The Delta Flyers - Juggernaut

Episode Date: July 11, 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 Juggernaut. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Juggernaut:Voyager rescues two crew members of an abandoned, out-of-control Malon freighter that is about to unleash radiation into the sector.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, Brannon Braga, & Bryan FullerAdditionally 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., Marie Burgoyne, Daniel de Rooy, 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, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Shambhavi Kadam, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Brandon May, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Jeremy Mcgraw, Jason Bonnett, Ian Ramsey, Jack Fine, & Susan V. GrunerAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Liza Albright, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, John Mann, Holly R. Schmitt, 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, Craig M. Nakashian, Julie McCain, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Carmen Puente-Garza, Russell Nemhauser, Chris Casiano, Lawrence Green, & Jordan Marie BenkoThank 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 with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Trek actor and producer and director of the acclaimed TV series, Chuck, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil and myself, your favorite Ensign, Garrett Wong. 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. All righty. Well, hello there. Hello. You have a new green screen. That's so exciting. I do. I'm trying to like modernize my podcast studio. Simplify it. I think, you know, I got the new mic. Yeah. It's funny because you know, in the very beginning when I was like, okay, so we need this, we need that. And I was I was giving you recommendations on mics and this, and you just went off and got your own mic.

And now you have one that is just like mine in Calgary. And your green screen is now evolved into one that I have, like one I have in Vegas, where you just pull it up out of a, you know, it just kind of comes up. It's much easier. So I'm happy that, you know, after two years, you finally've kind of come around a little bit to my camp, so to speak. to the modern podcast world. Welcome to the modern podcast world, Robbie McNeil.

So I'm really excited to hear that you have better or more easy to deal with equipment. Yes, right? Because let's face it, that collapsible green screen, not only is it difficult to collapse down and open back up again. I think it's a health hazard, to be honest. That thing flips out so hard. Podcasting is dangerous for all you aspiring podcasters out there. yes it is a dan it's dangerous work yes it really is but most importantly with that collapsible screen which is what i still use in calgary it is rounded it's sort of rounded so that means always fidgeting

with the size to make sure that's not showing the room you know so there's there's issues with that thing as much as it's portable and you can collapse it down it's not a square you know it's sort of an oval is what it is which well the what the the funny thing to me as you're talking about green screens is I know you use a green screen I don't use a green screen I'm actually in space right now right out in front of the Voyager and I go I'm all natural with this you know it's so impressive because I don't see any type of breathing apparatus that you're using and you are able to somehow survive float in space because that's how committed to an authentic natural podcast I I podcast naturally.

That's unbelievable. Yes. And for you aspiring podcasters out there, I would recommend organic podcasting, natural. You must have a side deal with either Richard Branson or Elon Musk where they actually shoot you into space. Yes, before every episode. Every podcast, I go float in space because I want to be natural. You know, the consummate professional, you definitely are that. Wow.

Thank you. I want to talk about my hat, too. Enough about podcasting gear. Yeah. This is from Capitol Reef National Park. Oh. Rebecca and I just went down for a couple of days doing some exploring the national parks here in Utah. Capital Reef National Park.

Unbelievable. It is so stunning and just awe-inspiring. I feel like it's a very underrated national park. And it wasn't too crowded. We were able to get around pretty easily. It was just incredible. And I got this hat. So there you go.

It's a cool looking hat. It's a beautiful area. If you want photos, go to either Robbie or Rebecca's Instagram. They have posted a bit recently, yes. The hat is phenomenal. Let's just face it. It's a nice hat. It's a dark brown.

What color is that? Gray? It's kind of like a muted brown. Yeah. Brown. I love the patch. I love, I just like National Park kind of gag. It's cool.

All right. There you go. So it was a great trip. It was a great trip. What are we doing this week? What is the episode? I'm just back from a national park. I have no idea what we're going to talk about today.

All right. So this week's episode is Juggernaut. Juggernaut. That's what we're watching? It's a great name. It's a really good name. I used to play a video game where there was a character called Ory a thing that you had a fight against that was called the juggernaut.

And it was very difficult to defeat. So I remember, yeah. So it's sort of like, you know, the term juggernaut is a, it inspires like a, unstoppable force is what it is. A military battle with a giant force of some kind. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we're going to go watch.

Let's go watch this episode. We would right back with our recap and review of Juggernaut. Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. We're back from watching Juggernaut. Yes. Scary monsters. Goodness gracious. Scary monsters and ships that look like they have gas problems.

Gastroenteritis? What? Yeah, some kind of gaseous anomaly that's leaking out of that giant ship. It was frightening. It works. All right, let's start with our poetry synopsis. Malon's In Trouble. Away team sent to vent gas.

Vihar are not myth. Oh, ho. Nice. Nice. Let me hear this. Let me go with a nice limerick for juggernaut. Goes a little something like this. There once was a Malon waste freighter with a real scary monster.

Permanetrator. Janeway had a plan B. Seven had plan C and D, but Bala ended up the Terminator. Bam! Terminator, perpetrator, freighter. You got all the eighters in there. Good for you. Nice little limerick. Yeah, what percentage was you? That was all me. What? Good job. Okay. That was all me. Thank you. I'm very proud of my myself. I am. Nine times out of ten. It's usually RJ, but you've evolved. So I'm pretty excited. Thank you very much. You have an evolution. Okay. Yeah. Juggernaut. Yeah. Story by Brian Fuller. Story by Brian Fuller. I guess that's written by Brian Fuller? No. Well, the teleplay, it was it was written by Fuller, Sagan, and Biller. So I got Biller right.

