The Delta Flyers - Hard Time

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

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, Hard Time, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, and Armin Shimerman.Hard Time: After an alien race implants false memories of a twenty-year prison sentence into O’Brien, he has trouble readjusting to station life. 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, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Izzy Jaffer, Andrew Cano, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Sean T, & Cindy WoodfordOur 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, Sarah Thompson, 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, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, Chris Garis, Jeff Allen, Tamara Evans, & Deb LahrAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Sab Ewell, 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, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Sarah, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Robby Hill, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Brian Heckathorne, Kilian Trapp, Nelson Silveira, Ming Xie, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, & Andy BruceThank 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] this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everybody. We just wanted to let you know that this episode discusses suicidal feelings and violence. And if you or anyone you know is having concerns about this, you can always call or text 988 in the United States, and there's someone there to help. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Delta Flyers journey through the wormhole with Quark, Dax, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space 9. Your host for today are my fellow Trek actors, Armand Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong.

He used to be here, sir. Thank you. 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. You sound like one of those British sports that, like, talks about, about cricket or something, you know? Very good, Rob. Very quiet.

Yes. I was actually paying tribute to a show that I, it's a show that people have been watching for a while, but I got into it very recently, which is Ted Lassow. And on Ted Lassow, there's a character of Nate Shelley, who was a very unassuming sort of soft-spoken coach of one of the teams. So I was like, I'm going to do that today. Oh, fun. Yeah.

Well, hello, Armin. Hello, hello. It's been a while for us. Yeah, it's been a nice summer. It's been rather warm here in Los Angeles, but we got through it. I've been doing a lot of swimming, so that makes it a little bit cooler. It's been great. How has your summer been?

It's been good. I did a couple of conventions. Garrett and I saw each other at Vegas and then in Atlanta at DragonCon. Atlanta is my hometown, so it was really fun to go back because I saw some very dear old friends and family and had a couple of great meals did you go to that restaurant i recommended by the way to urban licks went there it's funny because we ate there two days before at another restaurant which is a fusion sort of restaurant right next to urban licks that one building that has a huge class in front of oh yeah we ate there i can't remember the name of it but most most peculiar

about atlanta and you probably know this robbie it was the coolest dragon con ever yeah i flew from there to L.A., so I'm in L.A. now, L.A. was hotter than it. L.A. is now hotter than Atlanta. Yeah, usually Atlanta at around DragonCon time or any in the summer is just like a sauna or a steam bath. Yeah. It's blistering. Blistering hot and muggy. But it was, it was nice. I took a walk one day. And we did take that walk, by the way. So we exited the restaurant, like you said, we went left towards Inman Park and saw that whole area. Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah. I love it. You call that the belt line. Belt line.

Yeah. Atlanta's belt line is kind of like their boardwalk. Yeah. Through Midtown with all kinds of restaurants and fun stuff. It's very lively. And I just felt that everyone in Atlanta realized how cool the weather was. So everyone was on the beltline. It was literally, it looked like, it felt like walking through the hallways of Dragon

Khan on the Beltline. There's so many people, so many people. Is Dragon Khan still as populated by? thousands of people. Yes. You've been, though, right? Not for years and years and years and years. Oh, they have close to 100,000 people at that convention now.

It's huge. It's bigger, Armand Day. And it was when you were there. Because more than a decade ago, you know, shoulder to shoulder with everybody, it was really hard to take a step. Yeah. Yeah. At the Vegas convention, I saw some people with these pins.

Oh, yeah. Captain Proton. There's that one I have not seen that's a new one super cool there's Captain Proton which was me here's a here's another one oh your actual rocket ship from Proton the rocket ship and then there's even from this this company has a put up the lower decks character too and sets the lower deck's character and I have to give a shout out this is not an ad or anything but these guys make such cool pins yeah next time you're at a convention find them I don't took their cards, its fan sets is one of them, and the other one is Section 31 supply, I think

that. But I just want to give a shout out to these guys, because I love, I'm going to put this up too, I love their stuff. When I see the fans come by with these pins, they're so well made and so cool. I just want to, this is not an ad. I'm not getting paid for this. I honestly really like these pins. And I'm, so that's all.

I just want to say that. I like them. The reason I'm bringing up who makes those pins, next time you guys are at a convention, you should look for your quark pins or your Harry Kim pins because they make some cool stuff. And they're not flimsy cheap either. They're solid metal. They're really well done. Yeah.

They're cool. I will look for that. Okay, great. I love going in the merch section sometimes and artist's alley and those kind of things. Yeah. And I went over to their tape. I had seen one of those pins on some. and I just went to find the one pin.

Right. And then suddenly they're like, oh, well, we've got this one and this one. And it was cool. Yeah. Yeah, those guys approached me a bit back, and I do have a couple of Harry Kim ones from them. Oh, you do? Yeah, and I was very impressed. So well-made.

You guys are really pulling out all the stops. So again, Robbie and I are not being paid for this, but we definitely think that you guys should check out. I just think they're cool. Yeah, check out. Armand, I'm going to look for a quark pin for you. Okay. it's time robbie mcneill for poetry synopsis yes poetry and then a little etymology yes by the way yes armin i have a question for you before i release the crackin of my poem um

do you know the etymology of quark the name of your character uh there are several places where Quarks certainly is an anatomical figure. It is the smallest article. Forgive me for the physicists out there. I believe it is the smallest article in the universe. The atoms are made of quarks. And there are five quarks, as I understand it. The only one I remember the most is top quark.

That might be me. But there are four other quarks as well, and all matters made out of quarks. but there's also a quark is a cottage cheese brand in in german you open a pandora's box of definitions also i believe in in some polynesian language quark means outsider oh interesting so those those three definitions are the ones that i'm most familiar with great i was just a fan had asked had mentioned at the recent convention mentioned, had mentioned how much they love your etymology. Oh, thank you.

And they had done a little etymology on Quark, and I couldn't recall all of it. That's why I thought I'd just ask you. But they, people love your etymology. It's really great. That's good. Thank you. Thank you. Now, the other thing I wanted to tell you, Armand, is the fan came up to me and said, I love when Armine nitpicks on the Delta Flyers. Oh, really? Yes.

She said, will you please tell him to do it more? I said, I don't have to tell him to do it more. He will do it more, but the bottom line is, you have a fan of that already. Thank you, because I sometimes think I do a little too much of that. So, you know, as a perfectionist, I want everything to be even a little bit better. Yeah. Okay. I love it too.

I love it too. Just don't nitpick on my limerick. Just don't, you can nitpick on the show. I'm very sensitive about my limericks. Okay. Here we go. Yeah. A prison simulation is how Miles must make amends.

20 years in prison, and his mind starts to bend. He's got PTSD. Will he ever feel free? You get by with a little help from your friends. Well done. Yeah. And inspiring. Oh, thank you.

Thank you. For hard time, my haiku, jailed for two decades, Chief can't seem to acclimate. Bashir talks him down. Oh. Yeah. there you go thank you both of you mentioned the time span that the program supposedly took and both of you said 20 years it doesn't really say it it says 20 cycles doesn't it yes the cycles and

and we you know different planets rotate around the sun different times so yeah what a year might be for mercury would be different that a year for pluto agreed i i've 1,000 percent agreed but it's At some point, each R does say years. 20, does he? He says, he says, I've been in for six cycles, but later he does talk about years. Years. Even each R uses years. So I thought, all right.

Ours is 365. Mercury's, I know, is a lot shorter than that. Right. Or on that planet, it could be longer than 365. That's right. Correct? It could be Jupiter, which would be longer. Right.

Okay. Etychymology time. Etymology. Etymology. Okay. So, I... Hard times, two words. I only stress one, one of them, and that is hard.

Hard is a common teutonic adjective. In Old English, it's pronounced, I'm going to get this wrong, but I'm going to spell it for you. It's pronounced Heard, or looks like Heard, H-E-A-R-D. In Old Frisian, it's pronounced Heard, but H-E-R-D. and in old high German it's heart H-A-R-T pronounced H-A-R-T and I looked up the expression hard times and the phrase hard times

before you go on is it plural or is it singular for this episode Robbie hard time is the title but hard times is what I'm referring to yes the phrase hard times originated to describe periods of economic hardship and difficulty appearing in the 18th century folk song Hard Times of Old England and becoming widely popularized by Charles Dickens' 1854 novel Hard Times for These Times and Stephen Foster's 1854 song Hard Times Come No More.

The phrases used evolve to include a specific meaning of jail sentence in America, slang, but its primary meaning refers to general difficult circumstances as popularized by Dickens' depiction of that during the Industrial Revolution. So that's where the phrase hard time and hard times comes from. Wow. Dickens had a big impact on the English language, not as much as Shakespeare, perhaps, but Dickens had a big impact. And the thing about Dickens, I did a play about Dickens.

I didn't know this as tangential to our conversation, but Dickens rediscovered Christmas, or at least the celebration of Christmas, that Christmas was not a big holiday in the Christian calendar up until 1850s. And when Dickens began to write Christmas Carol and other things where people celebrated Christmas, that celebration, people went,

oh, that looks good, let's do that too. Let's celebrate Christmas with a tree and tinsel. and party and drinking, and that wasn't there prior to 1854. Wow, I did not know that. Yeah, news to me. Wow, very cool. Interesting. All righty, here we go.

