The Delta Flyers - Once Upon a Time

Episode Date: March 28, 2022

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Once Upon a Time. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Once Upon a Time:Neelix is assigned the responsibility of caring for a crew member's daughter when the child's mother is injured on board the Delta.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, & Brannon BragaAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Kelly Brown, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Mike Devlin, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Amber Eason, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Nathan Walker, Shambhavi Kadam, John Mann, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Megan Chowning, Tae Phoenix, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Bronwen Duffield, Elly Post, Brandon May, Jeremy Mcgraw, & Jason BonnettAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Justin Weir, Normandy Madden, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Michael "Klink" Klinckhardt, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Robert Picard, Craig M. Nakashian, Julie McCain, & Will ForgThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our creations unless we give you permission. If you have any questions, you can email us at [e-mail].”Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Trek actor and now accomplished episodic television director, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil and myself, your favorite Forever Ensign, Garrett Wong. Remember, you can get the full version of this podcast by signing up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. How do you like that intro? Wow, that was pretty fancy. I'll tell you, let me tell you why I did that. Okay. There's a tweet from a German fan. And it says, at the Delta Flyers, something which always irritates me. Garrett always starts the podcast with me, Garrett and my co-host. In German, there is an idiom. It is not polite to introduce oneself first. And I, you know, typically when I talk about like a story, I'll say, so Robbie, I always say this in English. I'll say, so Robbie and I went to the market, right? I never say, you know, me and Robbie, I know that's rude to say, me and Robbie did this. That's not proper grammatical structure. But I don't know why.

I mean, I have no clue why I did what I did, but I said it backwards, basically. So, I don't think you, I don't know that there's a role. is it okay that hey i mean i think if you're like a talk show host on a you know johnny carson probably said hey johnny carson here welcome to the show and i got my co-host you know yeah i don't know it's yeah i never occurred to me but that's a nice observation that yeah the german fan made of yeah you know yeah sure why not i'll mix it up a little bit now okay just as we never know you're going to introduce first and and what you're going to say about me I have no idea.

I think I'm going to change it every single time. So every single introduction will be different. Okay. That sounds good. You okay with that? All right. Yes. Today you should have introduced me as the guy with a big red hat with a Georgia bulldog on it.

I could have. And the giant Voyager behind me. Yes. I saw this online on social media somewhere. Someone had shared it and said, I love this image of Voyager. And I did too. It's a big, giant perspective over Voyager looking down as it orbits a planet and it's just very dramatic. It's very dramatic. It's very dramatic. And for those of you who are just tuning in listening on Patreon from lieutenant and above level of subscription, you can actually see what Robbie is talking about because we provide the video version of this podcast.

So that will give you everything you need to see exactly what the heck we're talking about. The change in our background, we're always finding interesting images. You can look at Robbie's beard, how it just evolves and just moves around and straighten us. You're not happy with it this morning. But it's also because it's very early. It's very early. You're not as coiffed as you normally are. No, sleepy face today.

Robbie was like, I've got sleep lines. You know, I got some sleep lines. I got a maybe a little bit. I can you no no can you make that other face you just made no just to go through life like that well yeah

time aging all of these things you know it's funny because I was talking on Resident Alien the show that I do now yeah the actors were talking about Star Trek and me and the and you know being on it and all of them were like

you must get recognized all the time I'm like, people must, that show is so popular and it's been around. I was like, no, actually, nobody ever recognizes me because I just look so different. You do, you do. I really, you know, that was very clean cut. It was 27 years ago. Obviously, I'm a little, I'm a little bigger. I've put on some weight, but, you know, whatever, people change.

It's not that as much as it's, it's, come on, it's this. It's the beard, the baseball hats and the glass. That's my, that's my brand now. You're closer to Grizzly Adams now than Tom Paris because of the beard. It's the full mustache and beard. Who's going to know that's Tom Paris? You know, no one's going to know that. But if you look at just, if I just look at this part of you, just, yeah.

And then I'm like, oh, it's Tom Paris. If I'm just looking at your eyes and your nose, that one time, one time Jonathan freaks. So Jonathan on Next Generation did his transformation to a beard. on the show. His character started without a beard and then and then he grew the beard

and they kept it on the show. So anyway, Jonathan's up here in Vancouver directing on a show that I was producing and we had gone to dinner one night as we were leaving a lot of the staff came over

and they were like, you know, thanks for coming and we just want to say like we didn't want to say anything during your meal, but we love you on Star Trek. And they're talking to Jonathan the whole time. like three or four of the staff

and they recognized him and they had been talking about it, never putting together at the table for the last hour and a half, two hours that I was Tom Parrott, you know, that I played Tom Parrison, Voyager. So it really surprised me and even Franks goes, do you recognize this guy?

And they're like, nope. It was crazy. Wait, where was this again? Where was it? It was up in Vancouver. We had gone to dinner. We actually crossed the border back then and gone down to Bellingham, Washington.

Okay. To have dinner at a restaurant with some people, mutual people we knew. Yeah. But it was just so funny to me that literally I'm standing a foot and a half away from him. I've spent two hours at a meal where people are obviously Star Trek fans. They knew him, but he looked like his character. Right.

He looked very different. Whereas I had, you know, grown a beard. I was probably wearing a hat as I do 90% of the time. Yeah, but let me ask you this. Would you have wanted to do that, actually? on the show? Is that something that entered your consciousness? I'm going to grow a beard and let production have Tom Paris as beardy Paris. I think I asked them, I had a, you know, goatees were very trendy back then. Yeah, full beard was not trendy in the night. It was not trendy. Full beard was

homeless person is what that was. Yeah, full beards back in the 90s were not popular, but goatees were popular. Yes. And I had grown a goatee over the hiatus. And I asked them when I, as we were coming back, I checked with the hair, makeup people. I was like, can you ask if we can keep this? And I didn't call the producers directly, but they gave me an answer pretty quickly. Like, no, no, they didn't even want to talk about it. They don't want.

And I auditioned for Voyager with a beard because I was doing a play where I had a beard. Yeah. And they asked me to shave. I've told the story before, but Michael Pillard gave me a razor in his office and said, can you go shave the beard and come back in an audition because they don't, they can't picture you underneath the beard. Yeah. You don't look anything like Nick La Carno, which is what we remember.

That's why we wanted you to come audition because of Nick La Carno and he didn't have a beard. So can you shave it? Yeah. So I don't know. I don't think they ever would have agreed to it. But I did grow beers during the hiatus. Yeah. So if you had done that, if they had said, sure, let's have some facial hair in Tom Paris.

Yeah. And you started growing that out. Maybe people would recognize you. Oh, I think so. Yeah. I think so. Okay. Good stuff.

Look at this. I love talking about facial hair. I really do. It's funny that we're talking about that this is one of the few days or the few times episodes that I, yeah, that I usually am always clean shaved, but I was rushing down to jump into this call with you, but I was an hour off. So I didn't. I was an hour early, unfortunately.

