The Delta Flyers - Prototype

Episode Date: November 9, 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 Prototype. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Prototype:Near-extinct humanoid robots kidnap Torres and threaten to destroy the ship unless she helps build a prototype for construction of new units.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: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Peter Patch, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Ann Marie Segal, Jason M Okun, Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Megan Hurwitt, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Shannyn Bourke, Holly Smith, and Jesse NoriegaAnd our Producers: Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Deborah Schander, Eleanor Lamb, Thomas Melfi, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Father Andrew Kinstetter, Ann Harding, Gay Kleven-Lundstrom, Gregory Kinstetter, Laura Swanson, Luz R, Charity Ponton, Josh Johnson, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Katie Johnson, Craig Sweaton, Ryan Hammond, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, York Lee, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Katherine Puterbaugh, Claire Deans, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Cutler, Crystal Komenda, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Oliver Campbell, Anna Post, Evette Rowley, Robert Hess, Vikki Williams, Cindy Ring, Nathan Butler, Terry Lee Hammons, Andrei Dunca, James Keel, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Ming Xie, and Mark G Hamilton 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, everybody, welcome back to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are myself, Garrett Wong, and Robert Duncan McNeil. Robbie, hello. Hello, sir. How are you? I'm okay, man. It was Halloween yesterday. I know. I know. We're here in Vancouver and there's a tradition of firing off fireworks, like lighting fireworks all over town around Halloween. And it was so loud last night. It was crazy. How many fireworks there were. Did you guys get trick-or-treaters? We did not. No. We're in a high-rise building here. So that doesn't really happen. Yeah, and this building only has two units per floor, so it's not even like there's a bunch of units on the floor.

Oh, okay. Look at your shirt. I know, it's so crazy because, like, if you're kind of looking at it now, you're thinking, oh, is that the Joker maybe, right? Yeah, it looks like the Joker a little bit. Right, but it's really, it's Bill Murray. But it's Bill Murray as Beetlejuice, but because of the background, my green screen. His green hair is now the background. And also, from certain angles, it kind of looks like Gene Stimmons of Kiss, you know?

It does a little bit, yeah. Yeah, a little kiss makeup going on. But I wore it. By the way, your background of Voyager coming through some clouds and the, where's that from? That's very cool. Yeah, I don't know. I just found it. It's not from an episode or anything, though.

I don't think so. But I just found it online. and I thought it would be nice to know. Yeah, I like that. That's very cool. Very dramatic. So this week's episode is prototype. Prototype.

Prototype. So let's go ahead and let's go watch this and come back and give everybody our recap. I can't wait. All right. See you soon. All right. We are back from our rewatch of prototype, and guess who's joining us here, our special guest. We have none other than Rick Worthy, who plays automated unit 3, 9, 4, 7 in prototype.

Rick Worthy, welcome. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, buddy. Good job. Man, what, wow, memory. Oh, I know.

First of all, let me just start off with. You are from Detroit, Motor City, Michigan. Okay. You were born between Robbie's birth date and my birth date. Oh, that's a 19, yeah. Robbie's a 1964 baby. You're a 1967 baby. I'm a 1968 baby. So you are stuck right in the middle of us. So you went to University of Michigan. Okay. So that was your alma mater. Was Tom Brady there at the time? Man, wow. Gosh, I think you was. Let me see. I was there 85 to 89. Okay, that might have been a little earlier. Yeah, I think he came right after.

Yeah, there was, no, it was, it was Elvis Garbach. Elvis Gerbach was your QB then? He went on to be a Raven QB? Yes. Oh my goodness. Okay. When you're asking me that, I was like, whoa, yeah, I had to go back in my mind. It was Elvis, man.

Now, Rick, once you got to Hollywood, you've done numerous Trek projects. Voyager isn't the only trek thing that you've done. I know you've done, you did a voiceover for Star Trek Klingon. You've also worked on DS9, you've worked on Enterprise, you've worked on insurrection as well. So I think Voyager was your first trek role. Is that right? I have been dying to answer this question. Okay. Well, I left Ann Arbor finally. I graduated in 1990.

I took a year off to make some more money so I can finish. And during that time, I did some theater in Detroit. I did a play about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. the meeting and what it like what if they hadn't met oh wow sweet yeah yeah yeah like a week before malcolm's assassination and um yeah i played malcolm's bodyguard i was just i was so young i look at some of the pictures i was like a baby yeah right all of it you know you look back in the day yeah then i moved to chicago where my brother and his wife was living and i just dove into theaters theaters uh in chicago i became a stage stage actor in chicago and after a few years of

doing theater and commercials and voiceovers and table reads and whatever i can do I finally went to L.A., and my agent called me one day, my first year in L.A., which is 25 years ago, this year. And she says, I know you need some money, and I know you don't have a car, a car. So there's a video game that's being produced over at Paramount with the Star Trek folks. And correct me from wrong guys. But she said that. She said it's called a Klingon Warrior. The Klingon Warrior or something like that.

