The Delta Flyers - Muse

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

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 Muse. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Muse: B'Elanna's life aboard Voyager provides inspiration for an alien playwright, whose ability to entertain his warlord king is a matter of life and death.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, Michelle Z, Janet K Harlow, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, 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, Amy Tudor, Adm. Bill "Seoulman" Yu, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, 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, Ali S, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Susan V. Gruner, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, & Jonathan BrooksAnd our Producers:James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua Phillips, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, 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, Craig M. Nakashian, Will Forg, Max Wilson, Ryan Tomei, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, & Jennifer BThank 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 Voyager actor, and I've said it before, and today I will say it again, who portrayed the role of Milt Elliott in the 1994 TV movie, One More Mountain, Mr. Robbins. Dr. Duncan McNeil and myself, your favorite forever, 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. Now, you're probably wondering, why am I keeping up one more mountain? Because I am wearing... It looks like a fraternity shirt. It is. It's Greek letters, but this is a gift from our Admiral Chris Knapp to me. And basically, it says,

eat me eat me in Greek letters for those of you are listening it's a blue shirt with white lettering it's basically Sigma Delta Tau which is not you know

but it's eat me so it's Sigma Delta Tau mu Sigma that was what I thought was my line in the one of my lines but it wasn't yeah you actually don't say that

but it's so humorous and it's so funny that and also Chris Knapp thinks it's so funny that he sent me this and funny enough when he sent it said it was delivered all the way to Canada. And for some reason, it was not delivered. It went to another address. So we had to wait even longer for him to send a second shirt. So I've been waiting

to wear this thing as a basically a prop shirt to kind of, you know, make you laugh. And our listeners and viewers laugh. And finally, I'm able to do it. So now I have. And for those that haven't heard the story, Milton Elliott, that character was one of the cowboys in One More Mountain about the Donner party that gets stranded, a true story. They were stranded in Donner Pass. That's right. It's now named Donner Pass because many of them died in that winter, the horrible winter, and they engaged in cannibalism to stay alive.

They actually ate the people who died. And it's horrible. And so my character, as he was dying, said to Meredith Baxter Baxter Bernie, please eat me. But I didn't say that. He actually said, please, something to the effect of, use my, use my body, or something like that, right? Something like that. But it's far funnier if your line was, please, leave me.

Yeah, yes. Okay. All right. So, yeah, so that's why I'm wearing this to commemorate that one credit of yours, which brings so much joy and happiness and laughter into Chris Knapp and many other people's lives, not just Chris. Thank you. So thank you, Chris Knapp for the show. Sure. I have it. All right. So are we ready for this week's episode? Let's dive in. Let's go watch it. Let's go watch this episode. Okay. This week's episode is M-U-S-E. M-U-S-E. Yes. All right,

all right, everyone. We will be right back with our recap and discussion of Muse for all of our Patreon patrons. Please stay tuned for your bonus material. All right, everyone, we are back from watching Muse. My goodness. Yes. I didn't remember the basic plot, right? Yeah. The Greek chorus, you know, and the pre-warp society. I got that. Yeah.

But I didn't. I actually really liked this episode. Like, I didn't, I sort of remembered some of it. It kind of came back. Right. I didn't have a ton to do. Neither one of us. Oh, you had more to do than me.

Well, later. But, you know, I am happy that, you know, Paris didn't cause anything to happen in this episode. Yes. Yeah, exactly. It wasn't Paris and Neelix and Peter. didn't go make a trade. Yeah, we didn't, we didn't know a whole of a problem. No, yeah.

So that's one plus in this episode. Yeah. Let's start with their poetry. There we go. Let's do it. Mm-hmm. My haiku for muse. Here we go.

Yes. The flyer crash lands. Local poet helps Torres. Harry saves the day. Okay. Nice. All right. Let's hear your, let's hear your little.

All right. Here's my limericks synopsis, you know, I really like the poetry synops. Like, we used to try to recap a quick thing and it never was quick. No, it meandered and it was long and it was just not efficient. It was so not Borg-like and now. This is great. This is very Borg-like right now. Okay.

Go ahead. Here we go with a limerick synopsis for Muse. Lay it on me. Some aliens put on a play. You probably won't see it on Broadway. It's the Voyager story, a TV writer allegory, with an inspired ending, B'lana saves the day. Very nice, but don't make me laugh in the first verse. That's not fair.

I had to hold that in the entire time. You probably won't see it on Broadway. That was what a great line. Oh, I love that one. Very good. Very good. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. And it is, it is a TV writer's allegory. The whole thing, every time I heard the guy, the guy talks. talking about, I need an ending. I need a surprise. I need a twist. I was like, this is all TV writer notes. I love it though, right? I mean, we don't have any type of episode like this at all. No, it's really, I was pretty excited about this. There was a lot of inside baseball metaphors about TV writers. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Anyway, speak of writers written by Joe Mnowski. Yeah. I like that. I feel like this is the perfect script for him too because

He always, he always thinks like very classically, like the fact that he kind of, you know, deconstructed Greek drama and things like that. I love it. So Joe did a great job. I feel like we need to kidnap him with ninjas and then we can interview him for our podcast because he doesn't want to do interviews. He doesn't. He's a very introverted, like reclusive to a point, I would say, you know, he doesn't need

anyone around him. He's very self-sufficient. Yep. And he's very talented. And if you're, I mean, if you're in his office talking to him, he's a nice guy. You know, he'll talk to you. He's not like he's not going to say anything. But he will not do interviews.

And I really feel like I need some type of angle to reach out to him. So it's a challenge. It is. Okay. Written by Joe Mnowski, directed by Mike Vahar. Mike came back to do another one for us. I loved Mike Vahar. He was awesome.

He was. And we've talked about him before. We have. We have. Let's get into guest stars. We start with Kellis, who was, the writer. Okay. That guy. He, yeah, just the writer.

That guy. Yeah. You know, the Greek drama writer. Yeah, basically. The poet, exactly. His very first job was not long before this, actually. He was, uh, has premiered on Frazier, the sitcom Frazier in 1998. So just a couple years before us. What's his name? You just tell, said his character name. Joseph Will. Thank you. Joseph Will is his name. Joseph Will. Spell that spell will. W-I-L. Just like a will.

Just like a will. Thank you. Thank you. He also, a little trivia, he played, he had a speaking role in Star Trek, the experience, the Borg Invasion 4D attraction. Oh, my gosh, which I've been through multiple times. So, he was a chief security officer. And I think he was, he got Borgified and he had a line, some speaking role there.

But he was, yeah, he was in Star Trek the experience. Wow. Yeah. So he's actually, yeah, he wasn't part of the actors that they hired to interact with the fans that were there. He was part of the movie filmed, yeah, part of the ride because they had the original ride. Then they added the Borg invasion one. That was the second ride that they had. Okay.

Yeah, Joseph Will was in that too. So that's cool. Great. Kelly Waymeyer played Lena, the actress and girlfriend of the writer. Yes. The jealous girlfriend. Yes. Kelly Waymire, I will say.

She had a recurring role on Enterprise in the beginning of that show. But very, very sad story about Kelly. She died of an undiagnosed cardiac arrhythmia, and she was only 36 years old when she died. What? So very sad, yeah. Oh, my goodness. Very sad. I thought Kelly did a great job in this episode.

I'm so glad she was part of Voyager. and just sad to share that news that she passed away. Oh, definitely. I mean, but most of the times we talk about actors that have passed away. They're in their 70s, their 80s, their 90s, and now we have someone very young. Very tragic. We had our Greek chorus.

