The Delta Flyers - Prime Factors

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch and recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Prime Factors. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise, and Rebecca Jayne, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers Ann Marie Segal, Philipp Havrilla, Jason M Okun, Kelton Rochelle, Stephanie Baker, Stephen Smith, Sarah A Gubbins, John Tufarella, Brian Barrow, Chris Knapp, Daniel Adam, Eve Mercer, James Hildebrand, Matthew Gravens, Mary Jac Greer, Marie Burgoyne, Michelle Zamanian.And our Producers  Col Ord, Aithne Loeblich, AJ Provance, Ann Harding, Barbara Beck, Breana Harris, Captain Nancy Stout, Catherine Goods, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Chris Tribuzio, Claire Deans, Craig Sweaton, Crystal Komenda, Dave Grad, Deborah Schander, Father Andrew Kinstetter, Gay Kleven-Lundstrom, Gregory Kinstetter, Heidi McLellan, James Amey, James Cooper, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Josh Johnson, Karel Hartlieb, Katherine Hedrick, Katie Johnson, Katherine Puterbaugh, Kelley Smelser, Laura Swanson, Liz Scott, Maggie, Mary O'Neal, Matthew Cutler, Mike Schaible, Máia W, Nathanial Moon, Nevyn Cross, Rich Gross, Richard Banaski, Ryan, Steph Dawe Holland, Terence Thang, Thomas Melfi, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Warren Stine, York Lee. Thank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey guys. Welcome to yet another installment of the Delta Flyers. We are a weekly podcast that discusses episodes of Star Trek Voyager in chronological order. Your two hosts along this podcast journey are myself, Garrick Wong, aka Ensign Harry Kim, and Robert Duncan McNeil, who played Lieutenant Tom Ponce. Paris. If you are interested in either an extended version of this podcast or the extended video version of this podcast, both of which include added bonus sexy segments, check out our Patreon page at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers and sign up to become a patron. Hey, Robbie. You like that intro? Yeah, you added a little sexiness to it. I want to tweak it just a little bit every time just so it's not boring, right? All right. So this week, it's a little sexy. This week is just a little bit sexy.

Interesting. Yeah, so what's been going on in your life right now? I know you're doing a lot more yard work. I am this quarantine time and this kind of break in work that I've got, I've never been so productive in terms of housework. I have completely reimagined my backyard, my deck, my back screened in porch. I've been power washing. I've been building cable rail.

I've been landscaping and planting. I've had a company come and renovate some stuff on my pool. It's like I feel like I'm in a brand new backyard. I just want to sit outside and enjoy it all the time. I have been to your house before, but not since you've done all these additions and all these modifications. I want to see it. And I also have to say, if you get sick of directing, contracting. You could be a contractor after.

You know what? I'm not joking. I would love it. You know, there's something about, like, making something or working on something, and then at the end of the day, you look at it, and it's done. It's like you point to, I made that cable railing, or I power wash that whole back deck. Yeah. You know, whereas sometimes in show business, it's like you work really hard,

but then you don't see it for months, and then by the time it comes on, it's like you're onto the next thing, and it all seemed. kind of like you're just working in this weird like other dimension that's not in real life. So yeah, I've enjoyed the work. The payoff is immediate when you're doing manual labor and around your own house. You feel you look at it. You see the progress. You're doing it. And plus when you're in the entertainment field, especially if you're filming a TV show and you're doing remodeling of your house at that time, most of the time, you don't have the time to do any of this. you have to hire somebody to do all this because I remember when I was on Voyager, I was completely,

you know, just swamped with filming. And I had a contractor that had to remodel my house and I was dealing with all that. I remember that. Yeah. And you're never around to really enjoy the, you know, when you're working that hard, even if you're getting something fixed at your house, you're not even there to enjoy it. That's so true. That's the other thing. I was like this time because usually I have less time off in this quarantine and COVID-19 and everything. has given us this year a lot of time off. And I thought, you know what, instead of waiting until I'm working again to do the work, let me do it now so I can enjoy it.

I can actually sit in the yard and enjoy the things, you know, the way that I've always wanted it to look and just let's do it now. Enjoy the fruits of your name. All right. Okay, so this week's episode is Prime Factors. And for those of you who are just listening on our podcast, please stay tuned as Robbie and I go and watch this episode, Prime Factors, and we will come right back with our recap.

