The Delta Flyers - Night

Episode Date: February 28, 2022

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Night. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Night:Voyager enters an expanse of space where no stars are visible that will take two years to cross; the lack of starlight causes morale issues with the crew; Janeway questions the choices that stranded her crew far from home.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, & Brannon BragaAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Chris Knapp, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, Megan Hurwitt, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson,  Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Amber Eason, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Nathan Walker, Shambhavi Kadam, John Mann, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Melissa Lau, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Bronwen Duffield, Elly Post, Brandon May, Jeremy Mcgraw, & Jason BonnettAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Marie Burgoyne, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Justin Weir, Normandy Madden, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Michael "Klink" Klinckhardt, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Megan Moore, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Robert Picard, & Craig M. NakashianThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail].”Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers of Tom and Harris. We journey through episodes of Star Trek, Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are myself here at Wong and my co-host, Mr. Robert, Duncan McNeil. And 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. look at your background hello yeah yeah i'm standing right now my background has me standing in harry station i need a background where it's from your pov of the con yeah we could it's like job trade day it is and you're running you're running the you're running the you're running the you're running the so instead of wife swap or husband swap this is job swap job swap okay yeah and and you've swapped with the transporter chief, I see. Yes, exactly. John Tempoya was in the, in my, in the transporter room, that episode we reviewed recently,

and he was injured. Yes, he did a little stunt work there. He did a little stunt work there. So I thought, you know, in homage of John Tempoya, we're going to go ahead and show a little bit of the transporter room there. Nice. I can't believe that we're into season five. That's all I got to say.

I'm just glad that we're still doing this thing, you know? Oh, my God. This is something that has been such a, I don't know how to explain this, but it's been such a highlight of so many people's weekly schedules that it's almost like imperative that we do, we just keep on doing this because we are adding joy to so many people's lives by doing this podcast. So it's an important. Yeah, I agree. I mean, without trying to sound dramatic or anything, the feedback that both you and I are getting so. often is it's not only the recap of the episode and whatever it's the memories that you and i have it's the community of delta flyers patrons that are coming together um yeah virtually in all kinds

of ways they've met up at some a few conventions live and in person they're creating a uh relationships and support for each other through this pandemic and these tough times so i'm really proud of our little our little podcast here me too we have initiated so many friendships which I'm going to go on the book I'm going to go on the limb and say that these are lifelong friendships that have been forged because of this podcast and because of our our little side project that started back during the pandemic right yeah yeah and and I know it's been tough on you because whenever you direct especially when you direct and you're not producing you are really tired so by the time the weekend comes around and then you have to fill that weekend with Delta flyer commitments. It's not easy. So I just want to thank you personally for hanging in there and not sort of throwing in the towel because you could have easily said, you know what, you know, go get Tim Russ and do this because I can't do these anymore. I can't, I don't have the time, but you've stuck with it. So thank you for that. I appreciate it. Well, thank you. It was a great

idea. And it's grown beyond my wildest imagination of what it could be. Agreed. So it's been Awesome. Let's just jump right into it. This week's episode is night, season five, episode one, night. Season premiere. Yeah, season premiere. So this should be a good app. I'm excited to go watch this. Without further ado, let's go watch this episode. We'll be right back. And for all of you, Patreon, patrons, thank you for supporting us. Please stay tuned for your bonus material. We're back from watching season five first episode of season. and five night. Oh my gosh. I can't believe

we didn't remember that this was the introduction of Captain Proton. Oh my God. It's a B storyline. So how are you or I expected to have recalled that this was the introduction

of Proton? We're not going to know that. We're not going to know that. We're not going to know it. Okay. Save it. I should. I should have remembered. You should have. You should have saved it. Let's save it. Let's go. Let's start right off. Let's jump right into this with our poetry synopsis of night. Here is my haiku for night. Ready.

Captain Proton. Yay. Melon poisoning the void. Together, we win. Oh, Captain Proton, yay. Yay. I like it. Okay.

Here's a little poetry limerick for night. Here we go. Voyager is flying through the void. Captain Proton is here to be enjoyed. Janeway is in a funk. A problem gives her some spunk. They ride the vortex and leave the garbage destroyed. Nice.

Good job. Good job. All right. Excellent. That's a good start for this recap of this episode. Yes, it is. Good poetry all around. Captain Proto made an appearance in both the haiku and the limerick, so that's exciting.

Yeah, very exciting. Knight, written by Brandon Braga and Joe Manoski, directed by David Livingston. Yeah, we got that right. We got that right. We did get that right. Sure did. Talk about the guest stars. Wild guess, by the way.

We had, we really were just, we were flying blind on that. We were totally guessing. Okay. The role of Emk, who was our, you know, garbage man. Malon, Malon Captain, right? Malon Captain, yes. Ken Maggi or McGee, I don't know how to pronounce it. Yeah.

Ken McGee, McGee, I think it is. I don't remember working with him. I don't recall, but I thought he did a great job. Yeah, he did. He was great. He was from Texas. He died in 2015. Oh, darn it.

And McGee is no longer with us. Yeah. I hate when we look into some of these guest stars. I'm going to, I'll be honest with you. As far as guest stars go, he didn't have a ton of lines, but the lines he had such interesting choices of how he delivered them. You know, I mean, his acting choices were outside the box and I really enjoyed them. I thought he was great.

Yeah, I was going to recommend, let's contact him and get a hold of him and interview him. But we cannot do that now. He's passed away. That's a bummer. Oh, man. It's just a reminder that on this podcast, we need to reach out to as many people as we can and of our guest stars, of our series regulars, of our crew, all of them. Because, you know, getting some of these memories down.

Sure. Some of this is. Sure. And not just for episodes coming up, but for episodes we've already reviewed. Like, I wouldn't mind coming, you know, grabbing some. some of these guest stars, because why not? I think the fans will be just as excited to hear from or about these guest stars, having them on the show and having them discuss their roles and their unique perspectives.

I think it would be a bonus, big bonus. I just think, you know, when we have these moments where we look into an actor that we really enjoyed an episode, we realize that they passed away, it's just a reminder not to waste a minute of this podcast and try to get as much information as we've done. can this is a agreed i i've said it before it's like a historical record of voyager in a in a big way and and it's uh it's important so the next a uh actor guest art is steve dennis who played both of the night aliens oh so he played night alien one and night alien two is how he's credited maybe because of that that makeup and costume they only wanted to spend

the money on one and so he played both of them you think they just they didn't have enough budget to make enough. I think it was a costume. I think it was a costume. Next, we have Martin Rayner as Dr. Chaotica. Yes.

Come on, people. He is so good. Yes. So, so good. I don't even know where to begin with Martin. He's British. He's from England. I forget the town he's from.

