The Delta Flyers - Rise

Episode Date: June 28, 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 Rise. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars. This week they are joined by Ethan Phillips and Tim Russ for a short interview about their thoughts and experiences while filming Rise.Rise:When a Nezu planet is hit by asteroids, Voyager intervenes by sending Tuvok and Neelix to help with the rescue mission.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.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, Lucas Shuck, PJ Tomas, Nicholaus Russell, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Ariana, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, and Shambhavi KadamAnd 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, Elaine Ferguson, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Heidi Mclellan, John Espinosa, 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, Ming Xie, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Heather Choe, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Justin Weir, Simon Inman, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Peter Lucas, Michelle Maroney, Rickard Fahlander, Meg Johnson, Victor Ling, and Scott J. MarkThank 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. I'm your host, Giro Wong, and of course, my co-host, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil. Well, hello there. Hey, man. Hello, sir. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello. I'm okay. I'm wearing, as you can see. Oh, nice. For those of you listening. I have a new Delta Flyer shirt on. Very, very bright and poppy. It's white, which is, you know, I'm, I'm not a big fan of white shirts, but we'll see. But it looks good. Yeah, I think it looks good. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. Yeah. I'm wearing my Wander North Georgia hat. It's a little company out of North Georgia in Georgia where I lived. They make sort of outdoorsy things. And this is sort of a hat in the style of the National Park Service. It's got like orange and but anyway, I love it. It's very cool though. I like

it. You also, you love it also because it's orange. And that's something that I've discovered from this doing this podcast with you is that that's one of your favorite colors. Orange is. And I never, I never knew that. Like the entire time that we were working on Voyager, never once did you say, hey man, or if you were saying it, you'd be like, hey man, I love orange. And no, you never said that. I don't know when I discovered that orange is one of my favorite colors, but it is all my glasses cases are orange, my cell phone. Here we go.

I'm holding that up. Orange case. You should have been on orange as the new black with Kate. I should have been. I really should have been. Yeah. Oh my gosh. We should make an orange Delta Flyer shirt or hat or something.

Or hat. We could do a hat. But no, you know, no, I'll tell you what. an orange shirt why not why not right in reference to you and how much you love it to honor your you know your favorite color why we should do an orange shirt at some point that's a good that's i never thought of it but here we go this is what happens on the delta flyers we just uh we just come up with these amazing ideas and before you know it there'll be an orange shirt so this week's episode is rise

rise yes or I could say grise I could spell it the French way we didn't have any fancy well we had vis-a-vis that was sort of a vis-a-vis yeah and that was a I'm trying to think of of titles that weren't like English words or something yeah rise I am very excited about this because I know we've talked to Ethan Phillips

and to Tim Russ and whenever we've mentioned And, you know, these recaps, this is one episode they both have said is one of their favorites. So I'm excited to review this one. This is going to be a lot of fun. Okay. Let's go watch this episode, okay? Let's go watch Rise. I'm very excited.

Me too. I'm excited because Tim and Ethan are excited. So let's go do it. Excellent. All right. Patreon, Patreon, stay tuned for your bonus material. Hey, guys, we're back from watching. Rise. Yes. We're now settling down. We rose with me. We rose and now we're coming back down to Earth

to talk about our journey. Yeah. All right. Okay. So before we start with our cap, let's do our poetry synopsis. Okay. Yeah. So tell us, what is your haiku for Rise? Here we go. Let me into the haiku. This was a, I'm pretty proud of this. I think this captures, the whole episode really the heart of the episode. So here we go with my haiku. Because that's what poetry does. It really distills to the essence. Here we go. Yeah.

For the episode of Star Trek Voyager Rise, our haiku synopsis. Neelix wants to help. Tuvok has no faith in him. Together, they win. Oh, yeah. That's a good one.

I like it. I feel pretty, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, that was, that was, it's like clean, it gets it. Yeah, I feel pretty good about it. That was clean and crisp. Yes. You know, if you're, if you're able to give an adjective, I'm going to, that's not an adjective you would typically use. Crisp is how that one came. Yes. Well, limericks are much more complex. So, they are. Let's get ready for your complicated limerick. Okay, here we go. Neelix assigned to Tuvok's rescue mission. Crash leaves all in a dire situation. Carrey. flies, Vedum dies, Vulcan logic loses to intuition. There you go. Nice, very nice. Thank you. You're getting better and better and better at this. I took a lot of time, more time than people will actually know. I mean, this is, this is, this is, I would have to say that the time it takes me to recap or watch an episode, it's longer for me to come up with a Limerick that it is for me to actually watch the whole episode.