Thanks a lot, guys. All right, guys, we are back from watching Prime Factors. Yes, we are. You know, when you said sexy, I had no idea how appropriate that was going to be. Boy, were they hedonistic. Hey, and you know what? When we were talking about what we remember before, and you had talked about, you know,

that you felt that it was something to do with the Prime Directive. I was just absolutely right on that one. I was just making it up. And then your second part about orgy, you know, is... And when I totally disagreed with you, I would have to say you were close, very close, because it was like an almost orgy because there's that scene where Eudana is about to make out with Harry

and she takes them to the euphoric, you know, the place that has euphoric winds that hit the body. And then Janeway is about to make out with Gath. Oh my God, Janeway was all a flutter. She was all a flutter the whole episode. Yeah, so, so yeah, it was an almost orgy, right? Yeah, it was. I also find it interesting that this,

episode is the episode where you're never really sure what these people's names are in terms of how they're pronounced. Because at times, I thought his name was Gaff, like G-A-F-F, and then Gav, G-G-A-V, and then G-A-V, and G-Gath. I mean, there was, I was like, what the heck? And then Yudana, when she introduces me to the guy that's trying to give us the technology, she says, like, listen to Gareth. I could have sworn she said, Gareth, right? No, but then later it's Jarrett is what they said, I think Janeway. And you heard Gareth. So there's, again, it's like the episode of names we cannot pronounce. I can't quite understand. They're all very vague. What the heck. So here's the one thing I will say. Yes. That was like in the middle of the episode, I went, oh, I remember this episode

now. Oh, yeah. I loved the whole idea of trading that stories are valuable. To me, I remember when I read this script and we were making it, I was just like, like, oh my God, what a great, like, original story idea, because in a way, in our human experience, like, we have, we wrap stories around everything in our life, our past, our future, how, you know, the life we want to create for ourselves, the lessons, the places we learn, lessons from, even religion is built on stories. And, you know, everything in our life is built on stories. So I thought it was fascinating that there was a culture who had sort of run out of stories and that just everything else in their life was taken care of. So stories were the most

valuable thing. That was a big memory for me. And I really like that idea. I love that. Before we get too much more into the analysis, can we have a quick 30 second synopsis of this episode? Well, I would, my synopsis would be Voyager again early on their journey back home, desperate to find a way to make this impossible trip, stumble across a planet where every need is taken care of and the only thing they live for is pleasure. This planet also has technology that could allow Voyager to get more than halfway home instantaneously. It could cut their trip down dramatically and really put them within possibly reach of getting home in their lifetime. But they come face to face with their own

prime directive. This culture has the same set of rules where they can't share technology. So Voyager and Janeway and the crew are all caught in a trap in a choice of following their own rules, respecting their own rules, and or respecting this planet's rules. And that's ultimately what it comes down to, sort of a moral choice of, are our laws and rules more important than someone else's laws and rules and are our needs more important than their laws and rules? It was a great concept. That was more than 30 seconds, but that's okay. That's okay. So prime factors. I just want to start off by saying that in the very beginning scene, obviously, we see

it's Tom and Harry having dinner together or lunch or whatever, and we see that whole banter between CESCA and Bologna. By the way, the most crowded I ever saw the mess hall. I've never seen so many people. Yes. So many people in the messel. A lot of our background actors, unlike TNG and DS9, a lot of our background, we had regular. background people because if you think about our crew compliment on the USS Voyager it was less than 200 people right so we're gonna naturally see people over and over again so that whole thing where we're talking back and forth that banter between Cessca and Blana's table and our table in the background was the

one blonde gal who was always I can't remember her name she was in blue she was yeah listening to our story but she was there day in day out as a as an extra and you know we were we were friends with these people because We saw them so many times. We definitely spoke with them. We had good banter. Whereas there's typically a lot of, how do you say it? There's this sort of a cast system on the set, you know, when you talk about, like,

there's the actors here, the director's right here, the crew is here, and then at the bottom of the barrow, our background, you know, and it's really. Yeah, they're not treated very respectfully. It's a tough job. And I just want to share a quick story here. I was, to get my Screen Actors Guild card, I had to do, you either had a speaking role or the new rule back in the 90s was, if you did three days of extra work as a Screen Actors Guild Extra, you could get your guilt card.

So I did a day, I did a day on Sequest DSV, the Roy Scheider Submarine. Sure, yeah. episodic. And so when we had lunchtime, we broke for lunch, they had a, you know, they had a truck out there that was serving people. And the second 80 was like, hey, just remember, guys, your background, you guys eat after everybody else. So I let everyone, I let all the, the main actors, the series regulars, including somebody who I went to college with, was a series regular on that show, the crew, everybody. And I let all the extras eat before I did. So I was being extra, I went above and beyond, right?

Right. And I remember after the last extra got his food, I actually went to place my order. But one straggling, straggling grip walked up that had an order like he just, you know, I don't know where he was, but he came out. And he walked up. And since I was in front of him, the second AD came up and chewed me out and said, how dare you? You know, you get out of line. You get out of the way right now.

