The Delta Flyers - Real Life

Episode Date: July 19, 2021

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 Real Life. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Real Life:The Doctor creates the perfect holographic family to learn more about familial relationships; Torres reprograms the simulation to be more true to life, including struggles and hardship.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.And 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, Robert Beltran, Ethan Phillips, and Tim Russ.Additionally 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, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, Lucas Shuck, Mary Burch, PJ Tomas, Nicholaus Russell, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Ariana, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Shambhavi Kadam, and Christopher ArzebergerAnd our Producers:Chris Tribuzio, Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, 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, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Crystal Komenda, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Heidi Mclellan, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, James Cottrell, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Liz Lowe, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Justin Weir, Simon Inman, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Michelle Maroney, Rickard Fahlander, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Scott J. Mark, and John MannThank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey guys, welcome to the Delta Flyers. As we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager, your two hosts along this journey, or myself, Garrett Wong, and of course, Robert Duncan McNeil. How you doing? Hello there, sir. How are you? I am dealing with a bout of insomnia. It's just, I don't know, the last few days, maybe up to a week, I've been having a horrible time falling asleep. I don't know. I'm just trying to figure something out.

So any suggestions? You know what's funny is I started, I read this article not long ago called Walking for Health or something. I think it was geared towards older people. But, but like me, but it's funny because I go in and out of exercise routines, but this was basically saying, look, you know, get out anywhere. from, you know, one to two hours or so, somewhere in there, you know, 60 to 90 minutes or 120 minutes, but get out for an hour or two, walk every day. It doesn't have to be like intense, you know, Olympic walking. It just needs to be a walk.

So this is a mile or a couple miles? How long is that? Yeah, they said anywhere from two to five miles was the recommendation, you know, what you're trying to achieve. But, you know, a minimum of two miles every day. Yeah. And make it a practice. And it was talking about how you start there and then you find that time that hour every day for a walk and then maybe you make it a little harder but over time you you know you find whatever works for you but it's not that basically it's not that hard and maybe that would help you like taking a walk every day yeah would just be that little bit of you know fresh air and getting outside although you're in Vegas right now it's super hot there yeah exactly a walk outside maybe not two miles maybe a mile would

be the max. I don't know. And plus, like last night, it did not help. I was supposed to meet my buddy John Andrews for dinner. Yeah. We had a 645 dinner dinner reservation at a really awesome sushi place in Mandalay Bay. And so I'm there at 630. I'm there early. And so I asked the hostess, I'll sit down. And then so 645 comes by, no John, 650, 7, no John. And so I'm on 7.15. Now I'm worried. So now I'm texting him thinking, oh, my God, did he get into an accident? Because that's, that's all I could think of. I mean, there's no. And when you're looking at the text thread, there is no checkmark saying that he's seen my text. Like, they're not even read. And I'm thinking, oh, no, he's in the hospital. What is happening? And so then now we're,

finally, I think it was, yeah, it was probably like 720. So what is it? What's the difference there? 6.30 to 7.20. So it's like 50 minutes. I get a text. And he's like, oh, my God, I'm so sorry. He had taken a nap and slept through his alarm. So he didn't, yeah, so he was alive. So by time he got there, it was closer to probably 8 o'clock. Yeah, when he got there. And so I essentially ate two dinners. The kind of sushi chef. After he, after John showed up and I ate again with John, the sushi chef was looking at me. He's like, I can't believe how much you ate. I said, well, what am I'm just sitting here. I don't know what to do. You know, I just kept ordering. I'm like, all right. Oh, my goodness. And so that, you know, by the time I got out of there,

it was quite late, right? And so that was a good sushi. Oh, excellent. Yeah. Yeah, really, really good. And that's one of the best things about Las Vegas is that in the old days, it was come to Vegas and get your prime rib and shrimp cocktail. And, you know, it was very, yeah, it's just, Pouffe. Very cheap buffet, very pedestrian kind of fair. And then now every major chef in the world has a restaurant here, you know, and some of the best sushi is if you wanted really good sushi back in the day, it was Los Angeles, you got to be in L.A. You know, you've got to go to Matsuhisa. You've got to do all, you know, got to go to all these great L.A. places. And then everyone else was just, everywhere in the country was like, yeah, people were just kind of getting into sushi, right,

back in the 90s. And now, oh my goodness, you can't even throw, you. You can't even throw, you. you could be in Vegas and throw a rock and it'll hit a sushi restaurant. There's so many sushi places. Oh, there's so many good restaurants in Vegas for sure. Definitely. Well, all right. I didn't try to take a walk. Start with that.

I will. You know, or some kind of exercise every day. Just exercise. Yeah, that'll kind of get me into the point where my body will be tired to go to. Your body will be a little more tired. Yeah.

That'll help you. Okay, cool. This week's episode is real life. So, real life. Real life. Yeah. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go.

Yeah, I'm excited to see this. Okay. I remember this episode a bit. Oh, dear. Nice. Yeah, I'm very excited. Okay. Let's go watch this. Let's go watch it. Patreon, patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material.

Thanks, guys. Hey, guys, Robbie and I are back from watching Real Life. Yes, we are. Yes, we have a little bit of a hiccup. Robby's entire set of notes have been done. deleted. What happened was his phone was low on battery. So he went to go grab a charger. And whilst holding his phone, I guess his fingers hit on something and everything deleted. I had too many things in my hand. Yeah. And I must have hit delete and I can't undelete it. So no. And I'm beside myself.