I think so, yeah. It was a long time ago, but it was a live action video game that I had to audition for as if it were an episodic. Right. So I went into audition and I walked in and the first person I see is Jonathan Frakes. Yeah. And, you know, I'm a huge Star Trek fan, you know, myself. So I knew right away who he was and the casting director smiled at me, I believe, was Bronzerma. Uh-huh.

Braun was the guy. Yeah, and he smiled at me and, you know, gave me that look like, you ready? I'm like, yeah, ready. And I auditioned for one of the Klingons in the video game and I got the job, you know. That was my greatest job. Oh, so Rick, you're saying that Freaks was directing this voice? I remember him directing this, yeah. Okay.

And a lot of our crew worked on that. And I feel like it was a video game where there was live action stuff that you'd like play the game and then you'd get to a certain place and the movie would come on or something like yeah i i saw some of it um it's been it's been it's been it's been a while but i i remember that you the player would have you would have an option to do this or do that and man it was so much fun man i and um i remember thinking not only am i on the paramount lot you know like which i think is to this day my favorite it's so beautiful yeah but on star trek man you know yeah yeah yeah Like, I was so charged.

I was so, you know, I was a young 28-year-old actor and I was, I was so happy to be there, you know. Yeah. I loved all the makeup and I love the glue on the eyelids. I loved all of it, you know. That's awesome. Yeah, and Jonathan directed it and I can't remember how long it took the shoot, probably six days, maybe I don't know. Yeah, I feel like it was a week or two that they, it was, it was definitely a project. I remember, because I was shadowing directors at the time and I had shadowed Jonathan Frakes.

Franks when he was directing episodes of our show and so I remember him talking about this and it was all that was all happening as they were developing the Star Trek experience the Vegas you know destination it was at the Las Vegas Hilton and they had a giant they had a a giant like bar quarks bar and a whole ship sort of built there and then they also were doing a movie experience you know like a Back to the Future ride kind of thing that had filmed elements. So I think Jonathan had something to do with that, too. I think you're right about that.

Here's a little, here it is. It's not Trinion Warrior. It's just Star Trek Klingon. And it says, bottom, learn or die. Yes. Jonathan Frakes, and it says Robert O'Reilly, so Bob O'Reilly, and there is Gowron. And it's listed as the ultimate interactive adventure.

Wow. Is that something that you can, can buy now or is it something that you you know I'm sure this is you can find this probably on eBay somewhere you know I don't think it's you can't probably cannot just buy it off the right now I don't think it's available it's been a while I would love to have one yeah I'm shocked they didn't give you one back then that was so Rick that was before Voyager that was your first ever that was like months before right or yeah that was number one that was literally this Literally job number one in the Star Trek world.

Wow. Right. Yeah. Which then led to prototype? Was it Freaks or Serma that called you up for that? Yep. That was then led to a few months later, led to Star Trek Voyager. And Ron Serma and I called my agent and said, you know, this would be great for Rick if you

want to, you know, he'll have to audition for it, which I did. And it was, it was awesome, man. You know, I met, I met Garrett. I met Robert, um, Beltron, Beltrane. Leave on my first day, I met both of you guys. And then, like, subsequently just met people as I, as filming went on, you know. Yeah, sure. I was thrilled to be back on Star Trek, um, even though, you know, in prototype, you can't, you can't see.

Right. You're going to. Yeah. I got a question about that. Now, did they, so with the robot, I want to call it makeup, but it was probably more of a costume than makeup because it, you know, fit over. Was there any fittings for that? Like, how did that, the facial structure or any, was that any of that part of like a molding or a casting or anything? It's been so long. I just remember, I think the main concern was, was I able to breathe and to see out of the, out of the face, part of the robot's

face. Yeah. I think there were a little bit slits or something where I could, so I can at least see a little bit. But it was really hard. It was extremely hard to see. I bet it was. Yeah. So I would take off my, I would take off prototypes. Prototype 3-947. I would say this. He has a name, okay? He has a name. I would take up his his hat, his helmets or his face so I can at least kind of mark where I, how many steps I needed to walk. And then I kind of practice a little bit. And then I put it back on and then, okay, then Jonathan, you know, action.

Then we would do it, you know. And it actually, you know what is, it actually worked out pretty cool because when you look at the character move, When I watched it yesterday, I mean, I say this with all humility, I'm really proud of what I did with the character because I'm really essentially in a mannequin suit, you know, and I had to really bring life to that, man. Yeah. And had to move a certain way. He had to, you know, he had to be kind of kind of sloppy and loose, but then all of a sudden he's super robotic. Right. Right.

There was just one thing where I remember I had to jump down some steps. I just hadn't seen it in so many years. I watched it yesterday, and there was just one scene where I have to jump down some steps and so I can get to Bologna Torres. Now, I kind of walk, like, kind of fast, and then I just hopped, you know, like, you know, like he's a robot, you know? He doesn't have a lot of ability like we do as humans. And I thought that was so cool for the character design, because he looks harmless.

But we discover he's deadly. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Well, you know, what's crazy is when you go, when you're, you know, when you're in college and you're in the theater department or you're training, nobody teaches you robot acting. You know what I'm saying? This is stuff that you have to kind of really work out. Yeah.

