from a visual effects standpoint, he's going to know how to break down a fight sequence and shoot it in a way that feels dynamic. And it really did. It felt like a great hand-to-held fight sequence. Yes. And we have a little bit of Tuvok humor when he says,

we'll go to my vessel. And then he looks around all the stuff she took. And he's like, The stuff she took and he's like, I see you've already been there. Yeah, and two bucks now wearing that little jacket, which is incorrect. We don't have jackets like that. No, I don't know. And I kept making notes throughout like every single scene,

Tuvok gets less and less clothing. Like he just, he has the jacket and the one, everything underneath and also the jacket's gone. Then he has the two piece. Then he loses the two piece. Only has the tank top. They both kept changing.

It was a weird. They both get closer and closer to being nudist. basically yeah um we go back to the shuttle paris is there uh paris has a new outfit on now does he no i guess it's the same one so far he's got the tank top open shirt yeah his sleeves are rolled up and i made a note like when your sleeves are rolled up that means you're working hard so paris must be working very hard with his sleeves rolled up he's trying to give a mayday to voyager and then tuvac and naus enter and i made a note here they enter and then She's been injured in that fight a little bit.

And he goes over without being able to speak words. He goes over and lowers her veil. And he's a little hesitant at first. Yeah. That's really presumptuous. It's very personal too. It's sort of like, why are you doing that? That's like culturally maybe that veil is important.

Maybe. You know, and to put pressure on or to force her to lower the veil without being able to communicate and get permission, I thought was really inappropriate. Yeah. Parishire said, Great, Tuvok. Now you've got to marry her. You know,

so this is what it means when you remove the veil. Yeah, who knows. Who knows what the, you know, he just took it all, he just took it away. And we figure out that,

that communications that you've been trying to send are not working because they're bouncing back because the distortion field. They can't even, distortion field is bouncing back all the May days. Paris says that we got stuck in some kind of gravity well. Right. And that this planet is part of a solar system

that's stuck in a pocket of subspace. face, exactly. He's got Doc's mobile emitter. So we know the doctor was there, but the mobile emitter is broken. It's going to need some repair. And suddenly they get an alarm that some lizards are approaching. Is that what you're calling them? I'm going to call them the lizard.

Okay. Well, yeah, Nas is the one that kind of alerts them to the hostile aliens, the hostile lizards approaching. They're the same species that attacked her earlier. So they all decide to just gather their things and leave. so they do run to her shelter she's speaking in gibberish and i made a note here i was like i wonder if at this point she was just making this up or if there were actual yeah see that's that's a good question yeah i don't know later on she does talk to the doctor back and forth in her language and so they must

have had some they must something must have been scripted yeah i don't think in this section she could have been saying anything she could have said anything you're right well if you notice when they do make their way to her downed vessel, it looks more like a building than a ship to me. I'm like, oh, it's a greenhouse. I was like, oh, it's got solar panels. No, it's a ship. I think, here's what else I discovered in my research. So her ship, they created the set first, the interior set. And to save money, they recycled some other sets that were like, you know, alien rooms or different. Oh. I didn't know that. Okay. So they probably designed the outside of the ship. to match whatever set pieces

they had for an inside. That's why it kind of looked like a cargo ship. You know what I mean? It looked like a building. It looks kind of square. Yeah. It didn't look very shiplike. No, they fit the set pieces into it.

By the way, I think Paris said to Tuvok at one point, he said, you know, I told her we should have brought the Delta Flyer. Maybe if we brought the Delta Flyer, they could have gotten out of there. They wouldn't have even stuck in this gravity well. It's possible. It's very possible. Anyway, so yes, they go inside a crash ship, and Paris walks in, takes three steps, and he looks around and goes, doesn't look like this bird's going to fly either. How the hell does he know so quickly?

Like, first of all. Because he has a sixth sense. Paris has a sixth sense. I guess. Doesn't look like this bird's going to fly either. I can interpret for all of you listeners, that's pilot talk for the ship is broken. There's minimal power. there is life support

but but and also there's a force field the force field that she's got that is the one thing that's working here and that's how she probably has survived for so long correct Paris is working on the mobile meter who knew that he could be like an engineer like that but he

I have to say Tom has his fair share of techno babble in this episode I was like wow look at that Tommy boys I think it was in the in the shuttle, the crash shuttle scene earlier where I noticed myself sort of hesitating because I think I was trying to remember the techno babble, you know, you get in the middle of a long run and you're like, wait, what? Am I saying? Yes. What am I saying? Yes. What am I saying?

