The Delta Flyers - Heroes and Demons

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Heroes and Demons. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Heroes and Demons:The ship's holographic doctor must overcome his programmed limitations when the ship's Holodeck is taken over by an alien lifeform. As the only Voyager member able to face this being, the doctor must explore the limits of his programmed behaviour, and reach beyond them to save the crew from a fate worse than death.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise, and Rebecca Jayne, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers Ann Marie Segal, Philipp Havrilla, Jason M Okun, Kelton Rochelle, Stephanie Baker, Stephen Smith, Sarah A Gubbins, John Tufarella, Brian Barrow - The Destination in Louisville KY, Chris Knapp, Daniel Adam, Eve Mercer, James Hildebrand, Matthew Gravens, Mary Jac Greer, Marie Burgoyne, Michelle Zamanian, Jason Self, Megan Hurwitt, James Zugg, Mike Gu, and, Shannyn Bourke.And our Producers  Col Ord, Aithne Loeblich, AJ Provance, Ann Harding, Barbara Beck, Breana Harris, Captain Nancy Stout, Catherine Goods, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Chris Tribuzio, Claire Deans, Craig Sweaton, Crystal Komenda, Dave Grad, Deborah Schander, Father Andrew Kinstetter, Gay Kleven-Lundstrom, Gregory Kinstetter, Heidi McLellan, James Amey, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Josh Johnson, Karel Hartlieb, Katherine Hedrick, Katie Johnson, Katherine Puterbaugh, Kelley Smelser, Laura Swanson, Liz Scott, Maggie, Mary O'Neal, Matthew Cutler, Mike Schaible, Máia W, Nathanial Moon, Nevyn Cross, Rich Gross, Richard Banaski, Ryan, Steph Dawe Holland, Terence Thang, Thomas Melfi, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Warren Stine, York Lee, Dat Cao, Debra Defelice, Evette Rowley, Louis P, Oliver Campbell, and, Stephen Riegner. Thank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers. We are a weekly podcast that discusses episodes of Star Trek Voyager in chronological order. Your two hosts along this podcast journey are myself, Garrett Wong, aka Ensign Harry Kim, and Robert Duncan McNeil, who portrayed Lieutenant Tom Parris. If you are interested in either an extended version of this podcast or the extended video version of this podcast, both of which include added bonus segments. Check out our Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron. Robbie, hello. Well, hello there, Garrett. That was so professional. I'm realizing now that we're doing this for a while, like, you know, because we went back and forth on like,

you know, how formal, how, you know, we were like, all right. we landed on let's let's have a thing we read every week it's kind of set it all up you read it perfect you were just at ease like was i at ease yeah very professional oh very professional that's kind of i upped my game with a little video background for those on the on the podcast audio only you can't see but i have a i have the northern lights on my zoom background right now the northern lights just sort of magically glowing behind me and moving it's The Aurora Borealis? The Aurora Borealis, as they say.

The scientific. That's my stripper name, actually. And ladies and gentlemen, let's welcome to the stage. Aurora Borealis. Yeah. I hear that's how they do it. But if you're going to do the announcement, you have to thank the prior dancer that was on stage.

Is that what they do? So you have to say, yeah, they go, everyone, put your hands together for chandelier, chandelier, and next up on stage. Aurora, Boreale, straight from the Delta Quadrant. So that's what you're looking for. Okay. So this week's episode is Heroes and Demons.

Yes. So for those of you who are our Patreon patrons, we will be playing a little game of what do we remember. And for those of you who are just listening to our podcast, Robbie and I will rewatch the episode, and we will be right back after this break with our discussion of heroes and demons. See you soon.

All right, guys, we are back from our re-watching of Heroes and Demons. Good episode. A very good episode, yeah. So I was right. There were Vikings. There were Vikings in it. I was right about Bob being excited about a juicy episode for him. But I was thinking, like, in the first 10 or 15 minutes, there was no doctor.

And I was like, maybe I was wrong about this. Like, maybe this isn't the one. But then he comes in big and, yeah, had a big episode. So quickly, for the sake of our fans who are just listening straight and maybe have not rewatched this episode in many years, just I'm going to break it down in a quick synopsis. Great. Voyager detects some unusually intense photonic activity in a nearby protostar.