I did read something about his father left in some of the bio that I had found. his father left when he was two years old so he grew up without dad around and i think there was a polio outbreak in uh his family and his town that he was in rough time he grew up uh in a part of england and a time where things were really tough the interesting thing about martin i loved martin by the way i loved working with him he was awesome he had a little catamaran sailboat i remember he would talk about that he kept down near Malibu by oh man he always invited me i never went out to do it but he was like you've got to come out and we'll go hobie cat it was like a little hobie sailboat tiny little you know day out sailor you and i did a hobie cat down in uh down in

turks and kakos oh yes we did that little hobie cat that we took out yeah so martin had one of those and he wanted me to come out and he was just such a nice nice man and so so much fun to work with. Martin Rainer loved him. Anyway, our last guest star who didn't have any lines, but she screamed a lot as Constance Goodhart is Kirsten Turner. Kirsten Turner played Constance Goodhart. She is married to Eric Turner. Yes. Who is best known as the guitar player from Warren. Warren. Yes. I'm actually still in contact with Kirsten. after all these years. We still follow each other on Instagram.

We still will message every now and then. So I would like to get a hold of her to try to have her talk about, you know, Captain Proton, exactly. And the screaming role. Did she ever have a line? I don't know. No, she just screamed her. She just screamed her, she just screamed her bloody head off, pretty much.

She's just screamed, right? And I got to tell you, she has some pipes. She was able to, she was, it was so loud. And you even see in that beginning scene, I react to how. loud she screams. I'm like, ah, you know, I'm like, oh my goodness. But on set, just really super nice. Super. I mean, as nice as you can. Yeah. That's our guest cast. That's what I got. All right. Good job, man. Let's jump into our, our story. So jump right in. We open the very first thing we see in season five, the very first image is we hear old

fashion music. And this logo comes up with an earth. Yeah. Rotating. Yeah. And the first thing I thought of was it looks like the old RKO radio pictures. Oh, yeah. Which, by the way, the studios, so the building where Rick Berman's office and production offices were, that was the old RKO main building. And that's why there's a planet on the corner of Gower and Melrose. Do you remember this? Oh, yeah.

That was RKO Radio Pictures, was our production office. And Paramount ended up buying them and consolidating them. or Desi Lou bought them first. It was Archao Radio Pictures, then Desi Lou, then Paramount. Wow. As Paramount expanded. So when that planet comes up from the first thing, I was like, oh, my God. It's just like, yeah.

The production office in Archao Radio Pictures, that was my first thought. Yeah. But very cool, very cool opening. We see Dr. Chaotica on a microphone. Right. He's looking through like a submarine little eye piece or something. And he's threatening the earthlings. Yeah.

pose me and you will be slaves in the minds of mercury and it's all in black and white which i loved and then we cut over to harry harry has the first uh line after that and i like my little eyebrow action like you know when i'm telling him well you you you haven't what do i say to him you i say something to the effect of uh you know i'm basically introing you is what i'm doing like you didn't you didn't count for one you didn't count for one thing though and i give him the the quick little eyebrow thing like meaning captain proton and so you bust in uh with your goggles on yeah the jig is up yeah the jig is up your majesty yeah yeah love your little retro cool ray gun that you have that you're holding you come save the day by the way i was chewing gum

in the scene which i thought was oh that's right you were chewing gum i forgot was chewing gum in the scene i think that might have been my idea it was like oh it was 20th century is mr cool i should chew some gum yeah what if he's chewing gum cool i think i'm i'm 99% sure that i talked david livingston into that yeah yeah yeah i love spaceman first class protector of earth scourge of the intergalactic evil at your service yeah it's it was great and uh then as we're just you know getting to this point of a climatic moment in the captain proton story yeah the doctor walks in and he's and he's in color too. He's not even in black and white, which Harry changes. Harry changes that very quickly.

And he wants, he's fighting for time on the holodeck, which to me, because all he wants to do is sing his, isn't he going to about to sing his aria or something like that? He wants to rehearse his opera thing. Exactly. And here's my, this is my problem with this. There's hollow emitters in sick bay. He could have just used his office to turn that into his concert hall. He didn't have to come to the holodeck one. He doesn't need an actual entire holiday. At this point, we land. We have two. We have two. And they should be reserved for the human characters, not for the holographic doctor. And he has, like I said, Tom Paris felt the same way. Yeah, it was wrong. I was highly annoyed by the entrance of the doctor. And again, once again, he shouldn't have had any dibs on holodeck time. I don't think so because he has hollow emitters in his office. He can create that there, right? As far as I understand, trying to be one of the crew. I get it. But it's still. He's just trying to rehearse this thing.

We need a little conflict so that they can later on. I'm just as annoyed as Tom is, is what I'm trying to tell you. Okay. So, yeah, so they start to argue over who's going to use Tom and the doctor argue over who's going to use the holodeck punching buttons. And there's like a fritz and we cut up to the bridge and Chikote sees an alarm. Yeah. And calls the holodeck.

He's like, hey, something just blew out. And the last thing we need is a broken holodeck, he says. right so clearly you know and and and you can see on the bridge things are kind of different you know right but but in our but the response to chocote it's me it's me responding to chocote i think we both do but in our voice you can you can hear how annoyed we are with the doctor like there's no like we're like yeah we're on it there's an issue you know you can hear this just through gritted teeth but we're not saying what's going on we're not saying that we've been fighting the doctor but you can definitely hear that there has been tension and it's in our both our voices that don't worry

jacote yeah we'll take care of the issue yeah the con of course seven shows up on the bridge choket's like please can give me some good news and she goes so nope sorry um there is what i can give you is there's no star systems within 2 500 light years of where we are that's incredible no stars it's just pitch black yeah She said the only thing, we're picking up a little theta radiation, and there's theta radiation, is including our sensors. Right, heavy concentrations of theta radiation, which is blocking our ability to see anything beyond this area.

And then this is, we also learn in this scene that it's been two months already, right, that we've been going through this. Two months so far, and it's two years left. Right. Two years left. In this blackness. Yeah. We cut to the exterior space shot of Voyager traveling in complete darkness,

which is so weird to see that. It's so bizarre. There's nothing out there at all. And that's the shot that we get. It's very hard. I would imagine this was hard for the Viz effects people to figure out. Because if you are in the void of space and there's no light at all, then you wouldn't even see the space.

No, you wouldn't, you shouldn't even be able to see the ship either. Yeah, you might see some windows, but they would appear to be floating in space. Exactly. In space, because there's no exterior light lighting in the ship up. So they had to find it. a bit of a balance. Yeah, agreed. Agreed.

And then we go to a hallway shot. There's a first officer's log. Chacote is talking about the power cells. They're trying to stockpile Deuterium using power cells because they're not going to be able to get any supplies. We're not coming across any resources of any kind for a long, long time. Two years. That's a long time.

