The Delta Flyers - Homestead

Episode Date: July 24, 2023

This episode was recorded in June 2023, before the SAG Strike.The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Homestead. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars. This week they are joined by Ethan Phillips!Homestead:The Delta Flyer crash-lands on an asteroid, where the crew find a group of Talaxians who are being ousted from their home by miners excavating the land for its mineral resources.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, Bryan Fuller, John Espinosa, & Ariana DelbarAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Daniel de Rooy, Chris Knapp, Michelle Z, Janet K Harlow, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, E, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Jenna Appleton, Alicia Kulp, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Adm. Bill "Seoulman" Yu, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Zachary Upton, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Mark Lacey, Andrew Duncan, Lauren Wolffe, David Buck, Jeremy McGraw, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Matt Norris & Stephanie LeeAnd our Producers:James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Aaron Ogitis, Ryan Benoit, Megan Chowning, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Will Forg, Ryan Tomei, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Christopher Berry, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Akash Patel, Jennifer Vaughn, Cameron Wilkins, Michael Butler, Ken McCleskey, Walkerius Logos, Abby Chavez, & Preston MeyerThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our...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

Hi, everybody. It's Robbie and Garrett here. We just want to let you know that the SAG AFRA strike against the studios has happened. And we just wanted to assure everyone that this was recorded before the strike began. And we want to stress that we fully support SAG AFRA and the WGA in getting a fair contract. Agreed. Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Voyager actor, Garrett Wong, whose mother was once accepted to the Taiwan School of Drama when she was young but decided not to go because of her father's objections. And myself, your favorite helmsman, Robert Duncan McNeil, aka RDM, Robbie McDunk, Robbie D. You can get the full version of this podcast.

Don't forget if you sign up to patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers, Garrett. Tell me about your mom was interested in drama. I never knew this. Oh, my gosh. Okay. First of all, I just want to ask you. Does anyone actually call you Robbie McDunk?

Do you have any friends that say Robbie McDunk? Yeah, on the set of Chuck, yes, Josh, who played Morgan, Chuck's best friend, called me McDunk, Robbie McDunk all the time. All right. So there is somebody. Okay, because there's nobody on the Voyager set that said Robbie McDunk to you. Everyone said Robbie, pretty much. I get Robbie D a lot, Robbie D. I get from Ethan Phillips.

That came from him. I get RDM a lot. And I didn't know that you didn't like Dunkin' Donut. You don't like Rob. You don't like Robby Duncan Donut. I don't like, no. No, because I wrote that on a piece of black tape. And with the silver sharpened, I put it on your trailer, on your name once. Yeah. It's trauma from my childhood being teased and bullied.

I should have known better. That was horrible with me. A mean, mean boys that called me Duncan Donuts. I hate that. Okay, let's get back to my mom. Your mom. Let me explain this. school of drama. So here, this is what happens, Robbie. In Taiwan, when you graduate from high school, you take a college entrance exam. The exam is similar to like an SAT or an ACT, what we take in the United States of America. You know, there's a math portion. There's a, there's all these

different portions. But what's different from the SAT and the ACT is that this Taiwan college entrance exam test also has a section which sort of that is, you know, it's a, It weighs your creative abilities, your artistic side as well. Right. So that's something that you don't see in the SAT and ACT. And then, depending on your scores, it's almost like everyone is like. It's like a placement exam. It's like you take the test and they say, okay, here's what you should do.

Right. So the guy that scores perfect on the math becomes the number one pick or the number one selection to the Taiwan School of Engineering. You see what I'm saying? And it was almost like sports teams. Like depending on your performance on that test, you'd be first, second, third, fourth, fifth, in the math, right? And they print this in the national newspaper. Like they publish it? They publish it.

So that everyone knows where everyone went to. So my mom is looking and she's looking and she didn't see her name anywhere. And then, you know, I think a brother or sister go, there's your name. And she was the number one pick to the Taiwan School of Drama. Oh, my God. Number one, not like, you know, 15th, but number one. Had she done plays and things like that before? No, but she's always been, like I always say like my personality and my, how I am is very much her, you know, and you've met her in person.

She's, she can talk. You know what I'm saying? She can be a character. So, yeah, so no, she never, she hadn't done any theater, anything like that. But this entrance exam basically focused on that, that part that focused on the artistic ability, she really outshunned everybody else. And they're like, that's the one. And so she was kind of excited. She could have been a star.

She could have been. And when she told me this story when I was younger, I said, so why didn't you do it, mom? She said, oh, you know, my father, your grandfather said, no, absolutely not over my dead body. Because in Chinese culture, when it comes to, you know, respectability, occupations that you could choose, the number one, the most respected occupation is teacher or professor. So if you're an instructor or professor, you're the most respected in China over every other job. Wow. Okay. Then it keeps going down, down, down, down. The bottom tier is merchant. So businessman is the bottom tier. And then below the, there's not even a rung below businessman. It's just the dirt. That's where actors reside in Chinese, you know, traditionally. So this is, you know, in my grandfather's mind and the old Chinese way of thinking, this is not a respectable job. So he was like, no, you can't do this. Well, what that reminds me of is when I lived in New York City and was in the theater community there, there was a club down off of kind of midtown.

Anyway, it doesn't matter. Old part of New York City. There was a brownstone club called the Players Club. And I didn't know about this, but I went to an opening night party there one time at the Players Club. And you walk into this brownstone. They own the whole thing. And it's kind of like the Soho House or something, but it's been around since the early 1800s.

Wow. And it was a club for theater people because hotels and restaurants and places wouldn't allow them in. Wouldn't allow them. So if you were coming in to perform a play, you couldn't get a nice place to stay. So the Players Club created this place

where you could have a great meal. You could rent a room upstairs. you could stay you were welcome you weren't treated like dirt and that club the players club is still around in new york city there's you know edwin booth and and john wilkes booth you know posters or playbills are up on the wall like really old school sure american actors i didn't know that there was that disrespect or discrimination against actors in this country as well i had no clue so you couldn't go to a hotel if you were an actor yeah nope don't want you here wow so when she told me that grandpa you know basically vetoed her going to this drama school,

I still said, that's crazy. Like, why didn't you just say, no, set your foot down? And you could have gone and you would have been this huge mega star. That would have been a family tradition. Yes, and she said, yes, but if I had done that, I would be married to Jackie Chan and you would not be here. That's true. That's true.

I was like, okay, that is a valid point. That's true. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. But isn't that funny that that creative spark was passed down to you in some way, genetically or whatever, and it expressed itself in your career and your life. So that's awesome. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, thanks for bringing that. That's a fun one to talk about.

Most of the credits you brought up, I'm kind of embarrassed. I'm like, oh, not that one again. You know, that's a cool. This one's a good one to talk about. Yeah. Yeah. It's very cool. All right.

So this week's episode is Homestead. Yes. I think we're going to have a special guest with us to talk about this episode and the memories and reliving this episode. I'm really particularly excited about this. Okay. Well, let's go and watch this real quick. I know both of us have a general idea of what this is about, but we haven't seen the episode in many, many years. So the details and the B storylines, we don't know at all. So let's go watch this. Patreon. Patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. Okay, we are back and guess what? We have none other than Ethan Phillips, or at least the voice of Ethan Phillips, joining us right now. We're so happy. Yes. I'm not as happy as you, but I'm happy, yeah.

Okay, good. You're always a combination of super happy and it's the end of the world. Right. It's like both of those things at once. You know, an optimist is just, a pessimist is just an optimist in possession of all the facts. Thank you. Yes, thank you. Words of wisdom.

Let's dive in, because I want to hear your memories as we talk through this episode, what happened. Halak's pilgrims found Nelix forced to take a stand. He stays with his own. oh yes very nice very nice that could be one of of garret's best hikus ever that's an actual kiku it's a wonderful okay here comes my limerick my limerick for homestead yes to to capture the entire pathos of this episode yeah in a limerick here we go we discover a talaxian colony inside a big space Rock. Neelix meets Dexa and his heart starts to unlock. Happy ending chances, zero. These guys really need a hero. We all say goodbye with a dance move from Tuvok. There you go. There's my limerick.

I love it. That's great. That's great. I think it encapsulates all of the pathos of the episode. there's our poetry synopsis yes we cannot capture in a few words right the uh the entirety but but let's talk about the writer and director first writer raffgreen uh garrett and i guess before we were wrong it uh we thought it was different writers we were sure ken biller had some his hands on this in some way no it's rap green is the writer yeah and the director we were wrong on too lebar burton wasn't you're right i thought it was john bruno for some reason garret I thought it was Alan Craker. This was LeVar Burton directed.

Yeah, because I remember he had, one of the people that visited the set was Lawrence Fishburton, who was a pal of the LeVar. So he was there for a couple of days. What? No. Wow. Gosh.

