The Delta Flyers - Jetrel

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Jetrel. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Jetrel:Neelix confronts his past when the Haakonian scientist who created the doomsday weapon that killed his family comes aboard the ship to conduct experiments.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise, and Rebecca Jayne, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers Ann Marie Segal, Philipp Havrilla, Jason M Okun, Kelton Rochelle, Stephanie Baker, Stephen Smith, Sarah A Gubbins, John Tufarella, Brian Barrow - The Destination in Louisville KY, Chris Knapp, Daniel Adam, Eve Mercer, James Hildebrand, Matthew Gravens, Mary Jac Greer, Marie Burgoyne, Michelle Zamanian, Jason Self, Megan Hurwitt, James Zugg, Mike Gu, and, Shannyn Bourke.And our Producers  Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Peter Patch, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Liz Scott, Deborah Schander, Eleanor Lamb, Thomas Melfi, Breana Harris, James G. Jones, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Father Andrew Kinstetter, Ann Harding, Gay Kleven-Lundstrom, Gregory Kinstetter, Laura Swanson, Máia W, Charity Ponton, Josh Johnson, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Katie Johnson, Craig Sweaton, Maggie Moore, Ryan Hammond, Nathanial Moon, Catherine Goods, Warren Stine, York Lee, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, Dave Grad, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Katherine Puterbaugh, Claire Deans, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Cutler, Crystal Komenda, Nevyn Cross, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Col Ord, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Oliver Campbell, Anna Post, Evette Rowley, Robert Hess, Cindy Ring, Nathan Butler, Terry Lee Hammons, Andrei Dunca, Brian Roman, Selina Zhong. Thank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everybody, welcome to the Delta Flyers. We are a weekly podcast that discusses episodes of Star Trek Voyager in chronological order. Your two fantastic hosts along this podcast journey are myself, Garrett Wong, aka Ensign Harry Kim, and Robert Duncan McNeil, who played Lieutenant Tom Paris. If you are interested in either an extended version of this podcast or the extended video version of this podcast, both of which include added bonus fun segments, check out our Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron. Hey, Robbie. Hey, buddy. How'd you like that delivery?

That was good. You know what? I had a inspiration while you were doing the intro just now. because I usually just like, you know, I listen to your dramatic reading of that intro and the welcome, and I always, I'm just kind of sitting back, but this time I thought, what if, for those on the video version of this, what if I did an interpretive, like, movement experience to what you're describing? So your intro, you'll be saying it, but I'll be doing sort of an interpretive movement dance. In fact, let's try it right now.

So just re-do the intro. For those of you that are just listening, you're going to miss this. But for those of you're watching, I'm going to do an interpretive. Okay. Okay. Wait, hold on. Hold on. Okay.

And three, two, one. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers. We are a weekly podcast that discusses episodes of Star Trek Voyager in chronological order. Your two hosts along this podcast journey are myself, Garrett Wong, aka Ensignary Kim, and Robert Duncan McNeil, who portrayed Lieutenant Tom Paris. If you are interested in either an extended version of this podcast or the extended video version of this podcast, both of which include added bonus fun segments, check out our Patreon page at patreon.com. slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a Patreon patron. How is that?

I love it. You know, the production value just keeps going higher and higher. We just keep adding, exciting. So much creative excitement. Like, I'm jumping out of my skin. It's truly amazing. My clothes. Out of my Delta Flyers t-shirt right now.

In fact, you are wearing a new Delta Flyers cursive shirt. And we have to be descriptive for those people that are listening. Yeah, I love this new shirt. I love the shirts. They're soft cotton, very comfortable. Yeah. Rebecca did these designs. They're super hip and cool.

By the way, I'm also wearing the Delta Flyers trucker cap. Look how beautiful that thing. That's the trucker cap. I love this trucker cap. You know what? We should probably tell people where they can check this stuff out. The delta flyers.org. That's the web address for our merch.

So you can get that trucker cap, which looks very good on you. And that new shirt looks wonderful. We're very excited to finally get inventory in on all our products. So that's a good thing. Yeah, they're cool. I think they're really cool designs. Rebecca did an awesome job designing everything. And it's totally my style for sure.

Yeah. A little hipster maybe, a little kind of, I don't know what you call it. It's just cool. They're cool. It's just cool stuff, you know. And like, and if you get it, no one's going to, people were going to be like, oh, that's a cool shirt. And then they'll probably ask you, what is the Delta Flyers? And then you can tell them.

So, hey, why don't you tell me a little bit about your recent RV trip? Oh, yes, the RV trip. Yeah, I went to, Rebecca and I went up to the North Georgia Mountains because I live in Atlanta, Georgia. Yeah, we went up to this vineyard, the Cottage Hill Vineyard and Winery. it is a beautiful it's one of the most beautiful spots i've ever been to stunning most people don't think of georgia as a mountain place but they're a beautiful the southern appalachian mountains are come into the north georgia and yeah the appalachian trail starts here in georgia yeah um beautiful mountains a little town of blue ridge georgia rebecca posted some images on on social media and

they look amazing yeah it's just like probably no filter either right i mean just to see that she doesn't you use much filter on her stuff. But yeah, it was just stunning. And the first night we got there, we got there up to Cottage Hill Vineyard around 7 or 8 o'clock, and the sun was just starting to dip. So we got a perfect spot up on a hill at the vineyard to watch the sunset. And then as the sun was setting in, it was getting cool, all of this fog rolled in. So all around us, this thick, like beautiful, misty sort of, they call the mountains up there, also the smoky mountains because of all that fog that just sort of hangs in the valleys and the little they call them the hollers the hollers yeah they call them the hollers all these little uh you know

divvits in the in the mountains and uh the fog will sort of settle and just hang in there so it looks like the mountains or have smoke all around them but they love that beautiful it was beautiful yeah it was nice nice that is so cool that reminds me of um when i was in living in Los Angeles. I would say the entire time that I lived there, maybe two or three times in the morning, there would be this fog, a blanket of fog or cloud cover or whatever that would just cover everything just below my, my, the line of where my house, the altitude of how high my house was. And so it looked like my house was sitting in the clouds. It was amazing. You would see the Hollywood sign, the clouds, and that's it. Nothing below that. Wow.