Oh, my goodness. I feel like I did generally pretty good with it. You did. It's not my strength. It wasn't noticeable. It was a little pause. And I was like, did I forget my line? But I was super happy to see this because then I knew that finally you get to be tortupt. like I was the entire show. So there you go. So the doctor does get fixed. Paris fixes his mobile emitter. And he appears and we learn that he can speak her language.

He's got her language somehow or language translators built into his program. Right. Speaks her language. Tells us that she's been here for 14 seasons. Is that years then, you think? It depends on how many seasons this planet has. Do they have two seasons? Then she's been here seven years.

Yeah. If they have seven seasons, then she's. She's been here two years. I don't know how many. We don't know. We don't know the number of seasons. Yeah. But it's a long time.

Yeah. And she says to the doctor that she's seen lots of ships come through that vortex. And crash. And crash. A lot have come down, but none have gone back up. Right. She said. Not very promising.

No. We got to the surface for a little spider hunting scene with Paris and Nas. I thought it was really funny. He says, you know, these spiders give us. him the creeps. He's very sensitive to spiders. I don't understand why Paris has zero hand-eye coordination. It's like, what? That spider is huge. Can you not target a spider that's right They freak him out. They freak him out. At one point, he comes over to say, I can't do this. They get creeps. And she's like, I'll do it. Yeah. And she walks away and leaves him for a second.

And I was like, I liked a little, oh, okay. There was a little attitude there that made me Yeah. Yeah. Good comedy in this. Very subtle, subtle comedy there. We go back to her ship again, to Nas's ship. And the doctor's worried about, he's very upset with Tuvok that they may have to shut down his program. Tuvok says we may have to do that because we're running low on power. Yeah. You could your your mobile emitter could be an energy source. Yeah. I love his line. He says, I am a doctor, not a battery. Yes. Always, always good. And then, and then. Yet again, that same theme where the doctor is mean to Tom Paris. He says, well, maybe we should take Mr. Paris offline because of his poor hunting skills.

I was like, what? Another jab at Tom Paris by the doctor. Well, it was written. It was written that way. Yeah. The writers seemed to think that that was very clever. Yeah, they like that. I've said this recently to Rebecca.

We've been watching the show, married at first sight, which are all these couples that are set up and they have to get married. Yes. that they meet each other. I've seen the show. And there's one couple in particular where the husband and that is just sarcastic all the time. And I just don't like him. And in the middle of watching this episode, this Voyager episode, I paused it. And Rebecca goes, oh, so Tom Paris is sarcastic all the time.

Kind of like that guy on the show that you hate. It's like, oh, yeah, you're right. That's funny. I love it. Tuvok is wearing less and less clothing in this scene, too. His shirt is opened with another tank top underneath. They're cooking some spiders at this point. They're cooking spiders. Yeah. Cooking some spiders for dinner. She's learning English, by the way. She's starting to speak English. Well, I wrote down, Nas is a genius. She has learned English in one day.

Exactly. She knows. Because, you know, Tuvok says to her, why is any of this relevant? And I'm thinking, why are you using a $2 college word like relevant with someone who just learned English? But clearly, she even knows what relevant means so she's she's asking like tell me about yourself i want to know what you like what you yeah what foods you like yeah you know what you do where you're from she wants to learn all about him right very flirty very flirty i love that tuvac has a love story by the way i really i i really enjoyed this it's a nice change to see that yeah um there's another time cut of dissolves So I think I noticed a lot of dissolves between one scene to the next. And we don't normally use dissolves.

In fact, personally, I hate dissolves. They're a visual cue that time is passing, right? So I think that's why they used a lot of dissolves in this episode to say that Tuvok and Paris, the doctor, they were stuck here for months telling time is passing. We see Paris talking about Balana and how he feels, how sad he is to. feel like they may never get back. Right. There's a nice moment when she's like, you must love her very, very much. And there was a nice, like, quiet pause moment that I just thought was really nice to let those

those quiet moments play and not have to talk, talk, talk, talk and fast, fast. She asks if he wants some more spiders. He goes, no, I'm full. Three is my limit. What do those cook spiders look like to you? it looked like um like look like jello kind of a weird kind of opaque jello yeah i don't know i don't know what it was that we were eating or if we even ate any of it i have no idea i don't think you guys munched into any of that stuff but it was uh it was very interesting we have

a little bit more of a time cut again we're still inside the vessel paris is now telling tuvac that naz likes him and tuvac says he has a wife and then paris starts giving this whole argument about almost identical to the argument that he gave Harry on the bridge that one time when he said, we've got to go hang out with the Lennie sisters. Don't listen to Paris's relationship advice is my takeaway. Horrible advice. He is married. Why is Paris saying, forget about your marriage.