Yes, yes, that's all I'm going to say. You're almost done. You're almost 13 and then I will jump back to the wacky lemurks. Thank you, thank you. I'm not afraid. Thank you so much. Let's talk about this. Yeah, story by Jimmy Diggs.

Teleplayed by Brannan, Braga, and directed by Robert Scherer, who I, sorry, I don't remember him at all. This is bad. What does he look like? You know what's funny that you say that? I don't really remember him either. I remember the name. I remember that he was involved in Star Trek. I bet I think he directed, you know,

maybe between all the different Star Trek's, a dozen or more episodes. I mean, he directed a bunch of them, but yet I don't really remember him. I got to be honest. I'm typing his name into the... Try to find a photo or something. Yeah, I see an image of this guy.

Definitely, because it really bothers me that, wait, is this ringing a bell? a little bit yes a little bit like the one in the sitting in the director's chair or the one in the blue that photo in the blue yeah looks a little closer to what i remember but honestly i i don't remember him very well i think he was a bit of an old-timer director meaning he had you know been doing this for decades yeah was nearing probably the later years of his his directing career i don't remember Bob Shearer at all, but I remember the name. Let's just say he was also an actor.

So December 28th, 1929 was when he was born in Santa Barbara, California. Wow. And he passed away March 3rd, 2018. So this is a few years ago that Mr. Shearer passed away. And I'm so sorry to his memory that I cannot recall anything about him directing us. Or even how he, if I don't even think I had any interactions. of directors come through though we really had a lot of directors and yeah and if you know he was kind of a quiet personality I bet maybe just you know maybe I know but I feel the same way

come on we should we should be better than that well we should be better right yeah okay yeah um Jimmy diggs anything to say about Jimmy digs um no just that you know over the years Jimmy has always been uh someone who I've seen like he'll he'll show up at different conventions that I've been at. Yeah. And he'll just say, hey, Garrett, Jimmy Diggs here. And he's, you know, one of those people who have sold stories to Star Trek, you know, over and over again. I bet a lot of fans have met him then. If he goes to conventions and he was there and participates, that he's probably met a lot of fans and told a lot of great stories. Right. Didn't we talk about the Samantha Wildman connection? Like it was someone who had a liver transplant or something along those lines

that he was the one that came up with that name, I think. I think it was a real life person. Right. Yeah, he's made a lot of contributions. I've never met Jimmy that I can recall. Okay. And then so he would sell the story. He'd pitch the story to the producers.

And Star Trek was one of the last places where outside people would pitch, we've talked about this a little, would pitch stories. And if they like the story idea, then they would pay them money. They'd buy it from them. And then they would go write it with the writers on staff. So that's why Brandon wrote this script. Yeah, and that pitch can be very short and succinct, or it could be more detailed, right?

I mean, it's an outline of what he believes the story to be. And then, of course, Brandon is the one who writes all the dialogue or puts into the dialogue and the setting and everything, the teleplay. All right, so we open up the very first scene on a view, a view screen image of a lone asteroid, tumbling and hurtling toward a random Very dramatic asteroid headed towards and a very dramatic shot by Bob Sherer, the director. It starts on Paris and kind of pans over towards Tuvok and then we see some alien visitors on our bridge. And then the captain stands up and she walks towards the view screen, this dramatic asteroid shot.

And then she suddenly looks very, very thoughtfully at the screen and says, okay, fire or something. I don't remember exactly what she said. But here's what I remember. Do it, something like that. But when she says that, it's very dramatic. And then we cut outside and Voyager fires a photon torpedo or something and blows this thing up and it breaks into pieces. And then we hear, uh-oh, all of these fragments, instead of disappearing and, you know, incinerating there.

Vaporized. That's the word you're looking for. That's the word of vaporizing. It actually breaks into chunks. And now there's a bunch of chunks heading toward the planet. And that's not cool. No. We don't want chunky funky right now.

That's what's happening. We don't want that stuff flying. I got to say, I got to say Janeway, you know, in her instinctual. And maybe this is part of the theme. We'll get to that. But, you know, there's no science. It's not like she says, you know, at certain coordinates fire this thing.