But I'm going to, I'm going to wing it. He's going to wing it. And this is exactly, I told Robbie, you know, don't worry. I'll run the recap. You just chime in when you can. This is exactly. exactly what happened when we reviewed the episode Faces, when we had Brian Markinson as a guest. I had done the same thing. I touched my phone the wrong way when I was just, you know, moving it from one place to another. And all of my notes for faces were gone. So I had to wing it as well. So you're going to wing it here. Okay. All right. All right. Here we go. You got it. You got it. All right. Well, let's just start off with our, let's start off with our poetry synopsis. At least you have that. So let's begin with that. I did remember that because, uh,

It's its haiku. It's simple. If you had a limerick, you probably wouldn't have remembered it. Probably not have a haiku. So, yeah, we'll start with that. Yeah, what's your haiku? Let's hear it. Doc wants a family. Perfection is too easy. Real life is messy. There you go. Perfect. And that last line is such a great line. Real life is messy. You end up deleting notes randomly. See? So this is perfect. It works. This is right on theme. This is right on theme. Okay. What's your. limbrick. All right. Here's my limerick. Doctor programs his own hollow family. It's really not what he

expects it to be. Astral eddies appear. We've lost Paris, we fear. His shuttle breaks free from the anomaly. That's good. Yeah. See? I like seeing you smile. Yeah. Paris was big in that limerick. Yes. Yeah. I, you know, I was sitting there going like, how do I, because it's, it's right down. the middle. You've got the doctor's storyline with the family and you've got Paris, you know, going into this Eddie. That's split right down the middle. So I said how, which way should I go? I think the doctor's story is so much bigger. I feel like Paris is starting. No, that's not even that. I'm, I, okay. He gets to fly a shuttle and a cool. It was cool. Yeah. I did think that was cool. Yes. But, um, yes. There was some cool stuff. But, uh, yeah, my favorite part of Paris's story was

the scene in sickbay where he got to tell the doctor what real life like. Right. Me was, I've forgotten that scene was in this episode, but that was one of my favorite scenes that I ever did on Voyager. Yeah, it's a great scene. And, you know, my limerick, really, it's skewed towards Paris because this is the Delta Flyers, which is basically yourself and me. And if it was myself and Bob Picardo, then I would have made it more about the doctor, but I did it. I made it more about

you, the ending part. I think this is. I think this is, is, this is Tom Parr's episode. So we enter the opening scene. We see the Hollow family home. And I just want to say that all, every time that we're in an alien residence in Voyager, there's always some type of modern furnishings going on. You know, that's typically what.

And that has always been my aesthetic in terms of how I design or how I will furnish my own home, my own space, you know, has always been that modern aesthetic. So I've always enjoyed seeing our sets because I go, oh, yeah, that gives me an idea for doing this. Yeah, that's right. You're right because every time we go to an alien, you know, home or, or office or lab or whatever, it kind of looks like Starfleet adjacent design. Yes, yes. Always, which I know is natural because you know it's the same it's it's a sci-fi show it's the same designer but it would be interesting to see some real different design of furniture and materials and finishes and lines because it pretty much yeah i mean for this the doctor's home that should look like a starfleet adjacent place

because he's that's what he knows but when we go to some of these planets yes that's where i wish there was more, you know, I don't know, just variety and finishes and materials and things like that. But yeah, yeah, I hear you. Now, so we are now introduced to our guest stars. We have Wendy Shaw playing the role of the wife who we later find out her name is Charlene. And my goodness, I'm watching her on screen thinking, she's giving me these Shelley Long vibes. Shelly Long oh yeah you're right staring at her going shelly long could have played this role just as well as wendy shaw but wendy shaw did a great job doing she did a great job yeah uh glen harris plays geoffrey the son a good job there and lindsay lindsay hound uh as the daughter bell again

another uh good performance from a child actor really right yeah she was yeah and and this is hard for all three of those guest stars you mentioned they've got to start so this first scene it's the perfect you know doctor family they're exactly what he wants them to be he's programmed them to listen to him to be responsible and respectful and and and just think that he is the most amazing father and doctor in the world that's right and uh that's where we are in our story that's the actors had to play that almost sitcom version yes and make a total transition as we get into the story we'll talk about it to a very different kind of characters almost so yeah And not only was it the sitcom version, to me, it was a very 50s sort of feel to it.

You know what I'm saying? Yes, yes. Happy days. Well, Anson Williams directed. Yeah, Anson Williams, yes. That's what I was going to say, directed by Anson Williams, story by my friend Harry Doc Clor, who I have spent many, many times hanging out with, and teleplay by Jerry Taylor. And typically, Jerry doesn't do a lot of teleplay. So this one, you know, this one is from her.

And Anson Williams, I remember when he came on set, I was so excited because everybody was so excited. Well, you know, we all grew up with Happy Days, right? So, yeah, Potsie from Happy Days. And, you know, I've always been a big fan of Happy Days as a child and continued to be. So seeing Potsie as our director was my fanboy moment a little bit, right? And what a great guy, though. Super nice guy off camera. Yeah, yeah. And a good director as well. He knows what he's doing. So yeah, that's wonderful. He was a perfect director for this episode because of exactly what you mentioned. I think that those early scenes were almost, yeah, happy days. Happy days like. Yeah. Very, yes, very similar. Anyway, so, yeah, we meet them and the doctor has a wonderful time.