He has to order. I told you before. And I looked at this woman and I said, listen, I heard you. Not only did I let the entire cast go in order before me and the crew, I let all the background actors order before me. I'm the very last person. This dude just walked up. I don't know if he was using the restroom or what, but this is the very, very last person.

And you're screaming at me. And she goes, well, that's just how it is. And I looked at her, I said, you know what? When I'm a series regular, I'm going to let an extra order before me. I don't care. You know, I'm not going to follow this cast system that's been, you know, that Hollywood has kind of put upon us. And she looks at me and she just kind of goes, yeah, right, you're going to be on your own show. And sure enough, I've got on my own show. And, and yeah, and there

were many times when we were on location, you know, extras would be standing in line and I'd come up to the food truck and they'd see me and they go, oh, sorry, Garrett. And they would kind of move up to the side. I'd go, no, no, no, no, no, please order. You know, you're a human beings. too so I really made it a point to treat everybody equally yeah so it's just kind of cool to see these extras again that we haven't seen these background people that we worked with so much and I also want to just comment on the fact that there's a really tight relationship with balana and Harry I feel you know there's really there's and it started again from that whole beginning pilot episode where she called me Starfleet and I called her Marquis and

again I kept thinking it's going to be a Harry's a Harry Balana relationship not, you know, you became her husband, but I just, again, this is another indication of that happening. It's so funny with Janeway's talking about, she's listening into our banter, and she's like, I think it's finally beginning, both crews getting along. And party poop or Tuvok is like, that kind of bonding should improve performance and maximize efficiency, which is just, why did you bring that up, you know? I made the same note. That was a great line, like the Tevac line. Yeah. Yeah, this should improve. improve performance and maximize efficiency.

Yeah, I was like, oh, so sweet, Tuvac. Very, how sentimental of you. Like, yes. Yeah, it was a perfect Tuvok line. By the way, let's go back for a minute. You say, they ask you about the Delaney sisters. And I say, yeah, what happened to you and Jenny Delaney when you went off on that gondola?

And so obviously you had Jenny Delaney. who's the other one? What was the other one? Because I guess that's who I got. If you had Jenny Delaney, what was the other one's name? I don't remember. Inquiring minds went to know.

I don't remember. You got Jenny Delaney, though. And Jenny is very voracious, is I think the comment that was made there. Yeah, and that's why I fell out of the gondola because I guess she was trying to be so aggressive with me. Right. Yes, you're very shy.

demure. Very shine demure. We'll get to that a little bit later. We will. We will. So anytime that Tuvok says something that's a little bit, you know, like a party pooper thing, I'm going to call it the O. Tuvok moment.

So I'm just going to be using that throughout our analysis. All right. Yes, he definitely had an O Tuvok moment. Yeah. So we see the distress call. And it's from the Sakharian ship. And now we see for the first time the magistrate. the Sakarian magistrate. Let's talk about that for a minute. He's got the matching wirehanger in his hair.

Yes, he does. He's got sort of, is it a bathrobe? His chest is all exposed. It's open. It's very sensual. And by the way, he's got a French accent. All right. What, what, how did a French accent get on the planet of Sakari in the Delta Quad? The same way that Picard spoke with a British accent. He should have been French. I mean, you're right, you're right. How did a Sakarian come up with a French accent? Because nobody else, no other Sakarian, has a French accent.

None of them had French accents. Yes. And if it's our universal translator, by the way, it would just be translating without any. They'd all have the same accent. So how did he have a French accent? I know that they wanted him to seem very, you know, seductive for Janeway and everything.

But I found that to be, it just was like too much. Let's just say, Robbie, that because he is the magistrate, he's so high up there that his sexiness is so strong that it affected the universal translator. It actually came out as a, it made it that way. It made the universal translator turn him into a French man. Yeah, he just looked like, he honestly, when he first said like, you're the one that's in distress.

We're not in distress. When he first see him on the view screen, And I kept thinking, this guy's a used car salesman. This guy is so slick. He's just... But she ate it up. Janeway ate it up. Let's talk about...

Like, she totally bought it from the moment he started speaking. She was like, ooh, she was completely titillated. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Janeway, we need to check her taste calibration a little bit. She was a little off calibration. Like, we go out of that act with her looking at the bathrobe guy and the wirehanger in his with a French accent. And I'm like, oh, no, Janeway, this is going to be trouble.

And it was. It was trouble. I wrote down, I like their wire hoop rings adorning their hair. You called it a wire. It's a wire. Or a hair wire. You can call it the hair wire. Okay, the hair wire.

