The Delta Flyers - ...Nor the Battle to the Strong

Episode Date: December 30, 2025

The Delta Flyers is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell & Armin Shimerman. In each podcast release, they will recap and discuss an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.This week’s episode, …Nor the Battle to the Strong, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell, and special guest Cirroc Lofton.…Nor the Battle to the Strong: When Bashir and Jake answer a plea from a colony besieged by Klingons, Jake's naíve idea of a good story is shattered by the reality of fear and cowardice.We would like to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers, Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill.Additionally, we could not make this podcast available without our Executive Producers:Stephanie Baker, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Chris Knapp, Janet K Harlow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Mike Gu, Tara Polen, Carrie Roberts, Sandra Stengel, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, Roxane Ray, Tim Neumark, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Jenny Cordina, Izzy Jaffer, Andrew Cano, Francesca Garibaldi, Jonathan Capps, Chris Dellman, Chris Garis, Sean T, Cindy Woodford, & Tamara Evans. Our Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Cindy Ring, Lee Lisle, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, David Wei Liu, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Andrew Duncan, Randy Hawke, Penny Liu, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Ryan Mahieu, Kevin Harlow, Megan Doyle, & Jeff AllenAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Sab Ewell, Ann Harding, Trip Lives, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Carl Murphy, Jocelyn Pina, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Maxine Soloway, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Sarah Thompson, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Sarah, Dominique Weidle, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Steph Davies, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, Annie Davey, Jeremy Gaskin, Sarah Dunnevant, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Eddie Dawson, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, SnazzyO, Karen Galleski, Jan Hanford, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Cassandra Girard, Robby Hill, Andrea Wilson, Slacktwaddle, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Jim Poesl, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Michael Jones, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, Brian Heckathorne, Kilian Trapp, Katherine M. Prioli, Nelson Silveira, Kit Marie Rackley, Gordon Watson, Andy Bruce, Durrell Bishop, & Andrew Golden.Thank you for your support!This Podcast is recorded under a SAG-AFTRA agreement.“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, or distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail] Sponsors:* Check out Progressive: https://www.progressive.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Delta Flyers' Journey Through the Wormhole with Quark, Dax, and their good friends, Tom and Harry. Join us as we make our way through episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Your host for today are my fellow Trek actors, Terry Farrell, Robert Duncan Donuts. McNeil and special guest. C to the I to the RROC, Sirak Lofton himself. He's here! Wow!

What an intro. Like that intro? You like that intro? I like that one. All right. That cute kid grew up to be a handsome man. A handsome, tall man. Yeah.

No, Sarac, do you know how universally beloved you are by your fellow Star Trek actors? Like everybody I talk to loves you. I love them too. I think it's a great family that we've got here. And I don't think it's an accident that we were all selected for these roles. You know, I think they have good taste when it comes to who they want to pick and the stories that they want to tell. So, you know, I'm just fortunate to be a part of this family, this group, and I love all of you guys.

I love you, too. We love you. Yeah, we have so much. And I love you, and I love you. And I love all my Star Trek actors and friends. And we are the world. Yeah. We can do a charity song right now.

Oh, my God. And behind the scenes, people. And, yeah, it's a lot. Sirak, I just want you to know that when we review these episodes, we're reviewing them chronologically. And in the trivia bit, which is part of the section that I handle, I always say, and Sirac Lofton, unfortunately, does not appear in this episode. He does.

We say that a lot. He really does. And there's a lot of times when we always say, you know, they could have incorporated SROC in this way. We'll actually think of things that they could have utilized your character that they weren't. Like in this episode, very smart how they were able to utilize you in this episode as a main player, right? And there's other times that we wanted to see you and we couldn't see you because we've been so impressed with what you've put down on film. I mean, we absolutely adore your work.

You're a consummate professional and such a talented actor. We're so happy to be able to be, see your work, man. And Robbie and I haven't really seen any of these episodes. So when we see you, even in small scenes, even when you're in just one single scene, you still knock it out of the park. So good job. And thank you for being here joining us today. Thank you. Yeah, man.

Well, you know, I will say that I had the advantage of playing a kid, which I already was. So there wasn't much acting that I had to do. It was really me being myself and feeling, you know, being present in the moment, obviously, you know. But I was surrounded with so many good actors and directors and, you know, the crew that we had with, you know, Jonathan West and, you know, our... Nominable. Chris Crosscove. We just had a, we had a huge group of people that were all exceptional. And you guys know this too.

you're working with Michael and Klua and all these people. It's like it's really easy to look good when the costuming is there, when the set design is there, when the script writing is there, and when the lighting and audio and all of those things are in your favor, you know, all you have to do is really just say the lines at that point, you know. Yeah. Yeah, the production value is really high overall. Even for when we critique it, it always looks very good. But you brought a real honesty and authenticity and a naturalism that I think was unique for DS9. And the ingredients you brought were so special and important. And we always love when you're a part of the stories.

And this one, this episode is phenomenal. Yeah. Is this one of your biggest episodes? It is one of the biggest episodes, yeah. And, you know, especially when you're considering the fact that I'm narrating a lot of it. So, you know, this, this episode was directed by Kim Friedman. I don't know if you guys worked with Kim, but. Yeah, a couple times.

Yeah. She's, you know, she's very passionate about her work. And I'm probably sure that, you know, as a woman who's directing, she had to go up against certain obstacles and fight harder for her own PLB in life. Yeah. So I'm just sure that that's the things she had to overcome in the industry. But when it comes to this episode, you know, we had her on for the podcast to review this. And she talked about the lack of faith that she had in me being able to pull this off. Really?

Yeah. Wow. But you did it. I did. And she was she must have been. Sorry. She was insisting that I did not do the work. voiceover work as well.

She was really adamant. She said she tried to have the script rewrite. She talked to Rick, and, you know, she really ran it all the way up the top to oppose my heavy featuring in this episode. Wow. Amazing that she was that honest. But she never told me at the time. So I'm glad she didn't because I didn't want to.

Jesus. Oh, no, they let me know all that shit. It doesn't matter what age you are. No one needs to know that stuff. It really undermines her performance. She was a tough cookie. She said to us when she came on Voyager, she said, I've seen your pilot. You guys don't know how to shake on the bridge.

You have no idea. It's so bad. And she went after us. She sent us tapes of you guys shaking. So she criticized this before even meeting us. So we know what you had to deal with. That's the story I'm telling you. I found this out 20 years later.

I know. I feel bad for you right now. I almost feel like she should have let that lie. I'm like, what the heck? She said that. I said this earlier. I felt like she was like a principal of a school. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Like the serious woman you do not want to mess with. Well, yeah. But then nice. and would talk to us, like, you know how teachers did? Okay, people.

Yes, yes. She's the high school principal. Yes. Totally. In a bad neighborhood. Thank you for clarifying that one. Okay, got it. We have birthdays, actually.

Yes, we do. We have birthdays starting with Rebecca Leary. Rebecca, happy birthday on January 1st. Have a great birthday. Happy birthday, Rebecca. Happy birthday, Rebecca. Next up, we have Frank. Francesca Gadabaldi, January 2nd, the day after Rebecca's birthday.

Happy birthday to Francesca on January 2nd. Happy birthday, Francesca. Happy birthday, Francesca, Garibaldi. Happy birthday, Francesca. Have a great day. Oh, you got lucky, Francesca. You had Sarac say, got it birthday in this very theatrical way. I really wanted to get it.

Yes, good, very good. And we have Mike Gou on January 4th. Happy birthday, my friend, Mike. Happy birthday, Mike Gu. My brother, I love you, man. Shout out to you from the heart. Happy birthday, Mike, we love you. Have a great birthday. Mike Gu, my Asian brother from another Asian mother. Happy birthday to you, my friend.

It's now time for poetry synopsis. All right, here's my limerick. We'll start off with the limerick for Nor. Nor the battle to the strong. Here we go. A distress call, Jake tells Bashir, go ahead. He sees heroes, cowardice, and too many dead. Through chaos and fear, Jake's calling grew clear to write the hard truth, not just leave it unsaid.

Very nice. Beautiful. All right. Yeah. Very thoughtful. It was a little creative art. this time. Yes, it was a little more in your school of poetry. I like it. It was. Thank you. All right. Terry, do you have your poet? I do. Go ahead. I titled it,

write of passage. Hunger for adventure, a joy to embrace. Battlefield of death he must face. Reaction to fear and terror has no logic. Pain and struggle of his choices he must face. Reborn an knew a brave young man comes into view it was a little weird a little bit I teach it a little bit was it okay did you get it

so good was very good the end of it really was no we really you're just so because she always critiques herself where it was in her going we love it and she's like it really wasn't that good it was just not say anything

we all loved that poetry Whether it rhymes or not, it was very effective. It's for Sir Rock. Yeah. Thank you. Because usually Terry will give us like five verses or three verses, but you got extra versus because you're here. Yes, you did.

Oh, wow. Extra special treatment. Yes. Thank you. Your character went on quite the journey. I did. It did. All right.

That's her a little haiku. Hiku time. Here you go. Here's my haiku or nor the battle to the strong. Here we go. Bashir takes huge risk. Jake exposed to front-line deaths, loathsome hero. Now, that last stanza, I went through all these different adjectives.

It started with reluctant hero, then it went to unworthy hero, and then it went to finally loathsome hero. Who's the loathsome hero? Well, he felt, he felt like he was the one. He was so self-critical of himself for running. away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. The ending when he, he inadvertently was still afraid and shooting the ceiling and stop. He didn't mean to shoot the ceiling down, but he actually saved everybody, right? Yeah. But he's still disgusted with himself, is what I. You gave away the ending.

Yeah, but in the, I freaking did, didn't I? No, no, no. No, we didn't. Because in the very end, that's true. He's reborn because he looks inside and he tells the truth and is right. Yes, yes, yes. Right? That's the end. That is the very end. But everyone who's listening to us has seen it, right? Not everybody.