Yeah. I almost feel like when you got this role, you should have had your agent call Anthony Daniels who played C-3PO in Star Wars and say, hey, man, give us some tips, help me out. It's funny you say that because some of the design of that. of that headpiece reminds me. I hadn't thought of it before, but it reminds me a little bit of C-3PO. Yeah.

A little bit. You know, Robbie, when I was looking at that design, first of all, it seemed kind of like retro to me. I was like, wow. For the 1996, whatever this was, I thought, boy, they could have come up with something a little bit more advanced looking than that. That looks pretty retro.

And then I started thinking, as I was rewatching it, earlier, I was like, my God, this reminds me of some of the stuff that you would see on 1978 Battlestar Galactica. This looks like something I, this, you know, one of the, some, some alien or some robot race that Battlestar Galactica would use because that's the kind of style it is. It's sort of retro throwback kind of a thing. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, also just so we don't forget, Robbie and I typically do a quick synopsis. Let's do our synopsis in our little poems. I have a limerick.

I'm not really proud of my limerick today. I was having trouble with my rhyming. So I'm just going to, I'm going to give it to you. I feel like I could have done better. But anyway, today's limerick for prototype is, Balana meets 3947. He might die and he won't go to heaven. Saving him was dumb and robot wars aren't fun.

And Balana feels a lot of confusion. I sort of got lost at the end. I was like, I don't know. She was torn at the end, but I couldn't make it rhyme with 3947. Limericks are hard sometimes. There you go. That's my limerick. That was not.

I liked it. I liked it. Thank you. All right. Robot wars are not fun. And now we go to haiku. Hiku is even more, the essence, even less words. Ready?

Yeah. Torres finds robot. Warplasma reanimates. Torres terminates Oh The haiku has always got more like The haiku I don't know man

The limerick Limerick is always fun though I get more laughter from The Limerick is more like deep thoughts Even if the limerick is ridiculous It makes no sense it's funny But it's a hycou Limericks and haikus

Yeah Let's start with that opening shot man Like you just That opening shot is you're You've got that staticy vision, and then you see that three shot with Balana Torres, Tuvac and Janeway. And I always find it's so funny as actors, whenever we do shots like that, you have to be so uncomfortably and unnaturally close to the actor next to you just to make it work for camera. It's sort of like, no, you've got to get closer. And you're like, you're literally, it's like, what?

Because in real life, personal space, right? Nobody would be that close to another human being. But, you know, as a director, Robbie, you have to, like, fit it into that frame. It doesn't, the lens doesn't always capture how awkward it, we're, you know, we're lining up sometimes as actors. Yeah. The other thing I noticed about that, the two things I think about on that opening shot is there were no edits, you know, it was all sort of one long take, which can be harder to do. Like, that means the actors, the timing has to be right. Everything has to be playing without the cut, you know, if you've got coverage, if you've got a close up and a wide shot, you can kind of. in editing change the timing and make sure that the story works but that was a real testament

to performance there because there were no cuts it had to be right yeah right and also in that first scene rick you um correct me if i'm wrong but you know when we're testing when there's no life in in in the robot in the beginning that's not you that's just that's just a model that's on the on the um you weren't there for that scene where we've lifted up the arm and dropped it correct I think that's, I don't think that was, that was me, no. Yeah, I think you came in later when you had to walk around. That particular shot, I just remember. With the exception of when there was kind of just a sparkling of life coming out of 3,9, 47,

and it started speaking and started speaking a little bit, you know, like, oh yeah, that was you. That was you. That was you. But it'd be, like, I think everything up to that and the arm up and down and all that, I think that was, that wasn't, I was a stand-in or something, yeah. Yeah, the other thing I noticed in that point of view opening, that one long shot was they had this kind of like snow, like the image kept fritzing to snow and things like that. Yep. And my mind went to, oh, that's like old-fashioned TV when your antenna's not working good, right?

But that's very analog. Like it's a very retro kind of version of, like in a digital world, it doesn't get. like shh that's all analog so part of me immediately was like oh that was the 90s and we hadn't kind of jumped into a digital language so we're still looking back at like oh yeah it's an analog connection or something I don't know I think it makes you wonder like how old is this creature this robot yeah how long has you been out there floating around in space yeah where does it come from all those things you know well he said at one point went, what did he say? A million?

He did say a million something. Days. It was hours. Was it hours? Okay. Yeah. He did calculate that. Well, I didn't do it, but Google did it. A million hours is something like 114.5 years. Oh, wow. Oh, really?

Yeah. Because they, didn't they mention that the prelore were, or at least the builders were live a couple of decades ago, or is that not right? I'm, huh? No, I think that's right. I think you were probably created and for a long time served with them and then And then you guys killed them you had to happen. Yeah, you had to We became self-aware. Yes, yes. Robbie, we thought that this episode was written by Ken Biller. We were wrong. We were wrong, yeah

Nicholas Correa directed by Jonathan Frakes, directed by Jonathan Frakes. So we were right about that. Yeah. Since Franks directed you on that video game, do you know if he actually called Ron Serma up and said, hey, that kid we use on the video game? Let's bring him in on prototype. Did that happen at all as far as you know? I don't know. I would like to think that that's what happened. You know, like he was literally the person that gave me my start, you know, in the sci-fi world. Yeah.