Very similar to the photos that Rebecca was in. Yeah, it's really beautiful. I love traveling and I love camping and I love RVing. And you got the new RV. That the new RV. Yeah, things, this quarantine has, you know, it's been a great opportunity to do things that I've always wanted to do. Like, I've really always wanted to have an RV to be able to just to pick up and get away for a weekend or travel.

somewhere and kind of bring things that you know feel homey and and yeah it looks nice very modern but better than the trailers that we had on Voyager yes yes all right so this the week's episode Jitrell Jitrell that's what we're going to be talking about yes so for those of you who are listening on the podcast Robbie and I are going to go watch the episode and we're going to come right back with our discussion and our analysis and for those Patriots patrons who are following us, we are about to play a game of what do we remember? Hey, guys, we are back from watching Jitrell. Robbie, yes.

You do a quick synopsis of what this episode is about? Oh, geez, I forgot about this part. Oh, yeah. Okay, okay. This is like a pop quiz in high school, junior high. Okay. Well, it's a pretty straightforward episode. It opens up in the very first scene with us. I'm not the very first scene, but basically, beginning of the episode starts with us approaching, getting a hail from someone who wants to see Nelix. And it turns out it is a scientist doctor who invented basically a nuclear bomb that destroyed a whole colony, like a nuclear blast, where Nelix had family. family and he's got to confront this man. This man says, I'm here to help you and save you.

Neelix doesn't want anything to do with it. One thing leads to another and they have to confront each other and face each other. Neelix is told that he's got this radiation poisoning basically and that the doctor wants to save him to make amends for what he did, inventing this bomb. It turns out that that's not true that he actually is trying to reanimate all the people he killed before he dies

because he's dying himself of radiation and he's unable to do that that's sad but in the end Neelix offers forgiveness to this doctor and to himself

for his own secrets and his own shame that he's been carrying and the doctor dies and it's very sad it's a sad episode it's just bleak and sad from the

There we go. That's my, the beginning of my share. How's that for a synopsis? Yeah, man, I'll go with that. It is a bleak episode. I feel really, you know, just, I feel, I feel sad. I do after watching that episode. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a, it's a tough episode to, to digest. There's not a lot of comedy going on. Zero. I made the same note. I would love to talk about, as I have, understand it. When I, when I direct and produce television these days, I often fall back on some models. One of them is Joseph Campbell's The Hero's Journey. The model of the hero's journey is you meet a hero in their normal world. You see how their life is. And then there's an inciting event,

a call to adventure. Happened duty. Call to duty. Yes, call to duty, right? So something happens. after we've had a little time to get to know our hero in their normal life and how it is, then this call to action, and the hero goes on an adventure, a series of challenges that ultimately lead the hero to a place where something has to die to be reborn as a hero. Sometimes it's the hero's best friend. Sometimes it's the hero's puppy. Sometimes it's the hero himself. A part of him has to die in order to be reborn.

and come back to his normal life, but changed. Now he's a hero. Just stepping back from this episode for a minute, to me, anytime I watch an episode or I work on an episode, I often fall back to that model because it doesn't always have to happen in that chronological order. Sometimes we can dive into a story in the middle of a battle. And then there's flashbacks where you see before the guy.

So maybe we take that hero's journey structure, and we mix the events around a little, but the full meal of a good, well-told story is all of those elements. So that's, first of all, stepping back, that's my first comment is this has very little of that hero's journey in it. It is one bleak ride from the beginning,

literally, almost out of the gate. We see Neelix profoundly affected by this man, showing up, stories told over and over of the bleakness and the sadness and the, it was a very ambitious and very challenging to act this story because it's a very hard story. It's not, it's not well structured. There's not much opportunity for the audience to experience that full meal, that how Nelix is before this happens and what it does to him. and the series of challenges that he's got to actively try to solve the problem and ultimately, I guess, letting go, letting the shame die.

That's the part of him that dies in order to be reborn with forgiveness. And he comes back with forgiveness. There could have been a wonderful hero's journey structure to this story. But instead, it was, I feel, very poorly structured, very one note, relentlessly bleak, so bleak that you tune out emotionally to it. I tune out after a while. I just, you can't comprehend a genocide like that when it's just told so relentlessly. And sorry, I'm going to, I'm going to ramble for a minute and digress. There is a museum in Los Angeles called the Museum of Tolerance. And it's a Holocaust Museum. And it's beautifully designed because when you walk into this

museum, you get a passport. You get a little piece of paper like this that has printed on it a real person before World War II, a real, most often Jewish person, but not always. Sometimes they're not. But it's a real person's passport, and it's a little bit of their story, their history. What was their life like before World War II, before the Holocaust, before things happened? and you walk through this museum in chronological order. And then when you get to the very end,

you go through the story of World War II and the German experience, particularly the Jewish experience, and the effect that Nazism had on that culture and those people. When you get to the end, you get to see who, you're a passport of that person that you saw their life before, and you see if they survived or how they, what happened to them after. And it's so beautifully, I've been to that museum a number of times

and walking through it because it's structured like the hero's journey. It's so perfectly structured that you're invested in this person's full life, their life before and during and after this war. And I didn't feel that with the Neelik story. I didn't feel that in this episode and that's, I think, a huge missed opportunity

because of the subject matter, that they didn't structure this in a way that really took you on an emotional ride, a full meal. It didn't feel that way to me. It felt very, just relentless, I guess. That's, before I even get into the episode, that's my, you can see where I'm coming through. No, I do.

And, you know, I think what you're referencing is that if you follow Joseph Campbell's structure in telling a story, the viewer, if they watch from beginning to the end, by the end of this story, they're going to feel a feeling of satisfaction that they've gone on this journey with the writers and the actors. But in this particular case, in this episode,

it doesn't really follow that structure. And so you just end up with a feeling of blah at the end of it. You know what I'm saying? You're just feeling just drained is what it is. And I agree with you on that one. And regarding the Museum of Tolerance, which I need to go check out.

I haven't been to the one in LA. But I have been to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba, which is a multi-level. I mean, this thing is unbelievable. I think in square footage, I think it dwarfs the one in LA. It's massive. And it just, it talks about, you know,

atrocities across the world, basically. So it's quite amazing. But. And those kind of, And because that's the subject matter of this episode, I guess that's why I'm, I'll be honest, slightly angry about watching this episode.

