The Delta Flyers - Hope and Fear

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

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

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers of Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are myself, Garrett Wong, and my co-host, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. Robbie. Hello there, sir. How are you? Hello, yes.

Well, I'm kind of duplicating your wardrobe a little while's back. You had this on. Yeah, I like that shirt. Yeah, so my shipment came. So thank you to Gemma Bean 1, Coffee Made JC, J.C., J. Alex Mack, S underscore Steff 85, and Manilizer 131 for my J.C. shipper clothing J. C. Yeah.

I love the J and the C, the big block lettering with their faces. Oh, it's a great shirt. Invading your personal space. It's 2371. It's all the close talking. We talk about it all the time. How close they get when they talk. Yeah, they're so close. Yeah, and it's always kind of a whisper

with a touch on the hand or a lingering caress on the shoulders. J.C. all the way. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your skiing day yesterday. I skied yesterday. Yeah, Deer Valley. It was beautiful, beautiful, sunny day, just really gorgeous. We've had so much snow lately up here. That was my question. The coverage is good, right? There were no bare spots anywhere. No bear spots. Yeah. The only disappointment was they're having a big freestyle, a World Cup freestyle competition next week. And so they had a bunch of stuff closed getting ready for this freestyle thing.

So there was some, a couple of, it was one lift that was closed that I would, you know, I love to go on. But it was fun to see the, you know, the TV towers going up and the big jumps and the mogul. It's a, it's a freestyle moguls competition. Oh, nice. And jumps and things. So. Yeah.

Yeah. And you've got to be, you know, if you're a competitor at that level, man, imagine the amount of fitness, the fitness regimen that you have to have going. to get down an entire hill of moguls at full speed. It's just like your knees, everything has to be ready to go. It's definitely a grueling, grueling task to get from the top to the bottom of moguls, a bumpy run like that. The thing for me that I love most about skiing, you know, not a lot of people don't ski or

don't know much about it. But what I love about it is you take these lifts up to these beautiful spots that are just inaccessible, unless you're hiking in the summer, but in the winter, inaccessible because of the snow and everything, but you take these lifts up and you just get to see nature in a way that's just so beautiful. And then the adrenaline of kind of sliding down the mountain and, you know, and not falling. Oh, yeah. It's exciting.

It's beautiful and exciting. I think, I think that's part of the allure of these outdoor sports like skiing and golf is really to look at the scenery and to, you know, partake of the energy of nature when you're out there, which is, you feel invigorated. There's no way you can't, you know, be in all of God's beauty. You know what I'm saying? I feel like it's really good medicine to be outside. And it makes me think like on Voyager on Star Trek, these characters, these, they were stuck on

ships. Yeah. You know, there was no, I mean, thank God for the holiday where you could go and you could take a hike or do something outdoors because you're stuck on a ship. I can't imagine. If we had no holodex, I think people would have gone crazy. Go bananas on the Voyager. Yeah, that's the one saving grace of being on a ship lost in the Delta Quadrant is the

holodex. And we had more than one holodex because you need, you know, multiple holodex running to service all the members of the crew. What was the temperature when? It was beautiful. It was in the high 40s Fahrenheit. Nice. Comfortable sunny day, you know.

And for those of you, yeah, for those of you have. have not had the opportunity to ski Utah. Utah snow is phenomenal. It's so crazy because Colorado is a big skiing state. And I love Colorado resorts. I don't want any Colorado people to take offense to this. But Utah, snow, it's just different. It's fluffier. It's lighter. It's, it's, and it's, these are two states that are next to each other. So you would assume that they would have received the exact same type of snow, but no, it's completely different. Alta is my favorite resort. Deer Valley where Robbie went is probably the most upscale resort that I know of in this country. I mean, they have, luxurious. Oh, my goodness. Typically,

when you stop for lunch on a normal ski resort in the U.S., your lunch fair, yeah, a slice of pizza, a hot dog, burger, you know, maybe a maybe a sub sandwich. And that's, that's the extent of it. But Deer Valley, they've got like, filet mignon, you know, this whole spread. French cuisine. Yeah, exactly. We have three French chefs in the back. They're cooking up everything. It's like, what?

It's some of the nicest food that you can have on that. Did you eat lunch on the mountain? I did. They had a soup station outside up by the, it was the mid-mountain stop. It was up pretty high. And I stopped. They had soup outside with these fresh kettle chips. that they cooked fresh.

Oh, wow. And so the tomato basil soup was delicious and perfect. And then these like gourmet, you know, homemade chips that they had were a perfect little side for it. It was great. And I sat outside. So I was COVID safe outside all day. Yeah, it was really, it was great.

So look at that, folks. Deer Valley, even though they have a little soup station, they don't hand you that little individual packet of chips that's pre-bought from a store. Oh, no. It was. They actually made the country. Yes. And the chips were like in a, you know, a porcelain bowl and the soup was in this China. And it was, everything was very nice. It was lovely. They have their own greenhouse where they grew the tomatoes. Yes. I'm messing. I'm messing with you. That's not true. But that would have been cool too. All right. So are you ready? Yeah. What is this week? You ready for this episode? This is the final episode. Oh my gosh. That's right. Season four. It's crazy. I can't believe. Wow. Season finale. actually there. It's hope and fear. That's the name of it. And I can't believe we've actually made it

to this point in our review and recap these episodes. That's unbelievable. End of season four. Okay. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited. Season finalities are always exciting. So let's go watch it. Let's go watch it. We will be right back and all the Patreon patrons out there. Please stay tuned for your bonus material. Robbie and I are back from watching hope and fear. Oh, my gosh. Yes, I just was telling you before we started recording that, like, this was so dense for me.

And it started off. I was feeling like, oh, yeah, this is fun. It was pretty easy the first third of this or something to note and kind of watch and analyze. And then it just started getting, like, complicated. Wow. And by the way, I can't believe that neither one of us remembered any of this. Exactly.

