The Delta Flyers - Hippocratic Oath

Episode Date: June 17, 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, Hippocratic Oath, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Armin Shimerman.Hippocratic Oath: Imprisoned by Jem'Hadar rebels, Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien differ on whether to help their captors break the Dominion's brutal bonds. We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers Megan Elise & 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, Tom Paynter, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Roxane Ray, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Izzy Jaffer, Francesca Garibaldi, Thomas Irvin, Jonathan Capps, Chris Garis, Sean T, & Cindy WoodfordOur Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Mary Burch, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, David Wei Liu, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano,  Randy Hawke, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Andrew Cano, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, Keir Newton, Mariette Karr, Jeff Allen, & Tamara EvansAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Trip Lives, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Vikki Williams, Cindy Ring, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Shanyn Behn, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Cassie Brandt, Rachel Shapiro, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Klee Wiggins, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Lindsay Bundy, Dawn Colleen Smith, Cassandra Girard, Robby Hill, Andrea Wilson, Angela Clermont, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Shawn Battershall, Natalie Swain, Brian Heckathorne, & Mark JohnsonThank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Sponsors:* Check out 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

Hello, everyone, welcome to the Delta Flyers' Journey Through the Wormhole with Quark Dex and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host today are my fellow Trek actors, Armand Shimmerman, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong, for the complete and exciting and stupendous and super cool version of this podcast, check out patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. Love the adjectives, Garrett. Love the adjectives. Stupendous.

Yeah, that's a new one. Hello, the stupendous episode. The stupendous episode. And also, Armand, the last time we were together was when we had everyone here. It was Terry. That was stupendous. It was stupendous. But it was also.

stupendously long in terms of the amount of time that we spent doing that this will be much faster than that one so that'll be that'll be a good thing for all of us uh yeah we had everybody there and dorny for his very first uh episode which is so exciting so exciting and the more i watch this fourth season and and see where this show is going it feels like it has just gone up enormously in terms of just finding its brand like your show right now feels like it has just taken off and you know that's due to voyager really in a sense in a sense yes well because they put all their they put all their focus on voyager on us that first year too ira could do things that you know nobody was watching and he could do things that uh oh man that that that i'm sure paramount uh and all

would have said no to um you're welcome free reign yeah thank you i wish they had focused on you guys and let us have a little free reign that would have been nice so the micromanaging stopped on ds9 the minute voyager began it did now you guys had been on for a little while but um but really all the focus was taken off us and put it on to you guys and uh as much as it rankled sometimes um it was it had the glass was half full yeah yeah uh i find it interesting that people refer to Michael Dorn as Dorney, specifically Marine Assertis, Robbie did it earlier. We all call him Dorney. Yeah, everyone says Dorney.

I call him Michael. I call him Michael, but Kitty calls him Dorney. Right. But then I started thinking, that's just his last name with the Y at the end. And I thought, well, would it work with Robbie? Hey, McNeely. Not so much. I've had people call me that.

You had someone say McNeely? Oh, okay. Has anyone say, hey, shimmermini to you? No, but they have abbreviated it to Shimmy when I was. Oh, Shimmy. Shemmy's good. Do you like Shimmy? I like that.

No, I don't like that. Oh, okay, never mind. Is that on par with the hand on the shoulder? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it is. Oh, because it feels diminutive to say Shimmy. Shimmy?

Yeah, when I was 11, 12, 13, they would call me Shimmy. But I never, ever allowed them ever to call me Army. That was a total. Army. Oh, yeah. You don't want that. I was called Dunkin' Donuts a lot. Yeah.

drunken, Duncan, and I don't know, they rhyme Duncan a lot. They like to make fun of that one. And for me, it's Charmin Armin. Charmin Armin! I like that one. I like that, too. Oh, my God. You guys know the reporter for Daily Variety, Army Archard?

I know who he is, yeah. Is his, if he goes by Armin, is he Armin? Is that his actual full name? I have no idea. It may be, or it may, you know, Armin is a very familiar Armenian name. Yeah. And so he may be Armenian, in which case that might be a diminutive of Armin, but the Armenian spelled Armin differently than I spell it. My spelling is Germanic, and there's his Armenian, of course. Okay. Interesting. So we will not say shimmy. We know that.

We're not going to go to that. No. And while you could, if you really, if you went back enough into my past, you could then. You could call me Freddie. Freddie. Yeah, I was called Freddy. Instead of being called shimmy, I was called Freddy. Did you like Freddy when you were called? I did like Freddy. Freddy's, yeah. That could be code whenever we're in public. If we're like, hey, Freddie, like that, you can hear us.

You'll know that we're too much going to say something. Okay. And I do not like Wongie. Wongie's kind of one. Yeah. No, I don't like it. It doesn't work. No, it doesn't work.

So Dorney is the only one. He's going to stick with it. Okay. There are other nicknames, but yeah, Dornie is. Okay, guys. we have some birthdays yeah carl murphy has our first birthday today he's on june 18th carl happy birthday happy birthday carl many happy returns happy birthday carl next up we have penny leo penny leo's birthday is on june 22nd happy birthday to penny penny penny many happy returns happy

birthday happy happy birthday penny have a great day Limerick time. Limerick time. All right, here we go. Here is my... I've learned to say limerick in an Irish accent because it's part of the play I'm doing. Oh, is it?

Yeah, we don't say, I was told. We don't say limerick. We say limerick. Limerick. Limerick. Limerick. You take the E out. Limerick.

Limerick. Limerick. Limerick. You say from limerick, that's my line. So it goes from three. syllables to two syllables of his Irish. Limric. Limerick. Robby, hit us with your limerick, will you? But Robbie, can you do it in an Irish accent while you're doing the limerick? I don't think I could do it. I don't think I could. That's fine. Go ahead. I have to concentrate on my cadence to

try to make it squeeze it into a correct cadence. All right, here we go. Miles and Julian look into strange readings that they get. So complications and trouble are a sure bet. They meet some Jim Hedar. Otto get to spar. Cisco's lesson, bending the rules, is a DS9 mindset. Nice. It almost fits into the cadence. Almost, almost. Here we go.

Here's my haiku for Hippocratic Oath. Doc and Chief Crashland. Gem Hadar Boss wants freedom. Orders not followed. Mm. Very good. Thank you. The artist captures this.

The spirit of it for sure. I like it. Yes. So the etymology of the title, the Hippocratic Oath is, the definition of which is, is a solemn oath that medical students and doctors take outlining their professional responsibilities and ethical obligations. The oath emphasizes the importance of beneficence, doing good for patients, non-malfeasance, avoiding harm, patient confidentiality, and respect. for human life. The oath also encourages that doctors share their knowledge and expertise with others. Oh. Oh, that's interesting. That's an interesting twist. The detail that's important for this story. For this story, for sure. I like that. Thank you. And the Hippocratic oath comes from

Hippocrates who was a Greek doctor. Greek doctor. Who believed in the humor, which is a philosophy. that illness and everything comes about because of the mixture of these four humors in the human body, which if you took my Shakespeare class, I would explain more about. Ah, there's a little plug for signing up for Armin's Shakespeare class, everybody. Reesley. Forsooth. The teleplay by Lisa Klink, story by Nicholas Correa and Lisa Klink. What's super cool is that Lisa had just finished her internship.

they gave her a shot at writing the teleplay. This is her first, you know... Nobody was watching. Big job. Yeah. Directed by Renee, Obeginois, and as we spoke about before... Obeijonois. Obeijon.

Directed by René Obeijonois. And as we spoke about before, initially, Renee was supposed to direct the visitor, but it got flip-flop because of Colmini's schedule, and he ended up directing this actual episode, which I think was a little tough. on Renee, because Renee was sort of ready. Because he had a story. Yeah, well, oh, he was. His prep work was for the visitor, right?

So he felt that he was like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, I'm high and dry right now. All of my work, all of my preparation, everything I've thought about blocking wise is for the other episode. And so then they gave him this one. So he was scrambling. So he was not happy about that. But I still think he did a good job, though, you know. Oh, I think he did a great job. It reminds me of once I was doing this show, Girlfriend's Guide to Divorce, and we had a director who had gone through all of the prep, and we were literally the morning of the Tech Scout, so 48 hours away from filming the episode.

And that director got, was unable to direct suddenly. And I had to go on the Tech Scout and talk to the crew about what the plans were and how we were going to shoot it. I hadn't prepped a single minute. I mean, I prepped with her and helped her to prepare her plan, but I didn't have a plan and had to take over on the Tech Scout and then direct. But something about that, I was like, all right, well, it's going to be what it's going to be. Like, we'll figure it out. And it was great.