And I will always be grateful, you know, that. that one person can, that God puts in your life, that really shift your weird projector, you know, and I'm always grateful for that, you know. I saw him at DragonCon three years ago, I think, and I just chatted for a minute because he was so busy, but I was just like, hey, man, you know, yeah. So basically, Rick, Jonathan Frakes is your real life builder. That's right. right um all right exactly like a life imitates art it is exactly life imitates art

all right let's go to that scene in the mess hall um actually no before the mess hall there's a there's kind of you know Torres and Kim are working on the uh on on on on your body basically and um there's there's some flirtiness going on there yes there was and i thought Robbie, I'm telling you, I've always felt that Kim should have been with Torres. There was these undertones of flirtation, and she's calling me Starfleet. She goes, you better, don't make me pull rank on you. You've got to go rest. And to me, oh, man, I felt like there's a spark of something happening.

You know what, Garrett, I think Bolana had a spark with everybody. Let's just be honest. She had it with Chacote. And by the way, speaking of sparks, why was she so obsessed like from the jump she was obsessed with this robot like it was she went from zero to a hundred yeah from the start and part of me was like I mean once we got into the story I was like all right I'll buy into this but I felt like there should have been something to set up that obsession because it just seemed slightly dramatic for how much she really

this robot like calm down all right i don't know that that's that's i i don't know that's that's yeah i i my first thought of course is that this that maybe a maternal drive you know to give yeah um to this this infant robot you know you know that type of thing and then i thought well maybe she just uh you guys would know better than i would but maybe she needed some purpose or something I don't know. Yeah. No, sure. Her performance was, her performance was awesome,

but I just thought as it was scripted, that there was not this sort of, oh, there's a path I could go down. Here's why that means something to me, and now I'm kind of wrapped up in it. It was just like she was wrapped up from the start, which I thought was interesting.

Yeah. So my take on this, when her being wrapped up, I want to come up with something. You know, you always hear, about a brick you've heard this once you go black you never go back so is there something where we can say once you go robot you never go so listeners and if you can come with something that rhymes with robot you can never say no bot once you go robot you can never say no bot

No bot. This is a PG-13 podcast. But you know, this is, this is, it's funny, this is my second podcast and my fifth Zoom. So when I did, I did a podcast with Supernatural a couple of weeks ago and I had to, I had to ask first off before we started, is it okay to like how, is this G-rated? Is this R-rated? There you go. Get your parameters straight before you begin.

That's so sweet. Art man you are. Yeah. This is the first time we're in Torres' quarters. Am I right, Robbie? We haven't not seen Belon. Have we seen Belona Torres' quarters before this episode? I don't think so.

No, it was the very first time. Right. And she has red lights. I do remember that they were, I remember, I remember when they were doing Paris's quarters for the first time. I feel like the set design department asked me. They said, hey, or maybe it, no, it was Marvin Rush in lighting. I think he said, hey, do you have a favorite color?

Because we're going to pick a color for Paris's quarters. And he goes, we've already done red or something. And I feel like I remember choosing the blue or the purple or something. Like he gave me a few choices. I was like, yeah, I like that. That's good. Yeah. So maybe they asked, she was red, right?

Yeah. Maybe they asked Balana or Roxanne what color she might like. I don't know. Maybe. Right? And Klingon insignia is in red. So maybe that's what, yeah, so that fit for that particular set. I never got to ask that.

You're lucky that Marvin asked you what color. Was yours orange? I feel like yours was orange. No, I think mine was like a more bluish or purplory or something like that. Maybe mine was yellow. I don't remember now. See, I've probably messed up this whole story. But I do remember Marvin asking and giving me a couple,

whatever choices were left that people hadn't chosen. I think he asked. I want to go back to the Neelick scene, though. I thought it was... In the mess hall? Yeah, in the mess hall. I thought that was really... One thing that came up as I watched that scene was

Ethan Phillips has always said he only got, in seven years, he only got complimented on his food twice. And once was from my character, and I think once might have been from Janeway. And in that scene, she said something about the coffee and how disgusting it was or something. I was like, oh, man, Neelix can't even make a pot of coffee

without somebody taking a shot? Like, no. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh, my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane. Trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me.

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Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. We must make note it's about 21 minutes. to the episode before we even see Tom Paris. I know it was a long time. It was a long wait. It was like, okay, there he is.

On the bridge. And what is up with that tension, Robbie? The tension between Paris and Chocote? Rebecca said the same thing. Because here you are as a hero. You're saying, I'm going to go ahead and take a shuttle and I'm going to go save her. And then, and then,

Chocote goes, we don't want to lose another shuttle. He doesn't say we don't want to lose a crew member like you. He says, we don't want to lose another shuttle. Careful how you drive because we don't want to lose another shuttle. Shuttle is much more valuable than Paris's life, obviously. I mean, I thought the same thing. It's like, really? Are we still playing that?