Story by Daniel Keyes Moran and Lynn Barker, teleplay by our good friend, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, directed by Alexander Singer, guest stars, Rosalun Chow as Keiko, Margo Rose as Kapar Rin, Hana Hate. as Molly O'Brien, F.J. Rio as Munez, and Craig Watson as Eechar. Co-stars Judy Durand as computer voice. I thought Majel did all of that, but I guess she didn't do all of them. She must have been busy or something. Who knows? Yeah. All right, trivia time. Daniel Keyes Moran and Lynn Barker pitched this story during season one of DS9. Robert Hewitt Wolf who was a big fan of the story

He tried to persuade Michael Pillar to buy the story The Pillar was not interested Robert tried again during season three Pillar refused again It was season four that Hewit Wolfe pleaded his case To Iris Stephen Bear Who agreed to buy the story So to me it's sort of like talking talking to mom mom mom

And finally they said you know what Let me ask dad And see if dad let this happen So yeah it took a little while Well, it fits right in with what Ira wanted to do, which has expand the relationship or deal with the relationship of Dr. Bashir and Miles O'Brien. So as much as this is a Kalamini-centric episode, and it is, and he does an incredible job, it is also about the relationship between Julian and Miles. Mm-hmm. Yep.

The character of ECHR was not in the original pitch, but added by Robert Hewitt Wolf. Now, while writing the teleplay, there was a bit of a disagreement on how to best use ECHR. Wolf felt that ECHR should only appear in flashbacks, and Ron Moore thought that ECHR should only be used in O'Brien's present-day hallucinations. In the end, they compromised and used the character in both past and present. I think that's critical to me. critical that he have that he was a real person in this simulation or not a real person but he was a he we know what you mean we know what you mean that miles experienced him as a real person and right simulation because to me uh he was sentenced to 15 years he ended up being there 20 cycles

and i kept wondering why why did did he choose to extend or why was it if it was 15 years was the sentence and then I realized or at least I interpreted that they kept him going in the in the cycles until he they broke his humanity they broke him in some way and by killing a good friend someone who that they had caused him such deep pain that they broke his humanity and then a week or two later they let him go in that story to me I thought that was critical that he'd be in that simulation so that then he could be sort of an analogy or a metaphor for the relationship with Bashir later on. So that sounds absolutely right.

This is my nitpick, not with you at all, but if that's true, and I believe it is, if the crime is espionage, why do you have to break the prisoner spirit? I didn't understand how the sentence fit the crime. Yeah. I mean, unless it's just pure, you know, sadism. It's just pain. We think you did something really bad, so you're going to have to suffer. Right. It's torture it away. And yeah. So that's just the tiny, tiny. And I only nitpick because of what you just said, because I think you're right. To me, that that's why it's incredible that that character be in the simulation and in his hallucinations later on, that that character is just burned in there. yeah yeah i did have that question if he was sentenced to 15 cycles why was he there for 20 and that answers it a lot they kept they kept him until 15 he hadn't been broken yet and he had to keep going yeah yeah that makes perfect sense okay also robert hewitt wolf's wife celeste who works as a psychotherapist and is a licensed family counselor served as an unofficial consultant on this

script which is pretty awesome i think very awesome this episode this episode comprises one of the many episodes that has been referred to as the O'Brien must suffer episodes. Iris Stephen Bear sums up the rationale for these episodes. Quote, every year we like to drive O'Brien totally mad.

We did it with whispers, we did it with tribunal and visionary, and now this episode. So this is just a theme. They love to break down O'Brien. And mainly because he's such a fabulous actor that he can handle it. So that's a nice.

other reason. That's a very good reason. But I must point out, he suffered once a year. My character suffered every episode. And again, I mean, we'll get to it. But half the time I keep, because we talk about Robbie How with Voyager, there's no, you know, every episode stands alone. Nothing really tracks, you know, and how DS9 is so awesome because it tracks. The only thing that doesn't track is Quark. Quark's, you know, because at some point, we saw Cisco warm up to Quark and to understand Quark more, and it seemed like cork

is one of the team. And they keep falling back to the same trope. It's like, why are you doing this? It gets reset. Yeah, right. It's Groundhog Day for how they treat cork on this show. Not fair. No. It's not fair. I don't like it. We don't like it. We don't like it. Thank you. We're on your side. Speaking for Quark, and I often do, thank you. You're Quirk's number one spokesperson. Yes, I am.

Yes, I am. There you go. In the UK, in the United Kingdom, this is one of only two deep space nine episodes to receive a 15 certificate. What that means is sort of, you know, how we have PG-13 in movies. 15 certificate is it means you have to be 15 or older. If you're younger than that, you have to have parental supervision. So this is one of two. I think the content of this, you know, the...

PTSD. You put it in your poem. It's absolutely right. Yeah. It's so heavy that you do need some type of a warning, I feel for sure. Yeah. The other bit of trivia is that this is actually the very final Deep Space Nine episode directed by Alex Singer. Oh, wow. Yeah. I guess he started focusing on Voyager at this point. Yeah, he came over to us for quite a few. He did a ton of ours and that would have been like this. I think this one aired in 1996. So that makes sense. So he came over and started becoming. one of our principal or one of our main directors on voyage. Yeah, first couple of years, he did a lot. One last piece of trivia. Two of the guest stars, Craig Watson and Margo Rose, are both composers, highly gifted and awarded composers. So that's just coincidental. Oh, I did not know that. Thank you for sharing that.

Okay, so we start off in this kind of cave cell. It's very primitive. We see from behind an old man sitting on the ground, drawing in the sand, a pack. pattern in the sand. And then we hear a bell, a warning claxon kind of bell sound. And they say decontamination is about to start. And this light sort of sweeps across. We still haven't seen his face. And it sweeps across. It ruins his sand art, which was very sad, because it was beautiful. But it decontamines him. And then we hear that he's free, that he was supposed to do 15 cycles. But he did 20 and he doesn't know where he should go and they shock him and they throw him out into this bright light.

And when did we see it was Miles O'Brien, by the way? Oh, it's when the door opens. Yeah. It's not until the door opens. We don't see him. I thought that moment, see, I blew through it in my narration because it was not a moment. And I feel like that reveal should have been a moment. But anyway, we do see Miles has this long gray beard, this long hair, this guard or whatever says you were supposed to be here for 15 cycles, but you've been here for 20.

It's time for you to go. And he has no where he would go? He's like, where do I go? What do I do with my life? And, yeah, they throw him out into the bright light. I like the contrast, by the way, of the bright light and the cave set. I thought that was very cool. Yeah, I don't know.

I mean, why is he? being decontaminated. And it says all offenders. It doesn't say just, you know, prisoner number, whoever. So it wasn't for him to leave that thing. It was everyone's getting decontaminated. But what are they being decontaminated for? And then that groan that he has, it's not, it's literally when it passes through his body,

like it's painful as it goes through him. Like you read it as he groan because his artwork got knocked out of there. But I thought it was because his body felt some type of physical shock. No, I thought it was from the artwork. No, I agree with Garrett. It was the beam pass. I thought it was the beam passing through his bottom, right? Interesting. Yeah. So then at that point, the question remains, what the heck is he being? Does he have like space, lice? I don't know. Where did they go to the bathroom? Where did they get to? That's a primary question of mine. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just saying, maybe they're decontaminated. You just do it where you, in your litter box. That's why it was sand on the ground for the litter box. I see. Maybe, maybe. This is all, thank God we're having this discussion. Oh, we need enough, yeah. He's thrown it into the light, and then suddenly we cut into this treatment room, this medical bay. But before we get there, just very quickly, I want a shout out to the hair department.

We never talk about the hair department here. The hair department, which sort of helped signify how long time was in the prison by how long Miles's hair was or how long his beard was. I thought the hair department did an incredible job of doing that. And, you know, sometimes his beard is red, sometimes it's white. I thought they did a great job. Yeah, I agree. I agree 1,000 percent. A lot of times in productions, when you see that type of passage of time, you sit there and you think immediately, that is a wig.

Okay. Looking at O'Brien in this episode, very realistic, very good. But he could give Dan Haggerty and BJ and the Bear run for their money if they were to do a remake of that. It just looked amazing, really good. And remembering Cullum from way back when I'm sure he wasn't happy about going through that. But it helped tremendously, Cullin, so get used to it. Yeah. I was thinking I was going to bring it up later, but since we're talking about it, I was thinking from a production standpoint, you don't always shoot in sequence.

Correct. know often you're the the way the schedule is you jump around but I I imagine that they shot this part of the story in chronological order because they had to keep adding to the beard yes you wouldn't want to take it away you'd want to start with him clean-shaven then you know or in the first scene I think he was clean-shaven and then the next time he had a bit of stubble and then the next time he had the beginnings of the beard yes so every time they shot a scene They had to stop, move on to the next scene.

He had 20, 30 minutes in the chair to get the beard, at least, and the wigs. So you're right, Armin, the hair and makeup department had to hustle, not only do a good job, but they had to do it very quickly because they probably shot all of this in sequence. Right. Yeah. Well, we're in the treatment room. He's screaming. He wakes up.