I'll talk about those guys. The first one was chorus number one is what he was called. Jack Axelrod. Jack Axelrod is now 92 years old. So speaking of Kelly dying so young, Jack is still alive. He's 92 years old. Yeah. His first job was in CoJack in 1977.

Cojack, but telly Savalas. Telly Savalus, yeah. That was the first, okay, if you think about it, that's the first hairless star of a show, at least in our era, I suppose, right? That was very, yeah, it was a signature thing. That was the bald. That was pre- Patrick Stewart. Yeah, right?

Yeah. And pre-Bopacardo, basically. So, yeah, to be the lead of a show. And bald was very rare back then. So Tilly Zavallis did it. Yeah. So that was chorus number one, Jack Axelrod, 92 years old, still going strong. Nice.

Course number two was John Shuck. John Shuck. No. John Shuck is a theater actor. He played like, I think I saw him in Annie at some point. Oh. He was Daddy Warbucks for decades. He's played that on Broadway and tours and all over the place.

Oh, okay. His first job was on the NET or Net Playhouse was the name of the series. I think Renee Arborgen-Waugh was also on this. It was a show, an anthology show, very much like Twilight Zone. Like they would adapt books or science fiction, things like that. So I don't know which episode he was in, but it was in 1969. His first job was on Net Playhouse. Net Playhouse.

Okay. Great. He was also in two of the last Star Trek, original Star Trek films. And he appeared on three different Star Trek series. But the most interesting thing I found about John Shuck. Yeah. He was married to Susan Bay from 1976 to 1983. They got divorced.

Susan became Susan Nimoy, married Leonard Nimoy. So John Shuck's ex-wife. His little divorced. Became Leonard DeMoy's wife. Leonard Nimoy's wife. Isn't that crazy? That is crazy. A lot of Star Trek connections for John Shuck,

course number two he was the tallest one I think the tallest course okay yeah all right course number three is Tony Amandola Tony Amandola we know Tony Amandola yeah Tony's great I thought that was going to say isn't that Tony oh my goodness yeah yes his first job on film or television was a Partners in Crime a TV show with Linda Carter and Lonnie Anderson okay 1984 yeah so Tony was course number three he's the one at the end who sort of tried to save the show. Yeah, improvving at the end. That was Tony.

Tony also in the early part of his career played mostly heavy guy, you know, the bad guy, I think. And it's funny because if you ever meet Tony and talk to him, he's the exact opposite of that in real life. He's the nicest guy. Yeah, great guy. We had Michael Houston King. Okay.

As Gero, he was the actor that sort of played the Tom Paris character in the company. Okay. Other roles, too. They all played multiple roles. But his debut was in 1996 on the soap opera Another World. So not too long before Voyager. No, not too long. We had Kathleen Garrett, another actress in the company, played Tannis.

Right. Now, Kathleen Garrett, her debut was in 1982, a TV show called For Lovers Only, and it starred Andy Griffith. It might have been a TV movie, actually. Yeah, okay. But it was Andy Griffith, 1982 for Lovers Only. the interesting thing about Kathleen Garrett. Yes.

She did Robert Beltran's production of Hamlet. She was in that. Which I went to see. I don't know if you went to see it, but I did go see it. Everyone was great, but I don't specifically remember her. But she was in Robert's production in 1997 of Hamlet. She played Queen Gertrude. Nice.

Got great reviews in that from what I could see. I was just amazed. She, uh, do you recall when Beltran came to tell us to me he made the announcement he said guys i'm going to be uh i'm going to be doing hamlet and reprising hamlet in west hollywood or whatever yeah 99 seat theater all of us were like oh because we were all nervous for him because you know he can't remember his lines on our show to save his life how's he going to learn hamlet how he's going to learn shakespeare how will he remember shakespeare and not go up on his lines and the funny thing is when he performed shakespeare

which he loves that genre. Yes, he does. It flowed out of him, like it was just butter. All those lines came out. He never messed anything up, which was, thank goodness, you know, it was good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Anyone else? Very last one that I saw was the warlord, the patron guy. Right. Stony Westmoreland was his name. The guy that reminds me of Andy Richter, the sidekick on the tonight's show of one of the night evening shows, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Stony Westmoreland. was in the sitcom Townies in 1996, which I think, I think, like, Ron Livingston was in that. Okay. I can't remember who else. All right. So the very first scene, we're basically at an outdoor amphitheater. That's what it looks like.

And you hear, you hear Captain's Log, and it's sort of chanted almost Borg-like in a way. Captain's Log, Star Date, 538, 9, 6. Balana Torres, request permission to search for dilettium. So we're listening to all these lines and we're wondering, what is this exact? Well, I knew because I remember this episode, but when you're watching this for the first time, you have no clue. What's happening? Young Kerry Kim in an escape pod, and there's Kellis the poet. This is the first time we realize that there's somebody writing about the Voyager characters.

And he refers to them as the Voyager Eternals. So this is almost something from their own mythology or religion or something. Yeah, their own lore, exactly, where there are. are these beings known as the Eternals? They're very powerful. And so he calls the Voyagers, the Voyager cast, Eternals as well, the Voyager Eternals. It also felt like this Greek chorus that was reciting this story. Yes, it was very much the Greek chorus.

That's what it sounded like. It felt like they were comparing or calling Voyager like a sailing ship. You know what I mean? Yes, yes. There was references to like cast against the rocks and things like that. Because there are pre-warp society. So they're not going to understand warp cores and all this stuff. So they're still sort of developing.

And after the end of this play, and it's actually not that long, all the audience is very excited. They're very happy to see this. And the patron, or let's just call him the Duke or the king of that area, that territory. What do you want to call him that guy? I think he was the warlord. He called him the patron is what he said. He kept calling him the patron, but he also was like a fighter. Like there was a lot of worry about the warlord.

From now on, let's call him. Let's refer to him as the warlord. So the warlord is there with his warlordess, his wife, whoever that is. And he wants the next version, he wants the next edition of this play to come out in a week. He's very, and from this scene, we know that he's very insistent. He's persistent and he's a tough guy. He's a powerful guy. Yes.

And he's dressed in all his regalia. He's kind of blinged out. Did you see the guards beside him with their, with their, yes, they're round. Mass of, yeah. Headpieces or something. That was very cool. But still kind of Greek era type of. of armor and headpieces.

But Kellis does ask if his patron has noticed how thin his performers have become. So sort of a side way of saying, hey, we would love to have a little bit of extra little mullah here. And this was the funny part of this scene. The warlord reaches what seems like. His wife or girlfriend or whatever. His wife's cleavage or something. I mean, he just reaches in and he pulls something out as if, I mean, where with this? Oh, I thought it was a necklace.

No, he broke the necklace. Okay, because I thought it was just a gemstone that he pulled out of a pocket, her front pocket or something. It was very, I think it was a neck on a necklace and I thought he just like yanked it and broke the chain. Well, that makes more sense. I mean, the other way is just like, what's happening? But evidently, it's a very valuable piece of necklace or whatever it is, throws it over at young Kellis. And he's like, great. We've got, we got food money now.