And they all literally were like choreographed. They were. They were. At the same time, it was great. Both son and daughter are putting their foot out when the mom asked, have you polished your shoes? And in, yeah, it was like synchronized swimming. They completely had everything down to a science of how when to turn, to look. And it was very humorous to me, that alone, right?

I agree. Now we jump to the bridge. And we're about to rendezvous with the Vostagai Space Station. And we get to where we're supposed to get to. And Harry detects a debris field. And I just want to note right now, all of my lines sound like I have a cold. every single one on the bridge yes oh that's funny because i i thought you sounded very relaxed and natural and i maybe yeah yeah it was natural but i could actually it was nice that you yeah i thought

you were very naturalistic in a good way you know i think sometimes our our performance standard that we would do was always a little elevated yeah stylized right realized presentational our yeah i feel like our cast sort of as a group that was sort of our approach yeah And it's nice to see when some of us, you know, are more relaxed. And I thought you did a really nice naturalistic job in the industry. Yeah. And I really felt that I kind of got away with that almost because I feel that a lot of times when we do more naturalistic delivery, we get reprimanded for it.

You know, what are you guys doing? But, you know, maybe because Anson Williams was there, I was able to get away with that. So anyway, there are 60 scientists on that station. But when we get there, it's just a debris field. So it has completely been annihilated. And Janeway, Janeway's upset. She's angry and wants to know who would annihilate a science station. Yes, because science is a big part of her life, right?

And Tuvok scans things and he's like, there's no weapon signatures. I think it was Tuvok or maybe you. But we scan and there's no residual weapon signatures. So that's strange. Nothing. Harry detects a trail of plasma particles in subspace. And Janeway tells Paris, set a course to follow it. course. Yeah. And he says, yes, ma'am. Yes, there we have another yes ma'am from Tom Paris. Exactly.

We're going to have another yes ma'am later on from someone else. Okay. We jumped to sickbay. And now Torres, who I want to first comment that she now has this new side braid in her hair. Like one side of her hair has that one braid, which I'm thinking, huh, is she letting her hair down a little bit? Or is this a new style for her? We don't know. but she's running tests on the doctor's program to make sure everything upkeep. Yeah, it's running smoothly, that's all. And the doctor has basically been tinkering with his program

to improve his performance as a physician. And that's why he created a family. This is New Sotores. She's like, you have a family. Well, I'd like to meet your family. And we see Kess as well. Balana and Kess both want to come to dinner. And the doctor's very happy

because he's very proud of this perfect family. he's like, yes, let's, let's, you know, my wife has been asking for my colleagues to come by. So, yes. Did he call her my little? Oh, my little woman or something like that. Yeah, yeah. So now they're, they're in the Hall of Family Home in the living room. And now we see Bell and Jeffrey, the kids and Charlene are absolutely perfect. And this is where we learned that a doctor is referred to as Kenneth. That's right. Now, I'm wondering, does this have anything to do with Ken Biller? Oh, interesting.

Yeah. I don't know. Was he there? Yeah, he's there already. Yeah, so I think maybe they named him Ken. Maybe Kenneth, after Kenneth Biller, possibly, right? Torres can't take this. She freezes the program.

And then she walks away from the dinner table to have this conversation with the doctor. So my question to you, is that to keep that visual effect away from the action, the current action? Is that what it is? yeah it's only it's literally only there's no character reason yeah for her to get up no not so not at all you know I feel like that was a situation where they so they got her up and moved her away from the table because the frozen family yeah you can't just have actors freeze because they're going to move someone's going to move yeah somebody's going to move you're going to give it away so they did do that for a moment the actors froze and then she got up and walked away so that they could back to a point of view

of the family frozen right but they it could have helped there to have a line or something like yeah a line that take this anymore doc i'm out of here or something exactly because now it would have been an organic move because when you're watching it it's it's sort of like wait what's why is she doing that and now you know it's because of that visual effect i do love that line that torres gives to the doctor she says you're not going to learn anything from these lollipops is what she comes And Torres says that she can do some tweaking of her own on this hollow family and bring it closer to real life. And I made note that typically whenever we watch an episode, the title of the episode is never utilized within the episode. But here it is, right?

It's totally utilized. And it's not only utilized, but Roxanne Dawson puts air quotes around it almost. She's like, pause, you know, she's like, you know, I can make some changes that'll make it more like real life, the name of the episode. Yes, yeah, very much so. Yeah, it was kind of, you know, maybe a little too much there. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But, yeah.

So now we're on the bridge, and the particle wake that we have been following has kind of thinned out. So Kim detects a subspace disruption, and now the anomaly appears. And to me, I wrote down, it looks like a space tornado or space hurricane or whatever. And then it disappears. And no one has ever seen this phenomenon before. This is completely new to everybody on the bridge. Well, but by the way, it opens up and this thing comes at Voyager. And we go to Red Alert and there's some damage done.

Yes, there's some damage. I guess this waves of this Eddie, this whatever. it's called astral eddy yeah yeah the astral eddy this wave it's almost like a hurricane like you described right you know the outer edges of that hurricane sort of hit voyager it there is a moment and then all of a sudden it goes and sucks back into where it came from the hurricane just back to the eye so right um very confusing and chakote says you know he's never seen anything like this before that's right and paris says you know i can put some distance between us and and whatever that was.

