The Delta Flyers - Random Thoughts
Episode Date: October 25, 2021The Delta Flyers is a weekly Star Trek: Voyager rewatch & recap podcast hosted by Garrett Wang & Robert Duncan McNeill. Each week Garrett and Robert will rewatch an episode of Voyager starting... at the very beginning. This week’s episode is Random Thoughts. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Random Thoughts:Violent thoughts lead Torres to jail when the crew vacations on a planet among peaceful telepaths.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill, & our Post Producer Jessey MillerAnd a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, Tim Russ, Roxann Dawson, Kate Mulgrew, & Brannon BragaAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Becca Stillo, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Mike Devlin, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Lucas Shuck, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Lisa Robinson, Joshua McHenry, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Barbara S., Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Nathan Walker, Shambhavi Kadam, John Mann, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Melissa Lau, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, & Paul YoungAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Ann Harding, Laura Swanson, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, James Cottrell, Jenna Appleton, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Maria Rosell, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Louise Storer, Justin Weir, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Michelle Maroney, Scott J. Mark, Michael "Klink" Klinckhardt, Megan Chowning, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Joseph Lanning, Megan Moore, Melissa A. Nathan, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, & David J ManskeThank 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
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. You're a two hosts long. This journey are myself, Garrett Wong. And my co-host, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil.
Hey, buddy. Hey, man. How are you? I'm good. Look what I'm wearing. I know. Just noticed that. Yes, ma'am.
For those of you who are listening, I'm wearing the new merch shirt that we have, the yes, ma'am shirt.
It's the official Tom Paris, Robbie McNeil, yes, ma'am shirt.
Signature quote, yes.
And we've talked about this before.
Someone has compiled almost, I don't know.
Like a whole YouTube video.
A whole YouTube video of every time you've said yes ma'am, not every, but most, a lot of times that you've said yes, ma'am.
And it's absolutely hilarious.
It's amazing.
it's it's a fun watch even though you're saying the same thing over and over again it's worth a
watch i yeah yeah there's another youtube video that's got um some kind of some kind of some sort of
yeah some kind of yeah some kind of yeah i love that video yeah it's some some sort of anomaly and
the funny thing is before i mean i've said that that video's been out for a while but
with the first time i saw it i was shocked i could not believe
how many times that we said that.
Like, this was never on my radar.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm probably never for you either, right?
And it's not just Voyager.
It's TNG, D-S-9, all of us say that over and over again.
I never really knew it.
I never knew about it.
That's funny.
That's funny.
All right.
How's everything else?
You got the T-shirt.
That's nice.
Yeah, I got the T-shirt on.
Love the Tom Peres-Mam shirt.
Awesome.
And I'm going to be shipping all that merch over to Vancouver.
The fun part about merchandise with our Delta Flyers store,
is you and I travel a lot.
Yes.
And so there's no, like, physical store.
We are the store.
We are.
The store moves from Canada to Utah to Vegas, to Georgia, to all over the place.
It does.
All right.
This week.
Yes, what is this week?
This week is Random Thoughts.
Okay.
Yes, the episode that's so popular with Random Flight members.
Remember, we talked about that.
Yes, exactly.
This is random flight.
international fan clubs favorite episode favorite episode random thoughts okay so let's go watch this
episode and let us come back and discuss ravi and i are back from watching random thoughts yes we are
random thoughts it's actually a perfect title for this episode it really is let us start with our
poetry synopsis.
Here we go. So let's start with the haiku.
Yeah, let's go with the hykons first. The elegant, simple
haiku. Yes, the simple, easy to come up with most of the time
haiku. Here we go. My haiku for random thoughts.
Torres in trouble. And grammatic purge needed.
Tuvok saves the day.
Ooh, I like that. Oh, good. I like that. That's clean.
It's very concise.
It says it all.
Mine's a little more cryptic.
Okay.
And hopefully funny.
Let's, maybe.
I don't know.
We'll see.
What percentage is McNeil?
What percentage is male McNeil?
I'm never going to specify.
I'm never going to specify.
It's never going to specify.
Okay.
Here we go with our Limerick.
This alien planet looks just like the one before.
Balana's thoughts are not her.
own to explore. What's that musky smell? Violent thoughts we must expel. When you take it away,
they only want it more. Okay. See, I already know this is Rebecca, because she included Nelix with
the musky smell. She loves Johnny Phillips and Nelix. Yes, she does. See, I'm being the investigator
here. I'm being Tuvok right now. Okay. And I have basically put things together, and I now know that this
is a Rebecca driven limerick because she included Johnny Ethan Phillips because there's no reason to
have the musky smell line in there. No, but because how much she loves the actor who played
Neelix. Well, also, I was doing the whole smelling sniffing around him bit. So I made, you know,
I made a bit of a thing about that when we were watching it. You did. You did. There we go with our
poetry. This episode, Random Thoughts, was written by Ken Biller, directed by the Alex Singer.
Lovable Alex Singer, Alex Singer.
Yes.
Yeah, we love Alex.
I feel like when I saw that Ken had written this episode,
I was like, boy, he writes a lot of the Bologna episodes.
He does.
Didn't he?
I feel like Ken definitely connected with her character.
Yeah.
For whatever reason.
He wrote a lot of those episodes.
I think a lot of the writers had characters that they kind of were possessive of.
