The Delta Flyers - Looking Back

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

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

Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Voyager veteran, Garrett Wong, and myself, Robert Duncan McNeil. Your favorite helmsman. gone through the entire series of Voyager now we have no more episodes to discuss we got to the finale we were both shocked at how we did not remember it the way we thought it was remember this whole series ending the way we thought it was far for the course but we're gonna we're gonna finish off uh this month of podcasts with a couple of

special episodes about our series. And this week, we are going to kind of take a step back and take a bird's eye view of the whole show, of everything that we have rewatched, everything we've remembered, everything we have experienced for the last three and a half years of doing this podcast, the entire seven seasons of Voyager. We're going to kind of talk and reflect on that. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast and all those episodes that we re-watched and re-experienced and tons more bonus material if you sign up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. All right.

So here we are. We've gotten through the entire series. How does it feel? It's surreal. It really is. I mean, it just seemed when we began in May, when we first launched in May of 2020, and we actually began recording in April-ish, yeah. It seemed like a gargantuan task.

Oh, my gosh. 160-plus episodes of Voyageur that we were going to review. And honestly, I was like, gosh, I just hope we both stick with this and finish this. Because, you know, who knows? Like, we could have both said, like, eh, it's not our cup of tea. Maybe, you know, one of us could have said. that and said we're moving on or whatever but we stuck with this the whole time you know um we had our bumps and bruises in the beginning because we didn't know equipment we didn't know how to get the best

audio we didn't know which green stream or which lighting was the best so it was trial and error in the beginning for sure i would have to say so the other thing that that makes me think about you're right when we started in april of 2020 kind of putting this together yeah it seemed gargantuan it impossible. Yeah. And I, if I'm being honest, I didn't expect we'd finish. I really didn't. I didn't think, I thought, yeah, well, this will be fun for a few months. We'll see how this goes. But I want to say, just like the original series when it got canceled and the fans, the fans kept it alive. Yeah. The fans got together and had conventions and wanted more. The fans, because of their passion and their connection and their involvement, Star Trek as a franchise,

survived. And I feel the same way for our podcast, honestly. And I'm not saying this to kiss up to all of our listeners out there. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. I don't think we could have done this without the passion that people have expressed and the way the community that's developed and the feedback that we're getting from everybody about this podcast, we wouldn't have survived. Like, it's the fans. It's the people that kind of feed us and make us want to keep going, honestly. That's my two cents. No, I agree with you. I do feel that we were able to find inspiration from our fans, from the listeners and viewers, from the Patreon patrons, from those who are listening to the free podcast as well. We really, you know, we've, we've gotten so many emails and messages

and different times, I've been at different conventions. I know you've only done once since the pandemic started, but I've done more than that. And, you know, every day, every hour somebody comes by and says, oh my God, thank you so much for the podcast. Thank you. And that just keeps us going. That was like fuel, I think, for both of us.

And we realized that this thing became bigger than both of us. You know what I'm saying? It just, it sort of just, it expanded and became its own entity. And it became something that people look forward to. in a time where an unprecedented time in our life, in our, as long, there's no one alive right now. That was alive when the Spanish flu was around. I mean, if there was, they were, it may be an infant or something like that.

But again, I just feel like the world shut down. We did this. This became a beacon in the night, a lighthouse in the night, to guide in those lost souls and people that were, you know, feeling uncomfortable and feeling nervous about what was going on with the world. And we were like a safety blanket in a way. And then the show became a safety blanket for ourselves in a way. You know what I'm saying?

We felt like, oh, yeah, we're doing something. We're contributing to society in a way. We're helping entertain people and educate people and inform people and enlighten people. So it really has become its own entity in my view. Yeah. Yeah, it's totally become its own entity. And I think that sense, you're right, starting during the pandemic when everyone felt so isolated and alone.

Yeah. And the things that we were used to that created a sense of connection or community for us had sort of vanished. They evaporated very quickly. And I'm surprised at how reconnecting this podcast has become, for me, with our cast and our crew and the fans. and the show itself. Like I really, I really have re-experienced what we did on the, on the series,

the shows we made, all of those memories and great memories, and tough times too. But reconnecting with everybody and, you know, getting to interview people for all of the, you know, all the bonus material that we've done, not just the podcast and the rewatch. but it's the it's the zooms with the admirals it's the interviews that we do it's the conversations that happen it's it's you know not not knowing something and calling bob picardo on the phone in the middle of a podcast while he's on his bike yeah yeah we've learned a lot of things that we did not know beforehand a lot for instance i didn't know that your favorite color was orange and what's odd is that when i finally realized i actually purchased this chair as you can see i bought this

chair before I even knew that this chair I bought very early, before I knew orange was your favorite color. And look, I have orange as my chair. You have an orange chair. There you go. That shows that we have some synergy together. Even when we're not together, we still have that synergy. I'm buying your favorite color chair, basically. I like that you're wearing a Delta Flyers hat and I pulled out. Oh, the season seven one. Yeah. I did a deep cut. And I'm wearing the season seven crew hat that the cast, We all made these hats for the crew and everybody that worked on the show. And so this was our finale season seven baseball hat that we made. And it felt appropriate for this.

I love it. For this episode. I should find mine. I think I actually have a box with several of those, actually. You do? I do. I feel like we. I need to find those.