Okay. So the story idea was pitched by Fuller, which they said, yes, we're going to go with it. And they let him write it as well as Nick Sagan and Ken Biller. And I guess Biller on that one, didn't I? I think. Yeah, you did. Yeah. Okay. No, Biller made sense because of the- And you agree with me. You agreed with me on that one. Yep. Totally. And I got the director right. Alan Craker. Yes. Yeah. I got it right on this one. And he did a great job. I thought it was really. really well directed and we'll get into like we'll get into the the you know the good and the bad of it all as far as an episode but as far as directing again Alan just has good instincts and the way he you know kind of gets the camera in there to feel the experience of the characters is really great he did a great job let's talk about our guest stars I'm going to do what I normally do first job ever that's about all I know I didn't go deep so all I know is what their first job is. But Ron Canada. I just love that name. I do too. I want you to change your name to Robbie America. Yes. Yes. All right. Go ahead, Ron Canada. Ron Canada, who plays Fessick. His very

first job was in 1983. He did a movie with Steve Gutenberg called The Man Who Wasn't There. Oh my goodness. 83 with Gutenberg. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. That's really. reaching deep there. That's Ron Canada. I think Ron Canada also was on Battlestar or... But I think so. But again, I don't have all this research. So, or Babylon 5 or one of those shows,

he was like a regular recurring. So he's got some sci-fi cred, but that was his first job. The man who wasn't there, Steve Gutenberg, in 1983. Okay. Lee Aaronberg, who plays Pelk. Yes, my...

His very first job, Lee Aaronberg, his first job was in 1987 a movie with martin short called Cross My Heart wow 1987 huh and then last we have scott clase who played drimk i think i'm pronouncing that right basically the monster right he was the rink yeah his first job was in the 90s believe it or not he did a tv movie with john mahoney who was the father on Frasier. John Mahoney was the big star back then of this TV movie called

The Ten Million Dollar Getaway. I've never heard of that, but okay. I actually haven't heard of any of these credits. Wow. That's what I love about it, is that it's usually your first job is often on something that's kind of obscure.

Although Lee Arrenberg was in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He was one of the pirates, right? That's right. It's kind of what he's known for is. Yes, and he also was at UCLA with me. He's older than I am. So he's a few years ahead of me.

But he was at the UCLA Theater Department back in the day. Lee's great. He's really, really great. It's interesting because there's a lot of Easter eggs in this episode. Like, for instance, the character that Ron Canada plays, Fesic, that's the same name that's used in Princess. bride. So is it really? Yeah, that character exists in princess bride. And then later, there's more, and as we get to them, I will reveal the other Easter eggs that are in here. I didn't know

that. Yeah, let's, let's hear, I want to hear about that. Okay, cool. Sure. Well, let's get into the, recap. So the first image we have is of this giant alien ship, a freighter, flying through space, and as it passes by, we see this gas. And my first thought was like, the giant farting ship is flying through space. So I'm going to call the fart ship. So the fart ship flies by and then we cut inside to a very cool corridor inside this alien ship. And my first thought was, oh, it's a Borg corridor. It looked just like the Borg corridors with a little

redressed and the little extra, you know, yeah. Okay, okay. Anyway, I thought that was kind of clever. So maybe that's our first Easter egg right there. There's a board corridor, a board corridor. And we see somebody with like what looks like a toy. I didn't know what it was. I didn't know if it was a tool that he was testing for something.

But it turns out it's a toy ship. And it looks a lot like the freighter, sort of, kind of. And he's flying it down the corridor and he takes us into a larger room where he crashes it into another alien buddy of his. And we learn that this is a toy for this commander's kid, this. Yeah, controller is the name of the thing he uses here. Yeah. The controller's kid. It's going to be a toy for him.

And suddenly there's a crash, a shake, and there's a rupture in tank four. They can't eject tank four. Then bam, another one. Tank six is rupturing. Yeah. You know, so we get a little action. He tells one of the aliens to go seal it manually. They can't seal these tanks.

And he goes, I'll be infected. And he's like, no, that's an order. Go. Yeah. Well, first of all, he says, I didn't sign up for core labor, you know, so already, already you now know that there's two different classifications of crew members, the ones that are on the bridge and away from the core and the ones that are in the core. So my question for you is, is the alien, the Vahar, was he the guy sent down to shut them? He's the same guy then, right? I think, yes, okay. That has to be the same guy. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, their makeup is very cool. So they're mail on. So we recognize them as Malon, but they've got blisters and, like, sores. Boils and there's smoke all through it.

The place looks grimy, this freighter. Clearly, this is a toxic environment they work in from the get-go. Very much so, yes. So off of him ordering this alien to go seal it manually, go to core labor, do some core labor. I think of core labor more as sit-ups or planks, but I guess for them, core labor is a different thing. you got fitness on your mind right now i really do okay and we have our opening credits off of that and then we come into club two vok club two vok he's in his club gear he's got club look going on with the robe and the dark lights and lo and behold it's your lady that's club two lock yeah he's

got a lamp and he's describing this lamp and we realize it's balana in there for some meditation lessons. And we learn in a scene that she's been ordered to do this meditation by Chocote because she broke the doctor's camera in engineering when he was taking photos. And she got pissed off because she kept saying, stop, don't take my picture. And he did it anyway. Why was he taking photos? Why was he taking photos? I don't remember. It's for his photo essay. A day in the life of the warp core. Remember that? That's right. Yes. That's right. Funny. Yes. But Chacote ordered her to meditate. She's very grumpy about this.

Oh, yeah. So he says, okay, sit down. Close your eyes if you want or don't. We're going to start to meditate. And he starts asking her to like picture the flame and she starts laughing. Yes. And I immediately thought about Rebecca and I, because I like to meditate sometimes. She likes to laugh at you.