Like Jerry Taylor was the Janeway.
writer. Like she really, you know, Jerry Taylor loved Janeway or, you know, I don't know for Harry or Tom,
who I would say our writers were. I think Lisa Klink really liked Tom Paris for some reason. I really
do. And maybe Brandon a little bit. Yeah. Okay. But definitely Ken and Belon Torres are connected.
Yes, for sure. A lot. Agreed. And Alex did his thing. We had some wonderful guest stars.
Gwyneth Walsh plays Namira. Yes. Gwyneth is originally.
from Canada. Oh, Canadian. Yeah. And she had done quite a few other Star Trek shows. In fact,
a lot of fans may have met her at conventions because she's very involved in the convention circuit.
Yes. Did she play the Klingon? Yes, that's. Baytor, which is the Klingon Dura's sister, Baytor.
Lursa and Baytor. She played Baytor. Yes. In TNG's redemption, Redemption 2.
and first porn episodes.
There you go.
She also portrayed Beator in DS9,
first season episode, past prologue,
and in Star Trek Generations movies.
She's a fan favorite.
I mean, those characters,
especially in the feature films,
people love those.
There you go.
I did not make that connection,
so thank you for that.
Anyone else?
She was from Winnipeg,
Manitoba, Canada,
raised in Vancouver.
Wayne Perre.
I think I'm pronouncing that correctly.
Wayne Peret.
Hey, Ray.
Also French?
I mean, also Canadian?
Maybe French Canadian?
No, I don't think so.
Okay.
I don't think so.
Give me some Louisiana.
Oh, right.
He's from Louisiana.
He played Will.
And he has an interesting background.
He's done a ton of shows.
But here's some interesting stuff that he worked with Lori Petty on Alien Nation.
Lori Petty was on our show.
He did Total Security in 1997 with Rebecca McFarlane, who was in this episode.
What? On Voyager?
He did Spy Game in 1998, directed by Rick Colby.
He was in Profiler in 1998 with Alicia Coppola, who was also on our show.
He did Third Rock with the son in 1998 with Jim Beaver, who was my neighbor.
Excuse me?
Jim Beaver was your neighbor?
Yes, he was. He lived in my neighborhood.
Do you know Jim Beaver was the reason why I met Megan?
Do you know this story?
No. Uh-uh.
Keeley wanted to meet Jim Beaver.
Jim Beaver was on Supernatural.
Jim Beaver was going to be at Edmonton Comic-Con.
Ebenton is not Calgary, clearly,
but because Keely wanted to meet Jim Beaver,
Megan drove with Keely to Edmonton
Comic-Con, which is where I was at.
I waved at Megan and Keely
because little Keely was dressed as Harley Quinn.
She was five at the time.
And I thought, what a cute little harlequin.
And I said, what a cute mom of the harlequin.
So I waved at them, but they didn't come up to my table.
And two weeks later, Megan tweeted saying,
I'm not sure if you were trying to wave at me or somebody else,
but I was the one with my daughter dressed as Quentin.
Yeah, and so that's how it all began because of Jim Beaver, your neighbor.
That's so weird, Jim Beaver.
Okay, so this actor also did the TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley,
which featured Kitty Swink, Armit Sherman's wife,
and Alex Enberg was in that as well.
So there's a lot of tons of connections.
The magicians he was on
with Rick Worthy. Is Wayne
Peret playing Guil in this? Yes, he plays
Will. Okay, yeah. And Rebecca
McFarlane, does she play?
Rebecca McFarlane. Here's the funny thing.
I did look up all these actors
and I kept looking at Rebecca McFarland going, I feel like
I know her. She's married to my
friend, the director, Jason Ensler.
And I didn't put that together until after I watched
this episode. God, small
world. Yeah, she's married to
Jason Ensler.
Yeah.
Does she play Talley, the Marketplace gal?
Is that right?
Yes.
Yes.
She sure does.
Yeah, I didn't see a lot of Star Trek connections with her.
She did do a show called Maximum Bob with Liz Vassie, who was in one of my short films,
9mm of Love.
Yeah.
So she worked with the...
I remember Liz, yes.
Liz Vassie.
Oh, she did Ghost Whisper.
Armin Kovorkian, who was one of our post guys, had worked on.
on Ghost Whisper.
And so did, I'm going to say, maybe Ron Moore.
Somebody, some of our Star Trek crew worked on Ghost Whisper.
So anyway, all of our guest stars here have multiple connections to other Star Trek.
Interconnected.
Family, friends.
Before we get in the plot, let me just ask you, one to ten.
What are you going to rate this guy?
I'm going to give this a six out of ten.
This is.
You're going to give it a sixer?
I like the concept.
I thought all of our actors did a good job.
it's just something about it didn't feel as dynamic or compelling as some of our other episodes.
It felt like a really cool idea, but it felt more like an intellectual exercise to me than an emotionally engaging episode, if that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah. And I'm going to give it, I'll give it a 6.5. I'm going to go a little bit higher than you.
And I feel about the same thing that you're feeling as well. So it was okay. It was all right. Yeah. So we find ourselves orbiting.
the Minari home world?
It's actually the Mari.
The Mari, thank you.
Didn't write it down here.
The Mari home world.
Correct.
And we hear in Janeway's law,
captain's log, that these are,
this is a species of telepaths.
Right.
And the very first scene is
Paris in the
transporter room with a box
in his hand and Neelix is like,
oh, what are you bringing back?