Exactly. And it is interesting how there are certain episodes that I'm going to say I get mired in quicksand where I start slowing down. I have to rewind and it takes me forever. And then you were able to take a nap, mow the lawn, clip the hedges and show up. And it's like an hour and a half later. And this time I finished half an hour before you did, which is kind of an hour before you did, which is very, very, very rare. And I didn't feel that this was very dense. This one. wasn't dense for me for some reason that's i don't i don't know how to explain it but like i said each episode is different for each of us we have different ways of experiencing it when we're watching it so uh you know we're done so you finished it finally thank we made it through the finale of season four which like i said i can't believe i didn't remember any of this i know yeah i was over on that the dawnless quite a bit you were all over the place yes so i was thinking wait a minute you're in the cargo bay over here, you know, with the stuff you guys had from the trade mission. So there's a lot of a lot of scenes with Tom Paris. And it wasn't one of the episodes where you and I were kind

of on vacation for the year. Well, I was more on vacation than you were. But still, you should have remembered at least one of these. I should have remembered something. I mean, as I watched it, some moments started coming back vaguely. I was trying to remember this was the end of season four. I think this was around the time where I was making my second short film. I was going to shoot that during the hiatus. So I had made, after season two, I made a short film called The Battery

that went to festivals and things like that. And then after season four, I'm pretty sure it was around, yeah, season four. In that hiatus, I made this short film called Nine Millimetre of Love, which also did festivals and things like that. Yes, and I joined you at Slash. slam dance for that in Utah. Yeah, you came up to one of the film festivals. Yeah. I think maybe

that's why I didn't have such memories about this, because I think I might have been prepping, getting ready to make that short film. So my attention might have been on producing and I'd written that one. That makes perfect sense. That makes perfect sense. Okay. That's all that I can come up with. Let's start up with our poetry synopsis of Let's do. Hope and Fear. And here is my haiku for hope. and fear. Arturus solves code. Dauntless is our way back home. Janeway sees the truth. I think you captured the spirit a little better. That was great. Really? It was really great. Then your limerick? Okay. I'm going to say, I actually have two limericks. I probably wrote four or five

trying to like, again, this episode sort of baffled me in odd ways. It's, stumped me. Okay. So I've got two limericks. Yeah, let me hear them both. I want to hear both lyrics. Right. Limerick number one. Limerick number one, Janeway and seven play shoot the frisbee. A way home on the dauntless appears suddenly. Slipstream might work, but Arturis is a jerk. And that's the season four finale. That's great. What are you all bumped about? Okay. All right. Let me hear the second one. I love the first one, but let me hear the second one. Go ahead. our tourist decodes a message from star fleet slipstream tech seems like a treat just kidding he lied then takes janeway and seven for a ride voyager to the rescue isn't that sweet oh i almost thought you were going to end with isn't that neat is no neat would have been good to that yeah isn't that sweet isn't that neat yes i just could not capture the like there's to me there was so much in this episode. There was huge relationship stuff with Seven and Janeway that was constantly

underpinning everything. All right. And then there was all the science and tech and the getting home and slipstream. And I don't know. This one, yeah. Yeah. I think you're being overly critical about your Limerick skills or Rebecca's Limerick skills, whoever it is. You know, I think it came out pretty darn good. So I think you should be proud and not. Thank you. Yeah, and don't be critical any longer, okay? Okay. I think both of them are effective. I think both of them we shall publish in our final book of Limerickson. Poetry collection.

Yeah. Our collection, exactly. Okay. So we'll go with that. All right. I took the honor of looking up the guest stars because I felt good. You may not have had time to because of your quicksand issue. So our guest stars are Ray Wise and Jack Shearer.

Jack Shearer, we've already seen. because he was the admiral that sort of dressed me down in non sequitur when I went back to Earth and I was with your friend Mark, the after Mark. Kyle, yes, one of my dearest friends in the world. Yes, so Jack Shearer was the Admiral Hayes then, and he's still the Admiral Hayes and the message here. Now, you always enjoy looking at the very first credit of all of our guest stars. What was their first job?

Jack Shearer's very first job. Oh, boy. was the TV series Fall Guy with Lee Majors in 1983. Do you remember this? It was about a stuntman, essentially. Yeah, it was a series. And so Jack appeared in 1983 on the Fall Guy. Now, Ray Wise, I'm just shocked that I don't recall working with Ray Wise.

Like the last time I saw Ray Wise was when I was watching you direct on Chuck. And Ray Wise was guest starring on Chuck. I forgot he was on Chuck. Oh, you already forgot that, yeah. I'll tell you what I do remember about Ray Wise, but go ahead. All right. What I was going to say was, I remember Ray very distinctly because when you were filming, when you were directing that episode of Chuck, we were in that one back lot area. It kind of served as a camping site or something like that, right?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. So we were there, and that's when I broke the director's chair that I was sitting in. Oh, I remember that. I remember that broke underneath me, and I was so embarrassed. So that was the day, and Ray Wise was working that day. So that's why Ray's image is so clear in my mind because I was so embarrassed in breaking that director's chair. Now, Ray Wise, interesting enough, his first credit comes almost two decades before Jack Shearer's,

because I would assume Jack is older than Ray, right? Yeah, I feel like Jack. started a little late because 19A3 surprises me too. Yes, I was a little shocked. Yeah, I feel like he came to television and film a little late. Anyway. All right. So here's his first credit.

He did a film. Yeah, Ray Wise's very first credit was 1969. This is a year after I was born. You were five years old at the time. He did a film called Dare the Devil. Dare the Devil. Now, right after that, he jumped into a long running, a very longstanding role in 1970, he booked a show a soap opera actually called Love of Life. Now, this is a soap opera

I've never heard of you. I've heard of it. My mom loved the soaps when I was a little kid, so I do remember. Then your mom would have seen Ray Wise because he was in 950 episodes of Love of Life. That's funny. Can you imagine that? 950. I mean, of course, soap operas do far more, They produce more content than we would, but still, that's, that's an incredible accomplishment. Wow. But that was how his career began. And then most recently, fresh off the boat, 2015 to 2020, the TV series about the Asian Americans living in Florida, and he played the husband of the neighbor.

And his, again, his resume, both of these guys' resumes are long, long, long, long, long. Yeah, I bet. I'll jump in with Ray Wise. I forgot Ray was on Chuck. I totally forgot. that because I was so stressed out by this episode. But the one thing I couldn't forget about Ray Wise is around 1993, I did a recurring part on a series. I had tested, so I'd screen tested for a regular on this series called Second Chances. But I didn't get the job. The creators of the

show liked me so much or my audition that they wanted me to do something in it. So they created a role for me, a recurring role in the series Second Chances. And And Ray Wise was in that series. Oh. The other person of note in that series was Jennifer Lopez. It was her very first acting job. And I remember when I tested for the show and Ray Wise was in the hallway with some other older actors, he was testing and some younger women were there. And Jennifer Lopez was in the hallway and she was panicking and freaking out.

And I remember I was testing and I knew these showrunners. I'd worked for them before. So I was a little more relaxed. Yeah. And I remember going over to Jennifer Lopez and saying, you know, it's okay. Like, I've done this before. And, you know, I remember having a conversation with her. And she seemed so sweet and innocent and so not like who she's, you know, we've all learned to see that she's a very confident and very strong person.

But my experience in that hallway was she was like shaking. The sides were shaking. And she was nervous. She had been like a dancer. She was one of the first. fly girls on in living color. Exactly. She had been doing.

And anyway, Ray Wise was in the hallway, getting back to Ray Wise. Yeah. That series. So I did the show with Ray Wise and he was awesome. And then the Northridge earthquake hit and the show, the sets were destroyed because we were shooting out in Northridge. Right. It was where the studios were.