Okay. Because I'm like, I'm like, this is too important to screw up. This, if you're going to tell this story, because Star Trek is a metaphor for real things in real life. It always has been since the original series.

So if you're going to take on this, this profound, a subject matter, you need to be respectful of the responsibility that you have in telling that story. And I feel like this was not well, not well respected. Do you think maybe it's succumbed to the restrictions and the limitations of the 42 minutes, you know, allowed? Because back in those days, right? You had to allow for the commercial breaks. Now, if you're watching a Netflix produced show, a Hulu produced show, it could be a full hour or longer, right? Whereas we kind of had that 42 minute as well as TNG, DS9, all those shows, we all have that same. Could

that have been it? I mean, could this have been a two-parter maybe and they would have been able to really adequately address it, you know? Well, like we were just talking about recently on one of our Patreon Zoom calls with our Admiral level people, we were talking, about Picard and that series and how they serialized the story. It's not episodic. Like our show, every episode was a little self-contained story. And as soon as it was over, we rarely carried through

from episode to episode any of the character elements or relationship. I mean, some things, like I guess Balana and Tom staying together over the course of a few years, was an ongoing story. but it was, we would sort of touch on it and then leave it and touch on it. With this, I feel like it deserved a little more time than that one episode. I think you're right, the 42 minutes is not enough time.

And if they had started this story, planted the seeds with Neelix a couple episodes back. Yeah. You know, that whatever part of the story they wanted to focus on, if it was the atrocities, to start to say, hey, is something about this bothering you, you seem touchy about this. this area, you know, and see him repress and repress and repress or something so that by the time we got here, we had earned a little bit of the emotional values that he was asked to act. What I remember is Ethan Phillips saying to me, oh my God, this script, I am so afraid of the script because he really, I think that's why I remember it because Johnny said to me a number of

I remember him talking about this is like doing a Holocaust story. This is like doing a genocide story and it's so emotionally loaded that I don't want to screw it up. And I think he was trying really hard, maybe too hard sometimes in this rewatch today. I felt like I felt like Johnny was pushing a little bit sometimes. But I think it's because he felt the weight of this story and didn't know how to, you know, give it what he felt it was due. I'll just be honest and say, I thought the writing was a fail. I thought the direction was not good, did not help. I felt on every cylinder this particular episode for the first time all season was broken on almost every cylinder. Every level, I was like, oh, that's not, it's not helping, that's not helping.

That's not helping. Yeah. Anyway. Story by James Thompson and Scott Numerifro, I think was the last name. Teleplay by Jack Klein and Karen Klein, looks like a husband, wife, writing team, and Ken Biller, directed by Kim Friedman. So that is the little bit of backstory. And just for those listeners out there, maybe we haven't talked about this before, but Ethan Phillips, we refer to as Johnny. Yeah, his nickname is Johnny.

By that. Yeah, so we say Johnny. What I did find interesting is that in the opening credits, this is probably the first time that I've ever seen a guest star listed where his name is listed and then his character. It said James Sloyan as Jatrell, whereas all the other episodes, they don't list. It just says the name. It doesn't say the character too. So obviously this gentleman, and just to explain to all the listeners and viewers out there, that's something that agents always typically fight for their actor clients is billing. Like, where is the billing? Where, meaning where does your

name appear in the credits? And how does it appear in the credits? And so this gentleman obviously had enough of a resume or enough relationship that he could get and a little extra bit in there to have his character and his name. And he was the top billing as the guest star, obviously. It's also interesting. It's smart. It's smart of the agent because they saw the title of the episode, Jitrell was him right and so they asked for that and pushed for it and it it you know often it'll say you know John John Doe as Jimmy the barber or whatever right you don't really know that that's an important role necessarily but in the title you know the character's name is the title of the episode it clearly so that may you know that that that piqued my interest I caught that which you

may you may or may not have seen that and when I when I did catch that I said well, let me just look into this actor's resume. And, well, clearly, he's another one of these actors that have been used multiple times in the Star Trek franchise in TNG. He was a Romulan admiral. He also played Worf's son as an adult, Alexander, Worf's son.

He was in Deep Space Nine. He portrayed a Bajoran scientist. Also, he was a guardian scientist. And then, of course, in Voyager, he's Detrell. So he's done multiple incarnations of Trek. The other thing, I don't know if you notice this, but from the minute we see Jitrell come out of that, he transports onto Voyager, the minute we see his character,

and he starts talking, did he remind you of anybody? His voice? I don't know. Who are you thinking? Rick Berman. Oh, interesting. That entire time, I'm like, holy moly, this is Rick Berman, the executive producer. Even his face, I know he had all the prosthetics on,

but he even looked like Rick Berman to me. I mean, it was, it blew me away. That's funny. So if you, you know, if you get a chance, rewind a little bit and just listen to his voice, it's incredibly dead on to Rick Berr. Wow. I just couldn't get that out of my head the whole time I was watching.

And then even there's a scene where he talks about, Detrell tells Neelix how he lost people to. Neelix is like, well, in what way? Like, they died. And he goes, well, my wife, treated me like I had a disease and she left me and she took my three kids along with her and then I and Berman has three kids as well so it was sort of like these weird parallels and I was like oh I don't know I mean I just couldn't get Berman out of my head this entire episode was watching

this guy gone interesting um yep and speaking of what we remember yeah I honestly thought that you and I said you and I had very little to do in this episode episode. You actually had more to do in this episode than I did. You were on stream more. I only had a minute and 30 seconds into it. I, sorry, a minute and 52 seconds into it, I have one line. I say, the alien ship is entering visual range captain. And that's it. You're in the beginning scene when we're in Sand Dreams. You're in the, you're in the dream. The dream sequence in San Dreens. Initially, I wrote down, why, Paris, why are you in this dream sequence? But then I figured out this is your holodeck programs. That makes sense. Yeah. Um, and then, uh, are you in anything

else besides those two? The bridge stuff. That's it. Well, Roxanne, Roxanne was not in the episode until almost 30 minutes in. Yeah. I heard her voice over the calm and I was like, oh my God, I forgot Roxanne. And so I checked the time. And then it went to engineering and she, she was there just to beam in the, uh, the sample of the, the atmospheric sample. That was it. that's the only seems her hair short in this episode it's shorter i don't know if oh really i didn't notice that i did like kate's bun of steel i thought it went back to bun of steel again so you like that bun though well it wasn't as bad for some reason it was a little tighter it was a little softer i don't know it didn't bother me as much the bun of steel this that's a little contradictory tighter

and softer so it was more yeah it's a little looser maybe and well sometimes it's like Sometimes it's like, ooh, it's a big, giant, you know, it's like a bees hive, you know, a beehive on top of, it is. It's like, it's like the musical hairspray. She's got the big. It's huge, but it wasn't as huge this episode. And here's another thing before, and we should get into like the episode specifically. But the other thing I'm going to say, besides lacking in any structure that resembled the hero, journey or anything effective in my mind. It also lacked any B story or any comedy.

