The Delta Flyers - Renaissance Man

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

This episode was recorded in June 2023, before the SAG Strike.The 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 Renaissance Man. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Renaissance Man:When Captain Janeway is taken hostage, The Doctor must fool his crewmates and assume their identities knowing that one false move will result in Janeway's execution.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise & Rebecca McNeillAnd 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 Braga, Bryan Fuller, John Espinosa, & Ariana DelbarAdditionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co-Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Liz Scott, Eve England, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Kris Hansen, Daniel de Rooy, Chris Knapp, Michelle Z, Janet K Harlow, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, E, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Jenna Appleton, Alicia Kulp, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, Sarah Thompson, Samantha Hunter, Holly Smith, Amy Tudor, Jamason Isenburg, Adm. Bill "Seoulman" Yu, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Ashley Stokey, Zachary Upton, Lori Tharpe, Mary Burch, AJC, Nicholaus Russell, Dominique Weidle, Lisa Robinson, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlman, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, AJ Freeburg, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, Shambhavi Kadam, Holly Schmitt, James H. Morrow, Christopher Arzeberger, Nicole Anne Toma, Donna Runyon, Nicholas Albano, Daniel O’Brien, Bronwen Duffield, Mark Lacey, Andrew Duncan, Lauren Wolffe, David Buck, Jeremy McGraw, Danie Crofoot, Ian Ramsey, Feroza Mehta, Michael Dismuke, Jonathan Brooks, Gemma Laidler, Rob Traverse, Penny Liu, Matt Norris & Stephanie LeeAnd our Producers:James Amey, Patrick Carlin, Richard Banaski, Ann Harding, Ann Marie Segal, Chloe E, Nathanial Moon, Carole Patterson, Warren Stine, Jocelyn Pina, Mike Schaible, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Maxine Soloway, Barbara Beck, Species 2571, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Dat Cao, Scott Lakes, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, Tara Polen, Jason Potvin, Cindy Ring, Kelly Brown, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Maria Rosell, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Jennifer Jelf, Justin Weir, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Aaron Ogitis, Ryan Benoit, Megan Chowning, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Captain Jak Greymoon, David Wei Liu, Clark Ochikubo, David J Manske, Roxane Ray, Amy Rambacher, Jessica B, E.G. Galano, Cindy Holland, Will Forg, Ryan Tomei, Charlie Faulkner, Estelle Keller, Christopher Berry, Russell Nemhauser, Lawrence Green, Christian Koch, Lisa Gunn, Lauren Rivers, Shane Pike, Jennifer B, Dean Chew, Akash Patel, Jennifer Vaughn, Cameron Wilkins, Michael Butler, Ken McCleskey, Walkerius Logos, Abby Chavez, & Preston MeyerThank you for your support!“Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text we use, artwork we create, audio, and video we produce and post. You may not use, reproduce, distribute our creations...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

Hi, everybody. It's Robbie and Garrett here. We just want to let you know that the SAG AFRA strike against the studios has happened. And we just wanted to assure everyone that this was recorded before the strike began. And we want to stress that we fully support SAG AFRA and the WGA and getting a fair contract. Agreed. Greetings, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry. As we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager, your two hosts along this journey are my fellow Voyager actor,

Garrett Wong, who in 2020 played Dr. Charles Hunter in the indie film, Unbelievable. And myself, your favorite helmsman, Robert Duncan McNeil, aka McDunk, R.D.M. Robbie D. Whatever you want to call me. Remember everybody. This is very important to remember.

You can get the full version of this podcast and lots more bonus material if you sign up to become a patron at patreon.com forward slash the Delta Flyers. I'm going to say right now, the sweet spot for Patreon patrons is probably the commander level. And I'm going to say this, there's so much content.

It's, it's ridiculous. We are, we are two away from the end of, you know, once we review this episode, we have the finale, part one and two, and that's it. That's it? Yes. I thought we had one or two more. No. So this is what's learning this right now.

Seriously? Look at Robbie's face. I thought we had like three or four more before. No, no, we don't. And I got what I have to say, Robbie. Oh my God. I know. I love your countdown earlier.

you said you went five four three to two you went padda but then you went on the two in the beginning part so with pad you had to and two you and two are hard for me consonants are hard yeah unbelievable uh was in 2020 but that's when it started filming but we actually filmed for a while it was because they did a whole bunch of pickups because they ended up um they had Gilbert godfrey was one of the actors in the project. And they didn't like some of the screenings with him in it in terms of the audience reaction, unfortunately. Oh, right.

Yeah, I mean, Gilbert Gophrie is a talented, funny guy. He can be. He's had some controversy in his life. But still, I mean, I thought it was fine. But they decided to recast his role with Snoop with Snoop Dog. So they cast Snoop Dog and shot all these pickup shots, you know, that they had to do. So this was like two and a half years after. the initial principal photography

that that happened. It was the craziest thing. Yeah. But it's basically a slapstick sort of feature film in the lines or in the vein of airplane, you know, the original airplane. Remember how slapstick that was with Leslie Nielsen and all those guys?

Yeah, that's kind of what they're going for. That naked gun slash airplane kind of feel. Is it a sci-fi? It's sci-fi, yes. Oh, it is. And it has about, yeah, it's got about, I don't know, maybe 30 or 35 or 40 sci-fi actors in it so it's yeah it's kind of like how star trick of god's and men that independent film that i did with all those star trek alumni this one also has

a large number of star trick and from every every series from from enterprise from voyager from tng from ds9 from the original series they pulled from every single yeah series so yeah there you go wow well all right that's uh yeah unbelievable that's unbelievable that's unbelievable that is unbelievable It's unbelievable. I want to say something, by the way, too. If you're a patron, you know, when you join, we have all kinds of perks. We've got patches. We've got T-shirts.

Oh, my gosh. One of the things that comes around is a new T-shirt for some of the levels every year. And here's our brand-new T-shirt. Which you can purchase if you're not a patron-patron as well. You can also purchase it if you just want to buy the T-shirt, but I've got it on right now. Let me describe it, Robbie, because right now, this is for people that have the capability of watching our podcast. But for those of you who are listening, essentially, it's a gray, it's a heathered gray shirt. So your standard sort of gray shirt.

And it has white lettering. It says the Delta Flyers alumni. So it's sort of like almost like a collegiate shirt. It says University of ST Voyager. So it could be University of Saint Voyager or University of Star Trek Voyager. However, you want to read that. It also says Garrett Wong and Robbie McNeil alumni. And at the bottom is a little quote.

It says maybe it's not the destination that matters. Maybe it's the journey. And it's got a little Delta Flyer in the middle and a little swirly swirl. So it's a nice little collegiate looking shirt. It does. It looks like something you get at the college book store. At the College Book Store, exactly. So check it out at the deltaflyers.org.

And hit the shop button and you'll be able to see this. You can do that. you can you can sign up to be a patron that gets free shirts as well yeah you could but it's kind of appropriate that we've got the alumni shirt going on i know because we're kind of graduating oh my gosh we're graduating from this podcast journey my goodness in a couple episodes wow i'm so i'm nervous i'm excited i'm everything right now so yeah and you know this is uh this is you can see a little, maybe a little Tom Paris in the flying the Delta Flyer. I don't know. Can you see yourself in there? No, you can't. That'd be amazing. But in my mind, I can see a little Tom Paris. In your

mind's eye, you can see a little Tom Paris. Yes, because I am an alumni of the university. I am, I have a diploma. I have a diploma from the Delta Flyers. You do. I have a diploma from the Delta Flyers. You do. Star Trek University. Yes. It's fun. And it's the graduation shirt for our podcast. It is. Let's move on. Let's talk about what we're going to be reviewing. Let's do the Renaissance Man episode. Yes, Renaissance Man is the name of the title. And let's go watch this.

We'll be right back with our recap and discussion of Renaissance Man. For all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for your bonus material. Okay, we are back from watching Renaissance Man. That is a very full episode. Also, there's a lot going on. So much going on. And it's funny as we're, you know, we're getting near the end of the series. And I thought it would be much more about the ship getting home, like setting up something that's going to, it really has nothing to do with us getting it.

You know what this was? This episode was a feature film focused on the doctor. This could have been the doctor's Voyager feature film idea, basically. Yeah. I mean, it just kept moving. It was probably one of the fastest-paced episodes for me, you know, that we've ever viewed, right? Very well directed. Let's talk about our director.

Oh, yes, yes. And writers. So Mike Vahar directed this. I think he was one of my four choices. Yeah, he was one of your multiple choices. Yeah, you're right. You're right. Yeah.

So Mike Vahar did a great job. I always love Mike. He did a great job. I thought it was, yeah. Phyllis Strong and Mike Sussman share the teleplay. So we've talked about them before. Story by, though, Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaborman. Now, I didn't.

Those guys before, too. Well, I didn't recognize it at first. And so I was like, wait, let me look them up. Andrew Shepard Price and Mark Gaborman wrote for the game show Jeopardy. And they were outside writers that I guess would pitch. What? Yeah. Yeah.