And so the sets were destroyed and everything. So they actually canceled the show. Like they lost everything and just said, so we made like 10 episodes or something. And then they were just like... And then they canceled it? Yeah. Wow. They just didn't have the money to rebuild.

And they just were like, you know what? We're not going to make this anymore. So that was my experience with Ray Wise. I connect him to the Northridge earthquake, and that series that Jennifer Lopez ended up getting and doing. And that audition, I remember. That's my Ray Wise. Wait, wait, wait.

So Jennifer Lopez did get the role. She got the role. And you were on the show with her then? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. But by the time we started filming, You know, they tested. And then we started shooting the series.

She had already gotten the movie Selena. And so she started shooting the movie Selena as we were doing the series. And she blew up, like, literally like that. And I remember talking to Ray Wise about, oh, my God, this young girl is like she got her first show. And now she's doing this movie. And Ray Wise was great. He was just a veteran, awesome guy. And so great to see him on the show.

I thought he did a great job in this episode. That's my long story of Ray Wise. All right, cool. Let's jump into this episode. So directed by Rick Colby. Aha, you win. You win. That's what I thought. That's what I thought.

Yeah, and it was a classic Rick Colby episode in all the great ways, all the way he shoots all these sets is just really dynamic. Yeah. Agreed. I did note that there were so many writers on this, you know, credited. Yeah. Story by Rick Berman, Brandon Braga, Joe Man on. Teleplay by Brandon Braga, Joe Manoski. And I did do a little research, even though I know it took me forever to

through this episode, but I always like to look at some of the context of what was going on as the story was developed. And this was I picked up a very hard episode for them to develop the story. They were under a time crunch that there was a at one point seven was supposed to leave Voyager and take another ship and then she was going to be like battling with Janeway like they were going to be in separate shuttles or something she was going to take a shuttle and they had a whole story developed about it was really an episode developed for Janeway and Seven to collide. Okay.

That was the original concept that that Brannon and Joe had for this episode that they would be like battling Seven and Janeway. And so you can feel that in this. I could feel that in this, the development of the story that yeah the battling was there um i also want to say that it's rare to see berman's name a story by as well right you don't see his name that often so well what the reason that is from what i could pick up is they had trouble figuring out this finale that there were a lot of versions they kept rewriting the outline and kept rewriting and rewrite and at one point i think brandon had gone into rick's office and said we need some help like we cannot figure out this story. We keep everybody's got different ideas and it's just not coming together.

And I think Rick was the one that said, okay, what if you break it down this way and don't reveal, you know, use this bad guy. There was some other alien they had in mind. It was a much more complicated story and a very complicated journey to write the script. So yeah, that was a cool thing to, yeah. Yeah, nice research there. Okay. Yes, sir. Let's jump into all. are play-by-play now. Okay. So here we are in the holodeck. Seven of nine and Janeway are playing this game called Velocity.

Velocity. Which I've never, no one's ever discussed or mentioned, but they're playing velocity. Maybe that was what the original concept of like battling each other turned into this holodeck game. Right. Seems like the captain is winning all these games. And Seven is very frustrated. She is. She's very frustrated.

rated, wants to play more, wants another shot. Jamie was like, no, I got to get out of here. By the way, Seven's hair is really big. I wrote down, Jerry's hair looks like a 1950s big hairdo. Agreed. And she had some board tech on her arm that we've never seen. Yeah, there's an implant on her, because we don't see her arms ever. And so now she's wearing some version of a tank top, I guess.

some athletic top, and we see the arm. But here's the crazy thing. Her skin is still Borgie modeled underneath. Like her implant that's on her face, it's regular skin color all around that implant on both of those implants, right? The one over her eyebrow and the one on the side, the little chicken claw on the side of her face. They're just on her body and it's normal skin color.

But the one on her arm is just, it's almost like it's not healed all the way. Yes, exactly. Right? Yes. Yeah, it was it was surprising to see that. Most definitely. Janeway says, I got to get out of here. And Janeway at the end is like, you know, come on, just be a good sport. Like be a good sport about losing. It's not a big deal. The most important thing is Janeway talks about instinct. Right. That is intuition. Intuition. She does talk about that, which is the important part of this scene. But I also felt when she said, you know, be a good sport. She was kind of digging into seven a little bit with that comment. you know, I felt like it could have been a little lighter than the way she delivered. Yeah, could have been. I mean, definitely this, you know, it was setting up that they're going to be battling this whole episode.

Oh, yeah. But the intuition is really important because she does hit Janeway seems to fire without even looking at this thing and win the last game. And Seven's like, how did you do that? Like you didn't even look at it. And she tries to explain in a way that a board might understand it's intuition. Intuition is when you anticipate what it's done before. you kind of feel it.

She just tries to explain it in a logical way somehow what intuition is, and Seven's like, that's implausible. Well, she says it's a human fallacy. Intuition is a human fallacy. Interesting little scene, and then we find Janeway in the mess hall next. Captain's log, she talks about that she's been working on decrypting that message

from Starfleet Command five months ago, and five is a number that is used twice in this scene, So five months ago is when this Starfleet message came through that she can't decipher. Chikote comes in. And this is when Janeway figures out or learns what time it is. It's 0,500 hours. So it's 5 a.m. Message from five months ago, he reports that Tom and Neelix are heading back from a trade mission.

In my notes, I wrote Tom, but I guess it auto corrected to talk, T.O.K. So I immediately thought, he reports that TikTok and Neelix are heading. head it back from a trade mission with supplies and also a guest, a guest who helped out with some type of trade negotiation because the universal translator wasn't working and this guest is really someone who is quite helpful and is asking for a bit of a ride to the next star system. So Janeway acknowledges this and says, okay, I approve. She talks about decrypting this message. She's obsessed with decrypting the message that we got from Starfleet. And she's tried 50.