There was no, and often, so a B story is when our main story is usually, well, it would be the Nelik story in this episode, but a B story might have been Torres in engineering trying to figure something out. And often the B story is an opportunity to have a different, a different feeling, a tone. So if the A story is very dramatic, your B story might be light and comedic. And then in theory, those two stories kind of echo each other in some way. The lesson that you're learning in the A story, let's say the lesson in this episode was, we have to forgive in order to have freedom or to have peace in our life. You know, we need forgiveness. We need to give and get forgiveness. Let's say that's the theme. The B story, if it were Bala in engineering,

might be she's got to admit a mistake she's made in some project in engineering. So you can have it be a funny story where she just can't seem to get it right. And then finally in the end, she goes, you know what, I realized I made the first mistake. So your themes kind of support each other. And that's good to use a fancy word, dramaturgical sort of story structure. Like, you want good story structure to where the audience feels like they've had. a full meal. Like, oh, I've had, I've had the highs and the lows. I've laughed, I've cried, and I've thought about something on multiple levels, my own life, the character's life. This had none of that. It was like, it was like straight at the most relentlessly bleak backstory.

Yeah. That we're not invested in. We're invested in these characters here and now. And none of that was really brought through very well. Anyway, I like your use of the word dramaturgical. That is basically techno babble for actors basically. Yes. Dramaturgical. Yes. It's my fancy way of saying like well thought out and well

constructed storytelling. That's you know, it's and it was not well thought out or well constructed in my opinion. It did not. Yeah. And again that could be to the constraints of the limited time allowed per episode that we had. Yeah.

And also the subject matter. I really, like, you talk about the Holocaust, and I didn't really think of the Holocaust during this episode. I thought of, I thought of the atomic bomb. Yes, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nakasaki. That's what I thought about. Because, you know, let's face it, that's the first, I think we're the first country that's ever done that, you know,

as the United States. And since this show is produced in the United States by American writers and producers and actors for the most part, yeah, no, we were all American. We didn't have anybody else from any other. country, really. It is a shameful part of our history, you know, to think about, because it's one thing to unleash a weapon on troops that are aggressors against your own troops, trying to kill your people, right? But then it's a whole other thing to unleash a weapon of mass destruction

on civilians, which is essentially what our country did, right? So maybe that's part of what the writers are thinking about, like, you know what, we don't even need a be storyline. We really need a hammered in how horrible it was, you know, that this happened in our history by having this episode sort of mirroring the history of the United States during World War II. And it was, it was, yeah, you're right. I mean, it would have been wonderful to see some type of peace storyline, but it wasn't there. No, that was not at all. No, no jokes. So let's start from the beginning, Sandrine. So we're in Sandrine's and Neelix is in there and he's, yeah, he's, he's, he's, He's trying to figure out what shot to take.

And Tom Parris suggests that he make a defensive maneuver. A safety. And put a ball in front of a pocket. And Neelix just can't comprehend that. Well, he calls it cowardly. Cowardly, yes. That's the first little glimpse of what this episode is about, right? Cowardly.

Yeah, he calls it cowardly, but chooses to do it. And then Tuvok decides he's going to. make a very logical shot and and what he doesn't know is that the table's tilted and so his shot goes off for a scratch but I love the moment where the where Nelix and Tom and what's his name the holographic pool shark guy the tall skinny guy can't even yeah we're all standing there we watch two bucks ball go in for a scratch and then all three heads sort of turned it was about the only light moment in the whole episode where we kind of all look up and I don't know if that was directorial or if we just decided or luck but but I you know sometimes those little physical

comic things even if they're light like that I think are so helpful in this episode so that's a bit of a B storyline then the lightness of that that moment but it didn't go anywhere like it yeah that was the only scene in there except for his nightmare later on which we'll get to that but uh Right. I also think another light part of the episode would be Neelix's chef hat and apron. Yeah. Megan instantly commented that reminds me of rug rats combined with saved by the bell. Like the background in Rugrats has these very geometric patterns and then saved by the bell colors.

And so there's a little lightness in this episode. If you really look hard, you can find something. As a director, I find that when the camera, if I'm a camera, if I'm a camera, standing here that I want the action coming towards the camera. I want the actor's eyes looking near the lens so that we really get two eyes and we feel what they're feeling. And what I found in this opening scene on the bridge was we were looking at the sides of faces or the backs of heads for a lot of it. And there was not much coverage. It was like Neelix came in and then there was Janeway looking off over here. And then the camera panned Neelix walking away from the camera.

Why did he go? Why didn't he just come straight down to talk to Janeway? instead of going all the way in the back by Harry's station. I'll tell you why, because Harry had a line, and then she didn't, and they didn't want to cover the scene, so they asked the actors to walk and stage things in awkward ways so that they could just do it all in one shot. So immediately I was like, oh, no, sometimes that can work if the blocking makes logical sense.

But immediately, Neelix came in, and was doing something illogical. Why is he walking all the way around the long way? I don't remember him walking that long way. Did he walk that long way? Yeah, because when I watched it, I think I did have coverage. There was a single on me when I said.