Oh, well, people, you've got to get out there and watch this stuff. It's some good, good story telling. You're missing out. Hey, did you notice Sirach when you're at conventions after the pandemic that some fans, maybe TNG people that were massive, come up and said, Oh, yeah, you know, during the pandemic, I finally got around to watching DS9, and I love it. Did you get, yeah. Yeah, it was unbelievable how many.

Pandemic was good for Star Wars back catalog. So it was. Especially Deep Space 9, because it was. People had a lot of binge watching time on their hands. Oh, they did. They sure did. But they also had this kind of hesitation about deep space because we were on the station. So totally.

Like they didn't watch it before is what I'm saying. They maybe saw the pilot episode and gave. up on it. Didn't even go past season one, right? And then the pandemic, they dove into it and they probably apologize to your faces like, we're sorry. Yeah, they do that too. The other thing is, you know, the pandemic was kind of a dark time for all of us because we were all going through this kind of shared suffering together. And I also think that may make somebody more receptive to a dark show. But I think that's what, you know, because we were going through dark time, people would be more receptive to a dark show

and something that dealt with, you know, topics that were serious in nature, some, you know, things... A little deeper. We dealt with a lot of deep issues. And we also cross the threshold on our show when it comes to the topics that people don't discuss on, you know, Thanksgiving dinner or whatever,

which is politics and religion, right? They say stay away from politics and religion. And Deep Space Nine essentially is a political religious show. Yeah. Except, you know, the context, of course, is Bejord politics and Bejourin religion, but it still delves into the topic

and those difficult kind of stay away from issues. So, but I wanted to add to the group because everybody had the thing with the IQ and the poems and the lyrics. Yeah. What? You're amazing. So I'm going to add mine.

Oh, my gosh. Mine's going to be the Bible verse Oh, I like it Okay, okay Please do, please do Perfect Perfect segue from religion to Bible verses For those who you don't know

The title of this episode is from a passage in the Bible Absolutely, and I'm going to read that passage Which is Ecclesiastes 9-11 And that is I have seen Something else under the sun The race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong

nor the bread to the wise nor the richest to the intelligent nor favor to those with knowledge but time and chance happened to them all and that's

the ultimate foundation of this episode nor the Battle of the Strong because we've got the title there and it talks about chance and circumstance and how these various moments

are you know, not new. Yeah. And it can waver very gently from one direction to the other from being you know, somebody who is a coward

to being somebody who is a hero. And that line is really thin because of, you know, those moments. and how we calculate and make decisions in very quick, real time, right? Life and death decisions that you just do intuitively. It's part of your nature, right? It's like, oh, I hear a gunshot. I run or I duck, you know, it's like, it's hard to reprogram to not duck when you hear a gunshot, right?

Yes, that has to be learned because your instinct to run. Right. And that's a healthy instinct because that's our instinct for survival. And your character, you know, you weren't trained. You were 18. There's a lot of things we make. We all, as we grow, have to make these kinds of mistakes to have self-reflection, to make better decisions later the next time we're in that situation.

But it takes experience. And I think a lot of loving kindness to yourself. Yeah, that line. stood up to me too, I'm 18. Yeah. I know everything. I'm ready. I'm 18.

Yeah. Put me in there, coach. Put me in the game, coach. Mm-hmm. Okay, so the story is by Bryce R. Parker, teleplay by Renee Eshavaria, directed by Kim Friedman. And let's go through some of these guest stars.

If anyone has any comments about any of these people, please chime in. Andrew Kovovovit as Kirby. He won a daytime Emmy Award for his portrayal of Paul Ryan on As the World Turns, which is a soap opera I know the most about because that's the one that my parents watch when I was a kid. So they loved that show. That's funny.

Wait, can I ask? Did Andrew play the character that? Cody, like the other kid. He was the other. Oh. I thought it was fantastic. Yeah. I thought it was great, too.

Yeah, he really was. It was really good pairing with your energy, too. Yeah. Both of your personality. were you just were great, terrific chemistry between the two of you. I kept thinking Sarac was like, finally, someone close to my age I can act with. I kind of felt like he was a little excited there. It was a good thing.

Yeah. All right, we also have Karen Austin as Calandra. Karen played a series regular court clerk Lana Wagner in the 80s series Night Court. But she was only there for the first 10 episodes. And that is when the show asked her to leave because she, had Bell's palsy, and that was affecting her. And we remember, Robbie, Marvin Rush had Bell's palsy. Yes, when you have, you don't have control of your muscles in your face. And you recall, Marvin was unable to come to work for a bit of that. And when he did come back. Yeah, Marvin got it.

Here's some positive feedback on Karen Austin or trivia. Karen Austin was in my very first short film that I made in 1990s. Oh. What? The battery? The battery. She played the mom. Yeah. Oh, my God. I met Karen through SAG. I think I was at a SAG event or something. I can't remember, but I, yeah. Just the head nurse in the triage? No. Yeah, she was the doctor.

She's the doctor and the tree. The main doctor. He was so talented and beautiful lady. Wow. She was in your first short film. She was in my first short film that I made in 1996. Yeah, she played, she played Joshua Jackson's mom. Josh Jackson.

Oh, my God. Did she tell you that she worked? on DS9? Did you know that? I think so. I think so. I can't remember. Well, if you did your show in 1990, this was done in... 96 is my short.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Yeah. 96. So right around the same time is... Right now, right now. Yeah. So that's... She also gave a great performance in this episode.

She was wonderful. Didn't she? She did. Excellent. Yeah. She also won the role of John Candy's wife in the 1985 film Summer Rental. So that's a big role, too. Yeah.

I thought I recognized her. We have Mark Holtan as the Bolian orderly. He has a few lines. He was great. He was funny. He was funny. Bullions are always funny. They are.

They are. Well, it's funny that you guys think he's funny because one of his main credits or biggest credits is in Peewee, Peewee Herman's Big Adventure movies. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. Next up, we have Lisa Lord as nurse. Lisa Lord was actually married to casting director. Mark Teshner.

That should be a familiar name to some of you, yes. Jeb Brown as Ensign. He was just labeled, he was just given the credit of Ensign. That's it. Is that the guy who shot himself? Yeah. I knew Jeff Brown from New York. He was a theater actor.

Oh, great. Did you work with him there? No, but there's those people that you always saw in the waiting room. Yeah. The auditioning circuit, basically. Yes. Jeb was one of those guys. I always saw in the waiting room.

Yeah. I miss the waiting room. Not the head games. Right. Not the head games. When you're with the nice actors, I miss that because it was fun. Yes. I mean, I'm just imagining you walking in and him going,

Robbie, and you're like, Jeb? And that's it. Okay. Danny Goldring as Burke, as Burke, that really important scene. Oh, my gosh. Not the Foxhole, but that blown out. He was outstanding. Yeah.

He really was. I believed him. Yeah, I did too. Yeah, I bet. I bet. When he died, it was like, holy cow. It was like we were in a film. I loved it.

He was so good. And his last words was like, it doesn't work that way, kid. Oh. Is that it? Yeah. Something like that. I would have preferred him to go,

his last words were face up like that because he didn't want to die face down. I just, that's, yeah. Good job, my daddy gold ring. We have some co-stars. We have a couple of co-stars here. L. Alexander as female guard and Greg Christopher Smith as male guard.

And that rounds out our cast. There we go. Right. Trivia. Here's a little bit trivia. The working title of this episode was Portrait of a Life, which doesn't have the same gravitas. No.

Nor the Battle to the Strong. So Portrait of Life was their working title. The title of this episode comes from the Bible, and as so well, spoken by Sirak, Ecclesiastes, Chapter 9, verse 11. The original idea of this episode was that Jake, an aspiring writer, would have experiences similar to those of Ernest Hemingway during War I. And I did not know that Hemingway was on the front lines of the war at that point.

Me neither. That's a little news to me. But it's not like I'm a history buff about writers, so. Right. Couldn't be that surprised. I don't know that. The original draft of the teleplay, the story was actually set in a Cardassian hospital on a planet under siege by the Klingons, which would have added all these other extra elements. Because if you recall, Robbie, when we watched some of the earlier episodes,

it's been said that on planet Cardassia, the women are the ones that are doing medicine and science, the men are not trusted in those fields. So that would have been an extra layer of sort of prejudice, yeah, that they would have to get over, right? Because all the Cardassians, women in that hospital would be freaked out that there's

two men trying to help out. Like, what are these guys doing? So that would take away from the story about Jake. Yeah, I think this was a much cleaner story. Yeah. Well, the switch. The makeup, the makeup job with that would have been exactly. Oh my word. They said

the pivot happened because of budget budgetary reasons yeah think about yeah they had just and what do we see just two clingons at the end yeah that's it very few but when they shot an abolish oh yeah very when they shot apocalypse rising they had so many alien extras they realized how expensive that was

and they said you know what we need to save our money for the upcoming episode trials and tribulations which I guess they had a pretty big budget for that one so they scrapped just you wait yes they scrapped It made television history. They completely scrapped the whole Cardassian angle of it. So you guys like it better the way it is then.

I do. Okay. Oh, yeah. I do too. All right. Oh, yeah. Well, let's talk about it. Let's jump into it, Robbie.

Let's jump into our story. We start off in a runabout, Jake's following Bashir to this conference where Bashir was speaking, because Jake's going to write an article on him. And in the scene in the runabout, they're headed back to DS9. Bashir's rambling, a lot of science talk. Jake is bored. does not understand any of the science talk. I loved it.

It was very, very funny. I was grateful he didn't because I was like, what the heck is he talking about? So when Jake is like, oh, my, yes, I think we were all in Jake's shoes in that moment. And Sid had a lot of techno babble to memorize. Oh, my God, he did. I felt bad for him, too, speaking, gosh, he doesn't know what the hell he's saying, doesn't he? But he delivers it very confidently. Oh my gosh, he did such a great job.