You were texting and calling and I guess my phone was vibrating because I was still sleeping. And Rebecca goes, boy, your phone is when I woke up and the alarm went up. phone's blowing up. Your phone is blowing up. Yeah, it was me. I thought something happened to Ravi. And so I was rushing. I was like, there's no time to shave. There's no time to shave. I have to be down there in time for the, you know, and I jump on. And it's actually 7.30 in Vancouver and not 8.30. And I had just flown into Canada. So my, yeah, so my phone was on Dallas time, the last time zone that I was in before I went to airplane mode. So I apologize for waking you. Well, you were kind of waking up. You didn't. I did. I was going to wake up

any minute, I guess. Okay, good, good. I feel better now. I don't want to ruin your beauty sleep or your beard sleep. I'm going to call it your beard sleep. It's all about my facial hair. It really is. This week's episode, once upon a time, once upon a time.

I like the name. That's a TV series. It is. It is. I think they owe Voyage or something because they clearly stole that name. Clearly. No one ever used that phrase. No.

We invented once upon time. We invented those four words, placed together into once upon a time. All right. So let's go watch this. We'll be right back with our recap and discussion of Once Upon a Time. All right. We are back from watching Once Upon a Time.

Yeah. That was fun. That was really, I got to say it was one of my favorite episodes. I'm going to come right out inside. Yeah. Gosh. Yeah. What?

I did not remember this, although a lot of things came back as we watched it in the shuttle with Nancy Hauer and Tim Russ and myself stuck in the Delta Flyer was still kind of a new set. And I remembered that this was John Kretschmer directing. Yes. And that was his first time directing Voyager. Time directing. And I really liked him. Like he was great.

He was such a. And we've stayed friends, actually. actually. Really? Yeah, we talk occasionally, not, you know, usually about directing stuff and DGA stuff. Well, heck. The Directors Guild of America, the union that we're part of. But yeah, well, let me give you my background with John Kretschmer. I went to UCLA and I spent some time in the theater department at UCLA. That wasn't my major, but all my upper division electives were in theater. So I spent a lot of time over there. A lot of people thought I was a theater major, but I wasn't. But at the time, I'm one of my fellow theater department people or people that were actually theater majors was her name was Wendy Brokaw.

Wendy Brokaw was the daughter of the, not the founder, but he was the president of William Morris, I guess. He was the head, the main agent there. Right. So that was her dad. And later she ended up marrying John Kretschmer. So Wendy, Wendy was, you know, super cool back at my memories of her were, you know, she was really nice, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful lady. And I, yeah, I have that connection, I suppose. So I remember when, yeah, so when John was directing, I was like, oh, hey, say hi to Wendy, you know.

And I'm, and I say the same to you. When you do talk to him next time, tell him I said hi and that make that connection. Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I pass the hello on to Wendy as well. Oh, that's great. Very small world. Small world, really. All right.

Well, let's first jump into our poetry synopsis, which, you know, we're starting to put the book together here, people. We're going to have a book of poetry. It's going to be beautiful. You can relive all the episodes through the art of poetry someday with a beautiful coffee table book or bedside book that you can read. Yeah, anyway, let's synopsize Once Upon a Time in Poetry. Here we go. Here we go.

Once upon a time, the haiku. The flyer crashes. Neelix cares for Naomi. Wildman reunion. That's great. All right. This was a tough one for me. Really?

This was a tough one to kind of capture. all the parts. There was one part in particular when Janeway comments about Neelix offers coffee that I just laughed out loud. So you tried to use that. Yeah, you had to put it.

It's an obscure little moment on the bridge when Neelix is offering coffee, but it made me laugh out loud. So I had to include that in my Limerick. So let's go. Here we go with once upon a time, the Limerick poem for this episode. Naomi and Neelix

play a fairy tale allegory. The Delta Flyers crew is in real deadly territory. Neelix offers a caffeine bump that could give Janeway a warp jump. Truth is better than fiction is the point of our story. No. You were hell bent on including that coffee bit. You said no matter what, it's going to be in here. She said, I'll jump to the warp. If I have more coffee, I'll jump to the warp. If I have more coffee, I'll jump So I'm like, how do I get that in there? How do I get this? But you thought about caffeine.

Nelix offers a caffeine bump that gives Janeway a warp jump. Bam. That was not easy. I'm impressed. I'm impressed. Thank you. And it is rare. We don't, we typically don't have food or beverage on the bridge.

On the bridge. It's so rare to see that. I remember it's very rare to see Janeway turn down coffee. Yeah. She turned it down. Are you kidding me? She's usually mainlining coffee. Yeah, exactly.

That's her thing. Okay. All right. Let's talk about the guest stars here. I did a little research. So Justin Lewis as Trevis or Trevis. Trevis, yes. So Justin Lewis actually has two names that he has acted under.

When he first started acting, it was Justin Lewis. But he has since gone to his real name, which is Luis Ferreira. Our next guest star, I'll jump to Woll. Wallace Langham, who played Flotter. Wallace Langham is originally from Texas. He's done a lot of things. He's been a writer. He's been a director.

Wallace Langham has made a very full career in Hollywood, done well. Wow. And you know, you're talking about Justin Lewis having two names that he acted under. You know, that's similar to you. A lot of people don't know this. I mean, your original name is Robert Duncan, Cumberbatch. You are Benedict Cumberbatch's third cousin, but you said, you know, I know that you told me that you didn't, you felt that name wasn't really going to be. It was a little long. A little long.

And so you said, McNeil, and then you just went with that. And I, you know, I'm, you know what's funny. I know you're making a joke. I know. I thought you were going to be serious because I did go buy a different name. Oh, briefly. That's funny. I thought you knew this. All right. So I'll tell you. Yeah, tell me the, it's not Cumberbatch. The name that I was born with. is Robert Duncan McNeil. Yeah. That's the name I was given. When you join the union, so the first union that I joined was...

Equity. The first union, actors' equity, which is the stage union. I think so. Correct. I think so. And there was already a Robert McNeil there. In existence already, yes. So I went with...

Wait, no, that can't be true. No, actors' equity did not have this rule. So the stage union didn't. So I went with Robert McNeil. Yes. I went with Robert McNeil. As an equity performance. As an equity name.

Which is fine. There was another Robert McNeil who I actually knew. But they did not have the same requirement. But when I got into AFRA, actually. Oh, it's AFRA. Okay. And they had a rule where you could not have the same name as another member. They didn't want confusion.

Right. And so I briefly went by the name Duncan McNeil. I dropped my first name and it was just Duncan McNeil. And when I was on set, people would say, hey, Duncan, can you? And you wouldn't even answer to four or five months. And I just was like, I don't, this is not going to work. Like, there's got to be a better way. Like, I don't know if I want to go by Duncan McNeil for the rest of my life and be called Duncan. Okay. It just didn't feel right. I was like Robbie. Call me Robbie. And they're like, what? Wait, but it says Duncan McNeil. I went back. I went back. I went back. back to after it. What can I do? And they said, well, you can use all three name, which was kind of more rare than these long Robert Duncan McNeil. But I was like, let's just do it because then I'll go with Robert Duncan McNeil, the long version, because at least people will call me Robbie and know it makes sense. That does make sense. So anyway, I did, I did, there are some credits out there where I was Duncan McNeil. Wow. In fact, I think that, yeah, maybe it was SAG. The Twilight Zone credit might be Duncan McNeil. I don't know. And so you thought I had done my research on you. I was like, Come, but you're like, look how impressed.