It actually was a great experience for me. So it was actually okay. Yeah. I like that. I like that. But that morning, I panicked. Like Renee, I'm sure. I'm sure.

I was like, what? What do you mean? I've got to step in. Oh, my gosh. And I'm sure that he had talked it over with Jonathan West and they had to have discussions about it and all that had to be laid aside. Yeah.

Yeah. I have a thought about Lisa Klink. Yes. This is the only script I just looked up that she wrote for DS9. Mm. And I love that you mentioned she just finished an internship

because Jerry Taylor had really been her champion to get her into the internship. Right. And mentor her. Lisa always has spoken very fondly about Jerry Taylor and how much she meant to her career. So I'm sure Jerry had something to do with Lisa getting this script assignment. For sure. Let me read a little bit more about this episode. This episode came from two separate story pitches by two different writers. The first from Nicholas Korea was based around the story of a group of Jem Hadar who were trying to free themselves from their addiction to a particular drug.

The second was from Lisa Klink was about O'Brien and Bashir taking opposing sides in a conflict on an alien world. O'Brien sided with the natives, Bashir with the non-natives. The producers liked the idea of Klink's concept, putting O'Brien and Bashir on diametrically opposed sides, but they felt the details weren't quite right. And they got Klink to repitch the story several times with different plot elements in place. Producers referred to her story as their The Bridge on the River Kwai episode. And they likened Bashir to Colonel Nicholson, a character in that film, played by Alec Guinness, who effectively helps the enemy. The problem with Klink's story was that the producers couldn't decide exactly what it was that Bashir was trying to do for the enemy. What was causing the conflict between himself and O'Brien?

What was the bridge? Eventually, it was Renee Eshavaria, who suggested putting Klink's story together with Koreas, thus providing the bridge. Bashir was trying to help the Gem Hadar beat their addiction, and O'Brien was against this idea. great this yeah it's unique that you have two it's interesting yeah to see how these two stories weren't completely fleshed out on their own but you put them together and they became complete yeah it's fascinating to hear the backstory on how these stories uh were originated because of course we had no i mean this is the first time hearing of this and and it's fascinating to hear how the machinations of the writing department uh went about um uh really really really

really quite interesting. So the people listening at home, really, this is a fascinating information. It is. Yeah, it's fascinating for us as actors in Star Trek because the writers were so separate, at least for us. And for you guys, for a long time, it got a little bit forever. Forever. It got better, but it was, we were still separating. Well, yeah. We had no idea what they were doing. No. We did not know how the sausage was made in the writer's room. At all. Clueless. And it's funny, it reminds me of, now the job that i do as a producing director i i realize how important it is to know these conversations and the origins of these stories because it will it will inform how we prep and what

we look for and the kinds of locations and the tone and all of that all the conversations with departments where we're trying to figure out how we're going to shoot this thing if i know where these the origin of this story is and what the hopes and dreams are and those conversations i can help make put that on on film but we never knew that we didn't know the hopes and dreams we didn't know any of the origins and it would have helped all of us i think as actors if we had yeah for sure and it would have attached us closer to the project and we were all attached very closely to the project absolutely but this would have been one cinch more to say oh we're we understand how how the story was created and therefore we're part of that creative process as well

even if we had nothing to do with it yeah just to be kind of of looped in on it included in some way in that that that that the heart of the story that yeah yeah the inspiration i've always said that writers are the original artists they are the original artists we the actors uh and the director are the interpret of artists we interpret what what the writers have created and that's important too but they are the original artists yeah yeah well we have now sorry to go off on this tangent but we i i do a thing now when i'm producing the show we have sort of a concept meeting with the writers with the director with the producers like myself or the line producer and the editors too the post people where we talk about before we

even start prepping we talk about the origins and then we prep and then we come back and have the the follow-up meeting before we start shooting to say okay based on those inspirations and origins of your story and the tone that you want to create here's our choices are we good all on the same page so the editors know what the intent is so we're all as a team kind of working towards the same goal we never did that on star trek there was no collaborative get everybody on the same page there were no read-throughs there were no yeah and if we had that i think we could have put up even a better uh piece of content you know what i'm saying i mean well you arm in with your rehearsal did a version of that to get everybody yes but i had no connection with the writers

or the director usually. And so it was just us coming at it from a tangential from our Ferengi point of view as opposed to knowing what the overall concept was, which would have made the product, as you're saying, Garrett, would have made it better if we were all working as a team as opposed to us, you know, being just one horse in the team. That would have been amazing.

If they had one delegate from the writer's staff to come over to your house and just say, hey, guys, this is what the whole deal is and then, you know, give you that the inspiration behind how this episode began you would know that would help you definitely i think that could have helped this episode in particular and we'll get into the details but this one felt a little disjointed to me okay in terms of its theme and its b story echoing the themes of the a story and it just felt a little disjointed and i think if they had had those team building conversations everyone could have been making the same story yeah in a you know a better well now that you brought

the B story. It's a good, uh, good time for me to just talk about very quickly what, before I get into the guest stars, um, they wanted the B story to establish the fact that he was no longer the security guy like he was on TNG. So they were trying to show, these are the boundaries, these are the lines that he has to work. And it's, it's not going to be an easy transition for Warf to be a member of this group because he's going to, he's going to get knocked around a bit because he's still, he's still latching on to his old job, basically, on TMG. So that was, you know, the impetus behind that be a storyline. All right, guest stars.

Scott McDonnell. Yes, as Geronigar. Scott, we love Scott. Scott has been all over the Star Trek universe from D-Space 9. Obviously, he played Tosk in Captain Pursuit. Excellent performance is Tosk. Yeah, great job in Captor Pursuit as Tosk. TNG, who was Inveck in the episode.

So face of the enemy. On Voyager, he was Rollins and our caretaker, in our pilot, yep. So he was on the bridge with us. Enterprise, he was the Zindy Reptillion Dolom during the third season there. And Scott was actually quoted as saying, Renee actually requested me for the role, which was flattering. So that's pretty nice to know that the director loved your work as Tosk and said, I want that actor. Bring him back. He was great.

Yeah, really good job. Stephen Davies as Arek Terral. But Stephen Davies, again, no stranger to Star Trek. He played the Bolian Tactical Officer in Emissary, the pilot episode of DS9. And also Nakon in Voyager, in Darkling. I did not know that. Oh. Yeah.

Next up, we have Jerry Roberts as Meso Klan, another Jim Hidar. He also played Lieutenant Commander Dmitri Valtane in Star Trek 6, the Undiscovered Country, the feature film. And he was also on Voyager in the episode Flashback. Then we have Marshall Teague as Temo Zuma, another Gem Hadar, and he played Halluk in Voyager's third season episode Distant Origin. This is like the repertory company of Star Trek between Voyager and DS9. It's unbelievable. They're doing all the shows.

We had the same casting director. Yes, that's true. That's true. And then we also have been co-stars. we have Michael H. Bailas as Jim Hedar number one. He appeared in several episodes of Star Trek Next Generation, D-Space 9, Voyager, and Enterprise. His only credited role was in the D-Space 9 episode that we were about to recap Hippocratic Oath. Bailas also worked as a stand-in on DS9 and Enterprise.

A stand-in for whom, do you know? I did not say. It just says he worked as a stand-in. So maybe he filled it for somebody else. Guest stars, maybe the guest aliens, he was an extra. Alien of the Week. Roderick Gar is our other co-star who played Shady Alien. I'm guessing he's the one conducting business with Quark, right?

With Quark. Yes. Shady Alien. He was good. I liked him. Yes. I just find it funny. I like the makeup.

I like the two of you together. Good stuff. Yeah. But it's just funny that that's the name that they gave him. Shady alien. Yeah. That's the way he's credited on screen as Shady Alien. You know, not smuggler alien or black market alien.

Just shady alien. That's it. Okay. let's jump into it yeah we're in quarks we start in quarks for the first scene and we see quark sort of putting together some drinks and but you immediately help us with the story there arman because you're sort of your attention seems you're clocking things happening on your bar we don't know what exactly but you're we see you paying attention and i thought that was great instead of just doing business you were telling story and i thought it was really good

Thank you. And I want to thank Renee for that first shot because it's really one of the most loving shots of Quark that I've seen over the course of seven years. It was really quite a loving shot as well. Nice. Yeah, it was nice. And I don't know if the script called for we see Quark doing this first, but my guess is, oh, you've got it in front of you. Well, there we go. No, no, there's nothing like that at all. It doesn't introduce that at all. That's all Renee. I exactly. It felt like Renee. It felt smart directing that we see Quark looking at something. It peaks our interest.