And Paris doesn't want
to say some sort of
surprise, which we never find out, I don't think. Do we? I think there, no, we don't. But what I'm going to ask you?
Yes. What do you think was in that box? Well, since I didn't say anything to Neelix, it had to be something
kind of intimate. That's what I thought. So we're talking and Neelix says he's going down to me. There's so many
beautiful ladies down there and Paris starts sniffing. He's like, what is, what is that smell? And I love this. I
sort of walked around the room.
And then I realized it's, it's Nelik.
Nelix.
I said, well, what is that?
What does that smell?
He says, it's Musk.
Tell Chuck Musk.
Tell Chuck Musk.
Almost like tell Chuck.
Chuck, Chuck, the show that you directed in pretty much.
Yeah. Tell Chuck Musk.
And he says, too bad, you know, he basically says to Paris, like, too bad, you're committed
now because there's so many beautiful women.
And Paris has a line where he says, are you really trying to depress?
me. And I got to say, I didn't like that line. I know. Are you getting, are you going back
to the, you know, the smooth talker guy again? Yeah, it felt, it felt like a line. I wish I had,
I had said something because it just was like a, it rang very, I didn't like it. I hear you.
That's fine. But the cool thing is, we now know that Neelix has a new love interest. And it's
Talley, one of these aliens, the Mari aliens down in the marketplace. She's a vendor.
So it's kind of nice to see that Nelix has new love in his life, you know, after the departure of Kess.
How long have we been at this planet do you think?
I would say at least 24.
Oh, really?
I think so.
Okay, good.
I mean, you think 24 hours?
I thought we had been there like 24 hours or something because one of the issues I had
was Nelik seemed to be very intimately invested with Tali.
Yes.
In this story in a way that I thought, how did he develop such a.
emotional bond so quickly. It just, I, I didn't know if I bought that. But if, if you think it's
been a week, I think maybe that helps me a little, because I was like, this is. Yeah. Or, or maybe by
osmosis, he's taken on the Harry Kim sort of fall in love very quickly. Fall hard. Yeah, fall hard and fast.
Yes. Okay. So we go down to the marketplace. I got to say this alien town, this alien marketplace
set, my first response was, oh, we've seen this set before. Like, I,
feel like we've reused this set just one too many times, you know, with a little different paint
or a little different stairway here or there. But immediately I thought, oh, we're recycling
this alien planet in a way that just, I wish we had come up with something cooler for this
marketplace. But yeah, that was my first thought. I hear that too. The minute we see that scene
in the marketplace, I thought about a couple things. The one episode, we were sequestered in that one
environment and then you and Torres escaped to the cold environment.
Remember that one?
There's all those different environments.
So the main room where all the Voyager crew are kind of put in that,
that reminder you at that place, as well as the season one episode, Prime Factor's
when we arrive to the pleasure planet of people, that marketplace was very similar to this
one.
I feel like this is a set they sort of pull out whenever we're in the generic alien planet
marketplace.
We whip out the same, you know, walls and stairs.
I don't know. For some reason, it doesn't always bug me, but this time it did.
It did a little bit. I felt like there were more levels. I mean, you know, there have been
multiple levels in the prior sets, but this one looked like there were even more levels.
Yeah, it did. That set it apart. That helped a little bit for sure. But we see Janeway and Balana
trying to buy some supplies from a salesman in the marketplace. And the man reads Janeway's mind,
you know, they're negotiating over a price. And he's like, well, I think you're willing to spend up to this
amount and 300 wrens that's what he said yeah and Janeway pretends that she can read his mind she
sort of plays along with I think I read that you're you're wanting to sell it to me or something
it was clever it was very sweet it was fun and then somebody bumps into balana and she sort of
really gets mad for a second she's pissed off yes pissed off for a second but then she calms down
it's it's a classic balana reaction but yeah you think it's just not a big deal
feel. And then this guy, Will, comes out and he's very concerned and he sort of holds her arms. And I don't know,
I was getting a little jealous as the Tom Harris boyfriend. I was like, let go off my girlfriend's
arms here. You're looking a little too creepily into her eyes. It was an odd moment, which we'll
come back and pay off later on. Of course. Why he did that. But at this point in watching it,
I was like, it stuck out to me as a weird moment. Yeah. We go over to Neelix.
and he is flirting like crazy with a tally.
They're talking about some plums or something.
And then she goes, wait a minute,
why do you want me to tug on your whiskers?
I laughed out loud.
Have we visited this topic before?
No.
Do we know anything about,
no, this is the first time, isn't it?
That this is a Tlaxian foreplay thing, evidently, right?
Tugging on whiskers.
Tugging on the whiskers, which I think they brought about this idea
because of maybe with Ferengi, tugging on the ear.
Oh, in the ear.
Sexual thing, yes.
And so I think, you know, the writer is like,
hey, let's tug on some, it's whiskers, you know,
it's kind of, oh, interesting, interesting.
Yeah, that's what I got from that.
But it was a sweet scene, and so that sort of establishes, you know,
that Nelix, the relationship that's kind of starting to grow there.