different decryption algorithms. She's getting nothing. And if she could just solve this, they could be home tomorrow. She says, you know, who knows? This could be the way home. This could be a map to a wormhole or a way to get home or it could be a recipe for a pound cake. What would be so bad if it were a recipe for a pound cake? Catherine Janeway. I like that. Yeah, like who doesn't like a pound cake? Come on. So what's so wrong with that? I don't know. Hey, but see, if you're overseas, is it a kilo is it a kilogram cake kilogram cake a kilo cake a pound cake is comes from the recipe is like a pound of butter or something oh is that what it is okay or a pound i don't know that's i think that's where it comes from okay pound cakes are delicious yes they are she also says to jacote that seven and her have been

budding heads yes and you know a lot of this is i i just keep watching like a mother daughter relationship going on. Yeah. It's just mother and 13-year-old daughter. It's so close to that. And so many parallels are going on there. And that's the end of that scene. I didn't notice in that scene, by the way, that Rick Colby shot a lot of profile close-ups that when Kate and and Robert Beltran were talking to each other, that they were, you know, normally the camera's looking at both of their eyes, but this was profile close-ups, which I thought was interesting because usually a director will use profile close-ups for a scene where someone is battling,

you know, where they're butting heads. Right. But this was not a scene where Chucote and Jane were budding heads. So I just, I thought it was interesting. It reminded me how much Rick Colby was kind of experimental, much more experimental than most of our directors. Well, maybe he wanted to keep the theme going

in scenes that didn't have seven. Yeah, maybe. So people kind of understood that. So when you're saying, were these singles or were this, these were singles these were singles but instead of coming around to see both of their eyes to see both of kate's eyes right he was off to the side in a profile and so yeah i just yeah i thought it was an interesting choice because it's unconventional for seeing

like that so next we go to cargo bay yes no we see tom ordering everyone around move this this goes here this goes there and then you pick up what you act like you don't know what it is but it's clearly a jellyfish? It's a jellyfish. By the way, Chacote sees this jellyfish thing and he's like, what is this? And Paris takes it. First of all, why am I touching it? Why are you touching that thing? Why am I touching this alien thing? Because I literally say, I don't know what this is. Well, then why did you touch it? But I hold this thing and he's like, I don't know what this is. He goes, Neelix, which is kind of fun, calling for Neelix.

Oh, yeah. And we cut over to see Neelix introducing this new. new friend, to Janeway. And he says he was negotiating with someone on this planet when his universal translator went out and wasn't working and they couldn't communicate. And Arturis came over and saved him by translating all of the conversation, both sides. So this alien obviously can communicate without, they're very smart or something because they can understand languages without a communicator. So, or translator.

So I thought that was kind of cool. It is cool. And I like the fact they call him the living universal translator. That is a nice label to have, I suppose. But he does explain to Janeway that he sees pattern. He can see things, I like to call it, he can see the matrix. He can see what is happening. And so that helps him with languages and with all kinds of things, right?

And this is when Janeway sort of gets a bit of an idea. Yes. And she's thinking that light bulb over her head. Yeah, the light bulb. it's like really maybe you can help us out yes with our message by the way he's very this alien or tourists at this point i i made a note that he's smiling a lot that ray wise played him as a very friendly accommodating yes very smiling and normally we don't even if aliens are friendly they're usually more business right but he was very friendly and seems which is part of his whole con we'll

come to realize later on correct he also has probably one of the biggest heads of any alien. Had a giant head, yeah. It goes way back. And I thought that makeup was really cool until, I got to say later on, I noticed quite a few times where you could see where the glue sort of held it. And when he got a little more animated and things like that, you could see the line where the facial glue stopped and the big foamy headpiece started.

Wow. Look at you. It sort of bumped me a little bit. Maybe this is why it took you so much extra time to review this episode. You caught all these small little facts that I did not see at all. It's a really great makeup. And usually our makeup department is great with those details of making sure that there's not a seam that you don't see where the piece sort of stops. Correct.

But this time I did notice. And maybe it was just because Ray Wise started getting very animated later in the episode. Could be. Anyway, we'd go to Astromatrix next. And Janeway 7 and our tourists are looking at all this. this encrypted data stream that they're trying to figure out. And Arturis, he says, yes, this is definitely damaged. And while he's analyzing it, he's like, you're Borg, aren't you?

He notices Seven's cortical implant. And she says, well, I was, but I'm no longer a part of the collective. And then Janeway asks, well, has the Borg ever met his race? And she says, yes, we knew them as species 116, but we have not been able to assimilate them yet. And Janeway gives her a look like, oh, come on, don't be rude. It was a great little moment in the side moment in the back. She's like, why are you threatening this guy? He's so friendly and you're being a jerk. Again, it was a mom looking at her teenage daughter. A teenage daughter just said something inappropriate. The mom gave her, shot her this look like,

come on. Come on, kid. Don't go there. You know, don't embarrass the family. Yeah. Great look, though. really good it was a good look we do see uh admiral hayes footage we start to see some of that seven sees a spatial grid like a map up there and jane went goes up and she says yeah this is the coordinates of an of a sector nearby about yeah 10 light years away maybe this is they want us to go here yeah and so um we cut to the bridge and they're approaching these coordinates that our tourists help them decryp some of this so they get this map at least uh so far. And they approach these coordinates and on the view screen, they see a ship. And the signature is a Starfleet signature. The warp signature is Starfleet. And it's very advanced looking.

I liked the design. Oh, I thought it was super cool. I thought, ooh, this thing looks very aerodynamic and just different from any other Starfleet ship we've seen so far. The reaction from Harry, happy. Harry is happy as a clam. You can see him smiling. Then you cut to Janeway's face. Not so much. She's not too happy. She's very stone cold, which sort of bumped me at this point. I was like, what is, I made the same note? Like, why is Kate playing it this way? Makes sense later on because she's very skeptical all along.

We come back on the bridge and they try hailing them, no response, no life signs. By the way, I made a note, Rick Colby shoots the bridge so well. The way he stages, the movement in one line, you know, hands off to another. Really good. the really tense sort of really stacked up frames where we get lots of information in the frame as low angles, foreground elements. It was really cool looking. You know, they see this Starfleet ship and they don't know what to make of it.

And Janeway thinks the answer has got to be in this transmission. So she says to Arturis, you know, I need your help to decode the rest of the mission. And he steps down on the bridge near her. And I made a note, he's close talking. like it's really awkward another why did we do that on star trek so much like we would come up and just kind of talk right next to each other yes even the guest stars did it it must have been the directors or something i don't know but because he came up in a really creepy way right next to her he did chikote would be mad i think you could even see her hair like blow from his breath like that's how

close. That's how close all tourists was to Janeway. Yeah. But you're right. Close talking it was. Close talking. Anyway, she says,

can you help me? Let's decode the rest of this message. And she says to Chikote to take Tom and Tuvok over and secure this Starfleet vessel. Go over there and secure it. You're right. Not Tom and Harry, but Tom and Tuvok. Tom and Tuvok. Yeah.

So now we're on the Dauntless bridge. Yep. With Tom and Tuvok and not Harry. And Chikod. I was bummed. I was like, what? I am not on the away team. Fine. You didn't even remember this. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Well, you guys detect that there's power fluctuations in the warp core. So that's the first sort of something's going on. Right. Like, what's happening here? It's interesting. And then we go to the engineering room of the dauntless and you guys discover this is not a typical warp core. This is something that nobody's really seen before.

And you guys discover that it's a quantum slipstream drive. Yeah. And while you guys are checking it out, the vessel powers up. Who pushes the button randomly? Was that you? No, nobody pushes it. It was on auto-start. So they come over.

They check the panels. They realize it's the USS Dauntless. It's got registry NX-O-1A. Yeah. Like, it seems legit, right? Everything. It even says that, it was launched on Star Date 51, 472.