Yeah, but instead it was me being joking about, you know, the fact that your name was Cumberbatch, which is not true. Which is not true. Okay, two more guest stars to quickly talk about. We know Nancy Hower playing Samantha Wildman. She did eight episodes of our show. This was the last one until Fury. Okay. She's only listed one more time.

Whereas Scarlett Palmer's who plays Naomi Wildman, she was not the first Naomi Wildman. But this is her. first episode she ended up doing 16 episodes of our show oh so she did twice as many as her mom as her mom yeah scarlet did 16 this was her first her very first job when she was three years old she was in a michael jackson music video heal the world that's her very first job yep what and then and then she yeah roby jackson i was in that video what what what what well was she in that video. Does it say? She was three years old. That's all it said.

Oh, my God. Maybe she was just, this is funny. Is it, from what I recall, it was just different vignettes, you know, different little vignettes to form this video. So it's not a through line with like two, two or three characters that goes through the whole video. It's different storylines of, yeah, so she wasn't in my storyline. I know that. I played basically a Chinese soldier that was, people were putting like flowers in our guns. You know what I'm saying? So, interesting. This is so crazy.

This is blowing my mind. Feel the world. Wow. Oh, my goodness. You and Scarlett when she was three. Wow. In the Michael Jackson video, this is not credited at all. So you're not going to be able to find that with my name on it.

That's funny. This is really weird. This is freaky. Yeah, small world. Oh, small, small world. Okay. Good job. Yes, I think that's everybody.

All right. Okay. Got it all. Let's get into our plot. We've had poetry. We've had, We forgot about the writer. Well, the writer is Michael Taylor, who was on staff with us.

I remember Michael shared an office with Brian Fuller. Michael was great. He was very serious. I remember, you know, that's my impression of Michael. But I thought a great script. The thing I did learn about this script, originally it was pitched as an idea of like an Alice in Wonderland kind of idea. Yeah. The whole episode would be in this holodeck.

Everything would play out. And they just sort of, I think there was a time crunch and. And I think they just couldn't break that story. They couldn't figure out how to do that version. And it felt very isolated. And so they sort of opened it up to a rescue mission. And then things sort of opened up. But it's interesting because when this episode first opens, we see Naomi walking

through this forest. And my first thought was, oh, it's Wizard of Oz. It's Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road. Interesting. I didn't go to, I didn't go to, um, Alice in Wonderland as much. I went immediately to Wizard of Oz, which is my favorite movie of all time. I love that. And, and yeah, so she's walking down what looks like a yellow brick road through the forest.

And then she meets this character along the way, like Dorothy did. She meets Flotter, yeah, comes up out of the water. He introduces himself at some point as Flotter Tea Water the third, which I'd laugh. Yeah, I love the name. Yes. She also meets a character out of the tree, a character called Trevis, who I immediately thought looks like Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. I was like, oh, it's like a full-size Groot. Before you go on, I want to say you had the, you know, when you saw the Forest of Forever, you thought Wizard of Oz immediately.

When I saw Forrest of Forever, I thought, I think that James Cameron was watching this episode when he came up with the Forest of Pandora on Avatar, which is so. colorful and as this forest is. But it's interesting how you had a very old school reference. And my reference, what came to my mind was a very modern, futuristic, I guess, reference. So we have completely different viewpoints on this. But still, accurate, very colorful forest, a very if I called it a florist, a very colorful forest background, you know, could be Wizard of Oz or it could be the forest that the Navi lived in. So there you go. Also, I have to say about the, from a production aspect.

And I thought John Kretschmer did a great job. I got to say, he moved the camera in such interesting ways. John Kretschmer's background was as a first AD. He was an assistant director. That's right. And he kind of made his break. He did Jurassic Park with Steven Spielberg. And Stephen loved him, brought him on to a TV show called Sequest,

where John Kretschmer eventually, yeah, started. directed directing. That's where Kretschmer had first started directing. But working with Spielberg, you can tell those influences in this episode, the Spielbergian kind of cinematic, the camera movement. I thought it was really well directed. You know what would be really crazy is I also, I also was an extra on Sequest DSV. What if, oh my gosh. Yes, what if Kretschmer was directing that episode? I don't remember who the director was, but it could have been. You have a lot of like really bizarre connections. Way back connections with this particular episode.

Big time. Yeah. Yeah. So basically, you know, Naomi is in the force of forever. She's doing this hollow program called The Adventures of Flotter and Flotter and what's his name, Trevis? Trevis. Yeah.

Trevis. Yep. They sort of get into a bit of an argument about your shading, you're shading my pond. And so you can tell, you know, how. basically it's an argument about how they each affect each other. And you can tell this is an educational program. So it's teaching Naomi about science, basic science concepts and also about communication skills. And she's she's in the middle of this game, this fairy tale. And then we get a call from Nelix. He says, Naomi, it's bedtime. And she says, end program. And we cut into her quarters.

Yeah. And Naomi is talking to Samantha Wildman, her mom, on the computer. at the laptop. And it's very broken video. And Samantha says, you know, we've got some bad weather here, some ion storms. But I'll talk to you tomorrow. Go to bed. And so she says goodbye. But you see Nelix is worried in this scene. So I love the bedtime kind of part of our story. I love the relationship with Nelix and Naomi is so good. It brings out such good things in Ethan Phillips' performance. And I thought Scarlet was phenomenal. She did a great job. She really did.

I want to rewind for a quick second back to the Holodick program. There is that one line where I guess it was Trevis maybe or Flot. I don't remember. Someone says, I don't recognize your element. You're not Earth or water or plasma or as I like to say, plasm. Yeah. And I was thinking like, oh, that's interesting. They put a little sci-fi twist on there.

as a he's the alien in there as a as an as an as an as an Asian American I think of Chinese culture and the five elements which are yes earth fire water wood metal right but in here they have plasma that's one of the elements which I thought oh that's interesting that is a little sci-fi twist in there okay so Nelix puts her to bed he's worried and the next scene is So we go into the Delta Flyer, but we cut inside the Delta Flyer, we see Paris, we see Samantha Wildman, we see Tuvok, and there's a storm. And by the way, I got to say, again, John Kreshmer shot this really well, the shake, ship shakes, the lights, even did something with sort of a spin on the camera as we tried to get out of the storm that was unusual. We didn't usually sort of use

the tilting of the camera to tell the story that the shuttle's turning sharply one way or the other. Right. But it was absolutely the right kind of approach in that scene, the way he did everything. So, yeah, I thought it was great, great coverage of that, of the shuttle in the action pack sequence. And then we cut out of there. Things are rough.