And then it hands off over to Wharf, who's got something in his hand. It was a great way to open the episode. And my guess is that was Renee's, Renee's choice in the sequence of how he was going to reveal the information for the scene. Yeah. It was great. But Warf is looking at a pad with a mugshot on it, and he's clocking this shady,

He doesn't trust. He's clocking the alien so much he doesn't see me approach behind him. Yeah, exactly. Good job. Not very good security. Yes, it's a customer file 4747 is what it is exactly on his pad. And Quark's nosy. It talks about how bad this mugshot is.

You're very critical of the mugshot, you know, how's that going to help you? It's horrible quality. How are you going to find any? anybody. He's trying to get him, you're trying to get him off the case. You can tell that he's looking to this guy and you just want to distract him and get him off. You just talk about a non-discrimination policy that you have. Yeah. Which I liked that exchange. Just like Starfleet. Just like Starfleet. Yeah. So it's actually a wonderful, I don't know if double negative is right, but he's criticizing Starfleet by saying that it's very much like, you know,

yeah it's it's one of the several times that the writers gave me an opportunity to criticize starfleet yeah sorry yes yeah it's great especially with this new guy who's so starfleet you know yeah yeah here arrives wharf does not we learn worth does not trust quirk at all either just kira neither just kira exactly uh he doesn't understand how a known criminal like quark could be just walking around. Why doesn't the security chief do anything? She can already tell that Worf's like getting into Odo's business. He's criticizing Odo's techniques or style. You know, it's not how he would, how he did it on the enterprise. I don't like Cura's comment. You have more in common with a raconian swamp rat cork that bothered me. So, thank you.

That's all. Yes. I thought, forgive me, I took it personal. I thought that's not really necessary. Exactly. I didn't have to say that. what you did yeah no but that it does help the story okay because what it does yeah is is say wharf is being influenced by people on the station to have an attitude about this bartender okay so so quark i mean he hasn't spent much time with quark and therefore he gets his information his feelings about quark from other people one of the people being kira well i honestly i feel that frangies, at least how they are viewed by everyone else, it's always one step forward and then two steps backward. Because every time they establish one character saying, you know what,

I really admire the fringes. I like doing, I like your culture. I understand you now. And then the next episode, that same character is acting like an jerk to you. So that's the one thing that doesn't track. Everything else tracks in this series. But I would venture to say, that you're mostly right but i would say the compliments come from dachs the detriments come from kira so they the characters sort of track it's just that the show is giving you two different points two different messages yeah okay gotcha all right all right uh well uh beginning in this episode wharf never speaks of cork by name only referring to him as the farengue bartender this continues for the rest of the series and if i may in the seven years

years that Michael and I work together. He never said the word Ferengi correct. Oh my God. What? If you listen, he doesn't say Ferengi bartender. He says the Ferengue bartender. I didn't catch that. The Ferengue bartender.

And I would say it's Ferengi. And he would go, yes, Ferengue. He never says it right, ever. He still, even now, years later, he still says Ferengay. That's written into the script. No, no, no. It's Michael Dorr. His version.

Oh, my gosh. Fringay. That's funny. Which is, yes. He tried to give it a little extra juzh. I don't know. There's a, you know, Michael and I are very dear, close friends.

I had some problems with him on this side. Yeah. It's like saying shimmy. That's right. That's right. It's just not, it's not okay. How about this? You know of that product,

Ben Gay, which is you put it on for your sore muscles. on Ferenginar, it's Ferengue, is what they call that product. It's thank you. Yes, exactly. There you go. Oh, my gosh. Well, we've got a medical officer's log.

We hear Bashir say, Chief O'Brien and I have concluded our bio survey of Merrick 3 in the gamma quadrant. We're on course back to the wormhole and should arrive at the station two days ahead of schedule. So they're ahead of schedule. So this helps us know that the team back on the station don't expect them for a couple of days. They had to do that. Which, yeah, I missed. that in the medical log, but I was thinking, you know, when they were stranded there for a couple

days. They were like, why isn't anybody looking for them? So that covered it. It did. That's a good catch. I missed it too. Yeah. Yeah. But they're in the Rubicon and the boys are discussing Miles O'Brien's living situation that he set up a workshop in the bedroom because Keiko's never there. So, you know, she comes to visit now and then, but he's got all this time on his hands. So he wants to get back to some of his, you know, his hobbies and he sets up a workshop. Miles O'Brien does admit that he wishes Keiko was more like a man, which is funny because this has come up before with the kind of the Bashir O'Brien. Yes.

I like you. Do you love me? Right. Yeah, I love you. This whole dynamic of like they're friends, but they're trying not to, they're uncomfortable with the relationship of just being guys. who are friends. Yeah.

What do you think he meant to say instead of man? You. Why can't she be more like you? Yeah. That's it, right? Because they have a bromance going on. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

I love the look between them. So funny. Yes. So you wish Keiko was a man? I wish I was on this trip with someone else. That's what I wish. Yeah. They were very uncomfortable in that topic.

But they pick up a magneton pulse bearing 090 Mark 115. It's in the Bopac system. And Bashir asks, what is this magneton pulse? We learn it could be a damaged warp course. So there could have been a crash of some kind of ship. So, of course, they're going to take a look. And whenever somebody says, let's just go take a look. That's always trouble.

It's always trouble. It doesn't matter if Bopac 3 is uninhabited like all their records show. No, it's always trouble. This is my problem with this one scene. Why does Bashir ask that? We've already established Bashir is a jack of all trades. He's a pilot. He can operate the console.

He knows everything. He's also a soldier. He can, you know, so he should know what. He does know. It's the audience. The writers needed the audience to hear, oh, it could be a crash ship. That's why. All right.

Okay, fine. And before we move on to the next scene, I have a problem. with what happens here. Okay. Yes. O'Brien says, let's take a look. That's his line.

Yes. He, as we learned from the episode, and we know already, he is not the main officer in this ship. Oh, so he's not even supposed to say that then. If someone makes a decision, a command decision about going off course, it should be the officer who's in command.

Yeah, the highest ranking person. Right. O'Brien is, as we're told, is a non-com. Right. And Bashir is an officer. So why is it that O'Brien says, let's take a look? And they do it. And it doesn't ask for approval.

Doesn't ask, doesn't you know. You bring up a point that is my, is at the core of my problem with this episode. That I do think that Starfleet rules rank and, you know, protocol? Protocol, exactly. That's at the heart of both of these A and B stories. It's at the heart of the war photo thing. It's at the heart of, and it was very muddy. I feel like it needed to be much clearer that, oh, we're going to deal with like bending the rules, breaking the rules, rank and whose job is what.

Okay. And it was just, it was muddy constantly. Who was, yeah, you bring up a great point. They could have easily established that Bashir was the senior officer in this moment. moment if Miles had said, oh, I think it could be a crash ship. What should we do? You know, your ranking officer. It could have been a quick exchange that could have set that up so easily as being an important value for this story. And they didn't do it. And it becomes very important at the end of this. Critical. Yes. So you want more definition, Robbie. You want to be more clear cut

is what you want to see, not as money. I want to see them either, this is the way we should do things, and then things fall apart and it's broken and now we've got to figure out do we still do them that way or you know on both the A and B story I feel like that because it's the lesson that Cisco gives in the end he's like yeah you know what we're not on a starship we're on a space station and things are a little different here yeah and if that's the lesson then you've got to have the the setup of that lesson and you know the what the world the structured world should be so that things can fall apart got it didn't feel it's structured it should be.

Understood. Anyhow, they crash in a jungle. They crash in a jungle, and it's stinky, we learn. They, yes. It smells like a garbage dump, which I like. Did you say that they, did you say why they crashed? I don't even know if we got to that point or not, but they got hit by that plasma field. They get the plasma field and yeah, that's the usual.

It's, you know, classic meat and potatoes track. They hit some kind of plasma field. They crash. By the way, when they crashed, there was great bouncing and bouncing. But when they hit, I feel like they both should have lunged forward. They just sort of bounced and then they stopped. And they stopped bouncing. It was no momentum like, wow, anyway.

Right. Yeah. Did you notice that too? I did. I did. And I'm just always reminded that, you know, the Starfleet people always wanted to look like heroes. So, you know. Yes.

They just sat up straight. We crash all the time. We know how to do this. Yeah. That would be funny if there were aliens on board, too. And they flew forward and all the Starfleet and sat totally still like, we're heroes. This is my best profile.

This is my best side. Okay. I like the stinky jungle place, by the way. I love that detail. And by the way, they're sweating a lot in this episode. It's very hot there. It's very hot. So the stinky, the mugginess, all of that, yeah, is really.

It just sounds like hell is what it sounds like. Jim Hador love it, though. In all those costumes. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Well, the GemHadar show up, right? Yeah, so they get out of their, they come out of their shuttle, and the shuttle is, it almost looks like it's been there for like weeks when they get out.