Right. So everything seems legit. Yeah. This, but this engine is very different. You're right. They don't recognize it at all. Paris, you know, when they're in the engine room, by the way, the engine room, it looked like those static electricity balls that you used to see it like.

Put your hand on. Yeah, Spencer's. Spencer's Gifts had them. You could buy them. Sure. That's what the engine looked like. Just a big version of that. That's probably what it was.

Yeah. They said, get down to Spencer's. Go buy their static electricity ball. That's going to be the quantum slips stream drive. That's the quantum slip stream. Do you remember that bridge? Does that, is it bringing a bell now that you? Well, when I watched the episode, what I did remember, I vaguely remember, yes, being on that set.

What I remember most of all, and I made this note right here, that Rick really wanted these low angles because we were standing on that platform looking down at the static electricity ball. Yeah. And there was a lot of cool red. you know, colored lights and things. And he wanted the camera down there, real low angle with lots of foreground stuff.

And I remember it was hard to get the camera in there. So I remember and panning around and we had to really kind of thread the needle to hit a mark. I remember the technical, you know, aspects of shooting in that set because it was tricky because of where he wanted to put the camera. Okay, so that's for the engineering room. But what about for the bridge before the scene before this?

Do you recall advanced bridge? No? vaguely. Okay. Vaguely. I feel like, you know, spoiler alert, I'm going to jump to later on when it decloaks and we see that it's a different ship. I do remember being on a set like that where we had to shoot a bunch of stuff and then we had to go away and shoot other stuff while they changed it over to look like the alien ship because it sort of decloaks. I do remember scenes where they had to, they had to sort of the schedule was weird because of that.

Right. Like, I don't know why I'm remembering more of the shooting aspects than the story aspects of this one. Okay. That is okay. Yeah. Now we have a bit of a montage, not a montage, but they jump back and forth between the Dauntless bridge and Voyager's bridge. And at this point, Kim is in command of the bridge. I know. I put down here in the captain's chair in the captain's chair once before, though. Yeah, I've been there a couple times. Usually for the night shift. when nothing happens. I don't think Paris was ever in the captain's chair that I can remember. Yes, you were. Was I? Yeah. Did we cover it already?

Maybe once. We did. We did. You got up and. Oh, yeah. That's right. You acted captain Lee.

You had a few captainly moments. Once. Once. I think you've been in that chair more than me. I have been in the chair more than you have. That is true. That is correct. For sure.

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Yeah, this dauntless takes off on autopilot. Like, we don't know what's going on. It takes off. It flies off. And by the way, the space shot of it, dauntless taking off, to me, I felt like it was too similar to warp drive. Okay. I wish that they had done something very different visually to make it look like, you know,

whatever the deflector, deflectors did to help create this slip stream thing. I wish it looked a little different because it felt very much. like warp drive to me. That's valid. But yes, we do. The thing takes off on autopilot, taking Chikote, Tuvok, and Tom, and Harry on the bridge goes, bridge to Janeway, they're gone! And Harry's in shock.

And then we cut to the dauntless with our threesome, our three amigos, flying through what I like to call the tube of space. Slipstream looks like a tube of, like a sausage tube of space that is flying through. The sausage tube of space? Yes. That's what Slipstream looks like. For those on the audio podcast only, just imagine a sausage tube of space, and that's what Slipstream looks like.

I don't know if people want to imagine that. If you're inside a sausage tube. Yeah, I don't. Okay. So it's flying along through the tube of space. Yes, and it finally stops somehow. I don't even know how you guys stopped it. It just stopped.

I guess auto stopped. Tom explains the energy from the quantum drives being rerouted through the main deflector. And I like Tuvok's line where he goes, fascinating. Can you make it stop? It was such, I wrote it down because it made me laugh out loud. Tim Ross is reading of, because I'm telling him, I'm picking this up and I'm picking that up. And he's like, fascinating. Can you make it stop?

It's almost as good as the line earlier when you guys first beam on that dauntless bridge. and you're like, wow, and he goes, wow, indeed. Yes, exactly. He's very, he's very sarcastic in this episode. Yeah, he is. He is. Two bucks hilarious. But yeah, it does, it does come to a stop.

Somehow Paris has made it stop. Yeah. Which is interesting because later on, it's a big deal for Harry and Bologna to figure out how to make it stop, but somehow Paris did. But he can't remember, I guess. Yeah. Which fits the actor that played him. who can't remember anything.

Short-term memory loss for Tom and Robbie McNeil. Yes, yes. But somehow he makes it stop. They're back in normal space. And Tuvok says, in that quick second that we just traveled, we traveled over 15 light years. 15 light years. So this thing's fast. That's so fast.

Then we go to space. We see a cool shot of Voyager approaching the dauntless, which I thought was kind of cool. I like that shot. Captain's long. She says, we've spent two days. at high warp to catch what they did in a few seconds, 30 seconds. Yeah, very quick. Two days at high warp to catch them, but we did catch them.

And then we go to the briefing room. And they're watching the video of Admiral Hayes. Correct. Well, he basically says, like, hey, we've sent this ship out there for you. And this is your way home. You'll have enough provisions and everything. It's all good to go. So we can't wait to see you.

So, you know, we're excited and Harry is super excited. Seven and is a little bit, you know, she's being a teenager and she's kind of, kind of snappy in this scene, especially towards Harry. There is talk of modifying Voyager for slip stream travel so that we can, I guess, kind of tow, or not tow, but bring Voyager along. You know, the plan is don't scuttle the ship. Don't leave our ship. Yeah, that's what Sethon says. Tuvok does stay behind after everyone leaves the meeting, and Janeway expresses her reservations. She says that everything is just a little too convenient, how everything happened.

She's like, why am I not more enthusiastic? And Tuvok says, perhaps my mental discipline is rubbing off on you. Yes. Which I liked. I did like that line. Yeah. But then they pinpoint the fact that everything started when Arturis arrived. So Arturis is sort of the jumping off point.

Yeah, everything that began as everything that started happening happened when he showed up. So there are some suspicions there, but Jainwe only expresses these concerns to Vok. So these two know about what's going on. She doesn't really say it to anybody else. This is our first red flag. Yeah, first red flag. So they talk. And then she says, she says keep an eye on our tourists.