We come into the briefing room and everyone's listening to an audio message from Tuvok calling for help. he basically saying it's really bad weather here more storms on the way and we need you guys to come help us yeah and immediately neelix is very worried about naomi and he's like you know maybe maybe we shouldn't tell her he says to janeway she's very sensitive and janeway you can see is conflicted she's like really hmm i don't know if it's good to keep the truth from her you know you you sort of see that from janeway but neelix is like no she's too sensitive, this is too scary. Let's not tell her the truth. And she goes, okay,

Janeway says, okay, you know, you know her best. I trust your judgment, Neelix. Yeah, she gives them orders. She says, Neelix, your mission is to keep Naomi preoccupied. So he does. Keep her busy. We jump to, we jump to mess hall. And now we have Neelix and Naomi are sitting at a table and they're just, they're chatting. And then of course, Naomi is distracted. She sees Seven enter with Harry, and she's nervous about seven. She goes, look, it's the board lady. And she says, don't move. Don't move.

Yes, she's really, really scared. Harry comes over and says hi to Naomi, and he pulls Neelix aside. He says, I need to talk to you. And, you know, they have a little business talk. But while this is happening, Seven walks up to little Naomi and says, is this seat taken? And Naomi is just staring like deer with headlights in the headlights. staring at seven very cute yeah and um petrified of hetrified exactly yeah seven says is this taken she goes no yes i mean yes someone's there right she walks away um and Naomi is still staring after

seven and that's when he looks back and and he's trying to talk to Naomi and he says like you know what's going on Naomi turns around acting like she was assimilated which is very cute again very funny. Turns around. She says, I am Borg. Really deadpan. And he goes, no, you're not. Yeah. And you know what? This is, this is a lot to give to a young actor. Yeah. It's like, hey, you know, you're replacing another person, which is already, I'm sure, you know, working on her mind as well in terms of thinking, oh my gosh, I need to do a good enough job so that they don't replace me as well as the other actress or what they did. So a lot on her plate. And she really handled it well, I thought, especially in this scene. She wants to play another flotter storyline,

but Neelick says the doctor is expecting her. I thought it was a checkup. It wasn't a checkup. It was a lesson. Evidence the doctor's been teaching her. Yeah. But she does say that she doesn't like sick bag, all the, all the things that are inside there, the hypo sprays. And then she says, plus the doctor talks too much. Can he be, can you reprogram him? And Neelix goes, I don't think he'll like that. And so then we leave that scene. We're now back into the Delta Flyer, and the crash landing on a planetoid is happening in this scene. And it's Wildman who says, well, at least there's a meteor crater. We can aim for that.

Paris says, good enough. And they crash. And, you know, I don't understand why there aren't seatbelts. Why don't we have seatbelts? I mean, it doesn't make any sense. We should have seatbelts in the flyer. We should have seatbelts on the bridge. But clearly, neither you or Tuvok get knocked out of your seatbelts.

Just Wildman. Wildman flies out for some reason. Yes. Yeah, and she's very, very injured. She's very, very injured, hurt badly. We'll find out later. And you can't even, you know, that exterior shot of the flyer? It's unrecognizable.

I don't even know which the front or the back of the flyer is any longer. It's just completely just a tin can kind of flound. Yeah, and that wide shot, you see sort of a plasma trail behind it. So you know it's been damaged and it was a rough ride. Right. but we cut to the uh a little time passes we're on the floor yeah Samantha wildman's on the floor yeah paris is scanning her being the the field medic here and he he says to her oh it's just a minor concussion so again this theme of like not telling people the truth and she's like he's like I don't

believe you yeah and then he tells it the truth yeah takes a moment and he's like okay you've got serious internal injuries punctured kidney internal bleeding, need surgery, ASAP. He tells her the truth. Yeah. And then he gives her something for her pain, sedates her. And Tuvok says they're about three kilometers below the surface. So they dug in deep and they're down inside solid rock. Yeah. And there's gases in the cavern so they can't walk outside. Right. There's nowhere to go. But to wait. I did make one note, the hypospray, the sound of the hypospray. It's very, very ASMR. If you think about it, yeah, that was it like that?

Yeah, it's very pleasing and very satisfying when you hear that hypolsprit, at least for me, it's a very ASMR sound. It's just something that makes you feel relieved when you hear it. And it's soft. So I just made that note. That's nice. You should just have hypospray sounds to go to sleep too. I will. Okay.

So we have a ship shot and then we go back on the bridge and Neelix fills Janeway in on Naomi. That he'll keep her busy. Harry tracks the residual impulse signature here in the upper upper atmosphere and the impulse wake leads to the northern hemisphere. Harry detects plasma fires and hull fragments and he says that one of two things happen. Either they vaporized on impact or they are buried beneath the surface. And Janeway orders Chikote to take a rescue team down to the crater. And he says, it's interesting because he says, he says, Harry, so it sounds like Harry's going to go on this away team. I thought he doesn't go on the OAT.

No, he doesn't. I made that note. What the heck is going on? With Harry. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense. We've seen these inconsistencies before where someone is told that they're going to be working on something. Come with me.

You think they're going and then they're not there. Yeah. Come with me for moral support while I'm in the turbo lift. But after that, I don't need you. So that's pretty much what it is. We cut to sick bay and the doctor is teaching Naomi about mitochondria. And I love, because she says earlier, he talks too much. He is talking about mitochondria, like it's an operatic, dramatic story.

It's so dramatic. And he gets to like the critical moment of symbiosis. And he's like, do you understand symbiosis? She's like, like friends, she says. And I love, he's talking up this dramatic storm. And then she says, she goes, okay. So my mom says cooperation is more important than competition. Right.

I love that. I do, but so what you're saying is just cooperate instead of fight each other. Right. Yeah, basically. Right. But what I love more about this scene is that this is one of the few scenes where the Dr. Snappy short bedside manner is not here. He's actually taking the time and slowly, you know, telling this story.

Yes, it's very dramatic, but he's definitely very different from the doctor that we normally see. so I really he's really yeah he's warm and warm yeah paternal in a way yeah very much so I think that's Bob Picardo's self kind of coming out a little bit he had two daughters who were about the same age at this point that Naomi Wildman is the actress playing Naomi Wildman so maybe some of his fatherly energy sort of kind of superseded at the doctor in a way yeah yeah it was it was a great scene. I think that this Naomi as a character brings out good things in everybody. I mean, it's so great to have a kid on our show and

that sort of innocence and vulnerability that a kid brings out in Ethan Phillips, brings out in the doctor, brings out in all of us. It's great. I loved when Neelix comes in and the doctor's like, so good to see you. He's like, because he's trying to talk to the kid and you know, the doctor's not sure how to talk to a kid in an odd way. He's trying really hard. And he's so happy to see Neelix. And it's funny at this moment, Neelix looks at him, gives a double take. Like, why are you we being so weird? And then says, come on, Naomi. Let's get out of here. Yeah. They walk in the corridor. That is funny. I didn't even,

I didn't pick that up. But you, that was funny. Good observation. They're in the corridor. And then they end up in the turbo lift. And Neelix and Naomi are talking. He's walking her over to a holodeck to play in a new chapter of Flotter. And this chapter is Flotter, Trevis, and the ogre of fire. And every time they said ogre of fire, I kept hearing the yogurt of fire. I heard that instead of ogre. And it's, you know, it's, it's a chapter which Neelix is like, it sounds a little scary, but let's see.