Yeah, there's all kinds of stuff all over it. No scratches on the outside anyway. No. Follage, but no scratches. No. They walk out of the shuttle. with phasers drawn and all of a sudden all these jemadar materialize you know five or six shimmer in they shimmer in not shimmer men but they shimmer in and it is it's this is i kept thinking

the jimidar they're like you're surrounded you're now prisoners the jemadar it's like they've got phasers why i didn't understand why they didn't start shooting a some type of firefight you know they just kind of went oh and just kind of drop them down low is there a reason they would have been dead they were outnumbered okay Okay. A good. And again, we could have seen O'Brien and Bashir look at each other, should we fight them? Because they know that Jamadar are not to be trusted and would probably kill them off. So they should have, while they still had phasers, there should have been a decision to fight or not fight. Yeah, I think that was a missed moment in the episode. Yeah. Well, they get interrogated. They're asking, you know, are there more Starfleet personnel? Are there ships and their really aren't. Then they start talking about, I guess Gronigar starts looking at the two prisoners, yeah, the color of the uniforms, yes, and saying, oh, you are, you're a non-com, you must have a lot of experience, so you'll be the first one we would kill. And then they look

at Bashir, just like sciences, and then Iraq Terral says science and medical officers are low priority targets. So they're not important at all. I submit we execute this one and use the other in a tactical exercise. Guarnegaard doesn't want that. He's like, nope, bring him back to camp. So they're taking back. If rank and things were important and we're playing this moment, if they could have commented on, oh, senior officer, he's, I don't know, I just feel like that idea was not, you know, he's the one in charge or whatever they could have said to

reinforce this theme of rank, of protocol, of Starfleet rules, would have helped. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Scott McDonnell decides to save them. He's like, no, don't. let's take him back to camp right but before he does maybe you haven't gotten it to it yet he tells them to go back and check their warp core to to and you're about to do that garret go ahead oh yeah i mean he tells them to actually go back and put a dampening field on the warp engine so that that magneton

pulse is not thrown out into the universe so they're not tracked again if i may i was totally lost who he was looking at i i actually looking at it i went who's he talking about who's he talking to who's he talking to to go and mask the thing because it sure looks like he's talking to Bashir right and and I thought Renee you should have made that clearer about who he was talking yeah is he telling his prisoner to go back in and do this he's looking at Bashir and all of a sudden you see a shadow behind Bashir move off right and I went no I it looks like you're telling Bashir to check on that thing yeah that was a missed moment yeah and if you look at the script Gronegar says, return to the ship.

Put a damping field on our warp engine. And then the next line says, human. So it's almost like, put a damping field on a warp engine, human. Like, you're referring to Bashir. And then he's like, oh, gold uniform indicates specialty and security or engineer. So, yeah, there is a little bit of, you know, unsure. Who's he talking to? Who's he talking to?

And did you find, Armin, in the alien makeup, because the nuance of those kind of things, who you're talking to is muted because of all of the rubber? did you find that you had to kind of exaggerate sometimes I'm talking over here or looking at this or did you have to no I never had to do that maybe Andy did Andy did a lot of exaggeration because of the makeup but um not for me they they were good enough to always be clear about who I was looking at but I never I don't ever remember thinking I have to make a definitive move because of the makeup yeah got it well we go to the captain's office Cisco's office next. Worf is irritated. He wants Odo to be much tougher on quark and all these criminals around here. And Odo says that he's aware of all of this and he's investigating it and he's like, I'm out of here. He doesn't have the patience for this and of being criticized and by

Worf told what to do. So he leaves and Cisco reminds Worf that he should just focus on strategic operations and Starfleet. That's what he's here for. He's not security anymore. Right. So focus on his job and not smugglers. And then he dismisses Wharf. We jump over into the caves and Bashir and O'Brien are inside a large force field, basically. And they...

Which, by the way, they put all the ring of lights, like the rock and roll lights on the floor in the cave. And to give them, I guess, the sense of a being. All those lights, they put a lot of smoke in there, and the lights lit up kind of a wall of smoke. But it was too much smoke in this episode for me. Because you could see the smoke. You know, if it was supposed to be the energy field, it was so much smoke that you could see the smoke wafting.

Yeah. In around their faces. That distracted me. Okay. Well, Bashir makes a comment. He's like, wait a minute. Does he look a little nervous? And Brian's like, well, maybe distracted, yeah.

Well, Bashir feels like they need a doctor. Like something is up. Something is a miss. Something is not right. Someone's injured. You know, maybe they're sick. And O'Brien's already an opposing view. He's like, no, no, no.

Look, if that is true, if someone's sick, that means they're weak. And that helps us. So do not help them at all. Continue to allow them to be sick or injured so that we can get out of here. Garnegaar shows up. And he's like, okay, come with me. And he points at Bashir. and makes O'Brien stay in the force field.

And they're still sweaty. They're really sweaty. They're glistening everywhere. They're glistening. The smoke force field comes off for a second and then turns back on. Yep. And we go inside, not inside, it's an outdoor laboratory of some kind. They've set up this sort of primitive laboratory.

And it's daylight. So in the caves, it was very dark and smoky. But we get out to the laboratory and it's daylight outside. To Bashir, it looks like they want him to help. with weapons or something. That's his assumption at first. They end up talking about catcher soul white and Geronigar says, I don't want you to make more catcher soul white. We want to be free of this addiction. And then Geronigar shares the story where he got stranded here alone for 35 days and he didn't have any catcher soul white to get him through the 35 days. And he discovered that

it cured him being on this planet, that he is not addicted anymore. And he wants the others to be free. So when he got rescued. he brought all these people back that want to be free of this addiction and they came here but it's not working. And he says, let me take you to see something. They go into this jungle clearing.

This is where we've got our guards lined up, twitching, which clearly kind of bothered me. Why? Tell me. Tell me. Just standing there twitching. In line like that. In line, like if you've got people

that are detoxing in real life from a drug, Yeah. They would be down on the ground. They should be lying in a cot or something. Yeah, you're right. Here's what I would have done if I was directing. Yeah. I would have had them not in the line when their commander showed up.

When Scott showed up, they tried to be as soldier-like as possible. And then there's still some little tiny twitches as they're trying to do both, to be a soldier and to deal with their illness. I like that. That would have been a better choice. I like that. 100%. That would have been a lot better. And again, focusing on this sense of command who's, you know.

Yep. And maybe this is the place to say it, although I apologize to Scott for saying it. And it's interesting to me that, Garrett, that you said that Renee wanted Scott for this part. I think Scott's the wrong person for this part. Really? I love Scott and he's a great actor. And what he did is a great, phenomenal. I just think he was wrong.

I would have wanted someone. somebody more like Marco Limo to play this part. Like clearly in charge, the boss. Interesting. I can see that. Yeah. Okay. I like Scott too.

He's very charming. He's a good actor. He's good nuance. But there is something to be the guy who's in charge of this. He just seemed too soft. Yeah. Now he becomes, he's very intellectual, and that's because the Tersel White is, he's not addicted to it anymore.

So I can understand that. But I needed a. military presence. I needed whatever Avery has that makes him the commander that makes him the captain. I wanted something like that in the actor playing this part. Interesting. But I can see what you're saying. Yeah. And introducing as Garanagar, Mark Alamo, who also played, I mean, he could have. He could have played it. You know, we start track you get to play lots of stuff. Exactly. Exactly. Okay. Think of Jeff. Just think of Jeff. Okay. Hey, Garrett, have You've been traveling this summer?

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See MintMobile for details. Well, Goranagar says they're suffering too much that it's not working, bringing them here to this planet. And they only have five days of Ketrazol-White left. and he reveals that he's lied to all of his all of these people under him he told them they have 27 days left but they don't they've only got five so if if Bashir can't help them then they're going to kill him for betraying them they're going to kill Garanagar for betraying them and they're going to kill Bashir if he can't find a cure so you know when he hands him the when they hand those tubes to them

the catcher cell white, I was a little confused because I thought they all had tubes already attached and then the catcher cell white was in like a small, like a, you know, a feeder thing that goes, that attaches to the tube. But the tube, it's almost like a throwaway, how do I explain it? It's like a, it's, it was just odd to me because each of them got the individual tube and that had the catcher cell white in it. I thought that. Then they put it inside their jack. or something. Well, it attaches into their neck, right? Yeah, and then the tube came out of the jacket.

I think they did that because the rig needed to show liquid moving. And so they had all the rig under the clothes and they kind of pretended to connect it. But, yeah, it's a little. I was impressed that the tube showed that the white going into the system. Yeah? I went, wow. And he actually, without looking at it, he knew that he was feeling better. Yeah.