Like, you know, I don't trust him. Yeah. Oh, here's where the montage happens. Right? This is where the montage happens. Yeah, there's a big montage between Janeway and Seven really. Right. But you see dauntless bridge, astrometrics, the corridor, Janeway's ready room, cargo bay where Seven's regeneration station is. Yeah, regeneration pot is, yep. And all of those locations with a montage are in a montage with personal logs from Janeway and Seven back and forth, back and forth, which we've never done before. We've never done a montage like this. And it was back and forth between the two.

them. Again, I go back to this, like, how this story developed. I think this was supposed to be very much a Janeway 7 episode, even more than it, than it is. Originally, I think it was all them. It sort of developed to include more of us. But when this montage starts, there's a space shot where we see over the Dauntless with Voyager behind a really cool angle. And you can see inside the windows of the Dauntless. Do you remember that? Like, no. It was really cool. I was like, That's a very cool detailed vis effects where they added all these windows. It's a classic Dan Curry detail because Dan Curry came on to Chuck with me for five years. He sure did.

And he, that's a detail. He'd always talk about, well, what do we see inside that window? Do we need to shoot an extra element and film? Because we want to keep it alive. It's not a painting. We wanted to feel three dimensional. As realistic as possible. Yeah, I thought that was very cool.

But in this montage, Janeway's on the, the dog. Dauntless Bridge at one point. And she sort of walks by. And do you see you and me in the background? What? What? What? What? What happened? What are we doing in the background, man? What are we doing? During the voiceover, she's on the Dauntless bridge hitting some buttons. And as she walks and kind of glances into the Dauntless Bridge, you and you and I are on the dauntless bridge. You're sitting down and I'm standing by you. And we're both sort of laughing. I'm sitting down laughing with you. Yeah. And I'm sitting down. I'm I made a note. I was like, what joke were we telling?

Because I'm sure that we were like, we were being background in the scene over this montage. And I'm sure I said some dirty joke or something or you did. One of us said something because the laugh was very real. It didn't look like we were, you know, faking it in any ways. You didn't really tell dirty jokes, though. You were more of a, I don't even know, I guess, observational comedy. You know, you would just see it.

as a whatever was going on around you and you would comment on it. Yeah, it was probably something like that. Who's doing the most laughing? Was it me or was it you? Both of us. I don't know what we were laughing about, but clearly we were goofing off. Why would we have not noticed that the camera was on us though? Wouldn't we have? I think it was supposed

to be like everybody's happy. They're going home. So I think it fit the scene. Oh, okay. All right. I think it fit the scene. That makes sense. Yeah. That makes sense. I've got to watch it again now just because you tell me this. Okay. I noticed in this also that seven in the hallway. the hallway was filled during this bontage with a bunch of a regular background and it was

great to see all these happy all these regular background there and they all were laughing same thing everybody's excited they think we're going home we're going to get home real soon um i love the close-up in the ready room when janeway's talking about maybe i'll connect with my old friends and we cut to a close-up of seven in the in the regeneration alcove and she's like will she be able to adapt to human civilization. So they're both sort of pondering the consequences or the reality of being home. Getting home, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Now, we end up in a scene in Dauntless Engineering Room. Seven Taurus and Harry are there. Seven and Torres start talking about getting back home and there's, you know, there's hesitation from seven. And seven even brings up the fact that,

you know, you seemed pretty excited to get back there, especially. since and it's shocking to me it's surprising to me seven says because you will be you will be facing charges for being a marquee for a member of the marquee and doesn't that doesn't that affect you in any way and torres sort of answers well if it was up to me and spending the rest of my life in the delta quadrant or facing the music and you know facing the charges that i face i'll take the charges and back home then yeah being a delta quadrant so and then she says something to seven like you know well, yeah, I'll be in trouble, but so will you, Seven, for being a bored or something. And then she goes, that was a joke.

You need to work on your sense of humor, Seven. Yeah. It was a long conversation with Belon and Seven, which we don't see often. So I was really happy to see that scene. I thought it was really fun to watch. It was a good scene. When Balana leaves, then Seven goes over and talks to Harry, and Harry's excited. And he's trying to get her excited, and she just has this cold stare with Harry.

And ultimately, Harry's like, you know, seven, it won't be the same without you. That's right. And it has a really nice moment. And she just is cold and. Oh, no, she smiles then. That's when after he says that, she does give me a smile. Yes. She gave you a little smile.

I didn't pick that up. Warm smile from seven when Harry tries to say it won't be the same without you. That's like the only time where she's kind of comfortable and and a little bit happy. She's called the rest of the scene. I didn't catch that little moment. You might have been so busy writing notes down. You didn't see the smile. So it's split seconds.

It worked. You got to it. That's why we're co-hosts for this thing. Whatever I miss, you pick up. Whatever you miss, I pick up. And then you find a weird panel. You get a reading on their tricorder. I do.

You pull this panel out and there's a weird. The tricorder sort of sparks the panel. It like reacts. Yeah. Really weird. And so you call Tuvok. Yeah. And hey, we got to check this out.

I picked up something unusual. Is what you said, right? He says, I'll be right over. Don't worry. We jump to astrometrics. And seven basically says that she does not want to return to Earth. She says this to Janeway. And Janeway says this is about your fear. You know, you are afraid to go back to Earth. And this is the scene where Janeway discovers the real message from Admiral Hayes. And that message is basically where we've tried everything. We cannot figure out a way to get you guys back sooner. you know, good luck is the essence of this message. Yeah, she finds, she's, yeah, Janeway is suspicious of that first message that our tourists helped her get. And so she's digging deeper.

At the end of the scene, she does find that buried real message, which is good luck that we can't help you at all. But in the middle of the scene, I found that this scene was really important because Janeway lays out like, you know, you're becoming human. you're afraid and trust me it's going to you're going to get home to earth and you're going to see the humanity that you're starting to look and seven just goes hard at Janeway in this she does she goes really really hard criticizing and just cutting and saying really harsh things I was shocked actually I was like wow the writers really put a lot of harsh stuff in seven's mouth

yeah didn't she say that she wasn't going to go through with doing any of her job or anything like that she was done isn't that isn't this a scene where she says that she's well well janeway does say you know we've given you a lot seven it's time that you do something in return which i was like whoa so they're both kind of sniping at each other but i felt like seven doing a lot i have been doing a lot i have on many occasions but this time i refuse i refus jimmy's like well what are you going to do you're going to stay here by yourself how will you survive yeah she'll say she says i'll survive and jane like on what board perfection yeah he goes look at that line precisely yes and it was a heated conversation that again going back because i i was wondering how this story

came about and again i think it was they had had a whole different idea about this story that was all seven and jane way like battling out in space by themselves or something and so these these ideas and these themes came out in these scenes as they were working right but um yeah at the end of the scene they find the real message and arturus has lied yeah so So Janeway says, let's go get weapons. She calls Tuvok, says, watch our tourists, but don't tip her hand. We're coming over with weapons. We go to the Dauntless Bridge.

And our tourist is walking around. And he goes to push a button. And Bologna says, no, no, no, don't do that. She goes, you almost started the slipstream drive. And he goes, oh, he plays innocent. Oh, really? Right. And then he speaks Klingon to her, which I thought was cool.