Yeah, exactly. This was a big set, by the way. Yes. This was a, I was really impressed with our. department and the set designers and because it was a it was a theater it was an amphitheater i mean there weren't hundreds of people there was you know maybe 50 60 people or something so you think that was on 16 or do you think they put it on yeah i think it was on 16 okay i think it was over by the cave sets because okay it felt like they kind of built it into that cave you know that open area where

the caves kind of opened up to the yeah level yeah over there they could have built it somewhere over near there yeah so that so that when they went backstage they could kind of go in that open area of the caves maybe that's what i was picturing yeah well the only the only series regular that knows where that was for sure it would be roxan roxan he's the only one that worked on that set everything else would everyone else was one of the guest cast so yeah yeah yeah yeah um but did you like the overall shots that they use and how they began i think mike did a great job in this episode agreed really really elegant and simple yes but really well done yes and then we jump to the Delta Flyer at night where candles are lit everywhere. And this is interesting. We actually

talked about this in the last episode about being lit by candles and things like that. We actually broached that subject as well. But it's very, it's very well, you know, it's, it looks nice. It looks like it's all lit for a nice romantic dinner is what it looks like. But you can tell the Delta Flyers in shambles. It is absolutely. And it's like sideways. It's tilted. Usually, yeah, those, that, that Delta fire set piece is always on a platform it's it's usually straight but this time it was they must have angled it up and broken the the glass and things like that right actually speaking of broken glass yeah so the windows you know it's it's it's in a shambles it's kind of dark you can see like woods or trees outside the windows but you could also see like broken shards where the glass

yeah of the um of the you know the canopy or whatever yeah um was broken and then I thought didn't we always say that there was no glass there that it was like that's just a force field right force field right yeah so why did they have broken glass in the delta flyer it would have been a force field yeah I think there's still some type of glass there something it doesn't make any sense to be just have holes sitting in your your vessel you know maybe it's a backup like a four I don't know yeah I mean if you think about it if your shields go down If your shields are to zero, you're just going to get sucked into space. Am I right?

And would you just be sucked through there? So there has to be some type of really strong, clear. And I think one of our fans told us that it was clear. It was, it was see-through titanium is what it was or something like that. So it's actually a very strong ore, a strong metal, but that they've engineered it so that it's actually clear that you can see through it. So that's what I understand. understand, according to one of our fans. So hopefully that's what it is.

But it looks like it's abandoned, though. You don't see any life there. Don't see anybody. The way Mike Vehar shot that he shot that very well. And we do see someone, we do hear a little bit of wrestling. And it's Kellis. It's our poet who showed up. And he walks in there.

And then we do have a reveal where you do see it's Torres. And she's bound. She's tied up. Yeah. She's tied up. And she's got blood on her arm too. So she's got all these like, it looks. looks like, you know, intentional cuts.

It doesn't look like, exactly. It doesn't look like, you know, injuries. When she crashed, no, not at all. So when Kellis comes close to her, she does do a little bit of, you know, rambunctious fighting. I think she knocks him back a little bit. But it's now we know she is basically a prisoner of this poet. And what's even more interesting. He said in the play, he goes, I rescued her.

Yeah. So he does admit in that first play, that opening scene that, you know, that he, he found her on her ship and rescued her. And he's, you know, he's got the inside connection. And now he realized, oh, yeah, you didn't rescue her. You're like tied her up and she's your prisoner. Exactly. Exactly. But we do find out that he learned a lot of these facts and details that he put into his play from our law, from the logs within the Delta Flyer.

like he could hear the sensor he could he accessed the sensor logs some audio some audio files as well you know so yeah yeah so now he knew the predicament of how how you know he knew some of the story from what was on these logs exactly the question is well it's not a question i guess they imply that she's been unconscious this entire time right because the whole thing with the with the cuts it was an ancient form of bloodletting that he was doing to try to heal her in a way yeah she says something like you're trying to You're trying to kill me. And he's trying to kill me. And he goes, no, I'm trying to save you. Yeah, exactly. That's the only way to let out the evil spirits is bloodletting. Yeah.

You know, they're very primitive. Yeah, she says like, untie me, untie me all throughout the scene. He's like, no, no, we can't do it. But finally she does tell him, look, there's a medical kit, which then she has to say a box, a metallic box, because he doesn't know what a medical kid is. But he brings over a device, which is basically a dermal regenerator is what it is. and he asks, he turns out, she turns it on and then he jumps back a little bit. And she says, no, no, don't worry.

This is going to help me. I want you to run this over my wound, which he does. And miraculously, he's like, oh, my God. You are an eternal. Yes. Unbelievable. What other kind of miracles can you do? You know, yeah, he's very impressed.

He is impressed. Yeah, she does ask how long she's been there. And he says eight days. Mm-hmm. So we know she's been there eight days. He's unconscious. Yeah. And he said he got this one play from the logs, but he needs more stories of the Voyager

Eternals. Yeah. And so they basically make this deal. It's like she goes, well, we Eternals have our rules. We can't just give things away for free. Right. So cut me loose and I'll tell you more stories. And she convinces him to release her.

And then she grabs a phaser. Yeah. Remember that? Yeah, that's right. She repels him. Yeah. Get out of here. Get out of you.

Don't ever come back again. Don't ever come back and she actually shoots out the broken window. She shoots a branch. He shoots a tree that vaporizes so that he can see what this thing will do. You know, I'm a, that bummed me out. I was like, that tree did not deserve it. No. No, it could have been a rock.

You should have shot a rock or the dirt, but the tree is still living and that kind of bummed me out a little bit. Well, I'm still stuck on the broken windows. It doesn't make sense. Okay, fine. That she can shoot out a window. But anyway. So he runs away. He scurries away.

And then later, there's a passage of time. It is now daytime. And we're back in the Delta Flyer interior. All of a sudden, we hear Kellis, he's back. He's got food now. And, you know, Torres doesn't turn that down. She's starving at this point. Yeah.

I don't think anything on that Delta Flyers even working at this point, replicators or anything. So she starts nibbling. And basically, he starts asking her for more information about it. Yeah, especially about Earth. Yeah, about Earth and this and that. Yeah. So he's getting more details for his next play that he needs to write within a week.

Yes, you can see that she knows he's a poet. And he wants like the poetic version. Yes. It's a beautiful blue and green. Yes. Island. Yeah. Like an island.

Yeah. She doesn't say planet. She says a planet. She says, she's not going to get that. Yeah. Like an island. Yeah. Yeah.

So she kind of goes with the flow on this one, which is very smart of her. All the way until he asks about, are you, is she in love? Are you in love with Tom Paris? And that, that end the conversation for some weird reason. Yeah, she's like, supper is over. Why didn't she say yes? I don't think she's very proud to be with you with that. I don't either.

That was very disturbing. Okay. I agree with you. All the PT shippers out there were probably feeling queasy. Their stomach is just turning upside down. What is happening here? Why would you say that? It was very confusing that she shut down the conversation.

He shut it down completely. He brought up Tom Paris. Brick wall, okay? And later when we see Tom, by the way, Tom's like distraught. He's distraught, but let's talk about that when we get there. So she takes him to the back section. She's like, come on, Kellis.

Let's not talk about Tom Harris. And she activates, I guess there's enough power to activate one display with a computer kind of pops up, pops on. And then she shows him a graphic of, I guess, what dilithium looks like. I don't think we've ever seen that before until this episode. It looked like crystals. you get it like the hippie, you know, crystal straw. The psychic eye bookstore.

Exactly. It was like, can I have that crystal please? So, well, he recognizes it immediately. He calls it Winter's Tears, which is quite poetic of Vannowski to call them Winter's Tears. And then we find out that it's located in one area on the patron's hunting grounds, which is completely illegal for anybody other than the patron to go wander around and, you know, collect things. And he's like, no, we can't. There's no wage.

And she's like, okay, well, this is the only way that I can tell you more information for your play. No more stories for you. That's right. Until you get this delight, this dilithium, this winter tears for me. You need to bring that back. A storm does begin. And by the way, he does mention, he brings up this idea that the patron and other nobles of his planet, you know, or civilization. Yes.

They're always at war. Like they're fighting. There's a lot of conflict. All the time. And that's when she says, she kind of backs down. She doesn't want to start a war. So she's like, okay, she sort of backs down a little. That's right.