Maybe there was. I just found, and maybe I'm imagining a different sequence. Yeah. But do you think Kim chose that on purpose, maybe to cause you to feel uncomfortable because of the subject matter? Maybe, I mean, that would be a nice way of giving credit, but I found consistently, I know,

you're playing good shop this episode. I found that consistently in this episode that the coverage, the staging and coverage of the scenes to me did not help. In fact, it hurt often the moments where there was real emotion. People are walking away or turned away

or we're in profile. And when there was not much emotion, we were in these crazy closeups. It's like, why are we? This is not... You know, some shows that I've directed. This kind of really tight close-up is a great shot. It's the style of the show. Voyager was very old-fashioned. A close-up was like this. That was a close-up. We rarely came

into these kind of tight shots. And if we did, we earned it through the story and through the drama and tension that had built. This was in the very, the second scene of the episode, and already we're like, we're into weird, weird coverage. I just found myself. you would say this is an extreme close up right when it's that super tight and so when it's when the shot is pulled out a little wider is that what you would call a dirty single or what do you call that I would call this a close up that's a close up okay and I would call sorry I'll go back for I would call this a single okay and then I would call something that you see my shorts something that framed down here and up there yeah like that a cowboy the reason they call it a

because they used to frame cowboys with their guns and their holsters. And they'd keep the holster. The pistol and the holster would be at the bottom of the frame in frame so that you knew they were a cowboy. So that's called a cowboy size. Right. And then a single and then a close up and then an extreme close up. Right. My apologies to the listeners out there who don't see this.

They can't really get a frame of reference. But it is very interesting to see the different types of singles that you can do. Yeah. Our show did not do extreme close. ups very often and usually it was deeper into an episode and used pretty specifically otherwise we had alien makeup they wanted to see all the the alien head and the ears yeah well am I incorrect to say that we that we had that terminology of a dirty single at all is that something that was used or the

word dirty preceding the word single a dirty single would be something in the foreground so like over the shoulder so instead of oh okay you know so instead of a single which would be be a loose, in my mind, a loose, looser than a close-up. Right. If you had a single on someone and you put the person they're talking to, just their shoulder in the foreground, that would be called a dirty single. Okay.

So there's a little bit of the other person that they're talking to kind of in the foreground. Over the shoulder. Over that shoulder. Yeah. Another term. All right. Anyway, I found in that first scene already, directorially, I was like, whoa, why are we doing it this way?

Because the story seems to want to. build in a different way. And it was just kind of, it was like yo-yoing. It was like characters walking away from the lens and then coming near the lens and the sizes were all mixed up and nothing was consistent. So anyway, that was my feeling on the bridge and, and, uh, Nelix ends up very emotionally affected and running off into the turbo lift and that's how we go out out of the teaser. Yeah. And deep distress. Very much so. Um, also I want to say in, in Sandrine's, I noticed a ton of smoke, atmospheric smoke. So often we will put smoke in a room

because it will help give shafts of light because when you've got a little bit of atmospheric smoke in the room, sunlight coming in through a window or moonlight or light fixtures will shine down shafts of light and things like that. And they'll give you a certain atmosphere. There was so much smoke in that first scene in Sandrine's, and there was no light shafts. So I was like, why are they putting all this smoke in there?

It just seemed. So it was smoke for no reason almost, right? It was distracting to me. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, so a lot of very awkward elements all around, whether it was the camera angles, the choice of blocking, the choice of using smoke, yeah.

Yeah, to me, and this is, again, this is all subjective. I'm sure there's fans out there that love this episode and just accept it for what it is. But for me, knowing, knowing our, actors personally, knowing Ethan Phillips personally and knowing that, boy, this episode should have been better for him. And I felt like he was struggling and floundering a lot emotionally. Yeah. He still turned in a great performance overall, though, I feel. Yeah. He did what he had to do. He hit his marks and he said what he had to say. And he had, you know, he had to emotion behind it. And he had to try to hold

himself back at times, you know, to not completely flip out. So, you know, I'm not going to say anything negative about Neelix's performance. 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 trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes. You know what doesn't belong in everyone's epic summer plans, though? What? Getting burned by your old wireless bill. So while you're planning your beach trips and your barbecues and your three-day weekends, your wireless bill should be the last thing holding you back. Well, that is why I made the switch to Mint Mobile. The coverage and speed are the same as I'm used to, but the savings. That is the difference. The savings are

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Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. And, yeah, so this disease, insipiate metremia caused by the Metrion Cascade causes the body's atomic structure to undergo fission. A lot of science here. Radiation poisoning.

It's basically, it's radiation poisoning. But just the whole concept of actually, you know, the final, we figure out what Detrell really is trying to do. But then your question is, did he really come to this idea after he discovered the transporter technology is something that he could use, or did he already know that he could use the transporter technology to do what he was going to do?

That's a good question. Chicken or the egg. That's a really good question because that became the whole reason he stayed on the ship was, and the reason that he lied about Nelix, like, why would, unless he was just fishing. Maybe he scanned that there was a Tlaxian on board and thought, okay, I'll use this story that I'm trying to find out if he's got this, this, you know, disease. Right. And while I'm there, that'll give me an opportunity to pick up any technology that could help me with my real,

goal maybe yeah i'll say when he came in the transporter room the makeup was very um elaborate it almost looked like the devil to me had this weird sort of like devily um structure to the face but then his hands had nothing on them and i thought and it was very just and then i couldn't stop looking at that the rest of the episode i'm like why didn't they just put put some bumps or something on his hand because this was so not human, but yet the hands were, they might have put a little color on it, maybe. I don't know.

It looked like regular human hands. I did like his facial prosthetics as far as aliens go. Yeah, I did too. Very detailed, different layering. Wasn't overtly, didn't have underlying tones of sex. Like, you know, sometimes we have aliens that literally, it looks like they, like on their forehead is a penis or a vagina. And it's just like, oh, my God.

This one really looked like, okay, they really thought this through it. Yeah, I liked the facial makeup a lot. That's why I was disappointed in the wider shots when you saw his hands because I'm like, it just feels like a rubber mask on an actor now. Yeah, I'll play good cop on this one too. You know, we are even, not only are we under the gun, most of the times we would get our script the night before we started shooting and we'd get revisions, maybe the morning of.