Yeah, that was shocking to me. It was bizarre and out of left field. And yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah. Correct me and wrong, but I mean, you guys are in the show, your characters are pretty good pals, though, right? Yeah, and our characters. Paris and Kim, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Paris and Kim are very good pals. There's a back story before the pilot that Paris had been, had flown with the Maquis, and sort of, that my character, Paris had abandoned the Starfleet at one point, and then he flew with the Maquis and abandoned the Maquis. So he was kind of not welcome anywhere, my character. And Chakotay sort of... This is before... Before the pilot, yeah.

Oh, before the pilot. Yeah. So the backstory there, but we're, you know, we're well into season two now. I was surprised to see Chacote bringing that up. Like, you know, that sort of tension, that Maquis, Starfleet, Maquis don't like Paris tension. It was like, wait a minute, we're 30 episodes into this show. Right.

But it'd be one thing if he kept that tension from the pilot in every episode until now. But literally, that tension was in the pilot, none of the episodes after the pilot. until now. It's like out of the blue. It's like, hey, let's relive the tension between Paris and Chacote from the pilot. A year and a half ago that we haven't even referenced once. I agree.

It was strange. Really weird. Rick, did you actually, in that scene where she says crossing fingers and then you do that. Oh my God. I made a note. He was like the fingers come up behind and like over her shoulder. And your robot is so advanced,

but it cannot cross its own fingers one hand. It has to use the other hand to help cross it. Please walk us through that scene. What would Jonathan say to you? Yeah. Well, I very clearly remember Jonathan saying it would be really cool if you literally did that.

That was a good bit. That was a comedy direction. And it's like, it's one of those things you're like, either that's going to work or it's not. Oh, I thought it worked great. It was funny. It worked. It was hilarious. It was so fun and I love when there's comedy on our show. I really, I miss that there's not more of it. Like I was, I was very happy when Tom Paris had a line in this where he's flying the shuttle in. He's like, okay, heading in. And then when he goes, maybe not. And he turned around. Like just any time we can sort of have a little laugh, I think is awesome.

Robbie, I really wanted to see the visual effect of your shuttle bouncing off of the other thing. It only showed you inside the cockpit of the shuttle, but it didn't show the exterior shot of your shuttle going going, just bouncing up. That would have been good. A little loony tune sound effect in the background. By the way, when I also love speaking of funny moments. It was a funny moment in sick bay when Bologna goes in to ask the doctor for some help. And then Bob Picarder goes,

Balana, I'm a doctor. And she cuts him off, not an engineer, I know. I was like, oh, that's funny. I like the funny. Keep the funny coming. Yeah. Did you develop a friendship with Hugh Hodgin, who played 6263, your fellow.

Hugh Hodgin. You know what? I did not really develop a friendship with him, but we, you know, we chatted. I can recall just a bit backstage. And just watching it yesterday, it brought back so many memories. We had different approach to,

even though he was not in it so much, we just had a different approach to the physicality of the robot husband. And he was a little bit more human-like and more fluid. And I believe that I also did the voice for the robot that's on the gurney or the one that they're trying to resuscitate or go to the prototype the prototype oh yeah yeah yeah you did that voice as well i'm pretty sure yeah yeah yeah because i remember i remember going into um

you know it was an entire voiceover job yeah no i mean you did they didn't record any of that stuff on set clearly because once you have that mask on it's it's it sounded like this the whole term right so you must have spent countless hours at modern sound doing the voiceover free Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, modern sound, yeah. And then Franks asked you to do the other character too, though, huh? I think so. Well, when I was there, I remember, I remember being asked, could you just, could you do the other one as well? Because I remember getting paid for two different characters.

Okay. So, 39, 47, and then, and then, I guess, the first one that they bring to life, you know. And because I remember listening yesterday, and I said, yeah, that's, that sounds like me. Oh, okay. This is a prototype 0-0-0-1 is ready to accept programming. Okay. That sounds like me. Okay.

For some reason, I thought you did the voice of the cravick commander as well as your prelore. The guy that comes on screen later with Janeway. No, I didn't. You didn't do that voice. Okay. All right. As far as I know. I just wanted to say, I had also directed the first couple seasons of the Orville, Seth

Farland's sci-fi show. Oh, yeah. And there's a character called Isaac, I'll pull it up. Oh, yes. Isaac totally reminds me of, yes. Yeah. The pre-lore and the cravick.

You're right? Yeah. It's very similar in its sort of, in it's sort of, that's Mark Jackson as the actor. There's something I was thinking of that. Yeah, there's definitely feels like there's an influence there.

And I know that Mark, when I directed on that show, it was a struggle sometimes for Mark inside of that because that's a series regular character so he's on the bridge he's right and he's you know it's hard for him to sometimes see the other actors he's got an ADR all of his dialogue re-record all the dialogue because it's they do have a microphone inside that headpiece they try to get good dialogue but I'll have to check this show out actually I haven't seen it yet oh you haven't oh wow it's fun yeah there's some really good episodes it's very and it feels very

familiar to old 90s trek for sure. Okay, cool. Old 80s, 90s, that next generation era. You'll like it. You'll like it. Any funny moments filming regarding you know, bumping into anything, anything that really you kind of just, you remember

so clearly as being, oh boy, that was hilarious. Not so much the day of, but now it is. I'm glad you asked that because I bumped into I bumped into a couple of different things. It's because you're trying to make it look natural and as realistic as possible. Yeah, yeah. You know, and action.