The Sakarian ship, I like the look of the ship that he had too. Like some of the ship's alien ships that we see, I'm like, eh, but this one I liked it. No, it was nice. It was like diamonds. It was just very, it was like a diamond collection. It was very beautiful. Okay, so we walk into the shopping mall set. We're walking into their, onto their planet.

And I see Tom Paris walking down the steps, and he walks past camera, never to be heard from again on that planet. Did I have lines that got cut or something? Like, why was I on the planet? Speaking of extras, like, I felt like, oh, I just, made an extra cross, and I did absolutely nothing on the planet. That was not you. That was your background. That was your stand-in, right? No, my stand-in was sitting. Now, my stand-in, that first season, he was sitting on the bench,

but that was me, that was me walking. Oh, you did make a walk. Okay, all right. So just so everyone knows, when we first see the Sakarian marketplace or whatever, and that camera angle, it's obviously on a crane, right? It's high up. It's looking down. Yeah. And we see one person sitting in a red Starfleet uniform, that is Robbie's stand-in. At least one of the, did you have more than one stand-in? I had, yeah, I had different stand-ins almost every year for a long time. Okay. The first stand-in, and I wish I could remember his name was a really lovely guy. He had just come back that year before from the Marines, and he had been a part of the first Gulf War, the Kuwait invasion and into Iraq and he told me some stories about he was he saw action up there and I think he really

still struggled with some some kind of emotional you know PTSD PTSD from that and I but I thought how crazy that a year before that he was in at a war you know or whatever two years before that in war and And now he's sitting here on a set at Paramount standing in for, like, it just was crazy. I can't imagine how challenging that what must have been for him. Definitely. Was his name Jeff? Does that sound familiar maybe? I really can't remember.

Okay. I'd hate to even guess. I don't remember. That's all right. What I did not remember, recall about this episode was when I come across Eudana, when she is using that little sensor. Yeah. Yeah, and it looks like a musical instrument, but instead it's an atmospheric sensor that really looks like a futuristic harp. One thing about this race, they're so into pleasure.

And I found it interesting because in the TNG world, Riza is the pleasure planet. And in the Delta Quadrant, obviously, Sakaris is the pleasure planet. They're very touchy-feely people. Like when she showed me how to do that, she's completely grabbing my hand. And you see my reaction to when she's grabbing my hand to wave it around on there. I'm just sort of like, whoa, you know, female time. By the way, you know, everybody talks about Tom Paris was like the Captain Kirk. He was going to have like the female alien of the week.

The thing that worked about Kirk was he seemed to always be sort of the victim of these alien females who were going after Captain Kirk. And Kirk was just there to do his job and he was innocent. He wasn't, you know, they were so attracted to Kirk that even though he was. was reluctant. They somehow, in their alien way, seduced him. Tom Paris could never have worked for that type of part because he was not this reluctant. He was too aware of the women and things like that. By the way, Harry gets a lot more action than Tom. And it works, actually. Like, it works in the same way that Kurt, like, Harry is much more like Kirk than Tom was, because

Harry's always there and accidentally sort of getting involved with these women, but then he's reluctant because he's like, no, I've got to do my job, and I can't, even though I want to kiss you, very much like Kirk, very much. Is it coincidence that Kirk and Kim both begin with Kay? Coincidence or not coincidence? Okay, so I want to talk about how we come back down after. After the first time we come to the planet, we come back down again. This time, Kim is not wearing his Starfleet uniform.

He's wearing sort of his, you know, off-duty kind of regular garb. Production called me up before we started filming this episode. Because when I first booked the role of Ensign Kim, I asked them to make sure that they paid attention to, I just didn't want anything that was stereotypically Asian about Kim. Like if I was in the mess hall, I told him, I don't, please don't make him go up to the replicator and order a bowl of chalmain, you know, or whatever it may be, or kimchi or something like that, you know. So they said, okay, we'll keep that in mind. And so they called me up and said, listen, we've got this piece of wardrobe, this shirt that you're going to wear.

And it folds over, kind of like an Asian, you know, like a garment. It folds over. So we want you to approve it because we know that you're sensitive to this. And so they really, they were, you know, thinking about me. So I came down and I put on this shirt, which is what I end up wearing in this episode. And I looked at it. I said, you know, there's so many other things going on. There's a pattern.

There's also horizontal flaps, you know. So it really didn't come off as Asian to me. So I said, no, I think this is, this will be fine. And they said, well, this is a repurposed garment. It's been worn before by another Star Trek actor, you know, from TNG. And I said, oh, I said, that's cool. Who wore this? And they said, Patrick Stewart.