And then we cut to engineering where we have Neelix and Harry. And Harry is in the midst of some jobs. that he's doing, but he is taking the time to help Neelix replicate flotter. And I did make note that there's close talking between Neelix and Harry. There is a little close talking. He's so close to me. Now, do you recall Ethan Phillips playing this little game? This game would be when it was your close up, if you're talking to him and he was off

camera, he would give you a line, which was not a line that Neelix had, but just a line that he would make up to try to mess with. us to see if we would break. Okay. So Neelix, Ethan Phillips was the expert at making other people break when he was off camera. But he was also the master of not breaking when he was being on camera and we were off camera.

So he prided himself and how good he was in just maintaining his Neelix face and never breaking. This was the scene where I made him break. Really? Nice. Oh, it was so awesome. I remember it because it was in engineering and where this happened. And what it was was when it was his coverage, I was off camera.

And instead of seeing my line, I said, did anyone ever tell you that that crease at the end of your nose looks like a baby's butt crack? That's what I said. And he went, he was, he was like, ah, you got me, you got me. He started, I can't believe you got me. He was like, no one gets me. You got me. So he tried to hold as much as he could. Then his whole face just contorted.

He couldn't hold it. It was one of my proudest moments. The very proud moment. Yeah, usually I would say I'm so proud of this episode. No, I was proud of making Ethan Phillips break. You cracked up Ethan Phillips. I did. The other thing I want to mention.

Yep. So while just jumping back for a moment, when they do go back into the holodeck and the scary holodeck and the ogre of fire, Naomi asked Neelix about him being scared and has he ever been scared and he starts to bring up his sister he says that he's sad that he lost his sisters so he starts to bring this up

so you start to make this connection that when he was that he has been scared like Naomi and he's seeing a lot of himself in her he wants to protect her that he's been through this yeah I don't think he tells her Does he tell her that he lost the sisters at this point? Because I think that he's because she keeps asking, well, when do you talk to her? And do you, because I don't think he ever says that they died here.

He says that later, right? He says it in her quarters later, but he says he misses them very much. And so what he's talking about as they, as they first come up. Okay. Because she's talking about missing her mom. And this is a scary program and things like that. So I just love the way they start laying in very, gently in the beginning and then as things build more and more of Neelix does not want this little girl

to go through the fear and the pain that he went through. So I love how they start laying that in and you don't even see it coming and it just sort of builds in such a natural way. I thought it was great. Okay. I thought it was great. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes. You know what doesn't belong in everyone's epic summer plans, though? What? Getting burned by your old wireless bill.

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but yes in engineering went in the scene when you cracked him up you guys were replicating a flotter doll yeah because in the program flotter got evaporated and it was very sad so neelix thinks this will make her feel better if you can give her a flotter doll yeah and now this scene is the first glimpse of the fact that this is a common story. Like, you know, if you start watching this episode, you're thinking, oh, maybe this is just a story that Naomi is playing on the holiday. But with Harry talking about, oh, I remember this guy, blah, blah, blah. You know, now you know that this is what all children in the 24th century are familiar with.

So this is something that is a commonplace story. Yeah, because Harry says, I love these stories when I was a kid. Yes. He knows this character. Yeah, you start to see. And other characters bring up the fact that they remember when they did it. as a kid. So we get the doll in engineering. Harry makes the doll. Neelick says, thanks, Harry and takes off. And we go to Naomi's quarters. Let me just stop you for one second.

Is this Naomi's quarters or is this the Wildman two bedroom quarter? Probably the Wildman suite. It has to be. Yeah, it must be the Wildman suite is what I'm thinking. Right? Okay. Yep. So we go to the wild, we go to Samantha Wildman suite, Naomi's suite there. And Naomi's on the computer. And Neelix brings the doll in. And she goes, yeah, this is a nice doll, but it's not really flotter, which is interesting because later on, you know, she talks about pretending and does it make you feel better to pretend? And he's like, no. So this is just her moment of realizing that like, yeah, this is a nice doll, but it's not the real thing. Right. She's investigating this idea that water evaporates when it's heated and that

if she can cool the remains of the forest, Lodder will condense and be able to reform himself. So she's, you know, this program is working to teach her some basic science. And this was the, this was the whole purpose of it. And she also, when she's working on this, she talks about missing her mom. And she quotes one of the Starfleet protocols, which is a way team members must report in at least once every 24 hours. So you know she's a smart kid. Like she knows the rules. And like, she's already suspicious. Like, what's going on here? You know, I haven't heard from my mom. I know the rules. so Neelix just reassures her and says everything's fine yeah tucks tucks her into bed gives her the flotter doll yeah and uh she says you promise to wake me up if mom calls even if it's oh 200 hours she

says even if it's two in the morning wake me up and you can see neelix is really triggered here and he puts her puts her down in bed and then he goes back in the living room and calls up an image of his sister elixia right and this was such a sweet heartbreak moment. It's just a photograph. It's sweet, but it also bothered me because... Did it? Yeah, because he just put her to bed, okay? He walks out to, she can still hear him. She walks out into the other room, the door is not closed. And he goes, you know, he starts talking about the possibility to his dead sister about Naomi losing her mother. It's like, dude, you need to, I'm sorry, you got to make sure the kids asleep entirely before you bring. So that,

that was a point. That bugged me. But one thing. that I wrote down in my notes that I found interesting is that the lights above her bed have they're no they are clear they're white they're not colored because you know how we got we got to we got to pick red green blue yeah yeah and hers was just white it's just a white light period maybe because she's young and and I don't know hasn't picked her favorite color yet maybe that's what it is yeah but it bothered me that meelik starts talking about her mom possibly being 10 feet away she's that's that's a good point I didn't think of that too the thing I did think the The thing I did think of is I often don't like it when characters are alone and just talking out loud to themselves.

Okay. I usually find that to feel very fake. Okay. But in this case, I felt like it was almost like I'm making a prayer. Yeah. Like he was kind of. He was. I wish he had, you know, seen the photo, even closed his eyes.

Because I feel like when you're sort of, when a character is praying, saying a prayer or something, then speaking out loud makes sense. But just like talking to themselves. while they're wide awake is always it always kind of bumps me as a fake thing but yeah but i was i was along for the ride in this one because i just thought the story was so sweet yeah no and i think most people understand he's trying to gather some strength from the his the spirit of his sister in a way right so no one's going to really think like what the heck are you doing but people will think why are you talking about standing 10 feet away she can i don't think she's asleep that quickly you know i know kids They don't fall asleep like that.

So, yeah, now we have a nightmare sequence. We do. We don't really know it's a nightmare. We don't know. Yeah, it shows Nelix and some other Tlaxians. And all of a sudden, they're dealing with the Metrion Cascade, which was the event, which killed his family. And so he wakes up, startled. And now we realize he's still in the Wildman residence.