And then we go to Tuvok and Namiri, the examiner,
the security officers basically. Constable. Constable from this planet. And they're on sort of a walk
and talk. And I noticed in this scene as they walked around this recycled town set that the whole thing
was looped. Did you notice this? No. Really? It was looped so hard. And I was just like,
in fact, I'll say in this episode, there was a lot of looping more than normal that I noticed.
and that could have been one of the reasons I felt a little disconnected because really yeah whenever whenever you loop a scene especially when you really dig in and loop the whole scene yeah there's something in the experience as you watch it there's something that's just a little off little off yeah yeah it just doesn't feel quite right and part of that is you know the looping the voiceover happens way after the principal photography we're talking about yeah yeah yeah I
months later.
Yep.
And so it's difficult for actors to capture that exact mood and the pacing and the cadence of
of that day.
Yeah.
And usually you come in and there's pages of dialogue that you're looping.
There's a schedule.
They're like 45 minutes.
The next one's coming in.
Yeah.
So you're under the gun, right?
So you can't give it your 100% attention and focus.
So there's always going to be that little smidgen of offness that you feel.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I didn't particularly notice it, but you did. So that's a big thing. I have one question for you.
Did this come into your mind when she started speaking telepathically with Tuvok? Did you start to think, is the universal translator that complex and that advanced?
I didn't even think of it, but you're absolutely right. They should not be able to talk telepathically. No. No, because the universal translator only works by sound, by voice. It listens.
to what's being said, not telepathically, but with your mouth, right? So this is a little,
a little bit of a hole in the plot here, right? Yes, it is. Yeah. Okay. Good catch. Thank you.
But they're talking about crime prevention. They both are really, and Tuvac is kind of flirting is probably
an exaggeration, but you do sense a bit that he's connecting. Hey, in his world, that's flirt.
Yes. Yeah. For sure. For sure. And she's going to come follow his daily security rounds. Yep.
And suddenly they hear a noise in the marketplace, and they run off. And there's a fight going on, like a hard fight. This guy is smashing the other guy with like vases or something. Yeah. Pottery, right? Pottery. Yeah. And Janeway and Balana rush over and they break it up. I think Janeway asked him, you know, why were you doing this? And he says, I don't know. And he doesn't know why. And one thing that came to mind is I watched the scene is a lot of times when you have scenes like this,
where there's a fight or something with some characters
and they don't have a lot of dialogue,
you'll cast a stunt actor for that sequence
because you don't want to cast an actor
and then have to double them for the fight
and get wigs or lookalikes and everything.
So you cast a stunt actor,
but often no, this is not a jab at our stunt brothers and sisters,
but often they're not the greatest actors.
They're there to be stunt people
and they know how to fall.
fight and all that stuff, but nuanced dialogue. And this is a moment where I was like, when he spoke,
I was like, oh, yeah, this was a stunt actor for sure. Yeah, they cast a stunt guy. Because it was
like, I don't know why. I don't know. It was a little stiff. It was a little like meatheady, a little
it totally weren't. It's a one-liner. It's fine. It's fine. It was the stunt guy. It was the stunt
casting. It's a stunt guy, for sure. Yes. Now,
Now, while this is going on, Tuvac is up in the corridors on Voyager explaining to Chief
Examiner Namira why the brig is there. Why do we have a brig? You know, so while this is going
on, there's an interruption. And Kim, now you see Harry for the first time. He says bridge to
Commander Tuvok, Chief Examiner, Namira has been recalled to the surface. And here we have that
line. There's been some sort of attack in the marketplace. So the some sort of line that we hear,
some kind of, yes, that we talked about in the intro, we have one right here, and Harry Gazzett.
And my voice, I wrote a note, a quick little note.
It sounds like I had a head cold that day.
I wonder if you looped it.
Honestly, there was tons of looping in this episode, but I don't know why.
Yeah, I could have looped it and I could have been sick when I was looping.
You know, I could have had the remnants of a cold then.
So that's my note on that one.
Before we come back into Voyager from the planet, there's a ship shot outside in space.
Yeah. And I noticed that it was, it was a CGI ship instead of our model shots. Correct. It was
CG and it was kind of close. And I have to say it looked like, you know, this is back when
CG was not as good as it is now. Right. And I prefer the models. I prefer the live models flying by.
They look great. Yes. This particular space shot pulled me out a little because I was like, oh,
it feels a little cartoony. Yeah. But the reason they use this, started using CGI ships is because
They had only shot, when we did the pilot, they shot their library of shots for the model.
And the model is big.
It's like a, you know, eight or 10 foot model.
It's huge.
And they go in for a couple of days and they do different, you know, start the camera on the front of the model and go to the back, go underneath.
They do a handful.
So maybe they have a dozen flybys of the ship.
Right.
They use over and over and over with different backgrounds.
Correct.
I think this is probably at the point where they were like,
we've got to start using the CG version because we've used those model shots a lot.
Yeah.
So many times that we need something new, right?
Yeah.
But unfortunately, the quality of CGI was not up to par as it is today.
So it's definitely obviously CGI.
And it does pull you out a little bit, just a little bit.
So we're now in the marketplace.
And we have Tuvok, Taurus,
Janeway, Neelix, and chief examiner, Namira. And she says, you know, listen, this is just standard
procedure. I need to question all of you about what happened. Follow me to the questioning or the
interview room. And there they go. And Janeway, Torres and Neelix are being questioned by
Namira. And clearly, you know, this is just a general interview, right? It's nothing really charged.
It starts off pretty, pretty basic. I thought it was interesting that it was sort of scripted
and played as a montage a little bit.
Correct. Yes.
A montage with actual dialogue.
Yeah.
So like Janeway would answer a question.