I wish I was there, too, that day. Well, he was there, you know, for, he came by for a couple of hours and hung out with, hung out with LeVar and Video Village. And I got to talk to a bridge and stuff. Nice. Yes. Oh, that's so cool. How cool.

Now that you mention that, Ethan, I do remember Lawrence Fishburn being by the monitor because about it two years later, I directed a show called Eyes with Lawrence Fishburn's wife. And I said to her, I remember meeting your husband on the set of Star Trek. But I had forgotten about that. So, wow, thank you for reminding me. Yeah, yeah, sure. So cool. Yeah.

Let's just jump right into a. it. We have Rob LaBelle, who we've had before. And I keep thinking, are the fans going to go, this is the same Talaxian we've seen multiple times on this show, but no, he plays different characters. He's Oxalon. He's Oxalon, the council member in this episode. You know, other than a couple of voiceovers he did in 87,89, his real on-camera first credit is Quantum Leap, an episode of Quantum Leap in 1992. We also jump to the next individual and the guest star list is Julianne Christy, the lovely Julianne Christie, who played Dexa. Her very, very first credit is the 1992 feature film Encino Man.

Encino Man. Brendan Fraser, right? Brendan Fraser, that's right. Brendan Fraser. That's right. Brendan Fraser, yeah. We also have Ian Meltzer, who played Young Little Brax, very first. Oh, the little boy. Yes, the little boy.

The very first credit for Ian Meltzer is a 1998 episode of Touched by an Angel. Touched by an angel. Oh, wow. Yep. Did Ian Meltzer, did you see if he can continued as an adult or was he just a child actor? No, he did, well, he, he did a few more credits. And that, yeah, then all of a sudden you see stuff for him in, like, art department, other, like, so he stayed in Hollywood.

Oh, interesting. He jumped into other, exactly. All right, co-stars, John Kenton Scholl, who played Nekona. He's the head miner, the guy that's sort of, you know, are heavy, our evil, you know, our person. Yeah, the blockheaded guys. The blockheaded guys. Yeah. Yeah, his very first credit was a 1981 episode of.

of Fantasy Island with Mr. Rourke. So that was his very first credit. But he was also, Robbie, he was the medicine man in season three opener, Basics Part 2. So he was that, you know, yeah, he was that guy. He was also Brokton in the season six episode Barge of the Dead. So assuming, so he's been on our show a few times. Yeah, this is his third time on our show.

We also have another co-star Christian R. Conrad. That's the right-hand man to Nakona, a minor. 1984 TV movie Hard Knocks was his first credit. it not a bad movie yeah he also did one episode of ds9 in 1997 and he also worked on voyager he played the role of dunbar in futures end and futures end part two oh my gosh yeah i think that might have been uh begley juniors uh you know side kick or something yeah yeah that's what i'm thinking so there you go that's our interesting there's our cast they used the same people over and over again a lot didn't they they sure do yeah it's easier right i mean if you're ron surma yeah and you need

somebody quick you can call up in a speed dial you know who you want exactly i have a question before we get into the plot of the episode just talking about guest stars Ethan julian christie who played dexa your love interest in this was wonderful just wonderful story what are your memories about working with her i thought she was really a sweet lady i remember being really sweet and kind and very excited about being there she looked very good in the makeup which was which was interesting Yeah. I was wondering about that because you were pretty much one of the only actors that ever had to put on Tlaxian makeup. It was a big process. It's a big process. And it's interesting because of Mike Westmore. Everybody who did wear it, their personality came through the makeup. In spite of the fact that it was so much rubber and glue up there, he allowed the chin in the mouth to be free. I don't know how he did it. Well, he did the, you know, what they did the set, the cast. it in the cement. So he captured their facial, you know, main points anyway. But it's just the way that it just the individual pops through that makeup, unlike it with Ferengis where it's, you know,

the Ferengis. But the Nelix makeup allowed individuality. Yeah, it allowed a lot of expression. I also love what he did with all these Talaxians. They weren't, it wasn't the exact same makeup up on everyone like like daxa or dexa didn't have any facial hair and they might change the temple the color in the temples was yellow for me but they could change it a little they changed a little all the hair all the hair was different colors too very very specific different colors and then uh rob lebel's character oxalon had he must have been older because his beard came down like along his neck, whereas your tufts were much smaller, which I interpreted as Neelix is younger than I thought. He's compared to Rob LaBelle's character, who must be an older, he's got this long beard.

So we start out in the mess hall. We have a close-up on a vintage jute box. Camera pulls back to reveal. It's a party. First contact day party. Zephram Cochran's favorite dish, cheese pierogies. Chikote arrives to inform Janeway and Neelix that long-range sensors have detected hundreds of life forms 4.9 light years away. Guess what? They're Tlaxian. Dun, dun, bum, bum. It's a great scene. Do you remember that big party scene where you were passing food and talking to everybody? Yeah, I was pretty garrulous, if I remember correctly. You were. In this scene, the things I loved about it, first of all, the Steadicam work, just moving around the entire room was beautiful. Lovar did a great job of keeping it moving and

and giving it energy in this opening scene. I love the idea that you and Naomi Wildman had come up with this celebration for First Contact Day. It's not a typical thing, but it was Neelix and Naomi's interpretation of this holiday. And Tuvok was not interested at all. In fact, near the end of the scene before you get the news, you turn on some music, and you started dancing.

Yeah. And it was amazing. You know, you're doing this silly dance to the song. There must have been playback in the set. You were dancing to the song. You had choreographs and moves. And you're like, come on, Mr. Tuvok, Mr. Vulcan. Come on and dance with me.

And he does not want to dance. And they shut that up right in the beginning of that to be able to have that callback later on. Exactly. Yeah, because as I show you dancing, the camera pans down to your feet. And that's when you do that little waggle with your foot. the setup for later. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same move. The only thing in that scene,

I wish, as I rewatched it, is when you play the music and you start dancing, I wish everyone had danced a little bit except for Tuvac. I wish, because it almost looked like Neelix was performing for everybody, as opposed to Neelix is doing it, and everybody

in the room starts joining in, dancing, they're moving a little, and Tuvok is just not. To me, that would have been Extends and stronger. Yeah, yeah, in retrospect. First of all, we have an exterior space shot of Voyager. Then we jump to the bridge, and Neelix comes on through the turbo lift.

And boy, is he excited and nervous about meeting his own kind. They've been hailed, but no response yet. Voyager is way too big to go into this asteroid field where we're getting the readings of these Selexians. So Paris suggests taking the Delta Flyer. We can't take the big ship in there because there's literally thousands of asteroids it's like it's packed with all these rocks so yeah so tom says hey let's take the flyer in i just want to insert this bridge scene i remember filming this with my home movie camera

and i looked at it recently and i was goofing off so much in this video during rehearsals kate even was looking at me like she she said something like what are you doing right yeah Like, because I must have had a brand new camera and I was testing it out. Yeah. And I thought to myself, I was the worst behaved actor. Robbie, as you know, the story set up, allowed us to start fucking around. It was like the second week of filming. And he asked, and he had a line to me.

He said, Neelix, hand me the pad. And you know how they were spelled P-A-D-D? And Robbie went, while he was filming, Neelix, hand me the pad. And he pronounced a second D. And he had this glint in his eye. And I caught that guy, I said, this guy McNeil wants to f*** around. Well, I'm up for that because I love to fuck around.

Robbie started it. I didn't know that I started it, but I'm not surprised after looking at that home video of this scene on the bridge. I was, like, now as a producer and director, if the actors behave like that, I would be like, hold on. Yeah.

We're working right now. Let's have fun, but we got to, you know. But nobody says, anything i was watching it nobody said robbie i think you're a little critical saying you were so misbehaved but you i would say that you were very cavalier with that new camera the way you were talking it almost seemed like you were the showrunner is what it seemed like you were like hey guys here's my camera this is my show let me go ahead and record everybody it's very fun yeah and everybody knew you were having fun and it was my last no one was your last episode i wanted to yeah yeah it was

It was awesome. Anyway, we, I just recently saw that. We had a lot of fun and we were enjoying each other's company. And as I rewatched this episode, that moved me a lot. We're in the Delta Flyer interior because Paris had just suggested to take the flyer and we have Neelix, Tuvok, and Paris on this away mission into the asteroid field. Neelix gives Tuvok heck for not even trying to dance. He says he's going to, he's going to get him to dance before they get back to earth. He says that Tobok was afraid. Tubak denies this. They start to get into a little bit of a tiff and Paris is like, hey, you guys, am I going to have to separate you? And I felt like when I said that line, my reading was almost like to Ethan and Tim Russ going, hey guys. Speaking of

goofing off, Ethan, you and Tim. Gooped off constantly. Yeah. That felt very real. My line delivery of If you two don't stop, I'm going to come back there and separate you. It felt like I could have said that a thousand times. Yeah, yeah. Did we go over to stage 16 then? We must have gone to stage 16. The flyer, yeah, probably to film the flyer. Yeah, I would think so.