But then there's a thunder clap outside. Do you remember like a lightning or something? Yeah. And it was timed perfectly because it almost seemed like she had caused it. Because he's like, what? Did you do that? Did you do that? And she goes, basically, yep.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't get caught. Yeah, by not saying anything, then he basically was thinking she did it. Yeah. Don't get caught. So he runs off to go retrieve this dilithium. And back to the Delta Flyer interior, still a more passage of time. Now the storming is still continuing.

Yeah, he's soaking wet. He's soaking wet when he returns. Do you remember when you had to do scenes when you were supposed to be wet? It was the most uncomfortable thing because they'd have to spray down your costume. The worst, yeah. And you're just freezing. You're freezing because they're not really spraying warm water on you, are they? They're just spraying water, which is, you know, freezing already.

And you're in it for a long. to, you know, we shoot these scenes for hours. And so you're just in wet clothes and it's, I felt so bad for him coming back. I know. I mean, if you think about it, that scene when he comes back is, what, I don't know, two minutes. So anyone watching is thinking, yeah, he was wet for two minutes. No, he was wet for hour upon hour upon hour.

Yeah, just for that, just for that segment right there. Torres basically says that she has an idea for his next play. And it's, and the other thing about this episode that I liked is I like the transitions from one scene to the next. They almost led organically to the next one, right? It was very well structured by Joe and really well done by Mike Vahar. And in the scene when he comes back all wet, he does bring back the dilithium. So now she has it.

Yes, he's got it. We see these crystals from the Psychi Guy bookstore. Yes. Which is probably where the props department got him. Hopefully they took the price tag off of it. Yeah. It's not still sitting on there. It's very nice display of crystals.

It would look really lovely in my house. Most definitely on an end table, coffee table. All right. So after she says, I have an idea for your next play, we segue the amphitheater. We're back to the amphitheater. Keles arrives very excited. And he says that he has been visited by inspiration herself. So clearly, inspiration is a female in his eyes.

And he says, I have the new play. It's called The Rescue of Balana Torres. yeah and when he comes back by the way he runs down this tunnel onto the stage you know the stage and the actors are all just hanging out there hanging out yeah and i was like what are they doing shouldn't they be rehearsing something or doing a dance class or whatever actors do i don't know my my feeling was i that they lived there like that was also where they lived and okay the actors Yeah. Can you imagine if we lived at the theater?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that would be normal. If when we, for seven years while we did Voyager, we had to live there.

Oh my gosh. I would. Oh, no. I couldn't do that. I mean, it's nice, but I know. No.

You can't live on set. I would live. Well, actually, wait a minute. I would not live on 16. I would live on 8 and 9. I could live in my quarters quite easily.

I could. I mean, those are nice quarters. And there's no, there's no feral cats and, you know, cat features. If we had to live there and the

replicators in the holodeck actually worked i totally lived there then would you but they didn't it was it was not real so no it really was i can't replicate stuff i can't play around in the holodeck no no amazon's pretty close to replicating something i mean she could order the same day you get it pretty quickly am i right okay all right uh so the rescue blana torres that's the new play he's very very excited let's get to work he's like let's let's go let's start rehearsing so we don't know what story she told him but right he's got another idea Yeah. He's ready to go. Yeah. Okay. So we're moving on. We have an exterior space shot of Voyager. Fly by. Space. Yeah. Nice fly by. Nice fly by. And then we're in the briefing room with Janeway. And we actually, we come in. It's interesting. We never come in at the very end of the briefing room scene. Basically, she says dismissed. Like that's the top of the scene. Okay. And Tom gets up. He's protesting. He's like, no, this is this is not the only way. There's got to be something. I want to take a shuttle. I want to go. I want to take that shuttle.

and go planet by planet. I'm going to search every single planet. And, you know, Chocote's like, no, that's too dangerous. The spatial eddies that knock the flyer off the course, you will possibly encounter those same spatial eddies. And now you're going to be crash landing on some planet. And I just like the very end how everyone leaves except for Paris. And that's typically what we see with Harry.

It's Harry's always the last one in the briefing room. And he sits down. It's very pensive. But in this episode, it's Tom. And do you remember that? scene at all? I don't remember it, but I did notice that in this scene and there's another scene where Mike Fahar shot, instead of from the inside, looking towards the windows and out of space, he shot from out in space outside the set, through the window. Yeah. And he did it a couple

times in this episode, and that was an interesting change and pattern that we normally did. The other thing I noticed in this scene, so you had Nielix there, you had the doctor there, you had Tuvac there, Yeah. It's seven of nine, Chukotay. Everybody's there. They're all there. But the only people that spoke were me, Janeway, Chiquotay, and seven had one line. Which is a little weird, which is weird.

Usually everyone has a line or two in that region. Neelix didn't have a line. The doctor didn't have a line. Tuvok, they had no lines, which is I hated when they happened. All the actors that had no lines were not happy that day. I'm going to tell you right now. They're sitting there going, really? You could not have written my character out of this scene.

I have nothing to say here. And usually the writers were good like that. If we had nothing to say, they wouldn't let us, they wouldn't even have us there. They'd let us have the day off, but not here. Did you notice when Janeway comes over to Paris that she touches his shoulder? Yeah, she does. He looks down at her hand and they have this long pause. I was just thinking.

Were you thinking about salamanders? Yeah. There's still a little salamander connection. And Janeway might be thinking, well, Boulon is gone, Tom. Hey, you know what I mean? Exactly. We can be Mr.

and maybe salamander. I felt like that moment had a lot of subtext in it. It did. And you could have definitely threw a monkey wrench in there. As she put her hand on your shoulder, if you kind of like reached over

and kissed her hand, that would have been a whole different story. Oh my gosh. Yeah. But we didn't go down that row. No, it was a nice moment of touching me. But it's still very,

rare to see a heavy moment with Paris like that. Like, I mean, obviously, when you did the episode threshold where you had salamander babies, that was heavy. That was very heavy. But here-dramatic. But this is just sad. It's sad and heavy. I'm just saying to see Paris sit down and be so just distraught and out of it.

Yeah, dropping his head. And he's feeling like- That's how emotional Paris was. But Torres clearly wasn't very emotional when the guy. I said, are you in love with Paris? Clearly, she didn't have the same feelings at that point. Okay, the flip side of the coin is she just doesn't want to air her, not air her dirt of laundry, but she wants to keep her private life private.

That's the other thing. I know. I thought of that too. She might be protecting herself and, you know, maybe they're going to try to leverage my love or my emotional life. Something like that. She doesn't know what's going to show her hand. Yeah, she's not going to show her hand.

So, okay, that's how we'll validate that. All right. Okay, fine. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this? Oh, my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me.

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Up front payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. So now we're back in the amphitheater and they're in the midst of rehearsal. And the old man in the chorus are exclaiming, steady armed Paris bound by a sleep that brings no rest.

Which is great because, look, you were totally in that other scene, totally alone. And now they're going right into it. nice transition. And Paris basically says, unpleasant news delivered by the most pleasing of messengers. And then he kisses the actress playing 7 of 9, which was so bizarre to see that,

that Paris would be kissing 7. And Kellis is very frustrated with his performers. He's like, what are you doing? You can't, you know, he's not happy because he feels like they don't get the Eternals, the Voyager Eternals. Also, she doesn't,

the actress didn't want to go over close, you know, near Paris when he's lying down there. So, yeah, she gives her lines. And the director, Kellis says, closer. Closer, yeah. And then she steps a little closer and he goes, closer. Yeah. So it was very funny, her look of like, I don't want to be doing this.