We haven't really thought through the science of blowing this thing up. We're just going to kind of blow it up when we feel it. Like she's literally just kind of walking and looking and then okay. Like if we had blown it up a long time before, these fragments wouldn't be crashing on the planet and potentially killing thousands of people. So again, Janeway's like going with her gut. I'm just going to walk up. I'm going to look.

I'm going to feel it right about now. That like out of the gate, I was like, not again. Janeway, you're going with like your gut instead of going, let's figure out the telemetry, let's figure out the mass and the weight and all of this. Let's know what we're doing before we do it. It's just like, nope, let's dive right in and blow this thing up. Right. That was.

I like your theory. I like your theory. Okay, well, what, you know, what bugged me or it didn't bug me, but it pulled me out a little bit is the establishment of the aliens, you know, the first time that we see these two aliens. And I'm just looking at them. One is the ambassador and the other is, we later find out he's an exogeologist is who he is. So, you know, two people in civil service, basically. And I'm looking at them and I'm like, huh, first of all, we don't even know who they are. There's no mention of their name until later, 10 minutes left in the episode, Janeway says, this space belongs to the Nizu. So now we know

they're called the Nizu, but we don't learn that to the end. We don't know that for most of the episode. No, but what pulls me out every time I look at any actor playing a Nizu is that what I call a skin goatee. So it looks like a goatee on their chin, but it's made of skin, their skin. And it's kind of like I'm looking at some type of lizard almost, you know, how it has like a lizard can have a little bit of a chin there. I didn't love this makeup.

And I love Mike Westmore. He's a genius. and the whole department's their geniuses. This one I didn't love. It felt a bit derivative. It felt like, I don't know, it just felt, I don't know. So it pulled you out as well a little bit. It did.

The makeup pulled me out a little, the fact that we didn't know who these people were. But we see them there, and then, you know, we realized that this, these fragments landed in the desert, we find out. Thank God, the remote desert region, right? Remote, yes, the western deserts or something. and it's created this giant dust cloud and contaminated debris. We also realize that there's another asteroid heading in

and this one is headed to the coastal region where there's 5,000 citizens in the city near that path and that there are a dozen more asteroids heading this way. This is a huge natural disaster. Six hours, six hours until the next asteroid is going to appear. And then they get a sudden communication from planet. It's very broken up. It's the static-y kind of message. And I think his name was Dr. Vartram. Vartum. It's VATM. V-A-D-I-M. But I think if you look at scripts of Voyager online, it's spelled

VATM. So there's not even a consonant between the last two. Yeah, Dr. Vatim. I couldn't quite understand because it was a broken-up message. I got to tell you, man. Yes, there's a lot. Same for me. This entire episode was me rewinding going, what was that guy's name again? What did he just say it was again? And we'll get to that point when we talk about the other people. So Dr. Vadim's message, she's the most prominent astrophysicist. He says the asteroids are not what they seem. They are composed of some type of artificial materials. Yes. And then the transmission is lost. So we kind of get part of this thing. They can't find the location of this signal because there's too much interference. So Janeway decides to send out three shuttle rescue

teams. He's like, let's get this going. And Chikote tells Balana, he calls to Balana on the com and says, beam aboard some samples of that asteroid so that we can analyze it and see what's going on, why this thing didn't vaporize. Correct. I have a question for you. Before she beams, before they beam over the fragments, before she sends the rescue teams, there is some concern by the ambassador that Janeway may not be able to help any further. And so she says, in for a penny in for a pound and she says it's a human expression i'm just going to ask you is this an expression you grew up with oh yeah i've heard this really okay i've never heard i mean it probably goes back like england old england or something i suppose yeah you know a pound is like

uh is money correct in england so i don't think it has to do with weight i think it's in for in for a penny in for a dollar like whatever understood i'm going i'm going all in Yeah, but I, yeah, I've just, I've never really, I've never really heard anyone use that in America. I've heard it. But you have heard it, heard it, heard it, it's official. Okay, we go, so by the way, Janeway has got a hairdo that's like kind of half bun of steel and half, you know, party in the back. So it doesn't know what it wants to do, basically. It doesn't know what it wants to do.

I think it's a flattering, you know, it's flattering. It's not as formal as some of her hairdos, but I was like, oh, my God, here's another hairdo. So is that her version of a mullet? So she's business up front and then party in the back? Party in the back. It was a bit of, it was a bit of a mullet, Janeway mullet, I think, yeah. Yeah, so we go to Sick Bay and Nelix is rushing in, and he is high as a guy. He's like so excited.

