The Delta Flyers - Past Tense Part I

Episode Date: January 28, 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, Past Tense Part 1, is hosted by Garrett Wang, Robert Duncan McNeill, Terry Farrell and guest host Robert Hewitt Wolfe. Past Tense Part 1: En route to a symposium in San Francisco, Sisko, Dax, and Bashir are lost during transport to Earth from the Defiant. We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Production Managers Megan Elise & 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, Tom Paynter, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Lisa Robinson, Alex Mednis, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Roxane Ray, Andrew Duncan, David Buck, Tim Neumark, Randy Hawke, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Jonathan Brooks, Matt Norris, Izzy Jaffer, Francesca Garibaldi, Thomas Irvin, Jonathan Capps, & Sean T.Our Co-Executive Producers:Liz Scott, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Carl Murphy, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Elaine Ferguson, Captain Jeremiah Brown, E & John, Deike Hoffmann, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Lee Lisle, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Mark G Hamilton, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Mary Burch, Sandra Stengel, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Elizabeth Stanton, Tim Beach, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Tae Phoenix, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Danie Crofoot, Steve Lugo, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Stephanie Lee, David Smith, Stacy Davis, Heath K., Andrew Cano, Kevin Harlow, Hailey L., & Mariette KarrAnd our Producers:Philipp Havrilla, James Amey, Jake Barrett, Ann Harding, Trip Lives, Samantha Weddle, Paul Johnston, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Fillmon, Chad Awkerman, AJ Provance, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Heidi McLellan, Brianna Kloss, Dat Cao, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Alexander Ray, Vikki Williams, Cindy Ring, Alicia Kulp, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Shanyn Behn, Renee Wiley, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Dominique Weidle, Justin Weir, Jesse Bailey, Mike Chow, Matt Edmonds, Miki T, Heather Selig, Rachel Shapiro, Stephanie Aves, Seth Carlson, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Annie Davey, Mark Lacey, Jeremy Gaskin, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Carmen Puente-Garza, Eddie Dawson, Klee Wiggins, Greg Kenzo Wickstrom, Lauren Rivers, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Robert Allen Stiffler, PJ Pick, Preston M, Rebecca Leary, Ryan Mahieu, Karen Galleski, Jeremy Conoley-Mayes, Jan Hanford, Loretta Reyes, Katelynn Burmark, Timothy McMichens, Helen B, Dawn Colleen Smith, Cassandra Girard, Robby Hill, Andrea Wilson, Willow Whitcomb, Mo, Leslie Ford, Bethany Grace Howe, Daniel Chu, Scott Bowling, Ed Jarot, James Vanhaerent, Nick Cook-West, & Oscar FernandezThank 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 Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers 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. For the complete and exciting, amazing, incredible, stupendous version of this podcast. Please check us out at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron today. Your hosts for today are my fellow Trek actors, Terry Farrell, Robert Duncan McNeil, and myself, Garrett Wong. And today we have a very special, special guest joining us, writer extraordinaire Robert Hewitt Wolfe. Woo-hoo!

Yay! Fun to be here. Okay, just I need to ask the first question right off the bat for you, Robert Hewitt. it wolf please just take us just down that little journey of how you became a deep space nine writer your origin stories for trek and we would love to hear that sure uh so i went to uh UCLA film actually uh got a bachelor's and master's in film uh and along the way i got into screenwriting and i got placed second in this in this old award thing called the golden awards and the result of that was you got like your name on the back page of variety it was

It was a pretty big deal. Wow. I got an agent off my second script. And then five years later, after struggling for a while, my agent was like, hey, we represent one of the writers on Next Generation. And they have an open door pitch policy if you watch the show. And I was like, oh, I watched first season. It was terrible. But I can watch it.

I watched it in reruns. So I watched it and reruns. And they got me a meeting to pitch. And I went in and I pitched a couple things and struck it. out and they invited me in a second time and i struck out and they invited me in a third time i was like if i don't sell this time they're never asking me back and i went in and i pitched ironically for this i pitched a time travel story that eventually became past tense sort of oh my god that's i pitched it all out and they were like that's great but we have a time travel story on stage right

now we're doing time zero and i was sitting on the couch in i think it was ron's office and i was pitching like ron moore renea cheverea brandon braga i think pete fields and joe monoski was ridiculous they were all in there wow and i was sitting at the edge of the couch and i was so frustrated i just i literally banged my head on the arm of the couch and i was like okay i got this other idea it's like wharf goes into the holodeck to play old west with his kid and there's a thing where data is plugging into the ship to see if you can beat the backup computer to the ship and it crosses all the wires and slowly everyone in the holodeck becomes data everyone else in the western becomes data and all the safeties are off

and the only way to end the program is to beat now data in a gunfight and then kiss barmaid data and that's how you end the story and so they bought it I was like wow and that was a fistful of data's is that was the episode and that was my first professional sale

ever wow so then they let me write that episode God only knows why I'd almost sold a script I sold it later a couple times actually a feature and they'd read the feature that I'd almost sold like literally I was in negotiations in the company I was negotiating with Carol Co.

They did like the Terminator movies. They went bankrupt for the second time in the middle of the negotiation. They made an offer. We countered. They went bankrupt. It was awesome. Anyway.

So, yeah, so that was my first gig. Can I ask you a question about the pitching, though? Because we've heard some other people talk about, you know, you know, outside writer pitches. What is the process? Like, if you pitch and they buy it, did they just say, that was a great pitch, go write it? Or do they go in the room and bring it?

break it do you break the story with them how does that work it really depended sometimes it went anywhere from there was a way they could just buy a concept like if they thought well there was like a little nugget in there we liked but we're not so sure about these writers and you know we don't have time to work with them and they're not union uh-huh you could just buy like you pay them a thousand dollars for the concept and they did that a little bit no um next step up would be okay you know like that's legit we like the entire story we're still not sure we want you to write the episode but like we will sit down and talk to you about it for a little bit you'll write a story document you know right and you get paid for that that's a you got paid yeah that was story

by and that was like legit writers guild job yeah can i ask is this is that like an outline for the whole script is that what at that stage yeah at that stage it was like a five to six page double spaced, you know, times a line, 12 point story document in prose. It wasn't broken down by scenes. Okay. And then if they liked that and they liked the writer and they, and we had time, you'd get invited into then actually write the first draft at least. And then you'd be in the story break.

And out of the story break, you generate an outline that was broken down scene by scene. Got it. Okay. Then you'd go off to write based on that outline. And then usually as a freelancer, you get cut off because we did that time. And then that was it. And then someone on staff like Brannon rewrote fistful of datas. So that's why we have share credit.

So like you pitched this fistful of data's. They said, we love it. We're going to buy the story. So you got story buy. You're at that level. And we want you to write it. So you were in your very first writer's room on NextGen. Yeah.

My first writer's room that I was ever in was a real writer's room was. It was Michael Taylor, Jerry Taylor, Ron, Renee, Brannan. It was, like, great. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for breaking that down. And then the second writer's room I'm in was Dube Space Nine, because they had me come over to do a freelance on Duce Space Line.

They had me do Q-Wist. That was a freelance. I wasn't on staff yet. It was another tryout. And that was me and Ira and Michael and Pete, Pete Fields, Peter Allen Fields. And so, again, like, great, really smart writers. And so I learned a lot. and wrote Qas, and they liked that enough,

even though it didn't turn out that great. I mean, it's all right. It's fine. It's fine. They liked that enough. They hired me on the stuff, and that's how I got on stuff. I saw you in Vegas for a second, but otherwise I haven't really seen you all this time.

What have you been working on since Star Trek? Oh, God. I created a syndicated science fiction show that ran for five years called Andromeda. I worked on a bunch of other stuff. I created another show called The Drescent Files that only lasted a season. Oh, that's from the books. From the books, yeah.

Co-developed with Hans, where I worked with on D. Space Club. I was on Elementary. Oh, I love that show. Six seasons. Really good. Well done. Yeah, thanks.

And then now I'm on an NBC show called The Irrational, which is Jesse Martin. it's a it's another procedural mystery show where he plays like a college professor who's an expert and irrational human behavior i have to watch that irrationals yeah yeah and his ex-wife is a fbii agent he still kind of wants to be part of her life so he's he's helping oh i hear jesse martin is the nicest man i hear he's such a good man he's a good guy well it sounds like you've had an incredible career. So congratulations on men. Congrats. A lot of really impressive stuff. Thanks. I've had a good run. I've had a good run.

You know, my big goal is, again, like, this is so inside the, this is so inside, inside baseball for everybody listening. But, but my big goal is to try to get 100 writing credits, which is really hard. Oh, wow. It is hard. And I want like 88 or something like That's awesome. That's amazing. Well, I'm trying. We'll see. A working title for this episode was cold and distant stars.

Was that your original working title, I guess, that you had? Yeah, that was the pretentious version. Yeah. I had a few versions of this show that I kept trying to sell Ira on. And that was the working title of the one that was a little more surreal. Okay. Would this be the one where Cisco goes back in time and ends up being homeless? And that he was actually, he claims that he's from the future.