And at that point, you know, I was, I've always been a huge Patrick fan. So I said, oh, well, of course, I could wear this as a turban or I could wear it as a diaper. I'll just keep this. I'll wear this any way you would like me to wear this. Because the minute I knew this was Patrick Stewart's garment that he wore, I was pretty excited about that. So I got to wear that. So when we come down, Yvonne Suhor, who plays Udana, puts me on that one transporter pad, which I thought, how futuristic is that?

You don't even need a transporter chief. You just say, it's voice activated. You just say where you want to go. Alastria, and then we're there, right? Which is amazing. Robbie, on that note, I just want to dedicate this episode to the actress who played Udana, Yvonne Suhor. She has since passed away.

I found out about it because she was evidently teaching an acting school. She was teaching. She had an acting school in Orlando, Florida, and I had met somebody from Florida who had told me that they had gone to her school and said that, you know, she passed away from pancreatic cancer, you know, a year ago or two years ago, something like that. Yes, recently. I looked her up as we were watching and I saw that on the Internet. It's very sad. Yeah, it's very sad. And I remember on set, she really, she had it together. I mean, she had it together. She was, I thought she was my age. She wasn't my age.

She was older than me. She was older than you. She was one in 60. Not much. Yeah. 1561. So she was three years older than you. She was seven years older than me.

But she was very cool in that she was just talking to me. She had done a series regular in a show called Young Riders or something like that for three seasons. And she just said, listen. you know, you're, you're a very lucky person to have a series regular role right now and don't waste your money. You know, she said, just be careful with your money. And she was just giving me advice. She herself, with her money, she had bought, you know, like an apartment complex, you know, maybe a 16th, something like that where she was generating passive income from rent from that. And she was just very helpful. And a lot of little tips that she gave me. So very sad to report

that she passed away, and I just want to dedicate this podcast episode. She did a great job in the episode, and I was sad to see that news. Yeah. Yeah, so you guys go to Alastria, which, by the way, has a very quick sunrise. That sun came up like, bam. It was like, whoa, there's a light, and it's sunny. It's like the fastest sunrise I've ever seen in my life. They don't have a 24-hour day there.

They have a two-and-a-half-hour day is what that is. Yeah, it's crazy. Wow. Yeah, a lot of touching. The touching continues. We're just beginning the touching. She's touching you in all the places as much as she can. And Rebecca turns to me. We're watching. Rebecca turns to me. She goes, oh, my God, these people are so antsy. And that was early on. The touchy-feely raise, yeah, for sure. But because of the duty, the duty-minded ensign than I am. And I'm, you know, you can see, I'm having a debate in my mind. I'm like, Okay, should I totally make out with this alien? Well, also, you're under the influence of the wind. The euphoric winds. The euphoric wind. I'm going to call them.

It's the ecstasy winds. That's what it was. Yes. It was a total. I'm going to call it the orgy wind. You can call the orgy win. By the way, did you feel like this planet looked like Avatar? Like, as soon as you guys landed, I'm like, that looks like avatar.

Like there was purple flowers and like all the, all the colors of like a tropical Avatar type. There was very much, I mean, it was long before Avatar, but I have a feeling maybe Avatar was inspired by this planet set. Yeah, so maybe Cameron was watching this Voyager episode and he thought, and he's like, whoa, that, that Alaria is an interesting place. Both begin with A. Yes, yes. Alastria. Alastria, sorry, Alastria. And then Avatar, avatar, exactly. So you're right. I'm just saying, you're very much like an avatar We filmed that on stage 16. I remember that specifically.

And I do remember in the script that said that these winds were euphoric. So I had to get myself to that place. And I do remember hitting that point where I was getting goosebumps, you know, from my acting preparation or whatever. And overall, I will say that I'm pretty happy with my hair in this episode and my acting. And my acting in this episode. No, I thought you did a great. Yeah, I thought it was a great episode.

Yeah. I just want to comment that you turn her down. She's getting all euphoric with you. And you're like, no, no, no, we need to go back and we've got to save Voyager. You've got to tell me about this thing. And I just want to say, like, this is early in our show. You've already turned down a couple of ladies. You turned down the Delaney sisters because you had to work. I was like, come on, let's go see the Delaney's go.

No, you've got to work. You turn this girl down. It's a bad pattern, buddy. that pattern and you know I think people are going to start questioning my sexual preference or something that you're like he doesn't like women I don't think you know but you are you honestly it was a very heroic thing and and I thought that uh in the in the context of the story harry's gestures are very noble and very heroic okay and uh and later on we'll get to it but I find Paris with the minimal amount of stuff I had to do in this episode yeah I was surprised at his sort of

noble and good guy gestures. I was like, oh, wow, that's interesting. Oh, by the way, this is directed by Les Landau. Story was by David R. George III and Eric A. Stillwell, teleplay by Michael Perricone and Greg Elliott, just to throw that out there. Let's talk about those players for one second since you brought him up. Eric Stillwell was married to Deborah Stillwell.