Because it didn't immediately do it. It took a nanosecond or two to start. And I thought, oh, that's really quite, good job. Yeah. No, it definitely looks good when you see the white going in. But when he hands the, when that thing opens up and they grab the white, the tube. I didn't think it was going to be the tubes. I thought the tubes were already attached.

It would just be this, you know, this. Yeah, it was bigger than I expected for sure. Yeah, it was like, what was going on? Yeah. All right. So now we're in the ward room. We have Kira. We have Dax.

We have Wharf. We have Cisco. Everyone's here. seems like Odo's there. Big meeting. The big meeting. Yeah. So these Klingons, they're, you know, they've been causing a lot of trouble.

They've been attacking outposts. So they're basically seeing, you know, they're going to different systems, different star systems and figuring out where is the weak point here? And let's go ahead and just let's attack. And there's just a lot of issue with the Klingon. So Cisco wants constant reports on, he wants to be briefed every single day about what's happening with the Klingon situation. situation. He dismisses the meeting, and as they leave, Worf says, may I speak with you for a moment

to Odo? And Odo's like, oh, this is probably about quark, isn't it? And Warf is still, he's talking about agreements to acquire a Tolonian microscanter and all these different things about Tylonian crystals, which are illegal outside of the home world. So again, Warf is not listening to what Sisko told him and what Odo told him before already. He's still latching on to the fact that he's... Trying to solve this crime, this smuggling operation. Which is funny in this scene because Odo's responses are all very brief. Oh, really? That's interesting.

And it's purposeful. He doesn't say yes. He doesn't say no. He goes, mm-hmm. Right, right. He doesn't lie. He just simply... Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Exactly. I liked it. I thought it was... Yeah, Odo seemed very restrained, and it did catch my attention. because usually Voto's got an opinion about it. Yes. And he's very restrained with Worf.

Oh, yeah. Trying just to, you know, move on. Yeah. And not get into a discussion about it. Right. Yeah. It was good. And I'm going to come back to the scene a little bit later about something that I want to bring up.

But that's later. Great. Okay. We go into the lab next, I think. That outdoor picnic table lab, she was working at. He's got rock samples there. We see a guard walk by. Another nice shot from Renee, using that guard to sort of bring us over and, you know, panning off the guard.

And then the guard walks by. But we see Bashir and Miles are both working. They're secretly preparing a weapon. Miles has been working on it. They have kind of a secret whispery conversation. And then once they check in with each other, Bashir says, good work, chief. Very loudly, very publicly. Good work, chief.

Keep this up. You may make a fine. officer someday. I love this exchange. And Brian's like, thank you, Lieutenant. Coming from you, that means a lot to me. This was very, very kind of a little stiff and formal and very public for the benefit of, of their guards. Right. But again, if we had had more of a setup of the hierarchy of the military or of Starfleet, then this would have played, I think, a little bit better. Yeah, it felt like a one-off joke rather than essential to the theme of this episode. Yeah, I agree.

Well, that was very funny. And then Bashir goes back to work. And we see a Gem Hadar looking over this cable, this tube that Miles has been working on that has that weapon set in the end. He sort of accidentally sets off this weapon. It hits a guard in the leg. They grab O'Brien. they start choking him and then

Brian it's interesting to me O'Brien tries to make an escape he doesn't ever refer back to Bashir it's his ass that he's saving there's no sense

that you know teamwork teamwork doing this together he just tries to take off and then eventually of course not eventually but pretty quickly he gets caught he gets caught

and they start choking him and we go to commercial in the old days off of him getting choked we think this uh this jemadar and does he struggle if you look at him he doesn't really struggle he's not really struggling he's a hero he's a hero you can go ahead and choke me look at he doesn't he doesn't if somebody had their hands here go back and look at if somebody had their hands on your throat what would be the first thing you would do you would put your hands your hands on their hands on their hands to try to He was just laying there. Well, maybe he was so, okay, Armand, maybe he was so stunned by, because the first

move that happened was he's thrown like a rag doll. He's like literally just thrown up in the air and slammed WWE style onto this picnic table. So he's like, I just thought maybe he's really shocked. Maybe he's knocked out. I would agree with that, Garrett, if he didn't have the time of the commercial to figure out that he was being choked. And we came back from the commercial that his hands should be up there.

Okay, fine. And Geronigar says, stay where you are, release him. I said release him. I wish they had said, that's an order or something. That's an order. Yeah.

Something to remind us of the hierarchy. Right. And again, with all due respect to Scott, who I really think is a wonderful actor, he didn't have the gravitas. He didn't have the military to make that an order.

to sound like an order that needed to be respected. It sounded like he was begging. Please release him as opposed to that's an order. Yeah. I mean, there is one point, there is that one scene that's coming up where he does say, if you disobey me, you know the consequences.

So that's the only time he ever establishes his superiority or his higher rank. Everything else is, you're right. Stay where you are, release him. But nothing like, that's an order until that one time, Which is in the future. We don't get that yet. If Picard or or anybody or said that stop it, everybody would go, hmm, you know,

because of the quality that the actor brings to the role. Yeah, okay. If Kate said stop it, you would stop. Okay. Got it. Well, we go to commercial, we come back. Finally, the guard releases Miles and they take him back to his cell. Julian checks on this wounded guard, his knee is destroyed.

He needs a surgical kit. He needs, he's got to replace the knee. It's blown to bits. And another guard goes to kill him. He takes out a weapon and he's going to shoot him in the head. And we learn that that's the rules, that, you know, the rule is, I think, Mesoclon says, you know the rule. If the death of one makes us stronger than he dies.

So that's the Gemha-Dar rules. Again, back to hierarchy and structure and rules, but Bashir says no, and Garanagar agrees, don't kill him. Doesn't he say these are Vorda rules? He says these are, yeah, we came here to be free of the Vorda, he says. And I found that to be very good writing. Yeah. These guys are innately in reverence to the founders. So if something's gone wrong, it can't be the founder's mistake.

it's the Vorda who work for the founders who are not gods and therefore we can blame it on the Vorda but God forbid, pardon the pun, but God forbid that we should blame it on the founders. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's an interesting detail, but you're right, it is good writing. But it's also, you know, a lot of times when you see films or TV shows where people are like, oh gosh, you know, he's wounded,

he can't come along, we've got to leave him or we've got to take. them out or something. The person who's wounded never wants to be shot or left, you know, or taken out. But here, the one who's shot, Mesoclon says, if I cannot stand, I am useless. So they already know the rules. It's sort of like he's like, yep, go ahead. They're accepting. They're accepting the death immediately. Mesoclon's ready to die. And that's just part of the, part of the process. It's the norm for them. Garanagar does convince them, it seems, to get back to work and don't kill him. And we cut to, to, Corks Cafe?

Shouldn't there have been a reaction from the other Jim Hedars saying what? I thought there wasn't one? I don't remember seeing one either. It should be like, what? What the heck are we doing right now? So that the idea that if they don't find the white, that they're going to go after this captain, there should be a degradation, degradation of the command structure for the Jam Hedar.

They watch their commander do things they shouldn't do. He shouldn't do. He's breaking the rules, yeah. Speaking of breaking rules, Worf sneaks into quarks with some secret code. I thought wrong. How does he have that code? I thought wrong.

He has the pin. He puts the pin code in, there's no way he would have the pin code. No. And the script actually says, I have it in my script that I have here. that he actually breaks in. He breaks in, he breaks in with a, I don't know, it's not a crowbar, but he breaks in.

But here, Worf just punches a clode and then he gets in. And I went, well, that doesn't, and again, I'm thinking, did Renee not want to shoot Worf breaking in, or did Michael say, no, I wouldn't break into anything. I would just know the code. And I mean, that's quite possible. Yeah. And I thought, who's responsible for that?

It would have been better to physically use his clinging strength or something to break in. Yeah, but just to know the code, how would he know the code? How would he know it? No. How would he know the code? Exactly. Yeah, but also, Robby. Go ahead.

No, I was going to say, Robbie brought up a point. Rom takes care of all the locks, and he's a genius. We've talked about. This is like a multi-layer, multiple layers of encryption to get that. Toto tried to break in once before with that big lock on the door. And he couldn't crack it. No. No.

So I don't buy it. Okay. Wow. Good catch. Worf sneaks in. And he watches from upstairs, watches Quark. Quark's cleaning up. We get a little time dissolve.

Cork's got his feet up on the bar or on a stool. And then he hears someone at the front door. Let's, let's our, what was he called? Shady alien. The shady alien. He lets the shady alien in. And we see Quark examine a pouch. Yeah.