He's sitting on the couch there. He's babysitting. He's still falling asleep there. Right. Which is amazing. I thought that he would go to his own quarters, but he's so invested that he stays in the same area as Naomi, basically. And he wakes up and he checks on Naomi. And now we jump to astrometrics. Before we jump, I just want to talk about that nightmare. They definitely did something interesting directorially in that. Because the movement, I don't know if it was something they did with visual effects after the fact to color it and kind of affect it that way. It looked to me actually like they had done something. in the camera. And the things you can do in the camera is you can, you can change the shutter angle of the camera. So in a film camera, there's a shutter that lets the light in, you know, 24 frames a second. That shutter goes, boom, boom, boom, boom. Now, if the shutter is at 45 degrees,

it'll let the light in in a certain way. If the shutter is at 90 degrees, if the shutter goes all the way to 90 degrees, it will let the light in a certain way. If the shutter is at 180 degrees, So you can change the shutter angle and it creates a different quality of movement. Interesting. I felt like they did something with shutter angle in there. I don't know exactly where they put it, but it was not the normal, the normal setting. You can also do something with frame rate where you shoot a little slower frame rate and get a bit of motion blur. So I felt like they made some interesting, John Kretschmer did some interesting things in camera.

Yeah. Then they added some color to, but most of that I have a feeling was him shooting the nightmare in a way that, felt different than normal stuff, which I thought was an awesome choice. Good job, John Kretschmer. Good job. Yes. Okay. So now we jump to astrometrics. Yes, we do.

And Neelix asks Seven if there was any new information. She says, well, there's always new information. And then Neelix asked seven if she ever thinks about her family. And she says infrequently, since she was assimilated when she was six years old. And then Neelick says, not much older than Naomi is now. And that to me seems a little bit off. So that would mean that Naomi's four or five. She seems older than that.

I bumped on that too. Yeah. Yeah, that you were six, seven, seven of nine was six years old. Yeah. And Naomi's younger than that. That doesn't make sense. I don't buy it. She seems like at least eight or nine to me.

Yeah. I mean, from your, you know, you're a parent. I mean, you're looking at her. That's 10 years old. Yeah, she's eight to 10, correct? Yes. is the thought process here and not five or four. There's no way.

She wouldn't be researching evaporation on her computer. Yeah. That bumps me a little bit. I agree. Okay, good. But I love how seven is like so cold. She will adapt. She will adapt.

I adapted. She will adapt. I'm not going to say she's cold. I'm just a reality check. She tells you like it is. She doesn't pull any punches. Yeah, which is a big. theme in this episode of like you know neelix is trying to protect

Naomi by not being honest he's pulling punches left and right is what he's doing all all over the entire time yeah trying to control and manipulate the situation yeah she won't be afraid and yeah you know seven is a reality check here for sure yeah um now we go to the bridge this is where neelix brings in the coffee one more cup and i'll jump to warp says the captain i laughed out loud spit take for me But anyway, Janeway suggests to Neelix being honest with Naomi. And Neelix says, no, no, no, I'm going to keep her busy. And Janeway goes, your mission was to keep her occupied, not to lie to her. Right.

She says, you're going to need to be honest tomorrow. You're going to have to tell her in the morning. Yeah. And Neelix, like, snaps. I've never seen him snap this hard at the captain. He's like, you're talking about it in the ready room or in the bridge? Well, first on the bridge, he snaps. And then she says, yeah.

And he starts to leave. Yeah. Yeah, he's like storming away. And she's like, Neelix, join me. And they go in the ready room. And now he just, he lets it all out. Oh, my gosh. It flies out.

He's like, when we know for sure, not until then. Yeah. And he says, you don't have the right. You don't know what it's like. So clearly this is very personal. He doesn't want Naomi to go through what he went through. I thought this was a great scene. You really see him just letting it all hang out.

And Janeway is very patient with him and very compassionate with him. Yeah. My note is he pulls all the punches with Naomi, but none with Janeway. It's just like, I'm going to let you have it right now. I'm not going to, I'm not going to sugarcoat this at all. Yeah. And I, in one of my reaction videos, I noticed that you can hear the background humming of the engines or the warp core when you're in the,

the bridge. But the minute they're in the captain's ready room, it goes away. It's totally quiet. I'm thinking, what? Why is there soundproofing here and not on the entire ship? Like, why couldn't we have that same soundproofing on the bridge? Did they forget to put in the hum? I don't know. I don't really notice that, although I know that that was a important thing to them to keep the the ship sounds like. Yes, but it clearly is gone. The minute the door shuts, you don't hear anything. It's like quiet, like a library. So that's a beautiful scene in the ready room. We cut down to the shuttle, and Paris is trying to polarize the hull. Yeah.

There's some sparks, big fail. It's not working. They can't, they can't polarize the hole so that they don't even know if Voyager can read where they are. They have no idea. In order to detect the shuttle, the hole has to have some polarization, evidently. And this is when Wildman starts to lose hope. She starts to lose hope. She's like, who's going to look after Naomi?

She's kind of accepting the fact they're not going to get rescued, rescued and Tuvok shares about his children, about his daughter. He says he has a daughter. Yeah. And he has confidence that that both of their children that Naomi and his children will survive and prosper, he says, no matter what becomes of us. Yeah, I like the fact that Tuvac was the one that was consoling Wildman. I thought that Paris was going to do it, but Tuvok out of the blue starts bringing advice and helping her out, you know, calm her down. Yeah. Yeah. And Samantha Wildman thanks them. Like it's, it's been a comfort to hear Tuvok's. Paris has been honest about her physical condition, her internal bleeding, what's going on. Tuvok has been honest about, you know, even if we don't

make it, that our children will be okay. They're people around them. And that's comforting to Samantha. So here you've got on the shuttle, Samantha's getting reality from the people around her, but Naomi's getting pretend. And so it's an interesting kind of flip of what you would think would be the kind, loving thing to do. Yeah. But Naomi wakes up, calls for mom. She's alone. She's alone in our quarters, which I thought was weird. She says, computer, where's Nelix? Computer says on the bridge. So we cut out to the hall.

Naomi gets off a turbo lift. She's walking down the hall. Here's some noise. And the first thing I thought is, wait, she just said, computer, where's Nelix on the bridge? Why didn't she just go straight to the bridge? Why did she have to stop at some random hallway? She's heading there. That's not where the bridge is. She goes back. Okay, so she gets out, walks down the hall, sees Balana and a rescue team coming to the turbo lift, hides in the turbo lift, which, by the way, why isn't there someone manning the turbo lift all the time?

Okay. I understood it as the minute she's, okay, she's heading down the hallway and she sees Torres and the away team and she hides. She hears that they're talking about stuff that sounds pertinent to what's happening to her mom. So then she goes to sneak around to see where they're going. She sees them beam out. She's in the transporter room a little bit watching. And then she's like, oh, no, now I've got to go to. I definitely have to go to the bridge.

And then she goes to the bridge. So I didn't find it odd. But she was heading to the bridge in the beginning. I guess to me, the way that she got off a turbo lift. Yeah. She was in her quarters. Right. She says, where's Neelix at the bridge?

She's heading to the bridge. Right. She should have gone straight to the bridge. She gets, instead, she gets off, walks down a hall, hides in the turbo lift, here's the information, then goes back to where she came from, the turbo lift she was just on to go to the bridge. Interesting, because my notes,

I don't have her in the turbo lift first. I have her walking down corridors out of her room into the corridors where she sees Torres, then she spies on the Torres and transport a room. I think she came out of the same. I think she came. I feel like this is one of those geography things of like the logic is she should be walking by this thing when it happened,

not walking, turning, you know, getting the sneak peek and then turning around where she came. But it's not a big deal. But it was just like there were a couple little things in there. I'm like, well, if you are correct in that she was in the turbo lift first and then she came out and then saw Torres. Well, yeah, you're right. She should have gone straight to the bridge from the turbo lift. She shouldn't have gone to see Torres. But yeah.