I think also the makeup department's under gun. Yes, they are. You're trying to sit there and get that. they've got a first they got to mold all this stuff in clay right and then once they've done that then they make this then they make a cast of that and they then they then they laid they put the latex in there I mean there's a whole gun then they oh they have to do a like a cast of the actor's face too right yeah first they first they do the cast of the actor then they they they mold a head of the actor right then they do the clay on top of that top of the head of the actor so it'll correct yep

And then they do a mold, and then they take both of those molds and do like a negative of that negative space. It's very complicated. It is complicated. And they probably say, yeah, it takes a while. And this process is a multi-step process. And I really feel like they put all this time into getting the face that detailed. And they were like, oops, no time for the hands, you know. And then you're right.

It does pull you out because you expect like, why would this alien have completely humanoid human being hands compared to everything else on this guy's face, right? Because if you look at Neelix, Neelix has stuff going on his hand. It's different, you know. He should, and the Hoconian, like Chitrello is, should also have the same thing. Yeah, it comes in the transporter room, beams aboard, and Neelix has to undergo a medical scan. First, Neelix is resistant to it. He just doesn't want to be anywhere near him. Kess and Janeway, then convince him, look, if you got, if you have this disease, you should know, you know.

And then there's that whole scene where Neelix is like, you know, I'm kind of happy. now because he does he has these the one scene where he's upbeat is when he realizes if he's going to die first he'll die before kess does because kess's lifespan as an ocampa is only eight or nine years so she's she doesn't really have much time left so he kind of feels like hey you know what one of the biggest things is is losing you i would be devastated and for me to go first is actually making me happy and so um he finally agrees to having this test uh they're in the sick bay And this is where Megan made a comment. Megan said that, you know, I think Kess is in love with the doctor.

I just started thinking, Neelix has nothing to worry about Tom Paris. It should be the doctor that he should be worried about because he's always like, doctor, you should get a name. And you have, in prior episodes, you know, you have, you're nervous about this. You deserve more, you know, she's always the champion of the doctor, you know. And Neelix, trust the doctor. He can figure something out, blah, blah, blah. And so it really is, it's interesting, you know, that there is this strong bond between those two,

or at least her toward the doctor. I will say when Neelix tells the story to Kess about going back to the planet and seeing these monsters approaching, and one of them was screaming or making noises, and then he realized it wasn't a beast or an animal, it was a little girl. and that little that story was just so sad to me and and and Ethan Phillips had so many of those stories to tell in this episode yeah and he did such a great job of I find his character but I think because I know Johnny Ethan we know him and I know what he's such a innocent isn't the right word because he can be dirty tell dirty jokes and it's not I'm not innocents, but there's like a vulnerability or a sweetness about Johnny that I also instill in this character, you know, when I watch him do it. It's just, it's all heart. It's all sort of feeling.

And this particular episode, I thought that was very challenging because the feelings are so big, you know. Like that moment when he talks about that girl, the little girl, I thought there were some of those anecdotal moments that the writers did come up with that were incredibly moving. and very effective like that. But again, because of the structure being all over the place and then all the other elements to me conspired to amplify the bad structure, it just didn't work. I'm gonna refer back to when you were mentioning how Johnny came up to you and said like, oh my gosh,

I'm really concerned about this upcoming episode, how if he's gonna be able to effectively act what he needs to do in this. And if you think about it, everything else he's done up until this point really is just, you know, oh, Mr. Fokin, here I've made your plumeek soup for you. You know, oh, you know, I'm known for my Faragoid goulash across the galaxy. Everything's very light, light, light, light.

And I am infamous, but I used to, that was my, you know. I would joke with Johnny always, I was like, that was one thing I would always, when I see him, I'd sit there and go, my ferragloid goulash is known across seven star systems. I would do my little impersonation of him for him, but she would laugh. The other thing that we joke around with, I'm adding some lightness to this, a podcast. Yes, please, dear. Please, please, please.

Like, I would, he would come on the bridge and Neelix, Johnny would sit there and go, he'd say, Neelix to Ensign Kim, Neelix to Ensign Kim. And I would go, beep, hi, you reached Kim. I'm not here right now. I wouldn't pretend I had an answer machine on my comm badge. So please leave a message at the tone, beep. And then he would go on with this little improv that we would do. So it's, again, that story that he's on the biobed and he's telling Kess about how there were these little vermin creatures in the garden that he invented this trap to capture.

And I really think that that was just for him to sort of dig it into Jutrell a little bit, you know, because he says, he says like they've got these fangs and these claws and they're vicious. And then I caught one, but it wasn't dead. It was still alive. and I found it and it was making feelings of, yeah, it wasn't an animal, it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't this little beast or a scary animal any longer. It was, it was crying and pain. And I, and, and that's when Jutrell is like, are you finished? And especially when he says, are you finished? He sounds exactly like Berman. When he's talking about, are you finished with that story? And that's when he tells him, Mr. Nelix, you know, Mr. Nelix, you are, you are infected

with this, with this degenerative blood disease. So he tells him that at that point. You did, you did, you did see how that was that that story was to dig and to trial right that was also another story of of anguish and yeah i i'll say like at this point in our story it's the first time all season that i remember janeway having very little to do as well it's the first time in the series where i was surprised at how um how little they gave janeway to do she was not She was not in the, like, she's in her ready room and has the, I think it's a ready room and has the conversation with Chitrell where he talks about the transporter technology. And if we go back to this planet or this moon, then I can beam some of this atmospheric sample I need to maybe cure all this. And so she kind of sorts, she, she, you know, evaluates that and decides to do it.

But, but that's about the, I mean, she has very little to do. You know what I mean? Yeah. She's not. There's a scene later on, I can't remember. That's all of us, though, Robbie. That's all of us. That's Paris.

That's Torres. That's Janeway. That's Kim. Was Chicoat? Did Chacote even have a line? Oh, yeah. He had a few lines. Again, very minimal for everybody.

Very minimal. There was a scene later on in the medical, in the med bay, where Neelix and Jatrel were there alone for a long scene. And Neelix tell. tells a long story they both do it's a very long scene yeah and I remember thinking at one point like Janeway would not allow knowing what she knows I don't think she would allow Nelix just to hang out with this guy in the medical life yeah yeah there were so many on so many levels I felt like the lack of consideration of the bigger

picture yeah that was evident and And that was one scene where I was just like, I just don't buy that, that our crew, knowing how strongly Neelix feels about this guy, would allow him in the same room. It wouldn't be safe for either one of them. It's true. Yeah, I found this episode was not, it was not well supported by the director. There was a lot of blocking that felt forced. And in the moments where you wanted an actor, you know, to be leaning into the drama or

leaning into the relationship across from him or her, the actor was. The actor was off talking, you know, over here somewhere or walking away from camera. So I found that very frustrating. I also, one thing I observed, very distracting. Another thing I observed about this. So Rick Berman told me, I remember when I was shadowing, he said, I have one thing that is very important to me. He said, this is called what we're making. is called motion pictures, it's not called still life paintings, meaning something should be moving.