He is talking so fast. Yeah. Super excited to go on this mission. Nervous is what I'm going to say. He's nervous. And nervous to be teamed with Tuvok, he says. Yeah. And I love.

And by the way, he's in there with Kess and the doctor. And it was just odd to me that, like, we're on Kess's back. I don't think we ever saw her face. She offers to get him, you know, some medical suppliers or something. And she leaves. And there's just no, you know, for the love story of Neelix and Kess that was. Yes. It was an odd.

interaction because it was nothing intimate or personal or like Kess knew him. She didn't hold his hand and say she didn't acknowledge the fact that he was acting. Yes. Crazy. She just said, I can get you this thing and all she goes. It was an odd exchange, I thought, with Kess and Nelix there. I agree, but it's it goes and it's both ways. It's not just how Kess reacts to Nelix, but it's how Neelix is showing how he is around her, which he doesn't show anything that he had any type of relationship with her in the past. And same with her. So it's almost as if both sides had no recollection of their prior relationship. No, there was nothing in this. There was no lines to address that. No, it may not be the focus or the time in place for it, but it just it threw me a bit.

Of course. It just would have been nice if they tracked it a little bit. Just It doesn't have to be a big moment, but just a hand touch or anything like that where there is a little bit of sensitivity and sort of like, hey, you used to be the love of my life and I still care about you. Kind of emotion. It could have been nonverbal and that would have been fine, but they didn't track it. It could have been even looks, but there was no coverage. There were no shots of Cass to look at him and to play that moment. Right. And also, this is Shearer's first time directing us. I don't remember his name on the director list until this point, right? Yeah, I think this may be the first one. If this is his first time, I'm sure nobody debriefed him. Oh, by the way, these two characters broke up. He wouldn't have known that. So he wouldn't have known. It's not on him, I don't think.

All right, so let's move on. I love the doctor's line, by the way. He says, may I suggest a tranquilizer? Nielix is so wound up and nervous. Yeah. And he says he's nervous to be team with Tuvok, that he doesn't seem to ever be able to do anything right. Right.

And the doctor just says, look, just relax. You're not even, you don't have to do anything because you're just there as an observer. Oh yeah. You don't, you don't need to, you know, do anything right or wrong. Just watch. You're in training, basically. Can I just tell you where my mind was going when I was watching the scene between those two? Yeah. I immediately thought about the fact that both of them auditioned for the other person's role. No, Bob Picardo initially auditioned for Neelix and Neelix auditioned for the doctor. And I was just imagining how these two actors would have played this scene if the roles were reversed and it was Bob Picardo coming in as Neelix all frantic and then you know we have Ethan Phillips the doctor the shorter

in stature doctor looking up to the frantic you know lanky taller neelix right and then the way that Bob would have played that would have been a very interesting take on that for sure so we cut to the shuttle ride Tuvac is piloting the shuttle and our alien visitor which will learn later is Sclar. This is the, here we go. First when he said Mr. Neelix is in the shuttle and he turns to him and he says, I thought he said, Mr. Spock.

I go, Mr. Spock, what? And then I rewind it. I guess Mr. Scrog is what I heard. But then I looked at the script and it's Mr. Sclar. It's S-K-L-A-R. Just this whole episode is, what was the name again? It's just no one pronouncing anything clearly.

Yeah. And there were a lot of guests. roles in this. A lot of guys. And it's almost like, you know, in this scene, the issues with the shuttle happened because they're entering a layer of electrodynamic turbulence. There's all types of interference and stuff going on. And I almost feel like that's what's going on for this entire time that someone says any name. There's interference and turbulence from us hearing what that name is. Hearing anybody's name. Correct. Yeah, or not. Okay. Tuvac says as as they hit some really rough turbulence.

And by the way, there was one moment where the camera kind of tilted, you know, Dutch sideways and turned sideways to suggest the shuttle is really descending out of control. And I loved how they both sort of leaned against the wall. And they were all playing that action there because the shuttles are just sets that sit flat. So all the shaking, all the leaning, all of that the actors have to do. And I thought they did a great job in that moment. There's some other moments later on where I had some issue with the environment. Yes.