And then we go, where do we go after that? We go to the briefing room. And I have to say right now, Paris gets a haircut. Look in your hair. You are aerodynamic. I just love it. It's short and it's clean.

It's not poofy. It's not fluffy. I really liked Paris's hair shorter to the point where it looks like you even lost weight in this episode. I don't know. I feel like all of us looked a little healthier because we had stopped shooting these 15, 16, 17 hour days. Yes. We had been on a bit of a break. It was probably usually our hiatus was.

in the springtime. So it was usually around April, May, or something like that. Right. So we probably were getting out, getting a little sun, you know, exercise. We just looked rested and healthy. Sure. And, you know, we just reviewed Demon recently. And that episode is where the writers told us to go work out.

So I do feel that all of us sort of got a little more slim and trim by the time. Yeah, Beltran looked good. He was in a short sleeve shirt at one point. I was like, yeah, he looks. bit. Yeah, everyone looks pretty darn good in this one. Yeah. Yeah. Chacote is running the meeting. We still haven't seen, by the way, the captain. Janeway, no Janeway yet. No Janeway. It's very weird. Yeah. Chocote's running the meetings once reports. Bologna says, you know, nothing new. Her staff is going crazy. They want something to do. Yeah. Chacote asks Harry for any

updates. Harry says, no, nothing going on. It's everything's normal. Nothing new. Tuvok says, you know, this theta radiation thing is the only thing that's a new news and tom paris says well finally some excitement radiation and the whole crew laughs which i thought was a har har har yes it's a laugh bad joke but they're they're desperate for anything definitely to laugh at so yeah well neelix then suggests rotating crew assignments now so then he says maybe i'll i'll get a shot at tactical or at least you know, security detail doing that and Tuvok's very non-pluced. He's like, sure, whatever. And then he then suggests turning Cargo Bay 2 into a third holodeck. Now, isn't Cargo Bay 2 where 7 of 9 is a regeneration alcove is? That's what I thought. I thought so. I was located there. So I don't know,

maybe part of Cargo Bay 2. You're not going to push 7 out there, I guess. And then the third item that he brings up, Neelix brings up, his point of concern. is the captain. The captain's whereabouts. Why haven't we seen her? And, you know, Chocote gets a little defensive here. He's just like, look, you know. He barks.

He starts barking. He's like, what are you talking about? Command from where she wants to. Captain's prerogative. He got really mad. I agree. He was like, whoa, buddy. He got pissed.

You know, Harry tries to calm this disturbance down by saying, look, look, maybe we've just got the wrong attitude. let's think of this as a two-year vacation and then everyone makes fun of Harry I know I noticed that I was like why is everybody piling on and then when you when you make that final little dig at me about my lame joke I say I say you're such an optimistic guy okay that line I don't know what was going on but if you listen to that carefully it sounds like a very heavy Michigan accent really Yes. When I say optimistic guy, guy, it's very optimistic guy. I'm optimistic guy. I'm saying a very Midwest. Yes. And the only thing that I can come up with is it is around this time when we're filming that I became friends, very good friends with this couple that I've known for many years from Michigan. So I went on vacation with them. They came to visit me in L.A. I went to visit them in Michigan. I went to their wedding in Michigan as well. So I was hanging around Michiganers a lot. And so maybe you were hanging around them. Yeah, they were running lines with them.

They may have been visiting me and then just hearing those guys talk with their Michigan accent came out in this particular scene. All right. Let's jump to the next scene. We are now in Neelix's quarters. And he wakes up completely just manic, just distressed. He looks out the window. There's no stars. He orders some tea.

and you can tell he's not handling this void very well. Not at all. And I love the transition. I just want to jump to the beginning of the scene. Yes. Because there was a transition. And I noticed David Livingston doing it a bunch in this episode, these sort of design transition.

So before we come into Neelix's quarters, we go out of the briefing room with Chikote and he sits in his chair and there's no one on the bridge. He's all alone. And he just looks at the view screen. And then there's a shot of his point of view of the view screen that pushes into the blackness. So the screen becomes black for a minute. And then it must have dissolved to the blackness of Nelix's quarters and the lights come on. Oh, right.

And it was a really elegant transition, yeah. Elegant transition. And I noticed things like that a number of times in this episode. Definitely. Normally we just do these hard cuts. But this was a much more artistic, I guess, pre-plan transition. I also noticed a lot of David's camera moves were very smooth, you know, and well thought out. But I will say when we were talking during the bonus material section, when we were guessing who this episode would revolve around, I threw out Nelix.

Remember that? And you were like, Neelix? And when this scene happened in Newark's quarters, I was like, I was right. So then I thought maybe this is an entire Neelix episode. But there is a lot of Neelix in. here. I mean, Neelix is the one who is the most anxious, I guess. Yeah, he's the most anxious of all of everyone in going through this void. So I felt somewhat vindicated. It's funny because I kept guessing seven. I was like, sure, it was going to be a big seven story. And which it's not. Not really. No. No. No. So I was more on the money. So I was a little more on the money than you were. I would have to say it. It becomes a Janeway story. Does. But it takes. It takes time to finally get there. Yes. Definitely. We jumped to Mess Hall and now we see Paris and Torres. And this is a game that we have not played as of yet. Do you recall seeing this Dorada game before this? No. And I, I've never seen it. And I looked it up. It was only in this episode as far as I could find. It's not in any other Star Trek. There's no other episode of any series where this game, Dorada was played. So they must have just.

created a fictional game for this one episode that she and I could play. Which looks like a cross between chess and Chinese checkers or something like that, you know. It's on kind of a roundboard. A round board, yeah. The hole, there's holes in the pieces. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's an odd thing. And I make it, but we're playing the game and the first move I make.

And Bologna says, oh, the Novakovich gambit, predictable, very predictable, the Novakovich game. It sounds like chess talk to me, you know. It does sound like chess talk. Yeah. And I say, yeah, it's predictable because you always fall for it. And then we start bickering. What do you guys bicker?

You're not just bickering. This turns into. It's a fight. This is like a brawl. Yeah. I was like, this is a. And Paris says, this is a subtle game. It's all that subtlety.

And she goes, oh, yeah, you're subtle is, I don't know. She says something to me. And I say, oh, well, if it doesn't involve pain sticks, then you don't want to do it. Yeah. And she's done. She's like, no, I'm out of there. And she gets up. Yeah.

And, but if I'm fighting. still continues you you won't drop it she won't drop it neelix walks up neelix tries he really does try he tries to calm us down now but then he finally gets he loses it yes he's like stop this fighting stop this bickering and then he starts to hyperventilate and paris is like you okay whoops and paris calls sick bay right and we cut sick bay yeah there's neelix on the on a surgical bed and he's getting scanned doc scanning him and this is a moment by the way i noticed what is Neelick's wearing? Like is he in his PJs?