Paris is Mr. Keep your options open. I mean, everybody he comes across, keep your options open. You might as well, you know, live for now. What is it? what is that thing? Yolo? Yeah, you're a Yolo guy. You are so Yolo. It's unbelievable. You only live once. Yamonaz will hook up with whoever shows you interest right now. Really bad advice. Well, he gives us bad advice like, hey, we're not going to get out of here. So forget about, you know, your wife would want you to be happy. Right. You're somebody that can make you happy.

Yeah. I think it's horrible advice. He should have been much more respectful. Yeah. So we have another dissolve. And later on, we see Paris talking to Tuvok again. And he does apologize now. He says, I'm sorry. He apologizes, but then he still continues his argument. He goes like, hey, this is your home now. You might as well accept it. Trying to find as much happiness as you can.

Yeah, I think he apologized. My takeaway was he's apologizing for being so blunt and insensitive. But he's also saying the reason that I was giving you that blunt advice. Let me elaborate on why. Yeah, because I do think we're going to be stuck here. And you have a chance to make a decent life for yourself. and we're not going to get out of here. Yeah.

I like your line. I see the way you look at her and he says, what way is that? And you say like someone who wishes he wasn't Vulcan. Oh my gosh. Tom Harris, you're like the little devil on people's shoulders is what you are. You're sitting there telling everyone that they need to go down the path of.

It's not good. It's not good. Don't take advice from Paris. We go into, off of that line that you just, quoted. I've seen the way you look at her like someone who wishes he wasn't Vulcan. Yes. We go into another flashback. Yes. Yes. And young Tuvac is still very angry and upset. And he says, I'm sorry, I was born Vulcan. He even says that. Right. So it's sort of, that was a nice sort of

segue into this scene, this flashback. And he's dealing with self-pity. Yeah. And he says, he says, you have eyes to see behind you. And he's like, another riddle. You keep talking in riddles. Yes. Yes. Your memory are the eyes to see behind you. Why did you lose control? So he's basically saying look back, reflect on how did you get here. Yeah. Can I read? I actually wrote that down. It's a really great quote. He says, you see only what is in front of you. You must learn to see what is behind you. Young Tuvok says, another riddle. I have no eyes to see behind me. And then really cool line. The Vulcan teacher says, you have the eyes of memory, the knowledge of why you are here and why you have lost control. which is super cool. I love that. I love the writing there. He asked Tuvok to tell him his story. And he says, well, her name is Jara. Her father's a Trellian diplomat and that he loves her. And she has not returned his feelings, though. And then he talks about, the teacher talks about Sun Ha Locke, which is love, is the most dangerous emotion of all. It produces many other emotions, jealousy, shame, rage, grief. You must learn to suppress them all. Otherwise, they will consume you. So really, you know, really cool dialogue here and an understanding of what Tuvac was going through as a youth. Yeah. And I love the performances by both these actors and the fact that, you know, that, well, Joseph Ruskin, who's a veteran from the Honeymooners Day, not surprised he was phenomenal. But Leroy, I thought was wonderful.

Yeah. Really, really great performances. and was a great casting choice for Tim Russ. You know, I felt like he looked. Sometimes when you cast a younger person to play a series regular or something, you just don't believe that it looks anything like them. But I did feel like that didn't, you know, get in the way for me. I felt like I could totally see this kid, Leroy, being Tim Russ in the future.

No, definitely. I agree. I agree. We're on the bridge, I think, right now. I think so. They can't find the shuttle. So we're, you know, Janeway's just, everyone's wondering what, what happened to the shuttle. And then we start to experience a gravimetric shear. Harry says we've been caught in some kind of subspace sink hole. It's pulling us in. We cannot go to warp impulse engines. No matter how much power you throw to the impulse engines, that won't work either. Belana says we've got to find a way to counter this gravitational pull. Janeway quickly orders. Janeway. Yes, Janeway. She's like, okay, gravimetric shear. whole subspace. Yeah, I got this. She's like quickly vent three million isidines, yeah, of plasma.