Then you go back to the investigator and then all of a sudden,
Balana's in the chair.
And another question, the Nelix is in the chair.
And it would jump back and forth as the story sort of built towards,
ultimately towards, you know, Balana, her memory of a quick thought of a fantasy of hitting him.
But I thought that montage approach.
was unusual for our show. We don't normally do that sort of stylized, you know, jumping back
and forth between people in the same moment or it felt a little more stylized than we normally do,
which I thought was interesting of Ken Biller to write it that way. Yes. And that's definitely
a Biller issue, a Biller thing, as opposed to a director, Alex Singer didn't direct it that way.
It was written that way. It was definitely written that way, for sure. Yep. By the way, Neelix
remembers with Talley the whiskers being pulled and we see that for a moment with him.
Oh, it was a silly shot.
And then we get to Boulana and what was she thinking and she had a fantasy, a thought for a
moment that she hit this guy and bumped into her.
And as soon as she remembers that violent thought, she is arrested and charged with
aggravated violent thought resulting in grave bodily harm.
That is an actual crime.
Yeah, that's the charge.
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Oh, my gosh, so much already.
I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane.
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You've been doing your impersonation of me.
Yes.
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purge to remove the offending images from the mind, which is basically a advanced way of saying
a lobotomy is what's going to happen. Yes. And Janeway asks if they can delay this procedure
and give her time to look at the evidence. But I think it's really interesting that Janeway is
very respectful of these laws, even though they seem crazy. Yeah. But they're trying to work
with the species and with their laws and the people there. So yeah, I thought that was really
interesting. Yeah. We go to the transporter room and Paris is waiting for Jane.
way. And this is another scene that was looped. This walk and talk down the hallway. Oh, yeah,
down the corridor. It was totally looped. It just sort of made it less, you know, less
impactful than I think it could have been. Yeah, I agree. Probably the reason they looped it is
because we were on a walk and talk. You heard the footsteps or maybe the dolly wheel squeaking or who
knows what. Sure. noises that we heard so that we had to loop the whole scene. Right. And we go to the
bridge now and Perry says everybody's coming back from the planet. All crew have been called back
to the ship and Paris. Paris shows up and he pleads his case with Chacote. We have to go rescue her.
These guys are pacifists. And it was like, are you saying that we should go down and kill
everybody? I mean, it was. I was kind of like, why is Paris so violent? Let's go kill everybody.
Let's attack these people. He's like, we can do it. We could easily take her back.
It's not a problem.
And by the way,
you sit in the captain's chair
for the very first time.
Very first time.
Yeah.
Very first time.
You even ask, you're like,
can I sit here?
It was so interesting.
It was kind of an odd scene
to be placed on the bridge.
I got to be honest.
Definitely.
I'm sort of pitching this like,
let's attack these people
and right on the bridge.
Yeah.
And the conversation we were having
seemed strange to be having
in a public place like that.
Yeah.
Or if they,
okay,
do you remember,
Kote is up at my station, right?
So maybe instead of having him cross down to the captain's chair,
maybe it would have been better for him to cross on the upper area
past the turbo lift when you come in.
You know what I'm saying?
And then you grab him there and you guys have that conversation by the door,
you know, instead of right in the middle of the bridge.
I'm sure they had these lines written about the captain's chair
because at the end he's like, and just because you sat in that chair.
Oh, that's right. That's right.
So I'm sure it was written that way.
It just was a hard place to play the scene.
because I couldn't be, no, none of us, neither of us could get too emotional or too wound up in this public place on the bridge.
So it just became this sort of half quiet, but clearly we're not going to hide the fact that we're talking.
We're 10 feet away from each other.
No, it was awkward.
The other thing I noticed, I don't know if you saw this, but when you guys are now sitting down having that conversation,
you have a close up on Chikote, he says a few things, and then you have the reverse on you, on Paris, and you're out of focus.
And I was thinking, yeah, and I was like, wait a minute.
And I rewound it again, and I played it again.
And I said, no, he's clearly out of focus, unless this was like a glamour filter that Marvin rushed through on you, which he wouldn't do for the boys, right?
It was probably, you know, it was out of focus.
Yeah, so it was just not clear.
And I was thinking, well, back then we shot film.
And so you wouldn't see it until the next day after the film had been developed.
Correct.
So we probably moved on.
And they just missed it.
They could try to fix that a little bit in post.
They could try to sharpen it a little.
Yeah. If it was, you know, if it was, if they were able to do it, sometimes they could.
but right and not to not to criticize our camera crew i think for the most part they did a great job but
every now and then like you said because it's on film if it's a little bit out of focus you don't know
until dailies are printed up for the next day you have no clue right yeah janeway's ready room
tuvok and janeway are now reviewing the case against they're looking at pads they're sitting at her
desk janeway's behind the desk he's on the other side they're leaning forward and i made a note
why are they so close to each other?
They're so close.
Like their arms were on their pads were almost overlapping.
Yeah.
They were in each other's personal space.
Right.
And I, in my video reaction, I did a video reaction of that.
I said it was reminiscent of when a couple is drinking out of a champagne flute and they,
they entwined their arms like that and they each drink out.
You know what I'm saying?
And it was almost like they were doing that with the pads.
It was very odd.
It was very odd.
So close.