One of the Argrathi aliens removes these electrodes, unfastens him. And they say, there. it's done all done kira is there guards are there and rin and a grothy um i guess security person tells him that only a few hours had passed because he thinks it's he wakes up he says it's been 20 years and kira looks exactly the same but the guard goes no only uh only a few hours had passed we did all this simulation in a couple hours i love how sci-fi that concept is just to think about somebody serving a full 20-year sentence in three hours, the condensed craziness of it is so sci-fi. And it reminds me, Robbie, of your episode, ex post facto, being convicted

falsely. Re-living. And having to relit. Yeah. Right. Did you feel that at all when you were watching this? I didn't think about that. But yeah, you're right. Similar kind of, yeah, justice. And what I was struck by watching the whole episode is that's the last sci-fi thing that really happens in this episode. Everything else could be in modern day and it wouldn't make one bit of difference. It is

one of the least science fiction episodes that we ever did. Yeah. But a very powerful one. Yeah, very powerful. Yeah, it's interesting. I remember Armin years ago when I was reading a screenwriting book that sort of broke down genres and the way that the

screenwriting book said, one of the rules of science fiction as a genre is that some technology or science imagined or real had to instigate the plot and had to solve the plot, had to be involved in both the start of the problem and the solution to the problem. And it's interesting because you're right, the technology or sci-fi part of this, it starts the plot, but it doesn't solve it. It's the end of it. Yeah, sci-fi has nothing to do with the rest of the episode. Yeah. Nothing, except we go to a station in space, but that doesn't really count. It's really a really powerful look into a man's psyche or a woman's psyche, and the effects of dealing with PTSD. It's funny that you say that now. I almost

will change my missing scene for later on when we discuss in the bonus material. because that's interesting. Yeah, that's an interesting idea that you brought up, that science, the sci-fi of it just is in the beginning. We're on DS9. We're in the O'Brien family quarters. It's Cisco and Keiko. And Keiko obviously has a lot of questions.

We learned a little backstory that O'Brien was a little curious about Argrathi technology, and he asked too many questions, which led to the charge of espionage and being arrested. and, you know, Kekko's extremely worried. She says, is there any way that these memories that they've implanted in him while he's been serving that time? Can they be removed? And Cisco says that the Argrathi claim that it's impossible.

Can't be removed. But Bashir will do his best to help alleviate the symptoms. She wants to know when she can see him. And Sisko says as soon as Bashir gives the okay. Keiko says, can these memories be removed? And Cisco says, no, it's impossible. But can't people be hypnotized to forget things? Like, even in our world, not the sci-fi world, it couldn't.

Like, if it's a memory, can't you, couldn't you hypnotize somebody? Well, if you could do that and they came up with that, we wouldn't have this episode. We wouldn't have this episode, now, would we? But I don't know if that's a treatment for PTSD. I don't know if there's, I don't know. I'm just asking the question, but I wonder if there's, in the real world, a way to kind of But we're certainly told in other TV episodes

Not of this show, but of other shows That gradually buried memories come to the surface Resurface, that's true, yeah Oh, that's true But I also feel like in the sci-fi world, in the trick world That maybe if they can't remove the memory Could they place another memory on top of that memory To sort of suppress the other memory that the Argrathis?

Make it a positive memory. Yes. And then it was a tickle fight. Yes, it was a pillow fight that they did. Had all the handy in the world. And a nitpick that I read online was in other episodes, not just of our show, Sons of Moe, for instance, and TNG, and perhaps even Voyager episodes, memories are erased from people. That happens quite often in the Star Trek franchise.

So why couldn't they do it here? This was a nitpick that I read about. I didn't even read that, but I felt that. I felt like it doesn't even take sci-fi to go, oh, there's got to be ways to deal with traumatic experiences, whether it's, I don't know, hypnotism, medication, replacing it with a new memory that, I don't know, there seems like there must be techniques. We cut into the runabout, there's Miles and Kira coming back, coming through the wormhole, and he's just talking about how it all feels so real, and Kira says it was just a dream, you know, it's not real. What's real is right in front of you, and he looks out of the station. There's a wonderful moment here where he thinks the station is beautiful. He said, he forgot how beautiful it was.

It is a gorgeous shot of the station, one I've never seen before. Now, I do have a question about Kira. What was she doing during the hours that he was subjugated? Obviously, they'd gone to the Gamma Quadrant together. Or she was nearby and was able to pick him up pretty quickly. but I got the impression that they had gone together. What was she doing? Why wasn't she making a fuss about,

you can't do that to my compatriot here? Let me give you a little anti-knit-pick serum here. I'm going to say that because my brain was thinking that. Then I thought, oh, no, no, no. They arrived on that planet. Kira went to go do something with someone else, and then he went to go inspect as an engineer it's some other part of that planet and they were apart and she had no clue that he had been

arrested none of that until she started looking around she's like what's going on and at that by that time it's too late he's only gone through the whole darn thing no she didn't even know no she didn't even know until the last second that's right I looked at it I was like okay she's doing her thing he was doing his thing they don't have to be I would buy that joined at the hip the entire time I would buy that here's my nitpick for the Kira run Because this is all we see her in pretty much is this opening section. Her energy level didn't seem in character with Kira to me. She seemed very calm.

She seemed like she had been waiting for him for 20 years as opposed to two hours. Like she's usually, Kira is a fighter. And she didn't seem to have any fight in her. She seemed to be some like the energy level. I just, I thought that was a mistake. I think her character would have been peaking right about now if she had been arguing for this is not fair, this is not right. I just feel like her energy sort of matched Miles' sort of exhausted delirious energy.

And I thought that was strange to me. I got the feeling she had been told what he had gone through. Yeah. And was being kind to him. She was being, and this happens all through the episode, she was being a good friend to him yeah i think the level matching is just coincidental and then that got you on that path robbie where you're like wait a minute she's that's insane right but i really felt like it was her guilt that she felt she wasn't there to protect him it was how bad she felt and she just

wanted to really just sort of be nice and calm and easy with him because she realizes he just went through 20 years of prison in two hours, you know? And she felt like crap because I was going to say in this scene that last, when O'Brien says, I've forgotten how beautiful it was, Kira's final line in this scene is, come on, let's get you home like that. And it was the most caring that I've heard Kira ever be to anybody on the show up to this point. And I loved it. I really loved it.

So I'm going to agree to, I'm going to disagree on what, you know, your take was. And not to say that it wasn't valid, but I took it a whole completely different way. Oh, no, I'm sticking with my point of view. I think that, I think that honestly, this was the beginning of a lot of tone matching that I think hurts this episode. Okay. And it actually undermines the amazing performance of column because when everyone's tone matching that way, his experience doesn't seem special. It seems like, you know, like the scene with Cisco, and I'm jumping ahead. When Cisco is tough on him, you know, you did this, you got in a fight with quark, you got in a fight with, you know, and you're dismissed.

You're relieved of duty. Like, I like that energy. It was not tone matching to where everybody's playing this weightiness of the same experience. Right. But Shear's not having that experience. Kira is not having that experience. Miles is having that experience. And so I think, and this is a directorial or it's maybe in the wrong.

writing, but I would have tried to make Miles's experience more special by not having everybody playing the same kind of energy level. And there was a lot of that for me. And the story's amazing and Colum's performance is amazing. But I thought the tone matching generally to me just undermined the power of it. All right. Well, from your comments, it sounds like you're referring to Bashir also having that tone match in later scenes too. Yeah. So, okay. And so for the record, Robbie, tone matching, no fun. Armin and I are going to say, we're just fine with this. Great, great.

We're in the airlock and Bashir, you know, welcomes chief back. This was a tone match scene for you? Totally. Okay. Again, this is me thinking he's being a good friend and trying to like, this guy went through hell. I get it. I get it.

I get it, but it feels like the same strategy. that the actors, that the characters are taking from the beginning of our story to the end of the story. And, you know, Armin, you know as a director when you work with actors and you want to... You have to have an arc. You have to have an arc.

You want, yes, you want some variety that the characters start with one strategy or one intention and then they hit an obstacle and now they have to change their intention and their strategy. This felt like the story, Same strategy from almost all the characters throughout most of the episode.

And that, to me, was undermining the power of this story. But yes, this was a very quiet scene when they welcomed him in. I see what you're saying, Robbie. And I do understand when you mention the change. That's crucial to any good performance. But I will also say, from my own life experience, when I hear, when I come to a friend and say, how are you? And they say, oh, I just lost a limb or I have cancer or I've been diagnosed with with glaucoma or something. All of a sudden, I change because I'm now trying to exhibit

sympathetic feelings towards that person. So I'm with Garrett on this. I think they're just trying to be friends, which is an essential ingredient of this episode about friendship. That is 100% true. Well, this is a very quiet scene. They welcome him back. Miles asked about Keiko in this scene, but Bashir says I didn't want a lot of people here to welcome you back, didn't want to overwhelm you. O'Brien says doctor's orders. Bishir says absolutely. Is this a different airlock?

Why does it look different to me? I mean, I just looked a little different. Did they revamp the entire station airlock? Not likely. Yeah, it just it looked a little different. So, in the color scheme, that's what I'm saying. Yeah.