Like she knows the exact amount. Yeah, she's already done the math in her head. Three million isidines of plasma from the nacelles. Not plasma, but plasma. We need that plasma. And then orders Chikote quickly, reverse the shield polarity. And that does the trick. Those two orders.

Yeah, so she's a genius. She's a genius. She really is. Clearly. But she says once they escape the, the pull of this vortex. Yeah. She's,

I think her last line is something like, well, now we know. Now we know what happened to that show. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we go to astrometrics. Right.

And they are analyzing this vortex. Seven Taurus, Janeway and Chikote, yes. Yeah. And we learn that the anomaly is 600 meters in diameter. And it's out of phase with normal space. That's why they didn't even see it. Yeah. It barely registers on their, on their sensors.

Scans and sensors. yeah. So then Chucote says, well, I guess it's time to break out the multi-spatial probe. What? I was like, what the hell? Oh, yeah. That multispatial probe we always talk about. Never. A multi-spatial probe. If we had a multi-spatial probe, we could have been using this for all kinds of things. Yes. I think. Like, I don't know. It just seemed really convenient. Yeah, it was very convenient. We suddenly have a multi-spatial probe, something new. But we also learn in astrometrics that within the distortion, within the gravimetric well,

there are three planets and a type G sun. So there's a whole ecosystem happening in this subspace, yes. So while we're talking about the multi-spatial probe, there's a jolt. We know that a vessel's approaching. We hear Harry Call. Harry Calls captain at the bridge that we've been engaged in a tractor beam. And now on the bridge, we see him. Harry is acting captain.

Harry is acting captain standing up looking cool. Looking cool. Requesting the alien to disengage a tractor bean. Not the only time he's captain in this episode, by the way. No. Multiple captain assignments. Yeah. And I introduced him to Janeway as Mr.

Yost, which he quickly. This is Mr. Yost and he's like, no. Supervisor Yost. Renovation Team Nova. I'm like, okay, buddy. We don't even know the name of. this alien species, do we? Or Lori Petty's in species.

We never get... No, I don't think so. We never even hear their names. He gives them a warning. He says, until tomorrow, I suggest you stay two million kilometers from this distortion because the Rift will be closed by then. We will close it. We've lost 11 ships to this distortion over the last year.

And we're just going to stop this from ever happening again, which means if it's closed, we will lose Paris and Tuvok and the doctor. It basically says this time tomorrow, this thing's going to be closed. And Janeway and the crew obviously are now, they have to expedite their efforts and get right to work. We jumped to the ready room, Janeway's ready room. Chikote enters. The probe has sent back telemetry, this multi-spatial probe, this panacea for all our problems. Yes.

So we've never heard about before. We've never used before. Actually, maybe we might have. It does sound a little familiar. We might have used it in another episode. Somebody will correct us if we did. Someone will. Astronomical data has covered a three-month period, which is very confusing.

And Chikote says, because there's a temporal differential for every hour of time on Voyager. This could be weeks or months for Paris and Tuvac. And as he says for Paris and Tuvac, he doesn't mention the doctor. No, he doesn't. Which is kind of weird. I was like, that's weird. Yeah. He's down there and they know he's down there.

Yeah, anyway. But they didn't mention him. But the bad news, that's not the bad news. The bad news is that the sinkhole is on a verge of collapsing. And when it does, everything inside will be crushed like a tin can. So not only will the doctor's mobile meter be crushed, but so will Tom and two. Tuvok. Not good. Not a good news at all. No, we have a planet shot here. And then we go inside the ship. Paris. Nause's ship. Inside Nause's ship. Yep. And Paris carries Tuvok inside. Tuvok is injured.

Injured Tuvok. Yeah, we don't see that very often. Which I'm a little shocked because, you know, how well he did against them earlier. And it's like, why is he the injured one right now? So clearly, Tom must have put some martial arts too. yeah maybe he was protecting Tom yeah he sacrificed himself yeah yes so he says they were ambushed he brings the doctor back online and the doctor's um analyzing two vox injuries and we see that naus is really worried she says um you know will he live and i think the doctor asks how long he's been offline by the way he does yeah when's the last time you yeah he goes how long have i been offline he goes two months two months and then he goes back to work

and then the doctor says so what's new yeah very funny I don't know eating spiders repelling attacks yeah that's about it

yeah but Paris says that you know he thinks if Voyager was looking for them that they're long gone right that we're 300 light years

closer to Alpha Quadrant the home that we've left you basically right we have a time lapse and now other design Yeah, another dissolve and Nas is now taking care of Tuvok.