And I heard a rumor, I think Armin has mentioned this before, that Sid would learn his lines, like he would be reading it off the page in rehearsal, and then somehow he had a memory, like he could remember his lines by the time you were filming. Is that how you remember it? I mean, he was always ready when we were rehearsing, so I don't know what his process was to get ready. We heard it both Sid and Colum or whizzes at learning their lines. At learning your lines, at the last minute. I felt it with Colum, I felt it because, yeah, there were times when it was just the two of us in a scene.

And I would get so thrown off because I wanted a rehearsal to get my lines down. And Collin was still reading, but then he'd be ready. I think Armin said he'd be ready. By the time you're filming, he somehow had memorized everything. He's a pro. Yeah. He is a pro. But it makes it hard when rehearsal, if you're all kind of, you want it to flow.

Yeah. Yeah. I just want to say about this scene, what stuck out the most was the narration begins. The voiceover. The VO, which I thought you did an amazing job of. But we don't hear that in, when we hear a VO, it's usually, here's my captain's blog, and then they show an exterior of the station. But not, well, this is a la wonder years. Like, it's that the narration is happening.

And I said, gosh. Or Dexter. It hasn't been done in DS9. And it was never done in Voyager. I don't think, Robbie, do you recall? I think my character in 30 days was writing letters back home to his dad. Oh, so you did have a little bit of a narration there. A bunch of voice over there.

But it's rare for so rare. That stood out like a sore thumb in a way. I was like, my goodness. That's very edgy of them to do that. I loved it. It didn't throw me at all. I loved it so much. I just thought it was edgy.

I thought, wow, they really did that. They did it. Did you do all of that after you filmed everything? Yeah, I did all the voiceover. Yeah, during looping afterwards. You know, Judy would read the lines off camera. So it was in your head. It was in my head, yeah.

But like I said, you know, there was a resistance for me doing the voiceover. I also was a big fan of. of the Wonder Year, so watching the Wonder Years, watching Fred Savage and Dan Loria, just watching those guys do that show was a big thrill for me and my childhood. And so having the opportunity to do my own version of it was like, oh, Wonder Year. That's the first thing I thought when I was. Perfect, man. I love that you got to Fred Savage it.

I really am so happy for you. I got to Fred Savage. You Fred Savage did, man. I mean, Jake's got the voiceover. So I like the voiceover because he's writing. This whole story is about writing. He's off at the end with what he's written. Exactly.

I loved it. But he does not understand what Bashir's saying at all. And then they get a distress call. Klingons are fighting in this Federation colony. It's Aginon 5. They need help. Bashir doesn't know what to do. He thinks it's too dangerous to take Jake.

And Jake begs to go. He says, I'm 18. for God's sake I'm a man I'm 18 I'm a man I've seen war on the station I've seen it all it was a bad answer because he's like you're too young to die

I was like I'm 18 it sounds like you're signing up to go to war in the 60s yeah and then and then he says he follows that one up with I'm a Cisco like you know like my last name it's in my blood it's in my blood so yeah i thought that was interesting uh definitely you know it's funny because you know at the time i'm young i'm obviously the 18 year old in this episode but as an adult now with my own child who's a teenager i sympathize with cisco more

than i than i do with myself who wants to get into a front line one more position, you know. Yeah. Yeah. The 18-year-old me would sympathize more with the younger Jake and be totally up for the adventure. Like, yeah, what's up? Let's go. It's, you know, and that's why you hear about kids that backpack cross Europe at, you know, 20 years old and they hitchhike across, you know, Germany or whatever it is. And they're like, what? You did that because they're fearless and they don't have any concept of, you know, like anything bad could possibly happen, right? Yeah. Because you've been protected pretty much all of your life living at home with your

dad, although you've seen really bad stuff. I mean, Jake has seen some really bad stuff. I have seen some bad stuff. I mean, you know, Jake had a very, I always say this, Jake's probably had the most suffering in Star Trek. Because if you think about it, it starts with his mom dying. Yep. 100%. And then it ends in another way. way, and I don't want to get them. I know, yeah, I haven't seen it either. I haven't seen it

either. Terry hasn't seen the last season. I'm excited about that. So there's a lot of tragedy. I'm worried there'll be tears. Oh, my gosh. So Jake is a, you know, he goes through a lot of situations that are tenuous and painful, and he has to overcome these. And what is

great to look back and reflect upon, you know, his character and how it was written is the enthusiasm and joy that he carries himself within life. He doesn't have a victim sadness to his aura. He's not walking around saying, you know, I'm, my mom died and nobody wants me and I have no friends. He's, he's actually an optimistic person. And he's like, hey, I can make friends with that Ferengi guy. And I can do this. And hey, what am I interviewed this guy? He's a war criminal, but maybe he'll interview with me. Yeah. And so he has, there's an optimism to Jake in general, you know, that's positive.

Yeah. And it dovetails with the relationship you have with your father on the show, you know. And I love so much that Avery fought for your relationship to be a healthy one. And I know it combines with real life too, which makes it even more heart swelling and amazing. I love your relationship so much on the show. And even when he's not there, it feels like he's there. I got really, oh, emotional in so many scenes. And I think a lot of it, too, had to do with now being a mom. And knowing what it feels like to have to just take a deep breath and go, everything's, it's beyond my control. It's beyond my control. He's out there in the world now.

You're almost there, but not quite. I know that Robbie gets it too. It's once they, when they're young, it's like your skin comes off. You're so like, you feel so naked that you can't protect them anymore. And you wish it was skinning your knee. I wish all you needed was a Band-Aid. And I love that you're saying that because that's,

I thought you're seen with Cisco really reflected a great kind of intuition that you have as Dax, where you have so many lived experiences that you can bring to the table. and when we go through things, we feel alone. And we also feel like nobody really knows what we're going through, whatever that thing is, you know. But the empathy that Dax has because of the lived experiences, I actually know what you're going through. Like, exactly, you know?

I have an exact story that goes along with it. And I think that's what Dax, and you brought to that scene in that moment there. but but yeah when we we go through the spectrum of life and we look at things from the the lens of our youth and then we transition and start to look at it through a different lens and I think this episode encapsulates the different lenses that we put on when we observe things yeah yeah I think when we're young we do feel alone and until we really do be it takes a long time but the the the The more experiences we have, the more we realize we're not, the more we share, the more we talk, and the more we experience other people's experiences, hey, I'm not alone in this. Yeah. I'm responsible. I am solely responsible for how I handle it and how turning regrets into lessons and apologies when they can pop up in your life. You can go back and say, I'm so sorry I was not in a good place at that time or whatever that is.

But thank goodness for maturity so that Because feeling alone is a downward spiral Yeah, I think that that's one thing That Star Trek has done for so many people When people have felt alone, Star Trek has been there to kind of reassure them And comfort them and the Star Trek community Of fans, of actors, all of it

I mean, it's been a real bridge builder and connecting Yeah, it's how we are together with the fans And the fans are together with each other And without the fans, we wouldn't have gotten to get to know each other as well as we do years after the show. We've been building our relationships for 30 years. Well, 30 plus. So what a gift the fans have given us because they want to meet us. We are connected always.

Yeah. It's just the most delightful, wonderful thing in life to have this. Yeah. So it's a symbiosis is what it is. That's the word. It takes all of us to make it work. Yes. And create our church of community.

Bashir does agree at the end of the scene. He's like, okay. He heads down to help at this hospital. But he goes back to talking about the science stuff that was boring Jake. By the way, just for the record, raise my hand. I want to intervene a quick. If my kid goes with you to go on one thing, like to the grocery store. Yes.

And then all of a sudden, you make the decision to take him. him to the war zone. Yeah. Don't come back. Don't come back. Exactly. I'm looking for you. Exactly.

I got to call me. This is the future. Call me. I need permission. You got to get a permission slip from here. How could he not call him? This can't be on Jake. It can't be on Jake.

He cannot just authorize your latterly. No, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. He's in care of Bashir. Bashir has to get the, you know, he has to get the parents' approval. Absolutely. But also, as we have seen, Bashir does not have that kind of maturity when it comes to relationships about work, yes.

But about adult things, adult response. He can be very immature, yes. And this is a very good example of him sort of being in his kid head, not thinking it through an adult way. Yes. I like that. perspective tear fair i didn't even think about that you're right yeah he's not being bad he just isn't mature enough to have worked it all out oh cisco will explain it to him when they get back

he will he will give him a lesson yes being a mature adult yeah all right so we go to ops next quark is attempting to make decaffeinated rack to gino called quirk to gino i love that I know he knows how hard can that be that's what I was thinking taste test while she's pregnant Miles doesn't want her to have all this caffeine she hates it it's disgusting Miles tries it he agrees it's disgusting but he wants to get her off caffeine Dax and Kear are a little offended that Miles thinks he's in control of this pregnancy that it's his pregnancy somehow she defends herself I don't drink that much a couple of day. Quark does comment that Ferengi consider pregnancy a rental. Oh, wow. Myles is so

a rental. I know I'm trying so hard not to swear right now. I know you are. Yes. Miles is a leasy. He has rights. He has rights. It's a leasy. Yes. Oh my goodness. Cisco arrives. He's worried about Jake. We see he's worried because he now knows Bashir has taken him into a war zone, which Surak has some thoughts about. I'm sure Cisco did too. I'm sure Cisco just cannot wait to see Bashir when he gets back. I just can't wait to see it.

Let's just go to my office or whatever it is. Holy cow. Let's go to the soundproof cargo bay. Holy cow. And Bashir is missing his face. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I want to go back just a little bit because I love the line

where O'Brien says it's not the first baby I've had, you know? Oh, yes. Yes. Like, and they look at it like, you're not the one having the baby, so don't give me advice on having babies. Oh, my gosh. So I thought that was great. Yeah, yes.