He looks at it with an eyepiece. And Worf has enough evidence here. Worf is, he leaves. He's off to talk to Odo. He goes to the security office. He's mad as hell. Tells Odo that he saw Quark inspecting these crystals. He should have arrested him.

And Odo finally loses his. in the scene. He says, I'm not interested in your opinion of my job performance. Now, I suggest you attend to your own duties. Stop interfering with mine. He's laying down the law. Yeah. This is my job. You are not security here on this station. Right. And he was nice before. Now he's not. Yeah, he's like, this is the deal. Follow him. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was a, it was an interesting scene. And also multi-layered in some ways. And maybe I'm reading into it. No, I think you're right. I totally agree. with that it's ira and the writers and uh saying um this is not tng yeah this is deep space nine we have

different rules here we have a different world here this doesn't operate by your rules you know we're totally different and and cisco will have a speech to that effect but but it's them saying no this doesn't work your way this is a different show we you can't expect it to be the same and it isn't yeah yep my i i i love liked it. I liked the multi-layer of that brief but very strong scene between the two of them. I thought it was great. We go back to our picnic table lab and Bashir's giving Garanagar a full scan. He's amazed at his genetics. His body's just making the right amount of white to survive. This is when Bashir shares that there was a Gem Hadar child on the station that they had to take care of. And

And Geronigar's like, oh, wow, I would love to see you guys, humans try to control a Jemadar child. And Bashir admits, you know, we couldn't. All he wanted to do was fight and kill if it wasn't for Odo. I don't know what we would have done. And this is where Geronigar says, Odo's a founder, right? And he talks about the founders here. Well, he talks about how he's never seen a founder. He's like, I've never even seen a founder.

They're like, yeah, they're like, God. Yeah, they're like gods, basically. And the only problem is our gods don't talk to us. And they don't wait for us. And after death, they just want us to fight and die for them. That's it. I thought this was a really interesting scene because of that piece of information that Bashir says, your body is producing the exact amount of catcher cell white you need to survive.

But I can't find where it's coming from. And I thought, man, are they going to delve deeper into this? And they never do. And it's just like, I want to know, I want to know. How, how, how? Yeah. It would have been nice to resolve that story in some way before the end of this episode to know that, oh, maybe that's possible that there are other Gem Hadar that might, in the future, we might meet that will have this ability to detach from the Vorda and the fighting.

Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, we don't get an answer on that. No. Yeah, we go back inside the caves next. and Bashir's talking to O'Brien in here. He basically tells O'Brien I think Geronigar is a good guy. And I want to try to help him. And Miles is not convinced.

He feels completely the opposite. And but Bashir says if we can figure this out, maybe the other guys will be good guys too. Like if this one guy, Garanagar is a good guy, maybe they all have that potential. I've got to, I've got to do this. And Miles says, there's no way. It's too risky. And this is where Bashir pulls rank. And he orders him to go get this biospectral phase discriminator from the runabout sensor array and pulls rank here.

And O'Brien's like, whoa, oh, yes, sir. That's his only response. Yeah. Is this a scene that ends with them turned apart from each other? Like one's face? Yes. This is the scene where that Renee staged it that way. I do like that ending.

I like the image. I didn't like the. timing of it. Oh. Because when you cut to that shot, we're on Bashir's back. Miles is facing away. And then Bashir makes this very conscious turn away. And I thought, it's a little too forced? Forced. If he had said, yes, sir, and on Bashir, you saw him start to leave and then stop, and then you cut to the tableau. And they're just both in the position. Oh, right. It felt to me, like, you know, we finished the moment and then we have to play this sort of dramatic,

I'm going to turn my back to you moment. So all it needed was a slight tweak, a little tweak. Maybe editorial, maybe the editorially speaking. Yeah, I would have cut around that self-conscious turn away. Yeah. Personally. Yeah, but it's still a nice ending shot, though. Sorry, go ahead.

Very nice. Would this scene have played better? if in the scene in the runabout before they crashed if we saw two good friends just joking about rank or and changing the quarters and what you were about to say that we're better people like you

if we saw them as good friends they were friends on the runabout I don't know about it but even more so if Renee had asked them to to play it as they did the drunken scene in a yeah yeah yeah so that these guys are really good friends

and yes they're of different rank but they're really very close so that when this happens you go oh wow the relationship the friendship is just taken a huge hit yeah yeah yeah no awkwardness lose the awkwardness in that first scene yeah that's right even though it was funny there was some moments of the awkwardness

being funny right it it didn't land this bond that's you know unbreakable bond instead of bishir going oh Oh, you want me to be a man? As opposed, oh, you want me to be a man? Right. You know, and they're laughing about that. No, you know.

And they're just having camaraderie. They've finished a trip. They're on their way home. Yeah. They're just two friends having a good time. And then this would be the antithesis to that. Could that have been accomplished through editing, though? Could they have edited that scene a little bit?

If you have it on tape, if you have it already on film, that they have that take, then you could do that. Yeah. Yeah. But you have to have it in the editors lab in order to get it. Right. But also, I mean, the way it was the way that we watched it,

there's a lot of space where that awkwardness happens in between their lines that towards the end about the man. You could have pasted it up editorially a little bit, but I don't, I think you would have had to act it the way that the Roman's describing. And I don't think they acted that. They acted a bit of awkwardness that would have been hard to cut around. Okay.

Got it. Here's the comment in the script where the two of them face away from each other. Off the moment as the two friends find themselves on opposite sides. So he literally interpreted that with the staging, looking opposite directions. I sometimes, I don't know if I've mentioned this before, I have a book up on my bookshelf as part of my directing collection of books. But it's not a directing book. It's called Dream Symbols. and it has things that you might have in your dream,

like a bird or a clock or a burned out light. And it describes what those images, those symbols are in our subconscious. And sometimes when I was directing, I don't do it as much anymore, but I used to look at how a scene was described. Either a character says something or the description says they find themselves

in opposite world. And I go to the dream book and I try to find a symbol of that idea of feeling, you know, abandoned or lost or something. And I would have props or set deck put those items the symbol. Maybe it's a painting on the wall or maybe it's a, you know, a light that's burned out or something. And I try to incorporate that for the audience subconsciously to sort of get these symbols of what the themes and the moments were.

and I'd work that in to you know as you're painting the picture it's part in the picture yeah so it's a it's a way of taking those ideas like like rene did with this opposite find themselves in opposite worlds he he did it with staging but I would do it with staging or with props or set deck or something like that or maybe give the actor some business when they come in the room they try to turn a light switch on it doesn't come on then they go on with the scene but we know that and it wasn't really even scripted but it was just something on theme that we know that they've lost their energy or they've lost their will or you know yeah it's fun to be creative that way i'm sure ren was has lots of things like that in this but he didn't have dorn busting open the door he just

i wish he had done something active we go to the rubicon oh brian's trying to pull this uh this thing this tube or something out of the out of the floor board um it's a scene where o'brien and this gem hadar do not like each other a rock's haral they don't trust each other they don't like each other he gets this cylinder out the gemmodar doesn't trust him he says put it down on the floor that's when miles takes this cable that he had detached sticks it into the opening and it sparks the panel behind the gem hadar distracts him long enough that miles can jump on the little transported pad, yeah, beams outside and escapes. He takes his tricorder, looks around, and then runs off.

So he's escaped. Okay. I like the line. Arakterol says, even if you had killed the guard, you never would have reached the runabout. And Brian's like, well, I guess we'll never know that. And then Arakteral says, I know. That was the bad.

I know. There's no way. I would have killed you is what he was saying. But I thought it. was funny that as he's working on that thing, that floorboard is up. And that little piece of, you just see, it says, transporter online in red LED kind of lights. It was like, wait a minute, why aren't the guy can read, dude. He can read English. But it's also for, it's also 400 years in the future. Why is that little thing popping up right there? That's not a console. That's not a monitor.

it's just like a piece of a bulkhead. It's like the side wall. The side wall that happened to say flashing light, transporter working. I forgot about that. I started laughing. It was so hard. It was distracting.

Yes. I was like, what's going on? And if I may, Robbie brought up something that I just suddenly struck me. How can he read English? How can he understand English? He doesn't have a con badge.

Oh, that's true. I think the con badge actually translates for the other people around you, too. Oh, okay. Like if you, you know what I'm saying? If you don't have a con badge, but if the other person doesn't have a comb badge, if I have one on and I'm talking, the gentleman is going to understand exactly what I'm saying. Because it's translating for the person speaking, yeah. That's a tricky one to track, though, because sometimes, you know, Starfleet or, you know, our actors are taken hostage by a alien enemy and they're put into some prison uniform. Right.