That's their job. now they write for jeopardy now i don't know what they do now but at the time they were writing for jeopardy oh wow they've written for jeopardy star trek voyager uh the luck of the irish was a uh teleplay and then a couple of games game shows back in the 90s remote control and turn it up so they were game show writers but they must have been fans and you know had story ideas that they would pitch for a show so Yeah. Well, you know, when I, when I saw their names, immediately I thought, wait a minute, did I go to college with them? Because I, in my university, at my university at UCLA, I was in a predominantly Jewish fraternity. So I was like, Gaborman and Price. We had a price. We didn't have a Gaborman. So every time I see, I immediately think, I went to school with them. But no, they were. That's funny. Jeopardy writers. Wow. They were Jeopardy writers. Yes. Who knew? Okay. Let's start with our, let's do our Poetry Let's do poetry.

Okay. Okay, here we go. Here's my haiku for Renaissance man. EMH, the spy, takes out the crew one by one. Can't one up too, Vok. That's it.

Nice. Thanks. Nice. Nice. All right. Here's my limerick. Yeah. Let's hear it.

Yeah. I'm just going to leave the limerick here. Yeah. For those that remember. remember at the end of this episode, the doctor has a big confession when he thinks he's dying. So that to me was hilarious. So here's my limerick. The captain and doctor go on an exciting medical trip. But Janeway acts real weird when she gets back to the ship. Tom has a kiss that's quite odd because his wife is a fraud. But Doc's final confession wins the awkward

championship. There you go. Nice. Very good. Oh, my goodness. There's just funny moments. Oh, my Lord. When Bolana kiss when Balana's the doctor.

Oh, my God. Basically, you're kissing the doctor. Oh, so good. And the way Roxanne Dawson played that reaction was the best. I thought she was going to wipe her mouth off after you left, you know, but she just shrunk down. That was so damn funny. Oh, my God. Roxanne's doctor version,

Roxanne's doctor version in this whole episode is so good. Not only hers. Even when she's just running. Yes. When she's just running down the hole. But also, you've got to give it up for Kate. Kate's version of the doctor is also really good. Kate's very good, too.

Oh, she completely encapsulated Robert Ricardo's, you know, nuance, right? So I was so impressed. And it's funny because for me, you know me. I'm the guy that loves to do the impersonations. And it just seems like they always don't let me do it. And it's like, God dang it. I'm the one guy that didn't get the chance to do it. But I will, I'll concede to the fact that both Roxanne and Kate kind of knocked it out of the park. That's all they did a great job because they can't be too obvious. No, it's so subtle, but it's so perfect. They're so good. Yes. It was perfect.

I mean, they nailed it. That's what I'm saying. Like you can't be total like, then it be slapstick if they were trying to do a dead-on, you know, impersonation of him. So, yeah, good job. All right. Well, guest star, only one guest star, and then a ton of co-stars. So Alexander Enberg, obviously, and Sinborg is our guest star. And I don't remember if we set his first credit. So I'm just to throw it out there. 1982 episode of Quincy, Medical Examiner. Quincy M.E. You remember that show? Yes, I loved Quincy. That's a great show. Always solving crimes as the medical examiner. Yes, he was super smart. Okay, so on co-stars, we have Andy Milder

who played NAR. Very first credit is the 1991 episode of Empty Nest, that TV series, if you recall that one, empty nest. We also have Wayne Thomas York who played Zet. Very first credit is the 1990 episode of Wise Guy.

Wise guy. Okay. David Sparrow, who played the alien slash doctor. Very first credit is the 1994 film The Santa Claus with star Tim Allen, that movie. Oh, yeah. I love that movie. The Santa Claus. And then Tark Ergan with a line here.

I know. I love it. I love it. He had a couple lines down front. Let's just face it. Tark deserved it. Yes, he did. He was there day in and day out, just putting in all this time, mostly not saying a thing. And then when he gets a line, boy, we're happy. So Tarek Ergan, Ayala, very first credit for TARIC is the 1994 film Improper Conduct Rhetoric. Wow. So his first credit was the year we made our pilot was in 94. September 94.

Wow. Yeah. We have J.R. Quinones. J.R. Quinones played the Overlooker slash Doctor. Very first credit was a 1989 episode of TNG. Oh, wow. That is his only other credit as an actor. Wow.

He was a stand-in on Enterprise. He was a PA on four different shows. He was a, he's done, he's sort of like a man of many hats. Yeah, I see, I see from his credits. So, but he did stand and work on Enterprise. So you may have worked with him too. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's it. That's our. Okay. There's our cast. Yeah. Let's dive right into this episode. Sure. Sure.

We start in the best shuttle ever invented. We're inside the Delta Flyer. But we see a shot of it flying through. and we hear opera music. We do. And we cut inside and the doctor is piloting the Delta Flyer. And singing opera very loudly, by the way. Oh, extremely loud.

In Italian. Yeah. Very loudly. We think he's by himself because he sings for quite a while. And then the door opens. And she walks forward and you can see she was trying to rest or something. And this loud singing. I don't know about walking.

It was like lurking forward. It was interesting. Oh, really? Yeah. I just. I thought she was just couldn't sleep or couldn't rest or whatever, concentrate, whatever she was trying to do back there. She was tired.

Yes. And then the doctor says, oh, I didn't wake you, did I? Yeah. It's like, oh, my God, you're singing the loudest opera I've ever heard. And Janeway's response is, oh, 15 minutes of sleep is all I really need. And then she made a face. like she said her line she had good face in this episode again his face in this last season is the best faces it definitely but her line 15 minutes is all you need instantly reminded me of tim

because tim would always tell me he goes yeah blah all you need is 15 minute cat nap that's all you need he would say that always to give me advice you're trying to you know get a little extra sleep is all you need is the 15 minutes so well we've talked about this before because he was the only actor in my career I've ever known that had a like a beach chair reclining beach chair yes a recliner beach chair that he asked props to keep so that he could set it up on stage and just literally walk over lay in the beach chair and go to sleep he'd take naps yes and you forgot one other detail when it was when it was wintertime he would have a portable heater between his legs while he was sleeping oh yes that is a blow right there on him he just put it right there on

the beach chair between his legs, basing towards him, so Tim Russell. Oh, Timmy. Timmy, Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. The doctor fills her in because Janeway says something like, well, maybe a little less singing, you know, you should pay attention to flying. And he's like, oh, no, I'm a hologram.

I can do all kinds of things. Yeah. I can pilot. I can write a paper. I can, I can, you know, take hollow images of this Matara class nebula. And so he's, we're already setting up in our story that the doctor can do a lot of different things, which he's going to need in this episode. But he also, the doctor does admit in this scene, he says, like, he would have given

anything to be flesh and blood, to be an organic. But now he's realized that being a hologram is far superior. So he's kind of making this statement right here in the beginning. I also, just so you know, literally this first scene, as I started, you know, the doctor's starting to talk about, I used to want to be a human, but now I love who I am. I started to think, so last week, we had a series wrap-up of the Neelix character. Yes, that's right. A whole arc of his series was really dealt with in Homestead last week.

And immediately, I thought, oh, this is going to be an episode where we deal with the hologram, the doctor's arc for the whole series, how he wanted to be human. But now he's accepted all these things. I just felt it immediately. I'm like, oh, this is the doctor series wrap up episode. Okay, all right. Because we're going home next week. Yeah. The next two-parter is our getting home, which really doesn't have a lot to do with the doctor.

Yeah. It's more about the humans, you know, the people that are from the, yeah, the flesh and the organics. It's about the organics. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, the doctor also mentions this medical symposium that he's, really interested in going in uh going to and he's so happy that the captain is spending time with him and he said maybe we can do more of that when we get back the sour look on her face she she didn't

even have a line there he's but he says maybe do more that some of that more often and her eyes were like oh it was so funny there's some kind of bump or something you know we can't we don't know exactly what it is the doctor thinks it's a gravity metric shear and then And then the doctor says, relax, Captain, you've got a hologram at the helm. Yeah. And I was a little insulted. I was like, wait a minute. You should be definitely.

You know? You're kidding me. She should say, well, I wish I had Tom Paris at the helm. Exactly. Whatever. He tries to reassure her. I was a little insulted. But thank goodness, Janeway's face, more face.

She looked unconvinced that the hologram was going to take care of her. See? That look was the same as her saying, prefer mr paris yes you doctor so there you go you're vindicated okay we jumped engineering and yes it's is this a shot with uh her and vorek no it's not what is this this is the yeah yeah it's her her and yeah exactly her and vorek and it's a cool shot it's like inside inside looking out bulkhead yeah looking out into engineering they're working on some relays paris calls and uh ask her to tear herself away for a minute. He's got a shuttle that needs some work. And she's like, I'm pretty busy. He goes,

no, this is really urgent, very urgent, which of course, I know that it's not going to be urgent. You know what? Every time they set up the camera from inside the bulkhead and they shoot that way, I always used to get annoyed by that. I kept saying, really? Yes, I was like, God. But now I understand it results in a cool shot. It does. I mean, because it's not the typical, you don't typically see from inside the workings out. So it's a good shot, but I just know as an actor, I kept thinking like, what a waste of time. They got to pull out that wall. They got to do all. I kept thinking this is like, yeah, why are you making our workday even longer by picking this shot? Like, I used to get annoyed by that. But now I see it's worth it. It looks good. It does look good.