He was commander of a space station. And because of that, everyone thinks he's insane. He's given Thorazine, which Robbie, it sounds like the Voyager episode of the pilot from the time ship in the 29th century that gets trapped in Venice Beach. Oh, yeah. And he, everyone thinks he's crazy too. So it was like, wow. And eventually they used some of those ideas in the far beyond the stars, which they were going

to use my title for. I was like, no, it's my title. I might use it. But yeah, so they used, they sort of took the pitch from Marks of Cree for Far Beyond the Stars and they, and they use some elements from my original idea of like the homeless, the crazy the vision of himself as a Starship or like creating a Starship captain, that kind of thing. Right. Before we get into this episode any further, I just want to make sure we should give a couple

shoutouts for birthdays. Yes, yes. We've got a couple birthdays this time. Our first birthday is Heath K. January 28th. Happy birthday, Heath. Happy birthday, Heath. Happy birthday, Heath. Happy birthday, Heath. All right, next up, we have Ryan Tomey. Three days later on January 31st. Happy birthday, Ryan. Happy birthday, Ryan. Happy birthday, Ryan. Happy birthday, Ryan. Also, we want to welcome our newest prophet Sean T. Welcome, Sean. Welcome, Sean. Welcome, Sean. Welcome, Sean. It's time for our poetry synopsis. Robbie McNeil with your Limerick. Synopsize this episode. Here we go. Just got to loosen up a little. Okay. The transporter doesn't work very well. It's 2024. Tensions are starting to swell.

While Dax is drinking fine wine, Cisco tries to save the timeline. He says, call me bell, Gabriel Bell. Nice. Thank you. Look at that. Little James Bond kind of action going on at the end. I love that last line. Is it his last line?

Yep. It's the last line of the episode. Bell. Call me Bell, Gabriel, Bell. Okay. Had to work that into the poem. You couldn't stand it, could you? You had to do it again, didn't you get it?

I did. I just, I like to impersonate him. My haiku for Past Tense Part 1, Transport Malfunction. Jadzia lives the high life. Cisco becomes Bell. There you go. Nice. Thank you.

Short and simple. Yeah, much faster than a 20-minute synopsis. Yes. I have a poem. Do you? Well, it's not my poem, but I just wanted to, I have the lyrics for another day in Paradise by Phil Collins, just to say that this has been a problem ever since then. So she calls out to the man on the street, sir, can you help me?

It's cold and I've nowhere to sleep. Is there somewhere you can tell me? He walks on, doesn't look back. He pretends he can't hear her, starts to whistle as he crosses the street, seems embarrassed to be there. Oh, think twice because it's another day for you and me in paradise. Nice. That's a good.

I couldn't, I couldn't take the time to write my own, so I just stole one. Hey, it's excellent. We're okay with theft. I love it. I love that you participated. Yes, thank you. Thank you. It makes it look better than I didn't do mine this week that you had one.

So, yay. You picked up the slack. So I don't feel quite so naughty. Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, the story, obviously, by Iris Stephen Bear and Robert Heward Wolf, teleplay by Robert Hewitt Wolf, directed by Reza Bedeyi. another i thought he only did that one episode clearly he did more than one episode of ds9 then

yeah like three or four okay so this is his second one that we've seen so far um guest stars we have jim metzler as christopher brenner uh frank military as bcc dick miller as vin al rodrigo as Bernardo Calvara and Tina Lifford as Lee and also Bill Smitrovich as Webb these are all names from a place what is it

what are these from again Robert they're from something these they're all from Magnificent 7 thank you a lot of them are oh how funny for no particular reason by the way no reason at all that's not your favorite film why did you oh I love it I love the Magnificent 7

same like there's no there's no thematic connection not really i mean i guess it's like people trying to save people from an impossible situation but it's not like it's not really western it was just sort of a random i don't know why did we just decided to start naming people after people that's fun it's seven but we did oh i i love seeing dick miller by the way yeah yeah yeah yeah what a great character actor yeah yeah i mean that's a great i mean that's a great task i mean frank military is terrific in it i mean Bill Smith, Tina Lifford is great. They're all great. All six of the major guests are terrific.

Love Tina Lifford. Yeah, she did great. Oh, she's so great, yeah. We also have some co-stars listed as well. Henry Hayashi. Henry Hayashi is a male guest, Patty Hawley, as a female guest. Richard Lee Jackson is Danny. Eric Stewart as stairway guard and John Lendale Bennett as Gabriel Bell.

John Lendell Bennett was stand-in, stunt double, everything for for Avery's character The episode House of Quark He was the Klingon that was stabbed In the very beginning Oh yeah Yeah so he's made it a career Of being on camera

And getting stabbed so far So in the prior episode And he's very good at dying He did he's good at dying He's like no he's gonna die Yeah yeah You just knew it You knew it you knew it

All right Robbie Let us jump into this Go ahead Let's jump into it Well we start with a commander's log Cisco says Commander's Log started 48481.2

He continues My senior staff and I have been asked to address the annual Starfleet Symposium on the current situation in the Gamma Quadrant. I'm looking forward to the opportunity and to visiting my sister in Portland. I love these station

you know, Commander's Logs or whatever by the way. It's a great way to sort of like quickly set the context of every episode. It's perfect. That's why I read it when we're talking about these episodes because it just lays it all out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great way to, it's a great way to just junk, get through a bunch of exposition. If you can get a little character into there, it's even better. And it's sort of classic voiceover. It's the one time in Star Trek, we could sort of do voiceover.

It's like we were doing logs, you know, and voiceover is, can be great. It just depends on the show. If it's a part of it or not, I did a, I did a, that show the Dresden Pals I did have

like hard boiled detective voiceover which was really fun to write but this is this is as close as Star Trek gets to get it to do it

though. Yeah. Yeah, I like it when shows have that so it really adds to your experience as you're watching

and it fills in blanks that you can't understand like when you read a book you get so much information and you only have what did you guys get like 42 to 45 minutes at the most

Somewhere like that, yeah. Yeah, so it's not a lot of time to show the story. We were forced to do exposition. Yeah. This is so much. I mean, you have to. I felt so bad for our poor actors on Star Trek had to do some terrible exposition. Sometimes it gets very dense, yes.

It does. But then your job is to make it sound as natural as possible. It's the first time we hear about a sister. We never hear that every, or that Cisco has a sister. We don't know about that. Sister and Portland. have we talked to we've talked no no first time no he know his dad's a chef and do we ever made her do we ever no I didn't think we did I would think his dad yeah but not we know his dad is a chef in

new Orleans or something like that we know that we know he has a I think we know he has a I think if I remember correctly he has one brother and two sister he comes to two sisters one brother I think he came he has a big family relative to right to TV families which you're usually small but we never see any of them. No. Never do. We never met my sister. No.

I have a sister. Oh, really? Jedzia has a sister too. Okay. Yeah. And then Kira had family, but we don't like this. Talk about what happened to them. Every time she does, it's like, oh.

Yeah. It's funny, though, that you throw in the sister. We don't meet her as we talk about. But it's on theme with family, which is so much about what DS9 is about. Yeah. Back that, you know, Terry, that you mentioned, you've got a sister. I love that, that everybody talks about their family. Even if we don't meet them, it's just important to them.

And I think that's a great detail, a great theme that every, every character is kind of playing into. That was a big, big focus of Deep Space Nine was that, like, these are, like, Cisco is a family man. He has a son. He's, he, he had a wife. He meets his new wife on the show, eventually, spoiler, spoiler. But that was, I think, we felt like that was an important difference between Deep Space 9 characters and next generation where everyone was pretty much single, didn't have kids except for Crusher. So, you know, we have not, we have two young people on the show, eventually had three. We have, you know, everybody has brothers and sisters.

and dads and, you know, we see a few parents over time. In a weird way, like, Jadzia has a host of, not Jadzea herself has a sister, but also Dax has an ex-wife that we meet. And, like, there's all these relationships that Dax has. And we always felt that that was really a big part of the show. Yeah. We wanted this show to feel like a family, even more so than, in a way, next generation. Yeah.

which always felt like a found family for sure, but we pushed it a little hard on this based on. Well, I love that you bring that up right out of the gate in the voiceover before we even see anybody on camera. But we do cut on the bridge. They're approaching Earth. They talk about dinner with Admiral Drasman. That sounds like a very fancy dinner.

And Cisco, Dax, and Bashir are going to go. But nobody else wants to go on this dinner. No one seems excited about it. No, Kira's not interested. Odo's not interested, Miles really doesn't want to go. What an interesting last name that you gave that's this admiral, Drasman. It's just so, it's like some type of news type. Yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's like a new medication that you're seeing advertised.

Tip Drasman if you need, you know. And the list of side effects are worse than what it. Drowsiness is 100%. Drowsiness is definitely a side effect of taking Dressman. It wasn't that Dresman was a bad person. Droner Drasman, I believe. Droner Drasman. He just kept rambling and rambling, yeah.

Talks and has this monotone voice and just puts everyone to sleep. I love it. Well, Cork also shows up in the scene. He makes a call from the station. This is, I think, Armand's only seen in the episode. Yeah, we had to give him his residuals. His residual scene, exactly. This is the first episode, Robbie, that does not take place on the station.

This is the only time the station. is referred to is this side little black closet in Quarks that he's doing this call from. That's it. Other than that, every other scene takes place off of the station. This is the first of four episodes in DS9 that are not on the station. Wow. Yeah. Interesting.

Well, Quark calls, he reminds Cisco that, you know, the Nagus really helped you guys out, you know, making contact with the Dominion, getting to know them. So the Nagus would like a favor. his nephew is being held by Starfleet Cisco gets the hint about all this I love that Cisco knows the rules of acquisition too that he's quoting the rules It's funny

He studied up Yeah Do you remember about the rules of acquisition Armand has said that they were just kind of making them up as they went Is that true? 100% Just whatever you made up Both of the ones that are in this scene

We made up for this scene That's funny So good And then did you keep track of them once you had them? Yes. Oh, that's good. Eventually, I and I did a book called

I have the Berengi. Oh, seriously? All the rules that we did, not all the rules, because we never did all of them. But every rule that we did, plus a few we made up for the book with a little story about each one. Oh, that's cute.