Janeway decides that we need to alter course to investigate. Torres then beams this. photonic matter or a sample of the photonic matter onto, into engineering, into these two containment fields. One containment field, it works. The other one, it doesn't beam over. Jamie discovers that the annular confinement beam, look at all this techno babble, the annual confinement beam, look at it. I'm just, I'm spouting it like it's just like I'm breathing, okay? The annular confinement beam needs to be adjusted because there was a leak. And so they do another beam and the second sample photonic matter comes into the containment field.

But then, Janeway says that maybe Torres needs the help of Ensign Kim. And she then realizes that after trying to raise Ensign Kim, Hale Hansen Kim on her com badge, that Ensign Kim is nowhere to be found. So now we discover the last place that Insin Kim was was on a holodeck program that he was running, the Beowulf simulation of the hollow novel from six-century Denmark, and he's gone. So then they send in Chakotay and Tuvok to investigate, and they are also mysteriously vanished by whatever, whoever, whatever, you know, causes the vanishing of Kim does the same thing for Tuvok and Chiquotay.

And then it is Tom Parris's bright idea that the only person that we can, can send in now is someone who has also made of photonic energy, which would be the doctor. So the doctor goes in to the simulation and essentially saves the day. So what are your first thoughts as you began to watch? I like Janeway's hair. It changes again in this episode. So on the bridge, the first time that you see here, it's got this really cool wave, similar to the wave in your hair. from the last episode that I told you I wanted to surf, I want to surf your hair, I wanted to surf Janeway's hair.

I've just said, and then if you, so from the front you see the little swoop and from the side from profile, it kind of looks like how Seven of Nine's hair kind of goes up in that little kind of like a French bun or something or I don't know. I just made that up. I don't know if there is a French bun, but it's shaped like a football basically. Like yeah, how football tapers out like that. So, so anyway, so I liked I liked her hair. I also noticed that. Flores pronounces Chiquotay's name differently in this episode. And maybe that's just how she always does it. The emphasis is on the C-H-A. She says, Chak-K-K-K-K-K-T. And as well as, you know, we say Chakotay, and she goes, chak-kote. So that's one thing that I noticed. I wonder if that was still early on in our first season.

Like, we hadn't sort of landed a universal pronunciation of a lot of things. You know, oh, that reminds me. Do you remember the pronunciation guide? didn't they used to put a pronunciation? So we would get our scripts. And because there's a lot of alien, you know, made up words and alien names and things like that, they would put out a sheet of paper at the front of the script that was a pronunciation guide. So it would phonetically show us how to say different, you know, words that were new in each episode.

Yes. I just remembered that. I just had a flash of that. Yes. I really liked how Freya described Kim. Do you remember when Chiquete did she say she says she says she says he was like no other hair straight and raven black eyes bright with fierce fire the burning gaze of a hero and I thought wow wow that sounds like a no that's beautiful I like that and I make a t-shirt that

describes you I it should be or like you know in Game of Thrones where they where they always announced Calisi, like, you know, Mother of Dragons, ruler of the planet. Like, I should, I should hire someone to walk in front of me and say, he is like no other, hair straight and raven black, eyes bright with fierce fire, the burning gaze of a hero, Garrett Wong, like that, and I will put in it. I'm going to introduce you that way from now on in the podcast, I think. Can you? Wow. I don't, I'd have to get a script for it, but I'll do it if you want me to. I am touched. When you, when we first start the podcast every week, you can be like, okay, so your co-host for this journey, or Robbie McNeil, play Tom Paris,

and then I can start, hair, revving black, eyes like thunder. I don't know, I messed it up, but you know what I mean. I'll do it. If you did that introduction, but it changed every time, like, eyes like lightning, eyes like rubies, like that, you would just keep making up whatever you wanted to. I got to go all the way back to like literally the first few moments of this episode. like as soon as Janeway says oh let's beam that unknown thing aboard our ship I'm like dude haven't you ever seen like the movie alien or like any any space movie where you bring something on board and it like yeah let's bring that unknown thing on our ship

I'm like it's funny rewatching these episodes I start to think you know Janeway may not be as smart as her reputation. Like she does a lot of cool things, but she also does a lot of really dumb things. Like if she had just paused for a minute, she'd gone, hmm, we don't know anything about this energy at all. Maybe we should learn a little more before we bring it onto our ship. Anyway, I knew immediately,

even though I couldn't remember if it was opera or Vikings or what. I knew immediately don't do that. Do not beam that. It's going to be a problem. Well, that comment alone, Robbie, it just reminds me. I think it was some African-American comedian

who talks about how in every horror movie, it's always the white people that are like, hey, you know, this house, it's like the door slams or the window, you know, this thing just moved.