I love scene. No. Because she's in love with Kellis, right? Yeah, so that's another thing. She was not happy about that. And Kellis is so frustrated. He gets up and he throws his script. Do you remember that at the end?

He threw his script. No. He had his pages there. And he like, threw it. And I thought, oh, what a classic director move. I like that little detail. You like that detail. All right.

Okay, now we're moving on. We're back in the Delta Flyer interior. Kellis is pacing back and forth behind Balana. Keleis says that he cannot blame his performers who are having difficulty, understanding the eternals on Voyager. And then he starts mumbling a little bit more about what's going on. And he starts bringing up how he doesn't understand how it's possible that Tuvok has no emotions, which is actually funny because they don't know what Vulcans are, right?

And during this conversation, as he's talking, Balana does get the power up and running. She's connected to dialythium. So she has some power now. And her goal is to get this subspace transmitter online to get a message to Voyager. So as she's trying to bring this transmitter online, it does overload. So it fritzes out and kind of, you know, explodes, basically. Explodes, yeah. It was a nice big pop. Bang. Yeah. And she's frustrated, but she does turn to Kellis and say, what type of alloys do you have here? And ultimately, she tells Kellis, I need a thin, thin, thin, thin, thin plate of metal that is comprised of three parts, 10, five parts bronze, with one side coated with gold. And Kellis is like, gold, that's expensive.

I can't get. She's like, well, I guess you're going to be in debt then. And she says the plate in exchange for information on Vulcans. Volkens. He keeps asking about Vulcan. He's obsessed with he doesn't understand Vulcans. So he's like, all right, I'll do it. I can't do it. now because everybody's sleeping, but I'll do it in the morning if you tell me about Vulcan. Right. Yeah. So off of that moment, we go into the mess hall. Which is awesome. Another transition. Yeah. Low light in there. Tuvok's kind of in a profile shot there. And Neelix walks up and says, by his count, he hasn't slept in 10 days. Tuvok does affirm that. He says, yes, it's been a while. But he also says that Vulcans don't need sleep for two weeks. And I thought, wow, that's kind of

amazing. But, you know, Neelix is like, you might think about the fact that this might be a point of diminishing returns where you're so tired that everything you're doing right now is you're kind of running your wheels. You're spinning your wheels and going nowhere right now. So yeah, but Tuvok says, nope, he's fine. I did like that Neelik says, you know, the ship is lonely without Kim. Oh, yes. Yes. I thought was a really sweet. That was a sweet moment. Yes. And I think Tuvok was feeling that as well. It's just the Vulcan way he was dealing with it. That's why he was so obsessed and not sleeping.

He didn't want to go to sleep because he was trying to find a way to find us, right? So I was trying to find Harry and Bologna. Yeah. The other thing I noticed in the scene was. The lighting. Tuvok was there, a couple people. Yeah, it was a little lower lighting. Yeah.

But there was a bowl of nuts on the table. And all of a sudden I remembered, I was like, oh my God. Yeah, we always had those silver bowls. With nuts. With nuts. I'm like, what is this? A cocktail lounge? And by the way, you never eat the nuts in the bowl.

No, you don't touch the nuts. They've been there forever. They're probably dusty and grimy and cats. I'm going to say that those nuts were there since TNG was there. So don't touch the nuts. Don't touch the nuts. No. It's a cocktail lounge, basically.

It's what I'm telling. It's 10 forward. Okay. So now we go back to the amphitheater. They're back into rehearsal again. And the individual, the actor that's, that's, that's, being focused on is the actor playing the role of Tuvok, basically. Yeah, playing Tuvok.

And then he's getting emotional. He got emotional. He starts crying. Yeah, very funny. Kellis is very upset. He, you know, yells at him. He says, Tuvok is logical. He wouldn't cry.

What are you doing? Yeah, but I love all the actors like, the actor's like, you know what? But if I do it this way, they're either going to think that Tuvok is a monster or that I'm a bad actor because I have no emotion. And he's like, no. Oh, he has no emotion because that's the way it is. And so this is just very difficult for the actor to understand. I like when Kellis also says, in the land of Vulcan, there is no laughter.

Yes. There is no laughter. Yeah. It's not planets. This is a great. There are oceans and ships and islands, but there's no planets. They came further. Yeah.

Amidst this whole talk about the land of Vulcan, a messenger does arrive saying that they're patron, their warlord, has been insulted by his enemy to the north. The armories have been opened. Kellis quickly asked, has the battlefield been chosen? Which in this land, or this time, this planet, that's a big deal. And so if it hasn't been chosen, then basically hostilities haven't truly begun. So if they haven't chosen battlefield, I got some time to get this new play done. That's right. Calas says, that I have time. And well, it's sort of, it's a little vague, because you don't no he didn't say he just says then i have time but later we learn time meaning he can get another play going to sort of change the mind of his warlord yeah so we're back in the delta flyer interior

and kellis tells balana that he really needs help he needs help he brings the metal by the way he does have the metal yeah but it has impurities in it so it's not really the best metal to use it's not going to hold a hold a polaron charge i think is what she said yeah something like that but he really needs help to help change his patron's mind the warlord's mind about going to battle. And he thinks that his play is the way to stop this battle from happening, this war from happening. And he basically convinces Balana to come with him to show her what he's developed so far,

what he's written so far in this play. First, she says, you know, Eternals shouldn't get involved in these. That's right. That's right. And he goes, well, you may not want to get involved, but if you stay here, you're going to be discovered. You know, there's scouting parties heading this way. And if you get discovered, that's the end of all of this.

So that's what sort of makes her listen and she goes to help him write the play. So we end up back at the amphitheater. And he, he's described. I mean, he's got to introduce her clearly to everyone there. So he comes up with this story that this is a fellow poet. And she's in a robe, by the way. She's like in a monk's robe. Yes.

And she's covered up. But everyone can see her. her forehead is definitely not that different, that little, you know, round oblong, you know, like them. Yeah, like them. So he says she's a fellow poet from across the Eastern Sea and that she's

an expert on Voyager and the Voyager Eternals. And right when he says that, his girlfriend leaves. She's just like, she's like, she's so mad. You see her in the background. Like, she's fuming. No, she immediately, because she knows

how jazz and how passionate that Kelas is, and she can see that he's passionate about introducing Balana, which immediately she feels that they're having some type of side nooky right now. And Balana notices that, by the way. Yeah, she does see that. She sees her storm off. She does see that. And then I wrote, then they kind of move in.

They're not on the amphitheater. They move into what I wrote as the amphitheater backstage area. Yeah, I call it backstage. Exactly. Yeah, whatever that is. That's where I think was in our cave set kind of often that open, corner area. I think they built the backstage in that area.

Okay, that makes sense. The rescue of Bologna Torres. They work on the play. Kellis asks, where is the mistaken identity, the discovery, the sudden reversal. So now we get a little glimpse of the parallels of a Hollywood television writer. This is where he's talking about the plot twist, the discovery, the sudden reversals, the, yeah, all that stuff you mentioned. Their staff writer, those are writer issues. Yeah, those are writer issues.

This is like a biography of Joe Manoski's career or like, pretty much. I've got to come up with a script. Yeah, yeah. Can you give the appropriate Joseph Campbell? Does Joseph Campbell talk about things like mistaken identity, the discovery, and sudden reversal as well? I think those are classic kind of Greek tragedy or Greek drama, you know, tools that were used in the stories. They were all, they always had the DeiSX. Mackina, the gods coming in at the end or something.