Well, they take a walk down the corridor. Bersheer asks about the prison. And O'Brien says, I was alone. Completely alone all by myself. Because Bashir says, was anyone there? Did you have a friend or anything? No, I was alone. Liar! He's a liar! We cut into a flashback and we see O'Brien when he's first thrown into the cell. And there's an alien there. He's not alone. It's E. Char. Eachard gives him a piece of fruit. First, he squeezes some juice onto his mouth. Was it his mouth? Yeah, it was was his mouth and he had it from the makeup he had been roughed up before he was yeah yeah blood and

things yeah because it i my initial thought was he squeezed it as as you know just all over his no it it looked like he had been dehydrated and needed liquid that was my take on it yes all right and it's the chelosh fruit which is you know known throughout the galaxy to to revive you from a from a torture session so you want some chelosh fruit that I've got a whole refrigerator here at home. That's good. I have some cold-pressed chelosh fruit juice in my fridge. Yes, he gives him the piece of fruit to eat.

They start to talk. We do hear this voice, the announcer, say, all offenders refusing to comply with the dormancy period will be subject to habitat reprogramming. They talk as they're kind of getting to know each other, and E.R. says he's been there for six cycles. This is where O'Brien says, six years, he asks. And ECHR says, yes, I know, I wonder, it's a wonder I'm not insane.

But you find ways to survive. And then when O'Brien says he's in for espionage, ECHR says, oh, we're going to be here together a long, long time. And doesn't he surmise it's a different charge? Yeah, he asks sedition, is what he says. Sedition. O'Brien goes espionage, which is a little bit of a different charge, right? It's not the same thing. Yeah.

Yeah. But both hold very long sentences clearly. The button on the end of the scene is, E. Char says, hello, Miles, welcome to hell. Yeah. But he wasn't alone. We cut back out to the corridor with O'Brien and Bashir walking and talking. And O'Brien reiterates completely alone.

Nobody was there. So that is the mystery that pervades the rest of the episode. You know, why is he keeping E.R. a secret? Yeah. Well, why? Actually, it just occurred. I had the same thought, but right now it occurred to me. Why?

Because he killed him. Yeah, exactly. But we have to watch the episode to find out. Oh, yeah. I didn't understand that. Yeah, that's true. I know, I'm piecing to get there all the parts. But I kept thinking, why isn't he telling anybody about this?

Okay. So here's a question. So E. Char is implanted into his brain as a way to get him to break him in a way, correct? So this HR is not a real alien character. No, it's an AI character. Yeah, he's just created by the prison guards, basically, his prisoners, right? Yes. Yeah, the people that are keeping him in captivity.

He's not an actual real person, but it was just ultimately to get him to befriend him and then freak out and end up killing him. Well, thanks to Robbie, that makes sense. But I certainly didn't think that, and the two times that I watched this episode, And I didn't quite know why he was there. But Robbie's explanation earlier about breaking him. Now it makes sense. That makes sense to me because of the timeline too,

because he says, you know, a week or two after I killed him, they let me out. So this is why each art doesn't appear to be a stool pigeon. He doesn't seem to be there to ask questions about the espionage. He doesn't do that ever in the episode. No. So I thought, well, why is he there? Why did they put him in the brain? But Robbie's explanation solves that.

Does that make sense? It makes sense to me. It makes sense to me. Well, we go to the promenade. We've got Bashir and Keiko walking and talking. I just want to say, I don't think I've ever seen the upper level shot like this. And it was beautiful. I think it was two cameras simultaneously on long lenses at different parts of the promenade.

The A camera probably captured the first half of it. And then they exited that when they got too close and stepped into the B camera long lens shot, which then continued to the end. I bet this was a oneer, two long lens cameras, great depth of field on those lenses, great foreground stuff happening. I loved it. I would venture to say this is the only time we get a really good image vision of the upper walkway in the promenade. And the length of it. It is huge. It is huge.

It is huge. And I don't think they walk the entire length. I think they walked from where the bend is at one end of the station, excuse me, one end of the sound stage to, I would say, three quarters of the way along one of the pathways. And there are pathways on both sides of the upper promenade. It looked beautiful. I mean, I'll also, I'm going to be a little more critical maybe of this episode than you guys.

I love Alex Singer. He was great on our show. I don't think this is Alex's best episode as a director. But this shot, phenomenal. Like one of the best-looking promenade shot scenes I've ever seen. I thought he was great. And one of the things that Alex did or the production did, there is a ton of background people in this episode.

Oh, yeah. There's just a great sense of life on the station. I'm looking at your notes, Robbie. You're talking about this episode seems slower-paced dialogue than usual. You wanted to have some more pace throughout the episodes of Change Gears. I feel like the life on the station, especially that scene where Cork is so busy later on trying to serve drinks, that there is pace there.

It's just that dialogue is slower, and I feel like it's partially there because the subject matter is so heavy that they can't be too in your face with it. So I'm okay with it, you know, in terms of. of not having the pace in the dialogue. But in the actual life of the station, the pace is there, I feel. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I found the pace of this to be sort of one note. And I would put that in the lap of Alex Singer, to be honest. Because whenever I direct or look at an episode, I always look at contrasts, especially between scenes or between characters. Like if I end a scene in a suspenseful note,

maybe I want to pop back into the next scene with some fast lines at the top just to feel that change of gears in transition. And I felt like this just never changed gears. It was often sort of kind of pace the same, tonally the same. Your scene in the bar, Armin, was not. You were popping. But I can't think of another scene.

I think Jake, and I'm giving away. future scenes. I think Jake's energy was different. I think Cisco's energy was different. But for the most part it was kind of, there was a lot of the sameness, a lot of the same tone, the same pace. And this scene where

Bashir is basically walking with Keko giving her the medical point of view of this and says there's not much I can do. He's experienced these memories like they were real. It was a very sophisticated simulation. And Bashir says, you know, I think he's going to be

okay because he's been through terrible things before in his life. The war at Settlic 3, the time he was a prisoner with a Peridens, the trial on Cardassia Prime. He talks about all these things Miles has survived. He's going to be fine. That's how the dialogue's written, but honestly, even though the shot was beautiful, the pace of this conversation was in that sort of slowness that, I don't know, I found it to me. You have a problem with this. I feel like Bashir's basically saying, he's going to be okay like this is serious but don't worry don't worry and it would have been nice if he had been energetically sort of more optimistic and reassuring so that when it's not okay um i don't know that's my it's a very good point and it would have made uh sid's performance

a little bit stronger if he had done that because i understand his sympathy for his friend and not wanting to step on sore toes i get that And I have no problem with that. I like that. But here he's dealing with the wife, and it's got to be a different tone. And I think you're absolutely right about that. Yeah, it's going to be okay. I'm reassuring you.

Don't worry. He's been through work. She can play it as though, oh, my God, you know. But he can be the doctor, which is, yeah, you have stage four cancer, and we have treatments for this. And he's got to play the doctor there, as opposed to paying the best friend. Yeah. We go into the infirmary, miles.

is still very numb, very in shock, PTSD'd. He decides to go to the replicator and ask for some chelash fruit, that delicious chelash fruit that he had in prison. But the replicator's like, what? What's chelash fruit? I don't know what you're talking about. The replicator asked for specifications. Oh, Brian's like, I don't know any specifications.

Forget about it. Cancel it. But here comes in. Well, actually, he hears the door sound. He looks over and it's E-char. Yeah. And he's thrown for a minute. And then when he looks back over...

It's Keiko. The specifications line, it's taking me to the Voyager pilot, Tom Paris. Hot, plain, tomato soup. You can't specify the exact type of this. I have a little problem. I actually enjoyed the fact that, for once, the replicator didn't know how to replicate something. Yes, I didn't do. I loved that.

That was great. It seemed like from Colm's performance that this was the first time he'd ever experienced a replicator, not being able to do something. And it just seemed to me, well, that's not really logical or probable that it can't always, you know, make things up because it does need specifications. And I'm not sure everything is explained to the replicator. Anyway, I did like it not being able to do that. So then the question in my mind is, is this a real fruit?

Oh. Is this such a foreign fruit? Now, it's from the gamma quadrant. So, of course, an alpha quadrant replicator wouldn't know what it was. Correct. But was it a real fruit? That's the question that popped into my mind. Correct.

Yeah, it seems like even in our world, if I typed into AI, describe Cheelash fruit to me. It would have some information in AI. It would say, oh, chelash fruit, you mean the stuff referred to on Star Trek Deep Space Nine? Well, it's a broody red fruit. It would have some information, even our AI. So it seems like a replicator. would know something. And the fact that he asks for it.

Yes. It's familiar. He's still dealing with that reality, which I thought was a very good thing for the writers to do. Agreed. Great detail. We go into the O'Brien's quarters.

O'Brien is cutting up his food, dividing it into two piles. I'm going to go back to the replicator for just a second. Oh, I love talking about the replicator. Is O'Brien, and I don't have an answer for this. He's been told that all of that was false, that all of that was in a, memory implanted into his mind.

Is he testing to find out if any of it was real? I never thought of that. I thought it was more of a sentimental familiar. All of those can be true. But another take on it could have been, was it real or was it not real? No, I don't know what that is. So I don't know. Okay, that's a great point, Armour.

I do feel like this. scene is to set up the beginning of the pattern that he is so used to a certain ritual of that 20 years cycles that he served and this is one of the rituals eating chelosh fruit another is separating the food that happens later another is sleeping on a floor it's just showing how he how much he was um that overtook his entire life in a way like as it would yes as it would exactly but Good, good point, though. Good. Yeah, interesting detail.