Let's keep, let's investigate, right? That, you know, let's figure what this is. What's that scream down in the basement? I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. Why is there blood coming out of the faucet? I don't know. Let's go check on the pipes.

But then he talked about if it was a movie with black people, they would be like, oops, too bad we can't stay. And then, like, you know, they're gone. They just leave. I also noticed Les Landau directed this episode. Yes, he did. And I noticed immediately the difference, Les's eye, is just very different, his style of directing.

Like there was a shot on the bridge. I think it was Tuvok, and Janeway and Chakote were standing at Tuvok Station, and it was down low under Chukot, under, under Tuvok's arm, and you could see, like, you know, under here, you could see Janeway on one side and Chacote, and it was just a visually stunning angle. And I just, I remember, because I was shadowing directors wanting to direct back then, and I remember less was somebody I always was drawn to because I was, I thought his framing and the way that he staged things was always very compelling and very interesting. I did notice in this episode a lot of low angles. And that was the first one that came to my attention on the bridge, that low angle. People didn't typically do that. That was definitely a special, you know, something that Les Landau saw and shot. I also noticed moments later, we started on Tuvok's hands pressing buttons,

and then it came up to see Chacote and Tuvac saying, well, I can't. This is like the low, this is like the low angle episode. It really is. He's very creative on that because later when the doctor's hand is replenished after it's disappeared, it starts on his hand. He's moving his fingers and then it comes up, right? And also, even before that, let's flash back to the scene in the sick bay where basically we inform or you guys inform the doctor

that he's going to be the one going on this mission. That was a super interesting choice because the doctor is, facing camera. Again, low angle, again, everybody up behind him, you know, and he's like, hmm, so you want me to go into blah, blah, blah, and then he turns around and faces everybody. Yeah, I made notes on both of those shots you're talking about. I remember the shot you're talking about with the doctor's hand kind of, because he had lost his arm, so he's now replaced his arm, and so it starts on his hand, and then he sort of brings it up to look at it, and the camera tilts up. Tuts up with him, yep, to see us. Yes. I remembered

doing that shot because I remember sometimes Bob would do it a little too slow and you know to get the camera to to come up quickly and and hold his hand the whole time and the dialogue to start it's hard and I remember doing that shot and we probably did it 10 or 20 times we did a lot yeah it was very I remember it was getting very frustrating to try to get that shot to work It's yeah, it's funny when things work, it seems effortless, but behind the scenes to get the simplest thing to happen sometimes is very, very difficult. It was like running a marathon, literally, because the timing had to be perfect. And that's, you know, and that happened in a lot of different shots that we filmed throughout the seven years where the audience, the fans have no clue. They're watching, thinking, well, that's really easy.

Looked effortless, yeah. Effortless. And that's because it was take 87 and that finally got that hand. That's right. Right. Speaking of his hand while we're talking about this, you know, Bob Picardo has really big hands. He has big fingers, big palm, big knuckles, everything. He's just got a very, he has the hands.

I noticed that. I was going to say he has the hands of a manual laborer, like somebody who's like a bricklay or somebody who does like a farm work, like very, meat of the earth sort of, you know. Muscley hands, yes. I did notice his hand look pretty big. on that shot, but I wondered if, again, sometimes depending on the lens you use, if they had used a wide angle lens and been up close, it would have made his hand a little distorted, like bigger. I don't know if that was the lens. That's definitely not the lens. You know why? Because I was

sitting next to him at a convention one time and we were, and it was a, we were very close. We were sitting, it was a very small convention. They had this one love seat that they had him and I and some other person sitting on. So we were literally shoulder to shoulder. And he had his hand on his, on his knee. And I remember looking down and going, good Lord, that's a big ass hand. Like I just, I, that's, and this is years after we were done with Voyager. So I definitely would say it was not the lens. And if it was the lens that, that only intensified it. But his hand without any, you know, any type of filter or lens, but they're still big. They're really, really big. I wanted to also comment on that shot when they first go into the holodeck. So they, they open up the door.