Then you start moving and then, you know, your leg, because I'm pretty tall. Either my leg would hit the table or something or computer deck or something, you know. Yeah. But I, you know, I love it, man. You know, like I was like, cool, we'll do another take and, you know. this time I won't get my leg. You know, maybe it might be my elbow or something. Right.

I thought that that was, I'm all for a happy accident, as Bob Ross would say, you know. I love a good Bob Ross quote. There you go. The more words of Bob Ross. Okay. How about your relationship with Roxanne Dawson? Any memories of working with her on the set? Man, she was so, she was just such a pro, you know, was my first time working with a,

um a series regular you know and bona fide character from the star truck world you know like on a daily basis you know and and um she was really kind and she would she would sometimes say you want to run lines and you know that's like you know and that's always a nice thing for especially if you're a guest on someone else's show you know for someone to sort of say hey you know whatever you if you want to rehearse that's cool if not that's cool and um she she she she made it comfortable. And I remember running into her at Modern Sound as well. And she was like, she was like, hi, Rick. You know, like that. Oh, man. So, yeah. Is that what she said to you? Did she say, hi, Rick? Or did she say once you go robot, you don't go nobody? You know what

that's right. No, she said, hi Rick. Oh, hi, Rick. Okay. Just checking. Yeah. And she's, she was, she was really, you know, and really everyone, you know, as well. And, you know, I always, I've done interviews over the, over the years and people always bring up Star Trek. And they say, they say, can you tell us about your first, can you tell us about Star Trek? Yeah. And I always say, it's the best job in town, you know. Yeah. The best job in town, you know, and it's, it's, it's, it's something that, you know, like you're enormously proud to have. Yeah. Under your belt, man, you know yeah i was so green man yeah i was a rookie to not acting but so much like just la yeah yeah yeah and being on set you know and it's a different machine you know yeah and

and a different way of working and and i i i discovered quickly that i very much enjoy film acting you know like being on camera um and um being a stage actor you know i most of my experience prior to l.a was was on stage with just a bit of on camera you know And when I like this role for me as well as the video game, that was the two biggest on-camera jobs for me. And I was learning as I was going. Wow. Yeah. And okay, hitting the marks, okay, hit the light.

I remember I worked later on, I don't want to jump ahead, but I remember working on LeVar Burton had hired me to do Deep Space Nine. nine. It was an all-Clingon episode. Soldiers of the Empire. Wonderful actor passed away. He was in all those films about the Police Academy films. I can't remember.

Oh, he played Tackett. Tackleberry, Tackleberry. He was in, Robbie, he was in the 37s. He played Amelia Earhart's Fred Noon. Oh, yeah, yeah. Sure. Yeah. Oh, wonderful actor. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very talented. And we were all Klingons together, you know? And I was like, looking with Taco Barry.

Yes. Yeah, he's a tall guy. He's a big guy, too. He was a tall guy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, pretty big guy, you know. And so lovely to work with it, as well as Michael Dorn and, you know, some of the other other actors. And I remember I did this long monologue.

I want to call it a monologue, it was a very, very long speech that I had to deliver. And the actor in me was so excited about. doing it. Right. And LeVar, I remember LeVar saying, action, and I did the whole thing. And then I, and then he says, okay, and cut. And then LeVar comes up to me and he doesn't even say it loudly, he just kind of leans in and whispers, he says, that was really, really nice.

Next time, stand in the light. That sounds like LeVar. But what's so awesome about that is he first gave a positive message, you know? He was like, that was really, really good. Because if he walked up to you and said, like, dude, stand in the light. You'd be like, oh, okay. But then he says, that's LeVar, though. LaVar is always like, always Mr. Gracious and Mr. Elegant and Mr. Positive. And I love LeVar. But that's a good way of going about it, though, right? To get your message across. If you give a positive, and I've always heard, like, if you have to give a negative message, go PNP,

positive, positive. Start out with something positive. Give the bad news. And with a positive. So this is how you get your point across. But yeah, I just remember when you were on set how how grateful you were that you were cast in the role and how and it was an early role for you and how enthusiastic you were. And I really enjoyed that. Every time I saw you on screen after that, I was always like, yep, that's my boy. I was always really proud. I go, there he is again. Rick Worthy. He's now on the new Battlestar Galactica. Now he's on Supernatural. And now you'll see him here. And every time, I saw you, I was always, I'd always get the smile on my face like, there he is. Oh, thank you. I was very

proud of you, man. Very proud of you. Thank you. I, man, God bless you, brother. It means a lot to me. From back to the episode, I thought one of the most interesting lines from Janeway, or at least the one that I love the most, is, is it possible that we stumbled into the middle of some kind of robotic war? Like, when she says that. Yes. I have the same note. Do you just spick your drink out just now? It looked like you're spitting your drink out there. I don't know. Okay. I think that's a tough line to pull off. I got to say, we've stumbled into the middle of some kind of, right? Robotic war.