It was a weird, it looked like PJs. I've never seen it before or since. Yeah, you're right. That's the weird outfit. Yeah, the weird outfit. Purple and rust color. This must be his, you know, his sleepwear. This has to be it.

There's no other explanation. It could be sleepwear because when they're, when Paris and Boulon are playing chess and they get in a fight, it's three in the morning. They comment. Right. So, yeah, he might have just come in to get a couple of, a tea or something and yeah the doctor says look I'm going to treat you this will help with your

anxiety which neelix says no this is not anxiety and then the doctor says oh well dizziness nausea unspeakable dread and that's when neelix nods and he goes well it's nylophobia the fear of nothingness i am i what okay is that really a thing i don't know maybe it is maybe it is and i'm not sure i didn't look it up but you know according to start to voyager it is the doctor says nylophobia, nylophobia, the fear of nothing. He says, or in layman's terms, the fear of nothingness. Nothingness. Yeah, he's still doing it out there. And then the doctor says, he can relate. He says, I can relate whenever I get deactivated. And then he starts describing that, which then further intensifies Neelix's anxiety. He's like, you're not helping. You're not helping at all.

You're not helping this. And he says, you're going to get used to it. Relax. And then we go to astrmetrics. Again, a cool transition because we kind of start on the star field over two-foc. We think we might be seeing stars, which we don't expect in the store yet. Right. We reveal that we're just in the astrometrics lab. Right. And he's looking at a recorded star fields and files or something. Yeah, because he's using astrometrics as a place to meditate because typically he meditates

in his quarters with his, he's able to look out of the windows in his quarters and see the stars. And he uses each star as he visualizes. each star, each point of light as one of his thoughts. You know, so it's really, it's very, you know, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's kind of cool. It's like, this is not for recreational use in here. She's like, like, if you want to go meditate,

why don't you try? She suggests that he go to the, her regeneration outcove. Yeah. And if they can hook him up with some kind of interface, that that would be as good. Yeah. You know, forget the meditating.

Right. You should go to my, my board regeneration. Just regeneration. Much more efficient. And you'll be rejuvenated. just the same way that you're you're using this meditation process. There's an alert, a beeping sound that happens. And we realize the long-raden sensors have detected dangerous levels of this theta radiation.

Source, yet again, is unknown. We have no clue where this is coming from. Now we cut to Janeway's quarters. And now Chikote is the one who's briefing Janeway about the radiation. But really interesting that we don't even see Janeway's face, anything. She's completely in shape. shadow but very cool shot though i mean it just it sets the tone it sets the mood you realize janeway is going in janeway is going through something she is in a funk she's in a dark place

literally in a dark place literally she's in a dark place in the shot in the shot very dramatic yes yeah uh by the way we're 13 minutes into this episode i know we've mentioned it but like this is the first time we're seeing the captain right she's you know she seems kind of numb or angry or something but we don't know we don't know yet we have no clue why she's like this at this point no we don't no and uh chikote tells her about this radiation it could be from a vessel and she says okay change course right and he says well why don't you come play velocity with me i'll get you know yeah we can go and and i thought when he said that i was like really tricote like that's the most romantic calming thing go play velocity why not a nice candle at

dinner or something i was like men oh you're going to the sports right away it's okay to go to it's okay to go to sports yeah i guess so like she's in she's in a mood maybe just a nice glass of wine and a nice meal i know um or in a kuchy moya session a little akuchi moya session yeah he says the crew needs her she says i don't understand it maybe it's she says maybe it's this this darkness what does the crew call it and chokote says they call it the void right that's the first time we hear that word. She says she even wishes that there was a Borg cube for some distraction. I'm so desperate for something to do. I'm going crazy. And ultimately, she realizes, she reveals that she's blaming herself for them being in this situation. That all goes back

to the caretaker. And when she destroyed their way to get home to save these other people. Yeah. She's been guilt-ridden for four years now, feeling like she put everyone in this situation she could have gotten everyone back home and now everyone has to pay for her decision so yeah this is a cumulative effect of four years worth of guilt finally building up to the point where yeah she hasn't been distracted by bore cubes or anything right so now exactly if you if you don't have something to put your attention on some work or some activity or something you get in your head and it all rises to the surface now yeah there's also the first time I remember seeing her in a short sleeve shirt with her communicator there

Are you sure about that? Are you sure about that? I don't remember. I'm not sure. No, I'm not. But it jumped out at me. I was like,

because she kind of had on the bottom part of her uniform. It looked like, same colors. Yeah, but remember when she fought the macrovirus, she had on that little tank top number without sleeves. Yeah, tank top. This was a t-shirt.

This was like short-sleeve t-shirt. And her communicator was on the outside. I don't know. It was an interesting look. Yeah. I like seeing her in that look. I thought it was nice. So next we go to the board.

bridge. And again, a cool transition. We kind of come off the blackness. We hear music and the blackness of what we realize is the view screen. It slowly sort of pans around. Nobody's on the bridge until we realize, oh, this music, this very sad, emotional sort of music is coming from Harry, who's sprawled out on the captain's chair, very relaxed, very bored, I guess, playing his clarinet and I thought it was great. Your fingering would look great. Well, thank you. And in the, you know, in our bonus material, I did talk about this is the one thing I remember playing the clarinet and the piece was called Echoes of the Void, which from

what I understand it was an original, an original composed piece by my, my clarinet teacher, Steve Carr, yeah. So I think Steve Carr came up with this and he was like, okay, so this is my original piece. and I had to play Echoes of the Void. And I remember again, yeah, it looked good, but I was so nervous again. Every time I played the clarinet, super nervous because I just wanted, I wanted to look realistic, you know, I wanted people that, people that played the clarinet are going to be watching to make sure that every, every note is fingered correctly.

So I was uber nervous. But like, as you said, it came off fine. So I'm okay with it. It looked great. I thought it was great. Yeah. Hey, Garrett, have you been trying to? traveling this summer? Oh my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been

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and they deliver the nation's largest 5G network. So this year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank, get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at Mintmobile.com slash TDF. That's mintmobile.com slash TDF. 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. And I think Tuvac walks in. Yes, he does. He does. He walks in and you continue playing for Tuvok this composition. And what's different is typically whenever I ask Tuvok, hey, you want to hear this? You want to do that? He always says no to me. So this is the one time where you

He's like, well, there's, I've got time on my hand. I've got nothing else going on. So this is the rare time where Tuvok is in agreement with Harry. And then we go to the holodeck and we're back in the Captain Proton simulation. And Paris is now giving seven a tour and updating her on the story of Captain Proton so that she can play a role in this. Yeah. I don't even know if you're up. I think you're trying to get her to do it with.

you trying to talk her into like you can play you can play constant's good heart kirsten turner's role in this uh in this uh chapter of my hollow program and it's just so funny she's so seven you know the robot comes towards her and all she does is just rip the cords the wiring out so she's like yeah basically like paris is like okay chaotic escaped he left this robot the robot's going to try to fight us okay and you're going to be constance goodhart and she's I'm like, yeah, my, my secretary. And it's so funny. He's like, yeah, you just hang out and follow me around and help me.