And so I can throw them up on the store and let some people have a shot at getting these because they're limited edition, that's for sure. There's only so many printed. But yeah, it's been quite a journey, to say the least. And I've been very, very, you know, happy that we took it. I mean, it's something that, you know, it's actually brought us closer together as well. I mean, I feel like, you know, we've always been friends,

but, you know, there was a period of time where I didn't really see a lot of you, to be honest. No, I think it's reconnected you and I and our friendship because we're talking about this, we're getting together. It's reconnected us to a lot of the cast in ways that, you know, I love that we've talked to everybody

except for Jennifer Lean, and we've talked to everybody that was on our show. And I wish we could have. That's still a goal of mine to be able to do that too. I would love to reconnect with her. Yeah. I really would.

So 172 episodes, this series. Is that the number? Is that the correct number? 172 episodes. Okay, got it. Seven seasons, 172 episodes. We premiered on January 16th, 1995 on a brand new network, UPN. Wow.

Let's talk about that for a minute. Yeah, let's talk about UPN, but before we get into that, 170 in today's order of a Netflix show, that would be 17 seasons of a 10 episode per season show on Netflix. Am I right? That would be 17 seasons. just puts it into perspective how hard we worked on Voyager how much time we spent at Paramount studios filming 14 to 17 hours a day 10 months of a year out of the year just to get that show and that's a lot of episodes you know nobody does that anymore no nobody no and now let's talk

about uPN and the and u pn so we we premiered on january 16th 1995 i remember that premier day i remember the the kind of excitement and fear around UPN. Yes. Yes. I thought the coolest thing publicity-wise that happened then was that the L.A. Times, somebody at Paramount, clearly, decided, let's go ahead. And in the Sunday paper, the Sunday before Monday, January 16th, 1995, so that would be January 15th. In that Sunday, L.A. Times paper, and back then, this is before the, the,

age of digital. Everybody had a paper that they went and purchased or had delivered, okay, like physical paper. That L.A. Time Sunday paper had an insert in there, and it was basically Voyager popcorn. Did you know? Oh, yes. I remember that. This is brilliant. And that made me feel special. I'm like, wow, like no other TV show had advertising publicity by putting into every single Sunday paper popcorn, Voyager popcorn to make while you're watching the premiere of Voyager. like make it a movie night. They treated it like a movie premiere. And so I felt, I felt fancy.

It made me feel fancy. I'm like, oh my gosh, look at that. They're pulling out all the stops for us, UPN and Voyager. Yeah, I remember UPN. I was very excited that, like, wow, we're, you know, anchoring this new network. Yeah. It's super exciting. The Paramount Network.

Fox, you know, Fox had just started, you know, maybe 10 years before. I remember when the Fox network launched and everybody was like, oh, nobody can, they can't start another network. It's going to fail. Fox is going to fall flat on its face. Yeah, flat on its face. And it didn't. Nope. It was succeeding.

And so all the other studios were kind of getting in the game of, hey, maybe we can start our own network too. So Paramount starting their own network seemed really exciting. They had so many comedy hits. They had a history of so much great television. But I do remember when we started Voyager and this new network, they were talking about the lineup as all of this started becoming clearer to us. And I remember they were only airing programming like three or four nights a week. They weren't.

They didn't have a full slate. They didn't have a full slate. They didn't have a full slate. And I remember feeling like, wait a minute, is this going to work? Yeah. Do we have enough? Yeah. Well, I'm going to quiz you.

I'm going to quiz you, Robbie. Do you remember some of the titles of the other shows that premiered with us? That premiered with us? Yeah, what other UPN shows were on back then? Oh, my gosh. Let's see if you can remember any titles right now. I don't remember a single other title. Seriously?

I don't. I don't. Oh, my gosh. What were they? Okay. There was hanging with the homeboys. That was the first. That was one of them.

And it was a couple guys. you know, from the inner city or I think that were attorneys or something, trying to be attorneys, something like that effect. Hanging with the Homeboys was one. Platypus man, starring Richard Jeny, the comedian, the very,

the very famous and fun, awesome community. He's since, has passed away, but Richard Jenny had platypus man. There was another show. It was about nowhere man. Do you remember that? Nowhere. Yeah, the guy, it was Bruce,

oh my goodness he he played um oh my goodness he played in in 2009 j j abram's reboot i think he played pike that actor oh yes oh my gosh is it stewart you know who i'm talking about i know exactly who you mean yeah uh this is actually going to make me let me just look this up who played bruce greenwood thank you that's it wait i love that show i watched some I watched all the other programming. Yeah, it was so good. And then the showrunner freaked out after season one. He was like, I don't have any of the stories.

I have no other stories to write. I can't do this anymore. And he literally told the network, I'm done. And so that show ended. It was like, oh, okay. Nowhere, man. I remember that show, Nowhere, man. Okay, I've looked up while we've been talking some of the other shows.

So we had Star Trek Voyager as they're kind of anchored. We had Nowhere Man, which we've talked about. We had platypus man, starring Richard Jenny. We had pigsty. That one I didn't remember. No. What was pigsty? It was a comedy.

It was, let me see if I can find out. Give me some names of the people that are in there. Who's the lead? Sean O'Brien and Liz Vassie, both in my short film, 9mm of love. Oh, wow. About this. Oh, my God. That is so funny.