Can you take a quick second to explain to our viewers what you mean by Dutch, the word Dutch? Yeah, there's a type of shot where you take the frame and instead of keeping the horizon level, you twist it sideways so that it's a kind of framing used often in horror films. I don't know why it's called Dutch probably has to do with some old European filmmaking maybe the Dutch filmmakers 100 years ago started shooting this way but it just adds a dynamic kind of angle to the horizon

so the camera will turn with 45 degrees sideways is it always a 45 degree or can you do a less of a Dutch can you do a 30% Dutch? Yeah you could do a slight Dutch or you could go go as dramatic as you a 90 degree so a 90 degree would that probably be dutch that'd probably be like yeah that'd be a little far it's too far okay let's continue i just want you to explain that to people yeah so on the um the bridge we go back to the bridge and they realize that this shuttle is uh is

you know having trouble and they feel like that we may have a team down chakote says and harry's trying to reach them. He said, I can't reach them. There's too much interference. By the way, this is the first time we see Harry in focus. Oh, yeah. In the very first, yeah, it's because the first bridge scene, you have Chikote talking about what's going on. And it just shows him in the foreground and Kim's in the background. Yeah. Out of focus speaking. And they never rack focus over to Kim. Well, I got to say with Tom Paris, just to talk about our characters for a minute. I think I was in the opening shot at the top of it. And then I think that may be it because Paris is supposedly on one of these shuttle

rescue missions, yes. Rescue mission. And so we only hear him later on calling in from the shuttle. We don't even cut to him. You don't even see. Nah, we saw him in that first scene and that's about it. That's good enough. I don't remember if we see him at the end. I don't feel so bad now. Thank you for shit. Yeah, it's just your audio. Barely there.

They didn't even cut to you inside the shuttle. Nope, just a phone call. Okay. All right. So they, Harry can't reach him. We go to engineering and they have some asteroid debris. And I have a question for you. I took a photo of this.

Whoa, where is it? There it is. Who is that? What is his name that's standing behind Roxanne? Do you remember that extra? He was on our show all the time. But I was like, what is his name? Oh, man, I can't remember his name.

Somebody out there if you're, you know, those that have the video of There's some homework for you Because I can't remember But he was always around Yeah, he was He was We really got to know those guys On a pretty

You know, good basis Except I can't remember his name I'm surprised I can't remember his name Because he was there for years And yeah, it's funny Some of them were more talkative than others You know Some of our stand-ins obviously

That stood in for our characters When they were writing But our show's unique though In that because we're stuck In the Delta Quadrant We have the same set of crew, and it's the same set of background actors. We use the same people over and over again, whereas a lot of shows, you know, background or just, it changes every week.

You know, there's never the same background person. So, yes, it's so bad. I can't remember that guy's name. I can go back now. All right. So they do have the asteroid fragment, so we know that that's on board. They've gotten it. And we go back to the shuttle and it is dark.

And we see Tuvok sort of waking up. Yeah, they've crashed already, right? So they've crashed. crashed and he wakes up and we hear some banging on the you know we don't know what it is banging and banging yes and we go we see him get up and goes back to hit the open the hatch and the big loading door starts to go down and I thought that was a super cool moment like to feel this dark shuttle sort of get opened up you're inside that experience of being in a crash car crash shuttle or whatever yeah and it's black and it's smoky and then all of a sudden

that back door open and you just saw this bright planet lights and the rocks. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I just thought that was kind of cool. So the door opens and guess what? It's Dr. Vatim. We don't even need to find him. He's there and he's there. And he's there. And he says, by the way, he goes, I heard what sounded like a ship crashing. Yeah. So we came, I was like, wait a minute, what? Right. Yeah. What does a ship crashing sound like, how does in the middle of asteroids crashing on your planet and you know hazardous dust clouds everywhere and a natural disaster yeah how did you kind of go oh that sounds like a ship crashing nearby it was bizarre I don't know he should is that I saw the shuttle crash right because you

can see a shuttle if you're looking up but just said I saw saw it or he just didn't don't know he said he said he heard he said he heard and he goes in the same thing yeah happened to the other guy. He heard it too. You could say any of that, but I don't think he needed to. No. No. The door and we're here. No. Right. So the other guy's name is Han Juan, which to me is very Korean sounding. Han Juan. Yeah. So Han Juan is the minor. So he's a minor at a nearby Galasite excavation. He's the muscle man. He's the heavy. All right. So Tuvok basically commands Neelix to go outside and inspect the teroidal antenna to see if any of the signal relays were damaged. Yes. By the way, before Neelix goes out, before Tuvac says, do this, they ask about the