And then he runs over and activates the program. Yeah. And the computer comes alive, goes, citizen of earth, looking at seven. Surrender, do not resist. Which I thought was ironic with resistance is futile. Right. He's saying, do not resist. Yes.

Which was tariff, by the way. Remember, the robot is. That's right. Ergen inside the robot suit. Inside the robot was one of our, was Tark Erg and one of our regular bridge crew and background. And she just stares at the robot and she says, she replies,

I am Borg. Yeah. Opens the thing. Rips out. Rips out some wires. The robot has been neutralized. May I leave now? May I leave now?

May I leave now? She's so not. And then Tom runs over. In the shot. And again, close talking. Tom is right up in her face. And I was like, why? It's, I run around and turn into the shot.

Clearly, David Livingston was like, she's going to say a line. And then you just pop in next to her and say your line. And then we're out of the scene. Because I say, you know, come on, seven, give it a chance. And he didn't want to cut back to me over there. He wanted me. He wanted you to come over.

That's why you had close talk. It was odd blocking and close talking again. And clearly. for a shot. It made no sense for me to do what, you know, run in like that. Understood, but it didn't ruin the scene, though. The scene is still good.

It was a cute scene. It was a cute scene. Still worked. We jumped to the bridge where Harry is still playing Echoes of the Void. And suddenly there's a ship shake. Alarms are going off all over the place. Evidently, we've dropped out of warp. And we are losing power.

Losing power fast. We have all these ship shots. Yep, a montage of different parts of the ship losing power. of everyone in every part of the ship losing power. There's a lot of shots here, by the way. There are. Oh, my gosh. I wrote down mess hall, Janeway's quarters, a hallway, sick bay, the outside of the ship, back to engineering, back to the bridge.

It was a lot of like a big dramatic moment, which was great. It was all power just going out everywhere. Yes. Exactly. My trailer, the hair makeup room. The Los Angeles Valley, you know, the entire valley losing power. Everything is going on. Everything, yes.

And then we kind of have basically a montage with everyone dealing with the blackout, right? Just scene after scene after scene. Harry opens the panel with Tuvok watching over the shoulder on the bridge, trying to fix it. Chikotay's in the corridor. He hears some noise from, clearly it's Neelix. You can hear him in the background. But it's pitch black everywhere. It's really dark.

You can't see anything. Torres is barking commands in engineering. And back on the holodeck, Paris is, you know, what did you, what did you say? I think it said something like, give me a second. I don't know how to operate this thing. And then the light comes on. It's a flashlight. Right, right.

And then you get Captain Proton to the rescue is what you say right there, which is great, because Paris still has a sense of humor in the midst of, you know, a crisis, basically. losing power in the ship. That's a deal. That's a big deal. I just thought he doesn't know how to operate a flashlight. Like, wow. And he goes and he does explain this to Evan after he turns it on.

He's like, well, it's not exactly Starfleet issue. Right. But still, it's a flashlight. I mean, come on. I love after that when you tell seven, when seven, excuse me, seven tells Paris to reroute power from the holodeck to the emergency relays. And you give her a yes. yes ma'am i'm like what i wrote that down the first yes ma'am to someone other than janeway

in the entire show i don't think you even yes ma'am torres so i was very excited i get a big note i'm sure i do yes ma'am torres well yes i'm sure i do in your quarters and not yes not shown on film right yes yes yes yes yes yes we go to our hallway next the corridor and chocote finds neelix panicking on the floor. Cowering on the floor, really? Yeah. Is he still wearing his nightgown or his night clothes at that point? He was wearing something and he was like hugging something.

He's hugging like a blanket. Oh, the blanket that his mom made, maybe, remember? I bet you that's what it was. Yes. It was very dark, so hard to see, but it looked like he was. Yes. Yeah, it might have been the blanket that he sleeps with it. He talked about in your early episode.

That would be great if that's what it was. Yes. Chacote calms him down, assists him, gets him up, off the floor. We jump to the bridge. and Harry has finally enabled partial sensors and he's able to detect that the power drain was caused by some kind of dampening field off the port bow.

We don't know, you know, we can't see anything. So Tuvok suggests, hey, let's launch a modified photon torpedo to act like a flare. Good idea. We then jump back to the Captain Proton Hala program and Tom is now looking for something to pry open the hatch and he shines his flashlight. and lo and behold, we have an alien.

This alien is... I'm going to call it the poop alien. Right. Well, this is what we ended up calling it, actually, on the show. I remember multiple times at conventions, Bob Picardo brings us up all the time. He's like, yeah, in Sick Bay, I was with Janeway, and there was the alien that looked like feces, you know, the poop alien.

So, I mean, we... Yeah, he's mentioned the poop alien numerous times that looks like... Yeah, the captain's, he'll say he looks just like the captain's log is he'll say things like that. You know, I'm making fun of this, this alien looking like feces. Well, the poop alien, he comes at you. What is he holding? He's holding like some type of bright light.

And when he hits you, your whole body looks like you're going through that, that crazy sausage tunnel, you know, thing that we reviewed in that your whole body gets covered in some weird white light. So whatever weapon he's got, yeah. We find a moment later that he's got burns all over his face. So he definitely had a weapon of some sort. Yeah. But he knocks Paris down with that weapon. Seven disengages the safety protocols and takes Captain Proton's pistol and ray gun and shoots the poop alien with the holographic weapon. Quick thinking.

Quick thinking. We jump back to the corridor. Chakotay and Nielix are walking in the dark. Alex is like, I hear something. I hear something. Yeah. Chacote's light shines on an alien. And at that second, they're completely shocked.

He's shot. The alien is shot by none other than Janeway, who has ventured out of her quarters. And the alien runs down the corridors. Yeah. Finally, she comes out. And this is what brings up. Yeah, the alien is hit by her phaser rifle, for God's sakes. Yeah.