Sean's an old friend. starred Sean O'Brien, Sean O'Brien, Liz Vassie, Timothy Fall, Brian McNamara, who was in my episode of Someone to Watch Over Me. Yeah. Also a friend of mine. Matt Borlingy. From Father of the Bride, Brian McNamara? No, that was George something.

George Newbern. Yeah. George Newmird came in to say hello to you when you were working on Chuck. And I was with you when he came in to say hi. Do you remember this? Yes, I do. Yeah, yeah. Okay, all right.

Sorry, go ahead. All the, all the young actors, our age or my age back then, I knew all of them. Right. So platypus man was another UPN show. I totally forgot about that. Keep going. We had nowhere, man, we talked about. Marker.

Richard Greco. Richard Greco. Oh, my gosh. Terry Farrell's ex-boyfriend. Oh, my goodness. Yes. Wow. I forgot about that marker.

I don't know if these were all first. But other UPN shows, legend, Richard Dean Anderson. Yes, yes. Before he did Stargate, right? Yes, yes. Okay, Richard Dean Anderson, yeah. Yeah, and then there were some other shows that came along on UPN as we were running, you know, as shows got canceled, replacements, like the Sentinel. Oh, yeah.

Moesha. Yeah, Moesia. Yeah. The Star Brandy, the singer. The Sentinel. WWE wrestling as well I think we had that came in

yes the secret diary of Desmond Pfeiffer which was the Civil War comedy do you remember that no but got really that got greenlit a civil war comedy

oh my gosh I'm sorry I don't know who the execs were but that is not a very good choice to go over UPN UPN just could not figure it out no hanging with the homeboys

I got that wrong. It was Sparks. Sparks was the comedy, a sitcom set in Los Angeles, California, about the everyday lives of a family of lawyers running a family-owned law practice. That's what it was. That had James Avery, Robin Givens,

Terrence Howard. Terrence Howard was in that one. Miguel Nunes. So there was a lot of, you know, firepower, star power that were on UPN shows. I remember that one. Sparks, that was the one. Being on that network, bottom line,

it was exciting. to have this new network idea, but I immediately, before we even aired, I was like, wait, they've only got a few nights of programming. That's their, oh, I don't know about this. I was nervous. Our first premiere night, our two-hour pilot episode of Star Trek Voyager, which we got to see at a premiere event on a big screen on the movie theaters at Paramount's movie theater. Oh, that's right.

No, no, no. Yes, we screened it. We had seen it. We screened it before it aired. Yeah. But then the night it aired. we had 21.3 million people watching. That's a lot.

23.1 million. 21.3. That is 21.3. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. That's a lot. It is. Like, nowadays, if a show got a number like that, it would be front page news.

Like, nobody gets audiences like that. Yeah. Do you remember going to the screening at Paramount Studios in the Paramount Theater? Yes. I, okay, what I remembered more than anything else was I was sitting in about the middle and I turned around to look at, you know, behind me to see who else was there. And I saw Avery Brooks sitting by himself. Oh, yeah, I remember.

He was sitting by himself. He wasn't, nobody else was there, just him. And he was just watching and watching. And he was just no reaction. So I couldn't read him. I was like, is he looking at us like that we're a threat? You know what I'm saying? That we're, you know, is he looking at?

And it's like, oh, okay, yeah, I respect what they're doing. I had no clue. He was so inscrutable. I couldn't tell what he was thinking at that point. But I remember he was the one other person at that screening that I remember his face so clearly. So crystal clear. Yeah. All right.

So I remember at that screening, everybody got dressed up. And I remember, you know, back when we first started on Voyager, I was having a lot of, like, anxiety. And you and I have talked about this. Yes. was having like um panic attacks basically which i didn't know and we were and i was and i was with it too so wow i was i was having uh when we first started the show the first season or two i was still having these panic attacks and i remember being at the premiere at paramounts theater there you felt it then and i started having a panic attack oh god i remember i had just gotten like

club soda i was drinking a lot of club soda because i didn't want to have alcohol i didn't want to do anything that would exacerbate it. And I remember being out in that lobby and the lobby area, every, you know, posters everywhere. It was very exciting and Hollywoody. Right. And I remember going into a side like stairwell, you know, inside the door. Just to breathe and get away from it? Just like take a minute. Oh my God. And then Kate Mulgrew came through. She was going out to the stairwell. She was going out the stairwell door to go smoke a cigarette. Oh my God. So she, she saw you what happened yeah and she's like what are you doing and i said oh i just was having like a little anxiety it was just a lot in there and she goes oh i get it and i i remember her

calming me down oh nice kate from day one with kate i always felt in good hands she made me relaxed and feel grounded and focused sweet and i remember her you know taking a minute there maybe i even and stepped outside with her and talking. And I don't know what she said, but all I remember was I turned a corner and I was like, oh, okay, I'm not panicking right now. I can go back in, deal with all of this energy and chaos and excitement.

And that's the memory I have of. You never told me that story. Yeah. You don't talk about that often. But Kate Mulgrew is your human version of a beta blocker. She ends up stopping here. She is. She's very calming for me. She's very calming.

Very cool. Cool story. Yeah. So, all right. So we have a huge audience. 21 million people, more than 21 million people watch our show. Yeah. Because of the popcorn.