You got to you got to change it up every now and then. Okay. So we jump to the shuttlecraft. Tell us what happens here. Well, inside, Paris is wearing a Hawaiian shirt. I love that Hawaiian shirt. That's the most exciting thing about the scene. I would have tried to take that from wardrobe. It was a good Hawaiian shirt. It's a great one. He's wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

He's got a picnic. Balana walks in and he says he's got a romantic lunch, a picnic planned under the glow of a red giant. And she's excited because he's got potato salad there. Very sweet. It's like he's got Tupperware containers too. It's very cute. And potato salad with extra paprika. Let's not forget that.

And it looks so good. Just the way she likes it. I was salivating when I was watching this scene. I really was because I love potato salad. Potato salad, fried chicken. Yeah, you had it all. You know, Paris says, you know, let's go on the picnic. She says, no, she can't because she's got this dilithium matrix recalibration.

She's got to do. And Paris is like, this could be your only chance. And he starts in kissing her neck. Could be your only chance to be, our only chance to be alone for the next 18 years. he's trying to get some he's getting frisky he is in the shuttle there i don't remember you two being so kissy face i really don't no i never recall that you guys do make out a lot there's a lot of pdaa with you guys there's a lot of pda a lot of kissy kissy oh my goodness tom is trying to seduce her into going on this picnic and having a romantic date but nope she uh she doesn't want to go

oh, she has to go back to work. And at first I thought, poor Tom, and then Tom looks at the fried chicken. He takes a bite. He takes a bite. This is pretty good. So at least he's got the good fried chicken. At least he's got the chicken. I want to make one comment about this scene.

I want to say that it's a small detail, but it's an important detail. Both of you sold the kissing. That's not always the easiest thing to do. When you're working with somebody that's not your significant other, that's basically a stranger, especially when it comes to actually kissing the other person, that can be sometimes difficult to make it look like there's actually chemistry there. You know what I'm saying?

And you're familiar with each other. Yes, yeah. I bought every little little kiss that happened. Every PDA? Well, pretty much. And this one was the most, this canoodling session was the best of all your PDAs. This was the most realistic.

And it was really me doing all the PDAs. Yeah, you're doing a lot of it. But the timing of how when she spoke, and then she would kiss you back and then spoke it was just man it was like a freaking watching it was watching a symphony yeah it was a it was a symphony of kissing con noodling thank you a co noodle symphony yeah so good job thank you very much you're welcome moving on we cut to the bridge who's in the captain's chair oh my lord harry this you know what this this this episode not only is it's sort of a good send off for the for the doctor it's sort of like a for us each of us

we all got to sit in the chair in this episode everybody got to turn in the chair it was like, hey, everyone, you've been working so hard in this show. You've been here the whole time. We're all going to let you be the captain for the day, or for the minute or for the shift. So we got that. So Kim is in the chair. Kim's in the chair. Ayala is down in the pilot seat.

I was like, what? And then Tariq has, this is where he's got the lines. Yeah, what does he say? He says, there's some kind of pulse being directed at a transceiver array. It's coming from the Delta Fly. This is a line with Technobabble. It's a, it's a meaty line for Ayala. It's real acting for sure.

Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Kim says, Hail them, no response. Looks like they've encoded the pulse with a calm signal. And then we have Janeway on screen. Jayneway pops up.

Very blurry, though. Yeah, blurry. Their comm system's been damaged. She can only send a message or signal through the main deflector. So then Kim's like, okay, you guys okay? Janeway says, yeah, we're fine. Just tell Chikote to meet me in my ready room as soon as we're docked,

Janeway out. So that's where we do find the next, we find us in the ready room with Chikote and Janeway. So Janeway's back. She's filling in Chikote and basically said they've met these new aliens that we've never heard of called the Recall. And they have technology that sounds more intense than the Borg by a million times. They sound like the most unbelievable species we've ever encountered. Right. Like so, so advanced that they could destroy Voyager before our sensors even knew they were next to us, basically. That's how advanced they are. But we also learn from Janeway that their territory is massive. It's thousands of parsecs. And so we can't really go around it. We have to go through it. And their whole thing is this group of people is like, we don't like warp technology. It's not allowed in our space. You have to dismantle your entire ship. And Chikote's like, what? Are you crazy? And then Janeway,

He's like, no, but I've kind of negotiated a deal for us. They're just going to drop us off at a planet. And Chacote's like, what? So all of a sudden, we get all these red flags like, is this, this is not Janeway. This can't be Janeway. Why is she doing this? She's acting very suspicious. Very strange.

It's just bizarre. And she starts barking at Chikote. Chacote asks more questions. And finally, she just says, you know, dismissed. And in a very huffy tone, too. It was the saltiest Janeway I've ever seen. towards Chacote. And she would never speak like that to him.

Yeah, I was very suspicious in this scene. Something happened over there. I still didn't know the plot of this. I didn't know that the doctor is going to impersonate people. I didn't know that. You think it would have served this episode better if Kate had actually played it less salty and just more firm so that we wouldn't, we weren't kind of like, okay, this is. I don't know.

I feel like the stakes of what. she was saying were so high that she would have if it really were janeway i would buy that she's that wound up i was suspicious but but not sure at that point okay so so then the tone was right then it had to be that for me it was right yeah okay but then but then we go to engineering yeah and janeway walks in on torres and as soon as she walks in she says something like i'm sorry to interrupt but i could use your input on this hypothetical scenario. She's kind of paces a little, and she does the, like the hip bounce, like the hands that. Yeah, she did a move like Bob.

And I was like, I sat there. I was like, oh, you're genius, Kate Mulgrew. Look at you. Just a little tiny little nod, a little essence of Picardo. And we bought it hook, line, and sinker on that one. Oh, my God. So good. But she's asking Torres if we could towed.

the warp core. And she's asking if there's a way to modify the Delta Flyer maybe to tow the warp core. An ejected warp core. And it's all hypothetical, of course. Right. And then Torres says, yeah, we could do it. It's possible. And so Jamie says, well, do it then. And she's like, wait, what? I thought this was hypothetical. And Jane was like, let me know as soon as you're done. Yeah. And she leaves. Yeah, again, strange. Obviously, obviously very. strange. So Balana calls Chacote. He goes, I need to talk to you. We don't see, but we, we clearly know that she's probably telling him, hey, watch out. There's something going on with the captain. I don't know what it is, but I can't put my finger on it, but you better investigate. And then we go back

to the bridge, and Chukotay comes in, and he sits down next to Janeway, and he says, you know, he talked to Balana, and she told him about the modifications to tow the war corps. And, uh, he's like, well, I thought we were going to hand over the War Corps after we got to this M-class planet. Right. Are we taking it somewhere else? Like this is, so he's suspicious. He's suspicious.

And that's exactly the time that Janeway sits there and turns to who knows what, the invisible friend and says, I heard you the first time. She's hearing voices. She's hearing voices. But the way she played it. Oh, so good. Loved it. My God.

I heard you the first time. And Chacote is just, you know. Yeah, there's no clue. He's like, what's happening? He's like, Captain? He's like, what's going on? And she goes, I got a headache. I'm going to go to my quarters.

I don't want to be disturbed. And then she walks by Tuvok. She does it again. She does. But her announcement of going to her when she has a headache, after she says the headache, she says, I'm going to my quarters. And I'd prefer not to be disturbed.

She never makes an announcement like that on the entire bridge. Very formal to the whole bridge. And background kind of looked back and was like, what? Which is good, you know, I guess the first AD directed them correctly. on that one. I like that one. But yeah, walking out, again, she does it again. Tuvok is like, what? And when she said carry on commander, it was so Bob Bacardo-esque. I was.

Yeah, I feel like up until this point, Kate played the fact that Bob, you know, played Bob's mannerisms perfectly. She orchestrated it so that it was just sort of really starting to land clear as day at this point. So good. Yeah. And then we cut to, we cut to sick bay and Chacote comes in. Well, Chacote is already, he's there ready, right? He's already in there. And the doctor's not there. And that's when he calls for him. Doctor's not there. Chacote's there. So he calls for the doctor. And the doctor answers on, on the calm. And so Chocote says, report to sick Bay immediately. And then he fritzes in. He beams in. He beams in. It doesn't walk in. That's funny. Yeah. And Chacote is, again, confused by this. He's like something wrong with the turbo lifts. Yeah.

And the doctor's like, well, you said immediately, how can I help? And then the doctor in this scene is very reassuring. He's very calm. He's very cooperative. Yeah. He's all the things that the doctor isn't normally. Right. Yeah.