It should not be just people sitting there talking like talking heads. This is from Rick Berman. He said, I either want in a scene the camera to be moving or I want the actors to be moving, but I want the audience to remember we're watching living, breathing people and not a photograph or a still life painting. Okay. And I found in this episode that None of that was true. The camera never moved. Sometimes it would pan around, but that was about it, not much.

Most of the time it was, you know, somebody walked into a scene and then they stood there and there was never any, I never saw any dramatic push-ins happening during a long story. It was just a static camera. No Rick Colby, Les Landau,

creative moves like that, you didn't see that. Very little of that. There was not much camera movement and not much actor movement. And when there was actor movement, blocking. I felt like the blocking was not supporting the scene. I just, it felt arbitrary and awkward. So, um, that's some directorial perspective on this episode. It's, and we, we had some

amazing directors. Kim Freeman, who directed this, had done some good work before, but not in this episode. Um, I don't think so. And, and I, and I feel like, um, you know, the one, one opportunity that could have been more subtle directorially was, um, I don't think so. Um, and I, and I, and I feel like, um, you know, the one, one opportunity that could have been more subtle directorially was Neelix's nightmare. It felt like they threw every film school experiment at that nightmare scene. There were Dutch heads, which is a kind of a camera head that tilts sideways. It's often used in horror films where you'll tilt the horizon sideways so things seem uncomfortable.

They had a Dutch head, but they were literally like spinning it back. back and forth, like this. And then there was like rock and roll lights going on. Like lighting was, you know, weird lights. And then there was wet pans and like every film school trick. And I don't mean that as a compliment. I mean that as like film students trying things that they think are fancy that aren't helpful to the story.

That nightmare to me was. No, it felt that nightmare was all over the place. Again, not subtle at all. One thing I remembered directorially again during that nightmare was Marvin Rush was a fan of Frederico Fellini films, the Italian amazing filmmaker. Yes. And Felini's films were very visually and in terms of their writing, very stylized, very much based in the unconscious, the subconscious and a dream-like world. they weren't always based in reality. You might call it magical realism or surrealism.

But Marvin was a big fan of Fellini, and I found that in that dream, I felt like maybe Kim Friedman had said to Marvin Rush, our director of photography, like, Marvin, what do you think we should do? You know, do you have any ideas? I think Marvin took all the Fellini ideas and threw them into one, like, 20-second scene.

But it did remind me that Marvin was a big fan of Fellini. Right. I do remember that too. May have borrowed some lighting and camera ideas there. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. And the smoke.

You didn't like the smoke, right? I didn't like the smoke. There's a website called First and Last, First and Final frames, or First and Last Frames, and it takes movies, and it shows you the very first frame that you see in a movie, and it shows you the very last frame. And the idea of this website, which I love, is that those two images should tell you the story. That you should be able to look at just the first frame of a movie and the last frame of a movie and be able to tell something about that movie. I was thinking about that

during this because at the very end, Neelix walks away. And this is a Neelix story. Like this should have been, you know, the camera should have turned around on Neelix as he walked out and if you want to close up, if you want to shoot close ups, that's the place to shoot it. Okay. and see the satisfaction. He literally said, I forgive you. And he turned around, right? Yeah. And I'm like, I don't see his face.

Like, this is the Neelik story. And he just did the most amazing thing. I want to see his face as he walks away and feels that relief. Why didn't she come around and do one shot that just, sorry, I'm a camera here, that just pulls with him as he walks out and has, you know, that's the first That was the perfect ending, right? And it was a perfect opportunity to do something for his episode to end on him, but it ends on the back of his head.

He just leaves sick bang, right? Yeah, he walked. Again, I felt like the camera was often in this episode in the wrong place at the wrong time. It should have been completely the opposite of the choice that was made. Definitely. And that final scene, you're so right. It's an unsatisfactory meal. Right?

Mm-hmm. You've just had MSG in your Chinese story. You have no. You've built this whole story. I can say that because of Chinese. You've built this whole story up to this moment of the hero's journey. Yes. And this should have been that moment of, I forget, you know,

and the camera should have pushed in before he even said it. And then he should have said, I forgive you. And you should have had a close-up of Jitrell, who's about to die looking up for a moment, and maybe a smile on his face. Yeah, the little smile. Get it. And then as Neelix turns,

you cut to the reverse and he's walking out. Yeah. Or maybe you boomed down to Juttrell who dies in the foreground as you see Neelix walking out of focus. Some combination of those shots to me would have been much more,

it would have amplified and elevated the story, which is the director's job. Not to just cover... the dialogue and get home in, you know, 10 hours or whatever. And I don't, I felt like this felt like one of those episodes that just, let's, let's cover the story, you know, cover the words and get out of here. I hear you, man. I hear you, man. I think from now on, I'm just going to refer to Rick Berman as Jitrell.

I'm just going to just, that's going to be my code name for Berman. Jitrell. And he just sounds so, seriously, man, you don't hear it now because you didn't think about it. But I guarantee you, if you watch that episode again, which you probably will not, you will probably go, oh my God, Garrett's right. T cells just like for a minute. What did you get out of this one? It's probably what I got to.