Because of the popcorn. Because of the popcorn. And by this point, by the way, the show is premiering in January, but we had probably shot 10 episodes at this point. Yeah. I bet we were eight or 10 episodes into the season. Yeah. So we were deep into it.

it, but yet we were seeing this, you know, the show for the first time. How did you feel the first time you saw what we had been filming? Excited. Excited. Yeah, definitely excited. I also realized that I didn't do the right choice in one part of the, like when I say, uh, the captain hasn't, um, the doctor hasn't examined me yet either. There's something in there that, that I did not read correctly.

Like when I read the script, I interpreted it. does that make sense like what i the cadence of that line the meaning of that line the my object my objective as an actor i miss read it and i was like really no and i was watching the watching the screening going that's not that's not what was i thinking where was my brain and it just it didn't you know it didn't resonate with me and i was pretty i feel like that with this whole series with this whole podcast by the way looking back at seven seasons i would say almost every episode there's a moment or a scene or an opportunity where I'm like, what was I thinking?

What? You're joking. Yeah, like with the perspective of time and age and distance from the chaos that we've all felt of filming that show. Yeah. That I look back and I'm like, God, I wish I could do that again.

Like, I wish I had a do-over. On every episode, there's something where... Something that you would have done a do-over. A line while I'm driving the ship or I'm sitting on the bridge. It could have been one of those, you know, or it could be a scene, a bigger scene or story where I'm like, I wish I had, you know, for me, looking back on those kind of things, the first couple seasons, I feel like I magnified the problems of Tom Paris as a character. They were writing him as sort of like a combative, cocky. they were writing that but I was amplifying it and with distance in this podcast looking back on it

I wish I had sat on that I wish I had thrown it away I wish I had been much less you know abrasive and like leaning into that writing because I think they started to you know mellow the character out and find more dimension and that to me yeah if I if I think back to this podcast and rewatching, there's a lot of moments

where I'm like, I didn't get it. I don't even think I was aware of the full picture. I was so stuck in like a reading or an idea that with time, I look back and I'm like, that's wrong. That was the wrong direction. Okay, but to our credit,

I mean, I'm going to play devil's advocate. I'm going to say, I'm going to be on our side right now and say that in television, you get one to three takes unless you're Robert Beltron but on television you get one to three takes and then that's it you move on right so you don't have that luxury of looking at it

from every angle right so that's really that's sort of the saving grace of anything that we look back on when we're watching these episodes thinking what was I thinking why did I do that those choices were made because really we didn't have the luxury of the time to sort of look at it

from every single angle right We didn't have that, like on a feature film. So if you're filming a feature film and you do 65 takes because you're filming half a page a day, that's great. You can do a great performance, you know? But in television in the 90s, yeah, it was much more difficult. And I hated back then when people were saying, like, do you aspire to be a film actor?

That's the highest. Because, you know, back then the misconception was film actors are better than TV actors. And I say, bullshit, okay? You put any A-List film actor on a television show where you're working 14 to 17 hours and you're doing, you know, anywhere from, what, 6, 7, 8, up to maybe 12 pages in a day. No way, man. They're going to come off probably worse than what we can. I mean, we literally adapted.

And you adapted even faster because you did soaps, which is the most difficult medium. Oh, yeah. Soap operas is like, hey, guess what? We wrote the whole new scene. And learn it. Yeah, you're doing 40, 50 pages a day. Too much. Five days a week.

It's like throwing, you're being thrown into the, into the fire right there. It's so difficult, right? So I'm going to say because of the format and because of how we were filming, that's probably why we, I mean, I'm going to say we did, I'm going to grade ourselves that we were a good solid B plus all the way throughout the whole show, but there's going to be moments where we turned in C or maybe even D performances in our, in our estimation, in our opinion, because of the limited amount of time that we had. I'm just going to say that right there. That's probably the main reason why. First female captain on our ship, too. That was a big deal. Huge deal needed to happen.

Having a female captain, that was massively huge and groundbreaking in 1995. And we heard endless criticisms from people who are not Star Trek fans about how dare we allow a woman to be in command. And that was, yeah, that was, I remember there was a lot of protests, a lot of flack. That was a big deal um but it did you know i feel like voyager uh cape mulgrew had worked before voyager yes but i feel like voyager made cape montgrew like put her on a different level of actress it launched a celebrity career for her in a way she was a solid actress before correct worked in the theater did some movies did some tv shows maybe some people knew her as Mrs. Colombo, maybe.

It put her on the map. And it also put us on the map, too. Put us on the map. Nobody knew. Giro Wong was before Voyager, not a soul. So, yeah. I would say the two biggest career boosts that Voyager gave was Kate Mulgrew and Jerry Ryan, those two. I would argue that, you know, Jerry had done a couple of things before, but nobody knew

who Jerry Ryan was. And it made her a celebrity, you know, it made Jerry, you know, a known celebrity actress. It made Cape Mulgrew a next-level actress. Those two careers, I feel like were really launched in big ways. And by the way, I read a lot of people saying that Voyager was really the only triumph that UPN had in its entire. I would believe that history that that Voyager even though maybe the ratings weren't as big as you know didn't sustain as big as people had hoped it still was the only real true success and triumph that they had at UPN yeah yeah yeah it was definitely the the jewel and the crown

for them would be were by far the anchor by far I mean if you look at all those of the shows they didn't really last that long if you look on there maybe maybe Moesha had some seasons going on, but other than that, not much, you know, and wrestling, wrestling will always be there. So you know what else is that is funny about our first female captain and the launch of this network and all the attention given to it. I heard that Linda Hamilton was considered for Janeway. For Janeway, yeah.