I know that we've done this. She could pull off though. Cape Mulgrew could pull off the melodrama like nobody else. She could do it. Wow. They're robots in that nebula. By the way, did you see Janeway and Torres drinking black coffee? in her ready room, when Torres went in there and they had that long conversation, Janeway pulls out some coffee, more of Janeway's coffee.

Replicator rations, used it for coffee. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And she gave Balana a cup of coffee. Yeah. Very generous. Do you have any more notes on this episode, either of you, too, that you want to share about anything else of this episode? I have a few. Okay. I thought it was fascinating that they're weapons. were so much stronger than ours. Yeah. Oh, yeah, the ship, the, but that their speed was not, yeah, they, right, they, you know, they have, we happen to be in that sort of weird pickle of like,

yeah, we can outrun them and leave Bologna or we can stay here and get our ass kicked. Like, yeah, I just thought that was interesting. Technologically, they can't figure out a power source, but they can figure out weapons better than all cutting-edge Starfleet weapons. Right. couldn't figure out a power module yeah um yeah i thought it was very interesting that the power modules all had their own you know individual unique energy code or something yeah that was an interesting concept yeah they can't they can't self-replicate right right and they're all unique

i mean kind of like our DNA as human beings it was sort of built into this artificial life form that they each had a unique energy wave or whatever that I thought. Energy signature. Yeah, energy signature. Yeah, energy signature. That was kind of cool. Yeah, poor Boulana had to stab the robot at the end. Yeah, in her words, it was necessary. Yeah, it's very sad. Typically, Rick, what we do is we try to, uh, we try to talk about the theme of the show because usually every Star Trek episode has an underlying theme that helps humanity be better at being humans.

So I'm going to just lead off and just say that a couple of themes here for me. Number one, the caveat here is just be careful of AI. Be careful of artificial intelligence. Like, hey, you know, it's because at some point, we are going to get to that point where we build a prelore or a cravick, you know, type of robot, a cravick robot. And we could be in for a whole, you know, it's the whole, Terminator kind of, you know, being classic fear of Skynet is going to kind of overrun us.

So that's one theme, the caveat there. And the other theme sort of that I saw from this episode was when at just the very end, where Balana is talking to Janeway, and she's clearly just broken up by the fact that she created something and then had to kill it, you know, and literally that word it was necessary. So the theme being sometimes we must,

take actions that are not what we want to do. You know what I'm saying? Not actions that we feel like we should be doing, but we realize that because for the greater good, it has to be done, you know, so that there is dirty work that has to be done by all of us at certain times in our lives and that we just have to pull the trigger and get it finished. And it totally was, and I agree with everything you just said, and it really was touching, you know? Like I watched really really objectively watched it yeah and I had seen it over the years you know five six times but it's been a number of years as I just sat down and watched it uninterrupted right you know and and on Netflix and it was really it was really

touching you know because yeah felt sorry for um prototype 3947 and and in his his dilemma you know and his is wanting to have um the ability to well his fear of being extinct, I think, you know. Yeah, yeah. And wanting, I love, I love the relationship that he developed with Bala Torres, because he really believed in her, you know, like I believe, I think, I think I said, where he says, she says, I think I found a way to do it. And then I think he says, I believe you will succeed or something. Yeah, something like that, yeah. Yeah, he believes in her that she can do it, you know. I thought an interesting theme for me, certainly there's the Bala story of sort of wanting to feel the satisfaction

of sort of bringing life to some, giving life in some way. There's that story, but the thing that really jumped out at me in terms of like, what's the moral dilemma, or what's the message, the lesson is I started noticing how with the robots that so many of their decisions were driven by who they considered an enemy. Right.

That they were sort of this obsession with enemy because both sides had been created with an enemy, you know, pointing the finger at the other side. And they've continued, this robot war has continued the species war that was handed down to them. And then even in, even at moments when they said, well, Balana Torres, you're now the enemy. Or Janeway, you're the enemy. Like enemies, this obsession with who is your enemy. me can be destructive and that was the message to me that was the theme of like you know be careful of an obsession with who your enemy is because it will lead to your own demise or some version of that

sort of theme to me made sense yeah to sort of add to that it's it's it's almost like um you know when people have a certain mindset about something and they're like this is the way I'm going to do it and I don't care what anything, what happens, or what the new information or the new circumstances, we're going to keep doing this over and over again. It's, what is that old Greek myth about the guy, keep pushing the rock up the hill and then it keeps rolling down? Sisyphus, right? Sisyphus, yes, it's sort of a Sisyphus type of situation, you know, like be aware of that

you can be so honed in on one specific way of doing something in your life that it could actually become outdated and not be really, you know, be, it will not. serve you in terms of bettering yourself by staying with this same mindset. And that's what they were. It was just enemy, enemy, enemy, enemy, right? What's that phrase? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again. Expecting a different result. Different results, exactly. That's sort of their enemy thing is like insanity. They're driven to insanity because of this obsession with the enemy, whoever they decide that is at the moment. Yeah. And that revelation, that revelation that when Torres finds out that, okay, so then maybe, you know, we can talk to

the Kravik commanders or whatever and they're, oh, they're all dead too. And the realization that the Kravik and the Prae-Lore actually had a truce. They were like, okay, you know what? We're done fighting. And now we're going to dismanture robots. And both robots ended up killing both of their masters. I think because now they're the enemy. It's like they were programmed to Exactly. Kill the enemy. Yeah. It's truly, it's truly epic.