Do they still have their combatch? Do they let them keep the comm badge? Because how are you talking to each other? It's a bit of a mushy rule. Yeah. So when I brought up that little message that we saw, it wasn't so much that Jemadar could read that, because I'm not sure if he could, to be perfectly honest.

Like I know that maybe not. Maybe not. But the fact that that even existed that that message came up on part of the, you know, the wall or the pad on the bulkhead. Oh, everything that you read is off of a monitor, off your padda-da-da. off of it. It's always something with a little screen. You know, you can see it. But then that thing was just lit up right there. Because if you think about that, that's a

floorboard. If that thing comes on and the floorboard is back in place, no one's going to read that. No one's going to know it's working. So that to me was very funny. I thought, wow. Look at that. They shoehorn that one in there. Armin, do you have the script for that scene in the runabout? Does it say that O'Brien's working and we see a monitor shows or something? Let's see. O'Brien goes to a panel on the floor near the transporter pad, near the transporter pad,

and pulls the panel open. He picks up a tricorder and begins working with the wires and circuits inside the panel. Checking the readings on the tricorder. Eric Terrell stands watch over him. I'm going to skip the dialogue. O'Brien begins working. Eric Terrell satisfies himself that everything is secure for the moment and then considers O'Brien as he works. Your escape is flawed.

O'Brien glances at Eric Tauvel, but he's not too interested in chatting with this guy. And then skipping close on Tricorder as O'Brien works with controls. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's in the script. It is. Post on panel near the transporter. Insert, a small display lights up saying, Transporter power online. So it's in the script. Wow.

They should have put a monitor down in that bulkhead. They should have put like a pad, you know, a pad that is supposed to have words on it, not the structure. On his tricorder. It would have said it on his tricorder. You could have an insert of him looking down as his transporter active on the tricorder itself. Yeah, that would have made sense. Not on a piece of bulkhead underneath the pad, under the floorboard. It's just awkward.

They did what the script said. They did. They did. They literally did it. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Okay. All right.

Well, O'Brien's escaped. Yeah. He's escaped. We go back to our picnic table lab. Bashir cannot find anything. He thinks maybe Garoniagar was never addicted at all, maybe. Maybe he was getting the white earlier, but he didn't need it. And that's when our Rokhtaral arrives.

He says O'Brien's escaped. And he thinks Julian knew all along that he's been lying all along, both of them. He doesn't trust him. He thinks Geronigar has gotten weak and soft now that he's not addicted anymore. He says if being cured is going to make you like, make me like you, Garanagar, that I don't want this cure. And he says, I'm not listening to you anymore. You're not my commanding officer. It's over.

Yeah, you're weak. You're soft. You're inferior. So he leaves. And Bashir says in the same, he promises that he will stay here. and find a cure, but he tells Gronigar, you've got to go find O'Brien first. Right. I'll stay here.

And obey my Hi, he keeps my Hi, he gives his word. He says, I will not try to escape. I give you my word. Yeah. On the Hippocratic oath. I give you my word. Yeah. But they don't even say that.

Does he ever say the hippocritical oath? No, no. No, no. But it is. To the credit of the actors, is implied. And the title of the script is Hippocratic Oath. So it is,

and we've seen this in Bashir before, he's not pragmatic. What's the opposite of pragmatic? Idealistic. He's idealistic. And so this is what a doctor does and by God this is what I'm going to do. Yeah, well he stays. He gives an oath, gives his word.

And off of that touching moment, we go back to quarks. To quarks. We're in quarks. It's after. After hours, no one's there except for Quark, and of course, our shady alien is there. The exchange is about to happen, and it's going to be this very rare and illegal Tolonian crystal in exchange for this bag of latinum. And right before the exchange happens, warp, warp, I called him warp. He warps in.

Yeah, Wharf warps in. And Worf comes in and says, okay, you're under arrest and I'm going to bust you and da-da-da-da. And then out of the blue, the bag of latinum turns out. First, I turn to the bag and say, what's going on here? To the bag. I say it to the bag. Did you actually turn to the bag? Yeah.

You're asking about, do you ever have to turn your head? In this one, I do. You did. I turn to the bag and go, what's happening here? If you look at the scene, that's what happens. What's happening here? And it's to the bag. It's not to anyone else.

It's to the bag. Okay. All right. That's when, so you're telling me that you already knew as for that Odo was. Oh, absolutely. You were helping Odo with the setup. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And that's why that's important is if you don't see that, then you don't know the quark's in on it. I did not know that. I did not know that until you brought that up. Well, he lets him go. I figured, yeah, because Odo says all I'm going to get is the middleman. He doesn't say I'm going to arrest Quark and the middleman. Right.

So clearly. So he's part of it. it then. Yeah. Okay. Got it. So Odo does turn from the bag into himself. He's pissed off. He grabs the crystals and grabs the shady other and takes him away.

Yeah. And Worf is left. Yes. I guess the way that Cork, that Odo asked, Cork, or requested that gem, and the way how reluctant you were to give that gem away. That made me feel like you weren't part of it. You see what I'm saying? So that's what confused me.

I understand. But that's just part of Cork Snake. If I've got a little extra, I'll take it. I'm going to keep it. I'll take it. But scene 42, new angle, optical, quark stands, outrage. He looks down at the bag of latinum and wharf's hand and strangely speaks to it. What's going on here? The bag begins to morph.

Okay. I'm only saying I did what I was told. You did. You did. You did. And you should have gotten that crystal for it as a bonus. You should have. If I could have, I would have.

I know. You tried. This is the dance that Odo and Quark play. Yeah. That they can work together, but Odo's got his eye on Quark. Always making sure that he doesn't, you know, go too far. Yeah. Maybe Renee, the director, should have gotten a better or closer shot of me addressing the bag

so that Garrett would not have been a conclusion. Yes, because it was so far back that I... It was a big wide shot. I didn't track it at all. You know what I'm saying? It did to me, it just looked like you were like, you know, what's, you know how some people will say, what's going on? They're just kind of look in random directions.

What's happening? And so I did not know that that was happening because of that. And you're right. If it was a tighter shot, I would have. And I didn't catch the line to the bag, but I did catch at the end when Odo lets you off the hook. I was like, oh, he must have been working with him. Okay.

So even you didn't catch him talking to the bag either. And that's because it's a big shot. So maybe Renee should have had a. closer shot. A tighter shot. Yeah. Yeah. Well, O'Brien, I did not miss O'Brien trying to hide his tricorder under some leaves. He put his tricorder under some leaves. The Gem Hadar trying to track him. They kind of split up. One of them shoots the tricorder. He finds it under the leaves, gets a reading, shoots it. And that's when he shoots it and gets thumped in a face with a branch. So obviously O'Brien set up this whole booby trap. The old branch in the face gag.

guerrilla tactics. The old guerrillas. Yes. He's been at war. Yes. He's done this before. Yes. We cut back to our picnic table lab and Bashir's there working on this experiment

when O'Brien comes in, he's got the Jamadar's weapon. He says, we got to escape. Bashir says, no, he's not going. Yeah. I'm just to stop for a second. Yeah. I'm looking at the script and I realize, wow, this page is not in the episode. the very thing that you, we were just discussing about,

how do we know what's happening here? Shady Alien says, will someone tell me what's going on here? Quark says, which is not in the episode, it's called a setup, a sting, a charade. One that I would have seen through in a minute, by the way. Worf says, you were working together against my better judgment, Quark says.

I kept my part of the agreement, and so I expect you to keep yours and drop all charges of conspiring to receive illegal goods. Odo acknowledges that. And then the alien miserably reaches for a drink. Quark says, it's not a special occasion anymore. And then we go back to what's in the episode. Why didn't you tell me what you were doing?

So it was very clear from the day. They cut all gone. Oh, wow. I'm glad you caught that. I just saw that. I'm glad you caught that because I like that. I wish we had seen that. I'm sure you filmed it as well.

Yeah, I'm sure we did. Unless again, it gets this blue pages, who knows, who knows? But that would have been crystal clear. If that dialogue was left in, I would have known exactly what was happening. So the people who don't know, I've referred to it now twice, I'm assuming everybody knows. But we get different colored pages as the week progresses as the episode goes on. They revise things. And we revise things.

And some lines are added. Some lines are taken away. It's possible those lines were taken away in a golden rod, which is usually later on. So that's possible. But there it is in the blue page. I'm going to ask, I want to ask both of you, do you guys know the memorized order of colors? No, no. I just had a problem now trying to remember.

Because am I right to say it goes to like 35 different colors? I mean, it's a lot. It goes to a lot of colors. And I'll be honest, these days, most production offices do not print out colored pages. They print out the words. At the top, it will say blue revisions, yellow revisions, green revisions, but they won't use the colored paper. You've got to go to the machine and switch all the colored paper.