She likes to laugh about it. Wow. So this is a very relatable. I'm sure people, there's, you know, the two schools of meditators and non-meditators out there that could relate to the scene, both sides of the scene. But she does fight through her giggles and she remembers all of a sudden she has this memory. Right. Before you get in the memory, the reason why she's giggling, you do recall, is because she's visualizing Tuvac as a little Vulcan with his cute little pointy ears. Yes. Yes. She thinks that's adorable. yeah um but she does remember all of a sudden she has a flash from when she was a kid of a classmate that terrorized her in in grade school in elementary school or i think she says grade school

grammar school grammar school that's what she said you remember the name Daniel bird is his name and that's the other Easter egg what is that same guy's name that was harry's buddy in the episode non sequitur when he goes back to earth and his buddy Daniel bird takes his place on Voyager while he goes back into this time this alternate reality so they're rehashing names they are rehashing the exact same name and this guy's buddies with hair so it's a little strange because your guess I would guess that Torres is older than Harry right so Daniel Byrd should be older than Harry but Daniel Byrd in that episode is Harry's contemporary his best buddy so again they're using all these names Fessic from you know Princess Bride and then Daniel Byrd from the episode

non sequitur it's just like what is going on here interesting Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Good Easter eggs, good catches, very good catches. But we realized Daniel Bird in grammar school terrorized her. He called her Miss Turtlehead. Mm-hmm. And so she attacked him on the gyro swing.

Yeah. And as she's recalling, though, she's getting really angry. Like that rage is coming out. And Tuvuck says, you know, your anger can be a source of strength for you, but your rage runs deep. you shouldn't let it drive you. You shouldn't let it control you. And then he calls her Miss Turtlehead.

And she's like, that's it. I'm out of here. I'm done. And he says, you're easily triggered. Yeah. He was testing her. He was just testing her.

Yeah. But she's done. She's out. I wouldn't have said Miss Turtlehead. I would have said MTH. I would have given the acronym, you know, just to stay away from too much direct triggering like that. Yeah, nice.

We go to the bridge next, and Paris steps on the bridge and steps, walks over to Tuvok. By the way, I want to say, where is Paris coming from? I'm going to say he was in the bathroom. He had to go 10-100. You think that's where he was? 10-100, by the way, is code on a film set for, I've got to go to the bathroom. Bathroom or washroom, if you're Canadian. Or washroom.

Yes. So I think Paris was 10-100, came back. and there was Tuvok, and he's like, oh, there's Tuvok. I'll check in. How to go with Bologna? He's checking in. You know, Tuvok's like, eh, not great. But, you know, we're going to keep at it. And Paris is like, this is not going to be easy. This is like, Paris says, this is like getting a Ferengi to leave its estate to charity. That's how hard this is going to be. I think it's at this point that Harry picks up a distress signal. Yeah, he does. We make our way to the source of the distress signal and we come across all these escape pods that seem to be just floating in space there.

It's kind of tumbling around like a debris field almost. Yeah, pretty much. And we detect theta radiation. So we look, you know, we scan all these pods and it seems like there's only two life signs that are present. We beam those two over into sick bay. We also find out when we see this debris field. These are escape pods, but we do detect a Malon freighter. Yes. Traveling in the distance at high impulse and it's abandoned. We scan it. There are no life signs. So this freighter has been abandoned. All these escape pods are out there. And this thing is flying, flying along through space. Yeah. Yeah. So we go to the sick bay where we've beamed over the only two that we're alive. Yeah. And we realize that one of them is controller Fessick, who was revived by the doctor.

and Janeway's down there and he says that they lost a lot of their crew, most of their crew when all these ruptures started to happen. And then, you know, Cephasic says, listen, you got to get away because this freighter is going to explode when it does everything within three light years, a three light year radius will be basically disintegrated. So Janeway says, all right, move Voyager to a distance of five light years. We jump back over to the bridge. We see Paris trying to answer these orders, but he cannot because the warp field has collapsed.

And this is due to all the theta radiation disrupting subspace. And this is when Janeway decides to take the opposite plan, which is follow the Malon freighter. Head right to it. Right to it. Let's go there. And of course, the look on Fessick's face is great. He's like, say that, say that again, come again. He's a little shock that we're going to do this.

but this is really the only way to stop the explosion is to try to get on that freighter and stop it that way because we don't have time with impulse engines we would never be able to get away so we're going to get we're going to basically lose our lives if we don't do something about it and I like this exterior shot of Voyager chasing towards the farnelon freight the fart ship and then it cuts over to a bridge you know like sort of a POV over the shoulder of Paris looking at the view screen and you see the Malon vessel, which is just hurtling forward. Right in front of us there. We're chasing it along.

By the way, that shot of the view screen with Paris down there working, I remember doing those all the time. It was always second unit. We never did it when we film the scenes. And I remember sometimes it was weeks or even months later sometimes that I do those second unit shots and it was so confusing like wait what do we what is this story again because we had done you know so many episodes at that point after and and i was usually there by myself with like dan curry from the vis effects department i know you did a lot of those too but not as many as you did

i did a lot yeah because of the view screen because i sat down there in front of the view screen so really the onus is upon yourself to sort of remember where you were during that time and also the second unit director has to remind you what the heck's going on at this point because they're usually shooting multiple shots basically covering different episodes worth of a POVs over your shoulder right there. So I definitely, I feel for you having to try to remember. It was always a weird day when I'd come in for that because I'd usually come in just for that. And it just be you, right? No one else was there. Usually just me. Second unit director, cameraman. Yeah. Say out. That's it. Okay. The store tanks are going to explode within six hours. So Janeway wants to assemble an away team to beam

over, clear out sections one by one. And Fessick suggests using a nearby nebula as a shield from the blast. And then, you know, this is his suggestion, his plan. And Janeway disagrees with that. She tells Chukotay to assemble an away team. And this is when Lee Aaronberg's character, Pelk, yells out, wait, tell them about the Vihar. And these Vahar, we learn, are creatures that have been created by radiogenic wastes that reside in the Theta storage tanks. So now we have a little bit of this mystery or of this lore or whatever, you know, the boogeyman, the Milan boogeyman now. I think we now jump to engineering. Yeah, we do.