And Janeway's like, no, wait a minute. I would like to investigate this a little bit further from a purely scientific standpoint. And similar to when we encountered that Borg Cube, we were like, oh, Janeway's like, let's go investigate. Let's get closer to the, yeah. Paris is like, let's get away from the danger.

And then Janeway says, let's get closer to the danger, which is, that's the theme in her life, right? She's not afraid of anything. And from the telemetry that we've collected, Chocote sees that it was an astroeddy that seems to have formed at the confluence of space and subspace. And that's where it's disappearing. That's why we see it one moment and it's gone another and it's highly charged with plasma. So then he wonders, if we can harness some of this energy, guess what? We could go off of these replicator rations for a while. We don't have to conserve

energy like that. And so Kim asked, well, how are we going to investigate this if it's gone? Janeway says, let's just set our sensors for continuous scans of subspace to try to anticipate when the next one was going to appear. That pulls us out of the bridge into sick bay, and the doctor is basically told Kess that Torres has added some randomized behavioral algorithms to his Hall of Family program. Yes, and he seems very, very excited by no concerned at all. No, not at all. He has no concern. And Kess says, guess what? There might be a few surprises in store for you and ask the doctor, are you going to be prepared for that? And he's like, well, you know what? My database contains everything I need to know about pediatric care, childhood development. I'm covered. I'm good. And regarding what about your wife's changes. He says, you know what? I've had some experience with romantic relationships. So there shouldn't be any problems. And he's referring to Dinarapel, the Vidyan that he had the relationship with from a prior episode. And so he's like, you said he has he doesn't have a care in the world right completely naive like it's gonna be fine which then sets up yeah great setup of the next scene he leaves cast and and you know transfers his program into the holodeck we see him come in and all of a sudden you hear yeah yeah you see him step up to the door

and you know he opens this door and you hear this horrible horrible music yeah music it's it would be like sci-fi punk rock yeah yes and by the way i think i don't know who the comprehensive was on this, but they had to have had the composer and an orchestra do this. So it's not a normal punk rock band. It would, this is a symphony orchestra that came up with this. Yes. It's a symphony orchestra impersonating a punk rock band from the future. It's bizarre. Yes. It's very creative and experimental and highly irritating. Yeah. The wife is late to speak at the Bolian Dembency. Bell can't find her eye on mallet. And then, of course, the door, someone's knocking at the door. The doctor goes and answers it. And it's two Klingons. They're asking, where's Jeffrey? And he's like, who are you guys? Two Klingon like teenagers. Yeah, yeah. Two Klingon teenagers. They're friends. You know, like, okay, well, do you have names? And we find out it's Lard and Kakoff are the two Klingon teenagers. And while this is going on, Bell basically starts crying about the mallet and says that, the doctor is mean and she really wants mommy. I want mommy. I want my mommy. Yeah. Have you ever,

have you ever had to deal with that? With your kids when they were young where they said, I want my mommy. Yeah. Oh, yes. So I think every parent, male parent, at least every father, has heard this comment from a daughter. And I'm sure every mom has heard. I want my daddy. Like, sure. Kids are very clever. They play. They do. They play off. They play both sides, don't they? anyway so we come back yeah i think and um and it's paris is in the mess hall that's right and this was a scene i got to say i didn't particularly like what i did in this scene really not so much and and and i i looked at it and then okay so the scene starts with paris trying to convince neelix to give him some something different because he's been eating

he's been eating what's the fourth day it's the fourth day of the same pleak of rind and grub meal casserole it's a fourth day he's sick of it right he's sick of it and and so it felt to me like a like a you know just a courtesy nod to have neelix do something in the episode yeah only seen yeah so paris had to play that scene and then paris had to on it on a dime turn and go do this romance moment with balana so he goes over to balana who's eating and see she's reading something and takes a look at it and it's a Klingon romance novel. And he reads it and then there's a couple of cheesy lines in there. Well, your first cheesy line is your opening line.

When you walk over and say, A beautiful woman should never have to eat alone is your entry line. There are so many cheesy lines in the scenes, which I didn't have a problem with it. I thought it was like, oh, that's cute. He's being cheesy. And then he finds out that the book is Women Warriors at the River of Blood. And she says it's just escapist,

reading and is this and of course he's trying to you know grasp the pad the padda and she's kind of fighting him a little bit and and uh you know his hands sort of had a little tug of war yeah so this is the nice little flirtation period between torres and and paris flirting with him yeah yes she is if there's been any doubt up through blood fever or whatever that maybe they're not really she's really flirting with him she is and i love how you you know, he's, he's like, is this a romance novel? And she's talking about, well, for Klingon's, romance can be a little bit more vigorous, you know, she talks about that.

And then he's like, well, I need to read this for sure then. She's like, well, this isn't a technical manual. And then Paris was like, well, what is, so what is it? What is it to an engineer or something like that? And she's like, well, to an engineer, it means specializing in particular systems. So it's a very charged. Yeah, yeah, sort of like, there's double entendre, double. meeting. And it's just so funny that this is how this conversation is going, this flirtation.