That is correct. Tubac does detect that life signs are coming from inside a large asteroid, which is a little surprising. And then all of a sudden, the shuttle experiences this huge shake, which was caused by a thermolite explosion. and actually a few more explosions happen and one of them sort of blows part of an asteroid to pieces and I'm guessing the debris from that asteroid hits the flyer

is that what causes the flyer to have lose everything? It was not clear at this point in the story whether someone was firing weapons or if these were like mines left or we don't know. But they were blowing up the rocks. I love the shot in space where the flyer is like trying to avoid these rocks, the asteroids breaking apart. Tuvok says the closest place to make an emergency landing is, actually Paris says it,

the closest place is the Tlaxian's asteroid that's nearby. That's the conveniently the best place to go, to go be safe. We're going to go to the Tlaxis asteroid. Very serendipitous. Robbie, did you like that scene of the actual crash landing? Because I don't know. I mean, to me, it looked very much like an anime. It looked animated.

It looked animated. It didn't look live action. Yeah, there were a few different angles, and some angles worked better than others. I think the wide angle from the side when the shuttle first hits was kind of cartoony, but then there was another angle where it's coming right at the camera. But it was a nice sequence. We don't normally do that. And you know what we discovered, Ethan, in this podcast, we discovered that we talked to one of the visual effects

artists who was involved in the CGI that was being incorporated. And they hadn't used much CGI on our show. So there was a lot of stuff that we just talked about that they wouldn't show because it was too expensive or they didn't think it was good

enough. And this is the season where they started, they convinced Rick Berman and the producers to try more CGI because it was more affordable. And so this is one of those sequences. This crash to me is clearly we're starting to use more CGI.

We're cutting to multiple angles of this crash. They're doing things. It's the penultimate show. Yeah. I mean, they used it for those monsters, right? The monsters that had the initials for a name or number for names. Species 8472. Yeah.

That was all CGI. Yeah. Those were all CGI. But they didn't. It was very expensive back in the 90s. And the quality was hit or miss sometimes. But this is the season. And this is a moment.

I just want to point out where I think they were going all in on the CGI. And it was a mixed success. I agree with Garrett. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh, my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after a trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me.

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Seven, is there a problem? Seven says we've lost contact with the away team. We can't really scan in there. There's a lot of interference. So Janeway needs another team to go in there, a rescue team, basically. So they have to modify shields. Yeah, to rescue all of you three. We're now in, yes, this is Dexas house or place, her quarters.

This is when you wake up. Yeah. When you wake up for the first time with an other Talaxian, and she's got a medical scanner. I remember that. Yeah. And you wake up and she says, stay calm. Don't worry. You're going to be okay. Yeah. And you immediately ask about your friends. And that really touched me because again, everything in this episode to me as I rewatched it was seen through the filter of this was Ethan's last episode. Yeah. And so all of these moments when you say, where are my friends? Where are they? When I see my friends. You got a hit your heartstrings. Yeah. Yeah.

It did. Yeah. But yeah, we learned a little bit more. The explosions were not caused by the Tlaxians because Neelix wonders, you know, did someone fire at them and was it, was it the Tlaxians? He's like, no. And they were minors. So we now know miners are using explosive charges.

And this is also the scene that we're introduced to Brax. Brax sort of, you know, goes against his mother's orders. The little kid. Yeah. A little kid. Yeah. He's like, what, seven years old, if I remember correctly. Something like that.

I would guess 70 to 10. He's definitely young. Yeah, Brax is scolded by Dexa. Dexas said, look, I told you not to come in here. And he just wants to see the newest Talaxian to this colony, which is Neelix. And, yeah, so basically, this whole conversation is about Neelis convincing Dexa that, look, we're not a threat. We're not here to sort of ruin your party. Right.

I have a question, Garrett, in this scene, I noticed right away, Dexa, the Talaxian, who becomes your love interest. had a costume on that looked a lot like Kess. It was the same colors. Oh, wow. I mean, seriously, I thought it was the same. It had the long sleeve, like the sleeves underneath the over thing. It was sort of that, that rust color. Yeah, I think that.

Yes, that's a really great, that's a great catch, Robbie. When I made the connection of the same style and color combination as Kess, I was like, wow, these are the things that, like, Bob Blackman and Mike Westmore and everybody, they'll put in these connections that we don't even sometimes. We're not even aware of. I thought it was brilliant. Yeah. But so collaborative. Everything was so collaborative.

Beautiful to hear that. What were your memories of dealing or acting with the young boy? Well, I remember always with children. animals. You have to be good on every take because they're going to take the take that the kid or the dog was good on. So I was aware of that. I really had to, you know, they had to nail it each time. Also, just, you know, part of me observing children acting, you know, who they do it. They act normally in their life. They play all the time. And here they are now having to play professionally. And watching their choices and stuff. And I remember the kid was a nice little kid. I, um, you know, the memory I have

most of any child is that little girl, the very first little wildman. Oh, yeah. Before, Scarlett Palmer's came in. Before Scarlett. I remember her real well because of a number of reasons. One being that I tried to improvise in that scene, I don't know if I told you this story. No. No. I was coming to tuck her into bed. And she, She was a young child. I think she was like. She was young. Yeah, four or five.

Maybe she was really young. Just past being a toddler. I had a line where I took her in and I hold up her teddy bear, which is called a targ. Targ. And I go, good night, Mr. Targ. And as I said it during the filming, I went, good night, Mr. Targ, sir. And Cosmo goes, there's no, sir. And I went, oh, do you want to add a sir?

I said, yeah, I think it's cute. Okay, hang on. And they had to call the writers building. and it took like 20 minutes and i'm in i don't need an extra 20 minutes that make up any day the week and i they allowed me to say good night mr targser but i never improvised again and that was the first first year and i don't want to wait around for them to go yeah he can add a but yeah oh yeah i want to say one thing piggyback on what you said even about how you worked with kids differently i saw that in this episode did you i did i saw you've got a scene

later with Brax, where it's just the two of you. What did you see? The authenticity and the presence that you had in a way with kids. You're so good with kids. You're so good because they feed you something, and I didn't know. It's what you're talking about, that kind of the way that you work with them. But it's really good. It brings out great stuff in the character, but also in your performance, that playfulness.

I just did this incredible play reading out in Los Angeles. last week and I hadn't done anything large like that in quite a while several years where you know I was the lead and I theater wise yeah and it was a very uh tricky monster of a play with a very very powerful message basically Chekhov's message uh an unexamined life is not worth living it's by a man who's been living a lie his whole life and at the end of the play finally accepts the fact that he'd been lying I realized to get And I always realize it's over. I'm not going to talk to the character.

I'm not going to talk. I'm going to talk to the actor. So if I have a line, he had a line in this play, you loved me to his wife. And I don't say it to the character she's playing. I'm saying it to the actors. Yeah.

And that's what you always have to do. You have to talk to the human being there. And because that's all it is, you know. And kids make it easier to do that because I don't know what it is about kids. They respond. right away to that, and they fall into it. They don't have a lot of protective tricks and mannerisms that they developed as actors

over the years, you know. Yeah, you see it in this episode, for sure. Thank you, thank you. Well, this scene ends with Neelix, basically, Dexza puts up a force field, and he's trapped in this room, in this bedroom. Basically, you're jailed. You're in the brig. And that's our act out.

So a nice first scene. We go to the bridge next. Janeway is looking for her team. Ask Harry, no response there. And then Harry says there's a ship approaching. We're being hailed. This man comes up on screen. It looks like some kind of Hulk-type Marvel superhero to me. The makeup was like blockhead. These are the mind. Remember those guys? Segment. It wasn't really blocky. Like a square. It's just a round. A bunch of lines on there. Yeah. It almost looked like their face was part of a helmet in a way. You know. Yeah. It didn't seem like it was actually organic tissue. It was like, what's going on here? Yeah.

Yeah, they looked like stone, like they were made of rock or something. Yeah, it's such a cool look. Yeah, it was very cool. But basically, Janeway says, our people are, you know, lost somewhere in this asteroid field. We need to look for him. He's like, no way. This is our asteroid field. We've got quotas to make.