I like it. When he finally realizes that it's not HR and that it's Keiko, he hugs her. They're embracing. And that's when he says, you're pregnant. He forgot that she was pregnant when he left the station because he's been, in his head, it's been 20 years. It doesn't even remember that Keiko was pregnant. So, again, what a, what a number that that brain implant did.

on him. And if you watch Colum's reaction to that hug, really quite brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. He starts out not sure who he's hugging. Yes. And then realizes, you know, it is Keiko. It's his wife. And it's a warm embrace. It's a lovely choice and acting moment by Column meaning. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And Keiko at the end of the scene says, it's okay, Miles. Everything's going to be all right. A nice warm moment between the two of them. Now we go to the awkward dinner and the O'Brien. quarters. Miles is cutting up his food. Molly wants to color. And he says maybe in a little while. She heads off to put her plate in the replicator, which was a nice little, I like that visual effect where she drops the plate off. She kind of steps back. We see it get cleaned up and

disappear and then she moves on. But that's something we haven't seen, though. I've never seen it. I was shocked. I was like, goodness gracious. Even the plate was replicas. Even the plate was replicated. So that means all of it goes back in there. No one has to do dishes. It's amazing. I want a replicator dishwasher. Matter is neither destroyed nor created. Or created. It's transferred from one form to the other. Yes. So, but again, on Voyager, no one put their coffee coffee or their plates back in. No, we never did that. And on DS9 before this, we never saw anyone. And I would venture to say we'll never see that. We'll never see even after this, right? we're not going to see it okay anyway cool thing that we got to see the cool little moment and then

kako mentions that miles is uh gonna talk with counselor tell ral ral ternori counselor tell nori have we ever heard of this counselor on this no no no counselor tell nori gets a lot of shoutouts in this episode he does or she never she does we've never met him or her yeah we i don't think we ever will meet him right we know we know we never meet them. No. No, but a very important off-camera character of this episode. Yes. And then Keiko does kind of call out that he's splitting up his food and he talks to Keiko about how he had to ration his food to survive because sometimes they wouldn't deliver food for days or even weeks. Now he does reveal his past history to her. What I did miss was what

Cullum's reaction to being discovered doing something that didn't make sense in this arena. What I would have liked to have seen was, and he did a little, but I wanted a little bit more of, oh, yeah, that's what I used to do. I shouldn't be doing it. I don't need to do that. Embarrassment or... Yeah, embarrassment or something, as opposed to just a sadness that he had about it. He explains why he did it back in his prison simulation, and Keiko says that's horrible.

And he says, yeah, you just get used to it. After 20 cycles, I'm sure you are used to it. And that's where we jump back into another flashback, where we see each are wrapping up some food and a piece of cloth and sort of hiding it away. And this is when we see Colum's beard. and this is where I was talking about I bet each of these scenes this is the first time we see the beard from the clean-shaven flashback

so having to do that between every setup I'm sure Column was not happy no I'm sure he wasn't and also for production-wise I mean you're right about the beard but it's also to shorten the amount of days that they're using Wes for as a guest star

that you know that they keep his days in one pile, one chunk together. Well, he's got the beard and Echar hides this food that he's separated. Miles asked, how did Echr survive? And Echar shows him for the first time this

sand art, this drawing in the sand. And then when Miles tries it, Echar sort of laughs, he says you look like a reed a hawk picking at a corpse, starts making noises, cucko, like that. He does make fun of him. when he's doing the interior work.

But when he says, this is a good spot, start by drawing a circle. O'Brien, I'm not going to say O'Brien, I'm going to say, Colmini's circle was so good. I was like, did you, do you have a hidden protractor in your hand? I mean, how did you do that? I mean, it was so perfect. I was like, my goodness.

I almost want to see if Colomini has done any type of artwork at all in his life just to see what he's come up with. it so very precise circle it was very good yeah and i have a nitpick about the sand oh yes could you see the stage floor underneath it no no i did later on oh did you really okay you caught that one yes so they can draw on the sand they can do that and that's important to the scenes and yet when they show us the floor of the cell when there isn't a drawing i never see any footsteps in the sand oh the sand is perfect yeah now I understand that the that we saw this in the very top of the show some some beam comes in and smooths the sand but certainly before the beam comes in there should be

footprints in the sand from where they're walking around yeah agreed yeah I feel like you know in order for them to delineate between design and no design Alex Singer is like you know or whoever was on set decorating was like hey let's clean up the rest of the sand brush it make it look perfect yeah this is what i don't understand there was once or twice when i saw them walking in the sand and i didn't see them creating footprints in the sand so i think where they did the drawing there was more sand yeah and maybe that's why you saw the the the production floor underneath the sand maybe it was a thin patina of sand where they walked and a larger amount of sand where they drew And I wonder who is in charge of sweeping up the sand, by the way.

Whose job would that have been? Who's the sad? Ron would have had to do that. Oh, my goodness. Sweep the sand. I did like E.C.R.'s just silliness, playfulness in this scene when he starts, you know, imitating the Rita Hawk picking at a corpse. And Echard does say, after six years in this place, I either have to laugh or I'll go insane.

And I prefer to laugh. And that's when they say, dormancy period. That was because O'Brien asked, like, how can you laugh at this point in this prison? And he says, oh, you have to do that or you go crazy. So, yeah. Laugh or go insane. And then it's lights out time. And we cut into O'Brien's bedroom where we see Keiko sleeping in the bed.

But as the camera moves a little, we see no Miles is there. No, where is Miles? He's sleeping on the floor. as you talked about Garrett. Yeah. That was so sad seeing that. I just felt bad watching this scene. Very sweet moment from Kako.

She's trying to, she doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know how to help him. So just put a blanket over him. Yeah, she did all that she could do, right? You don't wake him up and put him back in the bed. Yeah, put the duvet on him. It would have been perhaps interesting, perhaps not, who knows, if he had been in a nightmare.

Oh, yes. As opposed to sounding plastic. on the floor if he had been in a nightmare which is what what wakes her up she realizes you know he needs some comfort and then just an extra something because i yeah just i like that i like that that motivate that would motivate her waking up for sure because why is she waking up in the middle of the night she doesn't have any PTSD she's fine so she should be sleeping perfectly but yeah a nightmare would have been great we cut inside quarks next we see o'brien uh is there's there with Warf. By the way, I want to comment, they did a very nice thing of putting every

series regular, I think, in this episode, even for one scene. This is Worf's residual scene. He's playing darts with Miles. I did like that Worf doesn't really understand the game of darts. He's like... He's doing it out of friendship, which is again, I said elite motif in this episode. It's friendship. Friendship. Yep. Because O'Brien doesn't remember the game. even says to Wharf, he's like, wait, do I need one, 17 or two? And Worf's like, I don't know, I don't know this game. But Worf does suggest maybe we should go kayaking in the hollow suite. Very kind.

Unlike Worf. Very unlike Wharf. And O'Brien acknowledges that's a very good friend, that Worf is a very good friend for doing all this. But then O'Brien sees E. Char out in the promenade looking at. He runs out to the promenial. nod, looks around, but E.R.'s gone. And then Wharf follows him out there and says, everything okay. And O'Brien doesn't really say what it is. He said, oh, I just thought I saw someone I used

to know. So it's like a ghost following him. There does seem to be a similarity when each R appears for the most part. Once someone is being a friend to him, almost invariably, when there's an act of friendship of kindness being done to O'Brien that's when ECHR seems to appear I could be wrong

I sort of clock that as I watched it Yeah I think that's great because even Echar says to him at one point he goes well why am I here you know what am I doing here so that would make sense that this kind of this feeling

of friendship of caring for someone else or having a close relationship keeps triggering this memory because he was a good friend of his yeah yeah yeah we go inside the uh cargo bay this is the jake scene the jake residual scene thank god we see sarak we haven't seen him for a while robbie i got tired of every episode we record and last bit of trivia sarah lofton does not appear in this episode i've been So many episodes. Gosh darn time. So to see him, it was so refreshing.

And you're right. And my goodness, there is that heaviness to this episode. And boy, does Sirak bring a little bit of levity that we need right now, for sure. Yeah. Without minimizing Miles' condition. Correct. He's just, there's something very natural and real and kind about how Jake's energy is. Yeah.

I thought it was great. Mm-hmm. He's basically testing. him, Miles is testing himself. He's going through all the tools and trying to remember what each tool does. And Jake says, you know them all. You got them all. He goes through a bunch of tools.

And O'Brien says, let's do it again. And he says, I don't want to be embarrassed in front of the repair crews. And Jake's like, nobody's going to nobody's going to care. And, you know, you may be a little rusty, but you're still the chief. And that's when O'Brien says, well,

if I'm the chief, then I say we go through this again. So they do it again. But I like the energy in this scene. It's a very, yes, absolutely. Sirak is a phenomenal actor. The more I watch these episodes, the more I'm reminded of that. He's just incredible.

So impressive. I would have liked the writers to have had O'Brien not get one right. Oh, great. I would have liked. So, I mean, there's a moment where he says, don't tell me. O'Brien says, don't tell me, don't tell me. And I would have liked maybe there to have him guess wrong. And to be reminded that 20 years has made a difference.