Yeah, it's a great little book. I used to keep it during the podcast right next to me. So when Armin said something, I could look it up, but it's filed the way on my bookshelf right now. As a writer, how do you come up with the different names? Like, Negas's nephew, I love this name. Belongo.

I can tell you where that came from. It's a very obscure reference to a fantasy role-playing game called RuneQuest, which was one of the big fantasy role-playing games in the 70s and 80s. It was like an early rival to D&D. Right. And they had a very elaborate, one of the features of RuneQuest was it had a very elaborate mythology with all these different gods. And one of the very minor gods was a trickster god named Bologo.

So I was just like, yeah, Bologna. So I occasionally would name people or characters in the show after either characters from the mythology of that show or after my friend's characters in our D&D or Rune Quest games. So there's a couple of characters that are named after my friend's characters or my characters or stuff like that. Okay, so Bologna is a trickster god sort of like how Loki is in. Yeah, it's kind of a Loki fire stealer kind of guy. So the Negus' nephew is clearly up to no good most of the time, which is why Cisco says you can't free a fish from water because Belongo is always going to be in trouble.

There's no way to get Belongo out of trouble because Belongo lives in trouble. Like that is his existence. That's amazing. That's amazing. Thank you for that tidbit. All right. Well, they head over to the transport. room, which for the first time I realized how small that transporter pad is.

That's tiny. It's tiny. And suddenly, O'Brien sees some kind of power fluctuation in the transporter readouts. He fixes it. It doesn't seem phased by, really. But then he realizes, well, it doesn't look like they made it to their destination. Yeah. Dun, dun, do.

Right. But it showed that the transport was complete. So it didn't, you know, there, they went somewhere. They went somewhere. They're somewhere. That's all we don't. They went to the Paramount backloth. Yes.

So many familiar nooks and pranis of that back lot. Yes. We head out to the street. There's Cisco lying on the ground. Bashir's right next to him. They are woken up by, it looks like a shotgun or something. Some kind of weapon prodding them. And it looks like these are cops or security guys and jumpsuits.

Waking them up. tells them they're in the sanctuary district and that it's 2024. What? I know. That's how you know they're in the future because the guards are wearing jumpsuits. Jump suits.

Well, you know what else I noticed? We'll get to the scene. But I didn't expect that when Dax is in the office building and he comes in and goes out through a door that he has to turn a knob open a door. And I was like, oh, my God, we never see doors getting open. Yeah.

Like, they're always automatic. Yeah. Yeah. And he pulls it open, pushes it shut. Anyway, these guys, the cops in jumpsuits pick them up. It's 24. They're escorted away. And then we see at the bottom of the subway steps.

Dax is still unconscious lying at the bottom of the subway steps. Uh-oh. But I have my, I have my combat, John, the brook. The brooch. My jewelry. I have my jewelry on. Cisco and Bashir are sprawled out. And then when we see Dax, she's, she's carefully placed on those steps.

It's like a beauty shot. She's like, I'm going to do. Yeah, my hair's perfect. I'm going to lie a certain way. And it was just. Yes, well. Yeah. Of course.

Max is a cat. Don't you know that? If she doesn't land on her feet, she's going to land gracefully in a perfect. I told you, Gawa. I am a water rabbit, which really is a cat. Yeah. Cats were just superstitiously bad. That's right.

That's right. That's right. I did love on the back lot. There's a couple of subway stairs on the back lot at Paramount, but they dead end. They don't go anywhere. No. Because I've shot on that back lot. But they're cool.

Yeah. But you kind of get down there and you're like, whoa. Oh, bummer. We use every inch of those stairs, I think, in that shot. That was it. You did. I think you did. I can weirdly remember that.

Can you? Because the crew was all squished in the back. Yes, because it's a dead end. Exactly. It's very small. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny.

Well, we see Dax there at the bottom. We go to the opening credits. We come back and she's woken up by some nice man helps her. Yeah, nice, handsome man. Very handsome man. Very well spoken. Don't I have good. Yes, you really do.

You do. But you covered very quickly. You were like, oh, my, I still have my brooch. You immediately were like into, you know, conning this guy. Yeah, seven lifetimes. I've got it together, man. Yes, you were good. Max is very good at saying the things that need to be said in a given situation.

I was always part of her character. And part of the, I mean, obviously the gag is that. Brinner probably wouldn't have helped Cisco and Bishir, even if he'd seen him. To be honest, he's not that nice. No. He's helping Terry. He's helping Dax. I mean, he's helping the X model.

Yeah. Yes. The five foot, 11, six foot tall, beautiful. Thank you. I'll take that. I mean, soaking it up. I'm soaking it up. It was a deliberate choice that it was going to be Dax, who was going to be.

saved by the beneficent billionaire and meanwhile Cisco and Bashir, you know, are ending up in the homeless camp. That was not, you know, we didn't pull those names out of a hat. Can we just say for a second how incredible the storytelling of the future and all of the encampments that we do have now, how homelessness has really exploded over the last. 20 or 30 years and it's sad but remarkable to watch and who would have known I have goosebumps right now because the last time I lived in Los Angeles two years ago it was really scary in Santa Monica living in Santa Monica it wasn't the safe place it was in the 80s really bad yeah really bad I mean the truth is though the when we told the story there were there were encampments and a lot of homeless in santa monica just it's it's gotten worse but it wasn't not there you know right um and that was kind of they were like kind of hidden more like under the passes and yeah now they've taken over like it's so man it's just a

it's a massive crisis we've been dealing with it poorly for 40 years now well what's super interesting is that when this episode came out i think the the the notes talk about how the L.A. City Council was voting on actually establishing homeless zones where they were going to fence them in, similar to what the sanctuaries are. So that was so time, you know, it was so time appropriate or so coincidental that this episode came out at the same time. The way they shot this scene, though, is Brinner actually walks past Dax. You notice that? He doesn't stop right in front of her. He's almost halfway up the stairs when he stops and turns around and realizes, oh, someone's discarding models here, just throwing

them away. So let me go back and talk to this person and see if she's okay. So it was very interesting. And so what did you envision this guy to be, though, Robert? Brenner was just this internet guru. What was he exactly that made him? Was he like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs? No, you know who I saw him as?

I'll tell you who I think he was. But I want to know what you. You know, say it, and then I'll tell you whether you're right. Uh, to me, just the way he looks and everything, I thought he was Mark Zuckerberg. I thought he was the Facebook. He's, he had, he's, he's, but Facebook came after this episode, too soon, yeah. Yeah, too soon. Ted Turner.

Ted Turner. Right on. Yeah, that makes sense because he had Channel 90. Yeah. It's like loosely the idea because this was, remember, this is before Zuckerberg. Yes, it is. You know, it is. Jobs and I think job, yeah, jobs is around, but like he wasn't.

as big in a way and Gates was you know around but Ted Turner was in your face yeah and he he media mogul spokesperson for himself yeah basically and the idea of like a guy who

ultimately like did a lot of good things too but you know was still a billionaire who controlled a media company so that that was sort of we were going for got it was that was the very very general prototype would have been was Ted Turner back then i just love that comment when you

introduced the names chris goes oh jensia that's a pretty name what is that dutch i just love that dutch and jacks is like yeah something like actually isn't it polish it's polish yeah and it oh wow really yes oh i didn't know that i never knew terry why didn't you tell us this before you've never told us this it's polish i don't think no you've never told us it means warrior It's Polish, and it means warrior. Thank you. And I think it's a family name from Michael Pillar's family. I think he.

Really? Oh. I believe so. Curzon's a street in Los Angeles, but. Yeah. Yes, it is. It is. It is.

It is. And did he, am I right? Did he create Dax, Michael Pillar? I mean, mostly. Look, it's, it's credited to him and Rick. To begin with. Yes. To begin with.

But you go. guys really made it happen for me because I'm not exactly how they wanted me to be. Right, we made adjustments. We all we all we all group the character together. But that happens on every

show. I think that the truth is like Dax took the biggest evolution from concept to execution and eventual where we ended up because the original character was supposed to be much more kind of like Zen

philosopher Yoda-esque and like super scientists spouting techno babble all day long and then we we got Terry who is who is lovely and completely different from that in the cast and we were like we should maybe make the character more more of a rogue more of a yes it was very physical but but also just like like charming much more charming honestly and much more engaging than like some sort of zen master mentor to system much more and also just like more playful so so we we definitely move to to the sort of like like rogue this is the best way to put it roguish character who is much more of a little bit more of a trickster which is why that can just sort of like jump right into the cover yes situation and just be like all right i'm going to start tap dancing now and i won't stop

until I have to, you know. That was basically the character by then. And I think by this time, we'd really, we'd all, you know, with Terry's wonderful country, we'd all come up, come to a really good place with a character. Thank you. Well, thank you giving me so many great things to do because it was really fun. I thought, I've told this to other actors. But basically, if you are an actor on a show and you get more to do and more fun things to do,

That's how you know the writers like you. Yeah. Oh, thank you. And trust you also. Yeah. Because like, you know, I said this to Aaron back in the day. Like Aaron's character could have been completely just like barely there. Like you would have just been the bad boy best friend.

But like Aaron was a talented actor. And so, hey, you got to do a whole bunch more stuff than anyone I would have ever imagined. Yeah. Very helped us make this character into somebody who we could do all this really fun stuff. and the physical stuff and the charm and all that stuff. So it's just that's how you know. Like we don't write for if we, if we don't want to write a scene and then have it suck.