Eric Stillwell worked, I think, as Michael Pillars' assistant. He worked somehow in the writing staff or producers. And I'm pretty sure Eric was Michael Pillar's assistant. The story, this story was pitched by Eric Stilwell, which is wonderful. Which is amazing. Amazing. Yeah. And Eric's wife, Deborah Stilwell, worked for a lot of the actors helping with fan mail.

She organized fan mail and sent out signed photos and stuff that we did. And she also would book conventions sometimes. for me. That's right. So I worked with Eric's wife for years doing conventions, you know, booking conventions with her and things like that. They would also, as a husband-wife team, they would appear at conventions as guest speakers as well. They would talk about their experiences on Star Trek. So I remember that. So my question to you was, did you like the briefing room seeing that decision for Uncle Les, who I like to call us, Lendell, when he has the close-up on Janeway and she's looking out at the stars in the briefing room? And we're having the

full-on conversation in the background, out-of-focus. I thought it was very cool. By the way, every single line in the out-of-focus background was looped. So we've talked about ADR and looping before recording dialogue. Because she was in a close-up in the foreground and in the background, there was no place to get a microphone in close. And back then we didn't use those. Those lavelears. We didn't really use wireless mics very almost never on that show.

So all of that was looped and I could tell actually. I could tell that those lines were all loop because it didn't actually feel when you loop lines like that, you're not in the same room with the other actors. You're just doing your part. So they piece it together and it didn't sound like we were actually talking to each other. Like to me, it's felt a little awkward. But the shot itself I liked. Yeah, that was a cool shot.

And then at the end, when everyone clears out, Balana's still sitting there and Harry comes over and ask her, what's wrong? So again, another bonding moment with Kim and Balana, I felt. I just want to say, it's interesting because up until this point, Janeway has, it seemed like Janeway had taken Balana under her wing a bit and that they had a special connection. Yes.

But in this scene, in the briefing room, Janeway is really tough on Balana. And she says, do not try to. find anything out about that. She basically warns her in very stern terms. Do not do anything. Yeah. Which I thought was very interesting, especially in light of Bologna's going to go down a road down the dark side and breaks the rules. There's another oh, Tuvok moment in this scene because in the briefing room, Tuvok's the one that says, since they've already said, no, this kind of thinking is only going to make you feel worse, talking about them not sharing their technology. So he's, again, the party pooper here. Yep. So, and it's all. And it's all.

also the first time that Tuvac really, and one of the few times that he uses a contraction. He says, since the Vave, they apostrophe VE, because typically Tuvok, as a Vulcan, would say, since they have already said no. But he didn't say that, he said, they've. So I don't know if that was a gaff on the part of the writers. They were like, whoops, they forgot

that he doesn't speak that way, so. That's an interesting detail, good catch. Thank you. We did that, and now Janway's gone down in her party hairdo, I like to call it. I like that hairdo. She's got her party do going. I do have to mention that it was Kim who came up with the idea to trade stories.

It was Kim's idea to trade stories for the device. Because he had had that moment with the girl. He had that moment where she said that was a noble story. And noble stories are very valuable here. Yes. Did you feel any sense of familiarity when Janeway is sharing pecan pie with Gath because of the southerners of that? I find it fascinating that whenever we're in the mess hall eating, it's always this crazy weird.

They often put very weird food on our plates to make it look like space food. But when the alien comes over for a visit, Janeway gives them pecan pie. Pecan pie, straight from the south is what it was. So, you know, you spent time there and so did I. I love pecan pie. So it's something that we, I love it too. It's so yummy. When Gath is touching her face, did you notice it almost looks like he's about to strangle her at one point? Did you see that? Like she's talking about, she brings up like, we can trick. Yeah, he kind of comes hands and he comes right up to her neck. Hansy, handsy. It's really creepy. It's creepy. Yes. Yeah, and now we see that Bala's starting to get drawn into the dark side with Cesska in the engineering, which. Yes. Like she's sort of.