And it reminded me of often.
when you know when when an actor has a prop and you're kind of lining up the close up or the tighter
shot and you know they'll ask the actor they'll say hey can you lift that prop up a little higher so
we see it yeah and it felt like they had asked both of them hey can you lift those pads up to
an awkwardly close and high position and it's just so we can see it but it didn't really make
sense. And that has happened. That's happened more than once where we will be given the command
or we will be asked as actors to unnaturally turn our bodies or hold a prop where normally we
would never hold it in that way or we would never turn our body in that way. But it's all for
camera, all to look better on camera. I agree. Yeah. It's a little awkward. But they do go through
the evidence in this scene and they and they do see something. We don't know what yet, but they see
something. Yes. I just want to quickly jump in and add, I love Tuvok's line when he's trying to
describe Torres' temper. He calls it, Lieutenant Torres's violent proclivities. It's like such a
vulcan way describing a bad temper, right? So, yeah. All right. Okay, so then we go to Tuvok is
talking to Namira and he explains that they've discovered.
that Frane, the guy that initiated this fight based on supposedly on Bologna's violent thought,
he had four previous arrests. He's got a history, basically. Yeah. And she starts taking it very
personally. Like, she's, she's a bit triggered in this scene. She is. Wait, are you investigating me?
She gets kind of emotional and says, this case is closed. Yeah. We're not in Janeway's ready room
right now, though, right? We're in the briefing room. We're in the briefing room. I think we're in the
briefing room. We've gone from the ready room with Janeway to the briefing room with
Just Tuvok and the mirror. But you can see, she's like, I thought you'd understand. They both
start, she starts getting a little emotional, taking it a little personally. It's like this
person, their relationship, right? Their courtship is now trying. Yeah, you're seeing a bit of a romance
that's underneath all of this. We go back down to the planet. Neelix is talking about telepathy. He says
telepathy. I don't like it. I never have. It's bad for negotiations, bad for relationships.
I love that. He's just, I like, I love Neelix's delivery on that. Yeah. And he's talking to
seven. He's talking to seven. Yes, he's talking to seven. And seven says it's, you know,
it's Bala's fault then. She was careless with her thoughts. Right. And seven even says,
then her crime was ignorant. You know, first seven says, it was Bala's fault. She was careless.
And Neelix is like, that's not her fault.
Like, you know, she didn't know that having a bad thought would get her in trouble here.
And then Seven says, well, then her crime was ignorance, a common affliction among your crew.
It's like, what?
Yeah.
What?
That's rude.
It is rude, but I love this scene because Neelix is typically always happy, cheery rainbows, right?
And then now he's listening to Seven and he's pissed.
And it's really awesome to see that Neelix, you know, has a bit of a bad.
backbone. He's not spineless, right? And he's going to stand up for everybody on the crew and sort of
debate seven, which I really enjoyed that. I enjoyed that interaction. I did too. Seven continues
saying that, you know, Voyager makes contact with alien species without knowing enough ahead of time.
And that leads to conflict. Yeah. That it's ignorance. And if the goal is to share knowledge,
then assimilation is the perfect means of attaining that goal. She's basically like, look, Borg, do it better
than you guys right you guys just dive in you don't know enough about these people you you end up in
conflict we just assimilate them and then we've shared our knowledge and they've shared their
yeah sounds simple seven yes yes yes oh then we get over to a little quick scene with tally
when an old lady comes over to buy some produce and tally drops something and she the old lady
freaks out seeing she's an idiot and pulls a knife and ends up stabbing her and now she's
dead. Neelix runs over and he's the one that makes the announcement that she's passed and
you know, that was shocking to me. I don't remember this at all. So I was like, what? She's dead.
So yeah, tough, tough turn of events for Talley. Yeah. And we go back to the ship, Tuvok and Neelix are
walked down the hall and Neelix is filling him in on what happened. And he told that looped. Do you think
that was looped as well? I think that was looped as well. And I think that they were walking so slowly
I was like, why are they even doing this in the hall?
Wouldn't they go sit somewhere?
Of course, of course.
And then they're walking super slow because we only had a certain length of corridor.
And so they didn't want to run out of set.
So they just made the actors walk slowly.
But it just seems strange.
And the looping makes sense because I feel that Neelich should have had a little bit more of shell shockness going on
because this is somebody he's so into.
And now she's gone.
You know what I'm saying?
and so maybe the looping or the, you know, the voiceover basically kind of changed it so that he
wasn't as shell-shocked. It just seemed much more casual. It was like, I can't believe she's
dead. And it was just like, okay, let's keep walking and talking. It's a little too casual for me
on that. Okay. What happens next? Briefing room, Tuvok and chief examiner Namira.
And she's now there to ask Tuvok for his help because she's feeling a bit overwhelmed.
And now she has to deal with a murder case that she's never dealt with before.
And she just, you know, she's afraid that this random thought is going to be infecting everybody on the, on the, on the, on the, on the Mari home world that everyone's going to start going into chaos and just, you know, beating people up.
So she needs Tuvok to help her.
And again, their relationship continues.
It's sort of they have the argument.
And now she's like, now I'm back with you again.
Throughout this episode, we see little bits of, of this relationship that Tuvok has with Navarro, which is very.
interesting. Let's see. Now they're in the Mari interview room and Tuvok is mine, yes, he's mind melding.