Chocote wants, you know, the doctor to give Janeway a physical. And I don't know, something about the way Bob chose to play this, very friendly and cooperative. I was like, this is more weirdness because he's never. that front of me. He's always got some attitude or something to say about it. Exactly. Yes. Yeah, so we're in the astrometrics lab and Seven and Kim are working on trying to figure things out and Chocote enters. So Chocote asked if there were a fleet of cloak ships in the vicinity. Could you devise a way to detect them? And Seven's like, well, cloak fleet would generate significant subspace distortions. Why do you ask? And immediately we get

this transmission. Chocote says, source. And Kim can't pinpoint it. We don't know. He asked if we should notify the captain, and Chkotay says, no, no, no, she doesn't want to be disturbed. Just route the call here. And now we see on the view screen in Astro Metrics. We see this big, hulking sort of NFL offensive lineman type of alien, massive. Chakotay introduces himself as Commander Chkote, and this guy says he's the Supreme Archon Loth of the Recall Imperium. So this loft, this supreme archon, has asked Chakotay. why haven't you ejected your warp core yet as your captain agreed? Chkote says, well, we're still en route to the planet that we specified, that we talked about, that we agreed upon, and we can't let go of the core until we get there. And Loth is like, listen, if we don't receive this core within 10 hours, we're going to destroy you. And this is your only warning. So he goes off screen and Chocote looks at 7 and says, just work with Harry. I need to know. I need to know the source of that transmission. Seven says, okay, no problem.

We go to Sick Bay and the doctor's there and he tells Chichote comes back and he tells Chacote that everything's fine, that the captain is totally healthy, complete, clean bill of health. And Chacote is like, you know, what about a neurological scan? Maybe something's wrong with her brain. He goes, no, brain function totally normal. She is perfectly fit, physically and mentally. So Chacote is like confused and... He didn't get any answers there. So he heads down to Janeway's quarters, rings the bell.

Nobody's there. And then he calls on his, on his com badge, Chiquotay to the captain, nothing. Computer locate Captain Janeway. And then suddenly, Janeway's coming around the corner. Yeah, she stops that. She goes, computer belay that because she knows the computer would say, Captain Janeway is not aboard the ship is what we have been the actual answer. and so she quickly walks right into her quarters and she goes my quarters now now they're in the

quarters and they have a nice long well not that long of a conversation it's a great conversation beautifully shot by by mike vahar great handheld it's just very active the blocking the tension they hold this tight 50 50 at one point you shukotay's very you know they're sort of debating he's like, tell me what's going on. You've, you know, you've, you're just acting weird. You've consulted me. You've always insulted me. Always, yes. Why are you doing this without me? But then he makes up this story about, you know, 15 years ago. Lessig Prime. Yeah, exactly. And Janeway's sort of going along with it, going along with it, until finally, Jacote says, you never told me that story. I made it up. He said, Chacote de Tuvac. And at that point,

Janeway is already, Janeway doctor is already on to that. She's erected a dampening field. So that hail to Tuvok never even gets through to Tuvok. And then she overpowers Jacote and uses a hypospray to knock him out. He's done. Poor Jacote. He was finally, finally, had busted the situation. Yeah. He's out.

Now he's out. And then we see a set we've never seen before. Where was this the morgue set? This is clearly going to be either stage nine or 16 because we've never. you know, I don't even recall seeing. No, I've never seen a morgue. Yeah. It's got to be, I think they must have built it near Sick Bay, like around that science lab area.

Maybe it was a science lab changed out. Yeah, that's what I'm going to think. And I, you know, clearly I did work on that set because I was in the morgue, too, later. But I don't recall it at all. I came in and rescued you, I think. Was that you that rescued us? Yes. Yeah.

But neither one of us can remember where the set was. No, but also, we don't know if Chacote's day. at this point. Am I right? No. Correct? We don't know that. Like if he's in the morning, he's going into a cooler, he could be dead. It could be dead. We don't know. Yeah. So more intrigue. But she puts him in the cooler and then she takes his com badge. Right. And closes the chamber because later on we're going to see a collection of combat. Chiquet, exactly. And that was creepy as all get out. I'll say that right now. Yeah. We go in the doctor's office and Janeway slash the doctor portraying Janeway is

I was talking to the talking to the aliens that are in his head and he is I can't do my job with the two of you constantly talking in my head so that was very funny Janeway puts her boot up on the desk touches the mobile emitter down at the ankle right that's where it's attached and then we've got this cool match cut sort of transformation this is the first time but it'll it'll happen a bunch where we see Janeway turn in into the doctor, more than to the doctor. Great match cut transformation,

Viz effects, and Vihar did a great job on that. Yeah, but he won't do anything else for these aliens until he speaks with the captain. He wants to find out if she's okay. So we do see a shot where he does see the captain back on the overlooker ship. And we realize now that it's the aliens that you like so much. You like these aliens.

Yes, the hierarchy guys. Yeah, the hierarchy guys. But I got to say, the main hierarchy guy, the captain, he just, he changed it. He was like, he's like a bad apple in all the good apples of overlookers. Like he literally just, ooh, he was such a, just a nasty, nasty. He's a horrible, horrible dude. Very selfish. Janeway says to the doctor, under no circumstances, are you to eject the core?

Don't do that. And then the doctor is kind of torn because he says, if I don't do what they ask, they're going to kill you. and Janway says, I'm just giving you a direct order. Stop, stop, stop, stop. A direct order. This is what he gets in trouble for a later. She's giving him a direct order and he's so... She's like, he can't obey it.

Yeah, he cares too much about his captain. He doesn't want her to be killed. So he's going to ignore it, her order. But they kind of grab her and put her behind the force field to kind of get her away from that view screen so she can't say anything else. And they give the doctor more, more assignments. The assignment is they've been going over the schematics of Voyager and they are so, so excited about seeing bioreal gel packs

and they want a few to just sort of experiment with. And the doctor's like, are you kidding me? They're integrated into the ship systems. You can't just take one off. Yeah, it's part of this. Yeah, people are going to know all types of alarms are going to go off. And Zet's like, I don't care, you know, I know you're resourceful. You're going to get it done.

So these guys basically are like, you know. They're blackmailing him. They're blackmailing him and they're collecting parts, I guess, from people and like, you know, almost like pirates, like taking stuff to sell, you know, to sell and keep the money for themselves. So we're starting to put the whole picture together. I mean, we learn later the details that they're basically renegade hierarchy people. Yeah. That's it. They're renegade.

They've left. They've stolen that vessel, right? It doesn't even belong to them. We're back in the doctor's office. We hear a hail from Tuvok to Chakotay. because remember, the doctor has Chakotay's Com badge. So you hear him say, Duvac to Chacote,

and that's when you get the last line from Zet, the really evil hierarchy alien. He says, you know what will happen to her if you alert your crew. And that's when the doctor then turns to answer that hail in a very kind of... Yeah, Chacote's voice going... Yeah, he's like, go ahead with a little bit of a croaky voice.

He's trying to... I felt like he was trying to find the right, you know, parameters for Chocote's voice, and it wasn't exactly on. Maybe it doesn't make sense. It should be perfect. Yeah. How does Tuvok not hear the difference?

Like if Bob Picardo called me and pretended to be you and said, you know, I don't even want to try to imitate. But you know what I'm saying. Yeah. You would know. I would be like, wait, this is not Garrett. Yeah. This is, this sounds like Bob.

Bob, what are you doing? I would know immediately. Well, I'm pretty sure that was all when he said go ahead. That was, that was voiced over by. That was a V-O from Beltron. Really? Yes. Oh, I thought it was Bob doing.

No. Go back and listen to it and rewind it. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I was like, oh, Bob actually just lip-synced it. Wow. Okay. So Tuvok says, are you all right, Commander?

And then he says, just a scratchy throat. The doctor's treating me now. And that's definitely Robert Beltron's voice, I know for sure. Oh, wow. I thought it was Bob. You thought it was Bob's. Because it's funny enough. their registers are similar

in terms of where their pitch is so that's why you know I think you got mistaken and I was too I had to rewind it twice I was like what is that okay all right so anyway so Tuvac wants Chikote

had to come to the shuttle bay when he's finished being treated by the doctor and the doctor speaking with Chiquote's voice says yeah I'll be right there Chikote out and he look at Duvok and then

he says oh he says access access Commander Chakotay's holographic template, download physical parameters into my program. So now the doctor morphs into Chacote, puts on his badge and heads right over to the Delta flyer. Another good sort of match cut, you know, right in position. Yeah, very well done. There's some good vis effects in this episode.

Most definitely. My goodness. So now we are, we'll call it Doc Chacote. So doc slash Chacote enters into the Delta flyer. We're Tuvok's waiting for him. He's like, yeah, you want to see me in Tuvok's like, yeah. I completed that diagnostic you requested. And guess what?

The comm system is functioning normally. It's functioning absolutely normally. There's no, there's no issue with it. And EMA Chakote, Dr. Chocote says, well, you find that unusual? And Tupac says, well, the captain did report that it was damaged. So now Tuvac is already right. There's some red flags popping up in Tupac. Yeah, Tuvok's starting to put together.