Yeah, Chocote is looking at a display showing the Malon vessel, schematics of the Malon vessel. It decides that the best place to enter is this chamber, which has the least amount of radiation. And really to start from that chamber to vent gas from each chamber above it until they can get to the control room, the chamber that has the control room. And they realize that all the pressurization systems are offline. So they have to basically utilize the two airlocks that are on each deck or each chamber to manually release this gas, vent this gas. And then the question by Vesik is, well, how's that going to stop us from being vented? And Neelik says, well, force fields. Force fields.

He spent a lot of time on a Tlaxian garbage scow, I guess. Which we never knew. We never knew that. Six years I worked on a Tlaxian garbage scow. Which kind of makes sense. Because he was a scrap. He put a scrapper later. So that makes sense.

It's pretty logical. Yeah. But his suggestion is pretty cool. Use force fields. We will use force fields to stop us from getting. vented. And also, we find out that the doctor has come up with this inoculation that we can get this shot of. And this will prevent our cells from absorbing the radiation for about two to three hours. And then there's this, again, there's a little interaction between Chakotay and Bala.

And man, he sets, he always sets her straight. He is a tough cookie. Yeah. They always write those scenes with him being like the tough guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the tough love where he always says, do you hear me? Do you hear me? It's always this very militaristic, very stern sort of approach that, that Chocote takes with Boulana, this tough love. And, you know, and I love his line,

Bolana, I need your expertise on this mission, not your bad mood, which is, oh, it's so classic, it's a classic line. And I love that, that was included there. We go to the mess hall next. And we find Neelix tasting what looks like pea soup. Yeah, it looks like split pea soup to me. It looks like split pea soup. And he's just, it's a close up of him like trying to force himself to taste this.

And he starts heaving and, you know, gagging on it. Yeah. And then he takes a bite. And then Chikote walks in and Chikote says, you know, are you almost ready? And, you know, do you want to prepare anything for the crew? anything left to do. He says, no, he's already prepared lunch, dinner, snacks for the crew, but he's still working on this Tlaxian Theta radiation remedy. So that's what it was. The split pea soup was that. Yeah. And he says it's crushed romola leaf. It's turtillion

clove. And Chacote is like, why don't you just use the doctor's inoculation? And Nelix is, uh, no, no, no, this is the thing that saved us before when, you know, we were exposed to radiation. We use this. This remedy is very important. So he adds more spices, I guess, to the thing and takes another bite and starts to gag and vomit. And then Chocote is starting to gag and vomit from that. And he pulls out like a chunk or something.

This is, I wrote down, this is one of the silliest moments in the series so far. Well, look at it was such scenery chewing silliness that I thought it was hilarious. It is, but if you look at Robert Beltron, he is trying not to laugh. I mean, he's trying his hardest because my goodness, Ethan Phillips is just playing it all the way. I mean, he's pulling out all the stops. He's like thinking, I'm going to play, I'm going to milk this moment until there's nothing left. And he does. I mean, it's very funny. It's very funny watching him do that. It's very funny. Harry does call though and say, you know, time to go to the

transport a room, ready to leave on the away mission. Chikote leaves. Neelix has to take one more dips his finger in and takes one more taste of it and sort of does another gag on the way out. Oh, he milked it. Wow. He did. It was, it was amazing. Good job. We go into the hallway now. We see Paris running to catch up with Boulana. And he's like, hey, aren't you forgetting something? She's like, what? What did I forget? I've got everything. He's like, no, saying goodbye. You didn't say goodbye to me. Yes. She says, no, I thought we might fight. It's a sweet scene. He kind of stops her for a minute and they talk and then he gives her a goodbye kiss. But did you notice in this scene the sound? So this was all looped, all the walking, until we stop. And then it's not looped after

that. And the sound changes. Like you can literally hear the difference. The quality of our dialogue from the stuff they had us loop until I just hate that it was like a no brainer we always looped the hallway scene it just takes away all of the natural spontaneity because we don't look you know Roxanne and I weren't in the room together looping it

no we shot the scene and then we loop it I loop it by myself line by line she does hers line by line so it's going to naturally be a little more awkward it's going to be disconnected it's going to be disconnected And then at the end, when you kiss her, it's a sweet moment, but I kind of wanted you to boop her nose as well before, just to kind of lighten the mood just a little bit more. Yeah.

We used to do that on set. Remember, we'd walk around and hit each other's combat. Boop. Yes, we did. That was fun. We booped each other quite a bit. Yeah, it was childish fun. We go over to the mail-hunt ship and the team beams in.

It was a cool beam in in that space. Yeah. Neelix's first line as they be in, he looks around and goes, well, a fresh coat of paint would brighten this up. Yeah. It's just like, dude, this place is a disaster. The fresh coat of paint is not going to fix this, this repurpose board chip. No.

And by the way, he's in, he's in that red jumpsuit. All of a sudden, I was like, wait, what? Neelix has a red velvet jumpsuit for away missions. I've never seen this. I've never seen the red velvet jumpsuit. Okay. It's a whole new look. I didn't even notice it.