And then they start talking about the doctor's hollow family. And the flirtation ends because they're interrupted by the appearance of yet another Eddie, Astro Eddie, right? Did you have any more comments on, oh, please tell me. So what would you have changed in this scene that you were not happy? I don't know. I think the double entendres and stuff, I feel like I played them to sitcomy or to presentational. And I think I should have thrown them away a little more. Really? A little more subtle I don't know I just felt

It didn't feel I don't know That whole storyline Because it You know There's not much to it in the episode Right There's this one scene

And then And then we don't really address it Even when Paris is in danger You don't see Balana Particularly Concerned about him I didn't think You know

She was just like every other crew member Like we need You know you're talking about later though you're talking about later there okay i kind of disagree with you on that but we'll get to that when we get to that scene um in this scene in this scene i liked everything until the one point the only thing that i thought was that could have been redone or or you know an alternate version was yeah was when she said well i'll try not to stab you in the throat something like that you know and you do this little kind of like awkward laugh where you're like hey hey or

something like that. And so just that, that reaction was the only thing that I thought, oh, Robbie could have did something different there. That was it. But everything else I thought worked fine. It didn't, it didn't bother me. And the truth of the matter, Robbie, is that we are always more critical of ourselves than anybody else, right? So I think you're, you're being really picky right now about that. And you're entitled to be picky about that. So I want to hear your opinions. All right. So we go from there. We go to the bridge. And Janeway wants to send a probe into the anomaly. We're having a really rough ride right now due to the graviton waves that the anomaly is throwing off. We do launch the probe. Harry reads the telemetry. It's a temperature

gradient of 9 million Kelvin's, massive discharges of plasmatic energy and a perfectly calm eye in the center. So Chikote asks, hey, can we transfer some of it to Voyager? Torres says, well, it can't be transferred because there's too much turbulence, then the anomaly disappears. And the probe, we find out it's still transmitting. And maybe we can still collect plasma from the wake. And Bussard collectors could be modified to gather plasma particles, according to Tuvok. And Torres says, that's not a good idea because Voyager's energy emissions are so high that they would actually corrupt the particles.

And Tom suggests, hero Tom suggests taking a shuttle out since the energy emission are much lower from a shuttle, and that's when Torres says that Paris will expose himself to radiation poisoning. So I felt that that was her showing some concern. She's like, but wait a minute, you're going to expose yourself to radiation poisoning. And Janeway says, okay, we'll cover that. Go to sick bay, talk to the doctor, see what he can do. So I do feel like there was some care and concern from her. Yeah, there was. I do think this is probably the scene that over the years when I go to conventions, I talk about a funny scene that happened on the bridge where Torres is there sitting off to the station off to the right. She's definitely

sitting in that same station. And my story is that when the director called action, when we're being hit by the stuff, like he would yell out like bump or hit like that. And when Roxanne was sitting there, when he said bump, she did this thing like that. Like she just kind of like her whole body went up and down as if, and then the director at the end of that take says, all right, cut. Roxanne, no, we didn't go over a speed bump, okay? I mean, so he's, and so that she, we all laughed about that on set, like Jane, Kate did, Beltran, you did, I did. We had a good laugh about it. And even Roxanne laughed. She's like, oh, sorry, okay, yeah, let me. And this is again, because we're always on the bridge, we know how to move, you know, when we're getting hit on the bridge, when we're getting

buffeted around. But with Roxanne, always being in engineering, typically she's not part of our group, right? So she's a little bit of a novice. So to see her act like there was a speed bump that we ran over is really, really funny. So I think it was this scene where that happened. You know, Paris says he can take a shuttle in there and Jayway sends him off to the doctor. And so we find the doctor, you know, looking at Paris and injecting it with some temporary radiation protection for this eddie and uh and this is where he talks about his reckless and risky behavior um yeah the doctor starts talking about you well you must have been the kind of kid that did this and that you probably did the most climb the most dangerous tree yes that took the most

dangerous you know everything was so dangerous you didn't care you didn't care what do you know what you would have put your parents through you know that's right he's like he's talking from that you know from that and then paris is like you see paris go wait he's not talking about me anymore no no no Paris goes over and says so I hear you've created a family on the holiday yeah yeah and the doctor's like yes it's been a little challenging but yeah I've got it all under control now yeah analyze the situation and he's come up with a solution right yeah and that's when you yeah paris says well it sounds a lot like you're treating a sick patient like you don't that's not how you deal with your family you analyze it and come up with a solution on your own okay so

So now we flash to the Hall of Pala family home. And there we have, it's family meeting time. So the doctor is, is, he's called a meeting at 1,600 hours. So 4 p.m. And Jeffrey's not there. And everyone informs him that he's been sleeping. And the doctor is like, in the afternoon. And of course, Jeffrey kind of stumbles in, kind of groggy. And he admits that he had a late night with his friends. And the doctor is like, okay, here's the revised family schedule and a list of rules and regulations. He starts going through everything, and he's changed it all in terms of for the wife's schedule, the daughter's schedule. Yeah, the night that she gives her speeches, the night, you know, her night out and the daughter's team schedule now. She can't play on the first team. Now she's second team. Yeah. The Parisi Square with the older kids, she's got to play with her own age. And the doctor says, well, that makes sense because it's too dangerous for you to play with the older kids. Yeah. And so he changes this whole schedule.

to try to protect her, which is going to come back to haunt him. Definitely. And it was fine. I mean, everyone's kind of listening along, but it kind of hits a, it really comes to a climax when Jeffrey reads, no Klingon friends. And Charlene, the mom does not agree with that. She thinks that's unreasonable, and that's when she stands up and stands her ground. And they walk to the side, and the doctor sort of has a bit of a private conversation with

her saying that we're supposed to show a unified front. you know, why aren't you supporting me? And, you know, this is when Charlene loses it. She goes, well, maybe you should have asked for my opinion before deciding everything on your own, telling me that you just made everything out for us. And everyone leaves. Jeffrey, storms out. The wife says, like, I'll talk to you about this late. I don't want to, I don't want to argue in front of the kids. You know, I think the doctor says to them, we're all going to have to make sacrifices. Right. For this to work. And they're like, wait a minute. What sacrifice are you making? Yeah. What sacrifice are you? And he's like, well, I'm going to call.