And so if we think it's going to suck, we're not going to write it. You only write it if we think it's going to be good. I love how Dax has evolved in the different sides of Dax that we've gotten to see already in the first couple of seasons. Yeah, me too. Chris Brinner takes Dax. up to his beautiful office building, which is that two-story fake high-rise on the back lot

that really doesn't go very high. But they head over to that city bank building or something is what it looks like to me. We're back in the transporter room, Miles and Kira trying to figure out the problem. What happened? They definitely materialize somewhere. We learn in this scene the cloaking device that uses chronotone particles that create a small variance somehow. And then Miles sees this brief temporal fluctuation happened at the very same time that the transport and the chronoton particles so they've got a clue

but they don't really know what it means at the end of the scene but they're starting to find some breadcrumbs here starting to try to figure it out had they realized that they don't know when they don't even know that there's time travel yet they don't even know that there's time travel they're just like there's something weird

happened got to figure it out it's a it's like the it's it's a very simple sci-fi mystery that probably has one too many scenes of them figuring it out figuring it out i don't know well sometimes isn't do you do you kind of lose perspective when you're writing it and then can see it when it's done on the screen i think it's just you know 30 years later looking at it going like right you know how we could have paste this up a little bit you know yeah yeah The pace of this episode in 95 when it came on was pretty typical. So it wasn't like we were dragging for back then. It was pretty pacey, actually.

But watching it now, I'm like, oh, man, I can pace this stuff. Speaking of different times, do you remember back in the 90s getting a lot of like studio or network notes on things? Like nowadays, often the most common notes that scripts will get are we need. need to explain this more? Like, can you have the characters explain that? Like, this is a situation where chronoton particles and temporal variance and all that could have been potentially a network note. Like, hey, you need to explain. Do you remember that? Or did the network and studio kind of leave you guys alone on DS9? Back then, we didn't get no, we only got notes from Rick. Oh, wow but i don't know where if rick was getting notes from other people so oh and they were a lot of

like explain this more explain this right make it clearer like so the you know they were what they were i mean the the good thing was you only got notes from one person and once he signed off it was done but the sort of like do we really have to explain this really guys i mean those kind of scenes and And I think Star Trek's particular, like Rick, really enjoyed those kind of like sci-fi mysteries. Yeah. And he always wanted us to sort of more, more of that. More of that. And we always wanted to do less.

Like, you know, I'm watching that scene now going like, what's it bad? Just see? Yeah, because sci-fi fans are with you. Yeah. And I also think, like, at the end of the day, Deep Face 9 wasn't so much of a sci-fi mystery show as as next generation and Boydor could be. We didn't really do those. We were much more about politics

and personal relationships and moral dilemmas and action, actually. Then we were about... Big sci-fi concepts. We were like, we have a sci-fi concept that will get us into this really cool story about our characters.

Let's get there. as quickly as possible and do as little as sci-fi stuff as we could. Yeah, yeah. And that was just a different difference in tone between us and our contemporary shows. And Rick was a champion of that tone. And so we were always

having to do a little more of it. Nice. And also for the viewers, we didn't have a network. We just had the studio. So if Rick got notes, it would have been from the studio heads, Carrie McCleggage and whatnot, but not we didn't have a traditional.

traditional network right that's like you guys did yeah yeah so o'brien and care are kind of getting some hints but they can't figure it out we go down to back down to 2024 we're by a sanctuary main gate this big wall that must have been installed out on the back lot um we see some tenements i have to say this episode had more background actors than i have ever seen on any star trick episode. It was huge. It was a lot. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it just occurred to me. You had so many background actors out on the streets and

stuff, which was probably way over budget. But in Chris Brenner's office, whenever that door opened, nobody was out there. I was like, this is the most powerful man in media and there's not like a staff outside. There is. You just can't see them. You can't see them. And that's okay. Because I tell you, I was super happy not to be in that encampment. Yes, I bet you were. At the moment, I thought, I'm missing out on the action. No, it was cold then.

Do you remember that, Robert? Yeah, it was cold. All right, so we see this big gate, Cisco and Bashir kind of talking off to the side between themselves. They're trying to figure out what happened. They are in San Francisco, but not in the right timeline, clearly. And they think Dax must have been nearby where they were, where they woke up. And Cisco does say we got to find Dax, we got to find a way home. And then our buddy, Vinn, comes over to escort them inside the gates of the sanctuary district.

By the way, Robert, so when you transport normally, you just transport you're there, you're conscious, and you continue with your life. But when you transport through time, it knocks you out, right? Apparently so. Apparently so. It puts you to sleep. episode yes but bishir says you got it was a transport sickness or something he has a medical term for it like you're a rough transport you're that's why we got knocked out it was a little rough like altitude sickness yeah sure i think because the conversation right before they beamed was about

dozer drasman okay about how asleep he is so that was in their minds there you go yes that's the last thing they thought about so they actually arrived asleep just like they were thinking about The one thing that I do, like, as far as sci-fi nonsense in this episode, is that they don't travel in space at all. They actually arrive exactly where they're supposed to. Yeah. They do beam down basically to Starfleet headquarters. Right.

Which is not there, but that's not there. It's not there yet. It hasn't been built yet. O'Brien gets them to the place. Right location. Wrong time. A little tiny one. Miami. Well, they walk inside the gate through the wall. It's basically a giant homeless camp.

And Bashir, we start to see how horrified he is by all this. He just doesn't understand it. Cisco does know some of this history. And he explains that these districts were in every city on earth, these sanctuaries. I like the nice name you give these prisons. It's a sanctuary. Even Chris Brenner later on says, oh, they're probably fine if they're in a sanctuary because they get food they're so nice there yeah classic yeah a billionaire that would never even experience a grocery store yeah well that term sanctuary comes up later in a different show sanctuary is in walking dead so i wonder if those writers were watching this episode well it's also for to be fair it's also from logan's run right oh that's right so maybe it's a logan's run uh he's trying

to find sanctuary that's right the place where people who are are going to be murdered when they turn 30 can live out their lives right that's right that's right there's a very famous line from logan's run which is there is no sanctuary that's in here that's in here too no but the idea basically that the sanctuary is it is inherently a lie like yeah in logan's run it's a lie it's a lie in our episode and i'm pretty sure it's a lie in walking dead too so yeah got it we're all riffing off the same thing yeah but they walk through the slum uh Cisco explains that these were very common and it's for people that don't have jobs or homes that's all that's the crime they've committed they just don't have a job or a place to live and and then vin uh tells bernardo who's been

complaining about getting home not working overtime he's like vin says bernardo get out of here go home if you want so bernardo's very happy at the end of the scene yeah and uh now we cut up to Chris's office. And Dax is using a computer out of, it did not look 2024 for sure. That was a swing and a miss. Yeah. That was like a rental from the mid-century prop store. Yeah.

It didn't even look. It looked like what was in the office, like with what Christine had in the office. Oh, yeah. It was slimmer than the best tops that we had. was it yeah it's it's yeah it is but you need a pen to operate the touch screen it was not yeah we didn't the computer's not great the yeah the the touchscreen and the the thing yeah but she's she's working on the computer and she Chris comes in she tells him that she's ordered a new transit pass she thanks Chris he has a few questions about her tattoos well he doesn't know what

they are at first he's like I really like your and then she she jumps in in, as usual, Dax covers very well, talks about her tattoos. He mentions he had one, but he had to get it removed for work. So we bond over tattoos. Over tattoos, yes. Yes, I think that's genius. It's genius. It is.

It is, yeah. When this scene first started, just looking at his office slash apartment, whatever you want to call it, I was sitting there thinking this looks so darn familiar. And sure enough, after looking at notes, this is the same set. It was reused in non-sequitur, the episode where Harry Kim goes back to San Francisco. This is Harry's apartment. It's the same, same set. Exactly.

Exactly. So I thought that was pretty cool. It's part of the, yes, it's part of the canon of Star Trek that Chris Brenner's office was then renovated into condos where Harry Kim lives later on. Yes. Yes. I think that that has to be true. now right yeah you made it so it went from it went from the it went from the brin man to the kim man so then you we built it and you used it that's right afterwards you guys built it and they

reused it used i got it okay i'm okay with sloppy seconds i'm fine the fact that i have a used set i'm okay we did that infrequently but we did do that back in the day where we would trade sets sometimes with the other shows. It wasn't common, but every once in a while we would like someone would use our cave set or we would use Next Generation's Cave Set back in the day or there was like

a village that they built for a next generation episode that we repurposed for next at D-Space 9. So we did do a little bit of resource sharing back then. Speaking of resource sharing and we haven't gotten to the scene yet but there's a scene with like the party where

Chris Brenner and all the rich people are having a cocktail party. That felt like it was filmed in our mess hall or what what was 10 forward and then became our mess hall. Might have been. I have no idea. I was looking at that scene and we'll get to it later, but I was looking at it going, God, the angle, the windows, the shape, everything about the walls at either end. It felt like it was our what became our mess hall, but was originally next 10th and 10 forward, yeah.

Very possible. Yeah. Well, they talk a little more. She doesn't know who he is or what he does. He reveals that he's a very famous man, Brenner information systems, among many other things. But I just think Dax is a great liar, a great con woman. You just play along so beautifully.

It's frightening, Terry. Now that I've seen you do it on the show, I'm like, wait a minute. Is she playing me now? She's a comedian. No, I can't do it in real life. I'm a bad liar, but hopefully I'm a better actor. The Dax is really good. He wonders how she's going to find her friends.

And at the end of the scene, she does not know. I think he says, these friends of yours, you told me about is there a way that you could get hold of them? And she doesn't really know. She said, I wish I could. But you still have your brooch, right? Terry. Yes, I still have a communicator. A.k.a.