Yeah, that there were talks with Linda Hamilton back then. Yeah, I believe it. And Linda has since become a good friend of mine. And I've worked, I've used Linda on Chuck as Chuck's mom. She's on Resident Alien with us now, the show that I do. Well, Linda Hamilton, that would have been insane. That would have been insane. And also, if she was Janeway, at this point, my record of how many times I've kissed Linda Hamilton on the lips, it would be once when I met her.

But if she was Janeway, I would have said to you right now, boy, I don't even know how many times I've kissed Linda on the lips out. Because that's how Linda greets you. Even if she doesn't know you, she plants one right on the kisser. She doesn't go to the side, like the European thing. Now, she goes right for your lips. So it's, yeah, it's kind of like my little chihuahua yorky, right for the lips. They're trying to go, you know, right at you. So that would have been a very interesting choice.

The other thing as I think through, like first female captain and Kate Mulgrew, how she, you know, wasn't the first one cast that Jean-Vieu-Bougeau was cast. Correct. And, you know, this podcast has been an amazing. journey and remembering some of that. And I think back, you know, I've mentioned this before, but like my trail, all of our trailers were lined up in front of stage eight and nine. They were lined up and the trailers, you know, there were two across down the line and our doors faced each other.

Right. But you guys were, you guys were separated from all of us. It was you and Kate by hair and makeup. It's sort of like, you guys were in first class and we were in coach. We were in the bad. I don't think it was. That's the way I looked at it. I was like, really?

they're right next to hair because that's the place you want to be you want to be able to walk out of your trailer and walk right into makeup yeah that was convenient yeah i had to go through an obstacle course to get over there yeah you did you did same thing with uh especially on rainy days it was nasty day it was horrible yeah you didn't have to get an umbrella you just jump right into the makeup and hair you're right there so but i i i remember because our doors faced each other and we would both leave our doors open a lot to get fresh air in those trailers and stuff i my my bird's eye view of our series in Kate Mulgrew is I feel like, you know, Kate went through a lot of life changes. She was just coming off of a divorce and dealing with being, you know, raising two boys and doing this. And she was really focused on her career. You know, her, she met Tim Hagan during that time or, you know, married. She got married. Her family went through a lot of changes with their mom's illness. There was a lot of life that went on in those seven years in the midst of us. You were privy to as well because you could hear things and conversations and you were there.

Or if she was angry or upset or just wanted to vent, I was right there. You knew about it. And I would do the same thing with her. We were the sounding board. She was your sounding board. You were her sounding board because you guys were secluded away from all the other actors. We were on the other side. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And the other thing I think about in terms of like, elevating Jerry Ryan and Cape Mulgrew to this higher level of actor celebrity. We also watched Dwayne Johnson the Rock's career. We were the first show that Dwayne Johnson was on and, you know. Yeah, evidently, he actually includes that in his show about his life, that he includes the fact that he booked Voyager and everything.

That's what I heard. People have told me that. That was a big deal at the time. I think it was a big. I mean, he knew he was on his way to something more than just wrestling, but nobody knew back then. No one could have imagined back then. No way.

And that was his, that was the launch of his acting that gave him a little cred. If you were going to say to somebody back then, there's going to be a W.W. There's going to be a wrestling dude who's going to be one of the top box office draws, A-list feature film actor. You would have laughed.

You would have said, really? No, there's no way. But he made it. He carved it out. Because up until then, the only other person who kind of made that, you know jump from wrestling into feature films was rowdy roddy piper that was it that was the only guy wow um and he did he did that one awesome movie they live do you remember that film that were everyone

he puts on these sunglasses you can see the aliens with the you take them off it's like it's like they're they're high you know they're posing as humans basically it was such a wonderful little film that i cult film that i love so uh but yeah but rock started some big careers did you also know so um before Paramount launched CBS All Access and now Paramount Plus, where all the Star Trek shows are now contained. Netflix, when we started this podcast, Netflix had the Star Trek show. Voyager ran on Netflix, NextGen ran on Netflix, Enterprise was on Netflix. Netflix had all those old Star Trek shows. Do you know that out of all the Star Trek series that Voyager,

was the most had the most watched episodes of any other series. Did you know that? I did know that. That's insane. Yeah. That's insane. Yeah. It's because of us.

It's because of Tom and Harry. That's why. That's what it was. Without Tom and Harry, it would be the least watched Star Trek episode. But because of Tom and Harry, it's the most watched Star Trek episode. And I remember that deal when Netflix said, like, yeah, we're going to pay CBS Paramount this many millions of dollars for the rights to air all the Star Trek's. And I kept thinking, are they crazy?

Why are they paying? They're paying how much? And it made sense to them. And of course, Paramount and CBS saw all the profits of that. We didn't really see much of that, to be honest. But still, it's amazing that we did get all those hits and all those watches, those views. It makes us feel, it kind of validates it for us, you know, the experience. It kind of makes me feel proud.

It's like, yeah, yeah, we really did some quality work. We had some great episodes. and we had some wonderful times doing that. Yes, it was not the easiest job because of how long we were there. I mean, that was our life. We were there all the time. Yeah.