And he's mind melding with Torres. Yes. Your honey buns. Yes, he is. And by the way, I thought
this set was super cool. They had these tubes on the wall. Yes, I saw that. And they put lights in
them. And I just thought that was cool. I felt like it was a very simple, probably not expensive
trick but it felt just cool and yeah graphic and uh um they mcgavered it you know so they
mcgivered it um um um tuvok asks about mr gwill and balana said he was kind of creepy he held
her shoulders he wanted something she starts to have this memory she says he wanted something
something terrible yeah yeah so you get the sense that there was something creepy in that first
scene when I was like, that's weird. He's holding her shoulders a little too long. He's looking
in her eyes a little too long. Well, that's clearly something else was happening in that moment
because she felt it too. Yeah. He wanted something terrible. So Tuvok runs away and tries to find
Gwil and miraculously. Yes. Randomly, random thoughts, random location. You know, they find Gwil
walking down some stairs. Yes, he just finds him on this. There is. This little market set.
The market set, you know, off on the side.
He says he's got children.
He's got, has to get home to his table.
It's a bit late.
But he agrees to answer some questions.
And then he asked Tuvok.
He says, are you a telepath?
Because he knows he can immediately sense it.
Sense it.
And he's hearing thoughts.
And he says, ultimately he says that he can see that Vulcans have very deep, dark thoughts.
Yes.
And he is clearly fascinated with this dark, unconscious.
side of the mind. Yeah, he was creepy to me. He's just like serial killer kind of creepy.
Oh, my goodness. You know who he looks like? He looks a lot like the guy in the episode where I guess
it was, we just reviewed this. This is the episode where we come across the hologram that has
murdered all the crew. Oh, yeah. And the very first scene is the one last crew member that has
leaned up against the bulkhead dead and he pulls him and the blood. And the blood,
is down on the wall. That's who Will looks like. Gwil looks like that guy, the background guy,
right? Okay. Yeah. So they talk for a bit, but, you know, Tuvok doesn't get much more information.
He says he's got to get home to his table. And so he leaves and Tuvok follows him. So we have this
little private eye moment. He's heading down some alleys, some dark alleys. Yeah. Mr. Gwill gets
into this doorway and ends up making what feels like a drug deal. He's like, he gets a 3,000
Rends and looks at the money. And then ultimately he catches Tuvok and he's like,
why are you following? Yeah. And Tuvok offers to trade violent thoughts. He strikes a deal.
I think you and I are looking for the same thing. I'll trade you some of my violent thoughts.
Right. And Guil says, okay, we'll get rid of that communicator and I'll meet you later.
Yeah. So we see Tuvok toss his communicator on the ground. You realize, uh-oh, he's on his own.
right he's going into this dangerous situation so yeah we come back into the show with a this kind
of montage this violent montage yeah and we realize that tuvac is mind that they're mind melding and he
well no the mind meld doesn't happen just yet because gwill is sort of like touching touching touching
it's like two bucks it's like will is yeah gill is like taking in two vox dark thoughts that's right
that's right and then tuvok through his questioning and line of reasoning he
he basically says, okay, now I know what you're doing.
I'm taking you into custody.
And as he's taking him into custody to take him to Namira,
that's when Gwil's associates, let's just say, show up and they jump him.
And then Gwil and associates beat the crap out of him.
They beat the Vulcan poop out of Tuvok.
And in that scene, before Tuvok gets beat up,
Gwil does admit he says sometimes he buys these dark memories.
Sometimes he shares them with people.
And sometimes like with Balana, he just takes away.
takes them yeah he just took it from walana straight straight from your your lady yeah uh and then now
we're in the the purge room i guess maybe it's the same room as the interrogation room the interview
room i'm not sure but this is the she's in the chair the device is now is turned on by namira
and her associates and now torres is is going through the beginnings of this engrammatic purge
which, you know, is not a good thing for Torres.
We got to get her out of there.
And then we flash back.
We jump back, excuse me, to a scene where, yeah, Tuvok and Guil.
Tuvok's in the alley.
Right.
And he's like, I'm going to give you what you want.
I'm going to let you see everything.
And as Guilla is touching Tuvok's head, and he's like, oh, I love it.
This is great.
This is what I want.
And then Tuvok quickly grabs him his face and starts to mind meld with him.
And he's like, you know, don't, this is what you want.
Don't be alarmed.
just, and then, you know, Tuvok's in control.
Mind melts his most violent fantasies.
They're locked in this mind meld.
And Tuvok is basically killing him telepathically.
In the mind meld, which I thought, I didn't know he could.
Inside the mind meld, which was happening.
Yeah.
So that's another example of how these thought, these random thoughts, these deep dark thoughts can,
if you go deep enough can really affect you.
Yeah, because physically affect you.
In the meld, he strangles him.
to the point where he's unconscious.
He's just, he's out, right?
We go over to The Purge is just about to conclude when Janeway stops it.
No, I'm not about to conclude.
The main part's about to happen.
The main part's about to happen.
They've just, just, you know, kind of gotten it started.
Janeway interrupts.
Yeah, Janeway interrupts.
We've got new evidence, new information.
Yeah.
We cut to the transporter room.
Tuvok brings Will onto the ship.
He's a prisoner now.
He's being detained.
We go to the briefing room
and Tuvac explains that
Gwil conspired with Frayne
to provoke a violent thought
in Bolana. Right. And they
he could extract it, right? They could extract it
but they underestimated
Bolana's thoughts basically. They didn't know
that this was a half cling on
that they were, that they were
provoking. Right. And they explained
to Namira that there's a huge
underground black market in violent
thoughts, in violent images.