Yeah. So I think Joe, who loves the classics, he loves things that are ancient and old, you know, Roman history, Greek history, mythology, things like that. I think that's where he was not only talking about being a TV writer and needing to have those parts of his story, but that's the kind of stuff that Joe loves. Yeah, he loves. Definitely. So it's at this point that our senior most chorus member, Mr. Axelrod, comes into the scene

and he talks about, you know, you just need to find the truth of the story. You don't have to rely on these tricks. So basically he's saying, look, in the old days, they didn't need these mistaken identity or the discovery or the sudden reversal. You just have to find the truth of the story. That's it. And I just love that now we have a little bit. bit of a of a J.C. Shipper moment because there we do see I think they rehearsed the kiss at this

point, don't they? Yes, they do. Oh my goodness. Yes. Janeway and Chacote have masks. It's a Janeway and Chiquet scene. So the actors playing them have the masks. The masks look pretty authentic too. They look close to what they were very cool. Yeah. And then they touched the mask and the mask come down together. And then they share a kiss. And then the Janeway character says something like, I've been denied the privilege of your touch yeah or something very very poetic most definitely poetic and romantic and they kiss and then you see torres kind of sitting in the audience she's like shocked oh yeah this is not what really happens no she's not no definitely not we jump to the captain's ready room and it's great because they go from the kissed again look at the transition

right into Janeway's alone in the ready room. Chacote shows up. So you're thinking, oh, maybe something's going to happen, but they're going to have a kiss. Yeah. The transition is even made better because she's kind of lounging and looking out the window. So off of that romantic kiss moment,

you have this pensive romantic moment looking at a romantic physical position. She's just like, yeah, it's really made better. Well done, though, right? Yeah, it's very well done. Mike Behar did his homework on this one. Yeah. Chocote does arrive to tell Janeway that, alien transport vessel has picked up the Delta Flyers distress call so this distress call was picked up

about 10 days ago then Janeway does ask Jacote how long could Harry survive and chicote says less than 10 days in that escape pod that he was in yeah you hear the fritzy distress call you see bala you hear balana it's sort of broken up but yeah sent Harry flyers damaged and uh she's headed for an El-class planet and that she ordered Harry into an escape pod, ordered him to eject. Right. Yeah. And that was 10 days ago. Yeah.

And that the amount of time that Harry could survive is less than 10 days. So now we basically have the possibility that Harry's now dead, right? Yeah. And you do have a very rare moment of emotion from Janeway after. He's very distraised. Oh my gosh. The minute the minute Chacote leaves, she doesn't show Chacote her emotion until she doesn't, you know, let him in. on this, but the minute he's gone, it comes out. It's almost like she sits there and thinks

great. You know, I've pretty much, I possibly have lost my chief engineer and my operations and communications officer. They're gone. You know, and this is, and I felt that it was more Harry that she was thinking about because really, you know, Janeway met Harry's mom and dad and said, look, I'll get him back fine. So he's the youngest Starfleet senior officer. And this is a huge. She was very emotional, yeah. Most definitely a huge responsibility for her that Harry, you know, was kind of in her charge in a way. And now there's a possibility that he's not alive any longer. So, you know what else was sad about the end of the scene?

Yeah. Is that Janeway and Chukotay didn't kiss like in the play. It was very sad, very emotional. I was sad. Okay. That he should have kissed like the play. The play's got it right. All right.

The play has it right. Yeah, clearly. So now we're back at the amphitheater. Yeah, it's nighttime. We have some cool quotes here. We hear that anger is like fire. Love can be the rain that extinguishes it. So, so poetic.

So at this point, there's some questions about the Borg that Kellis asked, Bologna. And this is kind of a turning point because before you was talking about, okay, it has to be love. There has to be love. There has to be kissing between Janeway to co-tated. She's like, I can't believe, you've got too much kissing in this play. Why is everybody kissing? Everyone's kissing everyone else, right? And he says, no, that the theater started as a temple a hundred years ago.

He goes into some history here. That's right. The theater was a temple and where victims would be sacrificed in honor of winter every year. Yeah. But then one year, and nobody knows why they did this. They didn't sacrifice an innocent human. innocent person, they performed a play in place of it. And that's exactly what I'm talking about. Like, Joe Manoski knows that's Greek history. That's the temp, theater came out of religious practices.

Yeah. So I love that he got some of that history into this story. I do too. I think that's awesome. But this conversation with Torah is sort of, it's a brainstorming session. And so he realizes. Did you do, sorry to interrupt, but do you remember? by the way, he says, we're going to have to do better than Harry kissing the Delaney sisters. Oh, yeah. I was like, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with Harry Kissy? I forgot about that.

That's a great story. Yeah. Anyway. But this description of the Borg and how the Borg operate, they have a queen, they have soldiers that are part of this vast army. So this conversation sort of basically triggers Kellis to realize like, oh, wait a minute, I do have a sudden reversal here. Okay.

So Janeway could be holding her. her spears at the throat of the queen and then instead of killing her at the end she throws aside her her weapon and says that she's you know she's not going to she's going to make peace yeah she's going to make peace exactly and so hopefully this is this is the message that his warlord will respond to and hopefully not get into war with their northern enemy which is the ultimate goal you know to stay alive and torres is like that's much better than all that kissing right so clearly balana hates romance and kissing which right i wish i had known is tom paris he still wants he wants to stay yeah he's like i don't have an ending yeah torres is like no you'll figure it out

you'll get and he goes you know what uh he basically he threatens to kill off her character he says what if bologna tors dies tragically yeah there you go then she's she actually cares she's like you wouldn't dare but she's bonded with him like look at that response to him like you would do this is like buddy Like, if I was dumb, I'm like, okay, who is this alien dude? Huh? Who is this alien guy bonding with my wife? By the way, killing off character.

Like, that's what the TV writers think about all the time. Like, well, we could kill off this character. Kill this person off. That'd be a dramatic turn. You'd never expect it. Oh, my gosh. So I think there was a little, I think there were some, like, messages to our cast in this episode, like some subtle hinted hinted messages.

All right. So next we have a planet shot, and you see the, flyer crashed up on a hill which i thought that was a great shot i like that yeah really good shot then we go inside the flyer torres comes in and then we it's revealed that lena is there yeah she's in the shadows and i love the way that he sort of revealed her yeah back there and she says she basically says like she was expecting to find a love nest but instead she's found out the secret that torres is not an eternal yeah and um of course is like there's nothing going like i get that you're jealous nothing going on with me and kellis relax but lena doesn't believe her and says she threatens her

she does she's like i will expose you you're not an eternal yeah and i'll tell everybody if you ever come back right isn't that what he says yeah yeah you you need to leave yeah just don't come back ship but get out of here exactly don't talk to my boyfriend anymore that's my boyfriend exactly then she takes off yeah and balana's like oh what are we gonna do and all of a sudden you hear harry's harry's voice yeah and he's in the bushes yes he appears right outside in the bushes and he's okay he didn't die basically i was a little worried i was like where is harry because remember when we when we're never showing up my yeah my memory was that i was at always in the shuttle, but injured.

But that's not what happened. No. I was gone. I was not even close. I wasn't even injured. I was totally fine. Although you were tired because you say, like, I walked 200 kilometers. That's far.

Think about that. Yes. Isn't that like the distance between, isn't that L.A. to Vegas or something like that? Yeah. I mean, it's a long way to walk that far. But he said he walked 200 kilometers and he carried. He's got the piece that she needs. Yeah, I do.