The whole episode. The whole episode. he's in the red it's very dark and smoky and so wait was he wearing it when he was trying the soup i didn't notice it there but i noticed it when you could see him full figure and i was like where is that color jump suit coming from yeah why didn't he just go in a starfleet uniform or something or i don't know anything he he wanted to throw he wanted to throw back to the 80s i guess so my goodness they walk uh and and they realize that there's uh some kind of electrostatic cascade happening, because we do see static, like almost static electricity on the walls.

Yeah, and the ceiling area. All the effects. That was very cool. Yeah. They realized that it's being caused by their tricorders, the energy from their tricorders are going to create this explosion or the-igniting the particles there. Ignite the particles, and it's very dangerous. And by the way, I did notice that Balana takes her top off very quickly.

she goes down to like a tank top in the scene i was like what where did that come who wrote that who wrote that i don't think brian fuller wrote that i think it was ken billet i think was can billet when he gets a little you know that's how we'll pronounce his name belay if he you know causes these things to happen in the episode yeah all right but her yeah she takes her top off which by the way we were in jumpsuits so she doesn't have a top so i don't know how that how that is possible. And we never wore tank tops underneath. So it was created just for her to have some skin, I guess.

That's it. She kind of looked like Sarah Connor. That's why I put in the, oh, okay, yeah. The tank, because she was down in a tank top with all the grease everywhere. That's why I put the Terminator thing in the room. Oh, okay, perfect. That's where it came from.

Okay, that's where it came from. They realized that they're going to have to manually open these airlocks. And Chukotay sends Fessick and Torres to, the injector port and Pelk stays with the rest of them. So they're going to go manually open this. They can't use their tricorders or anything. We find them crawling in through some tubes. I'm going to call it.

I said the Malon Jeffries. You're going to say the Malon Fart Tubes? I said the Maylon Fartfries tubes. But okay. Look kind of like that. But I'm going to call the fart tubes. And she asked, how can you even work in these conditions? This is unbelievable.

And he says, well, actually, back home, I'm a sculptor. I don't even do this normally, right? Yeah. And then he goes on to basically say, like, our planet is the most beautiful place. Melon is the most beautiful place. You can imagine. And they would choke on all their waste. It would destroy this beautiful planet if they didn't make these kind of sacrifices and get rid of this stuff.

Get rid of the trash. Just avoid, like pretend. that we don't create trap pretend we don't have any any trash in our lives i just got to say at this point when he's talking about that i could just all i could think about was our planet earth and how much trash that we generate as human beings and all the landfills and all the plastics and all the everything that is just not decomposing properly and that it's not organic and just how we are we are also in a way in essence choking on our own trash too so Yeah, absolutely.

But they do get to this lever. They can't get it to work. It's, it's, well, they call to Chikote and Nelix and say, we can't get this thing to work. But something's jamming the airlock controls. That's what it was. Something's jamming it. And Pelk says probably encrusted oxides or something on the controls. And so he will go.

He will go by himself. And Nelix gives him the doctor's inoculation. before he goes. An extra shot. An extra shot, which is kind of nice. And he goes to manually unlock this thing. And we start to see some monster vision. Yes, the monster POV.

Yes. What lens was that? It was sort of, I don't know, it was kind of. I don't know if it was any particularly fancy lens. I think they did it in VFX. They did some treatment. Okay, because it almost came off as like, you know how old 3D has like sort of that red and blue

sort of edge into it. That's what it kind of looked like at some points. It almost looked like heat vision or something. Yeah, something like that. But we do see the monster vision and Pelk is like he senses something, hears something, he calls out who's there, tons of smoke in here, which I thought was really cool. And do you remember when we did scenes like this where there was this much smoke and

nitrogen and all the stuff they use, the whole stage would just be filled? Like, you couldn't get away from it. Even when you weren't in the scene, it was just the whole stage was smogged up with all that stuff. And it had to be, or else the set would, you know, would just empty out. The smoke would just disappear. Yeah, all that toxic smoke we had to endure. Yes. We cut back to Nielis and Chikote.

They hear screams. They run. And he sort of pelt sort of tumbles out into the back into the fart corridor. and they check on him. Blana and Fessick return as well. And Pelk is saying to everybody that he was attacked. So everyone's thinking, what is he talking about? And unfortunately, you know, Pelk succumbs to his wounds and he dies right there.

Right there. I was a little shocked. I was like, oh, my goodness, he's already dead. Yeah, I don't know. How did he die? Like, I think. It kind of didn't make sense. Well, you saw he had lacerations on his.

cheeks, right? So where he got hit. So evidently, whatever he was radiation. Yeah. The genetic material of whatever hit him was in his wounds. And I guess it caused him to to die faster. I mean, he was more irradiated then at that point is what I got out of it. But I don't know. It's a little confusing. It's a little confusing. Like the rules of this radiation that it can create monsters who don't die they just turn into fart monsters let's call them i just want to call everything farts in this episode all right so the fart monster gets created because they're around the radiation too much but pelk dies when the fart monster touches him it just the rules seem to be a little

fluid i think it's a little bit more than a touch but yes it seemed a little drastic for him to die from getting struck in the face twice or whatever it was. But anyway, they do beam his body back to Voyager because they want the doctor to do an autopsy and figure out what made him die because everyone's just confused. They don't understand. Now, we jump to the bridge

and we learned that five decks have been vented so far of the gas. There's 10 to go. Janeway has a backup plan, plan B. She talks about there's an O-type star nearby. And if the freighter happens to explode in the star's corona, the star could actually absorb all of the theta radiation. So Tuvac is like, huh, okay, so just a little tiny nudge using well-time tractor pulses. This could put the vessel on the correct trajectory towards that O-type star.