Yeah, that's a great idea. That's a great, great idea. Yeah, because instead of him saying, you know, Sirach says, well, if you forget one, it's okay. But if we actually had him forget one, then Sarac's like, it's only one that you forgot. That's fine. That's right.

So they could actually, you know, play it instead of. Yeah. Right. Which would make it. Miles, even more, want to say, let's do it again. Although at this point, he should know, because it's the same weapons, but the same instruments. But I would have loved to have forgotten one. Yeah, that's a great idea.

Armand, you should have been the writer's consultant, the act, the writer's consultant is what you should have, you should have thrown in a couple of things in there for them. I was too busy serving drinks at the time. Exactly. Okay, so we're in kind of a Jeffries tube conduit area. There's a ladder behind O'Brien. And we tilt up off of the foreground panel he's working on. And it's a great little transition and tilt up to Miles working.

But my eyes went to the slowest ladder climbing background actor behind him I've ever seen in my life. I was like, oh, what a nice shot. Why is the guy climbing so slowly? I think it was for noise or something. Yeah, but that reminds me of, and I didn't bring it up. earlier, but that scene with Bashir and Miles just walking through the corridors at the very beginning. It's the slowest walk I've ever seen on any. Oh, my gosh, it's slow. But you're right. In this scene, this dude is like, slow. Everyone, go watch this moment with that background after

climbing the ladder. It's low motion. I'm going to go back and see if I can recognize which background person it was. Munoz was in the foreground, who I love, by the way. This actor was so natural, he was great. Well, this is where I'm going to disagree with you. I did not like mootness in this at all. Really? No, because I thought he screwed up the good,

keep up the good work, Cruman line. It just, because he said it as if, as if Miles was demoted to Crumman, you know? He was. That's what I got, and he was. Yeah. I mean, I mean, he's been reacclimated his chief. If you were Cisco or anyone else in authority,

from someone who needed to go, through a rehabilitation, what is it, a rehabilitation process, you wouldn't necessarily make them the boss. You would say, let's see what you can do, and then we will, then we will make your chief. Yes. That's what I got out of that. Okay. I don't have an argument with that at all. He has to go through the basics again, but he's still, in my head, he's still the chief no matter what because you can't you can't get demoted because you got imprisoned falsely and now he didn't do anything to cause the demotion but he's going through the basics i felt like moon is sort of should have paused before work and crewman like keep up the good work crewman like in terms of like

what you're saying is he should have teased him a bit yes he wasn't no he played it very earnest very earnest it was too earnest is what it was for me so i don't i thought it was a missed opportunity for a lighthearted moment, but in spite of that that miss, which was not a big miss to me, I thought generally his performance was really grounded and

relaxed. Yeah, I mean, in general, overall, very relaxed. I agree. But I just, just that one point, that one line, keep up the good work, Kruman. That's directorially, if the director can isolate a joke, then the director could have said, hey,

Mr. Munez actor. I don't know his name, I forget. But, hey, Mr. Munoz actor. There's a joke here. Let's try to have fun and play with that. tease him a little. F.J. Rio. F.J. Rio.

Hey, F.J. Rio. There's a joke opportunity. Let's have a little fun with Keep Up the Good Work, Khruman. You know, it wouldn't have taken much, but that's a directorial detail that I think. That's why I say this wasn't my favorite Alex Singer episode, although I love him. But there was a lot of little missed opportunity. opportunities. Yeah. Okay. And then opposed to going up the ladder slowly, I was impressed but how quickly Sidit came down the ladder. Bashir flew down the ladder. That's what I'm saying.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh my God. He flies down, Bashir arrives and he says Miles is skipping therapy. He's supposed to be going to counselor Tel Nouri. Again, more mentions of this mystery counselor, but he's not showing up. Miles says, just want to be left alone. I want to stop talking about prison all the time. All he asks is for me to talk about prison. I want to talk about it. And he said, you know, one thing I didn't miss was your smug superior attitude, Bashir, just stay away from me. Yeah. It's very sad. I felt bad for Julian to be taught to. Again, nitpick. Very, and I'm not, you know, Alex directed this episode not me i would have wanted call him to push push yes yes because i'm going to bring this up later

this is what i was uh what i missed was the violence that miles could have been showing to his friends that makes him concerned that he can go too far yes which is what he did in the sale so harsh words alone may not have been the most effective way to go about it. If some physicality, some blocking was included, I think it would have been much more effective. I agree. It would be great. Yep.

Great. We have a moment with Miles in the turbo lift all by himself, and he says, Promenade. But he's definitely feeling more and more like he doesn't fit into this place. And in the turbo lift, he has another flashback, even bigger beard. E.C.R. says, asked about Keiko. He says, hey, tell me more about Keiko. And Miles reacts gets reactive to him in this flashback and ruins kicks his sand art.

And then he loses it. He's banging on the door. He says, I didn't do anything wrong. Why am I in here? And then other prisoners start yelling. And that guard's voice says stop or you're going to be disciplined. And Echard grabs him, covers his mouth to protect him. Did you guys make any note of when that announcement, the Argrathi announcement,

when it says you will be disciplined, which you just said, Robbie. O'Brien's response to that was, I think, very contemporary. He said, discipline this. And I was... Oh, that's right. He started laughing at that point. I was like, wait a minute. Very kind of contemporary slang.

Yeah, it was very slangy. We don't usually hear Star Trek characters go. No, not until... Discipline this. Yeah, well, the newer Treks, Discovery, Strange New Worlds. I can see that happening there, but not on our era of Trek. Yeah, so E. protects him here. Oh, and you mentioned computer voice. Yeah. As a character, I bet

Majel did the computer voice on the station. I bet the computer voice credit that you read earlier is this computer voice. Oh. The prison computer voice. That makes sense. Hey. It just occurred to me. Good catch. Thank you. There was a scene scripted in the promenade right here with Odo and O'Brien having a brief exchange that was not in the episode that I watched. It wasn't there. No, it's not doing. You're talking about the two lines there?

Yeah. How are you doing? And O'Brien says, I wish people would stop asking me that. I'm sorry, Constable, everything's fine. I've just had a tough day. Yeah, that's not there at all. It's not in the cut. Correct.

It was cut out. But they must have filmed this. I don't know. I'm guessing here. But because you, Robbie, have been particularly pointing out, out the slow pace of things that maybe they just ran out of time. They did. They had to cut something.

And, you know, Renee doesn't have to speak in order to get a residual. And he was at the bar. And he's at the bar. And it's a very good look between Odo and, well, Odo's looking, they're both looking at, but she were sitting in her table. Maybe that's what they decided to cut out. So they omitted the scene in the promenade with Odo talking, but we do cut in the in the bar we're in quarks for quarks residual scene and we see that the bar is busier than i have

ever seen it in my life you've got a black holes coming straight up you got a synthale you got a bar full of people bar full of people you've got drinks going left and right it was like tom cruise in the movie cocktail well okay so if you're going to put it that way maybe the opening line from quark should have been i never should have offered that two for one deal something like that where it's like Why did I cause this much business for myself and headache? So, yeah. It was busy. If it were me playing, no, that's not the way to put that.

I was about to see if I were me playing miles, I don't mean it that way at all. If it were me, Armin, walking into a bar with that dark cloud hanging over me, the fact that everyone else is having a good time, I would be angry at everybody for having a good time when I was involved. in my own thoughts. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And maybe he was.

Maybe he was. I don't know. Well, Miles comes in. He wants a drink. Quark is really busy. He says, hang on a sec. And Miles gets really impatient very quickly. And he grabs Quark's arm, twists it around,

slams him down onto the bar, threatens him. Quark gives him a drink. But first, he says, I understand what you're going through. Yes. I mean, there's some sympathy even coming from Quark. about what o'brien is going through he says chief just because your life's in a shambles right now and then he gets his arm twisted even more okay fine so i'm really happy with that uh not for my character but for watching the show i want to see that sort of violence yeah yes going towards all of his friends

agreed put pushing basheer uh twisting your arm about three threatening to break it. And then my point that I brought up later, which we will bring up again later, yes, that would have been great. Because I think that plays in to where O'Brien's eventually going. 100%. Well, O'Brien gets his drink. He heads off to sit by himself in a corner, and that's when Echar appears again. And O'Brien's like, E.R., what are you doing here? And E.R. says, I've never really been gone. And Miles, you know, reiterates the idea that you're not real, Echard. You were just in my head.

You were a simulation. You're not a real person. And Echr says, but I'm real to you. And that's what matters. Right. I think that's an important point in terms of this topic and these issues is that, like, people's experience, if it's real to them, it needs to be addressed and treated. This simulation was real to him.

yeah they're they're treating it as if he really was gone for 20 years and they should if you were to extrapolate that to real real world situations not sci-fi um when people are going through hard times other people may be looking at what they think is hard and they're they're thinking you know what that's not really that much of a big deal but you have to realize that you don't know the backstory of each human being that you come across or even your relatives right they may have had some type of baggage that they're dealing with. And then it translates, and it just gets worse and worse and worse

that they feel like they can't go on. And a lot of times other people looking around thinking, why did they get so upset about that? That was like nothing. But it was something to them. To them. So that's why it's important. Yeah.