I do, I do? But I did not, Harry did not walk during the day. He hid during the day. So that's also that thing. He only walked during night. But he does save the day. He has exactly what they need in order to contact Voyager. So that that escape pod transmitter that he has is basically gold to Torres. She's so happy. You know what else was cool in this scene is, um, how she reacted to Harry coming in? She reacted to Harry coming in, but at the very end when she leaves. Yeah. And you're kind of in the back of the shuttle in the shadows, there's a nice moment holding on Harry, and you found your eye light. Did you notice that? You were kind of in the shadows. And then as she left, you kind of ducked down. I pulled down to find the light. Yeah. To find the light on your face. Very professional.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. But I did like her reaction to seeing Harry because it was very, very emotional and excited and, you know, she doesn't get like that. You know what I'm saying? She's pretty by the book and really kind of not that person who's going to get excited like a schoolgirl and she really did. She was like, Harry! So I really love the way that Roxanne Plort portrayed that moment. She played

that moment. I think it was very good. We go to this high wide shot of the theater. Yeah. Like a Viz effect shot. And in this moment I was like, and you see the village behind them. In this moment I was like, I wish they had done this a little different because you could see how tiny

this theater was. How would you have done it? How would you have done it done it? Okay. How would you have done it? It literally had two rows of seating and I was like, I would have turned it around so you saw more of the stage and less of how small the theater was. How small the theater was itself, yes. It felt like you were seeing that there was not much room for an audience.

I just, yeah. But anyway, our two row theater, a little off, off Broadway theater. Off off Broadway. We jumped down, cut out of that wide shot, that Viz Effect shot down inside the theater. And Kellis is there. pacing, he's trying to figure out the ending. And then, he's also wondering where Balana is because he expected Balana would be there, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And Lena comes in and she says, you know, your collaborator is probably long gone. She's out of here. She's not coming back. Right. And I love when the older actor says something like, well, do you have an ending yet? And he's like, not yet. Soon, no, soon.

And the older actor's like, well, we better get it quickly because we're not going to have time to learn our lines. Right. And I was like, oh, my God, that sounds like our cast. When, like, are we going to get the script for the new episode? Because it starts shooting tomorrow. Yeah. I remember Kate would always be like, I've got, we're going to do bridge scenes tomorrow.

I need to learn my lines. Yeah. Very funny. Late scripts. Very funny. Oh, yeah. Anyway, so we go to another wide shuttle shot. We see the crash shuttle.

We go inside. There's Kim and Torres. They've been working trying to get this communication system back online. And I think Bologna says something like, okay, let's try again. The 38th time might be the charm. So they've been trying a lot. Yeah. And it works.

And it works. And it works. The 38th time, yeah. And then Harry says, after they get up working, he goes, you do the honors. Yeah, you contact. Yeah. You contact them. So they send this, you know, message.

She's going to send a message to Voyager. You only hear the first part. She just begins, Voyager. This is the Delta Flyer. And then we don't hear the rest of it. And that's it. She's going to send this. Yeah.

And then we go back to the theater, but now it's night time. This is the deadline. He's got to have this play written, so we don't know what he did. Well, the audience is there. The warlord is already, and he's sitting in one of the two rows, the front of the first row. Yeah, he's there. Yeah, he's not in a good mood. They're backstage looking out the curtain or whatever, right?

And the actors are not happy with the ending, by the way. No. They're like, this is not good. No, doesn't make sense, you know. Yeah. Yeah. And he, and so Kellis decides, one last thing, he's going to send a copy of it to Bologna. So he asked one of the, like they've got people copying down the script that he wrote. They're copying, you know, making copies for the other actors, I guess.

And he grabs one of them and says, take this new version and take it with a message to Boulana. Yeah. Well, actually, he doesn't say to Boulana. He just says, you know where the ridge ends just below the peak? Yeah. Run there. as fast as you can and you'll find a vessel wrecked against the rock so that's his way of telling him. Basically, tells him where to go

and send this message with the script to Bel- Don't be frightened when you see technology that you don't know of, yeah, basically. And then we have a space fly-by a Voyager

and we cut to the bridge. I love this scene. Oh my God. This scene was so funny. So funny. I love this scene. We see Paris and kind of a close-up

down there flying and doing his thing. Doing his thing. just kind of, you know, at ease or whatever. And suddenly there's a noise. And Paris, like, he's got a look on his face. And there's another noise. And slowly Paris turns around.

And Tuvok in the captain's chair is sitting straight up with his eyes close, dead asleep, snoring. And I loved this non-dialogue back and forth, the way they cut it in the moments. Because my face, the faces I made. and reactions and like all these different snores yeah and then his dead pan sort of the way he was sleeping was funny to me it was just hilarious and just and how how he woke up was hilarious too because you're like Tuvac Tuvok and he's like as you are he wakes up like as like he's still it was very funny that whole it was a classic comedic bit but it was really good yeah and comedy

with you too which which is rare you don't have comedy with Paris no Paris and Tuvon Tuvok or a funny, funny odd couple. You are a funny couple. Tuvac wakes up and he calls Chukotay and he's like, I need a break. I need some relief here. He realizes it. Just at that moment, they get a transmission. Yeah.

Notification sound, yeah. Tom gets, Tom goes to clear it up, but Tom gets out of the pilot seat. Yeah, why did you get up and why did you go there? No idea. You can do the same thing at Kahn. I didn't understand why you got up. I have no idea. Yeah, I don't.

And who's driving the ship at this point? You put it on cruise control is what you did. I guess so. But it just, it was confusing to me. Why did I, why would you do that? Exactly. Okay. But Tom does clear up this, you know, rough transmission.

And it's Bala. We realize that we're 5.2 light years away from the fourth planet near an F-type star. And so they set course for this planet at match. Did you play relief at this point? Or did you play excitement? What did you play when you heard that it was Harry? I don't know. I felt like it played.

I was still thinking about the comedic snoring bit before. So I was having the most fun with that part. The, you know, Bologna calling, whatever. Like, whatever. She doesn't love me anyway. You don't know that. You don't know that, Tom, Paris. Okay.

But the snoring was funny. That was my favorite. That was my favorite thing I did in the whole episode was just the faces I made listening to him snore. Oh, your little reaction face. My mugging faces, yeah. But, you know, it worked well, though. It was very good.

That scene cut together quite well. But we do find out that Harry and Balana are 5.2 light years away. F-type star, the fourth planet. So two Voxes laying in a course, maximum warp. What would have been funnier is if he gets that command out and just goes right back to sleep again. That would have been wonderful. Yes. We go to the theater next.

The play is, so this performance of the play that we don't know how it ends. going on. It's happening. It's going on. I love the crane shot that came in from behind the stage and then sort of wrapped around, beautiful, big shot. I love to. Good job, Mike Fahar. The characters of Captain Janeway and Seven of Nine are talking in the scene. That's right. And in the scene, they have found the Delta Flyer wrecked on a faraway shore. And the Janeway character tells the Seven character that Seven is the only one who can find Belon. Right. And then Seven of nine has a speech to the audience. She turns to the audience.

She talks about being queen of the Borg and how she's going to betray Janeway and take revenge on the Voyager. Yeah. And no intention of finding Balanatorism. No intention. No, she's going to turn on them. And then I love when she says to the audience. She tells the audience all of this.

And then she says, say nothing. Right, right. But she also said, right, before that, she's like, surprised. Like, she's almost like adding commentary to this. thing and then say nothing or you too yes will be a simile yes or you two will be a similar like very interactive like the actors are going to assimilate the audience it was funny it was and then then the Janeway character has a speech where she reveals to the audience right that she knows she knows the plan is the board queen and she says something like my enemies are everywhere yeah

and she also says tell her nothing yes or she'll lose her advantage so that's right that's very funny classic theater scenes yeah funny yeah uh we go back to the flyer harry and boulana have reestablished communication with voyager and they're giving their status and tom says we don't see him but he says see you soon and then suddenly this messenger oh the one from earlier he shows yeah he appears in the doorway and he's terrified he's looking around this spaceship the delta flyer has never seen anything like it hands her kill us his message and he's out he's like I'm out of here. And the message is basically threatening Bologna's character with death.