We were mining this place. You cannot go in there. We'll look for you. And he says, you know, there's mining. charges setting off all over the place it's not safe we kind of know he doesn't seem like a bad guy but he's pretty firm about this right yeah i mean the last line of this scene is him saying look i can't guarantee your safety if you go in there so just stay where you're stay where you're at stay put we will contact you when we find your people so he seems like a good guy like he's like okay

we'll help you out right right and and one of my favorite shots in this episode is at the end of the scene where it's on janeway in the foreground she looks back to harry and chukote iraq's everybody's you know you can feel the concern and then back to her face in the foreground it was a beautiful shot well done lavar nice nice ending for the scene we go back to dex quarters again neelix is there and this is the scene i was talking about with bracks the little kid okay yeah you're you're just telling him where you're from and uh you know that you're from the the ship you're from is called voyager and you're very proud of it and it's a nice scene yeah right and but you get him to laugh he's holding like a ship

right so or something and then basically you say oh is that a model ship what is it called the two-tailed talchuk or the fur fly so you you bring in you know talaxian references and he kind of like he starts laughing so this is the the point where he starts to ease up a bonding scene it's a bonding scene definitely beautifully played and and then his mom he hears his mom coming in he's like oh i'm gonna be in trouble nilks is like i got you i'll cover for you i'm not gonna tell on you yeah yeah go high That's great. So you immediately are making major brownie points right now with the kid, at least, for sure. Neelix was a good guy.

Yeah. He was a very good guy. Dexie comes in with Rob LaBelle. Hey, good old. Rob, Rob LaBelle. And he's got the hair down his neck. I love it. And Oxalon basically says we've determined that, you know, none of these people are hostile.

So they were treated for their injuries. They're back on the shuttle. And you're free to go. Yeah. And Neelix is definitely flirty in this scene. You can tell there's some chemistry because he says, well, you know, now that everything's cleared up, maybe we could just talk. And then you look from Oxelon over to Dexha and you say, you know, get to know each other a little.

Very flirty, Ethan, very. Okay, I did not read it as that. But okay, but you saw a little flirtation, a little hints of flirtation. I saw flirtation for sure. But Neelix does say, okay, we can have this chat, but can my friends come too? And Oxalon's like, no, we don't trust outsiders like that. So again, another reference to your friends and maybe that pulled on Robbie's heartstrings, again, possibly. Right.

But it also points out how telaxians are very, very sensitive because of their past. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, that was a big part of this episode. So this is a refugee colony, really. They're on the run trying to rebuild.

They were the people like me who were on Rinax, I guess it was. The Metrion Cascade was when Chitrell did that, yeah. Yeah, so walk and talk through these caves and tunnels, lots of Tlaxian extras. Do you remember, Ethan, all those Tlaxian extras and the makeup? Do you remember the process of seeing all these other Tlaxians getting made up or any of that? No, they did it in a separate trailer, so I didn't see them being made up. But the first time I saw them was when they arrived on the set. And it was kind of mind-blowing, you know.

Yeah. I've been the only one except for fair trade that I could remember. And now you've got 50 of them running around. And now there's 50 of them. And, of course, if you look at the makeup, it's not as fine as mine. Yeah. You know, they had to skip corners and stuff like that. But you couldn't tell from.

I'll be honest. Ethan, I think I saw one scene where someone crossed camera very quickly, but they only had the hair. It seemed like they only had the telaxian hair and a little bit of, like a little bit, well, they had a little smudge on their face. Yeah, exactly. They just painted up the face and didn't put on a prosthetic. And he crossed the scene and he crossed camera. And I go, that guy doesn't even have, oh, my God. So, again.

Oh, my. Wow. I wouldn't be surprised because it's, it's very time consuming and expensive. Yeah. Put all that stuff on. Exactly. It costs a lot of money. For sure.

I mean, did they possibly cast 50 heads? I don't know if they went. They wouldn't have done that. There's no way. They probably used old heads that we had. Yeah. And glued them on and then just patched them up. Yeah, that's why they called Rob Bilbel back all the time because they had his mold.

And they were like, we didn't think of that. Yeah. That's, of course, that makes sense. They save money big time. Yeah. You're walking through these caves. You see a lot of technology and you ask where to come from. they said, well, we had these ships, we dismantled some of our ships, disassembled them.

Yes, yes, five of the six. So there's only one ship left. They've used all those components to build these pods for quarters and energy systems, geothermal energy that they used, providing oxygen and water for them. So they're all set up. Yeah, you go deeper in the cave. You talk about how Rack seems to be a great kid and ask about his father. and you learn that his father is dead.

It's a sad moment. This is a moment I wish had been played in close-ups. It's kind of played a little in a wide shot and it blows by quick. Like, you learn that he's dead. You say, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. And she says, no, it's okay. You didn't mean to.

And I don't know. There's some moments in this episode. Maybe because I wanted to live in that emotion in a close-up. And I know there's tons of emotion in this episode. There's some moments I felt were lost. This was one that I feel like you could have connected over the death of her husband and your empathy a little more. I would never be aware of that as an actor.

Oh, we need a close. That would never have been to my mind. And that shouldn't even be your job, though. That's not your job, you know, to do that. Hey, can I just rewind a little bit to the scene when he's in the back where he's in bed? What was that thing? I forgot about the bandaid. Was it a bandaid?

It looks like a kid's bandaid. You've got a little, when she first wakes you up. yeah yeah she's like oh don't worry you got a little injury on your head but it's not a big deal she's feeling a band-aid on me yeah it's like a round like you buy from like you know cvs pharmacy or something a box of band-aids but it almost feels like it had little kid characters on it like it was like a lighter colored child's band-aid i'm like what well they wouldn't have the kind of medical equipment that we had no so they wouldn't have to rely probably on things like that yeah and yeah that's interesting yeah yeah yeah you had a band-aid for a while but then

the Band-Aid comes off, thank God, because it looked goofy to me on your head. It was a little weird. So after the walk-and-talk, after you find out that she is now a widow, now you finally make it to the Delta Flyer. And interestingly enough, Dexa doesn't say a word in here, because she doesn't trust, she does not trust the human or the Vulcan that are already in the shuttle making reparations there. So there's a little bit of chatter between Neelix and Paris, and Tuvok has a couple things, and she just leaves. She's gone. Right. Right. And then, Paris asks, you know, how did it go? And this is the scene where I literally started tearing up.

Because Paris says, how did it go? And you play this beautifully. The disappointment with, you say, I guess my expectations were a little high about meeting all these Tlaxians. And Tuvac even says, well, I regret that you didn't have a more fulfilling experience. And he was very sincere. For Tuvok to say that, yeah, it felt like Paris and Tuvok, and neelix were all playing a sense of disappointment and sadness that was also about

Ethan phillips last episode like i felt that yeah very strong that actually came through as well in the i felt that through the whole through the whole show but sure i think in the moments when i was acting with you guys i think it was just an awareness constantly through that you know i i saw it As I watched it, at least I interpreted that. Robbie, I remember being aware of that through the whole filming of that episode. Like every time, this is the last time I'm going to be in the Delta Flyer set. This is the last time I'm going to be in this cave set. Yeah, I felt it very much.

And I felt it from all the- And that was 22 episodes a year for seven years. I mean, it was a huge bulk of your life. Can I ask you, Ethan, how did they tell you? Do you remember how they told you that this was going to be your last episode? Ken Biller came down to my trailer to tell me. I was more relieved to find out that I had a scene in the final episode with 7 on the phone. Oh.

Yeah. I didn't know that. So there you go. That's what Garrett said before we started. He said, I think Neelix is in the finale. I am. I am. Oh, okay.

I came in one day and I had a phone conversation or whatever kind of thing we had with 7. Yeah. So I was really, really defined that. I would be in the final episode. So Ken Biller came to your trailer. trailer to tell you that this would be your last big story but you'd have a scene in the finale i remember you're the one that told me i remember you coming up before we had gotten the scripts or anything and you said hey i just you know i had talked to yeah the the writers ken came down i didn't remember

all the detail but i i distinctly remember when you told me and i was like what how can you be leaving like i was blown away that you were not going to be in every episode with us all the way to in. But in reality, guys, after this, there's one more and then the season finale. So it really wasn't like Ethan left in the first episode of this season. Yeah, right. It wasn't much left. You just got some time off pretty much before your last scene in the final episode. Yeah, yeah. We're in the flyer. There's this nice emotional kind of moment of disappointment from Neelix that he didn't really bond with these Talaxians. Right, right. It wasn't what he expected. And then there's an alert that internal sensors are working because we get the power turn back on in the shuttle.

Neelix and Tuvok go to the back and Neelix, I love, they come through the door in the dark backside of the shuttle and Neelix is scanning. And then Neelix points his finger like to Tuvok. You tap Tuvok on the shoulder and you go like this, like pointing where it's coming from. It was it was so great. The two of you like, you know, shoulder to shoulder with you scanning and pointing towards the closet. And then as he heads to the closet, you flicked on a light switch or something. No, it wasn't. It wasn't Nelix. It was Tuvok. So Tuvok turns on his Sims beacon and he just brings it like right over. I don't know why he's, oh, no, he had it because he was working. So yeah, so he brings it over and shines it right on the

kid. And then the lights come on in the whole. So they discover him in the dark. Tuvok discovers him. But then the lights come on. And I was like, why didn't they just turn the lights on in the beginning? To begin with. Anyway. Yeah. It's like, if there's a light switch, just hit the light switch before you go in the dark room. Okay.