And he still runs off. He's still running off. So that sort of bumped me, I got to say, because we also learned later on that these aliens are dying. Like, how can it be so strong that it doesn't, it's,

I'm sure it was at least on stun or something. Right. But then remember our last episode, season four, the last episode of season four with the alien who was the final, one of the few survivors of his race when we shoot him with the phaser,

it kind of knocks him back for a second, but he's totally okay. It's like what is going on with our phasers, right? Yeah, I wish that they had played that with Janeway in the hall, way where the poop alien kind of gets nicked on the shoulder or something something smaller so that his ability to run off it should have been hampered yeah because clearly clearly our weapons need to be recalibrated there's something going on with our weapons they're not working

very well no and then we jump back to the bridge and now the photon torpedo flare is is shot out towards the port we finally see because it's dark outside we and it lights up up lights up like a flare these three creepy little alien vessels alien vessels they were it was creepy did you think they were little they came off as little to you i thought they came off as little to me okay they looked i don't know they were normal size i thought they were normal size they were just kind of interesting design like a half moon kind of a design whatever you know but anyway it's still kind of creepy that these guys are just hanging out there we didn't even know yeah we couldn't even see them yeah we're back at engineering janeway chikote and nilix arrive

with a power cell. Janeway's like, look, we can run the whole ship off of this one power cell. We jump back to the bridge. Which is a little implausible. It is a little implausible, but we'll go with it. The bridge, we're back in the bridge. Emergency power is now back up. Tuvok raises shields and tells Janeway that the dampening field has been blocked.

The dampening field that obviously was initiated by these poop aliens. It's been blocked. We have 17 intruders on board. And all of a sudden, the dampening field. By the way, while they're talking, by the way, So they're working, Janeway and Chakote are in engineering, kind of using that as a, as a, as a base. Yeah. And they're talking to Tuvacu's on the bridge.

And I look over and there's Chakotay in a short sleeve. What? Looking, yeah. So Chacote is in a short sleeve, just like Janeway was in the short sleeve before. And I say, coincidence? I don't think so. Okay. J.C. Shippers are rejoicing.

They're so happy to hear this. news. Hey, I didn't even notice that. So good, good eye. Short sleeves on both of them in this episode. Unusual look. Coincidence, I think not. I am impressed with your JC shipping prowess, sir. Good job. Okay. You found it. Well, now the dampening field is being re-initialized by the alien. So we start to lose power again when we're thinking, oh, no, not again. But then all of a sudden, the power loss stops. We regain power because an alien ship. has now entered another ship shows up and all the aliens a big ship all the aliens that are on the ship have beamed off a voyager back onto their three little tiny vessels yeah and this other vessel

shoots all these uh these what do they call them spatial charges or something like that and it chases off it looks like fireworks they're super cool weapons i'm my favorite weapons so far in our show they look like disney and fireworks yeah firework uh weapons really cool they hail us On screen, we meet the, we see the Malon for the first time. And immediately he says, I spent 13 spatial charges on, you know, shooing away these, these other aliens. What are you going to do to compensate? Yeah, I expect compensation.

And his final, his final words to us are before the commercial break are, what are you doing in the middle of nowhere? Which we're like, oh, I don't know. Yeah. By the way, his ship, for some guy that just took out all these. other aliens so quickly. You look at his ship. There's steam coming out.

He looks like the garbage man. Yeah. I'm going to call him a garbage man. Yeah, it's a garbage ship. It looks like he's running this spaceship on like steam and coal or something. I just like and his suit had like rivets in it. It was very steampunky. It was steampunky, which I'm a fan.

Yeah, we're both fans of that. We love steampunk, but I was a little bit was like, I don't know. But I guess he's the garbage man. So it makes sense. He's a powerful garbage man. So now we're in the transporter room, which is behind me right here, as you can see. And he beams in, the Maelon. His name is Imk, Imk, right?

IMK, controller imp is what he calls himself. And he is the captain of the Malon Export Vessel. He advises Jane, go ahead. A little detail, though, as he's beaming in, they detect high levels of theta radiation as he's sort of particleing in. And so Janeway says, orders a force field around the platform and then when it comes in she says uh you know maybe you should just stay right where you are we can talk from a distance yeah she says you appear to be leaking yes which i love that's a good line uh he does advise janeway to turn around because there are thousands

more of those tiny ships those half moon ships ahead and that we would not survive another attack and then jane we says well we can't turn around because we need to get back home and And this is the point where I loved his delivery of that line. He goes, well, then you'll be coming with me. Just the where he put his pauses, his emphasis was just so cool, you know. And then Tuvok's like, well, what do you mean? He goes, well, there's a spatial vortex, a few light years away that leads to the other side of the expanse. This is the secret passageway.

And he says that he's on a transport mission, but he's kind of shady about it. He doesn't really explain what is like, what kind of transport mission are you on? Because you got all this radiation. Yeah. Are you at war with these guys? He's like money of business. You won't answer all the questions. No, no.

He's detected one of the night of the poop aliens on the ship. And he says, you need to hand that guy over to me. And I'll show you how to get to this vortex and how you can get two years ahead. You hand me the poop. I'll get you to the vortex is what he says. Exactly. Which seems like a fair deal. It doesn't seem like a fair deal.

We'll give you poop and you give his vortex. But Jane was, you know, she's really, she already consent something. up her intuition is sensing something right now and uh we're in sick bay and jane way goes to question the alien and he says that the maylon have been poisoning their space and they don't know why um that they're he apologizes for attacking them yeah yeah he doesn't know why and he just knows that they're so powerful that there's no way for them to stop milan from doing what they're doing and the doctor says that we should probably get him back to his people because they probably would know how to treat him better than we can The doctor says he's dying, you know.

We jumped to the briefing room, and we have Chikote and Tuvok. Chikote is bringing up the whole Janeway isolation issue, and Tuvok's sort of like, I already know what's up. And Chikotay's like, what? She told you? He's like, no, no, I know Janeway so well. Captain Janeway's methods are unorthodox. That is her strength as a leader, as well as her greatest weakness.

That was an interesting line to have written right there. Chacote starts the conversation by saying, you know, I realize that we're not exactly best friends. Correct. We've kept a distance from each other. Right. And I was like, what?

I don't feel that way. I mean, I don't think that they're like super tight buddies, but I haven't felt since the pilot episode much tension specifically between them. So I just thought that was unnecessary. It was like, yeah. But at the same time, I believed it because two, betrayed him. Tuvok was a double agent. Tuvok has infiltrated his crew. So really, you know,

Chucote is going to have this grudge against him and it's still there. He feels like the whole reason why he's in the predicament that he is now is because of the spy, the espionage that happened. I guess. I just felt like Chacote bringing that up in the scene was like, why are you bringing this? Like that seems like four years later. Yeah, like way water under the bridge. Okay. We're still back there. And also I thought David Livingston's, the way that he covered this scene was really nice because the close-ups were all very low angles. Yes. Which are very dynamic. And we didn't normally do that on our show in a scene like this, which is just a talky scene in the briefing room. So I thought it looked really cool. I thought

David did a really nice job. Yeah. And basically Chikote says, look, you know, we both get who Janeway is. I may need your support if she tries to be the hero like that again. Right. Yeah, Because he doesn't, yeah, she doesn't Tuvok tell a story about something she did when she was. Yeah, he tells a story when she was a first year commander on the USS billing. She sent an away team to a volcanic moon and it erupted and their shuttle, their mission was, you know, they were hurt. Yeah, all the other members of the away team were hurt. They were injured. So that she went back solo on that shuttle to prove a point and she almost died herself.