I'm going to kill your character. Right. And he says he can't figure out the ending. Yeah, Kim's like, who cares? He's like, whatever. And then Taurus is like, no, I do. And he's like, what? You're serious, Bala?

And she's like, yeah. Harry, have you ever inspired anybody? I like that line. Yeah. And Kim's like, that's kind of a weird question. But, you know, Tors has still got this bond with Kellis. She really does have this bond. And she's like, look, she needs to.

she realizes what's going on that without her, he's dead in the water. And not only is he really going to be dead in the water, he could be killed by the warlord or the war, right? So one of those two things could happen. And so Kim is still confused. And basically, Torres says, tell the captain, I'm going to be a little bit late because she has a mission to do. And she says, wait for my signal to Harry. So she beams out. And the transport is now online because it's been fixed by Harry. And Torres. Yeah. So we go to the amphitheater next and the play is in progress. And the Janeway and Janeway character has seven on the ground with a spear at her neck and throat. Yes. And seven, the seven character tells Janeway that even if you kill me, the Borg will rise and

you know, take your place and destroy you, Janeway. Right. And then Janeway thinks for a moment, throws the spear aside and tells seven that if we can. this war, all of us will be destroyed and all that is left is hatred and then seven rises and says, fool, I'm free to attack again. Yeah. And Janeway goes again and again until we're all destroyed. So it's very dramatic anti-war sort of part of the play that Kellis has written. Then we go backstage and one of the actors tells Kellis that this final scene that you've

written is going to ruin everything. yeah we should just improvise improvise yeah and then suddenly torres shows up well calis actually says it's too late to improvise and that's when torres goes no it's not dun dunna she came to rescue calis is excited he's like yeah i knew you're gonna be here and and lena horrible lena bad girlfriend she's like i told you not to show up and torres is like no no no hold on and she runs Lina runs out there to spill the beans to be, to be the tattletail, basically. Then I think the chorus in this part of the play, they say, finally, Voyager has reached our shores.

Right. And Balana then goes on the stage. Right on stage. Yep. And she starts acting in the play. She did a really good job of being someone who's not really used to being in a play. You know, she kind of did it a little hesitant. Yeah, exactly.

Good job. Good job. Good job. Roxanne. She tells Kellis that he must say goodbye to the eternal Bologna Torres. Yeah. Because she needs to return to the eternals right before your eyes. Yeah.

Which I kind of, now you kind of know, oh, she's going to do this, like, you're going to do a beam out. Yeah. Yeah. But just as you think she's going to do that and save the day, Lena runs out by the, uh, the warlord and the whole audience and tells them that Balana is. Well, she's not an eternal.

She's not eternal. She's not from the Eastern Sea. And she's actually the real Bologna Torres. She said, I saw her ship. And lucky enough, chorus number one sort of plays into this and says, The lead actress in a fit of jealousy rands her rival and eternal. Our patron rises to his feet to stop the play. And now the patron's like, oh, I love this.

You almost got me. I almost believed you. And he sits down. one continue right and i love how they uh the guards escort lena away they're like we're taking you out of here the guards with the big helmets yeah the big helmets on it was amazing i think they should take the helmet off and stuck it on her is what they would have been another way to do it that way i like the helmets okay so the play continues kellis tells boulana stay yeah and torres says goodbye and uh kellis says that you know you'll inspire me every time i think of you and i started

thinking, well, Lana is emotional in this moment. And so is Kellis. And I'm like, I'm kind of with Lena for a minute. I'm like, wait a minute. Is there like, why is this so personal? Why is she they bonded, man? It felt a little. Didn't it feel a little romantic? Yes. The ways that they were playing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's now KT shippers, Kellescentora's shipers. I guess so. I guess so. But she, she signals Voyager. She says one to beam up. Yeah. And she, she, she, uh, she signals Voyager. She says one to beam up. yeah and she but no it wasn't voyager it was it was me yeah or it was harry yeah and uh says one to beam up and she disappears right on the stage yeah and the audience is shocked and uh then then the chorus i think sort of ends the play well they say a couple things so ends the rescue

of bologna torres half klingon bologna torres chief engineer and then kellis says the last words which are these stories will continue for as long as we have the breath to tell them and as long as our patrons remain wise and compassionate and voyager will continue on her journey to the gleaming cities of earth where peace reigns and hatred has no home and we end in a don't we have a reaction of the warlord where he's like oh i will go to battle sort of a realization yeah yeah so So basically the job or the goal of them not getting into battle, it seems like it's implied they did not go to battle after this. Exactly.

And in a way, I think it's Joe Mnowski's way of saying like these kind of stories can really change people's lives. They can change the way we look at the world. Most definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It's great. Yeah.

Fun, fun episode. I agree. I like that. What is your lesson for this episode? Lesson for me, it's kind of like a hodgepodge. like with the old man coming in saying what's important is the truth of the story i mean that was sort of one of my lessons like you know you don't have to you know more more important than anything else is finding the truth in in the situation if you're a writer so that was like a lesson for

writing specifically but then i did like the whole thing where they said anger is like fire and love can be the rain that extinguishes it which is true i mean if you approach every situation with from position of love how can how can anger survive or how can can anger continue if you're because it takes two people to escalate it to a point where it becomes you know it becomes armed conflict and so if one person is just giving love and not anger it can never escalate to that point so i even though they obviously flipped it around the story a little bit there wasn't a lot of lovey-dovey in there but still i do believe that that was an important lesson as well from this episode yeah nice how about you i think for me the fundamental lesson was that

Art can inspire change or teach valuable lessons. You know, that art and whatever kind of art, music can have that effect. You know, visual arts, dance, TV shows, you know, they can actually inspire change and teach people something in the way that, like, Joe talks about the plays happened in a religious, you know, you know, site where they used to sacrifice people, but instead of sacrificing them, they, they started doing plays. Yeah. So there's a sacred quality to art, I think. Okay. What is your rating of this episode? I really love this episode. I got to admit, I'm going to give it 8.2. Oh, that's pretty good. And the only reason that it's not even higher. Yeah, that's my question. I feel like there wasn't a lot of Janeway in this. There wasn't a lot of

Neelix. There wasn't, it was missing, you know, some of the other cast. But I just really like the episode was so strong to me. Our guest stars were all good. The story was good. Joe's writing was amazing. I really liked it, 8.2. Okay. I'm going to go a little higher than you.

I'll go 8.4. Holy moly. Yeah, I'll go a little higher. Okay. Wow. What do we have from our admirals and captains? Our admirals and captains, average rating. Yes, which we have not seen is 7.7.

7.7. All right. So we were both a little higher, which is funny because I didn't have a lot to do in this episode. Right. A lot of the cast didn't. It was mostly Bala and guest stars. And then you had the most of anybody after that. That's right.

But it was just a great story. Yeah. And again, the transitions between from scene to scene, just they flowed so well. And again, the writing and the directing, you know, everything, everything came together. in this episode I felt. So I really enjoyed it. All right. Well, that's it. Well, thank you, everyone. Thank you so much. Yeah, that's it. Thank you for joining us for this episode talking and discussing the behind the scenes of the episode Mews, where basically Robbie and I were not really there most of the time. But, you know, we do have our comments about this episode

regardless. Yes. And join us next week when Robbie and I will be discussing and recapping the episode Fury. Fury, Fury, which has nothing to do with Nick Fury from the Marvel world. Good to know. Good to know. Okay. Fury next week. See you next week. All right. Patreon patrons. Please stay tuned for your bonus material.