Chakotay and Tuvok open up the door and the door opens and you see the trees there. The camera pans over as they walk in to the door. Yes, that's that. That was not on the same stage as the holodeck set. We had no set there. So they just put trees. I don't know if you remember this. They would sometimes build like a little piece of, if you were walking from the hallway into the holodeck,

they put a little piece of something there to pan over and see it. But then when they cut to whatever the holodeck was, we usually built that over on stage 16. It was the big stage because we did eventually build a holodeck set where it had the grids and the, you know, all the stuff in there. On stage nine, right? On stage nine. We eventually built that. But at this point, there was nothing like that there. It was just an empty part of the stage.

Yeah, they put a few trees. You pan over. And then when they cut to that big, wide crane shot coming down with the, you see the whole. forest and then Chakote and Tuvac walk in. That would be 16. That was 16 and it was a giant set. I mean, I really, you know, for the fans to know, that was, that was not a forest we went to. It was built on a stage. And that shot alone was really impressive, I thought, the detail that they put into that forest and the scope just for them to walk over and run into to Freya. Yeah, that's not a, that's not a CGI set. That's, that's full on. That's built by our

our set dressing team, you know, and it was absolutely beautiful, I remember. It was really well done. The studios, just a little Hollywood history for people, the studios, like Paramount or Warner Brothers or MGM or Fox, whatever, back in the old days, everything was on the studio lot. So they would have your stages, they would have a construction building, a mill, they would call it, where a lot of the wood was cut and things were sort of assembled and then moved to the stage. They'd have a mill construction department. They would have a prop building that kept all the props for all the movies. We'd have a wardrobe building. Everything was on the studio lot. By the time

we did Voyager, there wasn't a lot of those departments left on the Paramount lot. There was a mill and a construction shop on the lot. There no longer is. It's gone. It's closed up. There was a prop building. We used to walk through that tunnel sometimes with all the old props. That's gone. It's turned into offices now. Oh, that's so sad. There was a paint shop for backing.

So all the big backdrops that they used to hang in the old movies, they were all hand-painted. They got rid of that. That's Ryan Murphy's office. Wow. Everything's gone. It's gone. But we did have a construction shop when we made Voyager. It was one of the last ones still around in Hollywood.

I think Universal had a show. and Paramount, that might be it. Nowadays, they build everything, they cut all the lumber and build it off the lot at some cheap, low rent place, and then they put it on trucks and bring it to the stages. But back then, our shop right on the lot would build the forest. They would build the Beowulf Castle. All those things were built right next to our stages at the shop. Anyway, that's good trivia.

I like to hear that. I think the fans will like to hear that too. So he chooses his name as Dr. Schweitzer, which first of all, if you're going to pronounce that in German, it's not the the wu sound. It's going to be Schweitzer. Yeah, the W is a V, right? So Dr. Schweitzer. So he chooses Dr. Schweitzer, which I think is hilarious when they're chanting, you know, Schweitzer, when the Vikings are chanting that. When he sees Freya and Freya comments that that they've collected. all those mushrooms, right? And he's talking about, it's just so funny that he's talking about that these will kill you. You know, he gives their scientific name and everything. And then she says

a line which I couldn't, I had to replay it over and over again. She was saying, are you a master of herb or herb lore, L-O-R-E, is what she said. But I thought she said, are you a master, her blower? A her blow, like a blower of hers? I don't know. I just had to go over. over that. I was like, what did she just say? One other really interesting side fact. I really felt like the actress who played Freya, who did a wonderful job, by the way. Yeah, Marjorie Monaghan. Monaghan, yeah. Marjorie Monaghan looks like a blonde version of Bob Picardo's ex-wife. That's the whole time I was sitting there going, uh, you look like. Yeah. I mean, to me, I mean, tall, statues, similar type of feature. Yeah, very similar. Classic beauty, you know,

It's funny because the Viking thing written in for the doctor to have a sort of romance in the Viking thing, definitely I think Bob Picardo has a type that he's always dated, you know, his ex-wife, his wife, Elizabeth, you know, and I hate to put people into boxes, but, but definitely Bob is attracted to, he likes them statuesque and tall, blonde, Viking-like, very much like those kind of qualities. So it's ironic that he was given his very first away mission in like his dream. It was Bob Cardo's dream world, the Viking world. Yeah, and so because of that, I do feel that he got a little bit too into his kiss.