And is the only woman in the room who's had a baby of the four of us? Yes, that's right. It is those extra nine. months of having the baby inside of you, the baby, your baby inside of you, you know, their cells are still, my son's cells are still in my body. Your cells are in your mom's bodies. And it's part of the connection. Yeah, you can't help it. They were in you. So part of them is always in you. Isn't that amazing? Like I read it in one of those science magazines. I didn't just get it off Instagram.

or TikTok, right? So, yeah, so the connection is very intense, right? From that first, I can't remember what it's called the first movement. There's a special name for it, but it feels like there's a little butterfly in your tummy to when they're turning and you're like, oh, that was an elbow. Oh, yeah, yeah. That experience is out of this world. And I wish you guys could experience it because it's such an extraordinary,

miracle that you, there aren't words for a lot of it. It's a lot of feelings. And I just wish you could because it's life-changing to have that experience. Yeah. I was just going to share. Megan has always said that she loved the process of being pregnant more than anything else. And I didn't really understand that, but you're giving me more perspective on that as well right now. Well, a baby's growing in you and you feel like you have this privilege, this honor. of helping it grow and nourishing it and loving it even though it's inside you and you're not holding it yet.

Right. Yeah. I'm very goo-go-go-about it because, oh. There's also a glow that comes along with it. I don't know what it is, but when a woman is pregnant, there is a glow about it is. Can I tell you biologically why?

Yeah, what is that? You have more blood cells. Your body is making more bloods. So you are like... Like flushed, a little more flushed. Yes. Yes. Did you think Sirak that, that Miles O'Brien had that glow?

Because Miles thought like he had that glow a little bit. Excellent segue, Robbie. Miles really thought he had the glow. I felt like he thought he had the glow. He thought he had the glow. He thought it was all about him. I did like at the end of this scene, though, how Dax sort of... She references this kind of...

connection to Cisco when Cisco says, well, the Farragut's going to get there day after tomorrow and they'll leave right away. And Dax basically says, oh, so Thursday they'll be back. Well, that doesn't give you much time to snoop through Jake's things. So it's a little bit of that, like, parent, she's been a parent. She's had that life experience. Cisco's a parent. I'm trying to lift him up so it's not so. Don't go down to wrap him yet. He was like, that's a good one. Yeah. They go through his things. You can see that register on his face a little bit.

We've all been there as a parent. Do I need to go through some things? Do I need to go sniff around? We go back on the runabout. And I did notice in this establishing shot, the planet's surface was very bumpy. Bumpy or like it felt 3D in a way that we don't always see these planets. Oh. The visit facts.

I thought it was a great. From orbit, it looked bumpy? From orbit, yeah. It did. Did you notice that? I did. Yeah, it felt like textured in it. It felt like, oh, are they leaving the runabout above the surface?

How would they do that? Can they beam themselves down? I mean, that's what I was thinking when I saw that. Yeah, that does not look like a good landing point. Yeah, it looked like a rough planet, for sure. Okay. But they arrive down on the planet, the wounded, or they arrive at the planet. They're still in orbit.

The wounded have all been moved underground with this battle going on. And they're going to have to set down the runabout and walk about a kilometer to get to the tunnel entrance to help everybody. And Bashir warns Jake might get rough down there. But Jake still is like, I'll be fine. He doesn't expect this is going to be hard for him at all. He's excited. He's 18. He's 18.

I'm a man. Well, I think he just has no idea, right? He's up for an adventure. He's like, oh, it's going to be cool. He's naive. Yeah. Doctor working, he's going to be, you know, give me 30 cc's of that and this. And it's just going to be really cool, like the ER episode, you know.

And then it's like it becomes real. Well, we go inside the cave and it's chaos. And the shooting style changed. It's all this handheld work down there. Super cool. Great blocking movement and energy. The shear's going right to work. Jake is immediately.

overwhelmed by all this. Jostled. He's being jostled around right now. Yes, yes. People are banging into him trying to get to help people. And he sees this injured man on the floor. Jake calls for help. You know, this man needs help. And we meet Calandra, the doctor, Karen Austin down there. She scans this guy that Jake is talking about. And she says he's gone. He's too far gone. And leaves doesn't help him. Up until this point, all the episodes that we've seen with Jake in it. He has not been privy to anything like this. He's seen stress and drama happen on the station, but not injuries where people are dying in front of him and then later. Not right next to him. Not right. Exactly. Not right next to him. Maybe. And I, what you were talking about the handheld,

it was like the way they were shooting it, it felt to me like that was Jake's POV because the chaos. It was so well done like that. It was taking what's in his head and shooting it that way. I I was just so excited how this whole thing transpires and goes from shooting to kind of a montage to going back or doing the scene active and then a montage showing time passing and then back into the scenes. It was, I just thought it was really well done, that whole, this whole sequence. This is the beginning of that whole sequence. And the idea that also that it was a cave made it feel like it was a makeshift type triage like it was disliked. Like, you know, just pop up. We need to pop up emergency room somewhere because we've got, you know,

victims that are coming in with the battlefield. So I felt like it did feel authentic. Definitely the action and the blocking and the crosses back and forth is that we, you know, added to the element of chaos. Yeah. Yeah, I'll make a, I'll add a little comment directorially is that in the earlier scene with the quirk to Gino, I don't know if you guys remember, but it was pretty static. Everybody was just kind of standing.

And I remember as I watched that scene going, boy, this is not really moving much. Then we got to this scene. And I immediately, my director had said, oh, that's why she did it that way. So this would contrast. So everything in the station is under control. Right. Formal. It's a tight lockdown.

And this is like, so it's a great contrast. It was a smart choice from Kim to do it. But let me add, I'm not the biggest fan of trying to fit six people. in a shot. No, that's what I was going to see. Yeah. All six of us in that shot was, that was a very tight opening shot.

Yeah. I was like, people don't even stand that close together really. They want a little space. No, we don't. Lean over, like hover over me. It's like I need a little like arm space.

So it felt like when you see those stack shots, you're like, is that a natural position that people would be held up together? It looked positioned. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought the two. Two shot of me and Kira made sense, but that the guys would stay that close?

No way. And not those four guys. Not that group. Exactly. They all want to be away from each other. It's so funny. Yeah. All right.

We go back to the cave. Jake goes over to help Bashir, who's working on a wounded ensign. And the ensign is freaking out. This is Jeb Brown, I think, right? Yes. The ensign says he stepped over a cling on in the middle of this battle. He's trying to tell this sort of heroic story. And Bashir scans him and says, this is a phaser burn.

This is a your, this is like a star phase. A starfleet. Yeah. Yeah. And he gets super defensive. Yes. Until. Trying to cover it up.

And he tells Jake that, you know, he doesn't understand that his friends were hurt. He freaked out. And he ends the scene there kind of saying, what am I going to do? What have I done? What have I done? So you can see his shame. which is kind of where Jake's going to get later. Yeah. Isn't that the point of them putting this in?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's with the foreshadow. Yeah, yeah. And it was great. I thought that moment was great because there was a real disappointed look on Bashir's face. I don't know if you caught that too. Yes, yes. Bashir's like, you know, I want to help you.

He was disgusted. He was like, I want to help you, but this is a self-inflicted wound. And he kind of gave that like, shaking his head like i'm just so disgusted right now that i don't even want to deal with you let me move on to somebody who really needs my health type of energy and i think that jake was needed to be there for him in that moment because there was something revealed in that conversation where or maybe it was later but it felt like he was not happy with even being you know being alive out of this circumstance yeah because he had so much shame

Yeah, I think also this is a real example of someone who was trained to do the job and did a self-inflicted act of cowardice to get out of it, which is a complete contrast to having a reaction like Jake has when he's faced with terror, fear, real, hardcore fear and terror where your instincts are for survival. That is a very different thing, which is a good thing to show two sides. of how this can look when you make a decision out of fear. Yeah, and also that, you know, Jake's untrained, completely untrained and has this experience, but this is a soldier who's got all the training and still, in spite of that training, is unprepared to deal with this. So it's kind of saying this is, it's unpredictable how people are going to respond in this kind of situation.

Even when they're trained. Even when they're trained. But that's seen as cowardice. which I don't, I don't believe is what Jake does. No, it's fear. It's fear. He's a kid. It's visceral fear.

It's blind fear. You can't think. I think they both emanate from a level of fear. I mean, right? We're reacting in a situation in which we're fearful. I'm not trained to be there backup for my fellow soldiers and whatnot. So that's a different scenario. However, it's still fear that caused him to panic and, and, you know, it's kind of different.

It's like that Bible verse that you read. To me, it reminds me of that Bible verse of like, you can be smart, you can be brave, you can be all this. It's chance. It's the moment circumstances and the chance of it all. Like, you may feel prepared to be in battle or to be the smartest one in the room or whatever, But there's going to be moments where chance just doesn't, you know, the outcome isn't. Yeah, it knocks you out. Let's not lose sight of the fact that this ensign is not that much older than Jake, if you think about it.

He could be four years older. A couple years. Yeah, yeah, three or four years older. So similar boat. And I also want to say, Sarac, earlier your comment about the unnatural six shot that they were trying to do, stacking everyone up, feel free to nitpick because usually Armin Schimmerman is our resident nitpicker. He'll like grab stuff and just shred it apart. So if there's something that you want to nitpick,

that's more than welcome. So just to throw it out. Well, I don't know how many times you've guys probably been in, you know, at a shot where the director is telling you, can you move a little bit closer? And you're like, you want me to stand this close? Yes. Like, oh.

Right. I talk like this. It looks totally good. Trust me. It looks good. You're like, it doesn't. Yeah, we call it Star Trek close talking is what we call it. We see it over and over again.

Yeah, that's everybody's guilty of that to something because they're trying to get the shot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, or save money, time. We got to go. We got to go. We're going to cram you all together.

Guess what? Three shots and we're out. Bolian tells Jake to get out of the way, move out of here. And Jake goes off to the side. He writes for a minute. Writes about sorting the wounded, which I thought was a nice way of describing that. capturing that moment in his voiceover. And then Kirby comes in, has another injured patient who needs plasma,

tells Jake to help him. And then the patient grabs Jake and sort of holds him close and then falls back and Jake is covered in blood. So it was a real visceral. It was. I'm glad they used a lot of blood on that because it wouldn't have read otherwise. And if they shot that two years ago, it would have been even more copious amounts of blood.

included i'm sure yeah but for the time for star trek that was a lot of blood oh of course that was huge yeah but i'm saying now if it was strange new worlds he would be covered in like there would be a jugular you know he's shooting out okay okay not our show keep going all right i was i just got this shirt that's all i was thinking just got this shirt i know this is not going to wash out no i thought germs i was like Ooh. Yeah. Don't let any part of your body touch that. Oh, you went to germs, and I love this.