And in that moment of intimacy, she goes in for the kiss, yes. And he's like, no, don't. He doesn't want to cross that line. Right. And she says, look, I'm only showing you how I feel, which is this extreme closeness to him and affection for him. And feelings are scary. Yes. And he says, look, I appreciate you.

you. I respect you, but nothing more. And she's like, nothing? He's like, nothing. This hits her hard. She cries. She's upset. I'm so sad for nod. Then she yells. She's like, logic. She goes, I hate logic. Then he insults Tuvok in her native tongue. Yeah, she calls. And then you hear her talking in the gibberish. Yes.

And he says something like, you know, you don't need to call me names. Yes. It's very funny. I think she called him in her language, a dirty logic purveyor. is what she said. Something along those lines. That makes sense. Yeah.

Okay. That makes sense. We're now in the briefing room. Yes, we are. All right. And Seven says that we can use the multi-spatial probe as a transporter relay. This thing truly is a panacea for all of our problems, isn't it? Your multi-special probe can give you data.

It can also, you can use it as a calm signal, she says, and a transporter relay. So it's kind of a, it's like a Swiss army knife of technology. It is the Swiss Army knife of technology. Yeah. Perfect, perfect, perfect description. Yeah, I wish we had had this multi-spatial probe Swiss Army knife for the last five seasons. Yeah.

Because we could use it for every encounter with every alien species. We just send the multi-spatial probe out. Yeah. And it solves it all. Yeah. Pretty much, right? Okay. Yep.

Janeway does ask if we can send a comm signal using the same relay, which, again, it does everything, the Swiss Army knife. Bilanis says, yeah, we can send a message through the, multi-spatial probe. So Janeway says, go ahead. Let them know that help is on the way. Harry then hails Janeway to the bridge again. And we go to the bridge and Harry's in charge again. He's the captain. What was? Yes. Once again, so happy to be captain for. Yes. The supervisor or the, what is he? The supervisor? Supervisor Yost. Yeah. Yeah. Supervisor Yost says they're going to do this thing. And Jamie's like, no, I need two hours. He says, nope, we're doing this now.

they're starting ahead of schedule actually starting ahead of schedule and she says well how long do we have he says 30 minutes big half hour not this is where the time thing comes into play for me in a cool way because like to them they got 30 minutes but down the planet you got it's like another month you know what I mean I know it's so crazy to think no rush for down the planet yeah fine we go down to the planet exterior from here and there's a cool shot of Tuvok sitting up on this rock ledge Yes, that thing is that rock is very precariously situated in that, that outcropping is amazing. It almost looks like a set that we built. It does.

It was like, is that a set? No. It's the real deal. It looks really cool. He's meditating. Paris comes up. He's wound up. He's pissed off.

And he says, what did you say to her? She's really upset because the last time we saw her calling him names and crying. She was upset. And Paris says, you know what? it's she said it's too painful for her to be around you too vok she's going to leave she's talking about leaving yes and tuvok's response is noss is under the influence of unfettered emotion and paris says to tuvok what that you may have the ability to fetter your emo you maybe you can fetter your emotions but not everyone can fetter i just love it it's like making a joke out of fetter

Oh, yeah, definitely. And he talks about, he says that there's no easy way to recover from infatuation. And he tells about his infatuation as a young man with Jara, the young lady that forced him to get kicked out of school. And when he was in love, he said, I felt like a version of insanity. I had my feelings were so strong. It felt like insanity. And Paris says, everybody feels a little insane when they fall in mind. Yeah. It's a nice scene. I think, you know, it starts off as a really heated scene between Paris and Tuvok turns into this nice, you know, authentic kind of intimate sharing, authentic sharing scene. Yeah. It was really nice. Yeah, which was interrupted at the end by a visual effect of the gravimetric distortion happening in the distance there. There goes that vortex again.

Yeah, something's happening there. We cut out to space. We see the alien vessel is firing shots at the vortex. Mm-hmm. Just sort of, not to say, boy, but what do you call it when you're trying to make it weaker? Well, they're trying to collapse it or... Yeah, yeah, kind of... Destroy it.