I really think so. Yeah, because I think as a doctor, as a hologram, if it's your first kiss, it'd be like, oh, what's happening? He did open his eyes for a second to sort of register like, oh, wow, this is a pleasurable sense. sort of a thing, you know, but I just felt that he was macking a little bit too, you know, like he's done this before, you know what I'm saying? So I felt like more of a neophyte. And also, this is another thing that I, this is me being weird. I kept rewinding. When they separate, I see almost like a trail of saliva. Yes, a little spittle trail that kind of separates between those two. So there was a lot of, there's heavy lip locking. Wow.

evolved. Yes. So again, these are just my random observations here. Well, another thing I loved that happened around the time that Chukotay and Tuvok disappeared and that Janeway's talking about it, Janeway says, she says, the holodecks are basically an outgrowth of transporter technology, changing energy into matter and back again. Back again, yeah. And it's funny, that detail had sort of blown by me, I guess, back in the day. But it made so much sense to me now, like that transporters were invented and then the holodex were an outgrowth of the transporter development, creating, you know, turning energy

into matter and then back again. I don't know. I just love that explanation. I love in the technology of Star Trek that those things are connected and that she gives sort of the chronology that transporters were first and then they were an outgrowth. Then came holodex. I thought that was an interesting little detail that, you know. in the lore of Star Trek.

I thought it was good. And by the way, we haven't seen Tom Paris yet. We're about 15 minutes into the show. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah, we haven't seen him yet. I'm just saying. I will add that I do like Janeway's reaction to the possibility of Harry being dead.

And she really did have that like, you know, Harry, like that concerned. Well, you don't come in. I made a comment about Tom Paris doesn't come in until almost 15 minutes in. You don't come into the last, the 43 minutes in. And by the way, I was just happy that the doctor had not been in yet. And Tom Paris came in one scene before the doctor.

So I was like, yeah, I got in before the doctor. You made it. You made it. You also did, you did make it into engineering, which is very rare to see you, Tom Paris, working. You were working in engineering. Dude, I love to work. I love to work buttons. Buttons are my thing.

You're a button guy. I also liked that Tom came up with a solution. and let's send the doctor in. I was very proud that they gave Tom not just working buttons, but he actually had a brain and he thought about, oh, maybe this will work. So that was kind of cool. You're just not another pretty face, man.

Exactly. You got some substance to you. I'm not just a wieness. My weanus, you know, that little part of your elbow? It's that little part of your elbow. See, I've never heard of that before. You've never heard of a wiener? No, so you're saying this is a wieness.

Who says that, though? Is this? Look at it. I'm sorry. Is this American slang? Is this like, is this? I think it might be American slang. Yeah.

Because a weanus, it just, I don't, it just. It's one of my favorite words in the slang dictionary. Spell it. How do you spell it? W-E-E-N-U-S. Oh. Okay, because it just sounds so naughty. It sounds like you're switching.

Yeah, that's why it's an awesome word because it's sort of, it's like naughty, it's gross, it's weird. It is. That's a weanus for, you know, you can say it around children. So weanus refers to the skin at the end of your elbow? Yeah, it's kind of loose there. That's, yeah. God, a little came up with that. It's just, I mean, how did they?

Is it a genius. Either that or they are like, I'm sorry, they're on acid. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, there was a Star Trek word. It's like if Janeway had said, oh, we're, we're approaching the weanus civilization. That's the planet of weanus. Retainment feeling. Beam them over. Beam that weanus over here onto the ship.

I'm going to go back to my old comment of maybe somebody on acid came up with Wienis. I had heard a rumor that that's how the South Park guys did a lot of their writing is they got supremely high and then they would write. And I thought, wow. I think maybe some of the Star Trek writers did that too. Maybe. Some of the stories they came up with. Oh, maybe alcohol-infused, maybe some gin or something. But in terms of like taking hardcore, like, you know, hallucinogens like acid or mushrooms,

to write would be, to me, I think not really productive. I can barely write sober. That's my point. Anyway, where were we? Well, I was thinking when the doctor, my head was at where the doctor first goes into the holiday. Okay. And he goes in and he touches. the tree

and then he smells the moss and I was like wait moss doesn't smell it was a funny it was a funny little like you get the

heartfelt oh I'm touching a tree and then the moss I thought that was really funny Bob sometimes like he goes right up to the edge of sitcom sometimes

he really does because the next thing I expected him to do after he smelled it I thought he would take that moss and start eating it just just going

all the way yeah bomb but he so um this is where he takes on his first name here dr schweitzer yes schweitzer uh which is quite funny um he enters the great hall meets the uh the danish king uh and that one guy that keeps challenging everybody challenges him and so he grabs the sword and then it drops because he's not used to the weight of it right so it drops so i actually texted him i when i was yeah i said i said bob in the episode heroes and demons when And Freya hands you her sword for the first time to defend yourself. The weight of the sword makes you drop the point on the ground.