And a lot of people are using digital now. So they use, they just, you know, so you see the revision and the word up there, but you don't actually get printed colors anymore. I haven't seen printed colors in a long time. Thank you. And the dots, are the stars still use? Stars are still, yes, yes. Stars indicate in the script that something's been.

changed. Yeah, the stars will be right along the side of the page next to the line that was changed or omitted or added or something. Okay. We're still with Bashir not wanting to go and O'Brien's wanting to go, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Is this where he destroys the equipment? Yes, and so in one last final, because it looks like O'Brien's going to leave. He's just going to leave Bashir, but he kind of turns and fires at the piece of equipment that Bashir's been working on and absolutely just disintegrates it so it's not usable anymore and he looks at him's like well now you got to go you're coming with me because he doesn't have to go he could have said yeah he gave his word that's true that is true he gave his word i'm not going um he doesn't have to go yeah there wasn't

time to have the discussion but there should have been there he gave his word yeah and he's an idologue he he should have okay i can't finish that experiment but i did give my word i wouldn't escape right yeah so he broke his word well i think armin though you make a good point there's not time because geronigar comes back in he shimmers right back in before they could have had it but that would have been a nice even a couple of lines just to say i i don't care i gave my word my right i made an oath to stay here and help him i'm not leaving him i'm not leaving even with you. That's right. That would have been a nice moment, heroic moment in a way. But yeah, Garanagard comes back in. He is mad. He tells them both to move, takes him to the

runabout. Arachterol comes out of the ship and he is wound up. He's mad, but he's glad that Garanagar, you know, seems to have chosen the side of the Gem Hadar. It's like glad to see that, you know, what does he say? I shouldn't have doubted you. And he says, should we kill them ourselves or let the others do it and garranagar says i'll do the killing and he shoots his buddy the jambhadar shoots a rock tarol doesn't make any sense doesn't make any sense i'm sorry yeah it's a it's a sudden turn isn't it because now he's decided we're all going down this bachar can't help us so he shoots a rock tarol and lets the humans go why are they all there they're all there because he wants to help his men he wants to help his men he has you know and this is what

o'brien's going to talk about in a moment um he wants to he could have disabled him without having to shoot him i mean shoot him but not not kill him right stunned him or something stunned him uh hit him in the knee uh done something um to kill your own man after all we've been told that that's this guy wants to do for his men, that was a little hard for me to digest. And especially the next moment, he says, Geronger says to O'Brien, you were a soldier, right? And O'Brien says, yeah, I have been. He goes, you explain to him what it's like being a soldier.

Right. And he leaves. And then O'Brien says, he's the commander. They trust him. He can't leave them. Well, then why did he just kill his own guy? That's, yeah, he's going to go put the rest of them out of their misery, in essence. But this is what bothered.

me is that Geranagar, when he survived, he literally ran out of white and then something happened. So in essence, he could just sit with his men and say, I'm just going to sit with you guys. I'll hang out here. And when we run out of white, let's see what happens. Because maybe that was the key. You have to get, you have to go past it. Go past.

Yes. Work through it. And maybe something about the stinkiness, the hotness of that planet keeps him from actually dying. Right. Who knows? Yeah. Well, they head off. We go to the captain's office next.

Cisco's working on his alien clock. They head off. Yes. How did they get to the planet? In the runabout. Right. It's in the jungle that got damaged. In the jungle, that got damaged.

How did they get off? How'd they get off the planet? Isn't the runabout still damaged? No one has fixed it. Yeah, nobody's, no. We're skipping over that part. We're going to skip over that. We're not going to talk about that.

at all we're going to the captain's office now okay as we do i've done tv before yes absolutely we'll just keep going nobody'll notice nobody'll notice in the in the captain's office yeah he's working on his clock which i love that alien clock yeah we've seen that before in a prior episode wharf comes in uh he wants to confess to cisco that he hindered odo's investigation cisco's like i know i already know about it he says you know word gets around DS9 is not a starship this is where Cisco gives his advice to wharf he says you know quark has his own set of rules just like everybody else on this station they have different rules than Starfleet and we have to all learn to fit in together he says you're going to you're going to get it it's just going to take some time and they have a little coffee toast at the end of this which I thought was cute or a little it looked like coffee to me like glass coffee Ractagino, maybe. Is that what Ractagino is a coffee?

Yeah, Ractagino. Yeah. Cappuccino. So maybe, yeah. I like how Cicco says, let's just say D.S.9 has more shades of gray. And Cork definitely is a shade of gray. And then I started thinking, oh, my gosh, we could have a Ferengue romance novel called 50 Shades of Quark is what we can have.

It's just, it's about Quark and his love lives all throughout his life. I think those have already been written, by the. I think they have too. Yes, there's some fan fiction out there. Oh, yes. It exists. It's quite risque. 50 shades.

Usually it's me and Odo is what that is. Really? You two? Oh, my. Interesting. We do cut back to the Rubicon, the runabout again. They're back through the one. I just want to go back.

Sorry, I want to go back to shades are great. Yes. I love that line because, as I've said several times during this podcast, it's a different show. It's a different show. You know, don't expect, don't expect it to be the same. It's not the same rules at all. And I'm flattered as the actor who played Quark that Cisco stands up for him because that doesn't happen very often.

It doesn't. You're right. And I'm flattered that he admits to that. I wish somebody would tell Kira that. She's a memo. But I'm flattered. I'm flattered. Good.

So back to the Rubicon. They whoosh back through the warm. armhole, they return. Miles says to Bashir, you can go ahead and bring me up on charges. There's definitely tension in this scene. Unlike the first scene where they were laughing and awkwardly sort of joking with each other, this is heavier for sure. Big time. Miles says, you can bring me up on charges. Bashir is hurt and disappointed that he disobeyed his command. And Miles explains that it was more important to save your life and he hopes he'll understand that someday he tries to frame it that way to him yeah and Bashir says well tonight's supposed to be

our weekly dark game and O'Brien says don't worry I don't feel much like playing either and there's an awkward silence and then Bashir says maybe in a few days so there's yeah we know they're going to get over this they're going to make up they're going to make up and I didn't like that you didn't I didn't I I would have said not a few days i i would have i don't know what i would have said but i would have said you know i'll think about when we play again uh i i think it was just too easy it denigrates the the disobeying that happened in the middle of to say oh give me a couple of days and i'll get over it yeah it lowers the stakes it lowers the stakes i would have preferred

for Bashir to have said something like I'm not sure that we could play again I'm not a writer so I'm not sure we could play again not in a few days not in a few days that makes it sound like they had a lover spat and it'll be over in a moment

maybe they could end without without even without Bashir saying anything okay so so Bashir says tonight's supposed to be our weekly dark game and then we know from the way he says it that he's not into it right And that's when O'Brien says, don't worry. I don't feel much like playing either.

And don't, nothing else, you know, just that conflict right there, right? We don't know what's going to happen. Are they going to play darts again? And you're right. It's too easy for him to say, maybe in a day or two, you know. Is this the scripted ending in that script? I'm just curious. Let's see.

Let's see. I'm curious if anything was changed. Those are the kind of things you get. Now I'm getting into white pages, which is even further back. No, Bashir says maybe in a. a few days. Maybe in a few days. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, there it is. There it is. We're done. Let's talk about theme. Let's talk about theme or lesson of this episode. My theme, my lesson for this is sometimes you have to trust your gut and not just follow the rules.

And I think Gronigar was doing that. Bashir was doing that in some level. Even Miles was doing that. Everybody was doing that. And for better or worse, people were following their gut sometimes and not the rules. And yeah, it's a judgment call, I guess. I like that. It's that gray area that Cisco talks about.

Right. That's right. Yep. Okay. Armand, mine is very similar. Do not always accept everything you have been taught. reevaluate based on facts. Mm-hmm.

Current facts. Mm-hmm. Yeah, mine's kind of a mix of both of yours, I guess. Yeah, you need to do your due diligence out there because a lot of times you're fed a certain type of information that you think is the truth, but you need to figure out what really... You need to know every single angle, right? And a lot of people don't do that due diligence.

Our Patreon poll winner for theme slash moral of the episode is submitted by Faroza Meta. Sometimes we need a friend. to save us from ourselves. Oh, I like that. Very insightful. I like that. Yeah, yeah. Nice, Feroza.

Good job, Feroza. First of all, I just want to say thank you to Armin again for joining us on this one. Yeah, sure. That was fun. Yeah, very, very fun time. Next time we will be recapping and discussing the episode In Discretion. And that will be with Armin and special guest, Mark Alimmo. Mark will have a lot to say.

Yes. Yes. Yes. For all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material for everyone else. We'll see you next time. Bye.