I'm going to cook. The daughter's like, you cook anyway one night a week. So, yeah, there's a lot of little stuff in there about family and relationship. Yes. It sounds very familiar. And actually, there was parallels. The minute he said that, it reminded me of Bob Picardo's life off of camera, he did all the cooking. Oh, yeah. He did. In his household. So he told me that he would, he said, I said, so when you have an early call time, you prepare. He goes, oh, I'm up even earlier, and I'm making lunches for my daughters before they go to school. So he did cooking for his entire family all the time when he was on Voyager. Like, he never, he never relinquished that.

He loved to cook. He loved to cook, and I don't think his wife at the time knew how to cook is part of the reason, too. I think Linda cooked at all. So this line reminded me of Bob Picardo's real life off camera. That's funny. Right? That's funny. So after everyone's left, Bell remains.

And Bell sort of softens a little bit, you know, being a good daddy's girl. And she says, okay, dad, I'll, I'll be on the second team, right? It's okay. And, you know, she says, I think you're a really good father, a very good father. And she says that she loves him. And even if he's made a mess of things is what she says, right? But really, we discover that because he made that decision, this is a decision that really causes her to be injured because when you're playing on the second team and you're far better

than everybody else, there's somebody that's just going to get in your way and you've got to kind of move around them and something. And that's probably how she had the accident. And if she remained on the first team against the kids that are more experienced and more, you know, stronger, she would have been safe. She would have been fine. Like little decisions and little choices that we make this way. We're all that families and that relationships are all really tied together. And so the decisions that the doctor makes about his family, laying down the law on some of these things, come back with consequences that he's going to have to deal with. Yes. I just want to say, I think you're doing a really good job without your notes.

You've been able to go to the other scenes that we're at and you know where we're at really clearly, which is very, I'm very surprised. I almost thought maybe he'd lied and he didn't lose his notes. I lost the notes, but no, what I did was I pulled up a synopsis of the episode just to help me follow a long. So I do have a synopsis in front of me, but it's not my note. No, but you do have a cheat sheet. So I do have a cheat sheet. So I am not as impressed as I was before. So I was impressed, super impressed.

So I'm halfway impressed now. So now we're in the shuttle. I was smart enough to pull up a synopsis. Good. At least you did that. Yeah. But I told you, I can handle the whole thing and you can just kind of jump in. Okay.

So the shuttle, now we're in the shuttle. And Tom is three thousand kilometers from the eddie. and he's dealing with a lot of turbulence and he's going to follow the particle wake after the eddy dissipates. So the eddy dissipates, he activates the Bessard collectors, which have been modified,

according to Tuvac's suggestion, and it's working. But then Kim detects another eddy forming. Janeway quickly orders Paris to get out of there, but he is being drawn into the eddy. Kim cannot transport. Yeah. the hurricane. Transporters are offline. Can't beam him out. Eddie dissipates and so does Tom shuttle

with Tom in it. Tom is in subspace. He's gone. He's in subspace. He's in subspace. Well, he's between space and subspace. So there's another layer where he's at. But yes, it's super crazy. Janeway, after commercial break, Janeway runs up to Harry Station and asks if, is Tom shuttle still transmitting similar to what the probe did? And after some tweaks and adjustments, They are able to hear Tom, very staticy. Janeway asked Tom where he is, and he says, I wish I could tell you. And then we see this graphic. Oh, my God, it's like sunset over water.

It's like, wow. I'd like to go there, please. Yeah, it's absolutely gorgeous. It's an astral eddy nursery is what it is. Yes, it is. It's beautiful. It's amazing. It's really nice.

Looks like you're like flying through a light volcano, if that describes anything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's just like bubbling. Yes, it's cool. Anyway, it was very, very good visual effect by our team. Super cool. Um, so then we go to sick bay and the doctor is working, but he is completely preoccupied with his family problems. Kess, um, comes up and talks to him and realizes he's under some stress and says that, uh, well, at first he kind of denies it. Yeah, he says like nothing's going. I'm just working on this test and I'm just having trouble. Can you do it, you know? Yeah. He kind of deflects. That's right. He's like, are you okay? And he's like, yeah, I'm fine. And he deflects on this test he's trying to run.

And then she goes to run and he comes in and he says, you know what? It's not working. Yeah. He's more honest, which is a great sign that he and Kess have this very close relationship. Definitely. That he's, you know, it's hard, but he's able to come be authentic with her. Right. And it's almost like he's washing his hands of his little project.