Your choice as an actor? Or was it scripted that way? Or did Les Landau direct you to do that? Then he said, my recollection is that it was my first choice. There were so many first first for the character in that story. His first time handling a sword. His first time handling a heavy sword. And remember, this was a heavy holographic sword.

So that was his response. And then I said, yeah, it was a, it was. is also your first kiss on Voyager as well. Your first time eating a leg of elk. A really great watching your work in this episode again. Thanks for responding so quickly. Robbie and I are about to record our discussion on heroes and demons now. Then he responded, that was one of my early favorites because it was so out of nowhere. I do remember that I was stuffing down that leg of lamb posing as leg of elk at about 8 a.m., still delicious. Also recall that the guest star Marjorie Monaghan was great and heartbreakingly beautiful. And of course, we were discussed how

Oh, that's funny. You guys got me re-watching a few episodes. I watched Real Life from season three with my holographic family and my old friend Wendy Shaw playing my hollow wife. Robbie and I have a scene at the end of that show

that he is just extraordinary in. Oh, a little shout out to you. So I think we should definitely, when we have Bob back on, we should have him on as we do our recap of real life, have him on during our recap. Do the rewatch together and talk.

Do the rewatch with Bob. Yeah, have him through the whole thing because I think he would love to do that. That would be awesome. Yeah. Sorry, when the king says, tell us some stories from your land and he tells him the story

preventing a measles epidemic. That was a sitcom to me. That was like the sitcom. He was like eating and he was nerding out. Like it was the funny version of, oh, well, I'll tell you the measles story. And then just looking at him like,

who are you? You know what? I really think the Big Bang Theory showrunners, they saw this episode, and they were like, hmm, I think we should do a show called Big Bang Theory where these nerds nerd out about their nerdiness, you know, and this is kind of what had happened. And it really, it worked well. This is what endeared Bob Picardo's character to the fandom in terms of his humor. And this is the beginning of it right here. And he walked that comedy right up to the edge of sitcom. He really did. But it was great. It was great. I thought that moment where, was it the king,

guess or whatever. He says, talks about his childhood, killing someone at 11. He goes, what about you? What about your childhood? And that was a sad moment for me because I was like, oh, God, I'd never thought about that. Like, doctor didn't have a child. He never will have a child. Yeah, you know. Yeah, little stuff like that. What a great character. It was just one of those little nuances. That wasn't so sad for me because I was still reeling from laughter about the Monty Python-esque moment right before that when when the king says ah perhaps you'd like some mead to fortify yourself for battle and then bob says i'm fine and then the king slaps away that the oh yeah that was very funny he's like away you're disturbing lord schweitzer like that i mean just that that to me was that actor you know

going very much to the comedy edge there himself which may have been because bob kind of put in that essence of, I'm going to get this close to the comedy. And the actor playing the king was like, well, what the heck, I'm going to do this too. So, you know, he really, he played that. Great guest stars. I know, I do remember that Bob loved the Freya actress. I know, I remember he really loved Marjorie Monaghan. And he loved the whole, the whole cast. I think he really, it was, it was a bit, they were a bit theatrical. And because Bob had come from Broadway and theater and things like that, I think he really felt in his element to play the scenes with all That's nice. By the way, so when he sees the alien energy and he loses his arm and he's like, quick, get the doctor out of there. And it cuts to Tom, beaming him back. How many buttons do I need to push to get him back? I pushed like 150 buttons. Like maybe he could have kept his arm if I had just hit the right button. I was like, okay, I'm working on it. I'm bringing him back. And then we're waiting and I'm still pushing the button.

and I'm like, yeah, I'm working on it. Why didn't I just go, boom, back? You know, back in the day, just from all the cons I've gone to as a guest, many fans come up to my table and said, gosh, your Q&A is so much like stand-up comedy. Have you ever thought about doing that? And I actually said, no, not really. And then one day I said, if I was to write something a bit for stand-up comedy, what would it be, specifically involving Trek?

And I did write a little bit about pushing buttons. and I think I've told that to you before, right? And I talk about how you can tell a guest star on Star Trek because either they push too few buttons, they're like, mm-hmm. Or they push too many. And in that case, because it's season one, you kind of fell in the guest star zone by pushing that many buttons. It's just like, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, because you don't know.