The Rock went to, sorry. Tric cleaning can't even get this day out. Dry cleaning will not work on this shirt. Okay. Can you see me up there with a tie pen like this? Yeah, he's got a tie pen. Oh, my goodness. Oh, funny.

All right, a little time passes. We see Jake helping Kirby carry a stretcher in. Jake almost knocks over an IV stand, which I loved a talent. you're holding the thing. Yeah. But with your legs, you're like, very impressive. Kirby's impressed. He says you're hired.

Let's get dressed. And another little time to dissolve. And now Jake is wearing those Trek scrubs, the cool scrub. Would you look good in? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I like the scrubs.

They work. Yeah. They look cool. Yeah. Thank you. Scrubs look good. Good job. Bob Blackman.

More chaos here. Jake checks on a patient who is dead. And Kirby and Jake. and Jake carry this body to the morgue that is packed filled with bodies and they're they're moving patients around there's a lot of dissolves in here just to add up all of the deaths you know this right yeah this is the montage field that I was talking about where yeah it's a great it's like wow it feels like it's it's it's overwhelming yeah and we see he gets in these nice great looking scrubs as we mentioned, you look great in the scrubs, but by the end of this montage, you were just

covered in blood everywhere, blood all over you. So it definitely is telling that story of the impact of this battle. At the end of this montage, we end with Bashir and the nurse, the bullion, the medical staff, all sitting on the floor, exhausted, slumped up against the wall. No more patients for the moment, and they're exhausted. Parties over, says the nurse. They decide to get something to eat. It's time to eat. After all of this blood and horror, they're going to go. Okay. Is it weird when Bashir says, since you aren't busy, can you take me to the nearest replicator so I can get something to eat? We're in a cave. How did they suddenly have a replicator? Or does that just come with all the equipment? Okay, okay. Because there was a moment where I'm like, are they, that threw me off a

tiny bit. Like, what? He was joking in terms of putting him on a stretcher is what he's trying to say. He's so tired. Isn't that what I, yeah, that's what I kind of got from that. No, I meant about going to the replicator to get food. Just having a replicator there. Yeah. It just kind of threw me off like, what? I understand. I understand. But did anyone clock when they're sitting against the wall? I thought it was very forward of that nurse to lean her head on Bashir's shoulder. I was like, I don't know if it's a little flirty. It's a little, I was like, what? Yeah. I was like, I don't know. You just met. Would you really do that with another human? Like, I'm going to like, unless they had a whole flirt thing that happened beforehand, which I don't think happened. No, no, no, but wait a minute, they have just

gone through such trauma and worked so hard and they're exhausted. Maybe it's just that comfortableness that you have in shared experience with people. Possibly. I think so. Because I might do that and not have it be flirty, just like safe. I think she felt safe. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for that explanation. But it pulled me out for a split second, though. Yeah. We cut back to the captain's office where Cisco's tossing a ball. And Odo limps into his office. Oh, my God. I was like, that's so crazy.

After all of this, like, horrors of war, poor Odo was chasing two Eurydians who were cheating at Dabo and jumped off the stairs to chase them, thinking he could turn into a Tarkalian condor. But he forgot that he's a solid now. I forgot he was a solid. I did too. I was like, oh, he's solid. This is a good reminder of the riders, because it's been a few. It's been a while. I hope he gets it back.

We'll see. I do, too, because I wanted to see that condor. Yeah. As Odo talks about being a solid, this makes Cisco think about Jake and how fragile humans are, solids and humans. He has a really, really nice monologue about being a parent. This is a moment to Rock where I related to Cisco, thinking about those moments with your kid when they're so far. vulnerable and you just sit in the room while they're sleeping just looking at them and those kinds of parent moments that I think everybody in the parent club can relate to you know when

they're that vulnerable child and that that sense of responsibility that you have and it never goes away whether you're 18 or 28 or 58 it doesn't matter they're always your kid yeah yeah just Avery did a beautiful job of this it was so beautiful because it made me think my own moments with my kid that's when you know he's delivering the lines because you get put in that space that I was put in that space where I was thinking yeah you know when your kid like falls down and they look up at you like you're the only one that can make it right you know and you know you're you're nursing the wound or whatever it is and kissing the boo-boo you know yeah when you're The easy hero.

You're the easy hero. It's just. And the only one. There's nobody is no one else, right? No. And you also feel vulnerable in those moments. I remember my daughter, for example, was on the swings. Took her to the swing.

She's like seven, eight. And she's swinging in swings. And she wanted to show me a crazy way that she can jump off of the swings. So we've all jumped off the swings. You know. All done this. I'm evil can evil. Yeah.

So watch. watch I'm going to swing real high and then I'm going to jump off and you know and land and I was like okay and I'm sitting there and swings and she she says I'm going to jump and she she does the jump but somehow comes off wrong the wings didn't come out for yeah it came out wrong and she lands very weird and kind of I can see her arm get hyper extended when she landed you know I was so and you know and I was so and you know and I was so and you know and I I can see the pain. Yeah. And, you know, you're like, oh, why did you have, like, why did you do that? And then you're half like, I want, you know, you'll be all right. Yeah. And so it's like there's a vulnerable moment there where you're like, there's nothing I can do except for love you and be there for you in this moment.

But I watched it and I can't do anything about it, you know. Yeah. Yeah. You do learn early on there are a bunch of things that you can't control. Right. And it's really scary. I think we try to fool ourselves through moments when things are going great, like everything's on track. And then they jump off a swing. Three of you share that commonality of having children of your own. And I envy that. But this last moment when Cisco doesn't even let Odo finish his lines, he knows he's Dax, you're with me. we'll leave as soon as the defiant is ready. That reminded me of, I saw that in action when we were filming Voyager, and Robbie got word

that his kid was dealing with some major health thing. And he just said, he took off the microphone. He's like, I can't do this. I have to go now. And he just became Cisco in that moment. Do you remember that, Robbie, when you just took off the mic and you had to go? It was just like, oh, my gosh. Yeah, my little guy.

Yeah. You know, that's. Had the RSV and asthma. Yeah. It was really in a critical state. I was just like, I'm at, I don't care. I'm going to go to his aid now immediately. Yeah, you guys work out how you're going to finish this scene with me on another day.

Bye. And he left. I was like, wow. But anyway, that's what I saw in this scene. It reminded me of Robbie doing what he did. And it's one of the reasons I quit my career was watching Avery, not being able to be in New York with his kids and holding stuff. I mean, not that he, he, you know, divulged or confided in me, but also, but you can, you know, when you're on a that things that are going on.

And real time watching Nana not be able to go to Buster. And I thought, oh, God, I can't do this. I would lose my mind. And so it was way better for me to listen to that and be an out-home mom instead. We end that scene, as Garrett mentioned, Dax arrives, says the Klingons destroyed the Farragut. That was going to defend everybody and evacuate them. Farragut's destroyed. Agilum Prime is defensively.

And that's when Cisco says, Dax are with me. Let's get in the defiant. Let's go protect my son. So they're heading out to help them. Do you guys, do you guys get this weird sense of pride when you're watching the show? And when he says, Daxia with me, I'm like, yeah, of course he calls on me. It's a little silly, but there's a little joy. In watching you definitely connected.

You feel like a real hero. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and we feel connected doing the scenes. Oh, no. So he's no good. Well, he's Gimpy man now. He can't even turn into a, like a parrot.

He can't turn into a condor or any bird. He's not very helpful. No. All right. Next scene, we're back in the cavern in, I guess, the cafeteria area or something, the sheer cafeteria area. I love this. I love this scene. The little mess hall.

yeah a little mess hall vibe they got some some midi miss trays of food bishir uh jake sits down to eat with bishir bishir compliments him on how well he's handled himself bishir starts to eat and uh starts with an incision across the thigh bone he describes to jake's like what going to vomit i'm eating this is not what i want to think about no but you haven't even taken a bite and i and right before that, you say, I'm starved, which I believed 100%. I'm like, he's very hungry. And then you couldn't even take a bite after that comment.

And clearly it doesn't bother Bashir. No. Like all of these surgeries, he can eat right away and, you know, he's fine. Yeah, it's like seeing a corner with a sandwich on the dead body. Yeah. I like the, oh, go ahead. I regretted the medium rare that I put ordering. Exactly.

I like the button of the. scene when Bashir rush is rushing out to chase Jake and the nurse goes first day and Kirby goes yeah and then the bowling goes past the salt it's nothing to him yeah doesn't bother them one bit I'll take I'll take what he's not eating that yeah we catch up a little later they've got some fresh air they're walking and talking Bashir and Jake are walking talking through a tunnel I thought this was shot beautifully along the lands really nice with a stop in the middle um jake wants to know what's going to happen to that ensign that shot himself to get out of fighting the clingons and bashear says probably a court-martial and jake says i don't get it they did all this training but some of

the people in his squad got scared and they ran before he shot himself like they all freaked out and basically the scene ends with them both kind of agreeing you know that simulation or training, preparation doesn't always help in a real battle. True. In real life. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel that way with film sets, you know?

Sometimes I've seen actors come in that haven't been on sets much and they freak out. Like, it doesn't matter how many acting classes you went to, a set is a different vibe, you know? Yeah. Totally. Well, in film versus television, Susanna Thompson, I remember I was in an ECU and an extremely. close-up. And she started to walk into frame, and I started to walk towards me like we did in the, and I put my hand, and I hit her chest. You stopped her. I mean, I stopped her from entering my shot. I did, and we kept going. Oh, wow. In the middle. And they used that shot.