I think for me, the theme, well, it has to do with a few things, like facing the truth and the reality of our lives and to stop lying to ourselves and others, that shame is an awful burden to carry. But I think in the end, for me, you can't have peace in your life until you forgive yourself and forgive others that you need to forgive. Yeah. Because to me, in the very end, when Neelix walked back in, just before Juttrell dies, and he says, I forgive you and walks out, you feel like that's the gold that he's been looking

for, you know, that he's needed to find in his life. So, yeah. Yeah, I guess it's about, to me, it's about forgiveness. Yeah, I wrote the same thing. I just said, forgiveness of self and of others. Yeah. You know, and for me, oh, my gosh. Like, I really, especially in my 20s, like, I.

like if someone did me wrong i i boy i kept that i kept that right there it was there all the time like i relive that moment over and over again i mean and even now i'm i'm you know i'm i'm 50 you know i'll be 52 this year and um there's still things that i that'll pop into my head every now and then i'll be like god remember about that but and i and i work very hard to sort of just quickly as soon as that enters into my mind to kind of push that out as much as i can because i i tell I do believe when you relive this type of anger that you might have towards someone or a situation that you've experienced in your life when you keep reliving that, your body doesn't know that it happened in the past. Your body thinks it's happening now. And this kind of touches upon a conversation I had recently with an actor friend of mine. And I said that I think actors have shorter lifespans. I think they have shorter lifespans. I think they have shorter lifespans. I think there are more actors who die earlier of cancer or what it may be whatever ailment that they die of

because of the stress that they put their bodies through to recreate a scene where they truly hate somebody or truly there's so much tension. And if you're a good actor, you're gonna get yourself to that point, right? That you're just like so wound up and specific, and I'm talking not about sitcom actors, obviously there's not a lot of tension going there,

but specifically about drama, right? Yeah. Our show is definitely drama. Almost every episode, the ship is going to blow up, right? So we're all going to die every episode. So when you put your body through that over and over again, it takes a toll on you. Yeah. And I think reliving or thinking about or maintaining anger towards somebody or hatred towards somebody is very, again, horrible for your state of being, your health. Okay. And that you have to learn how to let it go. You just have. have to learn how to let it go and realize, accept that life is unfair, right? Like it's never, you're not going to get everything handed to you on a silver platter, right? But you do have to remember that the universe is always conspiring to give you the best outcome possible. So more often than not, anything negative that happens in somebody's life, extremely negative, tragic, traumatic is setting that person up, for something much greater, much more positive down the line.

That down the line could be a day later, a week later, a year later, a decade later, whatever it is, you are facing a hurdle in order to bounce you off to the next great thing if you're able to handle that hurdle. If you don't handle that hurdle, if you choose the life of, well, I know I need to end my life now, my life was horrible. You haven't really handled that hurdle. You know, the prize has not been given to you because you didn't hang around. It also reminds me this episode, this theme,

of this episode like with with Neelix clearly he's got a resolve and come to terms with what happened to the planet to his family and and that horrible the moon the moon right next the moon but to me the thing that was almost more emotionally sad and and I could relate to I guess because not many of us have had to live through a Hiroshima or Nagasaki bomb. Not many of us have, luckily, most of us live in a peaceful community

and we're very fortunate. Most of us do. But what I did relate to was when Neelik said, I lied. I've lied to you. And I was hiding out. I, you know, I didn't believe in this war.

And so I was a deser. And I've lied about it. And I've told you stories of these battles I was in. And I wasn't really in him and that kind of forgiveness of himself and what Kess said to him like you you chose to do something because of your beliefs and what you really believed in and she was able to kind of look at it a little differently or help him look at it a little differently so that he could forgive himself and he could he could accept the choices he made and forgive himself for for lying or hiding or whatever and that's relatable to me.

That really moved me a lot. It reminded me of there's an author and a teacher named Byron Katie. I don't know if you ever heard of Byron Katie. No. But she does some amazing kind of self-helpy work with... How do you spell that, by the way? Byron. B-Y-R-O-N, last name, K-A-T-I-E.

And this is a woman or a man? A woman. Okay, Byron Katie. Byron Katie. And her book that I think is fabulous, it's called Loving What Is. But she's about accepting and kind of forgiving, accepting reality, her whole process of self-helpy work for whatever you want to call it. It's kind of saying, all right, what are my resentments?

What are the things like you said that I feel unfair, that I don't want to forgive the people in my life? What are those situations? And then she kind of looks at it and says, all right, is that really true, that belief that you have about them? You know, is it really true? Right. You know, my father never loved me.

Is that really true? Well, probably not. Like, if I really look at it, is that true? Probably not. He probably loved me, just didn't know how to show it. And anyway, she's got these steps that you kind of, these questions you sort of ask yourself about that thing that brings you to forgiveness and acceptance, I guess, is the other word I would use. So that's a lesson, I think, of this episode is like, you know, learning how to get to a place of forgiveness. acceptance and and what a what a relief i think kess says something like wow what a burden you know neelix

that you've had to carry that around with you for so long what a burden that is and i can relate to that like you know i think all of us can like we carry these secrets or these resentments or these things that we're ashamed of and to be able to let go of those burdens is that is the greatest gift so kess is basically neelix is byron katie exactly she's she showed him that the glass can be half full and not always empty and you're right

I mean she she really she sat there and she said you know what maybe it's not to trill that you're angry at maybe it's yourself you know maybe it's yourself and you know what's so great to let's just talk about Jennifer Lean that voice that's a million dollar voice

oh yeah that voice on that girl oh my gosh I mean it was just it's just silky smooth and resonant and deep and from For her age, yeah, grounded. I mean, at her age, she was 18 when she started Voyager, right? Usually at 18, you know, most individuals are kind of still very awkward and very shy, not sure of themselves, don't know who they are, you know,

or just kind of playing like a caricature of themselves and going through life. But she already just at that age had such gravitas in her voice, right? Yeah, she had a sense of calm about her. yes that was good for the doctor in those scenes when she was with the doctor it was good for neelix yes she was a great sort of counterbalance to just calming calming the the circumstances in the situation i don't think they could have cast anybody else of that age that would have come off with that type of wisdom and that type of beautiful voice like that you know and a calming voice right calming beautiful voice at that age is just rare and so i think that that really was the perfect cast

Yeah, Jennifer. We're going to go ahead and wrap up this episode. We want to thank everybody for listening and tuning in. We're a little bit, we're going to have to apologize a little bit. It was a little bit of a downer, but, you know, sometimes you're going to have to have rainy days as well as sunny days, right? So it can't always be sunshine and rainbows. So thank you for listening in, guys, and tune in next week when we review Learning Curr, which will be the final episode of Season 1. Thanks, guys. Thanks, guys. See you next week. Bye. See.