But I have already tried just no response, right? so yeah it's not not looking good the show would be very short if i could find them quickly so it wouldn't work right it would be like a very quick episode yeah very quick so we're back at the processing center with cisco he's having his palm print scanned his retinal scan done that flash of light when it when it scanned him yeah i saw avery was like that felt real to me i felt like Avery had just been blind. They're looking up his records, I guess. Yeah.

It's also interesting to note that nowadays, it's very normal to get your fingerprint or your eye scanned in order to, you know, if you're traveling, if you go through clear, if you're using clear, they ask you, do you want a retinal scan or a fingerprint scan? So all of this stuff that we're seeing on track now in the 90s is now real life. Commonplace. Yeah, commonplace. Yeah, but it was totally non. Not at the doctor. Yeah. No one did in 90.

Not 95, but that one we got right. That one we kind of got right. Definitely. You have a lot of things you got right. He gets all these, you know, records scanned and stuff. And then they look it up. But Vin checks his records. Can't find anything.

It's like he doesn't exist. So he gives him some, some clipboards with some paper, good old-fashioned paper forms to fill out. He's quite rude to them. he's kind of you know i i like the sort of dmv it feels like a classic you're going to get your license renewed and people are just dismissive and rude and yeah well if you've got any problems don't come to me with him yeah vins rude but because dick miller is a face that we're also used to seeing on tv and we love him it's hard for us to buy his i'm sitting there going oh it's okay if he's rude It's Dick Miller.

It's charming, exactly. They actually expect him to be rude. Yeah, well, you have Dick Miller or nice to you. Kind of famous. Yeah, then you should be worried. We go back to the bridge on the defiant. Kira has told Starfleet that no one should beam onto the ship until they know what's happened. Miles comes in with some information that this microscopic singularity had passed through the solar system near them just at the moment that they were transporting.

everybody, and it interacted with the chronoton particles on the hull. So that's what created this temporal polarization, and it basically changed the beam out. So they did complete a transport, but Miles doesn't know when they landed, in what timeline. It could have been any timeline. But they know it's never. The studio has their explanation. Yes, there you go. One thing I actually, I'm kind of like, weirdly proud of rewatching this is that this is that this

is um it's a black swan event essentially like the thing that happens to transport them is a series of little weird um unpredictable unpredictable things star fleet doesn't usually use cloaking devices the defiance one of their only ships with the cloaking device they don't so okay it builds up kronom problem the defiant also has ablet of armor which no other star fleet ship has right which interacts with it and then there's a singularity. So like it's basically just like a series of of unforeseeable events that all sort of like real combined. Yeah. Individually none of those things would have affected anything, but combined. Yeah. Is what is what the key is there. Yeah. I actually thought I'm watching like, hey, that's pretty fun. That this is like it's not it's just such a weird combination of

strange events that actually created this situation. Robert, Robert, that just reminds me of Thanksgiving when I was a kid. My uncle, out of the blue, says, you know, if you eat crab meat, kiwi, and drink champagne, you die immediately. And I'm like that's kind of what this episode is all about. It's only these really random things. Have you ever tested the theory? Hell no.

I'm not going to test my uncle's theory. I don't know how he came about that. That sounds delicious, by the way. Like crab and a kiwi, kiwi, and then champagne sauce. You can do like a little with some, maybe some rice or kuskos. Yeah. A little brocolini on the side. Okay.

I would eat those things together. Yeah, absolutely. Sounds delicious. So O'Brien's figured out this weird combination is what's caused this. Right. And it's a time problem. That's what they've discovered in this scene. It's a timeline problem.

Right. Back in the processing center, we cut in to see a man doodling on Cisco's pantslay. I love this. I love this. It's so sweet. quirky little detail and Avery is so kind and gentle with him the way he takes his hand and it goes back to what you were saying Robert about what happened in the 1980s in the United States with the changing of policies that affect mentally you know people with mental illness

and it led to a lot of homeless people in the United States in the 80s and 90s that could have the help of a of a mental health facility yeah they needed to care real care yeah my wife at the time worked at a at a place that treated the homeless mentally ill oh really yeah she's a she's a psychotherapist and that was that's where she was working a place in sanernanda valley and so that's where a lot of the inspiration for the story came from wow was her dealing with people who of just having a really tough time of it and probably needed to be... I mean, look, institutionalizing people

wasn't great either, obviously. There was a lot of abuse in the institutional systems. Yeah. So, you know, it's one of those problems that has persisted because it is hard, you know? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And, yeah, I mean, Cisco is very gentle to this person,

I think, both because he has the Federation perspective and also because and that's also the reason doesn't rise to the bait early on from bc is because he knows he cannot change this timeline he cannot mess with people he's got to he can't interact minimally impact as much as possible he can't help people he can't hurt people he has to like try to trod this very gentle path and not step on any straight butterflies you know yes yeah and it's truly his north star and you guys made sure that he's stuck with that. I mean, it's repeated over and over again that he has that as his main focus. This is an interesting side non-sequitur, but there is a psychotherapist for the New Zealand

federal penitentiary that when she counsels all the inmates, the new inmates, she finds out all the issues that they're dealing with from their, you know, whatever, put them into prison. And she finds the corresponding Star Trek episode that deals with that and makes them watch that as therapy. So. Isn't that cool? That's pretty cool. You brought that up before. I did. Yeah, but Robert doesn't know it, so I just wanted him to know that. It's pretty cool. Very cool. Well, Bashir's here.

We cut from the doodling with Cisco to Bashir, very frustrated. They've been there for hours. The lines barely moved. And Vin could care less. Again, very DMV of him. Bashir sits down by Cisco, says some of these people need mental health, as we're talking about. He's picking up on this. He's observing this, and it seems so clear to him that these people need medical help.

and Cisco looks up and sees the date on like a digital clock. He sees the time, the date, the year, and he puts it together with the history he knows about the bell riots, which he explains the Bashir is one of the most violent episodes in U.S. history, and it's going to happen in four days right here. They need to get out of here. So that's where that new information comes out. And they can't do anything to change. that that needs that event needs to happen he's clear about that too i want to say like

cisco looks at a date in the time and he's able to pull this out of his head i don't know if i could pull any major event in our history there's very few i think it's been established that cisco is a history buff so i feel like you know these dates and times are not they come to him yeah they come to him much easier than he's much smarter than me garrett is much much much Is that what it? Well, that's what he's curious about. So if it's something that you're interested and curious about, you'd remember them better. By the way, sidebar, Rebecca, my wife teases me all the time because whenever we're traveling anywhere and I see those historical markers on the side of the road, I pull over. I'm obsessed with like historical. I like them.

I do too. I love it. I pull over to do what, Robbie? To just read it. Read the thing and look around. I imagine this event happening here? Oh, yes. I will literally pull off the road if I see one up ahead. Oh, yeah. I love seeing them on buildings. Yes. Yeah. When it says this was an old

whatever it was, an old bank built in 18 something. Yes. All right. Cisco's a history buff too. All right, we come back after a commercial break from the old days. We did commercials. We come back with Cisco now explaining the bell riots. Basically, the bell

riots were named after this man Gabriel Bell. He was one of the sanctuary residents who was guarding hostages that were taken during the riots. Some of the police were taken hostage. And the government troops stormed the place

based on rumors the hostage had been killed, but it turns out that they weren't harmed at all because Gabriel Bell was a good guy. Took care of them. And Cisco explains, Bell sacrificed his own life to save them. And he was a national hero and this changed everything, changed all the public opinion about the

sanctuaries. And after that, they were torn down. And that's when these social issues started getting corrected. So a lot of history of how important this is, you know, just describing this Robert, I realized Bell sacrifices his own life. I didn't catch that in the watching. But now having finished this first episode, I'm like, oh, how's that? going to work out. Yeah. Steaks and stuff. Yeah.

Stakes and stuff. Nice. It was just in his Cisco's description, went right over my head, that detail, but now reconsidering it, knowing how this episode ends, Bell's going to sacrifice his own life. I can't wait to see what happens. Okay. This is the first scene, though, that Starfleet's temporal displacement policy has ever been. mentioned in Star Trek. They do talk about it in Voyager as well, I do believe. So we have the

first appearance of that idea in this scene in this episode. Basically is a prime directive with time. Basically. Don't mess up time. Stay out of time. Yeah. Avoid, avoid creating parallel timelines or destroying the main time. Yeah, exactly. All the city on the edge of forever. We don't want that to happen. Exactly. Don't do that. They get through all the and Vin comes over and says that they are next. So they head over to a cubicle with a new woman, we mean, Lee. And she's processing them. She apologizes.

She thinks they were, she thought they were dims. And this is the first I think we hear. Well, no, it's not the first we hear of it. But she's going to explain it. She says, oh, I thought you were dims, but you're not. Your gimmies. Which I love. And then she says, she says, I think that slang is demeanor.

meaning and rude. But then she continues to use it, which I think is hilarious. Like, well, that's what everybody's doing. So I'll do it. I don't like it. But that's also very 90s too. Yes. It's a bad habit that she has of using those terms when she shouldn't. When she shouldn't. But she does explain that since they don't have any jobs or a place to live, that they can stay here in this beautiful sanctuary. And she gives them some food cards, warns them about the guards, says they can be kind of rough and she brings up ghosts for the first time, which are other residents that, you know, steal and they just haven't integrated very well. Robert, so give me as explained, people are looking for help, job, place to live, give me something. Dim, can you explain the, you know,

dims are the people that need to be in a mental hospital or a hospital, but how did you get dim? Yeah, that they're, they're, that they're dim bulbs, unfortunately, that they are not. DIM bulbs. DIM bulbs. B-U-L-B-S. Okay. Yeah. Light bulbs. As opposed to being a bright bulb.