Yeah, he did. Basically saying thank you, I think is what he was saying. But the other important part about the scene is when Janeway does arrive, she tells all the away teams, all the, all the personnel to head back to the ship. Okay. So he's just like, get out of here. Everyone get out of here. She confronts a tourist. A tourist is dodging it pretty much.

You know, he's not, I didn't do any of this. And then he blames seven. Yeah. Seven fault. She tampered with it. She's sabotaging. She doesn't want to go back, which actually is a pretty good lie because it would make sense to Jane. ways you might buy it but but he can tell she's not buying it so he goes and it goes to rip a panel

open yeah and try to get this lever and a security team grabs him and there's a bit of a struggle he got shot by a phaser first which yeah and got shot by the phase anything he was like like it it singed his clothes but it didn't really do anything to him then they come over the two security detail it's uh the one person who i've never seen before the the female the lady and the other guy we have seen before. That background actor, I've kind of joked and said, that's Ed Shearin, you know, the, right. So Ed Shearin and the new security detail officer try to pry him loose, but evidently he has extreme strength. Like he's, he's stronger than Tuvok. Yeah, stronger than two of our security. But they're holding him back and he just gets his fingers on the edge of the lever.

And as he falls back, he pulls this lever. Right. And the ship decloak. on the bridge, which was very cool, transforms into this alien ship, which I loved. It was cool red lights and the panels all look super cool. And as people are beaming out now, because Janeway had said, evacuate the ship, I'll tell all the security, you know, the, what do you call them, repair teams to evacuate. And some of our security people start beaming out. but um harry says he's trying to deflect our transporter right locks and so some of them beam out but janeway and seven basically starting to be mount yeah but he's now deflected it and they can't so

he's got them trapped and they seem to go into slipstream mode yeah and he's got janeway and seven right and we've lost them correct um so on duntless's bridge yeah passage of time after the commercial break our tourist blames janeway for the destruction of his species essentially just you know you're the reason you are the reason why i i don't i don't hold her at fault because she's just a drone doing she was a drone doing what she had to do kind of a thing right so the borg or not at fault it's you jane way you made the deal you ended up eliminated eight four seven two and his people had outwitted the board for centuries he said right right But then when she made the deal with the species 8472...

Actually, the deal was with the Borg, right, to help the Borg defeat 8472. That's the deal. Yes. And 8472 was the last hope of Arturus' people because 8472 was winning the battle against the Borg. And once Voyager intervened and basically screwed up the whole prime directive. And that's how we have the end of his people.

Like only 10,000 are left. 10 to 20,000 survived. He said he escaped with one. vessel alone by himself. And he blames Janeway not seven for this. She said, you know, the Borg or not the, you know, none of this. They were doing what Borg do. Right. But you're the reason, you know, we had everything in balance and we're managing it until you made this deal. Yeah. So he said he watched and waited for months to try to lure them to his vessel. Yeah. And he's going to take them back and let them get assimilated by the Borg. Yeah. And his plan, his plan was the entire crew was

could be simulated by the board, all of us. But he'll set, he's, he's satisfied with two. Two is good enough. If he can get Janeway and seven, that's fine. And he, and he says to seven, he says, you know, seven should think, you should thank me because this is what you wanted all along. You've wanted to go back to the collective, right? Yeah, which is an interesting thing because she has, she's like a teenage, petulant teenage child.

Yes. She's been telling mom, I just want to go back to the board. I want to, I don't want to go play with my friends. I don't like you anymore. And he just wants revenge. He just wants revenge. Yeah, that's all he cares about. So now we go to the Voyager Bridge and it's shaking, everything's shaking here.

And Chukotay had asked Paris to use the warp core modifications for slipstream that they were working on and try to go after them. So they clearly have gotten this going. And now they're going at slipstream or they're about to go to slipstream. They're breaking through right now. They finally break through. Harry says, you know, whole integrity is going down, everything's shaking, and they break through into slipstream. It does work.

And then Paris says he'll align their course to match the slipstream of the alien ship. So they're on the hunt. So now we know voyagers on the chase, they just got to catch up to them. Then we go to the alien brig. Seven in January are there, and they're trying to come up with an escape plan or something. And they realize, well, the Borg, if Borg drones could just walk through this force field. then you've still got some... You could adapt.

Yeah. If you could adapt, exactly. So if they could adjust her cranial implant, maybe she could use her board tech to get, walk right out of this brig. So, yeah, Janeway takes her com badge and kind of removes a microfilament out of her combat. She says, would a microfilament work?

I think so. So she takes the microphone out of her comb badge and starts tweaking the implant. And here is the dialogue where Janeway begins talking to seven, while she's adjusting her implant, yeah. She says, seven, I've been hard on you at times, but it was never out of anger or regret that I brought you on board. I'm your captain. And that means I can't always be your friend. Understand? And that part, God, how much does that sound like I'm your mom, but I can't always be your friend? Understand? And then seven responds with no, but if we are assimilated, we will be one. And I will understand you.

which is hilarious, right? And Janeway does not know that this is seven's attempt at being funny. And then she, you know, seven, you know, cues are in on that. Yeah. But it is a, to me, it's hilarious. I was making a joke. Yeah. And it is a very funny joke because it is so true.

If they're both assimilated, she's going to know exactly what was in Janeway's mind at that moment. I just love that dialogue. It was really good. That's why I wrote it all down. And in this scene, yeah, this is kind of their coming together scene or a bit of their like mending this. resolution yeah yeah this fight that really blew up i mean i thought the dialogue in the astramactic scene yeah it was the harsh it was the harshest dialogue i've heard particularly from seven i think the words like i said the words they put in seven's mouth were just

i don't know how you come back from that but painful to watch yeah it was very uncomfortable and this is the you know this is the healing scene where seven admits you were right i was afraid It was fear. And I don't know where I belong. And so they both kind of admit some truth there and come back together a bit, a little bit. Yeah. And then seven walks, seven walks through this force field.

She puts her hand through first. It worked. And she walks through like a board drone. And up on the Dauntless Bridge, Arturus picks up that they're escaping. Right. And he gets a little warning. They head to the engine room. They head to the engine room.

And they punch a few buttons. And they realize they're locked out by our tourists. He knows that they've, gotten out. So Jane Way comes up with a brilliant idea. She says, send a power search into the starboard thrusters, the starboard thrusters, which in essence is going to tilt that ship out of whack so it's not flying straight. And I love the end of this. She tells seven, she goes, we have a game of velocity schedule for tomorrow. I expect you to keep the appointment. So this is kind of like, you know, I have hope that this is going to work. This is going to work. Yeah. So that's

yeah we go so we go up to the dauntless bridge where a tourist is trying to the kidnappers taking them and and we see the ship turn you know crazy and i made a note here that the way that they do these shots so our set was still flat on the ground it was not the set was not tipped or anything right they have to get a special head for the camera that the cameras mounted on called a cartoni head and i remember learning about this on star trek it's a dutch head So it, it, usually cameras will tilt forward and backward or pan right and left, but they won't twist one way or the other. Correct.