asteroid and he refuses. Oh, that's right. Yes. Vatim. Vatim. Vatim says, that's classified. I can't talk about it. Right. Sklar is the one who asks him that. He's like, tell us what happened. What do you know about the asteroids? He's like, mm's the word, right? Yeah, which is a little weird. And Tuvok commands Neelix to go outside and inspect the toroid O antenna to see if any of the signal relays were damaged. And then Neelix tries to show Tuvok that he is capable, that he is worthy. And he says, oh, that's fine. If they're damaged, I'll just repair them. And Tuvok says, no, no, no, no, just give me the damage report. Yeah. But Neelix is, you know, still trying to convince him. He says, look, I've been studying with Bolana. I know, I can do this. And Tuvok puts his foot down. He's, she's like,

nope, you can't. You don't have that capability. I don't trust you. So Neelix goes out, kind of, kind of bummed out, you know, that he kind of got dismissed. We have that quick, funny comedic moment where Tuvok says, Mr. Nelex, and he's like, and I'm going right now. So he heads outside, right? And he's using his tricorder and he's trying to figure out what's going on. And then he notices, there's an tether. There's an orbital tether.

Yeah, anchored nearby. That's leaving the planet's surface. Right. And going up into the atmosphere. Yeah. So he runs in. Yeah, it runs back in. Yep.

And he explains what he saw. And he says, you know, this is like Maglev technology, which is actually a thing. You know, this is real science. And I think there has been, you know, NASA studies and things about trying to create something like that with satellites or orbital stations around Earth. So this is a cool, I mean, kind of based on real. Yeah. I mean, if you look at that, well, the technology that we have now, is we have very high speed type of bullet trains

that rest on maglev type technology now as we speak, right? So if we have that going horizontally, why can't we engineer it so it goes vertically, right? It should be able to do that if you have enough. In theory, right? I think it's really interesting, even though it's kind of, at times in this episode I found it to be, feel a little goofy for, you know, and the limitations of vis effects and step building and things like that. But I was fascinated by this idea. I think it's a really cool idea in reality that we could, instead of wasting, you know, tons of fossil fuels

for, you know, rocket fuel to, you know, propel us up through the atmosphere. Why not create something that's much more efficient and you could get things out of, off of planet Earth and out to outer space? Free of gravity and you're good to go. once you're past it. Yeah, that's true. So Neelick sees this as a way out, right? And Dr. Vatim corroborates the fact that, yes, this is an orbital tether. We use it to lift cargo from the surface to our orbital supply stations using magnetic leverage to lift the carriage. And then, you know, then we find out that this tether is over 300 kilometers long. That's over two-thirds of the way between L.A. and Las Vegas, basically. And if you imagine how high that is going up,

That's crazy, and it'll take forever. But then Neelix says, look, we don't even need to go to the end of it. We just need to get above the ionosphere. We need to get above the interference that's kind of just blocking us from contacting Voyager, right? And then we can contact him and they'll beam us out. That's all we got to do. Vatim says the carriage was damaged on the last impact from the asteroids. The induction coils are offline.

The Nelix, you know, using his brain, discovers a suggestion or solution. He says, look, we can replace the coils with attitude control thrusters from the shuttle. I mean, it'll take some reworking, but I think I can do this. And Neelix says he spent two years on a tether maintenance team on Rinax, and the principles are the same. And Tuvok says, well, you know, the best chances of us being detected by Voyager or another rescue team is to just remain here, not going to a tether and whatever. And Neelix, again, please to Tuvok, listen, I've rebuilt a dozen Maglif.

carriages. I have the experience. If I can't get it to work, then we can come back and wait for the others. And so Tuvac agrees. But again, this very insistent on. Yes. And Neelix is very insistent on I've done this before. I know all about this. And that's going to be important later on. Right. Right. Yeah. So Tuvac reluctantly agrees to Neelix's plan. And, you know, that enthusiasm we saw in sickbay and his excitement to get out there and not just be an observer, but start putting together some of these things he's learned from Balana and, and all of his Starfleak training, he's excited to put it to you. So he talks Tuvok into it.