Yeah. But still, it was pretty cool when I heard those facts from Netflix. Yeah. What do you remember, like now that we've watched all these episodes and kind of got a clear, not just a clear memory of the stories of these episodes,

but a clear memory of like the whole series. the whole journey we we remembered so many things that came back to us with all our interviews and our bonus episodes and so what do you remember the cast's um like confidence level in doing our show like what was everybody confident that we were making a good show that we were going to like my memory is we kind of knew we were going to do this for seven years once we that's going. So you're saying, do you think that the overall mentality of all the series regulars was that we had confidence in the show itself?

No, I don't think we had supreme confidence. I think there was that little, no, I think there was that voice in the back of the head, like, oh, are we going to get renewed? You know, will this go on? Will this happen? I know where the corner's torn at UPN, but our numbers are not what they were on the pilot. They're going down. you know i mean there was that i guess i do remember that in the middle like around season three i remember

the network was you know clearly you know bleeding money probably they weren't making the money that they wanted they weren't having the hits they couldn't quite figure out how to program that network yeah and our numbers were being dragged down a bit because of all that yeah that was one big reason they made that change with cast they wanted to bring in the borg and and make you know do something big that would turn our show in a more positive direction, you know, ratings-wise. Yeah, but they could have kept Kess. Yeah. They really could have.

They didn't have to get whatever. Yeah. Yeah, I guess my memory is that we were, I was at least really confident and kind of intimidated that we were possibly going to be doing this for seven years. Oh, okay. Wow. You know, that's a lot. That's a long.

Yeah, it's going to go for a long time. It's a long, long time. And I remember, you know, by season two, people were buying houses and, you know, expressing a lot of confidence. I bought a house season two. Right. Between season one and season two, I bought a house. I think Tim Russ bought a house, not too deep into the series. Beltran bought a house.

I waited. Yeah, you waited late. Yeah, I think I waited until 90s. Yeah, not even like season four, maybe three or four is when I did it. I pulled the trigger then buying that house. I remember my business manager was like, no, find a cheaper one. I'm like, oh, no, I like this view. I don't know about finding a cheaper one, but I think I'm going to make this one work.

So yeah, yeah, so yeah, we were buying, we're getting real estate then. It was confidence. It was good days. We were feeling, we were confident that, yes, that the TNG had ran seven, DS9 had ran seven. So we didn't ever think that we wouldn't run seven. years. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, that was, yeah, there was a confidence that I've never experienced before. Yeah. Whether, and as an actor or producer or director, I've never been

on a show that didn't feel like you were kind of going season to season. Do you remember the saying back then? Do you remember the saying? The saying was, in Hollywood, there's never a sure thing. But if there is a sure thing, that would be Star Trek. That's what that people would say. They were like, yeah, you can't account on anything in Hollywood. But if you were going to put your money behind a horse that would be that horse in that race would be that Star Trek show would be the one so yeah so there was the confidence in that we would be there for a while but in terms of putting out you know the confidence in that our show would be loved by fans I didn't know I mean I had no idea how people would react to our show I mean if you're talking about the voicemails that we received after the

pilot episode was aired of all the people that were pissed off about a female captain you know if I just looked at that as a lip-mist test, I would say that, no, the fans don't like it, or random channel surfers don't like our show. So I didn't know how I remember, I was working directing on Enterprise, I think that first season when they premiered. And there was such a blowback about their theme song, because they had like a pop song. Yeah, they had a pop song. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah. It's been a long time. Yeah, yeah, I know. And they'd never done that on any Star Trek show and fans were freaking out.

Not only were fans, I was freaking out. I'm like, why did they choose that? I don't understand. Like, they've made it very clear that every show has an orchestra behind. It's this beautiful piece, whatever it is, whether it's TOS, TNG, DS9 Voyager, and Enterprise was going to follow suit. But then somebody made that decision. I don't know if it was Berman or Braga or who that said, let's go with this song.

Yeah. So it was like, okay. That was a big surprise. But I do remember speaking of like the launch of our show, the confidence level. Yeah. I remember on Enterprise because I was directing over there. Yeah. I wasn't there full time.

But I remember feeling like observing that this crew, this cast of actors has the same confidence, if not more, than we did when we started. We had some bumps. We were launching a new network. That was felt scary. We had trouble with our captain casting. That felt a little. So we were cautiously optimistic. But they were very, very, very confident. You saw it from the perspective of guest director of certain episodes of Enterprise. I saw it from my friendship, my friendship, with Anthony Montgomery and but they were you know they were also tied to the same network that we were tied to and that's right launched and they came into it when it was stumbling and you know they had already discovered that that network was was struggling and so yeah okay so another thing

that that comes to mind is a in this bird's eye you know series memory is is kind of the writing shifts and changes that happened because you know even though they're by behind the scenes, the writers are a critical part of storytelling and the personality of our show. And we started with Rick Berman, Michael Piller, and Jerry Taylor as our showrunners. Those three were our bosses. That's who we look to for the final answer, for the leadership, for the heart of the show. I always felt like Jerry Taylor was the heart of Janeway. That was her character.

She defended and fought for Janeway. like nobody else. It bummed me out when she left, to be perfectly honest. I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, don't leave. Don't leave. Now it's just the boys club now. You know, I really wish that she would have stayed, to be perfectly honest, in hindsight.

I love that she mentored, you know, we learned during this podcast that she mentored and brought in Lisa Klink. Yes. That Lisa was very young, didn't really have credits to stand on. And Jerry believed us. That's right. Yeah. So there is, it wasn't a complete boys club. There was still Lisa, the protege. Yes. Yes. I love Lisa's work. And she mentored under Jerry Taylor.