I was pushing so many buttons. And they left it all in. Like I was thinking- They kept it. Yeah. Maybe, you know, I'll put it this way. You're not the transporter chief. You're on the bridge.

You know everything about piloting this ship, but you never really transport people back and forth. And it wasn't a real transporter. It was like, it was in sick bay. It was in a modified station. So maybe you had to enter into a certain, you had to enter a certain set of commands just to get out of the sick bay subroutines

to get into transport. I'm trying to help you here. And so then you eventually have to do all this extra stuff because you don't know the quick shortcuts of doing it. Yeah, maybe. I'll take it. Take that one? Okay, I'll get you.

Well, you know what? Here's one thing I did notice. So Tom was in the engineering with Bologna, and they're working. And then at one point they talked to Janeway on the bridge. And I noticed, again, a low angle, less Landau, the director, had put Janeway over by one of the side consoles with a low angle. And you could see the sunroof on our set. Remember, there was that opening to the stars that you never saw. Oh.

But it was looking straight up to the. part of the set that we rarely ever saw. And I was surprised to see that. Yeah, you could see the star field that they put. There was only two spots. It was on one side of the bridge and on the other side. And you had to be a very low angle to see it. So, yeah.

That's a good catch, man. Usually I catch a lot of stuff and things don't get past me. That got past me. I didn't even remember seeing that. That's awesome. Yeah, that was pretty cool. Again, Les Landau, Mr. Creativity there. Dig that.

Unfirth attacks the doctor when he comes back with the... Prepare to die, demon! Exactly. And he knocks the doctor over. And that's clearly a stunt double, because you can see the back of the back bald patterning of Bob's head did not match the guy that got knocked to the sides. Oh, that's a good catch.

I caught that one, yeah. So I caught the spittle. I caught the stuntman. falling over. And gosh, I was, I guess I probably was feeling a little jealous at this point because you had gotten a kiss scene, you know, then Bob Picardo is the next guy that gets the kiss scene. And I'm like, gosh, when is Carrie going to get a kiss scene?

Because there's no kiss scene. Well, you've been offered kissing the ladies many times so far in this series. And I turn them down. You keep turning it down. Dude, you got no game. The reason you're not kissing anyway is you got no game. Harry has no game yet. I've not seen it.

It's really sad. I'm really, oh my gosh. That really, really bothers me, Robbie. It's true. It really does. They gave Harry's zero game. And it's sort of, it's just painful to watch that. Yeah, sometimes it is.

It's like, oh, dude, no, not again. Well, it's one thing if it was a Caucasian character, I'd be okay with that. But traditionally, Asian men are never given the chance. If you talk about from the early ages of filmmaking, D.W. Griffiths, one of the early, early directors in Hollywood, he had a movie called Broken Blossoms where there was a, it was a young Irish girl who falls in love with a Chinese man that was in Chinatown or something.

But before they can consummate their affair, the father comes in and kills the Chinese guy. So it's sort of like every time, you know, there's about to show something it's like just taken away and it's just historically yes and so later when we do that episode where Harry Kim is is goes to the planet of women right I don't know if you recall that one yeah okay so that one where I had a dream sequence where I was kissing on multiple women and and that oh my gosh that literally was a breath of fresh air because that's the first time you're catching up from all your not having

Well, pretty much. I would say that that kissing scene, I could count on my one hand how many kissing scenes for Asian men in Hollywood in the history of Hollywood. And that was one of one of three. Wow. So there you go. Yeah. So it was a bummer that you to see this, all this smooching going on without me being involved, at least at this point. Yes. Yeah. Speaking of you not being involved, you finally appeared in this episode in like minute 43. But am I right? You only see the upper portion of me. You don't see my leggings. You don't see my socks. You don't see my sword. You don't see my, you know, the lower half. It worked. I don't, I didn't feel like I was missing a

shot, but yeah. Fine. Yeah. I just, I don't know. I'm glad they saved you and Tuvok and Chukotay. That would have been a bummer if we had to go back to Earth with, you know, without us. Without you. I mean, the ladies wouldn't have noticed if you were gone, because they didn't even know you were around. So the ladies would not. No, they knew, but they came up on me. They gave up. They He doesn't even know how to kiss. He doesn't know what a kiss is. When Bob comes in and he has that hero moment, and by the way, so when he comes back in,

again, it's another angle up on his face. Low angle. And then Unferth is like getting in his way. And then all he has to do is he lifts up that torch. And he kind of like walks towards him. And then Unferth just cowers. Like he's like, ah, I don't like fire. I get fire, not good for me.