But we mixed and mashed these halls so much. They do. And maybe our brains are mixing and mashing it. I don't know where the bridge is really. Sometimes we're over. we're here, going to the bridge, sometimes we're over there going, I don't know. And the turbo lifts kind of, don't they go up and sideways? They just go wherever you want.

They don't just go up and down. They move sideways and back and forth. Yes, that's true. Okay. Anyway, she, yeah, she hears that they're on a rescue mission. Yes. And so she goes up to the bridge and we see her step off onto the bridge. Yeah.

And they're looking on the view screen, Neelix is there. Yeah. And Neelix turns. around and sees her, and he's like, Naomi, she runs. She knows that he's been lying. I don't know about you, but I got, I got emotional right here. I did too. I did.

When Nealus was looking at her, I got emotional a lot of this episode. I was like, oh my gosh, I said, why am I starting to cry right now? I'm like, what's happening? It's the betrayal. It's feeling betrayed, like this innocent kid. Yeah. He's been asking for the truth. And instead, you know, was getting pretend.

Yeah. And anyway, we go to the hallway next. Neelix is trying to find her. he locates her. We asked the computer, right? Ask the computer. Yeah, he asks the computer. Where's Naomi?

She's in her quarters. He goes in, but finds the flotter doll with Naomi's com badge. So she was clever. She's a little sneaky one. She's a comb badge on the doll. She did. Look at that. On the flotter doll.

Yeah. You know what? She kind of felt like, well, you lied to me. Now you are going to get lied to as well. You're not going to know what about. There you go. Yeah. Now it's starting the whole back.

and forth, right? That's how the world works. How do these things end? You know, you start lying, then someone else lies. That's how the world works. He thinks about where she could be. And then he's like, oh, the holodeck, of course. Right. Right. And just then Naomi is activating flotter, Travis, and the ogre of fire. And she's going back into that scary fairy tale world. Yeah. Yeah. We go down to the planet now with the rescue team. Seven is down there with Chakotay. They're scanning a cave. They have phaser drills. with them. They do locate the flyer, but it's 80 meters through rock. They're going to have to drill through the rock. In order to get close enough to beam, well, they need to clear enough

rocks so that we can beam the shuttle out. Because right now, there's too much rock to beam it out. Yeah. Janeway does give them permission. Go ahead. We cut inside the shuttle. Paris is leaving a message for Balana. And he's basically saying goodbye. And I thought that was a nice, in terms of the writers writing that, just keeping that relationship alive and going. Instead of just going right to Samantha Wildman saying her goodbye, they included a moment for Paris and Bolana's story. So I thought that was great. Yeah. And when you said, you won't have to watch any more Captain Proton. Captain Proton. I was like, that's not true. Because Harry will continue to Captain Proto thing. That's right. Yeah. And clearly he's implying that he's been doing this a lot. Right. You know.

A lot, a lot. Yeah, Samantha is going to leave hers, but she's not sure she's ready. She asks Tuvok, and he says he prefers to write his farewells. So he's typing them out on a pad. Oxygen depletion in 10 minutes. And she goes through her video, which again is a tearjerker to listen to her, talk to Naomi. I got to say, I wish that all of us had been suffering a bit more. That's the one element of the shuttle scenes.

Like, it didn't seem like she was really. dying. It didn't seem like Paris was really dying or Tuvac. I wish that we, you know, just been a little more breathy and more like, yeah, traumatic. I'm out. You know what I mean? Yeah. That was a little acting for you. Just a little, just a little taste. Look at that, ladies and gentlemen. Robbie McNeil has left his director's chair to show us a little bit more acting. We've been wanting to see this acting. He still got it. It's still there. And he did it. And he shows you what he if he had to do a read he's showing a he's showing the redo right now if you were to redo a scene what would it be i would redo it you'd redo that like i was dying a little more yeah and

i think for all three of us i just think that that was an element that i wish we had been encouraged you know yeah clearly was like we were all kind of playing the same thing which is a little bit of suffering yeah but it wasn't like death suffering it wasn't death suffering but at the same time robby neither you, Nancy Hauer, or John Kretschmer have almost died. You know what I'm saying? So it's hard for you to pull on an experience because really actors, when they act, it's pulling on experience, life experience of what they've already dealt with before. And nobody's able to say, oh, yes, I remember the five times I almost died.

And so that's why I was able to act this scene out. So I feel like you're being overly critical of yourself and everyone else. Yes. I think it works. It definitely works. but I do see what you're saying. If there was a little bit more grasping for air, you know, and saying the last rights, it would have been nicer.

Look at you acting. Look at you. I tried. I tried. Look at that. You kind of taste. The taste of it. Okay.

But she does say, she does say, don't be scared, Naomi. Neelix is there for you. Yeah. I also thought in this moment, like, what a, you know, the three of those characters leaving good farewell messages. I don't know. It just felt very real. to me in that moment, even though I wish we were acting a little more dead, but the idea of

like, what would you leave? What message would I give someone? Who would I give the message to? How many messages would I try to leave? Right. Or would I just leave a message to everyone? I don't know. That's a profound. I thought it was just really simple and well done. And yeah, it made me think in that moment of like in real life. Well, in real life, it would be your immediate family. family, right? I mean, you would leave a message to your kids. I would leave one for you. I would start with Garrett Wong. Let me leave a message for you. This reminds me. I'm dying. And then my children and my wife. Okay. Thank you. I'm so happy that you'll leave one for me. Which then reminds me, yeah, probably.

Which then reminds me of the time that Robbie and I were at Phoenix Comic-Con, and this was when the active shooter was about to take out Jason David Frank, whose table was right next to ours. It was five feet away from me. And then I texted, I texted Megan, and I said, oh, my gosh, you can't believe what just happened. Like, we could have been killed. It was almost a mass murder situation. It was almost a mass murder with Robbie and I dying.

This is not a joke. This is real. We were at a convention where they did find someone who had gone there with the intent. He had a kill list of who he was going to take out. And Jason David Frank was definitely on that list. That was the top of the list, the first name. And his table was right next to us. But he was armed for a mass shooting.

He had armed. He had all kinds of weaponry. Yes. And this gentleman, they caught him because he made a Facebook post and someone saw this and alerted the authorities before he could do the deed. But he was in the building. He was in the building, and I meant, he made it past all these security checkpoints, too. And I mentioned, I texted Megan.

I said, oh, my goodness. I said, you know, I'm lucky to be, Robbie and I are lucky to be alive. We could have been hit by gunfire. And I said, to her, I said, with my last dying breath, I would have taken some of my blood and written on the floor. I love you, Megan. And then she texted back, nah, you would have written, I love you, Robbie. It's what she said. So this, this was similar to.

your little message to me. It was what made. It's a good bit. It's a good bit. Okay, good. Okay. So we go in the, we go in the holodeck.