She, SESCO really starts to manifest as the devil on the shoulder kind of character now. Like, come on, do this. Let's break the rules. Oh, it's, it's crazy. And it's also interesting that she's such a popular character. So many people love the character of SESCA because she really is the maverick of all the crew members. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting because Boulana's getting drawn to the dark side and then Bala talks to Harry about it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, come on, let's do this. Like, Harry's getting drawn to the dark side too. Well, you know, when I get that technology,

I have the secret meeting with Jarrett or Garrett, Jared, Jared down there on their planet. I come up and I talk to you guys saying, like, I don't know, I got to talk to the captain about this. Then you hear somebody from the, some from the bridge says, bridge to Ensign Kim, the captain will see you now, which was to me, that's typically how it was like, you know, whenever the executive producers wanted to call us

when we were on the show, like it would be Brandon's assistant calling saying, yeah, Garrett, this is so-and-so, Brandon would like to talk to you like that. It would be one of those things. And I found it odd that that was written into the script that way, right? Like, wouldn't Janeway have just said, you know, Janeway to Kim, you know, come to my ready room. You would hear that, but it was someone else as the intermediary. So I thought that was interesting. I don't know who that is, Captain Janeway's secretary. I know. We never met. We never met. No. I also wrote down a note that when Janeway beams out, she gives two Vulcan right eyebrow raises.

She had a lot of eyebrow acting in this episode. It was. It was like, she was like giddy with, you know, the crush or whatever on our alien guy with Mr. Hairwire. By the way, did they have hairwires in all different colors to match their outfit? I think they did. Sort of had purple, then he had brown, and so he changes his hair wire. It changes his hair wire, according what's going on.

I guess so. And so then, obviously, it's interesting because Cessca and Bologna, they're trying to go down and meet the guy. They can't, and Carrie, Insan Carey, they're all locked out. And then we find out, it's Tuvok that comes in. And that's what I'm sitting here going, he's not the party pooper now. Look at that.

Well, I think it's fascinating because in the previous scene, Janeway really has a deep conversation, which I think is the theme. of this whole episode about about principles right about about about rules and being caught like whose rules should should rule the day like is it our rules is it their rules like why are our rules more important than their rules where our needs more important so yeah jane me has this really in-depth conversation with tuvok where she really listens to his counsel and is and she shares her struggle with this issue, I thought that scene was really memorable and it set up

Tuvok's motivation, his logic that he says later on. He was moved by that. I felt like the two big scenes with Tuvok, that first scene where she's pouring out her struggle and then the scene later on where she reprimands him for the choice he made, I felt like Tuvok has really moved. like the relationship of Janeway and Tuvok allows for Tuvok to be to be moved sometimes. Yeah, like emotionally. You can see it. You can sense it. Yeah. And I'm going to jump a little forward because that very end scene where Janeway realized she's been portrayed by Tuvok and they had that whole conversation. That moved me to emotionally. Like I started getting a little bit of teary eyed on that point. I was like, wow, I'm really being moved by this. And I don't recall

ever being moved by this when I first watched it. And I watched pretty much. all these episodes when they were aired originally on TV, right? And let's go back to, so let's go back to so, so she has the conversation with Tuvok and she said, he says, well, the first thing is you need to go talk to him and find out if he's going to, if he'll negotiate. So she goes down there on what ends up being her final date and he's very sensitive. He's very, as soon as she starts sort of being honest about like, you guys are really all about pleasure and and I don't think I can trust that because we we're about committed relationships. He gets really sensitive and offended and like, how dare you attack me and judge me?

Who are you to judge me? And it's, it's a, it was a very short and unfulfilled relationship Janeway had with him. Definitely. It was like, whoa, that was a breakup scene. He flipped it out. He turned on a dime. It was just like, you should stay with us because look, you can do this and do that. And then like,

are you questioning my beliefs? I think you should leave immediately. And you're like, oh my God, calm down. So, and then she gives them the double eyebrow.

He gives the eyebrow acting. And then when she comes back on the ship and has another moment with Tuvok, a brief moment where he says, you know, it doesn't, you know,

you're not going to, he's not going to negotiate, right? And she's really upset. And she's like, I've got to go to my ready room. She's really upset. I don't think he, I don't think he ever intended to help us.

He was just stringing us along. Yeah. She was like, oh, how does she get so deeply invested in this relationship? Maybe it's the hands. Yeah. It's all the handsy, all the touching made her. All of a sudden, all of a sudden she was, she was this girl in high school, you know? I know.

She just got jilted by her high school boyfriend. He never cared about me. He was stringing me along. and it was streaming me along. I also felt that, you know, once we had the trajectory matrix, I thought it was how coincidental that it fits perfectly. Just like, we have two holes. We have an adapter for alien technologies

just in case there's two little receptor holes that we had it. It's also because the line, the moment before they put it in there, she says something like, well, I'm not even sure if this will, Seska says, I'm not even sure if this is going to interface, like if we'll be able to... Right, right. And then, oh, but... Oh, yes, it does. It's perfectly... It's these two holes that are conveniently right here in front of the camera.