To listen whenever, even when someone is complaining about something that seems so trivial, but keep your ears open to hear that people are in pain. They're having your own experience. Yeah. Yeah. At the end of this scene,

each are basically saying you need me now more than ever and O'Brien's like you know you're the last thing I need no Echr says you need me right now you need me so yeah the mystery of this relationship and why he's not telling anybody about this

experience he had seems to be even more mysterious at this point we go into the O'Brien's bedroom I love he's getting dressed he steps up he's sitting at a table getting dressed and then he stands up to the mirror and suddenly each R's reflection is right there and I love that trick shot it was good very simply done where the actor playing H.R. is probably just off camera left and as the camera

moves up he steps onto his mark so that he can be in that reflection shot yeah great though very well done so during this scene that's when Cisco does call in and says to O'Brien please report to my office and O'Brien sort of shakes off each R is like look I don't know why you're here I don't even care but you know he has to basically he has to get through

this that's he keeps trying to avoid it and is and that is the problem he needs to face this head on and he's not doing that they head to Cisco's office and this is the scene where Cisco has basically told him that he needs to

see the the counsellor. Telneri. Yeah, Telneri, who we have no clue who that is. But still, he needs to make an appointment. He needs to go listen to what Bashir has prescribed for him.

And O'Brien is like, no, I'm too busy to do that. And the bottom line is Cisco threatens him. He says, you're going to see the counselor today. You've been relieved of duty. And if you do not follow what Bashir and the counselor say to you, you will be

confined to the infirmary and you're going to be basically put probably put behind some type of uh put back into jail yeah that's what i was thinking here is like oh you're you're going to solve this by giving him re-traumatizing him with the same thing but they don't know what to do right i mean the infirmary on deep space nine is not very large it's not very large it's pretty small yeah miles begs in this scene too yeah he begs he begs he's like please as a friend you know do this yes it was a very powerful moment and a great choice by cullum where he just says listen as a friend do this and and i really saw and i'm reading into this but the friendship of of cullumini and avery brooks they had a very

strong friendship right and and i really saw cullum playing on that friendship that's awesome nice yeah yeah i liked this scene again just no one was tone matching here like cisco was was playing his pace and tempo and energy and intention, and I liked it a lot. What do you think Cisco's intention was? Because I did think something. I know that's an opaque sort of question. Instead of waiting for an answer, let me just give you my take. He was doing this on doctor's orders, that when it came to medical problems,

he had to take a backseat to the doctor. Just as on the original program, sometimes bones was more in charge than. that's right kirk was that's right uh and that the doctor said this is a medical problem he has to do this and i am forced to enter the position of saying you have to do this i may not agree with it i sometimes got that in avery's performance that he didn't always agree with it but i have to do it because that's the pecking order in this situation i think that's happened in a prior episode arman where where the doctor said as chief medical officer and this is a medical issue i am the highest ranking officer when it comes to this so i think that was spoken before but

you're right yeah i like this scene a lot o'brien is pissed off though he heads it into op or he heads out of ops storming out dax tries to talk to him she gets her residual scene here she says hey i was wondering i was going to the replemate i was wondering and he cuts her off not right now commander he barks no not interested gets on the lift tosses his communicator right now to further Armand's point, again, these are just harsh words. If he physically sort of even elbowed Dax where she, you know, fell back a bit, that would even, that would have added even more to this, you know, but the whole thing of him just throwing that communicator, that is a physical act of aggression or violence, but it would have

been. But not towards a friend. That's towards a piece of technology because he doesn't want to be followed. He doesn't want to be tracked. but and again to your point about this entire episode being about friendship there needs to we need to see how he's rebelling against that how he's fighting against people that love him and care him care for him the most by having some blocking that shows that I feel so it would have helped yeah well he does storm into the infirmary he yells at Bashir Bashir says you need help

I'm here to help you but you need to to take this help. And that's when each R appears again and says, don't make the same mistake you made with me because O'Brien says, I don't want your help, Bashir. He's starting to get close to some physical violence with Bashir, but he doesn't because Euchar reminds him. But this is the scene where I agree with you, Robbie. I feel that Bashir was way too. His level was so, so calm. And I think that this is the point where he should be toe to toe to toe, where he should, when O'Brien says, how do you know what's best for me? You have no idea what I'm going for. Bershier, you're right, you were.

There should have been some more more emotion here. I think that would have punctuated it a lot better in this scene right here, just to go toe to toe with him because he's about to flip out so much that. And I feel Bashir would be raising his voice because he's fighting for his friend. You know, he's fighting for him. So have a little bit of a contrast. here and not be as calm yeah yeah you could have had echar the ghost being the calm tone in the scene right that would have been even creepier to have two living people kind of really amped up and this zen ghost dude yeah yes i wonder if the actors or the director or the producer or the writers

who knows who um said i don't i we we we we We want O'Brien to be angry with his fellow actors, but don't cross the line of being ugly. Okay, maybe. And I think that's a wrong choice. I really wanted, if he's going through this, and again, I'm thinking of that scene with the phaser. If he's going to go to there, then I need him to be ugly so that he realizes how ugly he's been. Great point. Well, we go to the promenade next. ECHR is there. Ask where he's going. H.R. says, let me help you, you know, go back, go back to Bashir. He wants to help you, too.

Let us help you. And he basically says, we're both your friends. And Miles says, you know, look what happened to you. I can't go back to Bashir's. Look, look what happened to you. This is, this is exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, that's, it's lines, like that where I look what happened to you I got I got overly emotional and I hurt you I killed you yeah and find that out I haven't seen that with the other characters except with quark and quark's not a friend so I want him to have really gotten close to hurting other people because he did hurt each each are yeah yeah yeah yeah there's a lot of pace here though Robbie with every single turn of this has energy yeah yeah because he each R keeps popping up everywhere

I felt it was popping kind of the pacing kind of that you wanted it got better yeah this was this was a good sequence where Miles is heading somewhere we don't know where he's going or what he's doing but he's kind of losing it yeah and each R just keeps popping up so that was a nice sci-fi and not really sci-fi it's like it's an imaginary friend that just keeps popping up right you know a vision but it was a good pace. Miles says leave. And E.R. says, well, there's some part of you that keeps bringing me here. Like, I'm just in your head.

And you're the one that keeps bringing me here. And O'Brien turns around here, and that's when ECHR disappears. So whatever ECHR just said, you know, send me away. Don't you see if I'm coming back? It's because part of you keeps bringing me here. And that's when O'Brien turns around and HR's gone. And he clocks that. Yeah, he does.

He clocks that. Yeah. That's good. That's very good. Yeah. We go into O'Brien's quarters. This was an odd staging to me. The camera was sort of panning Keiko as she walked towards the front door.

And then suddenly the door opens with Miles there as if she just expected. She anticipated him to come in. Yeah, it was a weird blocking. Okay. Yeah. She expected Miles just to open the door right. at the time that the camera panned over with her. She wants to know, where were you?

He said, I've just been walking. I've been thinking. And Molly says she wants to show him her drawings. And Keiko's got questions. Things sort of start escalating the energy in the room, which was nice. It was his experience of chaos. And he loses it.

He yells. He lunges at Molly. Tells her, you know, not right now. And Keiko's very upset by this. Molly starts crying. Keiko picks her up, and O'Brien realizes he got close to hurting his child. Garrett, now's the time.

So for me, this is a scene that definitely needs to be in this episode, but blocking-wise, he got aggressive by standing up and raising his voice, and that's it. The lunge never happened, really, towards Little Molly. I feel like this is where he should have either gotten right down to her level, nose the nose in her face or physically grabbed her by the shoulders and like, no, something to that effect. This is a groundbreaking show for 96.

As we watch it with our 2025 eyes, we want to see even more of the ugly, I feel, to make it effective. Yeah, we would have needed an intimacy counselor to come in, and that, of course, is 2025, and say to the actress, to Hana, we're going to do this. It's just acting.

It's going to be really ugly. it's going to you might be frightened that's okay you can be frightened he's never going to hurt you right he's just going to get really close i mean that's i was in a fight sequence where incredible fighter i forgot his name is a very famous french fighter who's the most famous french clod van dam yeah claude van dam and and uh he said to me my foot is going to get a half an inch from your nose you're going to have to play being hit. But I promise you, I will never hit you in the nose. My foot will never hit your nose.

And we did three takes, and he got very close, and he never touched me. What project was that? It was a movie I did, I've forgotten the name of that too. Oh, wow. But here I think we could have said, again, 2025 as opposed to 1996, we could have said to Hana, this is going to get really ugly.

don't worry it's going to be fine and and they after each take are you all right hana everything fine you weren't too scared because she is at a certain age um i think we could have done it because i really do want him to get really close oh yeah so that the the scenes that follow makes sense they yeah they make sense they're more impactful i agree with both of you i think it would have been a better climactic emotionally climactic moment if he had lost it in some way whether it was grabbing her whether it was taking something and crashing it against the wall near her. It could have been any kind of explosive, out of control, dangerous, and threatening and scary. But he realizes, you know, he went too far.