God, there's a word I'm trying to say when you kind of loosen up the foundations. Yeah, that's it. Fetter it. They're trying to fetter the distortion. Clearly. And it's going to be 29 minutes left. And Janeway decides to send the message. Now, inside Nause's ship, the message is received, but it's extremely slow.

it's just yeah this is one of those moments like mind blown moments where I was like oh yeah if they're gonna be a message from the the fast time or the slow time or whatever side you're on yeah from the other side it's going to be in slow motion so then they speed it up and they hear Janeway tell them the plan right and she tells them what's going on how they're going to rescue them and she mentions this time

differential formula so I see Tuvok and Tuvok and Paris are like working out the math and everything and I was like I am not good at math. Like I never would have if she had given this message

of this time differential I would have been give me a calculator. I don't know. No, Paris would have said let's just hang out within two meters for a month or so.

I don't want to do their math. It's too hard. By the way, then Noss sees some alien. She hands Tom. the cool binoculars to look through and he looks out and we see a pov now in this pov through the binoculars yeah i looked at it for saying i'm like something's off there and i rewound and froze it what they had done instead of dressing up 20 lizard aliens they shot a plate shot so just a blank

nobody out there on the rocks they shot that and then they went and shot the lizard guys they probably hired one or two lizard people to change clothes, shot them on green screen and they put them in. So when you see the POV through the binoculars, you probably see, you know, anywhere from 10 to 20 lizard guys, but there were probably one or two people actually just repeated over and over with the green screen shot. Yeah. And you know that there's only one or two people because later when you see them at the actual, they're standing outside the force field, there's only two, you know, the ones that are banging on the thing. So that the same two guys. are there.

It's probably the same. Yeah, I think it was probably the stunt guys that did the fight. They just doubled up for all these other aliens that we saw. Right. And the aliens are now trying to. It's expensive to make the makeup and dress costumes. And so the more you can, you know, limit the number of people that you're putting makeup on and dressing, you save a lot of money.

And cheat it, basically. They're cheating it so that it looks like a lot of guys. But, you know, clearly the aliens are trying to break through the force field. They're leaving these charges. and it's, you know, the force field is weakening. And, you know, we realize that there's two more days that they have to hold on before getting... By the way, yes, I have a question, though. So the lizards are all trying to get gnaws and they keep...

They're desperate to break through the force field. By the way, these lizard guys are all going to be dead soon because their people gave up on them. Correct. Why are they fighting? Why do they hate gnauz somewhere? Yeah, it makes no sense. It's sort of like, you know what? This is a pretty big planet.

Just stay on your side. We'll stay on our side. You know, why are you doing this? It makes no sense. And especially when we meet the supervisor or whatever's name. Yeah, exactly. Yost. He seems like a decent and, I mean, you know, he's doing his job.

But it doesn't seem like a, like a race that is intent on being hostile, right? I mean, it just, but according to the, but evidently, clearly when you get, you know, shipwrecked on a planet, you, that species turns aggressive. maybe that's what it is they can't stand it they've been there maybe maybe 10 years longer than they're literally like later on banging on the force field like why do you care so much she's not doing anything to hurt you as the force field is weakening nod says that she will go out to repair the shield generator uh two vox says i will go with you she goes no no use you know wasting two people's lives in case something happens and she goes on her own she goes on her own we do see

the people standing there banging on it, which was kind of funny. That seemed to me was kind of funny watching them do that. The shield generator finally gives, it loses its power and the force field comes down. The alien lizards come in and they attack gnaz. Yeah, there's two of them. One of them, she shoots. And then the other one before she can recover. Disabled her.

Faser. Yeah. Tackles her, basically. We cut up on the bridge as she gets tackled. Balana says, is counting down 15 seconds now. So time is really like, this is again where my mind was blown. Because we're going through minutes of scenes and then going back 15 more seconds. You know, only a few seconds have gone by.

So it was interesting. That's why time just for me was the star of this one. Oh, yeah. We do see back down on the planet, Tuvok. comes to rescue her. He shoots the guard. He rescues her again. Just as she's about to get stabbed, he shoots.

And I did notice the color. It was very yellowy, bright. Like, the color was beautiful on this planet. Is that a filter? Is that a filter on the camera? Exactly. I was going to write. It's probably a combination of a lens filter.

It gives it sort of this glowy, shimmery look. Yeah. And then color correction, whatever they do in post-color timing. Yeah. like what you do with Instagram when you put a filter on or something. Yeah, I kind of felt like it reminded me of the filter that was used in the pilot episode when we were on El Mirage Dry Lake Bed. You know, it had those, those colors were popping more than normal in nature.