Yeah. Not the brightest bulb in the... Thank you. And why did you use ghost? The people who just fall through the cracks that don't fit in, that don't want to fit in, you know, in my wife's experience, there are, you know, look, there are the vast majority of people who experience homelessness want not to be there. You know, and then there are people who are mentally ill and aren't able to really function enough to get themselves out of the situation.

And then there are, unfortunately, people that she experienced who just prefer that as their lifestyle. It's just, you know, they have a very low financial responsibility and they can spend their money on things that they want to spend their money on. And they tend to be more permanent. And they kind of, they kind of prey on these other vulnerable people. That's the, the sad thing is that most, a lot of the people who, you know, are, yes, homelessness, people who are experiencing homelessness often are preyed on by other people. Yeah. Yeah. Because, because as, as Bashir says later on, they're kind of forgotten.

They're just forgotten about by the rest of society. so they're easy prey and it's also like unfortunately you know the police tend to not care as much when the victim is experiencing homelessness right it's you know as they as I

have heard cops say it's crime on crime in their minds it's like right right you know there's not a civilian who's the victim and so they don't care as much it's a bad attitude and very sad but but it's real

well i love that you bring it up that you bring up these very important issues in this episode in the writing of the episode it's very well articulated and really laid out in a great way thanks so they decide to go look for a place to to live in the sanctuary for the time being and then we cut back to chris's office um dax is trying her com badge or brooch as she's told Chris her fancy brooch can't reach Cisco or Bashir Chris comes in the door this is the door moment where I was like

oh my god he's he's opening a door like I actually it's getting my attention yes and two friends apparently I'm one of them three now he has three friends but he does tell Dax that he's gotten her room for the

for five nights at the Clift sounds very fancy to me yeah cliff I like it he did check on her friends he lets Dax know he looked for her friends no luck yet and this is when he invites her to for a get together like cocktail party or something

and he says you can bring your friends if you find them they're welcome to and wishes her luck and she takes off well and off camera you don't see this he gives me his platinum card

to go shopping and go to the salon and I'm assuming he's paying for my room because I don't have any money yes well I'm not 100% sure whether you got his platinum card

or whether Dax remember Dax convinces the computer system that she exists that she exists and I'm not in I think Dax may have also convinced the computer system that Dax has a

platinum card card. Yes. Yeah. I actually, after that scene, I was thinking, I really would love to know what she said. And that probably would have been so hard to write. Like, holy cow, when you convince people of these things. Literally, honestly,

she was a hacker. I mean, he's a hacker. She hacked the system. But we didn't go into any of that. but basically that's another episode yeah and also like hacking is really crappy on screen it's yeah you know it's not really dramatic no but the idea that dax could like be displaced in time get on a computer that she's never never used before figure out the operating system well enough to exploit it give herself an identity probably give herself a credit card it's like yeah of course

dax can do that of course she can well i'm 350 years old, too. So I was probably alive during that time. Yeah, you could have asked it. Oh, that's true. Yeah, me on the other hand, I have a Mac is what I used. And if I get on a

Windows computer, I don't know what the hell does it. You're lost. I'm totally lost. I'm like, what is this bar at the bottom? I don't know. Right click. I have no idea. The name for this swanky hotel, the Clift, is that named after Montgomery Clift? I believe that was the

Yeah, I think so. But also there's a, I grew up in San Francisco. There's a, there's a place called the Cliff House. Right. Cliff House, though, right? Without a tune. Yeah, so it's a little bit the Cliff House. Yeah.

It's a little bit inspired by that. But fancy. Yeah. Yeah, well, the Cliff House itself is just a restaurant and like a tourist trap, basically. Okay. Okay. It's not a hotel at all, but it used to be bigger and fancier. And so I was just imagining that.

It's like Gladstone's out of Malibow. Okay. It's like that. Oh, no. Sounds fancy. but it's really a bunch of tourists there. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I went there the first time I came to LA.

I went to Gladstone. Me too. Yeah. We go back to the sanctuary district and Cisco and Bashir are looking for a place to stay. They get to an apartment building, but they're turned away by some rough-looking dudes. They won't let them come in. Look for somewhere else. and Bashir cannot understand the lack of compassion and care that people, you know,

that people don't have for all these people stuck in the sanctuary. This is the scene I thought, Robert, where you really dove into, through Bashir's, you know, experience of it, these issues in a really great way. I particularly love the line. I highlighted it here where Bashir says, he says, causing people to suffer because you hate them. is terrible, but causing people to suffer because you've forgotten how to care, that's really hard to understand. I love that line. It's beautiful. It's great. There's a lot of character. Yeah, a lot of character development for Bashir in this episode. And this is the first time he really,

he really stands up for something. He's very, he's worked up. You know, we don't see a worked up Bashir until this episode, I feel. He's very into what's happening around him. Yeah. I think this was kind of, I wouldn't say the culmination of his character. or arc from sort of the callow and and and sort of narcissistic spectrumy dude he was at the beginning of the show silver spoon kind of guy in a way in a way i mean we'll eventually learn some things about him that that that underlines some of that we won't tell you yeah but it's the first he's sort of emerging as a heroic figure he's becoming the person he imagined he was at the beginning yeah in a way the better but a better version even of that person

person, someone who really does care, who really is trying to help people, who really does have a tremendous amount of empathy and is physically courageous and all of those things, you know? Right. Yeah. So, yeah, this is sort of a big episode in the, in the sort of arc of Bashir growing up. Is this the first time that, that Cisco and Bashir are off together? That doesn't happen very often, does it?

It doesn't happen very often. I'm trying to remember. Yeah. You're right, Terry. Oh, yeah. They're a good team. Yeah. Yeah.

And it is a, it is a sort of mentorship. relationship between the two of them. Yeah, that comes through. Well, I love this conversation as they're walking through, seeing all of this sad situation with everyone. And they come upon this man who's getting beaten up. I swear it was Dennis Madelon taking the punch. Dennis Madeline.

The stunt coordinator, certainly. Yeah, with a big head snap and the fall to the ground. But there was never a close-up of him on the ground. so I'm not sure, but I think it was Dennis. And if not him, Tom Morga, then. Yeah, no, it was Dennis. There is no close up that's usually, it probably was Dennis. Probably.

And I think, you know, Dennis had long hair. Yeah. And I think whoever was getting beaten up, it almost looked like someone that tuck the hair, tied it up under, done some weird, you know, hairdo to hide his long hair. But anyway, he gets beaten up. This is where we met meet beast. who's one of the ghosts, clearly is behaving like the lead described ghosts. Oh, he's so icky. He is icky, but, you know, it's cool that you know to stay away from the ghosts

because all ghosts wear hats. It's very clear. If you're a bad guy, you wear a hat, a fedora in the episode. That's what's happening. It's a hat gang. He had a nice hat. I'm a hat guy. I liked his hat.

It's a nice hat. Yeah. Yeah, it was a nice hat. It's a status symbol. creepy guy nice hat yeah creepy guy nice hat yeah wait i just realized you're both wearing hats so clearly you go yes clearly we are we're a gang you're not though robert no no we're the good guys because we're

they're they're good are you are you gimmies you're gimmies then right we're gimmees or dams oh my god we're guineas you guys are dims We're dimmys. Sorry. We're dim ghosts. I'm definitely dim bulbs. Oh, my goodness.

BC, it doesn't recognize them. You know, Bashir and Cisco don't know exactly how to handle this, but Cisco decides they're just going to leave because of this timeline issue. He doesn't want to get involved. We can't help. We can't hurt. We just need to stay out of it. So they move on.

Frank, military, did a great job with that character. thought by the way and yeah he did subsequently he he moved away from acting and he became a tv writer and i think he wrote a lot of law and order actually didn't he really that's amazing had to look at his credits but but yeah he he he pivoted into into writing and has had a really great writing career since then he was already i think he might have already been writing a bit at the time yeah um but he definitely writes much more now than he's acts. Oh, NCIS. NCS, Los Angeles. Like, yeah, he's, he's, he's a Jericho. He's got some pretty good good for him. A bunch of NCIS stuff. Yeah. That's very cool. We go to the bridge next. The team is

working on, you know, finding them. Miles has found about a dozen different timeline possibilities, but they only have enough of this chronotone particle stuff for five or six attempts. And Kira says they're going to need volunteers who are willing to get lost in time. Miles says he knows exactly who, the candidates. So you can tell they're going to be the ones. They're volunteering. Of course. We have to have more heroes in jeopardy.

Of course. Stakes. It's all about the stakes. Stakes and stuff. Stakes and stuff. We went from medium rare, close to well done. Most of the well done right now, yeah. We go to the sanctuary.

We're in an alley next where our heroes have been sleeping and kind of, I don't know if it's an alley. It's like a basement, alcove or something. Yeah, but Cisco brings Bashir some food, some breakfast. Cisco says he wants to go on a roof to get a better look at the place. Maybe they can find a way out from a vantage point up high. back onto the main part of the street. This is the widest shot. I think it's this shot that I have behind me is this next shot.

Because when I looked at that shot, I was like, wow, that's a lot of extras, background actors, a lot of set dressing. That's big for our star costumes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that was. Air and makeup. That's a lot. That is a money shot.