And I'm a scarecrow. I am made of straw. I will be burned. Yeah, it was a little strange. That was a little awkward, right? Yeah. So I don't know what I think maybe that could have been solved in blocking. Like, as a director, how would you have, you know, how would you have blocked that scene to,

or at least how would you have shot it to be a little bit less awkward or more menacing that that guy cowered? He also had a sword. Did he have a sword and the fire? Yeah, he had the sword and the fire. Yeah, exactly. I would have done something, I would have done something like, you know, maybe the sword gets jammed into his shoe so he can't walk away and then take the fire and he's stuck there, you know, and he can't, his shoe is, oh, yeah, or something to where now, now you can't leave and I'll just, I will not only kill you, but I'm going to make it so painful. Right. You don't shut up.

Right. Not even just the shoe. He could, he could bring it in so that he, you know, gets his shirt or something. shirt, the chain mail. And because that would pay off that line, I'm programmed to do no harm, right? So that he wouldn't, you know, he's not doing harm. He's just stopping him. Then he brings up the fire, you know.

Yeah. I will say that when Freya dies, and it's a very heartbreaking moment, it is a classic sort of, it's interesting that the title is Heroes and Demons, because the doctor really has the classic hero's journey. Yes. You know, Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. I wrote that down too. Yeah, that he has a heroic moment.

And to have a heroic moment, you've got to hit a rock bottom before you can come back as a hero. And you really feel that that hero's journey moment when Freya dies and he's hit this rock bottom. He's heartbroken and he stands up and he's got this passion and this fire now of a hero. Yes. I just thought that was really well written and well played by Bob. That journey is complete.

The episode feels complete because that character, the doctor, makes that full hero's journey experience and comes out of it with a whole new, you know, he's gone out out of sickbay for the first time. There's so many firsts in this episode for Bob. Most definitely. Do you have an underlying message? The hero's journey, really. For me, in the end, what happens for the doctor is the message of the episode to me in that there is a hero in all of us, even the most unexpected people, that if we're willing to kind of step out of our comfort zone and take a risk and be willing to suffer and be willing to have courage, that we all have a hero, even the most unexpected like the doctor in this situation, being the hero.

So, yeah, what about you? Yeah, for me, and I've been sort of juggling with just how to name this, this whole time, underlying message, life lesson. That's another way we can put this, maybe. Similar to yours, but it came much earlier. It came from the scene when the doctor was with Kess in sickbay before he goes on the journey, right? Because she noticed, she says, doctor, are you nervous? Yeah, and which is interesting for a holographic program to be nervous.

And we realize that it's because he's going on, he's been required to go on a mission that he has no familiarity with, okay? And Cass explains to him that you don't know what to expect. But just like any away mission, none of the crew know what to expect before they go on that away mission. You are, doctor, you're getting away from the familiar, you know, you know everything in this sick bay, you know everything about medicine, but this is new to you. you're dealing with something different. So really it is about telling people that when you take on a new task that could be daunting

that you're not, you know, you're not sure about, you're nervous about, just realize that everybody has those nerves, right? But if you choose to take action and go through with it, you will grow from that. You know, you will then realize, oh, my gosh, you know, this is not the end of the world. I can continue with this. But then if you can extrapolate upon that, you can go, even broader and talk about regarding, you know, the current state of affairs that we're dealing with in terms of racial inequality. You know what I'm saying? It doesn't matter what

color your skin is. It does not matter. Everybody laughs, cries, everybody has feelings, has people of love, gets nervous, yeah, gets, you know, excited. So we're all the same. And again, I, you know, I've said this in the past before. The only true way to stop racism, in this country or police brutality by Caucasian cops towards African-Americans is really as if we have an invasion by an alien race that all of us have to band together. Invasion of the weanuses. Can we film that? Yes, I'm going to make that movie. I'm going to write the script for you and then storyboard this and we could show it to the fans. Invasion of the weanuses.

All in the name of bringing together humanity. That's right. That is what Delta Flyers is all about. Cool. Good job, Garrett. We did good this week. Yeah, this was a fun one. We're getting, I'm just happy that we're getting our rhythm, you know, with each other better. And it's coming along. It's coming along. It's coming along. And we look forward to reviewing Catexas next week.

That'll be fun. It'll be fun. All right, guys. See you next week.