I know. And then that's what you found funny. But what I found funny was, if you remember, Robbie, and Friendship One, where was the alien hiding that knocked me out cold in the exact same place, exact same place that Brax is hiding? So that is the- We've got to put a lock on that closet door. Or anytime we have intruder alert like we did in this scene, someone should say they're hiding in the in the in the in the closet it's always the back of the closet brax got on the delta flyer yes yeah that was yeah he was there the little boy he's there yeah he was the one i bonded

with the most of all of them yeah initially yeah you really bonded and he's afraid he's going to get in trouble and uh again neelick says uh because brack says you won't tell her i was here will you and neelick says here i have no idea what you're talking about so he's he's covering for the kid over and over again here. Right. Over and over. We're back into the kind of the caves of the asteroid and there's a conversation between Oxelon and Nekona and Oxalon just says like, look, that's just not enough time for us to

dismantle all of our equipment. And now we find out that Nekona wants all the Tlaxians to leave to vacate this asteroid. And the issue is they've already taken apart five of their six ships. They don't even have, they have one ship left. That's enough to take the people, but not the equipment. So there's some major issues here. And Dexa steps up. Dexa stands up and says, look, you can't take us, you can't make us move.

This is our home. This is, this is. And then that's when Dexie kind of gets manhandled by, uh, I guess, Nekona's cron. And Neelix is coming in just at that moment with Brax. And Brax says, you know, leave her alone. Yeah. And throws a rock.

He throws a rock. Nekona. Yeah. And Nekona. And then they, Nekona's pissed off. And he says, get that get me that boy yeah and neelick steps in front neelick says do not touch him yeah and then they start to get into a little shoving match where neelix he does the classic kirk double fisting boom

on the neck it was do you remember that you were a hero yeah i don't remember that okay let me paint the picture to you so as you say you're not going to touch this kid the kona sends his henchman over he's like why you're going to do something about it i mean whatever his line was was this classic bully line, and he shoves you to the side, okay? You fall down. As he starts going towards Brax, you then run and tackle him, okay? And all I can think about was our conversations about how much you love football when you were younger.

And I was like, oh, here's, here's Ethan doing all his football moves right here. He's offensive line right now. You tackle him. You actually end up, you knock him to the side. You grab his weapon off of him, and you aim it at the boss man, Nakona. who's about to draw on you. So you are an absolute hero in this scene. You're safe the kid.

You knocked the guy, the aliens around like they're nothing. I mean, you were the man. You were the man, but I think it all comes down to the Kirk. Oh, yes. Excuse me, yes. Sorry, sorry. So, yes, after the tackle, then you double fist him with the, this. Like that.

And I'm sure this was a Dennis Maddenmoan special. I'm sure Dennis told you. That was the move. Oh, yeah. I'm going to have you double fist him, just like Kirk does, and you did it. So, yeah. Wow. Yeah, it was very heroic.

Wow. It was. I have to say, I'm very proud of myself. You should be. And you basically, because of this, they agree to give them three more days. It's what they were asking. So you got them to give in, and they're going to give them three days because they didn't have enough time to get out, like, right now.

And they want, why do they? want them gone so they can mine the asteroid? Yeah, because they said the minerals they're searching for in this entire asteroid field, 30% of that mineral is located in the asteroid that the talaxins are living in. So one third of what they need for their quota is sitting in that asteroid. So they got to get out of there. Yeah. The conversation goes to about fighting back. And Oxalon's like fighting has never done anything. It just causes more trouble. And then Neelix agrees with that. So then Dexas says, well, then how are we going to, you know, what are we going to do about this? And Neelik says, I can talk to my captain. Maybe she can negotiate with the miners. And then Neelich says, yeah, you should come to Voyager. You should talk to her yourself. And Brax quickly jumps, you know, into the conversation. I want to go too. And Dexter tries to

shush him up. But Neelich says, no, you both should come. I have seen, I've seen your home already. Time to see mine. I remember that. I remember that. Good scene, though. We go to space. I just made a note. These space shots keep getting better and cooler. With the asteroids in the background, it looked amazing. It looked amazing seeing Voyager. You mean as it progressed through seven seasons?

Yeah. In the early seasons, they just used the same seven model shots. Either it flew this way or it flew that way. But now they're using CGI and adding these layers. And we finally are looking really cinematic. in a way that our opening credits look very cinematic. So, we're on the bridge right now, and Neelix

is bringing in both Dexa and Brax to introduce them to the characters on the bridge. So Chiquotay's there. Neelix turns to Harry and says, and this is Ensign Kim. And all I could hear was you saying, and this is Eni Kimmy.

Which is Ethan's nickname for me. Any Kimmy. Yeah. I call him any Kimiko, Neely. Neely. So then Brax asked, what's that? And Neely says, well, that's the engineering station. There's tactical.

Oh, and this is the captain's chair. And then that's when Brax says to you, which station is yours? And then Neelix does a little bit of a backtrack. Yeah. Sort of awkward moment. Awkward moment. Yeah. Because he's like, well, I actually, I don't have a specific.

I'm more of a. And while Neelix is floundering, it cuts to Kim and Chikote standing off to the side. And Kim knows what's going on. So he's like, let's go. So Kim walks over and says, Neelix does too many things to have just one station. He's our ambassador, morale officer, Jacote jumps in, trade negotiator. Without a doubt, he's the most versatile member of our crew. And then it cuts back on Neelix's face, very appreciative of both.

Again, I started getting tearing up at that point, too. I was like, oh. It's so beautiful. This is getting me. That's what I'm saying. I felt like what you were playing was this is Ethan Phillips' last episode, and he has done so much in our cast. He's not just been Neelix.

He's been all these other things in our lives. He means more to us than just a simple title. And that's the moments that were so authentic, that were so much richer than just the words we were saying. The underlying layers of, we all knew that this was our send off to you in a way. You know what I'm saying? So we all added a little extra juzh into our... our performances and just of our general feeling towards you as our friend. Yeah. Holy geez.

Yeah, man. Yeah. That's so nice. It was beautiful. It was a beautiful moment. Yeah. So now we're in Astromatrix and Neelix is there. He's got Dexler and Brax there. And we've got this amazing image on screen. And it is basically of Talix, their home planet. And, you know, the question was, wow, your sensors reached that far away. And no, no. This is from our database, but still, it's a beautiful image of the Talaxian home world. And this is the bonding scene a little bit between Neelix and Dexha. They further bond because Neelix starts talking about the Godo Mountain Range. Dexas says, oh, the Aksiana Lakes, that's one of my favorite places.

They're reminiscing over the beauty of their home country. The bond bonding over this home planet. Yeah. It was good. This is amazing. I forgot that. Yeah. Little Brax says, well, why don't we just go back to Talax?

We could live there. and Dexas says, well, it's still controlled by the Haconians. They don't treat to Laxians. Well, that's why we left. Then Brax says, maybe Neeligs could go with us and we could fight them. We could take the planet back. He really believes in you. Yeah, he does.

He really believed. Well, you fought off that, he fought off that minor. So he thinks, all right. He thinks the world of you already. So good. So good. This is terrific. It's better than watching it.

Yeah. We're giving you the play-by-play. But Neelich says, well, if tomorrow's negotiations go well, You won't have to go anywhere. You can stay in your home in the asteroid that you've already built. We jump over to the corridor. There's a bit of a walk-and-talk with Neelix, and he's got Dexa and Brax with him. And he's saying, next stop, engineering.

So he's about to show him engineering. Brax is excited, the warp core. But this is when Naomi sort of shows up. She pops in around. Another kid. Yeah. Scarlet. Yeah.

Scarlet. Yeah. And that's when Neelix says, oh, my gosh, Naomi, I forgot about our caddiscot game. Naomi's like, no, that's all right. I just want to meet your friends. Neelix introduces Dexa and Brax to his goddaughter, Naomi. And Naomi basically says, hey, I'm going to go off to this hollow program that Lieutenant Paris has just designed.

It's called the Ninth Invaders from the Ninth Dimension. And Neelix says, ooh, that sounds scary. And Naomi is like, yeah, it's very. But she convinces Brax that he should come to the holodeck with him. And mom says it's okay and they take off. Dexa says, you're lucky to have found these people. They obviously think a great deal of you. And Nealick says that to me.

Dexsa says that because she notices, you know, how, you know, the kid, the kid thinks Neelix is awesome. The, you know, on the bridge, Harry and Jokote. Everybody's bragging about Neelix to Dexa and Brax. Do you remember seeing Ethan Scarlett grow up? Because in this episode for me, I was like, wow, she grew up on our show. because she was on, you know, four seasons, five seasons of our show, maybe. I don't recall that, but you know how you don't recall people growing up when you're living with them, you know?