That is probably one of the most expensive shots we ever did. Right? Right. It is. And it's so funny, I wouldn't imagine the audience really pick up on those costs, but we do from being in it. Yeah. I love it. It was beautiful, great production value. And the guards that are guarding the building, they had passed that same building. They tell them no again, you know, keep moving. Bashir offers to trade them something, and they refuse initially. And then as they're walking away, one of the guard guys whispers to the other one. And the guard says, wait a minute, maybe we can make a deal. I was like, what are they going to, it didn't make any sense to me. Then we see in the next scene, they wanted those fancy pajamas they were wearing. Their uniforms, Cisco and Bejir are now in the homeless kind of clothes, you know, street clothes. They come across this boy who's injured and his father who's got a knife to protect his son. He's to stay back. Bashir wants to look at him, though. He's very concerned. Cisco doesn't want to get involved.

She goes like, Julian says, I'm just going to look, not going to do anything. Julian looks. He says, luckily, it seems like he's just got superficial wounds, nothing serious. And the dad, who we learn, his name is Webb, goes to get some alcohol to clean these cuts. That's what Bashir suggests. And it looks like they've made some new friends, Cisco says. So, yeah, yeah, it seems like they've met some nice people. Right.

Even though they're wearing smelly clothes. and his son are supposed to represent sort of the every man the vast majority of the people who get stuck in this situation okay okay yeah we're we're trying to imagine the idea of like the circumstances we're sort of more like great depression

is what we're kind of imagining that there is some sort of like vast or kind of new gilded age too like the rich are very very rich the poor very very poor there are less jobs like now And that was the idea was there was some sort of massive amounts of unemployment, you know, like now actually, unemployment is fairly low. But whether the jobs are good or not is another argument. But we were imagining like 20, 30 percent of unemployment, like really, really high.

Right. And that is what Webb was caught up in. And most people live check to check. Nowadays. Nowadays, yeah. And so you have one bad month. or miss medical crisis or whatever exactly and you could be homeless yeah well that's what it feels like um yes with with web and his son it feels like the every man it feels like these aren't people you would expect would be in the situation and they've gotten caught he didn't do anything wrong

on life just happened and put him in the circumstance yeah well uh as as bashir and and Cisco are walking out. Web chases them outside. He says they need more doctors here in the sanctuary Bashir declines. Web tells them, you know, you're never going to get out of here. This is home for you guys now. And if you want to survive, you're going to need to organize, pull together. And Cisco's like, no, we don't want to be a part of anything. Want to just be left alone. And Webb says, well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me. So it feels like Webb is. some of that history Cisco was talking about, this kind of getting organized, you know, having an uprising. It feels like Webb is kind of the crack into that part of the history that Cisco remembers.

Next scene is in Chris's office. This is party time. Dax has been shopping with her platinum card. She's got a new hairdo. This is where I thought it looked like our, this scene looked like our mess hall. I feel like it was readdressed. Really? Okay. Yeah. All right. Because the way the angles, it looked like ship windows. They weren't building windows that went up and down.

They sort of curved like a ship. All right. That makes sense. I have to look at that again. I didn't notice that. This is 2024 fashion, Terry, that you're wearing. I didn't know that I should be wearing the look that you have in this episode. I like what I'm wearing.

It's very nice. Even more now than then. Yeah. First of all, I've been a miniskirt, which is like, I'm sure at the time. I know me. I would have thought, oh my God, I can't believe

I'm wearing this short miniskirt. With a jacket. It sort of had like a men's tailored jacket and like a mascot thing. I like how Bob did the tie. Yeah. Tie across. It was a cool different look. Bob definitely,

you can tell that Bob got excited about the high fashion, but also like the street stuff that people were wearing. Like he, he was definitely like on his best in this game. I've seen. Yeah, hog heaven. Yeah. And I've definitely seen people enjoy

cosplaying as Dax from this episode specifically. Yeah. So they can wear that outfit and the feather and the whole thing. And I don't get to wear heels often. Do you remember this hairdo, Terry? Because this is a very different hairdo. This is the one where Josie cut my bangs at four in the morning. And I was upset about it.

This is the one. Well, this was a very different hairdo. And the bangs thing. brought that up before. So it's interesting to see this was the episode. Yes, that upset me. But I couldn't call Rick because it was 4.30 in the morning. I couldn't call him. I'd go like, she's cutting my bags. Yeah. A lot of dichotomy between

the scenes of the sanctuary with basically Bashir and Cisco and a lot of kind of tones of racial inequality in a way. If you look at it, it's just like it's so nice. It's so nice. It's It's completely, yes, yes. This is a rich people's party. Yeah, we were trying for a gilded age feel.

Yes, there was a huge disparity. Great Gatsby kind of vibes. Yeah, that era, you know, late 1800s, when 1880s, 1890s were, you know, they sometimes say we're in the new gilded age now, which, you know, even more so than we were in the 90s. So, yeah, I think we are. Well, they're talking with a man and a woman there. It sounds like protests are happening all over the world. They're kind of chatting about that.

Chris does mention that Dax was mugged and that they took her ID. And that's when I think the woman says, oh, you're lucky that you weren't taken to the sanctuary. Dax hears this. She pulls Chris aside and thinks maybe that's where her friends are. Maybe that's what happened to them. They were taken to a sanctuary because they didn't have any ID either. And Chris says, he agrees to have.

help her find out. Pull some favors. So Dax is getting some breadcrumbs. Miles and Kira got some bread. It's all starting to come together here. I think I got more than breadcrums. I think you you got way more than breadcrumbs. Yeah, you got a whole sandwich. But we also have the we have the names of these different political parties that Robert's thrown in here. Neo Trotskyists, the Gaulists, people who love French politics, I guess. I don't know. you know well they were specifically like they were they were talking about france i believe yeah they were at least europe and yeah that's right that's right that's right it's just like the left and the right it's it's literally just the neo trotskiists are the are the far left

protesters and the gallous are far right protesters and that's basically all thank you nice i like it but gall as in uh uh de gaul carls de gaul yeah we go back to the sanctuary district They're waiting in a very long line for some food. It's later in the day. Cisco goes to see how long this line doesn't seem like they're moving very fast. So Cisco goes to see how long it's going to be. And this is when BC, the ghost, returns. He tries to shake down Bashir, basically, wants his food card, wants stuff.

And Cisco returns, tells BC to let him go. We get into a big fight here. Yeah, lots of great two-handed, class. Classic Trek, boom. Yes. Lots of Dennis Madel. Even you felt that way at the beginning with the tone of how it was shot, the angles. It was like, I was like suddenly in the original series for a minute.

Just like a short minute of, wait a minute. Their fighting style was so classic Star Trek. Yeah. I even noticed it. You know, it's been a while since I watched and I was watching it like, wow, they went to the Jim Kirk Dojo. They did. They totally did. I really, I was waiting for the composer to put in, that didn't show up.

And Bashir is famous for this now to me. Yes, he does it all the time. He needs both hands for a punch. The double-handed punch. Terrible, terrible technique. Does not work at all. No, does not work at all. Dennis McCarthy is the composer of, you know,

this musical score here. This is one of his favorite episodes. Interestingly enough, due to the amount of musical silence, there's only seven minutes of music in the entire episode. That's it. Seriously? Really? Yeah, so the fact that there is that much silence is what makes him love this episode so much.

And he's the composer for the music. It's very unusual for Trek in general and any TV show back then. There was a lot of overscored and over music. music music stuff, you know, needle drops, constant music. Right. So it's nice to have a more theatrical or cinematic kind of style, which is just thinner. You don't need the music. You just focus on the good writing of our friend Robert here, and we're good.

Well, while they're having this hand-to-hand combat, we see some new man appear. Right. African-American man sees the fight happening, comes up to try to fight off the ghosts, but he ends up getting stabbed. and Bashir and Sisko try to do CPR, but they've got to get out of there and run away before the police get to them. Cisco does grab the man's ID. I noticed that.

Cops give chase. Yeah, and then they dive into this other alley. And I have to bring up the fact. So I shot a short film when we were doing Voyager. I talked the John Campbell, who was the studio facilities guy. His office was right by my trailer, and we got to know each other.

over the years. So he got me the back lot for a weekend for free to shoot a short film, which was incredible. And in fact, he offered that one time. He's like, I think I could get you the back lot if you want to make a short. So I wrote a short specifically to film on the back lot.

I was like, that's a huge thing. Anyway, the final moment of my short is in the same spot where they dive under. Oh, the blankets. Yeah. And I thought I had discovered this little nook that no one would ever shoot in when I shot my short.

And it's here in this episode. Come to discover. Yes. But they dive in the spot and the cops run past. And this is when Cisco looks at the man's ID. It's Gabriel Bell. That man was Gabriel Bell. No.

Knew it. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. We come back after a commercial break. They realize without Bell, the future is going to be altered. and it was in this moment. I'm like, oh, I thought that guy looked a little like Cisco

when the guy that didn't speak, I know what's going to happen. Cisco's going to have to do what Bell did because he knows the history. That was my guess at this point. I didn't think that. You didn't? I've seen some TV shows. I think I've just watched too much television as soon as I saw it. I was like, no, it's got to be him.

No. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, there's too many. times where there's a tell. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

And it's not bad. It's just once you read all these scripts. It's a great idea. Like for Cisco to have to take over that hero's role. It's a great idea. Yes. We go to the bridge next. Kira and O'Brien are in very nice civilian clogue, by the way.

They weren't in their uniforms. I don't know where they, they brought this on the Defiant with them, or did they replicate it? Replicated. Replicated. And then why when we were on Meridian? Didn't I replicate some clothes to go down to the planet? Why am I constantly in your uniform? You could just stop at Y Meridian and you don't have to like that.