So, okay. Now, we jump back to the interior of Naz's ship and one of the aliens has made his way in there and is now attacking Paris. And of course, guess who saves Paris? Tuvok. Tuvok is everyone's savior in this episode. And he keeps saving people right before they get stabbed. That was the other thing.

It's like Paris is wrestling. Paris is losing. He's about to get stabbed by that fork. Yes. And you know, a couple of, every time Tuvac saves somebody, Tuvok really likes shooting people

when they're about to stab you. I agree. But I also feel like the name of this episode, it could have been stab because you stabbed the spiders. You try to stab Tom Paris. You try to stab Nause. Yes. Stabbing.

Unlimited. is the name of this episode. So you're saved. Now we have the scene in the transporter room where Harry beams them all back. When they beam back, by the way, we see them just before on Nause's ship. They're all facing this kind of center console.

Right. So they're all faced inward in a triangle. And then when they beam into the transporter room, when we beamed in, you're not in the triangle anymore. No. Not really. We're all sort of facing out.

And it's a bad man. But Nause is sort of leaning her head on Tuvok or whatever, right? Yeah, but they were facing in in the previous shot. And Harris was facing in and the doctor was facing it. Correct. And we come on the transporter pad, everybody's sort of facing the transporter control station. Right. Not the same orientation.

No, it should have been exactly the same. That felt like a little mess up. I like the little subtle nonverbal gestures from Harry when he's like, well, who, you know. Yeah, welcome back. Welcome back. Who? And just the look on Harry's face, like, yep, whatever.

I'm not going to get into this. Yeah. See you, guys. Yeah, I did my job. We have a Tuvok log here. Exterior shot of Voyager, Tuvok's personal log. We know that we're bringing Nas back to her home world. I do want to say, it's very important, he does say we're en route to Nas's homeworld.

And then it says as he prepares to say goodbye, that he finds himself experiencing a certain discomfort, which I thought was very interesting because now. now that Vulcan calm experience. Yes, he's feeling something. It's coming in. It's coming in. And now take us away in the corridors. Yes, we go to the hallway.

Tuvok's heading down the hallway. Paris catches up to him. And Paris basically says that he felt, you know, he spent months feeling like he would never see Bala, that his heart was breaking, and that he was so deeply upset over all of this time he spent.

yeah um grieving that and he goes to balana to her it's not even two days right so it's totally different feelings so i just thought that was an interesting perspective yeah and then tom's got a line with two buck where he says you know something i've always thought beneath that cold vulcan exterior light and even colder vulcan interior but now i'm convinced you're a hopeless romantic i love that line yeah and then when he says you're a hopeless romantic two vogue response is there's no need to insult me, Mr. Parris. Yeah. It takes that.

I love that dialogue. It's great. It's great. Now, they're in the transporter room, and Neelix is with Nas, and he talks about having, he's got the recipes for the spiders now, so I thought that was funny. Paris and Tuvac arrive, Paris sort of grabs Neelix and the crewman that's supposed to beam her back. Yeah, he says, let's go.

Let's step out for second. Crewman, this way. Yeah, he knows he needs to give us a private time. Yeah. And I don't remember this scene at all, but that was amazing when Tuvac mind-melded with her to show her how he felt. Yeah, she says, I was, I'm really sorry. This is very difficult. She wishes things were different.

And he says, so do I. So do I. And then he stops her. And he puts his hand up, one hand up. And I love that circle shot. Terry Wendell gets a gold star for this. Yeah. Because as they're doing the mind meld, it kind of comes around.

Yeah. And then she smiles. Yeah. And she says, I understand. I understand. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's almost a smile from Tuvac here, which is crazy because you never see Tim Russ expressing, particularly smiling. No. Tuvok never smiled. No. For a split second, I thought he was going to kiss her before he mind melded her. I was like, oh, is he going to really kiss her? I thought it was going to be there, but it didn't.

But it did bring a little tear to my eye. I got a little bit emotional when he did the mind melt. It was very sweet. Very, very touch. and prosper. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness.

She beams down. She beams down and we go to Tuvok meditating. And guess where he's at? He's at Club Tuvok. Club Tuvok, the purple. Wearing his Vulcan clothing. Yeah. In the background and he's meditating.

He's back in Club Tuvok and we go into a flashback. Tuvok's training as a young boy is done. Yep. Completed his training. And grief, anger, fear and especially love will never threaten you again. He says, I am grateful and walks out. And that's it. That is the end of it.