That's a third axis that you need a special tool for. And so the head that we used was called a cartoni head was the brand. It was an Italian made camera mount. But you could take the camera and you, do you remember that head when they would sometimes take the camera and turn it side to side? Well, we didn't use it that often, but yes. We didn't use it that often. And when I directed it, I remember.

remember that was a special request. We didn't carry that as a part of our case. Did you use a cartoni head on one of your episodes? Yeah. Okay, cool. So you had to ask for it. It was a special rental. You had to get approval. Right. But I loved how he used the cartony head on the Dauntless Bridge. And I also loved how Ray Wise was doing all his own stunts. He was falling down and climbing up. Yeah. Good job, Ray. I thought that was really, really good. But he does recover. He regains control. He regains control and gets it back on course. So it didn't quite work. Janeway pleads with him, doesn't she? She's like, listen, you know. He comes onto the bridge. She's like, you don't have to be the one that's sacrificing you. You could, you could be the sole person

of your species to, to keep the legacy of your people alive. You know, come on. You know, we can stop this craziness right now. And a tourist then punches a few, a few more buttons. And he basically destroys navigational controls on his own ship. So you can't turn it around. Nobody, nobody can't anybody can't anymore. It's just going to keep going straight. Yeah. Yeah. We jump back to the Voyager's bridge. Jacote then fires on the dauntless, which disables the shields and essentially gives us a chance to beam Janeway and seven out. Exactly. It's a really sad shot of Artur sitting in his chair like that, just heading right into the end of his life. Oh, yeah. I thought, well, you see, so they fire on it, they beam. By the way, Janeway continues to beg him to the

very last second. She's like, come on. She says, it's not too late. And he says something like, well, it's too late for you. He turns around with this double-barreled weapon to fire on Jane. To fire on her just as she's beaming out. They beam her out literally as the weapon fires at her. Right.

So he doesn't kill her. No. And then we cut out to space and we see Voyager kind of change course and we see a different sausage tube. We see two sausage tubes. Yes. Yes. So the slip stream turns.

from one sausage tube into two sausage tubes and Voyager goes off to the right and the dauntless heads straight on its course because navigation is destroyed. I thought Voyager went to the left. That's what it looked like to me. It took the left tube, I thought.

Oh, I thought that was the dauntless going in the straight tube and the curvy tube sausage tube. But anyway, they do split, they split up into two sausage tubes. Cool tunnel split And the Dauntless goes right into the Borg space. Yeah, this cube's sitting there waiting for him.

And then it's cool because he goes right towards one and then another cube kind of comes in and blocks. Yeah. So he's surrounded by Borg cubes. Yeah, it's sad. Yeah, the last shot of him sitting alone on the, on the Dauntless bridge. He's very sad. He's resigned.

He knows he's about to be assimilated. He is. Poor Ray Wise. Yeah. We have a shot of Voyager and Captain's log. she says we rode the slipstream for an hour until it finally collapsed and we've done some you know analysis and it's too dangerous to use this slip screen we cannot do this again but it got us 300 light years closer to home so that's good news we got a little closer yeah and then we go to the

holodeck and that's where janeway and seven play velocity again yeah yeah so seven uh wants to leave early so she can go back to work. And Janeway says, no, you can't leave. I ordered everybody to rest to take to take a little break to recover from the drama we've been through. But seven reveals that she's, she maybe can, you know, modify the slip stream to help them get home. And Jane was like, wait, you want to go home? I thought you were, you know, determined to stay here. And seven says, now I re-evaluated things and the idea of being a drone again is unappealing. Yeah. So that's the resolution right there, right?

That's the scene where we see that Seven's all on board and getting back to Earth now. And then the captain smiles and says to the computer, okay, one more game. We go off on them starting another game of velocity. And my takeaway is it's okay for the captain to say one more game. But when seven says one more game, it's not so good from earlier. Well, if you're on a recess break, you know, everybody can play. So what is your lesson or your theme out of this episode? This was a tough one because it was so dense this episode for me.

I guess my theme would be don't ignore your instincts. Yeah, yeah. Your intuition, actually, is the word I'm looking for. Yes. Or your gut. You know, people have a gut feeling is the same thing as intuition. And that is the same theme that I have, intuition is very powerful and intuition is something that you should not ignore well the funny thing

about intuition though like seven says to janeway that it's a it's a human fallacy or whatever she says i think intuition is powerful but i think you should not ignore it but i also don't think you should trust it completely like trust but verify yes yes yes do your due diligence but there's a reason there's something about us as human beings as as beings of energy where we feel we sense the energy is off about something that we're about to embark upon or a decision we're about to make like something is just not right doesn't add up right and so you're correct don't trust it blindly do your due diligence but definitely do not ignore it yeah not ignore it well that's why i mean for janeway she had an instinct that something was off there was lots of reasons for

her just to be enthusiastic and say yeah let's go back home look we got a you got this dauntless thing and yeah slip stream let's do it but she had an instinct she didn't stop pursuing the don't list but she kept going back at that message and really looking deeper into it and and realized the true story so yeah i thought that was that's my that's my uh takeaway on a scale of one to 10 the season finale of season four, what would you give this one? I'll give it a six. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. I'll give it a 6.5

because I love the name Dauntless for a ship. Yeah, for a starship, so I'll give it 6.5. Wow, this is a rare situation where I'm going to go you're going to higher? I'm going to go strong. Come on. I am. I'm going to go a strong eight. Are you going metric on me? Is this a metric

thing? What's happening here? No, this is straight up 1 to 10. It's an 8. Solid 8. What? I'm tempted to go 8.5, but I would say eight. Well, back it up. Why is it an 8 for you? I want to know. I think it bought into the big idea of our show in a really great way, which is we're lost in the Delta Quadrant and we're trying to get home. Okay. This was huge in that mythology. Yes. I also thought the conflict between 7 and January, which is now so central at this point in our series to the to the series. It really, it's becoming a series about those two. Yeah.

that this sort of turning point for them is kind of hitting a rock bottom with their relationship and things like that and being able to turn it to some understanding. I felt a real victory there. I thought it involved our crew, all of us in a decent way. It wasn't the best, but it was decent. I thought the set design and the shot making for the dauntless and stuff that Rick Colby did. I thought it was all super strong. Okay.

that's fine i'll give it an i'll give it an eight i'm not going to go eight point five but it's a it's a solid eight okay okay this is a rare time where mcneal's rating is higher than mine i know significantly higher significant yeah all right everyone thank you so much for tuning in to our recap and discussion of hope and fear join us next week when ravi and i embark on season five episode one wow night night yes it's so crazy we're at five now Patreon patrons

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