So he thinks it's a good idea as well. And of course, this is just a backup plan, but this is the plan that Janeway has come up with. Plan B. Plan B. Always good to have a plan B. It is. We go to the ship back to the mail on ship again. Belaana and Fessick are there.

And Belaan is starting to show some signs of radiation poisoning. Yeah. We see her hand first with some sores and blisters and then we cut back to her face. And suddenly she's got the blisters on her face. Yeah, and Fessick calls it freighter blight. Freighter blighter. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

And she's going to need treatment for this right away. Fessick says he can. He says our infirmary has stuff to treat this. Cotein orders Bala to go with Fessick to the infirmary. She thinks she's fine, but he does order her. You need to go. They do head over there, and there's a joke about how Bala's like, this is your infirmary.

This looks, I mean, because it just doesn't. She says it looks like a morgue. Yeah, it doesn't look very. Because it looks like the rest of the ship. There's like smoke everywhere and goo. Yeah, it's just a crime. And then there's a chamber in the middle. She looks inside.

And there's like this radiated. corpse inside there and we find out that this was probably this was a core laborer this is what happened to the core laborers and they brought him back for some treatments when all the you know everything sort of fall apart yeah and i think they gave a number before only three out of 10 core laborers survive a mission i think yeah she's like why would they do this and he goes well you you can make in two months you can make more than most mailins making a lifetime yeah so that's huge money tons of money and she's like well who cares you're dead if you're gonna make tons of money and he goes no it goes to your family yeah so it's a very heroic um you know marter kind of

job to take most definitely i mean you are it's sort of a mission that has no return you know what i'm saying for most of these guys and they understand it they understand what they're getting into. So Fesik uses this subdermal injector, which compared to our hypo spray, it looks like a torture. It's a toaster. It's huge. It's like massive and very torture device looking. You're right. It looks like a torture device. And it injects analeptic compounds, which reverse the cell damage. And I love how his lines are very similar to what our modern doctors say. This is going to sting a bit. You might feel a little bit of a sting. And so she deals with it. So he injects her. And then we, at this point, I think we jump to astrometrics.

Astro metrics next. Tuvac comes in and Seven says, here's the calculations for the captain's plan, plan B. And then he starts to leave. She goes, and here's some calculations for plan C in case that fails. These are structural enhancements to protect the ship from the radiation explosion. And then Tuvok, as he's leaving, he goes, is there a plan D? So there's not a lot of optimism that this plan is going to work. No. But at least we have a plan C, B and C. All right.

So now we're back at the Malon freighter. And as they're working away vigorously to get the job done, all of a sudden the deck that they're on starts to decompress. And they're like, who did that? I mean, how is this happening? So now they have to get off this deck as soon as possible. So as they're kind of climbing up this one stairway, well or this one ladder.

Everyone gets out except for Jacote. He's the last person. And as he's looking back during the decompression, it looks like a hyperspanter. Something flies towards him. It's like two plastic tubes. I feel like for Robert. They were metal. They were metal.

They were plastic. They were metal. You're going to say plastic? And it looks like somebody was standing there and they said, okay, Robert, start climbing and we'll go, we'll go like three, two, one. And then we'll toss these plastic tubes at you. And it looked silly to me. I don't know here you got plastic because they were

silvery metallic in terms of their composition. So they probably were in real low and lightweight. They looked like it looked like a kid's slinky toy or something. No, not even close. No. It looked like some type of section of a piping or tubing or that was. He gets knocked out, but they threw a couple props at him and he fell out of the close. So it was like, It reminded me of the episode when we're in the prison ship and then they're throwing, I'm trying to speak to all the prisoners and they start throwing debris at me and I get hit. Oh, yeah. Very similar.

Yeah, similar to that. Yeah. But we go to Bologna and the gang and they look back. They're like, where's Chacote? Yeah. And he's not there. Yeah, she tries the halem, no response. No response.

So she calls the ship. Yeah. And. Kim, Harry, response. Look at this. I get to say a few words here. Yeah, you have a few lines. A few lines.

So she hails Voyager. Kim responds. She asked for him to beam, she asked Harry to beam Chakotay to sickbay. Kim does it. Chacote is okay and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Now there's an argument that breaks out between Fessick and Torres about how these airlocks opened.

So she thinks that maybe that he had sabotaged it or something like that. Sabotaged it. And he says like, no. It's his fault. Yeah. And he's like, I didn't do anything.

And while they're doing. this monster vision happens again now. Monster vision. Fart monster vision is happening. The creature is watching. Fart vision is happening. Yes. And we jump to the bridge where Janeway and Tuvok are there. Tuvok suggests that he be over. Yeah, they're off at a side panel, you know, a side console. And I love that angle because I feel like they pulled out to put the camera behind that side, they pulled out something that we don't normally pull out. Like it was an angle we don't normally see. Right. I also thought it was cool because that side station is usually the station that Torres sits at. Yeah. She's on the bridge. So it's interesting that there's,

you know, they actually played it out there because this whole scene is about Tuvok saying I can beam over and take over the mission. And Janeway is very defensive. She's like, no. No. And Tuvok's like her emotions, they're going to affect her. They're going to get the best of her. This could be a major problem. Yeah. And Janeway's like, you know what? I don't think that's right. Right. And Tuvok's like logic suggests that we need to. And she goes, no, it's not about logic. It's about trust. Me trusting in Bolana. And the fact that she says this at the station that Balana is typically sitting at, I thought that was kind of cool. Yeah. It's very cool. Very cool. Nice little scene. Janeway ends up by saying she's going to come through for all of us. Then we go back to the Malon ship, Neelix walks in. I love this little moment. He walks in on Balana who's kind of down sitting on the ground with her eyes closed. And he's like, are you okay? And she goes, I'm fine. I'm fine.