Yes. And, and kept that spirit alive, that love of character. Maybe that's why Jerry felt like it was okay for her to move on because she felt like, look, I've already left my protege here who can, you know, watch the shop a little bit and it'll be okay. So maybe. Yeah. Jerry was such a sweet, warm. I always felt, I felt very. here's the thing about those three showrunners my my memories and opinion uh rick was the daddy boss death authoritarian authoritarian yes he was the authoritarian he was he was intimidating yep he was um a little scary yeah he he was uh black and white yeah things with things with rick were either right or wrong good or bad It was no gray area.

That was Rick. Michael Pillar was more of like the professor to me. Like I trusted his intellect and his, you know, the way that he, I trusted he understood what we were doing. And I could, I could, you know, he was intellectual and the professor. I don't know how else to put it. Like he just, he was experienced. he was a veteran and he was I trusted him and I liked Michael I went to some baseball games with him yeah he was he was a great guy I'm gonna go I'm gonna use you're talking about you know

broad terms in terms of the person you trust pillar the person who's the authoritarian a little bit scary uh was Berman I'm gonna say in Lord of the Ring terms Lord of the Rings uh pillar was Gandalf we all trust Gandalf the wizard and now uh uh uh But I'm going to put Jerry, Jerry, yeah, Jerry Taylor as, I guess Jerry Taylor would be, gosh. She was nurturing to me. You know what? She was, yeah, nurturing. So I'm going to say that it was, Jerry Taylor was like Bilbo Baggins. So he's the uncle, you know, the nurturing uncle to Frodo.

So, yeah, so that's the way I look at the showrun. Yeah. You know what? Jerry didn't even seem like she would be a showrunner. Does that make sense to you? like she seemed like the really cool nice aunt that people wish that they had auntie so it didn't even seem like she was you know a Hollywood type she was so atypical she didn't feel Hollywood at all but she knew what she was doing yeah she did a great writer super good great administrator of the

writing staff nurturing to other writers i always felt she and michael both really nurtured writers in fact i know that michael pillar had a scholarship fund uh Even when we were doing Voyager, he was a alumni of the University of North Carolina. That's right, Tar Hills. I was born in North Carolina and I talked about it a lot. And he had, he was very involved in their writing department, their English department, and writing department in helping bring students, college students out to Hollywood. And mentoring them.

He was an incredible mentor, loved writers, loved writing. And I didn't know you went to a baseball game. with him what yeah what how did that happen he had season tickets and i don't know maybe i was a big atlanta braves fan back then they were so you saw the dodgers and the braves is that what you guys did or i can't remember what teams they were because we ended talking a lot but i read a couple times he had season tickets he was a big dodgers fan yeah and love baseball and uh i think he had dodgers He had Dodgers stuff in his office. I don't know if you remember, like sign baseball.

I do. He always wore a Dodgers hat. Do you remember that? Yes. And I'm going to say right now, when he passed away from cancer, when I went to the memorial, I've never been to a memorial where I've seen more people attend. That was by far. It was shocking to me how many people were in attendance.

In a good way, it was like, wow, this is how many people he touched. This is how many people that he influenced or that, you know, that respected him because you're not going to go to someone's funeral that you don't respect, right? Or that you don't think kindly or of or think well of. So that to me showed it spoke volumes to how awesome he was. Yeah. And then there were changes during our series. So Michael left after season two. I think Jerry left after season three.

Yeah. And, you know, we had some new writers. Wait, was Brian there day one? No, he came in later, yeah. He came in season three, maybe. Yeah. And Brian off the bat was so different from all the other writers because he was an Uber nerd.

Like he had, like you walk into his office, you saw, I mean, he had, he had all these awesome cool limited edition action figures from all different sci-fi series that was all in his, he was fun. Like if you walk in there and you and I were the youngans on that cast and we, you know, walking into his office was like, hey, it's like a playground. It really is. It's nice.

Yeah. Well, we had Ken Biller rising quickly. Ken first season was a story editor. He was the, or a staff writer. He was the lowest, basically the starting position of writers with many steps to get to where he got to at the end of our series as showrunner. He was the showrunner and the head writer by the last season. So at that bottom rung, he would be the guy in the end of the series.

the writing room standing up on the whiteboard like he would he would have to do all the notes like that's that's your uh that's your trial you know that's your sort of initiation as a writer you're the guy that has to write everything up there so yeah yeah yeah that that was a big transition in our and and you know the personalities of all these writers um show in the way that you know the show runners show in the way that the series goes you know uh rick rick always stayed the technically the head boss, the showrunner. He was always the one to sign off yes or no. But I think, you know, moving through Michael Pillar, Jerry Taylor, into

Brannon Braga running the show for a few years, into Ken Biller. Yeah, running. Oh, we forgot about John, we forgot about Joe Monoskey. Joe was the mystery man. He was because you remember he was living in Spain, right? So he was in another country. Was it Spain or Italy? Oh.

Oh, I thought it was Italy. I thought it was Spain. So some European country. Some Mediterranean exotic place. Yeah. And he was actually submitting, you know, his drafts and whatnot online. And he was writing from Europe, essentially. And he's one of those people like, would be Goldberg, like John Madden, who refused to fly on an airplane.