And this is something, this is news
in Numerra. Numerra has no clue this is going on. She's shocked by the whole thing.
Yeah, this underground market. And that they basically say outlawing this dark stuff
doesn't make it go away. It just forces it underground. Right. And you've got a much more
serious problem than just this one random, one random violent thought that you were pursuing.
Yeah. And then we go to Sick Bay. Balana's now back on our ship. She seems fine. They just,
it was a very small extraction. The doctor said. You should be, you know,
Totally fine.
And Tuvac and Balana take a little walk and talk.
And I just thought it was funny because I felt like you saw the most
Klingon out of Roxanne in this little walk and talk that I'd see in a long time.
Okay, okay.
It felt like Balana had sort of mellowed quite a bit.
And then all of a sudden in this walk and talk, she was like, it came out.
You saw that Klingon coming out on this walk and talk.
he offers to help her with
her self-control
and
I sort of go out on that
we don't we don't really know
whether she wants to
she's what does she say
she says something like oh thanks a lot
or something well because the way he said it
right Tuvac was like you know
in fact it is a wonder that you've been able
to control your you know and she's like oh
well thanks I guess but it was still a nice
I'd like it was like a backhand
compliment yeah correct but it's still
it was a nice it was a nice
interaction between Tuvok and Torres, another combo. Which we don't see a lot. We don't see.
No, I loved it. I thought it was a lot of fun. We go to Janeway's ready room and seven
pops in. Not only she she barges in. She barges in. She doesn't even ring the doorbell.
She doesn't even say it's me. She just runs in, right? She runs in. Janeway, by the way,
has her lucky cup in her hand. Did you notice that? No, is that what she, the one that broke?
It's the one that broke, but since it's not broken because the timeline got reset.
you've got reset.
So she's got her lucky cup back.
Yeah.
Nice.
Seven says, you know, you've got these two objectives that are incompatible.
You've got an exploration of, you know, new, new places, new planets and people.
But you've also got this objective of trying to get home and they're in comfort, they're
incompatible.
Because you're putting yourself at risk every time you explore a new world or a new society or
culture.
and why don't you just avoid everybody and just make us beeline for home?
And Janeway is like, but that's not who we are.
We are explorers.
This is what Starfleet's all about.
It's about to gain knowledge for us to know more about the universe, you know?
Curiosity is a huge part of Starfleet.
Yeah.
And with that, basically, they leave it with like, well, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Yeah.
And seven walks out.
Yeah.
And the door slams.
And Janeway goes, dismissed.
because she didn't ask to come in.
She didn't wait to be dismissed.
She just did her own thing.
I loved Kate's expression there at the end when she said, oh, okay.
Yeah.
So nice little comedic interchange at the very end that written by Ken Biller there.
So we like that one.
Okay.
What was your theme?
What was your lesson on this?
You know, I think the lesson is that, you know, as human beings, we are made of both light and dark.
I think we all have those traits in us.
Like nobody is completely light and nobody's completely dark.
Everybody is a combination of the two.
And you have to learn to accept that and deal with it that way.
And if you push things down, that's when the problems happen.
You know, when you try to eliminate one entirely.
So I think the lesson there is just the acceptance of the fact that we are both,
we have light and dark in all of us.
And that it is, you know, it is our job to control.
those, right? You have to have some, some sense of restraint and some sense of morality and some
sense of ethics. And that's what kind of keeps people, that's what keeps people on the right
track, essentially. So, and not to squelch things down. So what about you? What are you thinking?
Yeah, very similar. I wrote simply repressing reality will not make it go away.
Yeah. So yeah. Whatever, whatever thing is true and
real, which is like you said, we have light and dark. That is true and very real. If you try
to, you know, repress reality or bury it or hide it, it's not going to, it's still real. It's still
reality. So learning how to process it, how to manage it, how to make smart decisions, you know,
even though we have instincts of, you know, positive and negative things. So yeah, repressing, repression is
bad. It is not good. I think Tuvok and the Vulcan the Vulcan model here in some ways is is a good
healthy model because the Vulcans do have they haven't denied the dark side. Correct. But they've
learned ways to manage it. To manage control it. Yep. To keep it to keep it at bay, right? In a way.
Yeah. But they do know that there is darkness. They acknowledge it. Absolutely. That's right.
Absolutely. Okay. Well, cool. Well, that was fun.
All right. So thanks, everyone for joining Robbie and I in reviewing random thoughts.
Join us next week when we talk about the episode Concerning Flight, which is interesting, because what was the name of your fan club again?
Random Flight.
Exactly. So now your fan and Concerning Flight. So these two episodes are the favorite episodes of your fan club because right there.
Back to back.
Back to back, my friend, concerning flight.
Random thoughts and concerning flight make random flight.
Yes.
The Tom Paris International Fan Club.
How crazy is that?
Back to back.
Season four episodes.
That's weird.
That is weird.
Okay.
Okay.
So thanks everybody for joining us this week for random thoughts.
Rewatch and recap and don't repress your feelings.
Don't repress.
You know, acknowledge the.
light and the dark in your life and find healthy and good ways to manage that. That's the lesson
we got this week. Thanks for joining us, everyone. We'll see you all next week when we
review Concerning Flight.
You know,
So,
you know,
and
You know,
but
I don't know.