Yeah. And there's kind of an awkward moment. Yeah. She goes, report. She doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know what to say because he caught her meditating. So I did make a note that when he said, when he asks her if she's fine, I just said, God, that is so looped. Because it just, you could hear the background.

Oh, really? It didn't sound like anything else that came before that or after that. Again, that's usually the signal or the how you realize something's looped because there is a difference. In the noise before the tone, yes, yes. We find out that the last deck has been vented and that there is a clear path to the control room. And she also sort of copse to the fact that she was meditating. And she says, don't tell too much.

But Neelik starts laughing. He's like, you? And I just thought it was kind of interesting that he sort of took that option or that choice as an actor to kind of laugh at that point. But yeah, so we get a little more backstory what's going on there and also like in the end when she leaves we hang on him again for a minute and he adds another moment of like the railing had goo wanted it yeah yeah he touch it and he sort of

touches it and looks at his hand i was like what what is that goo and i'm sure that was not scripted no and that's what's so great with Ethan Phillips is that look at this because typically it's just going to be a shot on him reacting to her leaving and that's it right it's a shot on his face But he chose to, he made that choice to touch that railing and realize how gooey it is. And again, it just adds so much more to the scene when, you know, something like that is included. So good job, Ethan Phillips. Very good. Now we go to astrometrics again.

Mm-hmm. And Seven says the control room is still too heavily shielded to get a reading. So stand by, don't go in the control room, basically. Yeah. Because Torres is actually asking Seven to scan this control room. Yeah. and Fessick we go back and he says the theta dampening field is still active so it should be safe to go inside so they go inside but let's make it clear Torres goes well you go first then is what she says

yeah she does they do go inside and he's just said oh yeah it's safe in there it's fine and then the doors open they go in and there's bodies on the floor it's not safe there's dead bodies on the floor and there's more smoke than ever. They're coughing. It doesn't seem safe to me. He just said it's safe. I'm going to say it doesn't seem safe. Fessick starts punching some console

and he discovers that Theta gas has actually leaked into the warp manifold. So it's a lot worse off than he thought it was going to be. And Neelix then informs us that they've got 10 minutes, 10 whole minutes before the entire freighter explodes. Yep. Bilanah works in power conduits or something. and she said we can seal them one at a time.

We can seal these leaks one at a time. And so we go to Sick Bay from here. And Chikote wakes up and he wants to go back on the ship. And the doctor says, no, no, you can't go back over there. And the doctor also says that he found some unidentified tissue in Pelk's autopsy. Yeah, in the wounds that Pelk has. In the wounds, yeah. And then the doctor calls seven and says, scan for life forms on that ship.

there's another life form. There's, it's not pelt's tissue. There's something else over. Right. And then he, the doctor finds out that the tissue is saturated with theta radiation, but it is not showing signs of decay. So that's what's so confusing to the doctor.

So that makes him feel like there's something that's alive there. So it came from something or someone that has developed a resistance to the radiation. So the doctor is hailing seven to scan for this life form. So she does recalibrate the sensors and start scanning for, this new life form that the doctor has found because the doctor tells seven he says it could be hidden it could be blending in with the area of radiation so so she recalibrates and now we go back to the mail on ship there's a power surge and they can't continue venting these chambers this power surge suddenly balana says well you know what this was triggered at a station on this deck right

nearby. Yeah. So that's weird. There's nobody else out there. Suddenly, Janeway called from the bridge. They have detected a life form. The doctor was right. Seven recalibrated things found that there is another life form.

This life form, they believe, killed Pelk. So it's time for them to get out of there. Torres says they just lost power. Janeway says that they're diverting the freighter to a nearby star. They're going to plan B. Plan B in action. and that they need to exit the control room in order to be beamed out. And as they try to leave, the doors close in front of them, and they jam.

And so now seven detects the life form entering the control room. It now attacks Neelix. It attacks Fesik. And then it comes for Torres. And now we finally have a reveal of who or what this individual is. And we see that it is a core laborer, probably the same one. the same individual that was set down to the core that didn't want to go in the very beginning.

We talked about that. Yeah. And he looks just like a radiation monster. Yeah. He just doesn't look any. It doesn't look Malon at all. He's bubbles and booed everywhere. He's bubbled up all over on one half of his face, definitely.

And Balana says in this moment when he finally reveals himself, she says, don't make me kill you. And he responds, I'm already dead. Yeah. That's a classic action. movie line right there. It really is. It really is. It's good. And Voyager maneuvers the Malon vessel towards the O-type star. And of course, our Malon fart monster alters the course and away from the star. And there are three

minutes until detonation. Torres then just, you know, she realizes there's nothing that she can do. And she knocks this core laborer down. But she does try to speak to him. She just tried to, because she sees that anger has consumed him as anger consumed her as a child and all the lessons she's been trying to learn from Tuvok. So now she's trying to get this guy, try to get through to him and say that I know you're angry. I know you want revenge, but this is not the answer. And, you know, he still, he doesn't listen.

So basically that's when she resorts to violence and beats him down. And she shuts down the maneuvering thrusters so that the Malon vessel can then be, guided by Tuvok towards the O-Type Star again. She runs out with Fessick and with Nelix just in time out of the control room to be beamed by Harry back onto Voyager and the vessel, we see a cool exterior shot of the vessel hurtling towards the O-Type Star and the explosion. Again, another cool visual effects shot of that. And we then show up in Sick Bay.