Yeah. Wow. Yeah, but it's just if you're not used to the rhythm or the rules of what, what's being shot. Yeah. And she was an experienced actor, so it wasn't. but not in television. Not in television. Yeah. We go back to the staff room next. Kirby's telling Bashir that Calandra wants to talk to him about the aortal graft that he did.

Kirby and Jake go to finish Jake's meal and I like Jake's line at the end. I think I could handle some soup. He's not going to get the medium rare chicken bone, whatever. I really like the writing of this episode. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Renee did a good job.

Renee, yeah. Yeah. Love him. What's your memory of writers on set? Not much. Same as everybody else. Yeah, we had a joke one time. I think it was at one of the rap parties at the end of the season.

And I think they said, they brought the writers up and they said, can anybody mean these guys? And none of us could. We, like, I know Ira. You're like, Ira, that's it. Yeah, pretty much. Oh, my God. They come down as a group, but you didn't know who is who, did you? But you didn't really talk to any of them.

So, you know, they come down and. I couldn't pick Renee out of a lineup if you had, like, if you said, this is who, which one of these guys. You could today, though, right? Now I could. But at that time, you could not. I remember thinking he was super cute. I don't know. Yeah.

All right. We go back to the main ward. Calandra's telling Bashir, his surgery is holding up really well. And she does ask about the news. She seems worried. She's heard Starfleet pulled out of the Arcanus sector. And they're basically on their own now. And Bashir says, well, the Rutledge and the Tecumseh

are regrouping for a counterattack. And that's when she says, oh, my husband is the science officer on the Tacomsa. And Bashir reassures her that the captain of that ship is one of the best in Starfleet and then a nurse calls Kalanda for another surgery and you can feel the weight of that on her at the end like my husband is also at risk you know it's it's another part of I think an authentic experience of these people that are on the front lines of these kind of things you know mm-hmm good writing yeah very very good writing and then you also think about just

being in a vulnerable position where you're like are we like just, is there no backup coming? Yeah, we're just sitting ducks. Are we just waiting to get slaughtered? Because we don't have the personnel to defend ourselves in this scenario, right? And we're a bunch of doctors and nurses and wounded people. And a writer. And a writer. So there's no an 18 year old writer. Yeah. A man. It's got a very sensitive stomach. Yeah. And so there's that situation we talk about chance you know and it's like this is the chance this is the moment you're in where you feel like there are no options and the walls are closing in in that in that moment back to uh the staff room our mess hall kirby and jake are eating kirby fills jake in on the war

kirby's throwing out all this all this information like he like it's nothing but it's bad news Like, and the worst of it is the Klingons consider medical staff fair game. So they're not safe just because they're here in this hospital. And no one's being sensitive to the fact that he's an 18 year old. Well, yeah. And then you hear the Klingons are they, they either you get a disruptor or you get a, you know. The batleth. Yeah, the batleth.

Choose your, choose your death, essentially. Yeah. I just want to draw attention to, to, to, Kirby to Andrew Kovovit, the guest star, in this scene. He had a ton of stuff to say, and I clearly see that he did his research. He understood what Trek was, you know, he wasn't a guest star just rattling off lines. I think he did a fabulous job, holding his own in a scene here with a series regular, right? Yeah, amazing supporting castness.

Oh, my gosh. Good job. Yeah, and Kirby asks him how he ended up here, and he thinks it's very cool. He's a writer. He says a journalist, and I think, I think Jake says, no, not exactly a journalist. Like, he's downplaying it. He talks about that he's written fiction. Yes, yes. Mostly fiction. And then he, we have another voiceover where Jake's like, another Fred Savage moment. Another Fred Savage moment. Another Wonder Years moment, yes. Yeah. Where he's like, you know, all I can think about is like the Klingon's killing me and how close they are and nobody seems to be worried. Like, How is this guy just talking and like it's a regular day? But he says for the first time in his life,

his father's not here to protect him. And that really sunk in for me. Yes. I would imagine for you too, Robbie. I mean, me leaving home at 17 from Iowa to New York, there were plenty of situations where I felt that way. Like, if I just want my mommy, I just want my daddy. I mean, it's a weird thing to be that teenage, that to be a teenager and to be thrust in a situation that's too big for you to handle.

It's scary. Yeah. And I liked this dissolve because it panned everyone, everyone is sleeping because they're exhausted in these bunks. And then you get over to Jake and he can't sleep. He's wide awake writing in his journal or whatever. So, you know, it's also exhaustion, I would think, for Jake. It's like, you know, everybody else seems to be able to eat, sleep, do the normal things a little bit. They're kind of used to this.

This was a big case of be careful what you wish for for Jake. Yes. You know, Jake was like, yeah, let's go. Let's do this. You know, he was wishing for it. Yeah. Okay. Be careful what you wish for.

Yeah. But like you said, if he's not. sleeping, then he's running on fumes, and that really makes his decision later of running. It makes sense. He's completely, you know, he's exhausted. He's overwhelmed with all these different things coming at him. So he doesn't even know what's up or down. He doesn't. Then there's a big explosion that wakes everybody else up. Jake jumps up and the nurse says, what was that? The Bolion says it's the Klingons. They must have taken out the reactor because we see lights flickering. we go into the main ward, the main hospital area, power's failing, and they may lose half the

patients if the power fails here. So Bashir offers, he says, you know, the runabout has a portable generator, and Kirby says, I know, you know, we can take them to that tunnel that gets them outside the perimeter, and maybe they can get this generator, and we'll keep things going. This was a moment where I felt with Karen Austin's performance, I was like, is she a spy? There Something about her performance. I'm so glad you said that. I thought that. And the other where she was asking about, she was asking details.

And I was thinking, don't tell her. Don't even know who she is. I did not pick up on that at all guys. You didn't? Wow. Terry, you and I are on the same page. It's my brother, my twin. Yeah.

She's going to be a spy. I think it's from watching so much television that you are. You're looking for the plot twist. You're looking at it. It's interesting. Yeah, what was it about that scene? Was it was what that gave me that hint? Yeah, like what she was asking for information? Asking for information. Yeah, who's defending us? What ships are coming? Yeah, because she was asking about her husband, but it was set up in a way it was like, wait a minute, that's too important for her to be asking. And he and he, meaning Bashir, doesn't have the authority to say. anything that's like top secret. About their strategy or, yeah. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. Yeah, I totally, I was like not. I did not get that at all. I was like, this woman is dedicated to saving people's lives. She's a doctor. Yes. I didn't trust her. I didn't either.

That's the Odo in you. But Robbie, who did you think she was a spy for, though? I don't know. I didn't know either. No, I just don't trust her. Oh, my God. All right. Okay.

It's not like our show has, our shows haven't had those kind of plot to it. Of course. We've had that, yes. You're right. Are you just like, what? I didn't get it from. I just thought she was really trying to save everybody. Dedicated to her job.

And I like Karen Austin. No, it's a nice person. So it wasn't Karen. No, it was the writing. She was asking at the time. It wasn't like she was forthcoming and saying, I'm concerned about my husband. Do you know anything? about his ship, the blah, blah, blah, ship.

Yeah, right. It just sounded suspicious. You did, and I think he just put it in there. Like, yes, okay. I thought to come so was a suspicious name for a ship. Yes. I was like, who names the ship to come so? I don't know.

Who names a store, come and go. Okay. Who names a store, come and go. Exactly. But my whole point is, if you're going to go get that backup generator. You don't need to take Cisco's son with you to do it. You know what I'm saying? I mean, obviously

take the boleon. Take the boleon. He's, yeah, the war doesn't bother him. It just bothered me. But then again, we wouldn't have this episode if he didn't go. I get it. But I thought it was very irresponsible of Bashir. Of course, immaturity. Yeah. Which we talked about.

Back to the, back to our story. Back to our story. We go outside to the planet surface. Do you remember where you filmed this? Yeah, Griffith Park. part of it was a drip of it. Oh, okay. Yeah, it looks like that. There's too much green.

Yeah, it kind of looked like that. Well, you, you run out of this tunnel. Okay, can we just say how, I'm so sorry, but the two tall, thinnest men ever. And you were taller than him. I was, I was. It was just so like, um. The running. Yes, it was so adorable to me.

me because you both looked like, you know, um, giraffe. I was going to say a baby giraffe, but your neck isn't really long. I don't like a baby moose or a baby elk, baby elk, right? They're so, their legs are so long compared to their bodies. I was wondering, though, in this running chase, I wondered if Kim Friedman had said, you have to be bigger with your hands and you have to be bigger because it was a cool action sequence she shot. It was. But it did feel like both of you were giving it a little extra flailing. Yes. I bet Kim Friedman said, I need more, more.

Flailing. Oh, for the, to sell the explosion. Sell the explosions. Of course. Yeah, but it really worked for your character to me because it was, it was really impactful, how disorienting and scary it was. It really worked for me what you did. Yeah, I didn't know where the shots are coming from, like you don't know where it's right of course oh my gosh that would be terrifying i will say when you were flailing in the beginning that Robbie's probably right you were probably directed to sell that explosion more that you're it's awkward but after that when you start running in the opposite direction this is the first time i've ever seen you run and i know that you're an athlete that you're athletic but i have not but that second scene when you're running you are nimble you're fast you're like a gazelle

I mean, it was just like, look at him. He is just, he's making up some ground. And I, we've never seen the character of Jake Sisko run anywhere on the station. I mean, not to this extent. So it was kind of a treat for me to see your athleticism on display. Thank you. Yeah, I've got a chance to break out the legs. Well, there's a lot of, a lot of action running around.