And, you know, they essentially destroyed their own creators. You know, they're going to, you know, it's kind of, you can even sort of sense when you're watching it. You're like, there's something, you know, there's something else happening. Mm-hmm. We don't know yet. Oh, yeah. And like, it's like, it's the bombshell and like, bam. Yeah.

But, you know, the revelation of the robots killing the create of the builders to me was kind of a horror moment, you know, horror movie reveal for me. I was goose bumpy. I was like, oh, God, you know. Oh, for sure. Right? So, yeah, I was like, whoa. Yeah, that was the whoa moment for sure when they, when they dropped that bombshell. That was a big word. You want to give a one to 10 rating, Robbie, on this up? It's tough. If I'm being honest, I would give this about a seven. I would say it's better than average. Yeah. But here's why, because I think our best episodes are when there's a number of characters involved in the story, that the story affects not just, you know, one character, but has an impact on relationships within the ship and the ship itself. And I felt like this one, because it was so focused on Balana and her sort of internal experience, and there wasn't a lot of affecting of, you know, she had some, a couple of scenes. with the captain. But otherwise, it felt kind of like a bottle show. It felt a little bit bubbled up

to me. So that's why I would give it a seven. But I thought for what the story was, the script, and what the actors and the director and everybody were given to do, I thought everybody knocked it out of the park. So I'd give it a seven because of the lack of inner woven relationships and things like that, expanding the story a little bit. bigger than Bologna, but otherwise, yeah, I give it a strong seven. Cool. What about you?

I'll give it an eight. Yeah, it's a good sci-fi story, period. It is a very good. That part, that part is very, very good. What do you think, Rick? I'll give it, I will give it. I was gonna say, I don't think I've ever been asked that question. It's tough, it's tough, right?

You're gonna make me rate it now. You can be honest. You can be honest. If you wanna give it too, man, you give a two whatever you feel I think I would probably give it an eight alright maybe like an eight maybe like an eight point eight point five eight point five eight point eight point five all right eight and a half stars all right the man is eight and a half stars nice oh my god okay any other notes Robbie are you no I'm good okay I'm good

okay I'm good now Rick are you good with most of your do you have any other any episodic notes Thoughts? I'm good. You know, I actually ended up watching Equinox last night as well. Uh-huh. This is a two-parter, right? It's like a finale and then a season opener. I was like, man, I was young and pretty, baby.

Right? I know. Well, well, Rick, you still look. Well, thank you. Well, thank you. You know. You know, coming up on 50, I'll be 54 in March. But if I remember when I did, I remember looking at Equinox and, well, when I remember looking at

prototype, I was like, I actually fit into that outfit. Yeah. And then the second thing was when I looked at Equinox and I'm in the federation uniform, you know, and the Starfleet uniform and I had a nice haircut, you know, and I was like, you know what? I'm looking pretty good, man, you know? And I, you know, at that time, I didn't have to exercise or work out, you know, you You know, I mean, all that, to look like that now, I got to hit it hard.

Hit the weights and cardio and, you know, breath and floppy and all that's fun stuff. But as a fellow minority, we do have one thing on our favor. We have more melanin in our skin. So facially wise, black don't crack. And for me, Asian don't raisin. That's how it works. Man, this has been so much fun. Yeah.

seeing you guys again and I was telling Garrett yesterday I said man I think the last time that I saw Robbie I believe was at a convention in Prague but I can't remember if that was the last time oh wow yeah that was a while back that was like 2013 or something like that seven years ago right seven years ago that sounds about right it's been an absolute pleasure having you on our podcast thank you so much for joining us it's been a pleasure bro thank you Thanks, Rick. So good to see you again. It's been a while, but always good to see you. You too, man. Thank you, Robbie and Jway, Vancouver. How's the weather up there, by the way? It's getting a little chilly now. It's winter. Winter has come. Yeah, yeah, cool. Yeah, but it's still a beautiful city. I know we never see each other, but you always need to know. I love you guys so much. Thanks, brother. Levar and Jonathan, give him my love as well. I love him too.

women. I think Ron Sermon, I believe, has retired, but I'm not sure. I haven't seen Ron in years. Yeah. Yeah. Well, so good to see you, Rick. Thanks again for joining us. Thanks to all of our listeners. And stay tuned next week when we review alliances. And for our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned. Rick will be joining us for our bonus materials section. And we are so happy to have them. So thank you so much. See you guys next week.