There we see Chiquet and Torres. We see, Chircote and Torres standing by one of the biobeds, and she's a work. Away from everyone. She's a wreck. Like, she's got grace and debris goo all over her body. I just felt like this moment was very weird. And normally, I love unconventional staging, but it's like she was sort of facing to one direction, and he was facing the other, and they weren't looking at each other, but they were talking to each other.

It was a little weird staging, I thought. It is weird. Chacote does say to her that maybe the meditation is working. Yes. That he saw that. Maybe it's working. She should keep it up and she goes, don't expect me to make a habit of this.

Yeah. That was funny. The doctor interrupts their little aside conversation. He says that he has repaired most of Torres's cellular degradation. And Janeway sort of jumps into that shot. And she tells Fesick that they've contacted a Malon transport vessel. They are going to rendezvous with that vessel. So Fasik then sort of laments on what is he going to tell his superiors about what happened.

Yes. How am I going to explain what happened? And Boulana says, tell them it's real. Tell them the Fahar are not a myth. Yes, the ending of my haiku. Yes, exactly. Now, I wrote Tories as quarters, but isn't this your quarters as well or no? Are you guys?

I think we use the same place on the set, but they change out the drive. dressing or something. No, no, I mean, aren't you, aren't you living together now as characters or no? I think so. No, you're still separate. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, we go into her quarters. And I wrote down, why is she still so dirty and filthy? Like, if she had been to sick bay, they would have cleaned her up. They would have put her into a, I don't know. It seemed like she walked out of sick bay. I know they fixed her radiation cellular damage, but she's a, a mess. I don't know. It was a weird. Well, they don't have a sonic shower in sickbay. So that's probably why she's still a mess is what I'm thinking. I mean, was she in the prior shot? Was she cleaner than

she was in this shot? No, she was still dirty. Okay. It just seemed like they would have cleaned her up or something. But I know they got to, they wrote in, you got to get to a sonic shower here. Yeah. Yeah. She goes in. She takes her top off. So we've got those awkward kinds of shots where you have to avoid any frontal nudity and standing in front of the mirror with her top off and looking at herself, it sort of leans into the mirror, has these flashbacks of the rage and the fight.

Yeah, I was a little confused. I've got to be honest in what the story was saying. Although one thing you said makes it a little clearer, I guess, which is, you know, she saw in this guy the same kind of rage that she has in herself. Yeah. Which I guess is what she's struggling with and fighting, but it was not very, it was not clear to me why this was so clear cut.

No, no. But yeah, she has this moment of flashbacks in the mirror and then she steps in the sonic shower. And we go off of kind of a vis effects of her going from that dirty, greasy, grimy look to things starting to become clean in the middle of that sonic shower close up. And that's how we end the episode. Okay. What is your lesson that you have learned from this episode? You know, I was trying to come up with a lesson. What I came up with was you can't bury your feelings or experiences or anger

any more than you can bury the toxic garbage that they try to pretend. Doesn't exist. That was sort of, but I do think that the story really is about Bologna. And maybe there is something in her sort of seeing... herself in these mail-on and what they were particularly the monster male on you know but what was your theme well i mean just going back to two vox meditation lessons with her just not to allow emotion to go unchecked because that is when it becomes um chaotic and destructive so really to keep your emotion in check emotions when when they run away can be very dangerous so that's pretty much one

they can turn into a monster they can turn into a fart monster fart monster exactly uh what was your rating on this i'm going to say seven zero wow i'll leave it there okay seven i'm going to give it a five point five okay you're going really low point five and i'll tell you why because i do think this was the intention of this was to be a monster movie like a monster episode and I just don't I feel like the monster came in way too late like we never saw him there was never any clear threat by the monster it was it was felt it felt like a myth but yet it was real in the end I just feel like the monster somebody should have said the monster's real

the audience should have had an experience that this month there really was a monster because otherwise I would but don't they have that experience? from the fart vision? I mean, isn't that kind of their experience? But there was no threat. There was no, like he wasn't doing anything. Yeah. I mean, I guess he could have, you know,

locked the levers and done all that stuff. It just didn't, it didn't feel like the monster was very tangible and real early enough to maintain this monster movie story. All right. He really didn't become a threat until that last scene. Okay. A direct threat.

So that's when I give it a 5.5. All right. Let us know what everyone else thought, what the captains and the Admiral's thought. Captains and Admiral's average rating for Juggernaut is a seven. Wow. Wow. I am right on the mark. I'm on the mark. I would have, I got to be honest with you, I would have gone lower on this, except that I think Alan Craker did a great job directing. He did. I think Roxanne did a great job in her work. And our guest stars were really good. And everybody, you know, I felt like the execution all around was really strong. That's why I didn't give it like a four, honestly.

Yeah, I would have gone lower. But because my buddy Lee Aaronberg is in it, I couldn't go lower. I had to go. I had to keep it at the seven zone. So there you go. Yeah. Yeah. All right.

Well, good. Well, there you go. There's juggernaut. Right. There it is. All right. Thanks, everyone for joining in for this week's review. and discussion of Juggernaut.

Yes, thank you so much for joining us for the fart episode. It is a memorable and important episode. Yes, we will be reviewing an episode which is arguably Robbie McNeil's best directed episode of Star Trek Voyager,

someone to watch over me. You're kidding me. That's next week. That's right, my friend. So I'm very excited to be able to finally tackle your piece de resistance as a voyager director was this one so yeah this is a good episode and i and i'm not saying that because i directed it it's just a really good episode it was a very good episode all right so um patreon patrons please stay tuned for your bonus material everyone else we'll see you next week The

B. Bhopal, Bhopal, Bhopal, B, Bhop, Bhop, B,

B, Bhop, B, Bhop, Thank you.