He's starting to put things together. He's starting to put things together. Yeah. And we cut to the overlooker ship. they are watching all of this and then they say to to the doctor through their you know uh connection they say get out of there before you aroused suspicion they want the doctor two vucks kind of onto him and starting to question chakota or doc chakotay yeah and so they're just like how about we say chakotococ yeah let's call him chocodok uh so basically the end of this scene

the flyer is Chkodak saying, I'll be on the bridge if you need me. And Chodok leaves. And we're back on the overlooker's ship. Oh, and we're back in the overlooker ship. And just as he's, as he's leaving, we see NAR say, you're doing a wonderful job, doctor. It's like these two pirates. He's like the really sweet childlike pirate. It's good cop, bad cop. And Zet is the bad cop. And NAR is the good cop. And the look that Seth gives NAR when he goes, you're doing a wonderful job, doctor. And then he's like, oh, I'm just giving him a little encouragement. I just love that line.

Yes, I laughed out loud. That was funny. Yeah, basically, we know that they're going to have the warp core. They've only got six hours left, but they seem to be working on it. They're aware of that. And then Janeway tries a bit of a ruse. Like a ruse. She's like, oh, yeah, that's what he wants you to think.

Yeah. You know, he's got all these subroutines, thousands of tactical scenarios programmed into him. I'm like, he's just setting you up. She tries to bluff. Yeah. And NAR, the sweet one, the good cop, is like, maybe we should let her go. Like, he's buying it. Yeah.

And Zett is like, oh, come on. Are you an idiot? You know, we've spent months planning this. No way. We're going to get this warp core and get this stuff we want. Yeah. And this is when we learned that they stole this vessel. Zet does not want to go back to the hierarchy.

You know, he's a renegade. He's a maverick hierarchy member. But he talks about if they stay at the course a month from now, they're going to be soaking in the mud baths of Eblar Prime. So it's clearly something that everybody loves to do. They kind of look like hippopotamuses, these aliens, the hierarchy. They look like hippos. So, of course, the mud baths sound amazing.

I can totally see the hippo aliens just lounging in the mud bath. Yes. They're jam. Oh, yeah. We go to Janeway's quarters next. The doctor is now Janeway calls for Torres. And she asks Torres to come help with a replicator, that it's, you know, it's not working. Yeah.

But when this is happening, it's we see the doctor sitting in Janeway's quarters going through. So he's trying to piece together some parts or something when he's doing this. Do you remember that? Yeah. And when he's talking to Torres, it's just in Janeway's voice, but you don't see Janeway. You see the doctor still, right? Yeah, it's weird to see the doctor. See Bob Picardo, but yet hear Kate's voice in this whole conversation coming out of him.

You just got to give it up from Mike Fahar. There's so many things happening in this episode that you have to keep. You've got to keep your mind on this focused or else you're going to lose track of where you're at. My goodness. We go to engineering and Bologna says, you know, I'm working on the modifications you ask for. I'll send somebody else about the replicator. And the doctor with Janeway's voice says, you know, please, it's a personal favor. I want you to do it.

Right. So Bologna says, okay, be there in five. We figure out this is a ruse. This is a way for the doctor to get Torres out of engineering so that he can become Torres and go into engineering, correct? Yes. So he downloads Torres' holographic template. And, oh, and I love how the minute he switched into Torres,

Roxanne did this thing where she touched her hair like it wasn't her hair. It was so good. It was like, oh, what a great reference to the fact that now you're the doctor. So she played that so well, and she has to do one more adjustment to put the baby bump on there before she walks out. But really good job by Roxanne Dawson. And it was great in the hallway. We cut to the hall where now the doctor looking like Torres with the baby bump is hiding around a corner and then sees Torres come out of the door of engineering and hides again. Torres walks by and then the fake Torres heads down the hall.

split screen. It was a very simple split screen shot, but with the little dolly back and the timing of it all, it was super effective. It was very effective, but did you feel like her eye line was off when? No, I didn't. No, it was on? Okay. I thought it was on. All right. I thought all the little details of that split screen. I looked at a couple times because it was really cool. Yeah, it did flow well. Bravo. Yeah. Bravo. But then we go into engineering, Vorex, in there and the fake Torres Tordock comes in. Tor dock.

Tor dock walks in and starts to ask about the gel packs that the hierarchy guys want, the pirates want. Vork played this perfectly because Vork's like locker gamma five. Like you know, like the way you read it. Of course. It was like, you know it's there.

And then when Borg goes like on the upper level, again, Vork played it great. And of course, the Tor doc played a great too because it was that same kind of salty doctor. I know where it is, and Cindy. It was just like, yes, perfect. So good job on Roxanne on that delivery as well. You're kidding.

The look, the look she gives when she gets on the lift, hilarious. Okay, so now we go up to the upper level in engineering. Oh, remember the look she gave him when she gets on the lift? She just gives that little salty doctor look right at Vorek. I love that. Anyway, she's on the upper level. Go ahead. On the upper level, looking for these gel packs.

When Parrish shows. up and he's got like a tray of snacks this is one of the best and said he says you know what you left me no choice and then she's acting weird but he just doesn't see it as weird no he's like he's like oh she's being coy in a way i think you you played it perfectly you were like what are we calling each other better rank now fun games but i mean when when tour doc said a women shouldn't eat this kind of food. Do you want to give me an arterial occlusion? I mean, she said it just like Robert Picardo.

So I thought for sure that maybe Paris would be like, what? But you have one thing on your mind, you know, make your stomach happy and make other parts of you happy. So you're not thinking of anything else but that. Yes. But she doesn't want to eat the drumstick. And so she says, let's save it for a romantic dinner. he says great but if you're not there i'm going to send security and she says i'll be there

sweetheart i'll be their sweetheart and then he's like oh oh sweet heart getting a little frisky in your third trimester and then he goes in and kisses torres and you can see oh god fake torres just terrified oh god the one of the most awkward moments right there it's just that look of horror that that you are now kissing basically Tor Dock and not Tor. It was one of my favorite moments in the episode. Because the audience knows what's going on. Roxanne played a beautiful. Oh, God.

Tom was oblivious. It was so funny. It was very, very funny. Oh, good. And when you leave, you're like, I'll see you later. Like, you have no clue. And that look, that shot on Tor Dock. And Tor Dock just like, just slide down the thing.

And, you know, I thought that's when the mouth was going to be wiped off a little bit, but it didn't happen. It just, it was so funny. Very funny. Then all of a sudden, Harry makes a call to Chikote. So now in the Torres body, the doctor has to use Chiquote's voice. Yeah. Harry, I'll be right there. Chikote out.

Yeah. Harry calls for, come to astrometrics. And in Chichote's voice, he says he'll be right there. Right. But Torres answers it. So it's Torres mouthing it. and it's Beltran ADRing it, correct? Yeah.

It's so confusing. Very weird. It's always weird when, yeah, who's who? I'm sure it was hard for the doctor to remember whose body he was in. I know. That's what I'm saying. Vahar must, I don't know how he kept this together. My goodness.

Okay. Yeah. We go to the astrometrics lab and Harry basically has busted, yeah, busted this call from the Supreme Arcon Loth. right um the signal did not false yeah yeah it didn't originate um from subspace it's a false subspace signature and it originated from voyager so inside voyage yeah so someone someone is acting as a double agent right now um kevin says we trace it to holodeck two chok doc says oh although we don't know this is we do know this chokodok excuse me yeah chokokok says like uh chikodok says like uh chikodok says

Well, do you know who sent it? Harry says, I'm on my way to check the access logs to which Chacodok says, I'll go with you. And now we're thinking, oh, oh, oh, no. Fake Chacote is going to get Harry next. We go to the HALADC. Sure enough. You know, Harry's like, Harry's searching through all this stuff. And he says, well, whoever sent this transmission really knew how to cover his tracks.

Aldeck logs have been erased. So Chodok is trying to get Harry off the trail. He's like, well, it doesn't look like we're getting answers here. And Kim's like, well, maybe I can find some. residual photonic displacement. He taps a few buttons and all of a sudden you see Loth solidifying and Harry realizes that the alien is a hologram. So now Harry's on to who programmed him. Chakotak quickly tries again get Harry off the trail. Says, good work, Harry. Let's let you, you can go on with your business. I will take it from here. And Kim's like, wait, wait, wait,

here's another, what? There's two holographic signatures. And then Harry taps few commands. And now we see the doctor. Kim immediately is shocked. And that's, when Chakodok takes another hypo spray out of his boot and basically takes Harry out. Takes Harry out. Exactly. It's so sad. Very sad. And Harry was right on just like Chacote. Right on top of it. Yeah. I had the goods. We cut right to the morgue and there goes Harry into his drawer. Yeah. That's our act out. We got Chacote in the drawer. Is this where we see him with the com badges or no? That's not in this scene. it comes up at that's our act out so our act out is harry getting slid into the the thing and then we come back in sick bay and we see this box of of the com badges the ads harry's

combat that and that is so creepy that's like serial killer territory zero killers take um souvenirs or at least some of them take souvenirs or mementos and this is from watching well he's got to have the combat just so he can yeah he can He can impersonate everybody. But he leans back and they play the blue Danube waltz at that point. He starts playing some music to relax. The classical music to relax, yeah. And then the overlookers, the hierarchy guys, the overlookers call.