He does say, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. I'm so sorry. And then we cut into the cargo bay, and right on the cut, we see this O'Brien swings and takes out a crate in the foreground. An empty crate. Yes. yeah yes true now that is the largest wrench i've ever seen in my life it was huge that wrench he was using yeah to knock that stuff down and that stuff looked like it had nothing in it yeah it looked like cardboardy yeah and i thought really this is a climactic moment where

he's letting out his anger put something in there you must have seen how lightweight that looked yeah yeah yeah it may be that cullum had to do it once or twice and they didn't want to overtax him who knows but it just looked like he was brushing away pillows less than pillows yeah well the quick the quick solution was grab a sandbag sandbags are everywhere throw it into that you know each of them have a sandbag and makes it have a little weight right um i do have a complaint about when he does walk up to the the weapons locker it's not a weapons locker it was one of the standard Starfleet little things, the briefcases that we have, that they affixed to the wall to act like a weapons locker. And he opens it and it opens up just like the regular

case. And I thought, gosh, you guys, you did not have the budget to create an actual weapons locker. What? So that pulled me out a little bit to me. That's funny. Yeah. And they say Unit 47, which is another reference to how the writers love to keep throwing the number 47 out in Star Trek over and over again. So that's a little Easter egg there too. Oh, that's cool. Well, he taps in the code. Yeah, he takes out one of the phasers,

puts it, sits down. Well, first he changes the power level to... Which we never had a power level on Voyager Robbie. We didn't get to see that little digital readout, LED readout power level. It was cool. Yeah, it was pretty cool. Changes it to all red. Maximum. Yeah. All yellow. Red and yellow.

Red and yellow. He gives it full 100% of everything bad and then sits down and puts it under his chin and this is horrible moment where you think we realize that he thinks the world would be better without him certainly not the case nope and that's where a commercial break would have come in in the old days but we come back from that brief moment and Bashir walks in Bashir is very calm in the scene he's trying to you know kind of talk him down and reassure him

he says whatever he's going through but it's not worth it and Miles says says it's not about me this is to protect Molly and Keiko I think he says and his friends and his friends and everyone else on the station

yes but Robbie are you okay with his tone in this one and Bashir's tone of being calm here yes I think so in this situation yeah This is talking somebody off a ledge if you want to take something. But the arc, as you've said before, should have been other than this and finally gets to this. I think that would have been so much stronger. It's a better payoff, right?

If we follow that huge arc of physicality, brushing people off, pushing Bashir, grabbing Molly or crumpling up her artwork, something like that. But also what Rob I think is indicating is that the arc for Bashir is that that, that, Oh, excuse me, the Bashir. Gradually comes to this. Yeah, yeah, got it. As opposed to starting with this in the very first scene with O'Brien. Yeah. Yeah, I think it would have been better,

but I thought this scene between Bashir and O'Brien is beautiful. It's a beautiful scene. Just in the context, yeah, the whole episode, it felt like we'd already seen this a bit. And it would have been nice to save this, but Colum did a beautiful job of a very emotional. very vulnerable sequence here and he's crying or let's you know I'm going wow I've never I hadn't remembered that and I've never seen calling the cry before yeah each R appears here

Miles does explain that that he was the only friend that he had till he finally starts to share with this year that there was this guy each R there who's the only friend I had and as each R is listening in this sort of vision that Miles is having of seeing each are on the station. He kind of, I love that his sleeves are rolled up like Miles does all the time, but they didn't put makeup on his arms very well here. And so his arms, as his arms were up like this,

were just so red and pink and Caucasian looking and not green like his great makeup face. And that took me out of it a little bit. Robbie, to help you out, I'm going to say that he had alien rosacea. He had a little skin problem on his forearms, okay? It was so pink and red and just not green. His face is green. Yeah.

Someone didn't watch the monitor. Or the actor just decided at the last moment to roll up. Oh, true. Yeah. So he pulled that blocking on his own for the take and not rehearsal. And everyone's like, wait a minute. Yeah. That's possible too.

Yeah, because Bashir says in the scene, you were alone. 20 years with no one to talk to. And O'Brien says, no, there was E-Char. And Bashir asks about that. We go into a flashback. He's doing a lovely sand painting, and then he erases it. He's kind of annoyed. He messes up.

Well, sorry. E-char is doing a sand art. Miles messes it up, says he's starving, that they've never gone this long without food. And it's lights out time. They go to sleep. he's just starving he's on edge yeah and miles sort of wakes up half half awake he looks over and sees each are sneaking some food out of a hiding place he jumps him they have a big fight sequence it's

very raw fighting it's very desperate and miles does kind of get the better of him twists his neck and we hear a snapping sound um he goes to get the food and realizes there's two of every everything in this satchel yeah that he was saving food for both both of them. And he tries to bring him back, go over to talk to him, but E.R. is gone. He's dead. Which, by the way, that cracking sound was not in the UK version. They took that out of the UK version. And you were right, Robbie. It was actually O'Brien's design in the sand that he knocks out because then you corrected yourself, said, no, it was Echr's because. Oh, it was O'Brien's? Yeah, because Eichar goes, why did you do that? And O'Brien goes, it wasn't helping, meaning he was

doing the drawing and each other says you need to concentrate more so i remember him messing up the art i thought he messed up each ars yeah no he messed up his own art yeah this flashback was great the fighting the the kind of prison fight feel of it all it was very well choreographed i thought and uh and then when we come back to the real you know uh the station side of this just a beautiful vulnerable performance by column and miles says in this scene he thinks he he had a chance to show his humanity, his true character, and he failed. And Bashir reassures him and says, the Argrothi wanted to strip you of your humanity, but don't let that moment define who you really are.

And, yeah, they pushed past this simulation. They pushed his simulation past that 15-year mark until he broke, until they broke him. Right. Broke him of his humanity. And E.C.R. is listening to this, or the E. vision is listening as he explains all this to Bashir, talks to Bashir, and he sees, H.R. sees that Miles finally understands. He doesn't need him anymore and he sort of walks away and we see that POV as he just kind of disappears into thin air as each R walks away.

Yeah, you finally faced it, the past. I also want to bring up with the pre-neck neck breaking before they go to sleep. He's, H.R. says, I'm going to sleep. O'Brien says, how do you sleep at a time like this, each heart says, maybe I'll dream about food, which immediately threw me back to Voyager, the episode of you and I in the prison ship. The shoot.

The shoot, yes. When we were talking about food, we were trying to like, yes. Oh, no, but we were talking about good food that we remembered, that kind of that whole thing

and how we ended up having some tension, how I almost killed you, remember in the... Over food. Over food. Yeah. Oh, actually, you were taking apart that one thing I was trying to wire to get us out of there. That's what it was.

But shades of the shoot as well when watching this for me. Yeah, very nice. Each other's last words are be well, Miles, as he walks away. It's a little hokey. A little hokey to you. The Be well Miles. Be well. If he had just turned around and disappeared, that would have been for me.

Yeah. Yeah. And in fact, I actually. agree with the Brits it's not that it would be offensive to me but I don't think we needed the little click sound of the breaking of the neck I think because as he goes back to him and says wake up come on you know what and then real I think that would have been sufficient we didn't need the click sound yeah I would have like as he walked away and disappeared that fruit is all that remains like on one piece of cargo it's right there as a memory mm okay that would have

given some of the cargo some ballast, which would have made me happier in the earlier part of this scene. Some ballast. We go out in the corridor. Bashir's giving him some medicine now. It seems like our friends are back to being friends again. Bashir does say, though, that this is a treatment, not a cure, and tells Miles to be patient. It's going to take some time.

And he does say, you can always talk to me. Brian says, well, I'm going to start seeing counsel to tell Norrie again. And Bashir says, yeah, sure, unless you want to just talk to me, which I thought was very sweet. O'Brien thanks him. Bashir says, what are friends for? So very sweet kind of reconciliation of our good friends. And then we go into the O'Brien's quarters for the very last moment and door opens. Daddy is home.

Molly says, Daddy's home. Hugs his legs and he's glad to be home. There we have it. My lesson is you can't get over trauma alone. You can't do it by yourself. That's good. Armin. Very close to that.

It's okay to be broken, but friendship and understanding help in the process to make you whole again. Yeah. I like that. Mine's more of a caveat. It's just that everyone at some point in their life will deal with some type of post-traumatic stress, varying degrees, and that just for everyone to be aware of their friends and family and to be, have a constant vigil, to always listen when somebody is struggling and not to brush it off and to think, oh, yeah, they'll be fine. No, there

needs to be some outreach. So, yeah, so basically what you guys said, you know, we need to make sure that we are there for our friends and family. Patreon Paul winner for the theme lesson moral of this episode is submitted by Alex Ray. There should be no shame in needing mental health support. Yeah. And I think we've gotten to that point in 2025 where there's definitely less stigma attached to, yeah, shame exactly attached to asking for help.

I think people, I think it's still out there. that people do experience of aim or embarrassment when it's gotten better, but there's still more work to do on that, to make it to normalize people asking for help if they need it, and that's okay. And people showing up without judgment to be there for people that need some support and some help. Well, powerful episode, although it's imperfect,

the story and the lesson behind it are really powerful. And the performance. And the performance, yeah. And the performance. Column work was great. All right. Well, thanks everyone for tuning in to our recap and discussion of this very important episode, Hard Time. Yes.

Thank you to Armin again for joining us and co-hosting with us. Thank you. And join us next time when we will be recapping and discussing the episode Shattered Mirror with Terry, with Terfair. Until then, we'll see you guys next time. But of course, if you are a Patreon patron, please stay tuned for your bonus material. You know, I'm going to be able to Thank you.