Yeah. One of the explosions knocks Bashir out, and Jake's got a tough decision does he help him or does he retreat and he does retreat he runs back the way he came and as the explosions continue yes it's very scary um he keeps running he falls down a hill lands on top of the corpse of a cling on at one point there's starfleet dead all around him he's stumbled into this battlefield so he starts running again over a ridge tumbling down the other side and poor baby poor guy um did you do that stunt yourself sarah do you remember it looked like it was you doing the roll down the hill yeah i did that roll probably wouldn't do it now at

this age if they asked me to do it but but 18 year old me was like yeah i'll roll down the hill sure yeah yeah i can do anything yeah yeah it's that seemed like you yeah yeah it did not work right there I should have got stunt pay, but I don't have to check my record. You should have. Well, you roll down the hill, you land on top of a wounded human who punches you, or first you get punched. Yeah, that was like weird, wasn't it? No, no, no, no. He rolled down the hill onto a wounded, a dead cling on first, right?

And then later. And then he rolls again, he falls down on to Burke, the human. On to Burke's fist. Yes. He fell under Burke's fist. That was just such an odd shot, though, for you to just get hit. And then he was on the ground. It just seemed like that seemed a little off to me.

Yeah. Especially that he was on the ground when we find him. How did he reach up and hit him? Anyway, I'm sorry, that was technical me having a little nitpick moment. No, that's a great nipick moment. The physics of it doesn't work in what it shows you, right? Well, especially he's bleeding out. It's like, what?

Exactly. But my nitpick moment, I don't know if this pulled any. any of you out, but this entire time that we see these explosions, I'm thinking, when do the Klingons use mortars? Like, what, like, why are they using this type? It did feel like World War II. Yeah, this is very, very old school tech, or not tech, old school weapons, right? So it should have been a disruptor, a disruptor beat coming down and hitting on the ground. But it's breaking the rocks, break them. Hi. We saw dust. Yeah, it was weird. So that thing on grenades. They were Like grenades. They all have playing on grenades. Yeah. Okay. Well, after you get punched, we reveal Burke, a wounded human there. He asked Jake for a hypo spray. He asked Jake why he's out of the settlement. And Jake lies to him here. He's starting to cover up for his shame of leaving Bashir. And he says, he just got caught. He was outside looking for cover and just got caught outside of the settlement. And Burke then describes this.

his platoon's battle and it's very heroic how they had to escape on a hopper and he purposely stayed behind so that they could escape and get to safety but he got you know hit in this uh in his heroic deed he got injured and it's bad and uh he needs another hypo and jake says i'll go find something for you i'll save you so jake's going to try to be a hero here at the end also a quick a little bit of trivia. When Burke's telling a story, he says, C.O. Commanding officer, ordered me and Bryce to lay down cover so the squad could

get up the ramp. Bryce is the name of the story. The person that stole the story is Bryce. Oh, really? Yeah, that's his first name. So they included that in there, which is very interesting. Originally, Renee Escheravaria, when he wrote the teleplay for this, he had

Jake fall into the foxhole with a Klingon warrior. Not with a human. This Klingon was blinded by battle so he couldn't see anything. And they kind of, in the time that they're in that foxhole together, they end up having a little bit of bonding moment until Jake tells the Klingon why he's there, that he ran away from the battle and away from Bashir. And that's when the Klingon is so disgusted. He throws Jake out of the foxhole because he doesn't want to die next to a coward, is how they wrote it. Renee loved what he wrote. Ira looked at it and said,

nope and they kind of butted heads there yes and then so so ira said no you're taking that out now you're switching it you're pivoting it's going to be a starfleet person and so after everything was all said and done it was filmed they finally the final edit everything uh it was Renee who agreed at the very end after seeing the final product oh Ira was right it needed to be changed to someone who was Starfleet as opposed to the Klingon yeah yeah I like the other way too though that would have been interesting to see yeah sure I think so, too. Well, Jake starts with Burke kind of covering his butt a little and isn't quite telling the truth.

But then Burke says, Jake says, maybe I ran for a reason so I could find you and save your life. And that's when Burke goes, wait a minute, you ran? And then Jake reveals the truth that he couldn't see Bashir, the explosions were getting closer. So he ran, that's when he met Burke or stumbled on Burke. And Burke is disgusted. is like you left the doctor you think going back and saving me is going to make that right no life doesn't work that way kid and then he dies it's a lot to ask an actor to play a big scene like this and then die at the end yeah it's hard to do and one scene yeah he was great in that scene

he was he was he was really rough around the edges kind of reminded me like of nick noltsy type of uh Yeah. I just thought he gave a great performance. And I thought also what was great about that scene was Jake, his initial reaction was to lie and cover it up, which is a flashback to the foreshadowing when they asked him about, you know, the guy who shot himself with the... Yeah, that ensign.

The ensign, his initial thing was to let's see if I can lie my way out of this, right? And I feel like that was a good call back in that. moment like Jake tries that. And by the way, both times it doesn't fly, right? Right. Right. And nobody believes Jake. So I think that was a good callback in that moment. Yeah. Yeah. I thought also it was age appropriate because that's your first instinct as a kid. It's still showing that you're the part of you that's scared of getting in trouble. You know, your whole life has been being a kid. So that's what kids do. They don't know always that it's safe to tell the truth. We go to the engine room next. Dax calls Cisco out of this tiny Jeffrey's tube

opening. What are you doing in there? And he says he's tweaking the pattern buffers and the replicators, just trying to stay busy, keep his mind off Jake. And they sit down. And this is a beautiful story about Nima, Dax tells. She shares that in a previous host, Nima, her daughter, came down with Regalind Fever, and for weeks, Audred never left her side. She read all 17 volumes of Casters Down the River Light and realized that she was reading as much for Nima as she was reading for herself to comfort herself. And it's a great performance there, Terry, and great story. Thank you, Robbie. Yeah.

Thank you. I was very close to my nieces, especially at that time they were little. So it was easy to draw on how much I love them. Yeah. You know, and I was super close with them because I thought I would never get the chance to have a baby. No. Yeah. I mean, if think back, it's 30 years ago.

So sort of, and I'm already probably 30, 20, 30, 31 doing this. Right. So that was the time. Yeah. Yeah. And back then, it was a lot of people would say, you know, oh, it's too late now. Yeah. At 31. It's too late now. Yeah. It's interesting. It was a beautiful scene. But thank you. It was beautiful. Yeah. Cisco asked, how did it turn out with Nima? And he basically says, it better be a happy ending.

Yeah. Yeah. And Dax says, yeah, she was fine. She pulled through. But then a few years later, she stopped talking to me for a while. So it's complicated. And then they both decide to do busy work at the end. Dax decides to double check the replicator buffers, ask for his decoupler, and Cis goes, get your own decoupler. I'm going to go do some work. So they both need a little distraction here with some busy work. We're both worried about, yeah. And it's funny that the tool is called a decoupler

because he is trying to decouple himself from the idea. Yes. Yeah. Again, brilliant writing. Good call. Good catch there. Back in the main war, the power's on. Jake returns.

Kirby is happily surprised to see him. Says the runabout and everything was destroyed. And Jake says, he must have been knocked out. So he lies here a bit. I must have been knocked out and just got lost. I didn't know where I was. And he reluctantly goes over to face Bashir, who's overjoyed to see him to see that he's alive.

He was about to get killed by Cisco. Yeah. I get to live. I get to live another year. I can live because Cisco won't kill me now. Exactly. Yeah, he's very guilty that he even brought you here. And Jake's very ashamed in this moment, but he says, it's fine. Forget it. He doesn't want to talk about it. Yeah. And Kirby says visiting hours are over. And then Jake has another voiceover moment here about how guilty he feels. how he's a coward, and he wishes that Bashir had seen him run away and told everyone the truth so he didn't have to. Yeah.

Because he says they deserve to know who I really am. So there's a lot of guilt and a lot of shame and a lot of struggle with Jake here. And I thought you did a great job. Really good, Surak. The voiceover work internalized the thought process that we all kind of go through in these moments where we feel shame or we feel like we have made it. you know, told a lie that we don't really feel comfortable with, you know,

and whatever it is, that those kinds of things go up to your head, like, ah, is that, you know. Yeah. I don't know if I did the right thing. I wish people knew the truth, so I didn't have to say it myself. And I thought that was very well done as far as writing again, just really going through the process and what we go through when we're facing these kinds of situations. Yeah, very elegantly written. Yeah.

A nurse asks Jake to take a tray of food over to a patient and Jake goes to give him food. It's the ensign, Jeb Brown, from before. Jake just wants to hand him the food and leave. He doesn't want to face this guy who reminds of himself probably in a lot of ways. And the ensign says maybe he'll end up starts chattering about, you know what, maybe I'm going to end up on a mining team after the court martial. He admits that sometimes things happen that change everything about who you thought you were that you don't expect. you know things surprise you uh how life ends up back to that bible verse you read it's like time and chance and suddenly everything that you thought about yourself and about life is different

and that's he's he's realizing this the sentence and he's kind of speaking for jake in a lot of ways in this scene i thought yeah it was really good yeah he said something too that i caught on this watch that made me feel really sensitive to his feeling to what he was going through And that's when he said, I wished I aimed a little bit higher. Yeah. And that was like, that was very revealing for me. Yes. Because it's like, oh, he doesn't, he can't even live with this.

Exactly. You know, it's already, it's only a couple days. But he's like, I don't like this life that I have to live now and face this truth, this reality that, you know, I did this. So I think that was also kind of a wake-up call for Jake. Like you have to own the truth of whatever the truth is so that you can move forward. Yeah. Just a quick bit of trivia about this scene.

After principal photography wrapped, Kim Friedman realized that she was running three minutes short for the episode. So Renee Aschavria had to create a new scene, and it was this scene right here. Oh, really? Yes. And this new second scene with Jake and the Soldier the Inson, it's, so ironic because after the scene was written and shot, both Eshavaria and Kim Friedman came to feel that this was one of the most thematically important scenes in the entire episode. Huge. Agreed. And it all happened because it was short. What a blessing. Yes, a blessing indeed.