Yes. My quick lesson is, yes, don't let your emotions get the best of you. And that's what I have for this episode. That's good. Yeah, and that's kind of a Vulcan thing,

but it is true. A lot of times people, anything bad that happens in life is sort of something that is precipitated by emotions running out of control, I feel. You know, crimes of passion, crimes of, you know, you name it. It's always your emotions that are spurring you on to do something. Emotions are very powerful and can be very destructive. Yeah. And, you know, when you talk about, for instance, like a movie like Top Gun, and if you remember Val Kilmer's character, he was the

Ice Man, you know, and you talk about people having ice in their veins because they don't let their emotions affect them. Run them. Like, yeah, run them or control them or guide them in it in, to make the wrong decision. You've got to stay in control and be like, you know, like ice, basically in a way. So that's my lesson. I don't know if you have a lesson that you want to impart on us that you go. The lesson that I take away from this is time is not real. That's the lesson I go. Oh, okay. All right. Time is not real. It's just we sort of make it up, depending on where you're at, what's happening. Yeah. If you're in a vortex or not. Yeah. If you eat too many spiders. Yeah. No, no, I think for me, time was the big.

I don't know exactly how to articulate it. Okay. But time is sort of a, is a perception. That was my takeaway. Okay. I like that. Yeah, the time is much bigger than we experience that we're aware of. Sure.

What about your rating on this one? Oh, I'm going to give this episode a, I'm going to say 6.8. I'm going to go lower on this one. Interesting. Wow. Yeah. Well, I, why?

Why did you kind of go lower? I don't know. It didn't involve our whole crew very well. No, yeah, and just, I just, honestly, when the writers had Paris completely just trying to pull Tuvok out of this thing and say, look, keep your options open, and they kept doing that. I felt like it was so one-noted. You know, I was like, it's a little too, one-note for me. I feel like there should be more layers for Paris.

Why are they making Paris beat this dead horse? You know, he still, so some of the, some of the dialogue, some of just how it was constructed, it didn't make me feel like, oh, this is one of my favorite episodes. So I'm dropping a little bit lower. It's better than average, though. Average is five, right? So it's above average. Yeah, I think this was, I enjoyed this episode, especially the fact that we got to learn.

more about two Vox youth and about who he was. He was a bit of a rebellious youth. Yes, he was, which we had no clue about beforehand. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I love the backstory there. I did think Lori Petty was really fun to watch and really interesting. I'm going to give it a 7.4. Oh, wow. 7.4. I don't know how I got the 0.4. Yeah. I just sort of made that up. There's no science to it. It could be 7.5 could be 7.3. I'm going with 7.4. You're going to go with 7.4. I'm going to up it. I'm going to go to 6.99 just because we learn more about Tuvok. And it's true because if you think about it, when you talk about Spock has a Vulcan father and a human mother. So he logically is going to have the battles with emotions and logic because he's half human. But Tuvok's 100 percent, 200 percent. He's 100 percent. He's 100 percent. He is 100% Tuvok, but he's also 100% Vulcan. So for him to have this backstory of struggling with emotions is even more amazing. It's more, wow, we did not know that.

So I'm going to go 6.99. Okay. Okay. All right. What's the rating? Here is our Admiral, our Admiral and Captain average rating for gravity. Yes. Oh.

Oh, seven point four. No, you got it on the money? Oh, that's crazy. I literally was saying, I don't know why 7.4 could be 7.3, could be 7.4. I just went with that. That's crazy. Oh, my gosh. I feel like you deserve a prize now, a stuffed animal or something like that, Robbie.

Yeah, I feel like I'm a little stuffed animal spider is what I'm going to give you as a gift. Wow. Wow. Captains and admirals. Okay. We're on the same page. All righty. We're on the same page.

Great. Okay. Well, that was really fun. What is next week? Next week, yes. We will be reviewing, rewatching, reviewing, discussing bliss. Bliss. Yeah, look at all these one-word titles.

I know popping up here. Gravity, Bliss. There we go. One. One. Stabbed. Fettered. All right, everyone. Thanks for tuning in this week. Doing Robbie and I next week when we do discuss bless. Thanks everybody. Thank you. B. B. B.

B. B. Bhopal, B. You know what I'm going to do. But, you know, and

you know, I'm going to . And you know and You know, I'm going to be able to be.