That's correct, because you don't see the change. I don't see the change, but I do remember seeing her in Las Vegas many years after that. Yes, that one time. Yeah, she was a lady. And I was like, oh, I can't believe you're the little girl who played my friend, you know. My god daughter. Yeah. Well, I feel like when we brought her on, she was six or seven years old, something like that.

Yeah. And when she left the show, she was 10 or 12 years, you know, whatever the, she was maybe seven or eight, eight to 12, seven to 11, whatever the number is. Yeah. It's a time where you go from a little kid to a tween. And I noticed it with Missy Gold and Benson. Because when I started Benson, Missy was nine or ten. And when I ended, she was a young teenager. And I remember, I remember, my goodness, we've been at this a while.

Yeah. Yeah. I felt it was Scarlett in this episode for sure. So now we're in Texas quarters, I think, because we've given them some quarters, right? Yeah, it's like guest is, we've given some guest quarters. It's dark. It's very romantic. Yeah.

Neelix pours a drink for Dexa. Oh, oh. Yeah. Why not? Yes. Why not? But this is where we learn about what happened to her husband. So we find out that they had occupied a certain planet.

and the people that were already there said, oh, you newcomers need to live here. And it's a very tiny, tiny space and not enough, not enough land to farm, at least to feed all the Talaxians. And at this point, I guess there's five or six hundred of them, right? So it's not enough space. So Dex's husband decides to kind of go against regulations. And he starts farming outside of the zone that they were allocated. And that's when a security detail came to question him.

and a scuffle happened, and that's when he died. And I got to say right now, all of the choices made by the actress that played Dexa, I really liked her choices because I think a lot of actors, when they say, like, you know, he was killed, because here's the line, she goes, a security patrol confronted him. He told them he had to provide for his family that he wasn't afraid of them. There was a fight. He was killed. I think a lot of actors will take a pregnant pause in that end part where they'll be like,

like there was a fight and he was killed like there's they try to milk it for too much and she just man the way she oh my god very authentic very matter of fact she was sort of like she goes like she wasn't afraid of him there was a fight he was killed and it was just quick and it just the way all her choices I thought I well I you know they were good I thumbs up everything on her so yeah she was great you guys were both great a really sweet scene and you can see you know she's very grateful She says, even if this all doesn't work, thank you for trying. It looks like they're about the kiss in this at the end of this scene, right? It does.

Neelitz comes in a little bit, she comes in a little bit, and then Neelix backs off. He's like, I should get a good night's sleep if I'm going to be at my best at negotiations tomorrow. So for me, as an audience member, I was like, kiss her. Oh, okay, that's fine. But that's a nice tease, because you can see where it's going now. Yes. Yeah. We're jumping into the briefing room, and now here's the meeting.

and we've got Nakona there, Janeway's there, Neelix is there. And, you know, the conversation sort of talks about, Neelix suggests, look, would you be open to some type of compensation if they can't mine that asteroid to get to that 30% of those minerals? And he's like, well, what kind of compensation?

He's like, well, they have a lot of geothermal energy that they're producing from that asteroid. They could possibly share it with you to help power your ships. Nekona's like, no, this energy, it's not compatible with, our technology. And Janeway says, look, we can help you make modifications. And Nekona's like, no, we have quotas to meet. We don't have time for that. And so Janeway basically says,

commander, Mr. DeKona, the future of more than 500 people here is at stake. It's not like there's two settlers on this asteroid. This is a whole colony of Tlaxians. There's no resolution here. We cut out of this scene to the mess hall. There's a game of Catascott going on between Naomi and Rats are there. Dex is watching. And I want to say, by the way, do they make Catascot games that we can buy on eBay or something? I want to get a Catascott game because Neelix has talked about Catascott and Naomi for years now, seasons on this show. Yeah, we know what it looks like. Somebody had to make one. We know what the Catascott game looks like, but I don't even think we even know the real rules to it. Like, we could make it up and then, and then, you know. But that was made up on the show, right? Yeah, but they made up a name and then the props guys made up a prop. Oh, they did, yeah.

I don't know what the rules are, but somebody has, I'm sure there's a fan that has figured out how Catascott is played. Yeah. What I'm saying is I want to learn Catas Scott. Well, I think that's a nice gesture. I don't think you have to learn it, no, Robbie. I think you'd find that it's a little too complicated. Too hard for me, you think? Yeah.

I think at your age, you might want to stick more to Chequers, you know, something like that. Yeah, Tom Parris, you're just too lowbrow. I don't know if you get that, you know. Yeah. For you, Chequers is great for you. Right, for what you need, it would be perfect. For what I need, yeah, for what I need, checkers is just plenty. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to seven years of Robbie McNeil and Ethan Phillips chatting at each other.

Yeah. You know, it's just, this is the perfect example. All you need is a game of checkers. That's all you need. For you, you'll be set. But the point of this scene is that Dexas says, I knew it wouldn't work, talking about the negotiations. Neelik says, well, we did get a small concession.

They've extended the deadline. You'll have enough time to dismantle your equipment. And Dexas is pretty much crestfallen. She goes, oh, well, thanks. But there's just too much to even take with us. So Neelich says, well, Captain Janeway has agreed to ferry all of you and your supplies to the nearest M-class planet. And that's when Dexter, again, still very crestfallen, turns to Brax and says, let's go,

we're going home. Brax is not happy. Why? Dex says, we have to pack. Come on. And Brax turns to Neelix and says, you said you were going to help us. And then they leave. And so this sort of leaves it, you know, it's hanging there and not sitting well with Neelix

that they're going to have to move. They all leave. Neelix is in the middle of the mess hall. And I have to comment on the way this was shot. Okay. So we're in some great close-ups, really emotional moments here. Yeah. And then as they leave, there's this kind of bumpy pullback off of Nelix's reaction, just watching them go. And the shot pulls back and it's a little bumpy. They must have been zooming out as they dollied back.

Okay. And I wish they had stayed close on Nelix. In fact, I wish they had pushed in on Nielix. On Neelix, don't pull off of him. Yeah. It was pulling back and pulling back. I was like, why are we pulling back? It's losing the emotional, like, weight of this moment. So that was a moment I wish photographically had been approached differently.

I think for LeVar, he wanted to set thematically, thematically, he wanted to stay the same. There's a lot of movement in a lot of his shots here. And he kept thinking, okay, I got to keep it moving. And he wasn't thinking that, hey, settling in. and tighter, tighter on Neelix would have been even more effective. Yeah, good catch.

Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. Okay, we go to Astromatrix Lab next. We're in Astromatrix with Neelix and Tuvacher in there. And Neelix says he's detected five warp-capable species within two light years of the planet that they're taking the Tlaxians to. So they could be vulnerable to attack.

If you take the Tlaxians to this M-Class planet, there's five other people around there that might come in and take them out. So Neelix is worried. Yeah. And this scene is basically where Tuvok, for the first time in our series, kind of goes, well, I have an idea, hypothetically. So he's literally, Tuvok is planting the scene. Well, hypothetically, they need a leader.

And hypothetically, they could defend themselves if they had a leader. And he's like leading Neelix, like he's bolstered. neelix to become the hero because tuvok's saying look you know i can't do this because of the prime directive we can't do this we can't get involved right you're not technically in starfleet you could get involved right and i just love how neelix jumps on that hypothetically if they wanted to defend the asteroid how would they do it two vox as well hypothetically to begin with they would have to establish some kind of perimeter you mean shields yes the miners are monitoring the asteroids So if they detected Talaxians erecting a shield, they would attempt to stop them.

And it's, again, it's all this like hypothetically, you should do this. So Tuvok is giving you advice to go against the time directive to defend the asteroid. To build a shield around this asteroid, yeah. He's telling you what to do, but you've got to do it. He can't do it. Yeah. Holy moly. It's great.

Yeah. But Nielix is very doubtful of himself, right? So Nelix says, I couldn't lead those people, Mr. Tupy. I'm not a fighter, just a cook who sometimes imagines himself to be a diplomat. So very self-deprecating comment there. Yeah, well, I'm catching the vibe from Dexa there who's crestfallen. Exactly. So you're, you're believing it.

Yeah, you're throwing out exactly that same sort of, you know, depression. Kindness leads to negativity leads to negative. Right. But then Tuvok, Tuvok, Tim Russ, of course, being so close to you as well at the time. And he says, on the contrary, Mr. Neelix, you are much more than that. You are perhaps the most resourceful individual I have ever known. And then you say, I always thought you just tolerated me. Tuvok's like, you do have some annoying habits.

However, doing your time on Voyager, you've developed many valuable skills, skills that would serve you well if you ever decided to assume a leadership role. Neelix is like, you really think so? Let me be clear. I'm not urging you to do anything. I'm simply telling you that I believe that you are more than capable. So another scene where Neelix is just like, on the platform, he's the best. It's a good scene.