Yeah. Well, why it helped if there was some chemistry between me and the lead guy. That would have helped. That would have helped. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. We did 26 a year.

Yes, exactly. Most of them are good. Yeah, well, that's a lot. And you guys had no breaks in the summer. So it's a lot. Like it was also just a really, I mean, again, this is very behind the scenes. But it was a physically difficult show to do. There was a lot of the makeup on everybody.

The production was hard. It was our hours were long. Our days were super long. Short schedule. We had seven days. Short schedule. Not a lot of time to prep. We had to build everything from scratch.

And we had to write, we were writing as fast as we could, too. And so it's kind of a small miracle that we have mostly good episodes, to be honest. Yeah. But every once in a while, there was one to flip through the cracks. There's probably like one or two stinkers every year. I got a lot of really good ones, so I'm not going to complain. I got a lot of really good ones. You got a lot of good scenes.

I don't have like 30 good ones and it's on two bad ones for sure. I mean, obviously, anytime you have this kind of like, what's, what's behind Robbie trying to do these really ambitious production values. It was a very tough episode. I mean, there's fire effects. There's fights. There's like giant crowd scenes. This was a biggie.

And you had kids in some of these scenes, a lot of these scenes on this street, which there's limited hours for those kids. You've got a schedule around that. I believe we used a crane. We never used a crane. We never put the camera on a crane and got those good high ones. It took too long. We're in Huntington Gardens where we live for outdoor life.

Yeah, yeah. So back on the bridge of the Defiant, essentially they're in these cool outfits. They're ready to beam down. But O'Brien says, oh, Starfleet has changed their minds. Headquarters thinks it's too risky. We might contaminate the timeline. We can't do this. Kira's like, well, get me out of all right.

O'Brien tries, but there's no response. There's nothing. They keep trying, sending messages out. wider messages on subspace wideband and nothing. Turns out there's all the different satellite networks that we're used to from Earth, gone. Everything's gone. Disappeared.

It's completely disappeared. There's nothing there. They start detecting other type of subspace signals. And guess what? They're Romulan. They're not Starfleet. So now it's the big old, hey, what the heck is going on? Something changed in the timeline now.

Everything is different. Well, Odo is the one that says it. Doesn't he say? Yeah, Odo brings that up, yeah. You think maybe they altered the timeline somehow? To the point where there's no Starfleet at this moment, which is a bad thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Was this the same scene where Odo comes in because he was talking to Starfleet security? Yeah, he was talking to, okay, yeah. Also in these outfits, one thing I forgot to mention, I noticed right off the top, when Odo comes in, Odo and Kira are standing next to each other, and they're totally color coordinated. That purpleish sort of, yeah. I was, or green or I don't know what it was, but they were, they looked like matchy, matchy, the two of them. And I was like, she always wore that vest. She wore that best a lot.

She did? Yeah, yeah. I thought it was foreshadowing of maybe their relationship, like Odo and Kira, we're going to put them in the same color palette. I don't know, a detail. Maybe Bob was thinking that. I have no idea. But that, that vest was like Kira's favorite sweater, basically. She wore a lot.

Yeah. And it looked cool on her. She looks really cool in it. Well, they figure out in the scene, I think, Miles figures out what has happened, that why they, because I thought in this scene, Robert, I had the same thought that Miles answers here, which is, wait a minute, if Starfleet disappeared, they wouldn't be here. Like, you know. They themselves would not be here.

The defiant wouldn't be there. The defiant, none of this would be there. And Miles answers the question that the chronotone particles helped. create this subspace bubble around the compliant. Thank goodness for that. That was a 3 a.m. idea, I bet. I'm sure that was the tech advisor, like Andre or.

Andre Bormonis. It's just like, Andre, help us explain this nonsense. I did write in my notes. I went, hmm, I'm skeptical of this. I mean, okay, there's a bubble. look I was like well you lost me there

there's faster than light travel like we're already like yeah true there's a buy you have to buy it okay all right I'm in I'm in the bubble it's the bubble the safety box the shapeshifter didn't throw you out but the chrononton particle bubble did well we go back to the the sanctuary building Cisco and Bashir tell Webb that they've changed their minds

they want to help Webb is very happy he says day after tomorrow they're going to have a rally in front of the processing center spread the word tell everybody and uh web also says to them tell everybody to look sharp dress nicely and bring their families like we want we don't want this to look like a bunch of homeless people basically we want to look like yeah who you know we yeah we want to look like we take care of ourselves and we deserve you know some some respect yeah we're smart that way he wants to spin it the way he wants he wants to be perceived as a person who's struggling not as some kind of societal pariah or whatever right he's a family man who's trying to do what's best

for his his family yeah we're in chris's office and he has found out his sources have found out that dax's friends are in sanctuary district a so dax wants to know can we just get them out now it's not that easy. They have to first find them. And there are, I did not know this. There's 10,000 people in this homeless sanctuary. That's a lot more than I thought there were. So I'm a little shocked by that, but that makes sense. It's a problem. But anyway, so the friends are fine, but they just can't find them right now. They're looking for them still. This is where Chris says, oh, they're in the sanctuary. They'll be fine. They're getting fed and taking care of. So Chris is like, He has a fantasy of what it's like inside this place.

Totally. Oh, and I'm like, well, if that's all there is to it, then why is there a wall around it? Exactly. Why would there be a wall? This is a safe, great place to be. Yeah. Well, back inside the wall in the sanctuary, Sisko and Bashir spreading the word, when Danny, that's Webb's son, the one that was injured, he runs past. He says there's a riot breaking out, that a guard got into fight a fight with a dim.

Everybody's going crazy. So they run back. and Bashir run with with Danny and then back at the outside the processing center there's fire bombs being thrown people are lying in the street there three three people are beating up Bernardo and that's that's is that Dick Miller's partner is that same yeah at his dick's partner Vince partner the guy with a wife that he kept wanting to go home to yeah and I'm just thinking Bernardo's wife is going to be pissed off she's going to be mad She's going to be.

He's already thinking he should have just left home when he said he was going to. Exactly. Why am I still here? Well, he did. I think he went home. It's like the next. It's another day. It's another day.

He's back clocked in again. But he was very nervous about his wife, getting his wife mad. So I was just thinking, don't mess with Bernardo. You don't know his wife. Yep. Anyway, they grab his gun. They're about to shoot Bernardo with a gun. When Cisco grabs it, he fires.

He shoots that trash can. Is that weird? And the fire went out and I was like, is that really what would have happened? I don't know, but it was cool. I like the fact that he shoot into the air, like, randomly he shot at his trash can and, like, placed his bullet somewhere safe. And like, yeah, it was a cool bit. I can't remember.

It must have been maybe Reza and Dennis, who came up with the choreography of that. I can't remember what was in the script. but I thought that that was a really cool. I liked that it was an unexpected bit of choreography. In other words, it's like, you've seen a million times that got fired in the air. I'd never seen someone fire into a trash can and knock it over and knock the fire out. It was cool.

I expected the fire to go like to blaze out instead of going out. It was like, oh, yeah, it was cool. I didn't really understand it, but I liked it. Yeah. After the shotgun gets fired, though, Bashir and Cisco grabbed Bernardo to drag him away. They drag him into the process. Processing Center where B.C. and some of his ghost friends have taken over the place. BC has a gun. He's roughing up Lee, our very nice woman that was so...

Tina Lifford. Tina Lifford. He's roughing her up. And Cisco and Bashir arrives. Cisco aims his gun at B.C. He's like, that's enough. Leave that nice lady alone. Yeah. And B.C. allows Cisco to join him. says he's been waiting for this moment and uh cisco he says he calls him new guy or something right new boy new boy ain't that right new boy and this is cisco's bond moment the name is belle gabriel gabriel bell yeah and we finished part one there you go the lesson i got out of this episode so far part one is uh That line that I mentioned to you, Robert, I love that line, Bashir's perspective, that forgetting to, forgetting how to care about other people is the most terrible thing there is, basically. That's, that's the lesson I got from this. That'll stick with me. I really, like I said,

Robert, love that line. All right. Terry, what is your lesson for this episode? Compassion for those who have less than you do, to always pay it forward. Okay. Great. Robert, is there an overall lesson that we can get from you? He's going to tell us what it really is. Yeah, exactly, what it really is. Usually like to be a little less forward with the lesson in the episode, but it's definitely there. And it is, it is exactly what you're saying, Robbie.

It is the sort of like, when we, caring is what made the Federation work, right? The fact that the Federal, people started to care about these people and wanted to help them is what created the Federation. Like, without that caring, without the, the concern for your fellow humanity there's no federation that's basically the idea rule of acquisition 217 217 217 you can't free a fish from water that is my that is my biggest lesson from this because it is so true you can love it you can't that's the fish is naturally in the water you cannot pull it out so that's it's it's a good rule it is a good rule now our patreon poll winner for the theme and

moral of this episode is submitted by SNASIO. A world of the haves and have-nots will never create a functional society. Yeah, which is Robert what you said. Starfleet, a functional Starfleet could only come out of more equality. Great. Yep. All right. Well, that's it. Thank you, everyone for tuning in to our recap and discussion of past tense part one. Please join us next time and we will be reviewing Past Tense Part 2 with Terry and Robert Hewitt Wolf. And we want to have a big thank you to Robert for joining us. It's been absolutely a joy to have you. We've absolutely had a blast with you joining us on this time. And you've been so gracious with your time and your insights of this episode. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's been fun to be here.

Yeah. All right. all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material and a little bit more of Robert Hewitt Wolf and Terry joining us for that. You know, but Thank you.