Yes. They leave their goodbye messages in the shuttle. We cut back to the holodeck. Neelix is looking for Naomi. Yeah. And Flotter and Trevis are mad. Oh, kind of block his way on the yellowberg road.

Leave. Leave. You lie. You're a liar. Get out of here. Yeah. They're not happy. And then he sees Naomi's little top of her head.

Top of her head. behind a log and he wants to talk to her and they say no more lying yeah so i thought that was nice yeah um Naomi asks is my mom dead yeah it was heartbreaking yeah and he tells her the truth that they don't know they don't know um climbs over the stump sits with her just a sweet sweet scene and she does say to him how do i know if you're telling me the truth this time yeah which is that's a lesson about lying for all of us so we've all Look, everyone's told a lie, but it's so important to remember, like, once you start that process of lying and dishonesty, then how do the people that you love, how are they going to trust you? How would they trust you?

Yeah, it's a, it's. And that's what, yeah. Yeah. I mean, Neelix, go ahead. And Neelix really, when she says, how do I, yeah, his response is to tell, to share the story of what happened to his family. of the tragedy like now he fills in all he fills her in the yeah fills her in with all the other pieces of that story the truth he tells her the truth he tells her the truth and he tells her how much it's hurt it hurt him yeah and he didn't want her to feel to feel that exactly yeah just trying

to protect her you're just trying to protect her that's how much he cares and loves little naomi that he did not want her to feel any of that so he comes out and says everything everything he really tells her the truth and then she asks after she hears this she said when you pretended that nothing was wrong, did it help? And he goes, no, really. So lying and pretending is not going to fix it. No. Another great lesson. Yeah, another moving scene, another moving scene between the two of them. And this is all interrupted by Janeway calling all hands to emergency stations. A level eight ion storm is approaching. Now we're back to the bridge planet underground. Janeway notifies Jacote. The iron storm is approaching in six

minutes which will destabilize the cavern that he's in and my note is why on earth is someone on an upper level using a laser digging tool facing in another direction what's happening why is that going on did you notice that i didn't notice that so chocote Torres seven they're all yeah seven they're all shooting their little laser digging and then up in the that way and up in the up in the background there's another star fleet member facing in the wrong direction they're like yeah I don't know. He's a red shirt. He's going to be in.

You've got to have somebody down there. You've got to have someone doing something in the wrong way. Yeah, the wrong way. Okay, back to the bridge. Harry says the storm is moving in. Then we quickly jump to the interior of the Delta Flyer and Paris sort of laments that he can't believe this is how it's all going to end in some unnamed planetoid trapped under, you know, all this rock and this is going to be the end of his life.

And do you feel like you needed to be more? breathy on that one too. Yeah, I think we should have been really dying dying. Even more dying dying. Yeah. I think so. The double die scene. Okay. And then we hear phaser drills from inside the shuttle. Yes. And Paris goes to the to the moon roof, the skylight there. Yeah, he's tapping on it. We're here. We're here. He must have. He's not dying yet. He's got enough energy to like bang. So really, it should have been more like,

like that like barely would you have done it that way would you have even reached to the moon roof or would you have just looked at it I would have just looked up and then I would have fallen straight back that's even better that would have been comedy

yes so on the bridge Chacote reports that the pattern enhancers are in place and that they're ready to transport a flyer and it's such good news and it's really kind of very subtle it's just sort of like yeah we got them And then Harry kind of transports them in. And Jamie was like, good, let's go away.

And we take off and we're done. We're safe. And then Neelix and Naomi are running down a hallway. They turn a corner into sick bay. And there's Samantha Wildman. The doctor has done the surgery. He's done this all very quickly. She is healed up really fast.

So Starfleet medical technology is good. It's so good. It is really good. Yeah. We go back to the forest for our very last scene here. And this felt like Alice in Wonderland. It was. They're having a tea party.

It's Neelix Trevix and Flotter having a tea party. Naomi and Samantha walk in. Trevis runs down. Not Trevis. Flotter runs over to Samantha. Yeah. Who hasn't been there since she's a kid. He says, I missed you.

She says, I missed you. And he says likewise. Yeah. Or one or the other. One or the other. And then she says, yeah. I'm an incident now. Yeah.

You're all grown up. but I did make a note. Look at Samantha Wildman's hair. Wow. Was it flossy? No, it was just really well done. It was really super cool. Like, I don't know what the hair department did that day.

Jose Normander, head of hair, was clearly the architect of Wildman's hair. But it was, it was businessy up front. And it wasn't party in the back. It was just cool in the back. So it wasn't, you know. It was business cool. up front and party cool and party cool in the back it was just i don't know if you if you look at it again it's just it stood out to me really cool hairstyle uh but janeway shows up janeway's uh over there

and janeway and nilks have a nice conversation and we realize that jayway played this when she was six years old that number keeps coming up and she flooded the entire forest and then there's close talking between janeway and nilix as well and in this end scene but still a nice ending scene for the whole episode. Very nice. They walk off down the yellow brick road for more adventures in the forest of forever. All right. So your theme's probably the same theme as mine. I'm going to let you say for just honesty is the best policy. That's my theme. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wrote down pretending can give you comfort and teach you lessons sometimes because pretending in the forest there's good, you know, there's good value. It's not, you know,

not just a waste of time to pretend. Everything doesn't, like, I, I wouldn't want to live seven of nine's reality check life all the time. I want to go into it. You know what I mean? You need a little fantasy every now. I think there is a time and a place for pretending and fantasy, but sometimes the truth is really what you need to face.

That was my, my theme. And I, rating, what do you give this? Probably not as high as you will. So I'm going to say from one to ten, I'm going to give. give this one a seven. Ooh, interesting. Nine. Nine out of ten.

I go big on this. I love how you got really close to your microphone too. You're like nine. Okay, nine. Nine. Nine out of ten. This one was incredible. This one involved everybody.

Okay. I feel like we got to know everybody much better. Okay. I thought Scarlett did a phenomenal job. I love the use of kind of. fairy tale and metaphor, and I really connect to the themes of this one. Okay. About, you know, there's a time and a place for pretending and sometimes reality or the truth is

what we need. Like, yeah. I just, I thought it was great. I'm going to pump mine up. My rating goes up 0.5. I want to go to 7.5 because of the Scarlet Palmer's performance. She was so good. She knocked it out of the park.

She really did. Great. Well, that was fun. What's next week? Guess what? What? The 100th episode. Oh, boy.

It's timeless. This is the PS de resistance of Harry Kim. Ari Kim is the best in this episode of the entire series because it is a chance to see Harry's ability or Garrett's ability to act because now he's finally given something to do other than saying shields down to 30% captain. So that is... I know you've talked about this episode a lot.

Yeah. I'm excited to see it because I've got to be honest. You don't remember, Jack. do you? Oh, my goodness. Probably not. So we'll see next week when we talk about it. Well, there's not a lot of Paris. I know you've talked about it a lot. Yeah, there's not a lot of Paris going on in this app. That's probably not. Probably not. Yeah. Timeless next week. Next week, everybody. Thanks, everyone. Get ready. See you next week.