And that's, you know, Kess is like, hey, you just can't ignore them, you know, you've got to go and face the reality, face the music. And then we jump back to the Hall of Family Home and we come in and now we see both the Klingon teenagers are there. And they're sitting there with Jeffrey and one of the Klingon teenagers is holding a Klingon knife of some sort. And, you know, they... And the doctor is like, oh, what's that? Is that some kind of knife? And they tell them some that it's a duk tach is what it is a duktak knife and it's it's given to every klingon for his right of ascension which is a lie because the doctor already has a database of all klingon you know weapons so he

knows sort of listens and they're clearly doing something that they're not supposed to be doing that they have not been honest about already so he sort of traps them and then and he goes let me see this can i see it and they hand him the knife and he looks at and he goes you know i knew what this is the whole time it's what is it it's the dagger of kutluch cutluch used in a ritual of violence first it's a first bloodletting in preparation for becoming a warrior and so he knows that and he says okay is this what this is and of course the uh clingon teenager he goes yes that is what it is which was by the way that line was looped because he had dentures and stuff in when he goes yes yeah yeah he's talking out of the side of his mouth he's like yes he had a lot of teeth going on

A lot of teeth. He needs braces. Oh, my goodness. He needs braces. Does that mean there are no dentist on the Klingon home world? There's no orthodontists in Klingon. Klingon home world. Okay. Nope. Good to know. Good to know. And, you know, the doctor asked the boys to leave because he realized that he's been lied to and this is something very dangerous. And boy, Jeffrey doesn't like that. Jeffrey is like, look what you've done. You've ruined it. Another, another phrase that, every parent has heard from their child. You're ruining it, everything. So he's upset.

And the doctor thinks that the, the Klingon friends were the ones that forced Jeffrey to do this. And Jeffrey's like, no, this was my idea. I wanted to do this. I don't like, you know, I admire the Klingon culture and the, you know, the honor that's involved with the Klingon culture and the human culture, not so much, right? And, you know, that's when the doctor says,

well look if you expect to live in this household you're going to abide by my rules and geoffrey says okay if that's the way you want it i'm not going to live here because i'm going to become a warrior i'm going to become a warrior and charlene calls in at that point and we find out that bell has been involved in an accident yeah she's been injured some right right um we are now uh in the hollow medical facility and the doctor has basically um he's he's there with his daughter and he's like i can't stop the hemorrhaging, you know, there's nothing we can do. He says, we've been in surgery for over three hours that me and this other doctor have tried everything. Either one of us know. And yeah, that there's one hemorrhage after another that whatever happened is just getting worse.

And she's going to die. Yeah. Yeah. And the wife is like, that can't, you know, I won't accept this. Yeah. She exits to talk to Dr. Finley. She leaves. And then we have that great shot of the doctor sitting in the dark in utter despair over Bell. He malice Bell's name and that's when she regains consciousness and he goes over the bedside and has that conversation with Bell, which just gets increasingly, you know, painful. Sad and sad and painful and he can't take it. I can't feel my legs.

Yeah. Yeah. It's horrible. He ends the program and that's his way of stopping this, the pain that he's experiencing now and he leaves. We're back in Sick Bay and Kess asked. the doctor. Hey, how's the family? And he very, you know, cheerfully says, well, you know, I've finished the program and that I'm done. So to return to it will be a complete waste of time.

So I'm finished, which is very strange to Kess. She's like, huh, what's going on here? Then we jump to the bridge and there is a communications band. The communications bandwidth has been widened by tourists. So now we have a clear transmission to Paris. It's very clear. Paris says he's in an inner fold layer somewhere between space and subspace. And Paris believes the only way to get out is the same way he got. Ride the way. So while this is happening, Tom gets thrown from his chair. And here's my question, why don't we have seatbelts? I just don't understand. Why? Why? I mean, I mean, seat belts. No. No, not until, not until J.J. Abrams rehash of the 2000 and his initial Star Trek film where we see Chris Pine and

Zachary Quinto is Spock. Then you see seatbelts, these automatic seatbelts that come out in that movie. But up until that film, TNG, Voyager, Deistine, Enterprise, the original series, no seatbelts anywhere to be seen. I have seatbelts in both my cars. Yeah. I mean, I feel like Starfleak and I can, tell them where to go what they how they work right yeah yeah we need to see i think i did that stunt myself i think i think i was that you okay so all right i thought maybe the hair looked a little bit different from behind it looked a little darker yeah i almost feel like it might not have been you well you can see my face and usually they wouldn't allow us to do a stunt if if we don't see our face so

oh okay it may not have been okay um tom does get out of the eddy and harry beams the shuttle and tom back on the Voyager, and now we're in sick bay, where the doctor is treating Paris's mild concussion, and then he freaks out about Paris's risky behavior, saying people like you who court danger should be thrown into the brig. And that's when Paris realizes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, holy, holy, you know, something's going on with the doctor. And truly dealing with Bell's imminent death has completely affected him to where he's lashing out. at Paris right now, right? And the doctor tells Paris that he's essentially shut down the program. He will not be going back. And that's when, that he can't face it. It's just too

difficult. And that's when Paris has the harder for me not to go back there. And Paris is like, is it better? And then Paris has this long kind of long speech, man. Yeah, yeah. It's good though, man. You knock it out of the park. Yeah, it goes on a long, long time. but he's uh he says you know um basically like sure everybody would avoid pain if they could but in real life we can't avoid pain that's right you know you you you can just shut off this program but we can't do that in real life things happen and basically in the end I lost my notes so would you want me to pick up a little bit I'll pick it up a little bit so yeah but I just wanted to say like yeah Paris is ultimately is is saying through the