Great scene. Great scene. We cut into the corridor. Neelix is heading to do to begin, maybe, we think, what... The defense of the asteroid. The defense of the asteroid. And Janeway catches up to him. And now Janeway is chasing Neelix down the hall.

Yeah. I've never seen Neelix who always plays, he's got a crush on Janeway. Yes. And he's, and now Janeway's chasing. Yeah, Janeway's chasing Neelick's down. Yep. And I love how she goes. She goes, you wouldn't be planning anything foolish, would you? So she's already, you know, she's kind of like, she's thinking something's going about to happen because Neelich is walking with, I mean, there's a lot of intent in your walk down this corridor. Your hero March. He's going to talk to his friends. And they stop and they do talk. And Neelick says, I know there's Prime Directivis. used for you guys to help but i'm not officially part of this crew i can do something and then uh janeway says well you're as much a part of this crew as anyone else and neelks says are you ordering me not to go and she says that depends on what you you're going to do and he says well that's up to the talaxians and she wishes you a safe journey yeah she knows what's going to happen everybody is encouraging not just for you to take risks or whatever but they're encouraging neelix to believe

believe in himself yeah that he can rise to this occasion right everybody is chocote and and harry on the bridge yeah um tuvac in the astro metrics janeway in the corridor everybody yeah everybody's everybody's encouraging him yeah he was just a junk dealer you know although i mean he was the guy who hid out when they attacked his planet that's right you know that's right he's not he's he's not the bravest guy in the world no but we're beginning to see that he's changing yes and stepping up to the plate. I like that a lot. That's great.

And I think it even began earlier than this because, you know, that episode where Neelix and Tuvok were Neelix, that's rise. Yes, rise. That was called Rice. It was an incredible scene in that between me and Tubac where I call him out. Yeah. And tell him, you know, he's got to cut this horse shit and treat me more like an equal

and everything. That's right. And I don't know if they were referencing that or that impacted their thought. I think that was the beginnings. I think they were. Them going like, wow, he could command. He could do something big. So, yeah, for sure.

We go back down to the asteroid. We're in a public area, the big open area. Yeah. Which was probably around our cave set. And Neelix is up addressing a crowd. And I just want to say, the way that you're up a couple steps higher and they're down low, it looked like the Wizard of Oz and the Munchkins to me. You looked really tall.

And all these Tlaxians look like, like, like, Munchkins in the Wither of Oz down, gathered around looking at you. But it was a great shot. Oh, my God. It was great. It's a powerful scene because you basically you give them the, yeah, you pitch the idea.

You pitch this defense shield. We could do this. We could build this defense shield. Dexa jumps on. Well, yeah, maybe you're right. We could reroute power from the core. And so, you know, you're starting to spitball ideas with the crowd. You end up saying, you know, isn't this place worth

defending and you've got you've rallied the crowd here to defend this asteroid so now we're in a staging area getting ready for the mission and neelix says like wait for my calm call as soon as the last emitter is in place start routing power to the grid dex is like understood and then neelix says you're scared aren't you dex says you and neelix says terrified and next dexas like be careful so again it's still you're really bonding you're bonding this is where she touches him i don't know if you notice but when she says be careful she sort of grabbed his arm his arm and holds on to it and he says i will and then oxalong calls says we're ready and neelix turns back i'll see you soon he starts to leave he's starting to leave but then she pulls you back and kisses you here so you guys

have finally there's a kiss before you're going into battle do you remember kissing with talaxian makeup on do you remember the kiss i don't know that's okay I remember kissing Kess with the telaxian makeup. With the talaxian makeup. Was it awkward? Did you have to think about like, oh, my ridges, my. Well, you do that to be careful because it's the reason I could never speak on the phone when I was doing this show because it was stick to the phone.

And I could never sleep because it would crush the wig and all that stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if they had maybe put a little powder on it or something. So it didn't rub off or something. Because the two makeups could easily stick. Okay. So now that you've said that, Robbie, that now makes sense of why I was on the phone in Ethan's trailer because he can't put the phone up to his ear. I forgot about that. And that's his number one rule. He can never do that because it's going to mess up the makeup. So I was actually talking on the phone for him. That's why. I couldn't even read because of the contact lenses. But your teeth, though, I mean, you could still speak. I could speak with the teeth. Yeah. It was no problem, right? That didn't ever encompassing you. But to this day, to this day, when I'm working, and they go action, I go, oh, I don't need my teeth. You search for the teeth to this day.

Every scene I do since 2001, every show I've ever been in. You're on Avenue 5 doing this, and then the director's like, Ethan, what is this? What is this? You know, it became so ingrained. Yeah. But anyway. I love that story, though. Thank you. Now we go into our action sequence. Neelix's ship is flying. I love that his ship is back out in space, by the way, that we've been carrying Neelix's ship from the pilot. I remember that. Cargo Bay. You know what's crazy? Since we haven't seen the ship, I always thought your ship was more vertical in orientation. But it is a horizontal in terms of the pilot. You don't see that pilot? No, we did. I think we did. Yeah. I thought it looked different because we haven't seen it for so long. But what I love about your ship, though,

and also the other Tlaxian vessel is that you're afterburners or you're, it's this light blue. It's this baby blue, like UCLA blue color. So I'm like, yes. I was very, very happy to see that. Yeah. Small detail. Neelix is flying. The Oxelon's flying in the Oxalon ship, the other Tlaxian ship.

They're dropping these emitters around the asteroid to create this net that will cover the thing, the whole thing, in a shield that will protect them. So we see out in space, Neelix says, two more to go and we're done. So they've already been dropping these emitters around the asteroid. Oxlund says we're moving in position for the next one. And suddenly the minor ship shows up.

And they're on an intercept course. So we see Neelix doing some evasive maneuvers out in space. It's very, very good flying, by the way. Thank you for coming from you. Yes, the piloting is, I mean, you know, for what you need. it's perfect that ship and your skills it's for what you need what I needed it was yeah it was perfect the minorship is coming in on an intercept course so Neelix decides to go help them

he says I'll deal with them just focus on your job and Neelick says to himself all right mr. Vulcan let's see if you're right about me I love that he's he says that yeah wow to himself you go inside the control center there's an explosion because these miners are you don't have the the force field up yet to protect this place so they're able to drop some bombs and they try to drop one a charge onto neelix's ship but that explodes right before it hits your ship because i think you were trying to just kind of catch it with your shield so it wouldn't hit the planet but it explodes before it even gets close to your ship and you hear janeway say delta flyer to neelix are you all right so she's

the one that shot it down. And Neelick says, fine, Captain, but you shouldn't be here. And then I love it how Jamie says, we're just helping a friend in distress. Even though Neelick says you're violating the prime directive. She goes, nope, we're just helping a friend in distress, which was a nice little line. So we have a little assistance from January. Yeah. And then that's when the shield. Yeah, they finally have all the emitters in place. And they bring. So we're protected now. They're all protected. Yeah. And the rest of the charges fall harmlessly on the shield grid and explode. So nothing on the asteroid. So you did the job, my friend. You did it. Yeah. Dexter says you did it off camera. And Neelix says, we did it. So there's, again, a little bonding with Dexa, more bonding here. So we've got a captain's log where

we learn that the miners have given up all their attempts to penetrate the shields. They've given up tillaxons are safe. And Voyager's getting ready to head home. But she says we're going to give Mr. Neelix some time to say goodbye to his new friends and we go to dexas quarters and oxalon's there he says you know thank you for everything you did and brachs wants you to stay here he begs you to stay here and dexas says you know he can't he's got big responsibilities on voyager he's going to have to go back and neelix is his heart is breaking but he he leaves to me it was a bit of a cold goodbye he's like i can't get emotional I've got to get out of you. He does say to the kid, he says, I promise, I will stay in touch as long as I can.

Because the further away you get from that asteroid towards Earth, you're going to, you're going to lose communication, you know, abilities. But he does say, I'll stay in touch as long as I can. I try to stay in touch. And then there's no hugs or anything. I felt like Neelix couldn't deal with his emotions here. Yeah, at this point. Yeah. He probably would have had a breakdown.

We cut into Naomi Wildman's quarters. There's a great opening shot of toys on her desk. And she's at her computer doing homework for Commander Chakotay's paleontology class. Yeah. And I was like, what? Chikote teaches? Neelix offers to help her, but she's like, no, I'm good. I'm almost finished.

Oh, yeah. She doesn't need me. She doesn't need you. Yeah. And Neelich says, hey, after you're done, you want to play Catascott? She goes, no, I got to get up early. And he goes, how about a bedtime story? She's like, no.