And they're like, Doctor, what are you doing? And he's kind of annoyed. He goes, look, I've had a stressful day. I just want to relax. that when Tuvok enters, and he says, you know, he's very busy to Tuvok. And the overlookers are watching all of this. So we see it through his POV on the overlookership. But Tuvok says, you know, he was looking at the communication logs and there's a discrepancy he wants the doctor to explain.

And he says, at the precise moment, the flyer transmitted a deflector pulse, you apparently accessed Voyager's holographic database. and the doctor's like, I don't know what you're talking about. And he said, well, you downloaded the captain's physical parameters. Tuvok says, you know, maybe we should have a word with the captain to talk about this. And that's when the doctor goes to it inject Tuvok, but Tuvok, you know, grabs his nice little ninja move there. Yeah, he blocks him and knocks him back. Oh, it was such a cool move. So now Tuvok has definitely busted him.

And it seems like he's got him, he's got a phaser on him. But the doctor says, you know, I'm a hologram. Like, did you forget? I, you know, phasers not going to do anything. And then Tuvok fires at this like holograph, hologram emitter in the corner. Well, no, first of all, you got to say this. He does say this. Like a red circle or something.

Yeah. But what he does before that, though, remember, he says he tries to deactivate the EMH, right? So he says, Tuvok says, computer deactivate EMH. That's the fastest way to get the doctor out. out of there and the computers like EMH protocols are offline. And so that is basically when they have that conversation about a hologram, have you forgotten, blah, blah. And that's when he shoots the hollow emitters. But he did try to deactivate them and it didn't work. But he shoots the hollow emitters, which I've never seen. Like I was in that set a thousand times. Yeah.

And there was never any circles up in the corner. I mean, we need it. Clearly, right. Clearly, for 95% of the day, those hollow emitters are cloaked. It's like cloaking technology. I don't see them. Yeah. Right? That's it. That's my explanation.

Okay. Well, he fires at this emitter. And he says, you know, but he says, you know, but he says, if I have to, I'll disable all of the hollow emitters, Doc. Right. And that's when...

The ones we've never seen before. Yeah. That's when the doctor turns and jumps through the window to his office. He becomes Jackie Chan. in this shot where he just goes airborne. And was that his stunt double? Who did that? I don't think so.

No, I think he did it. That was Bob? Wow. I think Bob did it because he goes through the window. Then he walks through the desk. And he runs. It's just very cool. And then he runs like, kind of jump cutting.

He jumps through, grabs the mobile emitter, attaches it, and runs through. So he doesn't fritz any longer. So there you go. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Uh, Tuvok makes a quick announcement for the entire ship. all hands. Red alert security teams apprehend the doctor.

He runs out in the hallway. Tuvok's chasing him. He goes into the holodeck. Tuvok tries to go in, but the computer won't let him. So he uses a security override Tuvok Sigma 4. The doors open and Tuvok steps in and there's hundreds. Like a hundred. Yeah. At least a hundred. Emh's based doctors standing, staring at Tuvok. Oh, they all turn into him, which was so creepy, right? So they were not turned into him. The minute he turns, opens the door, they all turn.

Oh, so creepy. My first thought when they all turn and stare at them was, wow, that's a great action figure collection. That was like, it looked like a ton of action figure. It looked like a toy store or something. It was like Mary Beth's action figure collection. Yeah. Oh, my goodness.

Huvac does try to end the program, computer and program. But no, all that controls are offline. The doctor is very smart. So then Tuvok says, all right, you're going to play that chest move? Well, I'm going to say, Tuvok to engineering, shut down power. So I'm going to one up you on that one. So now we jump to engineering, but Torres says, Taurus says, Oh, he rerouted power.

It'll take a minute to bypass. That's what it is. Yeah. So then the Tuvok says, I've reconfigured my phaser to disrupt your holoometrics, surrender yourself. Right. And we see that the doctor is crawling through a job. Jeffrey's two. Yeah, he's already gone. He's not even in the holodeck. He's not even in there when suddenly back in the holodeck, all the EMHs vanished. There was a cool shot. The power goes down. He

didn't shoot the matrix, right? It was the power finally got shut down. Okay. Power got shut down. Yeah. But there was a cool shot as Tuvok's talking to Torres and, you know, trying to figure out which one is the doctor. He's walking in the middle of that sea of doctors. Yeah. And that's a hard shot to do because there's so many vis-effects layers. Yeah. And the doctor had to turn at just the right time. Oh, yeah. So when Tim did it, there was probably nobody in there, would be my guess. Exactly. But it looked great, though. It was a super cool scene. It looked very cool. Tuvok calls to the bridge, and that's when we cut to the bridge. Tom is in the captain's chair. Is this the first time? Mr. Paris. Let me say this. No, no, I'm going to say this. There was one other time, right?

this is the first time you've been sitting in the captain's chair you have been the captain before but you were standing like you are in mid conversation with the aliens you are already standing looking at the view screen you were never sitting but it wasn't sitting in the chair yes this is the first time tom paris sits his butt oh my god in the captain's chair finally he's and he's in the chair for a little while yeah because he's in the chair uh tuvac is calling for help he says can you locate the doctor's on sensors. Paris can't read him. Right. The only thing cooler than seeing you in the chair would have been seeing Mr. Marseille sitting in that chair with that full mustache. That would have made me feel even more better. That would have been cool. But yeah, Paris can't find him. He must have masked his signatures. And then Tuvok has a great idea, scanned for the polydutonic alloy in his emitter. Great idea. Great idea. Yeah. And he also says shut down all the turbo lifts and transporters. We want to try to, you know, corner this, you know, elusive doctor who's not a, you know, we have no idea where he's at. And we don't know who the doctor

looks like at this point, but then we cut to engineering. Chikote runs in. We know Chikote's in a freezer in the morgue. So we know this is Chikodok, for sure. The co-doc runs in and says, get everybody out of here. The Corps is about to breach. Balano's like, what are you talking about? I'm not detecting anything. He says, you're getting false readings. The doctor's, you know, reprogrammed all your sensors get out so she she believes that you know believes in him get out of here and and uh chikodok fake chikote says you too balana get out of here and she wants to stay he says nope you can't put your baby in danger and she does take that moment yeah to uh she says you better be right behind me you better be right behind me so yeah she starts to run she stops because

she hears paris paris torres on picking up the doctor's emitter in your section and torres I was like, what? Where? It's like right next to the warp core. And that's when I love that shot that Behar did. It was like close up, close up of both of their eyes looking at each other. The realization of Bilanathores that this is not Chikote was the best, that it was actually the doctor. And at that point, I think the doctor.

He prepares to eject the warp core. And he gives the right authorization. That's right. That's right. That's right. C.H. Omega 4.2. Oh, and he has, didn't he, he transforms into the. emergency command hologram here. So he turns into the command version that Janeway had author of.

Yes, because only Janeway or whoever's in command can give authorization to eject the core. That's our main propulsion system. You can't be anyone else but the captain. So that's, that's right. So he switches into ECH, command ECH, then ends up ejecting the core. And the whole time, Torres is protesting saying, no, because isn't she around a force field? Didn't he erect some force field around her? they put her a force field so she can't do anything can't do a thing and when he ejects the core i remember this was very cool you see inside engineering the biggest shower of sparks and stuff oh yeah it just whites out the whole warp core oh yeah i remember them talking about i remember reading this and talking to vahar about how are you going to do that like how are you going to

how are you going to eject the warp core out of the right engineering set and he said well we're going to have this big explosion and then cut outside immediately so that, you know, we start it on the inside, but we really see it happen on the outside. But you bought it. You bought it, right? I totally bought it very well. And then the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, eye shot afterwards was great too just to see it being ejected i love that then the doctor tries to get the computer to transport them to the delta flyer but the computer says transports are offline right we come back to the bridge there's paris still in the chair oh gosh i love this moment oh you look you look good

in the chair thank you i appreciate that yeah um to a paris says we've lost main power yeah uh sensors are down and Tuvok says the doctor is he knows which Jeffre's Tube he's in, send a security team. And so suddenly we see Torres coming out of the Jeffries Tube, right? The Jeffries Tube and starts running down the hall. And I am laughed out loud because Roxanne ran like the doctor. Yeah. Yes. She ran like the doctor, runs into Tuvok.

because let's let's just put this into perspective Roxanne Dawson did chorus line Roxanne Dawson has dance background She's a physicality Yeah like if she was to run her regular run She's probably Jackie Joyner-Curcy You know what I'm saying? Oh she's very athletic

And the form and everything would have been amazing So she did a doctor run which was oh brilliant She did a comedy run that made me laugh out of Oh good Not only did you do a comedy run but when she got there and Tuvok's like a lieutenant. Her delivery of these lines was so funny. I think the doctor is heading for the escape pods.

He draws his phaser. You wouldn't shoot up pregnant woman, would you? That was so Bobbacardo-esque. It was creepy and eerie at the same time and wonderful too. And then Tuvok says, you know, you need to come with me. And that's when... He's just come with me, doctor, is what he says. Yes. And that's when Tor doc, fake Torres, runs and ninjas over the wall and the ceiling and flipperoo.