She almost died. She went all by herself to let them know that it wasn't in vain that they went and did this. So, yeah, she's got a history of trying to be the hero. And Cote's like, you know, let's have each other's back on this. Exactly. She tries this again, which is a good set up. It's a good setup for the later. Yeah.

So we understand what's happening. It's, yeah, it's a necessary scene. We jump to sort of a jump, it jumps back and forth between Bridge and Sick Bay. We are at the coordinates. There are eight ships there. 12 more are approaching. now we jump back to Sickbay and we learn from our poop alien that they have lived there for millions of years undisturbed until the Malon came.

So poisoning them for no reason. Right. And so then, you know, Janeway says, well, you need to talk to them and tell them what's going on. And he goes, where's your communications relay or something? And then I'm thinking, why didn't Janeway just say, open a channel and then have the guy speak and said she like reaches, she grabs. She grabs his little poopy arm and makes him help him type. And like, what are you doing?

It's like a little unnecessary to do that. And it seemed to. And it was a very dramatic sort of when he begs for her help. He's like, will you help us? Help us. As he's being beamed out. Yeah. As he's being beamed out.

So you see this plea to her sympathetic side that we know Janeway has. And that's the issue she's talking about before is that is that she had such sympathy. in the caretake, with the caretaker and the Ocampus that she sacrificed her crew's ability to go home. And so she's now back in the same kind of situation. Will you help these poop aliens and she's going to be in the same sort of predicament? Yeah. We also learn from the doctor that he has, he has detected that all the aliens and all the ships

have been poisoned by theta radiation. So we know that. Like they're all dying, every single one of them. Yeah. And so Janeway is, you're right. Janeway is in the exact same predicament, basically, that she was four years ago. This is another, this is another test for her, right? Yeah.

So we jump to astrometrics and sensors show that the Milan vessel is ejecting massive quantities of contaminated antimatter. Over 90 million isotons of contaminated antimatter. And we now know, this guy's just dumping, he's just dumping waste in the poop aliens territory. their home world, their homeland. And Janeway hails the Malon captain, and she proposes a solution to end this dumping of contaminated waste. You can process antimatter so that it's not contaminated. We've got the technology and we'll share it with you.

So they beam them over to engineering. Well, he says, give me, give me the information now. Because Janeway was to say, let us get through the vortex and we'll give you the info. And the guy goes, no, no, no, let me see it now. So Janeway, it's fine. We'll show it to you now. So he beams over. When we go to engineering,

Belaan is giving him sort of a tour. We cut to her walking him by the warp core and talking about how Voyager cleans its waste exhaust. And Chocote even hands him a pad that has all the schematics of this technology and even offers to provide converters to get him started. So he can clean all this up. And all his people can clean this up. They don't have to worry about this anymore.

Our steampunk alien, what's his name again? Imk. Imk, yeah, impk, starts processing this. He's like, okay, well, this would solve a lot of problems, but then he reveals, do you know, what else this would do? It would put me out of business. I'd be obsolete. I would not accept it.

I know. I don't want this. I don't want to keep polluting. I don't care if it kills people. I'm going to keep polluting because I'll be out of a job. Yeah. This is pretty much describing what we on earth have been dealing with ever since the industrial revolution ever since the industrial revolution it's all

have been about pollution and dumping stuff all the time for big money and it's all about money right it's all about profit and it's so sad to see this yeah and imp basically says absolutely not and i'm the only one that knows about this vortex yeah so you try to fight me or for something and i've got a lot more firepower than you take you out yeah 10 seconds he said yeah he's a It just reminded me when people say that you've heard people say, I'll take you out in a New York minute. You know, you hear that, a New York minute. I'll take you out in a Delta Quadrant, 10 seconds and whatever.

It's just, okay, buddy. Okay, so he threatens us, essentially. Threatens us and takes off. And we go to Janeway's quarters, and Chocote suggests that they fight their way through the vortex and get to the other side and they can blow the whistle on him. And Janeway says, well, we can't be sure that the other Malon are going to. to feel any differently than him so we got to take care of this ourselves right but if if we destroy the vortex then uh to protect the aliens then they're going to then we destroy our own shortcut

through this vortex so she's exactly she was the caretaker and uh then she asks him are you ready to captain this ship yeah and he says yes she says okay assemble the crew yeah oh boy yeah we go again yeah So we're on the bridge. Captain on the bridge, Chewbach says. And everybody stands his attention. It's very dramatic moment because she hasn't been on the bridge. She's been in her quarters for a couple of months.

No. But it's a cool scene, though, because everyone's really happy to see her. You can see that. She talks to Harry first. She says, Harry, how have you been? Which is similar to the pilot when we left D-Space 9. Janeway talks to Harry first on the bridge. And I say, just fine, ma'am.

And I, of course, I've been around Tom so much. I throw the ma'am in there, right? Just fine, ma'am. Yeah, Geniway tells everyone about her plan, but everyone refuses. And I got to say, your refusal brought a little tear to my eye. It really did. I was like, oh, Tom. She orders Tom.

Yeah. He says, I can't follow that. Can't follow that order. Very quietly. And she looks at them all. No one's going to comply. Yeah. She looks at seven and seven says, I will not comply.

Yeah. She asks, basically. She looks at the doctor. And the doctor says, Because what am I to do or something like that? Yeah, what's a hologram to do? Exactly. What is a hologram to do?

Not take our holodeck time is what a hologram is supposed to be there. So they need a new plan and together they sort of pitch in and they decide if they just destroy the vortex and go to war before it closes that they can kind of stay ahead of its collapse and sort of get pushed along. Right as collapsing vortex. By the shock wave. By the shock wave, exactly. Right. So the instance we cross the threshold of the vortex, we're going to fire those torpedoes. Yeah. Vortex begins to collapse. We jump to high warp and the shock wave will help push us out. Torres says she can reinforce the aft shielding to help out with the shock wave.

Janeway says there's still one obstacle. Malon. Tuvok says anti-matter waste has weakened the bulkhead surrounding the cargo hold. A direct phaser strike should disable them. And then so all hands to battle stations, everybody, we got a plan. We're going to we're going to kind of ride this wave of the vortex collapsing. And then Janeway goes over to Chakotay and quietly says, you told them. They knew that they knew coming in. She says what was happening. Which he responds with, let's just say I wouldn't be a fine first officer if I hadn't. And they share a little bit of a look, a little bit of a JC moment.