And yeah. And the next thing we see is this dark sort of station. It's the base station for this. The tether. The tether base station. And they come in and Tuvok gets the lights going, gets the power running again. And I love this set, the base station part, because they had that big magnetic ball. in the center with the lights on it

and stuff. I just thought that was a cool design. It just looked really cool. It looked like at a planetarium or something like you would see with the, you know, projectors and things. I thought that was very cool. So they get the lights on and they're in this tethered base station

and suddenly a woman appears will learn that her name is Lilius and she grabs Nelex and sticks a knife up to his throat. By the way, that looked like a clingon. knife that we recycled that she was holding like really can we make a different shape I'm sure I would put money on the fact that that was used as a cling on weapon at some point yeah because it has because it kind of has a bit of a blood groove going on there it has a two two blades and

I thought hey this is kind of cling on ask and what a fancy knife for this random nizu alien to have on her person right it's like oh okay I also I also thought that that you know cling on adjacent knife um was oddly in the hands of someone who looks kind of like balana in some weird ways like she had kind of the brown hair i i saw later on oh yeah but the way that the makeup on the forehead like just something about her her aesthetic yeah was kind of balana ask, and then to have a cling on knife in her hand, I was just like, I wish they had distinguished her look a little more from looking similar to Balana. That was one of my first thoughts. Okay. Got you. So Neelix at Knife Point is explaining to her along with Tuvok and everybody else.

Hey, hey, hey, we're not trying to, you know, butt in on your space here. I know you've claimed this area, Yeah, but we're trying to save basically our lives and yours, too, and we're trying to get this thing to work, you know? And Neelix finally convinces her that she doesn't need to. Well, yeah, she keeps saying, well, you can't do it because the oxygen regenerator is broken, and he's got a solution for that. And she says another problem, and he's got a solution for that. Yeah.

And he really, you know, please with her and gains her. I think he is the one that gains her trust. And she finally, because she's like, everything's broken. It's not going to work. Right. He's got all the fixes. Right. And he pulls her in.

The lovely moment at the end, he pulls her in. He goes, like, look, you know, what do you, you know, you must know a lot about, you know, these carriages. And she goes, well, not really. I'm in, I'm a foundry worker. And he's like, well, that's great, you know, because we need someone with metallurgical knowledge. So he takes lemons and he makes lemonade. I like that a lot. It was a part of me at that point where I was like, oh, God, is he going to have a romance story? I couldn't remember. And then... Right. Well, you're saying it didn't happen, but I do see it right under the surface, though. I do see this as sort of a B-story romance for Neelix. There's a little basis of a relationship going on here where I think if they let it, if they explored it further, it would have been more. But, you know, I think we're now moving into the science station, the rarely used science.

station on Voyager, right? Is that what it was? I was like, where are we? I didn't know what, so yeah, Bala's in there. Yeah. They're trying to break open this, this fragment of the asteroid. And I'm going to say there were some lights that were coming down like on the wall, the disco lights. And I was just like, what, where are we? And why are those lights like so distracting. The disco lights are in Club Tuvac, remember? They're not in a science station. Yeah, they should stay in Club Tuvac. Yeah. Torres basically analyzes with her tricorder the fragment and she discovers that there is triadium, an alloy is detected, which is very strange. Chikote, upon breaking open the fragment, he finds there are things inside which are not

natural and it is actually a control node for a guidance system. So these are not true asteroids because they are being guided towards a target. And that's when we realized, dun, dun, da, there's something going on. Yes, very, very mysterious. So we go back to the planet and now they are in the carriage. They're still in the Tether Bay Station at this point, right?

Oh, are they? Yeah, because they haven't gotten into the, they're trying to get everything ready. Oh, that's right. They're still in the Tether Bay Station, but the carriage is right there. Yes, the carriages right there. But I realized as they were moving around, that's right, because in this set, I made a note that

this was the unity set. Oh, really? Yeah, they had repurposed this. I could guarantee it as I looked at it. I was like, I really think that this was the unity set. The dimensions were the same, right? Everything just seemed. Yeah.

Yes, a lot of the angles and things to me looked a lot like it. They still need to get the oxygen converters working, they talk about. Right. And Neelix, everybody's working to get things fixed up. And Neelix has a wonderful conversation with Lilius. Yeah, because she's having issues getting a power relay online. So Neelix comes over and sort of plays the hero a little bit and recalibrates the pressure valve, fixes the issue. And after he talks about after finishing building a tether on Rinax, they would always name the Maglev carriage for good luck.

And he asked her, trying to collaborate with her, any suggestions, she has none. and he says, well, maybe Alexia. Alexia. Alexia, yes. And we realize that that's his sister. And he talks about some of the things when they were young, that she would take him on these adventures. And she always represented sort of adventure to him.

That this carriage and getting it fixed and heading up is going to be an adventure. So he thought that was a perfect name. You know what I thought right here immediately? because he talks about his favorite sister who always took him out to explore, right? And when he thought about her, he thought of adventure. I thought about Elyxia.