Yeah. You're going to say ninja? I'm going to say this was the Matrix. This was us seeing a scene from the Matrix where, and that was clearly, that was a CGI war dock? Yes, it was CGI. Yeah. Okay. But, you know. Really good CGI though, especially for back then, but really. well done. Yeah, I agree. I agree. Very cool. Yeah, but it's definitely weird.

Like, we'd never, like, when you saw that scene, you were like, what? You must have been like, huh? Because this is so not, this is so atypical for a Voyager episode to see something happen like that. Where it's almost like we're watching X-Men or a Marvel thing or some superhero thing, right? So I felt like, wow, that's different. But I didn't have a problem with it. I'm fine with it.

So it works. It's very cool. Cool. And then she stuns Tuvok, basically flips to the, you know, disorients him enough that, and he kind of ducks down. And she gets a jump on him and stuns him. And then we cut to the bridge, Paris still in the chair, still in the chair. Yes, you're still there. You know, does that mess up my haiku now? I mean, because like my last line was you can't one up Tuvok, but she, poor doc did. She did. Yeah, she did. At the very end. So. with the Matrix moves, but Matrix always, Matrix moves always get you. Okay, so I'm fine. I'll keep it the same.

All right. So Tom's still in the chair. He says somebody's launching the flyer, calls for Tuvok, no answer. We cut out to space and we see the Delta Flyer come grab with a tractor beam, grab the warp engine and start towing it out. Wow.

Looks like he's done it. And the ejection of the warp core, by the way, that's a giant warp core. It's so much longer, it goes all the way through the body of the ship in a way that, you know, is so much bigger than just the engineering set. Yeah, yeah, it was a cool shot, for sure. We see the outside of the overlooker ship. We go inside, and NAR is working on some little gadget and gets shocked by it. And this is a nice little scene with Janeway and NAR where she helps him with his little gadget.

Yeah. She says how cool it looks. And she, you know, we come to learn he's, he's always, you know, playing around with all these little parts and stuff that he found in the waste depository. And if he can fix all this junk, he thinks, you know, people would be really into it. Jane was like, yeah, my chief engineer is always looking for, you know, extra parts and cool inventory like you've got. And then Zet comes over. Yeah. And he's like, you know, no one's ever going to buy this junk.

And don't take advantage of this idiot, basically. And he's just so. I can't stand Zet. Zet just ruins all the over, I mean, all the hippo aliens are so cool, but Zet, no. He's a jerk. He is. We go to the flyer and the doctor is flying the flyer. He's got the warp core.

And he says, I won't give it to you until he released the captain. And then Zet fires at the flyer. Oh my gosh. And the doc's like, you could blow us all up. What are you doing? Are you crazy? And Zet goes, this is not a negotiation. release the tractor beam, give me that warp core.

He does, he releases it, does. Zet then beams the warp core onto their ship, and that's when he says, look, lower your shields, we'll beam your captain to you. So the doctor does lower his shields, but instead of beaming the captain to the Delta flyer, they beam the doctor over to the overlooker ship. So now, into jail. Into jail, straight into the brig. So the doctor protests, he said that they had an agreement.

but that's what you but you had an agreement with the jerk hippo so hippo jerk is not going to be he's a liar he's a conman so he's like yeah the agreement was to spare your captain as you could see she's still alive so he's kind of minced words or just kind of changed the definition basically for to suit himself

and Janeway says just let the doctor go I'm the more valuable hostage so here Janeway is being selfless again trying to save the doctor but you know Zet's not going to have it He's going to leave them in the VINRI system, is what she says. We'll leave you in the VINRI system.

The inhabitants are mostly harmless. The doctor will be working for us now. And NAR apologizes. He feels bad. I'm sorry. I didn't know he was going to do this. And Janeway's pissed at the doctor. Yeah.

He's like, you've stranded Voyager in the Delta Quadrant and you disobeyed my orders. And the doctor says, well, you know, Voyager can survive without a warp quarter. but not without a captain. And my first thought was, really? Like, I think we could survive without a captain, actually. Like, Doc, I think we'd, if someone else would be the captain, and, you know, we'd be sad. But we could, like, I'm with Team Janeway on this.

Like, why did you give up a good court? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we would be sad. We would be. We would be. But it's just funny how you said that. But Voyager can survive without a warp core, but not with.

without a captain? No. No. You're smarter than that, dude. But Jayway says now it doesn't have either. It doesn't have a War Corps or a captain. And then we have a chief tactical officer's log. Does Tuvok ever give logs? Very rarely. Very rarely. With internal sensors offline, I've had to order a section by section search for our missing crew members until main power is restored. Lojager remains immobilized and defenseless. So he's in command now. And there's, issues. We have missing crew members. Next, we do have a scene in the morgue where Paris does find both Ticote and Kim in those little stasis. In the dark, yeah, and the lights are off

on the ship. Like we're, you know, we're low on power. Yes. We don't have main power. It's dark. Yeah, but they're alive. They're just unconscious. So now we know. There's not a, no, no dead bodies at this point. We go to a hallway now and Tuvac and Chukotay are talking about, you know, they can't find out where the flyer is, the Dr. Mass's trail. Torres calls them to engineering. She says they're ready to restart the impulse reactors. When the lights come on, all of a sudden, that blue Danube wall starts playing. Exactly. But it's, it's a little off. It's playing, but there's like something's wrong. Yeah, the first part of it is exactly the way it's supposed to be. But then all of a sudden, a couple of other notes come in off key in a very weird way.

Yeah. And that, it just keeps playing over and over again. And Chocote tries to pause of music. Computer won't. It won't comply. It just keeps playing it and keeps playing it. So then everyone starts to wonder, maybe this is. It's a message or something.

This is a message because he performed this waltz flawlessly when he did this in the recital. So why is it off? And this is, isn't this where Paris comes up with it? Yes. This is it. This is it. So we go to the briefing room. So we're in the briefing room.

It's seven. It's Harry. It's Tom, Chicoat. Everyone that's still there on the ship, you know, is, and everyone's, you know, talking about what's going on. What's happening? Kim says it could be a confrequency. Seven is like unlikely.

And Paris, of all people, says, I could be wrong, but it looks like a warp signature. Harry's like, wait a minute. Power utilization curve could be right there. Yeah, that sounds. is about right. Chocote says try scanning for it and seven finds something. So Tom Paris to the rescue. Yeah. Tom does science. Finally. Usually Tom does not do, does not do science, but he does science today. He saw that warp signature. Oh yeah. Chiquote tells Tuvac and Tom to to take a shuttle and go find them. Yeah, because it's 6.7 light years away, right? So it's, we have to take a shuttle. But I want to

say this right now, I think you did, I think you came up with the answer, because when you were sitting in that captain's chair, by osmosis, you kind of took some of Janeway's knowledge right there. Her science. Yeah. Absorbed a little science in the chair. I just need a little more time in the chair. I'll be super smart. That's it. We go out to space. We see the overlooker ship tractoring the flyer inside the ship. Janeway is playing with the doctor's mobile emitter. She's trying to amplify his matrix, disrupt the force field. And the doctor basically apologizes. He says, you know, when we get back, maybe we could try socializing a little more captain.

He's talking about he wants to spend more time, you know, with the captain, that she has meals with a commander, that she plays velocity with seven. Janeway is just not interested in talking about being best buddies. And then NAR lowers the force field, and he says, I need to upload your first assignment or scam. He's going to put him into. And he tells him he wants him to infiltrate the hierarchy's surveillance complex. Right. Like he's putting him right into a really, really hard. So the doctor turns into a hippo alien, right?

That's what he's making him into another over, to go in the hierarchy, infiltrate the hierarchy and basically get some information. crucial information as one of the hippo aliens now but guess what he starts spritzing and fritzing and everything and now all the sudden jane was like what's happening and nar doesn't know and zet's like oh my god the algorithms are breaking down because too much data he has all this data inside of him and nar was the one that says like like i told you i told you zet he couldn't handle that much data and now he's again still flickering flickering dock is flickering we think he might die. Yeah, he might decompile right there.

We cut out to space. After the act out, we come back. We're out in space. We're in another shuttle. Yeah, another shuttlecraft. There's Tom and Tuvok, and they detect human life signs. And a holographic signature. Yeah, so they've detected the captain and the doctor.

Back on the overlooker's ship, Janeway wants to get the doctor back to Voyager before he's completely destroyed. And even NAR is saying, like, you know, he's not going to be any use to us if he decompiles. We go over to the flyer and Tom beams into the flyer and starts up the power. And NAR back on, so this is a lot of intercutting here, back on the overlooker's ship. They detect someone's on the Delta Flyer. He says, you know, fire both these vessels. The Delta Flyers moving away.

The shuttle with Tuvok's moving away. Tuvok says now they both start attacking the overlooker's ship. The doctor is with, you know, who looks like an alien now, is behind the force field with Janeway. They're not able to, they're not able to defend themselves against these two shuttles firing at them. So they're going to jettison the warp core that they just stole from us. Right. Blow it up with a torpedo and that'll give them time to escape. But NAR's like, that's going to kill them, though, right?