What I think Chukotay should have said is, I love you. Let's just, uh, maybe. Okay. Or he could have said, let's just say I wouldn't be a fine first officer if I hadn't. And I'd be losing my J.C. Nookie. I think he should have mentioned the J.C. Nookie in there somehow. And then he pulls his uniform or side to show the short sleeve shirt that he has on that match.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And then tattooed J.C. Okay. Good. I'm telling you. Okay. You just wrote the whole, you know, rest of the episode. It would have been such a better scene. They talked about Nokey. We jump to the, we have exterior shots of the battle in space with Malon, mailon vessel back and forth. And again, more cool fireworks, fire from the Malon vessel. Oh, super cool.

Yeah, I wrote flying through a Disneyland fireworks show. It was like crazy. Yeah. Voyager hits M's ship with everything. She says, hit him with everything we got. Right. Paris is like vortex is dead ahead, you know, whatever. Right.

But we lose an engine though, right? So we lose an engine in the process. And Janeway says, can you get us out of here with one engine? And Paris is like, yes, ma'am, I can do this? He starts a fire. Our imp starts firing more spatial charges at us. Janeway says, avoid them, which Paris does a great job, kind of like, you know, just rolling out of that.

Twisting and rolling. Evasive maneuvers. And that's when Seven goes, Captain Proton to the rescue. And Paris is a little embarrassed. She's like, I'll explain later. He wants to get past it right there. But it's still a funny line. Fun moment.

Yeah, yeah. Paris does some cool flying. Right. And then we get hit. Seven's just got to make a joke because she's getting in touch. where they're sent to humor. She's becoming more human. We get our other Nassel gets a direct hit. So now we have zero engines. Both engines are offline. We're just kind of just drifting, really. Yeah, flying by inertia. We're fine by inertia directly towards the vortex. The Malon vessel now begins

to maneuver to block our path to the vortex. And it looks like we're dead in the water. What are we going to do? I mean, we can't kamikaze that guy. We're all going to die, right? And that's when the poop aliens show up and they come to their rescue. They start distracting the Malon vessel, firing on the Malon vessel. Malon vessel fires back and destroys, I don't know, one or all of those other ships, but at least one of them gets destroyed. And Janeway says to Tuvok target his cargo hold, because we talked about his cargo hold. That's right.

That's right. And she says, it's time to take out the garbage. Time to take out the garbage. What a great line. That's just... And Tuvok hits the cargo hold. Yeah. That's like a diehard line.

Like a one liner, really cool. Yeah. It ruptures, explodes, imp and his main line crew. It flies in to the vortex. We basically blow up the garbage, take out the garbage. Yeah. And then we drop these delay-charged torpedoes. That's right.

As we go into the vortex and the collapse begins and we're flying along the shockwave. hits the back and pushes us through the vortex. We're riding this shockwave. And then when we finally, when it finally finishes collapsing, we realize we're still not outside of the, we're still in the void. Yeah, we're still. I think Paris says 200 kilometers left.

So we're still sort of floating with the inertia of this shock wave. I think it was further than 200 kilometers. But yes, we're not out of the, we're not out of it yet, basically. We're not out of the darkness yet. We're still in the darkness. So everyone starts looking, but we're close enough that we anticipate we're going to be out of it soon. So everybody starts looking.

And I love this moment. It was really emotional. Balana comes down by Paris and they're standing looking. Do you see anything? Paris says, I think I see something. The doctor, you did to get your eyes checked, Mr. Paris. So that's his comment. But the camera angle moving from you to Balana to the doctor, very dramatic and very

emotional very dramatic yeah everybody on the bridge is looking for signs of life are we out of this darkness and then we see a little twinkle or two and yep and janeway says harry harry what do you see up yeah yeah take it to harry walks over by seven and as he's walking over he says i don't know i see he says i see a densely packed region with thousands of star systems yes and he looks to seven he says looks pretty lively and then the last shot we see is out in space colorful nebulous and stars and beautiful beautiful beautiful we're out of this darkness yeah you know what this was an action-packed ending for sure you know i kept thinking man how can this be the season five opener if it's just crossing a void expanse with nothing how is this going to

be exciting well now we know we know exactly why how it got exciting so yeah yep what is your lesson for this episode i don't know if i can put it in like a simple simple idea, but it's basically my thought was too much time in your head thinking is not good. And you need something to do. You need something outside of yourself to put your attention on or you're going to go to a dark place. Because, you know, Janeway went to a very dark place and just had too much time on our hands to think. And everybody had too much time in their hands to think. Yeah. And start the negativity. Neelix everybody. So yeah, too much. time in your hands is not a good thing well i'm going to say i have kind of multiple lessons here i mean

you know how people say two heads are better than one i'm going to say all the all the heads of the crew are better than than people splitting off and so you know with janeway's solution of her being the one left be the hero yeah it's not the way to go i mean it's better to stay together as a group than to split up um and also the other yeah the other lesson is just the environment versus commerce you know I mean, that age old, dumping is just something that we hear about all the time. This company dumped their radioactive waste in a lake, or they dumped it over here and just the people living in this area are now all have cancer. And it's just, this is an age old problem.

And it's always been about big money, big corporations over the needs of the few outweighing the needs of the many with the corporation's mindset. set. So, yeah, so that's the other lesson. Greed. Yeah, greed. We need to fight greed. We need to fight greed and corporate greed and selfishness as much as we can. And if we, if all of us common people band together, that's how you fight corporate greed. That's the only way, right? Love it. Great. What would you give this one out of ten? I'm going to give it a, I'll give it an eight because it involved everybody. I mean, if that's one of your main criteria, everybody was involved in this episode. Everybody was. And I, um, I,

I like the story. I liked how it began, how it ended. I think the guest stars did a good job as well. So yeah, that's my, that's my right. Eight. What are you going to give it? You'll be surprised again. I'm going to give it a nine. Oh my gosh. What are you doing, Robbie? I really like this. Excuse me. Can you bring Robbie McNeil into, can you, I don't know who you are. I thought this was a really great episode. We got Captain Proton is in the game. We had, we played into the big mythology of Janeway's journey on the show and the kind of responsibility that she felt. Everybody was in the episode. Everybody had something to do.

There was good humor in it. Our guest stars were great. You know how we've had dense. The best that I've ever seen was. That's true. It's true. You know how we've had dense episodes before where both of us will complain about that? This is a dense episode as well, but it's a fun episode.

Boy, it's a fun, fun, fun, fun episode for sure. I agree. I like this one a lot. Excellent. I liked it a lot. Well, good. All right. Okay, dokey.

Here we are in season five. All right. I can't even believe it. I just want to thank everyone for tuning in and listening to Robbie and I wax poetically about season five, episode one. Literally with hypoos and limer. With IS, yes, yes, we did. And join us next week when Robbie and I will discuss episode two of season five, drone. Drone, which is pretty easy to think about what that's going to be about.

So drone. So join us next week, everyone. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. See you next week. Bye.