I guarantee you, if you watch any other episode filmed inside the... Inside of Engineering, you're not going to see that little thing that has two holes ever again. It was just for this episode. Yeah. What is your underlying message? What do you think... For me, the underlying theme is kind of what I've said before. It's like the question of, you know, when our rules in another culture, when my rules and someone else's rules are in conflict, how do I resolve that? How do I, you know, when my code of honor, when my code of ethics is different from

someone else's code of ethics, that's a tough situation because I don't want to compromise my code of ethics, but yet I don't, I want to give them the same respect. I don't want to ask them to compromise. So it's a, it's a, yeah, it's a morality sort of choice. And I think that to me is the theme. It's about is the difficulty in finding an answer when your, your ethical rules come in conflict with someone else's ethical rules. It's a difficult answer to find.

That's a bad way of me telling me what I think the theme is. Okay. And I'm going to clarify a little bit more. I'm not going to say underlying thing. I'm going to say what can we get out of this episode to make our lives a better life to live. Okay. So and I would say the lesson. The lesson. The lesson for to have a better life. I think that lesson revolves around Balana because that point where SESCA is like, you know what? Let's erase the sensor logs. Let's just just say that we didn't do anything. of this stuff and Bala stops her. She grabs her hand. I guess the touchy feeling is sort of worn off on all, one on everyone's touching everybody. Nobody cares about COVID-19 at this point. So there's there's they're grabbing and she looks at her and she goes, no. She goes, we will tell the captain and we're going to accept the responsibility of this. And so I really do feel that that is the message here is that you as human beings, you're going to make a mistake. As half cling on half human beings, you're going to

make a mistake. And when you make a mistake, instead of covering it up, covering it up, which is what a lot of people do these days. A lot of people will deflect the responsibility. They will deflect the blame. They will blame everyone else around them. And there's people like that in the world that we have been in for sure. And that the way, the right way, the way that you're going to be able to live with yourself and be able to sleep at night is to fess up you know accept the responsibility of the mistakes that you make and you know you're of course in the beginning once you assess up the other person's going to be pretty upset with you but in the long run it'll work out trust me that person's going to respect the fact that you came out and said hey

I screwed up you know so that to me was the yeah that's a good lesson that's a good lesson. Yeah. Those are both good. So, all right. So just to wrap up our recap, so we get the thing back. Tuvok says here, do not use this. Again, like everybody's in a morally compromised situation.

Tuvok has, he said, do not use this. I'm going to go tell the captain what I did. But they don't, they can't wait. They can't wait. They've got to do it because of the, the needing to be in the orbital, you know, in the orbit of this planet for this technology to really work. So CESCA convinces Bologna to get this thing going and they get it going. And now it's starting to destroy the ship.

The warp core is being destroyed. They're having a breach. It's a, you know, we could kill everyone. And luckily, Belaunah is able to deactivate to literally fire her phaser at this technology. and destroy it and stop this from happening. Yeah. And then, yes, like you said, Cessca wants to hide what they've done.

Balana, in a big character growth moment, says, nope, I'm going to, I'm going to fess up to it. And she's proud. She's proud. The final scene is in the ready room, right? Yeah, where Janeway just tells Balana that she's very disappointed with her. And if this ever happens again,

she will no longer be an officer. And this is when she also has the betrayal moment with Tuvac, knowing and says, I'll talk to you in a second. I'm going to do a quick little reenactment of the last three lines with just Janeway and Tuvac. Janeway starts off.

I realize you made a sacrifice for me, but it's not one I would have allowed you to make. You can use logic to justify almost anything. That's its power and its flaw. From now on, bring your logic to me. Don't act on it behind my back. you have my word my logic was not an error but I was dismissed that I'll work on my Tuvok sometimes I don't get Tuvok perfectly but that was good no that was it was a very moving scene the

it was walk and uh you know it was a very kind of sad melancholy sort of ending with her you know she turned her back to him and dismissed him and her back to him which was just sort of disconnected and there was something. Everyone sort of had a bit of a loss. I mean, we lost the technology that might have gotten us home. There was a loss there. It was Janeway's loss of maybe that romance that she thought might happen or something. Loss of esteem, self-esteem or hope.

And, you know, that was the sense I had at the end of the episode. But I thought it was a really good episode. I also think that a lot of these first season one episodes, They show a lot of B story with Tom and Harry. You know, there's a lot of that. And I think that's what made us, that's what it endeared us to a lot of the fans where people say, God, we love the Tom and Harry friendship. And because they did give us that attention in the beginning, you know.

And I think that sort of we grew on everybody to start off with. All right, that is our recap of prime factors. And tune in next week when we talk about state of flux. Cool. Thanks, Robbie. Thank you, next week. Bye. Thank you.