So he doesn't, he, Zed has no. conscience. He doesn't care, but NAR is the voice of reason. But at that moment, because of this sort of melee that's happening between all the ships, the force field covering the brig ends up fritzing out. And Janeway and EMH alien, doctor, whatever, they end up escaping. And so that's when Janeway makes a run for a control panel and starts hitting a bunch of buttons. and czar fires and then the doctor alien disarms him and then we cut back out to space we see the warp core materializing in space two vok says lock a tractor beam let's get it back to voyager right paris acknowledges um back inside the overlooker ship there's more action uh explosions janeway's

knocked out she's on the ground uh more more struggling and fighting between uh doc alien and zet back and forth Zet is now, now yelling at NAR to get this hologram off of me. NAR now picks up that one piece that Jainway helped him fix, that one piece of equipment, whatever. And you think that, oh, uh-oh, this is going to be, this is going to be it for the doctor, but he ends up hitting Zet with it, knocking Zet out. I'm not sure if he did he cheered. I cheered in that moment. Did he kill that?

No, he just knocked him out from behind. Okay. And then he even says, after he knocks him out, he goes, well, I guess this wasn't so useless after all. It's so funny. Helps Janeway up. He says, are you still interested in acquiring my inventory? Yeah, he wants to sell it. Sweet, not very smart.

No. And that look, Janeway gave good face in response to that question. It was really, with the messy hair and everything, I liked it. We go back to Voyager. We're on the holodeck. It seems like the shuttles have brought the Warp Corps back. The Janeway's back. the doctor's there in the holodeck but he's fritzing he's just he's decompiling janeway's trying to stabilize

the matrix um there's thousands of terraquads of data harry and tom come in yeah and um it's just excessive yeah there's excessive uh extraneous subroutines that are in his program right that needs to be expunged so the whole gang's there we're all here watching him freak out about being decompiled and then all it all comes out. Everything that he's guilty about. This is basically a deathbed confession. He's going to confess to everything. A standing deathbed confession. Yes, it is. Go ahead. It's a great comic premise, this whole thing. This idea that he thinks he's going to die. So he spills the beans and then really regrets it. But he's some of the beans he spills. First, he says, I've basically kept a personal journal and I hope you'll delete that journal. Don't read it, please. That made me

laugh. Oh, that's a DeJane way, about all the, all the command moves that she did that he questioned in the early years, right? Which is very funny. He says, Mr. Tuvok, I told Neelix about that cutaneous eruption you've developed on your, and he doesn't finish the sentence. Oh, my God. You know, that was indiscreet. I hope you could forgive me. I laughed. So he's embarrassed about something with Tuvok. And then he grabs me. He says, I told Torres about your sac, that your saxophone playing reminded me of a wounded targ. I should have been more delicate. So I put it more delicately.

I am so sorry. He made me laugh. He throws me aside. He just, after he says what he says to me, he's like, I should have been more kind. He just throws me aside. I almost fall over a little bit. And he heads right to seven. So.

And then seven's like, no, you should remain still. Please don't say anymore. But he's, he basically goes down on his knees and expresses his, his love for seven yes he he says i love you seven you know i know you've never had have feelings for me but i want you to know the truth i love you seven and seven says your cognitive algorithms are malfunctioning did you look at raxan's eyes when he said i love you seven they're the best well raxan and also tom and janeway where i think we're in a shot and tom looked Janeway turned back to Tom.

Tom's like, whoa. You guys did that? You shared that look. Yeah, it was funny. We had good face. She and I both. And then he says a big dramatic goodbye, speak well of me. Goodbye, my friends.

And his hand is held up just like an action figure. And he's like, speak well of me and he disappears. And I love when Janeway goes, is he? And Torres like, oh, the way she said that line, Roxanne was awesome. She's like, no, I've got him. And it's sort of like, let's bring him back. And he's like, what, what happened? Oh, oh, my God.

She deleted the extraneous subroutines. He's totally fine. He's not going to decompile. Chainway hands him back to the mobile emitter. And Paris ends the scene by saying, anything else you'd like to confess, Doc? Which is wonderful. Oh, my God. Very funny.

Funny scene. My favorite scene in the whole episode. Beautiful. Very funny. We have a captain's log that Torres has restored the warp drive. and the doctor's dignity, however, is going to take a little while. And she also says in the log that he has not left Sick Bay since he returned to the ship. And we go inside Sick Bay into the medical lab and we see Janeway come in.

And there's like a shadow of him hiding back in the corner in the dark. That's awesome. You see his shadow and she starts to talk to him. But he's like talking from around the corner. He won't even come out. Basically, Janeway says, look, you know, I can. came to punish you. I didn't, I didn't come here to make you grovel. I came here to punish you for your insubordination. And she, and she says, I'm going to deny you the use of your mobile

emitter for six days. But since you haven't left Sick Bay for a week, we'll call it time served. So it's, you know, it's a nice punishment. But I just want to draw attention to the fact that when we see his shadow and he sees the captain, he says, he has the first line in the scene. He says, he goes captain do you do you need man he paused like he's so me he stuttered he never stutters you know that's the whole thing when doc when rock when robert ricardo has been on our podcast he talks about he says this all the time he's like guys as the doctor i could never stutter or i could never pause i had to know my stuff my lines inside and backwards and forwards because they had to come out without any pregnant pause right but he's a computer but he's so

ashamed as you know he's so ashamed by what he did the deathbed confession that he's stuttering he's unsure and meek and i just love that i really do yeah it was amazing she basically gives him time served and then says hey you know i was going to go for a cup of coffee on the holodeck and i know the sidewalk cafe in buenos arians you said you wanted to socialize more i just went oh that's what he kept asking about yeah but you does say when you're on the holodeck with the captain two rules you have to follow. Number one, leave your rank at the door. Number two, no opera. So we end with a little LOL at the very end of this episode. And the doctor does say, you know, after he gets the invitation, he's like, well, you know, I suppose Mr. Paris can finish this. And my first thought was,

Paris is still a nurse? Still? He was in the captain's chair for God's sakes this episode. How can he still be the nurse but i guess i'm going to clean up the doctors you know left over work i guess i'm back in nursing you know you're a jack of all trades that's what you're turning into just go with that i guess my gosh no opera okay so what's your lesson from this overall you might have more than one lesson do you i just i the only lesson i mean it was a lot of fun this episode yeah my my biggest lesson is that overconfidence can have some very bad consequences. Oh. Like the doctor was really confident that he could disobey Janeway's orders, that he could

somehow save the day and do all of this. And his overconfidence led to some very, very bad consequences. So that's my lesson. What about you? Okay. Mine's going to be a little bit more abstract. I'm going to say, one must learn to love themselves before they can truly love other. Okay. That comes from, I'll tell you, just in the beginning in terms of him wanting so badly to be an organic, but then realizing, no, I'm fine as a hologram. In fact, I'm probably superior as a hologram. So really, that's kind of where it started. It germinated from that. So you got to be comfortable in your own skin. Yeah, totally. Well, my rating, yeah, I'm going to go, I'm going to say, I'm going to go 8.5. I'm going to pretty high on this one. Wow.

That is high. It was fun. You know why? Because it was a difficult, it's a very difficult episode to film, period. Just all the complexities and the different layers that are going on. So I think, number one, it's tough for someone to direct this. And it's also tough for people to keep in mind what's going. Who's who? Yes. And everyone did such a great job on this doing bits of the doctor, you know? I just, anyway, I'm going to say 8.5. Nice. Okay. I am not going to go as high as you because I did really enjoy this episode. I'm going to give this a 7.7. Really? Okay. Yeah.

I mean, your whole scene where you kissed a tour doc? Oh, my gosh. How can you not read an 8. There's some awesome scenes in here. Okay. Okay. The, here we go.

Yeah. The captains and admirals average rating for renaissance man is lay it on me lay it on me seven point six oh you were right there wow seven point seven seven point six wow that you like this more than the average fan the average i did i really did yeah and that's just because of just how well of a job uh roxan and and kate did giving the essence of Bob Ricardo. Yeah, exactly. And Bob having to do all that stunt where he jumped through the wind.

I mean, there's a lot of elements in here, which were very admirable and very impressive. So I'm going to give it that higher rating because of that. Yeah, that's good. All right. Well, guess what? Next week, we're going to be... Next week, we start our two-parter finale. Robbie, in the words of Bill Paxton, may he rest in peace.

the movie aliens game over man game over next week we review end game part one and then there's one more episode part two of end game and we are done with our voyager recap and discussion can't believe it oh my gosh it's insanity yeah may of 2020 until now wow we have uploaded we haven't missed a week either no it's been difficult it has been difficult between the two of us scheduling let's face that let's let's be honest with you directing with me flying it's been difficult but we've managed to do that we have accomplished something that has really well it's definitely never been done before by two other voyager actors we are the voyager actors that have done this so um we have it's been it's been a fun ride it's been a great ride and we've etched a place in history in a way

another for this yeah you know for this podcast really yeah absolutely yeah i can't believe it is flown by let's uh let's just enjoy this last episode i'm i'm excited to get into it and i can't believe it's here but um thanks everybody for listening along and you're taking the ride with us and and patreon patrons for this episode we're almost there for patreon patrons please stay tuned for your bonus material for renaissance man Thank you.