I mean, you haven't done that in years. And he's like, well, think of all the stories. you've missed. She's like, no, thanks, Neelix, but I can put myself to bed. I'm not a little girl anymore. I know she says that, Robbie, but to me, I'm looking at her going, you're still a little girl with me. She's still tiny. To me, yeah. To me, when she said that I, that's when it hit me that she's grown. She has, not just in the story, but I can see the actress going from seven to 11 years old. That's a big change. She still looks tiny to me. But the importance of this scene is she's saying to you, you know, it's okay, basically.

You know what I'm saying? You know from this scene that if you were to leave Voyager, she's going to be in good hands. She doesn't have to have you to be her godfather anymore. So each scene that comes on, that happens after from this scene on, is basically more validation for you to go, I can leave. I can be with the Talaxians now, right? Great scene.

We go to the mess hall. It's a dark mess hall. He's coming back to the kitchen. feeling kind of lost a bit. You know, Naomi doesn't need him anymore. And there's a great reveal of as he pulls a pot or something away, of Janeway sitting in the dark mess hall. He didn't see her.

This is the turning point because she starts with, oh, I didn't think anybody else stayed up as late as me. I remember that line. Yep. Really? That line. Yep. And you respond with,

I wouldn't want you to have coffee all by yourself. Janeway says, have a seat. And then you say that you have been thinking about something. It's hard for you to put into words and you wouldn't ignore your responsibilities in Voyager. You say, I take them very seriously. Janeway says, I know you do. I've been thinking about something too. Maybe you could help me.

Neelix says, I'd be happy to. Janeway says, it's an idea I need to talk to Starfleet command about. Neelick says, well, it must be important. She says, well, it is. Now that we've established two-way communication with Earth, it seems to me that Starflea could use a permanent ambassador in the Delta Quadrant. This is the same. This is the same. Would have to stay in frequent contact with Voyager.

Neelix says, certainly. and Janeway says it would be difficult for me to run this ship without you, but that might be a sacrifice I'd be willing to make for the greater good of Starfleet. Of course, the assignment would be entirely voluntary. You wouldn't be interested, would you? And when she said that line, Robby, I thought she was going to start crying. I really did. I was like, Kate's going to start crying because you could see, like she's basically also saying, I give you permission to leave Voyager. We'll be okay. We're going to miss you. But I swear to God, I saw the beginnings of a tear forming in his eyes yes it was like there was this scene was covered beautifully

the close-ups were were nice and meaty and yeah in in you know i was in your heads yeah yeah yeah yeah it was really emotional you were i in fact you had one line in in here where uh he says about his his responsibilities on voyager you said i take this them very seriously right and the reading of that line was so authentic and i know it's not a big emotional line but right the the truth you had with with you take your responsibilities on this ship very seriously she felt it i i love the scene yeah she gives you permission we don't know if you're going to choose to take her offer to be the ambassador that stays behind right but uh we cut outside uh in the hallway we see neelix come out of the turbo lift door so it really it cuts from this

really dark scene to a very lit scene because you come out of the turbo lift doors and then you just it's awesome because the shot is on you. Neelis just looks to the right, looks to the left, and is just shocked. And then as we reveal, it's every group member. We start pulling back with him. Pull it back. And he's all lined up there. Remember, I'll never forget that.

Yep. Huge, huge scene. You come around the corner, all the main players are there towards the end. But what was great, though, is as you're walking down, every single one of our regular background actors is there. Every single one. Every stand-in is there. All of our guys are there, which was amazing.

Even if I remember correctly, they were receiving some crew members that had got dressed up in uniform. Oh, I would have to look back, but I think you may be right. Oh. I remember that, too. The best boy or one,

I can't remember who they were, but I remember saying, oh, my God, the focus puller is in a start. He's in a uniform, yeah. So I was not only saying goodbye to the cast. I was saying goodbye to the crew. To the crew, too, yeah. Yeah, that's what that really punched it for me.

Was this the last scene you shot? Did they shoot this? Yeah, no, I shot it. I shot two weeks later, I shot the scene with seven. But I mean, for this episode, did they save this to the end? Or did we shoot it? And then you had to go back and do earlier scenes. Do you remember?

I don't remember. I want to say it was the last scene. I almost convinced it was. I think they saved it. Yeah. That would have been smart if they scheduled. Yeah, I believe it was. I'd have to say I'm 75%.

sure it was. And really, there's not much said here. You know what I'm saying? Very little. And it's Janeway saying, you know, goodbye and good luck ambassador, Tuvok. And you didn't even say anything. You look at everyone and as you're about to go, Tuvok says, Mr. Neelix. And then you turn around to look and he does the little foot thing, right?

And then he ends with live long and prosper. And then that's it. And that's the end. We see you go into the shuttle bay to your ship. We go into Dexas quarters, you put your bag down, Brax runs over to hug you. Dexia joins you in a hug. And I have to say that last image, the three shot of her head on one side, Brax on the other with you in the middle, as it wrapped around and held that tableau of the three of you in tight.

It was great. Beautifully framed, beautifully composed, great last image of the episode. Yep. Super, super emotional. Okay. Great episode, Ethan. All right. Great episode. Robbie, I'm going to ask you, what is your lesson from this episode, Homestead? I think the thing that I wrote down, there's so many lessons in it, but the thing that I wrote down is that sometimes doing what's best for yourself can be painful.

Like, we may know we've got to do something. It's not going to be easy. It's going to hurt, but we have to do it. It is the right thing for us to do. You know, things are not always as clean as happy endings. There is a, this story has a happy ending and a sad ending. It's neither all one thing or the other. There's some pain involved, but Neelix is doing what's best for him. I believe he made the right decision. So that's my. I've always, always felt that when people have asked me over the years,

do you regret having to leave the ship? And I said it was the most logical, not just logical, but it was it was the most it was the decision that was made with a only a full heart it had to be that's the only it would have been ridiculous not to have stayed with them because i was i fell in love and i had a family and what am i going to do on earth you know yeah and your journey was complete you know yeah it was complete what what you've set out to do what you needed to do as a character and how you needed to grow and what you needed to learn about yourself as neelix right that was complete. I wouldn't have been able to do it on any other season because I wasn't completed

yet. But here, I stepped up and put on my big boy pants, if you will. It was a beautiful end to the ark. Yeah. What about you, Garrett? What's your lesson? Don't be afraid to find the courage to stand up for what's right. Yeah, because the whole, you know, being evicted from their home kind of issue. So I'm very heroic what he did. everybody needs a pat on the back. I told you my story about Scott Pelly. Do you know the anchorman for CBS Evening News? Yes. He's now on 60 Minutes. I used to watch him religiously, and I was walking down 57th Street one day. This is what I was doing all the way on Broadway. And I saw Scott Pelly. And I love Scott Pelly. I thought he was, since Walter Cronkite, he was my favorite guy.

And I said, Mr. Pellin, he turned and he looked at me, said, I know you. I just saw you in all the way last night. My goodness, how many characters did you play? I went, oh, my goodness, gracious. And we talked for a little bit. And then we weren't, we stood in a 57th. We talked for like two or three minutes. And at the end, I said to him, you know, Mr. Pelly, he said, call me Scott. I said, Scott, when you sign off at night, we see that you care. We can see it in your eyes, that you can. That's why I watch you. And Scott Pelly started brimming and gave me a big hug. I remember thinking, my God, everybody has to be told. they're worthwhile.

Yeah. You're so right about that, man. You're so right. It doesn't matter where they are in life, you know, how successful they are. Everyone needs that pat on the back. And this whole podcast has been a pat on the back to me. Your praise and your enjoyment of what I did, it really matters to me. Well, you matter to us.

So that's why we do this. You guys matter to me too. Yeah. Thank you, brother. We love you. What is your rating of this episode? What are you going to give Homestead? I can't tell if my rating is because of all the subtext that was going on or whatever.

But I'm going to give this a 9.5. This is, and it's not a 10 because we got to say goodbye to Neelix. And so I'm not going to give that a 10. But I give this a 9.5. It hits on so many levels. This is a really successful episode for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about you, Garrett?

I'll join you. I'll give it the same. I'll give the same rating. I'm joining for 9.5, yeah. Do you have a rating? What would you rate this? Yeah, what would you rate this? 0.72.

And I'll tell you why. No, I'm going to give it a 9.5. Why not? All right, we're all 9.5s. What is our admirals and captains group average rating for this episode? What do we have? The captain and admiral average rating for Homestead is they gave it an eight. Wow.

That's pretty high. That's good, isn't it? It's usually between six. and seven for the most part. All right. Well, that is our recap and discussion with the lovely and talented Ethan Phillips joining us of Homestead. Thank you, everyone, for being there, yes. Absolute pleasure to be here with you guys.

An absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. We loved it. We loved it. And join us next week when Robbie and I will be discussing and recapping the episode Renaissance Man. For those of you who happen to be Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. and more Ethan Phillips goodness. I'm going to be able to be.