Yeah, I think sometimes for writers like actors, when you don't have so much time to overthink something and you just have to dive in and write a scene or as an actor, you don't have time to overthink it. You know, you just got to dive in and be in the moment. It can lead to some of your best work. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Overthinking is death. Yeah. Next we go to the staff room. Jake is resting on a bunk. The nurse, Kirby and the bullion are making jokes about how they'd prefer to die. Very gallows humor kind of, you know, ways that they might die. They ask Jake how he'd prefer, and he gets really triggered here. He gets really mad. Yeah. It says this is not a joke. People are dying. And I love the line where he says, nobody's going to remember who was a hero or who

was a coward. This whole thing is just a waste, you know, which is so true. Yeah. He yells and Bashir sort of calms him down and says, hey, let's take a walk. Yeah. You need to calm down. Back in a tunnel, Bashir asked what's bothering him. And Jake says, he just didn't think they were funny. And Bashir says, no, something else is bugging you. And Jake yells at him, just leave me alone. and Bashir agrees but he says, you know, I'm always here if you ever want to talk about it and this is where

Suraki fell to the ground and began to cry finally in this episode and lets it all out and it was a beautiful, beautiful moment. Really great. Do you remember this, did it say in the script he cries here because sometimes that can be intimidating for actors?

Like, oh shit, I got to cry. Yeah, I don't think it said that he cries. I think it was more just like, you know, slumped down and feels sad. Right. You know, sad about it. But, yeah, that was a big moment there as well. One, you see, Bershear, really trying to do the right thing and lift up, cheer me up, and be there as a friend.

So that's a good thing. But, yeah, Jake's going through a lot of stuff because he doesn't understand why we're, why. It's like, nobody's going to remember this. This is not even like, this is not some kind of pivotal. It'll stand up for rights, you know, where we're speaking on behalf of an oppressed people or we're fighting for freedoms. Like, we're just, this is an unnecessary skirmish here. And, you know, to be frivolously casually joking about how you're going to die in this situation, Jake doesn't want to hear that. Yeah.

No. And he's too young to jump in with gallows humor. He's too, it's just not where his head. can be at. It's just not there. Yeah. Appropriately. Well, beautiful moment there by yourself in the cave. A little time passed as we see Jake asleep and suddenly, bang, more bombs are, you know, the battle started again. The shelling starts, rocks are falling and Jake runs.

And in the staff room, the bombing is really bad. There's dust falling all around, which that was always a big production in the caves when they had to have things falling. Yeah. You know, those long sticks where they'd hold, you know, knock down dust and styrofoam. Yeah. Yeah. But it looked good.

It looked really good. It really did. Yeah. Calandra tells the team that they have to move all the patients to an evacuation point outside of the tunnel. And Kirby says, we've got over 70 patients and all this equipment's going to take too long. And Bashir, as a leader, jumps in. He says, everybody's got to stay calm and just do your job.

Get to work. So between Bashir and Calandra, everybody does their job, except for Jake, who's just frozen in fear here. The bombs are continuing. He is literally, you know, jumping at every detonation, just spinning in circles. Bashir looks for Jake as they evacuate. You see Bashir take one last look. He doesn't see Jake, but he's got to keep doing his job. And we reveal Jake hiding under a table.

When he runs into a security's phaser rifle, he runs into the main ward, Klingons are attacking. Jake is a terrible hider. He hid under the worst little coffee cafe table I've ever seen in my life. I was like, Jake, that's not going to save me. That little table would be saving from Earthway, let alone us attacking Klingon. Oh, my God. I was like, you got to do better, Jake. You got to find better spot.

to cowered out in high. Thank God he hid where he did because the Starfleet security gets taken out by the Klingons. And the Klingons are walking right towards that table when Jake grabs a phaser rifle from one of the down starfleaders. He starts firing wildly backwards over his head. I would just glad you were firing because there was a tiny hesitation. It was like, do it. Do something. Yeah.

Yeah. I was yelling at you. Rocks are falling, but he's hitting the ceiling. It's not part of his plan. He's just terrified and trying to do anything. And the ceiling starts to fall down. In the midst of that collapse, we kind of go to black. We come back and Bashir and Cisco are waking Jake up.

The Klingons have retreated, we learn, and the ceasefire is reinstated. They say, Jake, you're a hero. You know, you're, it's all because. you blocked you know the entrance you sealed the entrance entrance and it was genius and jake's voiceover starts here totally my plan yes yeah yeah that was great he said he said all he could do was think about staying alive in this voiceover and then we have a little montage of bashear reading the article um and Cisco reading the article and Cisco finishes reading the story

and Jake says as the place, he'll always remember this Azelon Prime Battle as the place where he learned the line between courage and cowardice is a lot thinner than most people believe. And that's the end of his story there and Cisco is so proud of him, gives him a hug, says it took a lot of courage

to tell the truth, son, and look inside yourself and I'm proud of you. Great ending, great, great ending. Thank you, Renee Etchavaria, for writing this episode. It's just so gorgeous. And thank you, Sir Rock, for your amazing performance. Yeah. Not a moment.

How did you feel watching it? I know you've seen it before, but just watching it this time. I felt like I was speaking to people or on behalf of people that go into. similar situations and find themselves in over their head in a moment where they didn't necessarily sign up for that. They're like, whoa, this is not what I expected. So I felt like it speaks for that. And it speaks to also, you know, Star Trek in its core is really a military show.

And so people who serve really watch the show and identify with the characters because it's similar to their service in the military. And I've met a lot of those people at the conventions, and I'm grateful for their service. But I'm also grateful that we had the opportunity to entertain them on our show and provide some level of escape from the core cold, hard realities of war.

And a lot of people that have come up to me who are veterans, you know, talk about the realities of the show being similar to their own experiences. Cisco was like my commanding officer or, you know, or that episode kind of reminded me of something that I went through. And so, yeah, I got a chance to tell that story on behalf of the people who have served our country and some of them who have done heroic things, which I was on the good side

of in this episode and also some of the cowardly things and how thin the line is. And I think one of the things that was great was that Jake was really trying to plead on behalf of the Anson's case to not be severely punished. I think when he asked Bashir, like, what's going to happen to him? Like, you know, he's really concerned. Like, is he going to have to, like, have more punishment than the punishment that he's already living with? Yeah, that certainly seems like enough punishment. Right. That's the guilt that he has.

The mental torture. Yeah, is already a punishment, you know, and he's going to have to face jail time for that or some kind of, you know, dishonorable discharge or whatever the process is going to be. And I'm sure there's people who have served that have gone through that process for whatever act of, you know, cowardice that they may have displayed. And I think it's important to understand that it's okay and to tell those people that, you know, it's okay. you did something that's a human reaction and sometimes it happens and sometimes we're overcome by fear and it's okay and sometimes fear can cause us to do a brave thing as well yeah to just step up in that moment and so it's about opportunity and I wanted to talk about the book that I read that this reminded me of

this reminded me of a book that I read when I was in school called The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane and Red Badge of Courage it's about the Civil War who came out in the late 1800s but it is about this both-sidesom of the story in which our main young soldier

in this you know experience is an act of cowardice and also an act of heroism and it talks about that. And I felt like this was, you know, this episode was an homage to Red Badge of Courage, an homage to the scripture in Ecclesiastes, you know, chapter 9-11. And I felt like it was a combination of all of those things. And so that's what makes it beautiful.

It's a beautiful story because it tells the truth about the difficult truth. and I think the hardest thing to do is to be truthful and I think that's what really makes Jake a hero in this episode not that he stopped the Klingons or whatever but that he faced the truth and put it down in that last journal or that last piece that he wrote because he told the truth about his experience

and didn't edit it to make himself look any better or worse And I think when you, you know, that is the, the hero in all of us is when we're able to be truthful and honest with ourselves. 100%. And say, this is my experience. This is what I live through. This is my fault, my faults, my flaws, my tragedy, and my triumph. And if we can look people in eyes and be honest about those things and lay those things bare, then that makes you a hero. Because you're owning up to all of that.

Beautifully said. Beautifully said. There's nothing new here. These stories are timeless. That's why Shakespeare lives on. It's nothing new. We're human. Time of stories.

We're human. There's a certain amount of ways our life plays out. Every generation. Yes. Yes. Yes. Robbie, why don't you start off? And what do you have?

Yeah, I mean, for me, I think. Jake's last line when he talks about the line between courage and cowardice is a lot thinner than most people believe. That's the lesson to me. Whether it's war, a battle, whether it's

the L.A. fires and how people responded to that, whether it's about being a journalist and telling the truth or spinning it the way you want. The line between being a hero and not being a hero is very thin.

And we can find ourselves on either side of that line at any time. That's the lesson to me. Okay. Terry? Beautifully said. I wrote, Face your choices with truth, love, and kindness to yourself, and you will grow. I like that. Thank you.

I actually like better how Robbie put it. I use the script. It's the line they wrote in there. That's what hit me. It's beautiful. Sorak, you want to chime in on that one? I think this is really a maturation and about maturation. I think this is about growing up.

I think, you know, this is the kind of moment where it's before and after for Jake's life. I think before this moment, Jake thought one way about the world and life, the optimism and, you know, the zest for running up and you know let's see what it is and then this is the maturation this is you see what it is and now you come out differently yeah it's a rite of passage story yeah you come out differently you you went into this with one way with one perspective like yeah let's go fight let's go see the fight let's go do it and then you're like oh this is what it is and it's serious and it's heavy and it grows your perspective as from a childhood to kind of young adult

where you're like, oh, this is what adult circumstances look like. So for me, this is really about maturation and Jake maturing and learning. Yeah, I love that. I have the same lesson as Robbie's, the same quote, but I also added, be careful of what you wish for because sometimes you can end up biting off more than you can chew.

Well, our Patreon poll winner for the theme moral of this episode is submitted by Jenny. The line between courage and cowardice is a lot thinner than most people believe. So we're all in the same time. We are. We are. All right. Well, we've come to the end of our recap and discussion of this episode. Join us next time, and we'll be recapping and discussing the episode, The Assignment with our

and special guest host, Rosalind Chow. Woo, a little Kiko, actually. You're so lucky, give her my love. For all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material and a little bit more of Sir Rock. I'm so excited. All right, by everyone else.

Bye. Bye, everybody. Bye-bye.