the things that wound us, that hurt us, that are hard for us, the things that we suffer, that by staying in the game of life and sticking together, like the crew of Voyager, all lost family, lost things when they were flung to the Delta Quadrant, but they have grown closer and learned so much through the suffering and the loss and the hurt that they've experienced together. And that's part of real life. That's ultimately kind of what Paris said. Paris tells the doctor, you created this program to experience what it's like to have a family. So that means you have to experience the good times and the bad. And you can't have one without the other. And the doctor says, well, I fail to see why not. So he feels like you can

have a family without any of the bad times. And that's when Paris uses the example of the Voyager crew. Everyone had people that they left behind. Okay. When we left the Alpha Quadrant, and so we all suffered a loss. But that loss has brought us all closer together. We We found support. We found friendship. We have become a family in part because of the pain that we have shared. And Paris says that, look, if you turn your back on this program, you're always going to be stuck at this point. You will never have the chance to say goodbye to your daughter. Or you will never be there for your wife and son when they need you the most. And you'll be cheating yourself of the chance to have their love and support. So in the long run, you're going to miss.

out on the whole point of what it means to have a family, which then, of course, rings the doctor's like, wow, that makes sense. And we go back to the Hall of Medical Facility. Clearly, the doctor has taken Paris's advice and he continues the program. Bell is still on the bed. And we have this just, you know, scene that just tears you apart. She's asking if she's going to die. I was tearing up. Oh, me too. Me too. I mean, it's always just tragic. It's not the way the world's supposed to work when a child is his is it dies yes and so just that that story alone but but having it sort of seeing it through the doctor's eyes who's such an innocent sort of character in so many ways you know it doesn't know human experience and yeah we're seeing it through his eyes this yeah yeah

and it's sobbing right and he you know he doesn't lie to her to say you know because I kept thinking when she asked when she asked the doctor am I going to die I thought is he going to sort of euphemistically say, no, you'll be fine, but he didn't, you know, he just said, yeah, it's going to happen. He said, you're too, yeah, you're too sick to live, to get better or something. And she says, stay with me. I won't be afraid, right? And he says, I will be right here, I promise. That's when Charlene and Jeffrey arrive.

Jeffrey and the doctor have that moment of reconciliation where he hugs his father. And he gives Belle her blanket. it. And so we end, you know, there's the, the wife, Charlene is crying. And so is the son. They, they embrace. And the doctor kind of watches. And then he comes in for the embrace. And we leave the final scene is of the entire family embracing. So he has basically come to grips with the passing of the daughter. He's faced it. And that's the end of the show. Very touching and very very moving. I really teared up. I really did. Anybody who's a parent is, is going to probably cry at this scene, is my guess.

What is your lesson from this? Well, I think I've lost my notes, so I can't remember how I put it. But I think it ultimately comes down to kind of the speech that Tom Paris gave, the ideas in that speech, which are, you know, you can't avoid the pain of real life. Real life has ups and downs, good and bad, right? good and bad and joy and pain. And it's actually richer with both of those things. Exactly.

That life is richer with the full experience. Yeah. Something like that. I agree. Yeah, that's great. You're right on target there. I also would like to add that the other lesson that I get from this is that, especially when he lashes out at Paris saying that anybody who courts danger,

Should be thrown in the brig. And the lesson there is that in life, when you are out and about, you are always going to deal with people that may be unsavory, that may come off, you know, brusk or rude or just downright, you know, a jerk. And instead of matching their level and going toe to toe and becoming aggressive and violent about it, starting a fight, you know, or allowing the male ego to come into play. or any ego to come into play, just to realize that 99 times out of 100, that attitude or that whatever has nothing to do with you. It has to do with that person and what they're dealing with in their own life. You know what I'm saying? They're using, you don't know the person. Yeah. So that person that you're interacting with in public who's acting horribly, you have no idea if they're sibling or if there's some relative just passed away recently or if something happened that was so

cataclysmic in their own life, that they're now kind of taking it out on everyone around them. And if you can look at it that way and take a second to breathe and take a second to step back, that's going to actually help stop a lot of the things that, you know, the violence and aggression that our culture or we as humans have endured over time, right? It's just something that can stop people from getting riled up. the other person's all upset right about something so it's sort of a nice lesson simple rule to live by just the other day it was two two rules it's they said if you want to be happy in life if you want to have a happy life a peaceful and fulfilled life do two things one is assume the best in

everyone start with assuming they're the best instead of assuming that someone is being manipulative instead of assuming that someone is trying to hurt you or cheat you or you know or me let me talk about me so assume that people are you know assume the best first of all start there and then the second thing is be inquisitive be curious ask questions if i assume the best about people and then i want to learn and i say oh tell me about your day today tell me about oh you're angry or you know it's been a tough day tell me more about that how is it tough for you explain that to me you know yeah assume the best and be inquisitive and i think those are you know i think those are the best rules to live by i've ever i've ever heard yeah assuming the best

and and and being curious asking questions you know being open to learning something you don't expect yes good episode um very good episode join us next week guys when robbie and i reviewed distant origin yes see you guys then bye bye I don't know.