So, yeah. So when he did finally come back to California, back to Hollywood. and actually have an office to write for Voyager he took a boat he didn't fly back so um yeah so monoski was another edition that that um that came onto the staff that and i liked monosky i got along very well with monosky yeah i love and his scripts were always great they were always um great scripts mm-hmm do you do you by the way changing subject for a minute do you know that Voyager almost launched another spin-off during our run.

What are you talking about? When George Ticay came on to guest star on our show. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, that they were thinking about doing a spin-off with the Excelsior, which was that ship, the Excelsior crew, and George is the captain potentially, And there was all, I didn't even know that at the time.

I vaguely remember. Who was talking about this? Berman was doing about? George, it's just, yeah, I vaguely remember. Wow. Like, I don't remember this. And I think George to Kay said something about, yes, there's, you know, I've always wanted to be a captain.

Oh, yeah, he's been shilling for that for a long time. He's at conventions. But I remember we, they were talking about a spinoff in the middle of our run because Because DS9 had finished. We were the only game in town at that point. And the TNG cast was doing movies. And they were always thinking about, you know, okay, we got one going. We got to get another one in the development pipeline.

And that was the one. And they had talked about a spinoff perhaps, which is crazy. That is crazy. Like I've been at conventions when he's talked about, you know, it'd be wonderful. If we could have the adventures of Captain Sulu. Like he said that, I've multiple. That was a potential backdoor pilot, an experiment to see if maybe that the tone of George's captain and could make a series.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is just fascinating. It is fascinating. I've even heard rumors, I think Kate Mulgrew said something not long ago about a live action Voyager, like, not Voyager, but that Janeway would come back in a live action, potentially a live action show, which I feel like would include the Voyager cast in some way. It's got to. Yeah.

I've been in contact with a friend who I did something. There was a director who, a filmmaker that had me come in and do some stuff for a documentary that he's doing about track stuff. And he's written like a little bit of a treatment for a Captain Proton thing where both of us, live action, listen to this, where we're in our middle way, we're dealing with our family and everything. And it's like, and we're just going through like life, you know what I'm saying? And it just shows how, how Tom and Harry are dealing with middle age, basically. Oh, that's funny. It's very funny. We're juggling kids.

We're juggling all this stuff. And to get away, we go and do the holiday. And we still do. Yes. So he's written this whole thing. And in fact, I do need to return his email because we're supposed to have a little conversation about this. And I didn't want to bring this to you until until it's. more fleshed out. But it's, it's really very creative, Robbie. We could get paramount to

let us, I've been wanting to do something with Captain Prochop for a long time. I know. I know. And I know you, we hit that roadblock at Secret Hideout. So why not see if we have another avenue? So when it's more fleshed out, we will present it to you to see what you think, because I think it's, it's pretty darn ingenious. Because we get to act as ourselves. We don't have to do any time shift where we look younger. It's just us. So, yeah. So it's, kind of cool. Wow. Well, it would be great to see now that I have gone back with this podcast and rewatch this show with you. It really, I think for the cast, for all of us, for you, for me, I know for the two of us for sure. I think Robert Picardo would be into it.

Oh, my God. Kate Mulgrew would be into it. I think Roxanne would even be into it. I really really do. Yeah. If we get the whole gang back together, if we get the band back together, let me tell you, it's going to be good times rolling again. It would be so much fun. We have so much laughter. It would be almost as if time never even passed. Does that make sense? Like, I feel like we would get together, that synergy, that chemistry that we had on a set on Voyager, where we couldn't stop laughing. I mean, it was just, oh, we had so much fun. Well, I also think, like you know time teaches a lot we've all grown a lot we're all much more complex people human beings and and i think it would be interesting especially with this podcast having watched

the way that our series ended yeah not you know you and i both did not remember this ending properly no now that i've seen it now that i really know how it ended with just that the ship flying towards earth. We don't see anything of what happened to any of us. It's a blank canvas, man. And I think the fans would really dig it. I feel like people would love to see the stories. I would love to see the stories

of what happened. I agree. And in fact, on that note, I think next week we should do this bonus episode of the imaginary season 8. I think we should do it sincerely okay it's not going to be like it's not going to be like the christmas episode where we're kind of wacky and it's crazy i think we should really really do do this okay and think about

what that season eight could could have looked like and and maybe this will be the seeds of a potential voyager script exactly and maybe once we have fleshed this out and we could have something that we can bring to uh the powers of be you know that'd be like wow this came from the podcast yes we kind of worked through it we workshoped it we threw it back and forth and this is what we came up with so maybe that would be a wonderful thing yeah i'd love to do that's i'm excited for next week to do that for sure yeah and thanks to all of our our listeners our loyal listeners of this podcast the literally millions of downloads that we've had is i didn't even know i didn't know the the revised number you gave the revised number out

the other day of how many downloads you said it i don't i don't know exactly the current were you were you were you exaggerating i was not exaggerating okay so what's the it's over six it's over six now because the last time i heard it was like oh we have three over three million down now it's over six million downloads so okay i believe so yes as in the six million dollar man yeah it is but it doesn't come close to our u pn premiere night of 21.3 million viewers that's insane. I can't believe we did that and I see what this podcast does. It just it reminds me of all the amazing things that we we lived through and hopefully next week we'll see what we could have lived through in season eight. Yeah. That's doing. All right.

Thank you, everyone. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. I don't know.