Who took the place of Elyxia in his life? Janeway. Janeway is the female figure that takes him out to explore. And then Neelix has already said, Johnny Phillips has said, whenever I played any scenes with Janeway, I always played it as if I was in love with her.

And he's in love with his sister, clearly, right? I mean, you're going to have love for your sister. So I always, you know, watching this scene, I just started thinking about that relationship. Interesting. Yeah, so that came up for me. Yeah, it was a very sweet scene with Nelix and Lilius, especially the bonding moment that happens after he tells her that he lost.

He talks, yeah, he talks about losing his entire family. They were killed in a war back on his planet. And he also reveals to her that he speaks to them, each of them, every night. Right. that he tells them what he's been up to and talks to them. Some great character development. And then Lilius then shares in turn.

She says she does not even know if her sister is still alive. They were separated after the last asteroid broke apart the fragments, the impacts, yeah. And then at this point, Tuvok sort of breaks this wonderful bonding moment and character development moment by calling Neelix over to chastise him that he is wasting too much time on idle. chit-chat. Stop with his tall talk. I was like, Tuvuk, why are you being such a jerk?

Exactly. Neelix is fixing every step of the way. He's been making the right call. Like, why are you being a jerk to him? Totally. I just, yeah. Totally.

And at this point, this is when Lilius notices that Dr. Vatim is trying to launch the carriage by himself, and he's locked everybody else out. And everyone's screaming and yelling, and finally they get the door open. Tuvok runs in,

Vulcan nerve pinches. Dr. Vatim and they now realize that they have to launch immediately because the entire wherever the whole station is about to collapse they've got to get out of there because Vatim tried to take this thing off before it was really quite ready right it's now you know caused the whole place is collapsing right falling it was kind of cool to see some of that action going on yeah I love the Vulcan neck pinch that was great classic stuff and they start going up and it's a very rough rise up. And Neelix has got a solution to try to stabilize it.

Right, because they're losing Maglev cohesion. That's the words we're looking for here. Maglev cohesion is, yeah, is weakening. And he's got to balance the power velocity. So the speed where, you know, they've got to find that perfect sort of balance of speed and power. And they finally get the cohesion stabilized. 45 was the number? 46? 40 something was the number, right? I think it was 45 or something. And I love when he says,

he sort of pats the console, the controls, he pats it and he goes, good girl, Elyxia. Yeah. I knew you could do it. It was a very sweet moment. Yeah. Every time that, you know, there's a sweet moment with Neelix, it is absolutely ruined by Tuvok. He jumps in and asks where the emergency containment grid is located. Now, Neelix is like, uh, I'm not sure. and this throws up the red flag for Tuvok. Yeah. And he walks over and says, what is happening here? And Neelix comes clean and says,

I've only worked on models, not the real thing. And so we now know. Yeah. He was literally building like miniatures. Neelix is a nerdy miniature train. Like he's a train, you know, people that have that huge, their entire basement filled with model trains, like a working model train thing.

That's the image that I got that Neelix as a hobby was a model carriage builder and he of course he loved it and he did everything as realistic as possible but he's never had any experience on the real thing so two bucks is two bucks is completely beside himself but there's nothing he can do they're already on there are already on their way there's nothing you can do at this point um lilius is uh about to throw dr vat um vatum out the door and uh i just want to say we've talked about on this podcast before how difficult it is to pick up another human being for any shot, you know, we've, and that's happened a few times. Dikote picks up Janeway, you know, someone else picks up someone else.

And it's very difficult. But in this scene, Lilius is one-handed dragging Dr. Veda towards the door. And I thought, no, that's not going to happen. No. You need two hands. Yeah, Tuvok intercedes as well. And then we have this moment where Tuvok's like, uh, uh, why did you try to launch without everyone else?

He's trying to launch, but he also has a fist grab moment that I thought was... Oh, that happens after the... Why do you try to launch, right? Yes, why is you trying to launch now? You know... Han Juan questions his authority. He says, who puts you in command? Who puts you in command?

They start to fight. Tuvick's like, you don't want to fight me. I'm a Vulcan. I've got superior strength. Yeah. And he goes for this punch, and Tuvok grabs his fist. And then the guy's like, you know, starting to fall. It just...

Man, oh, I don't know. This was one moment where I was like, this feels so cheesy to me. There's a fighting moments in this and physical, some of the physicality that I just thought was, I just didn't like it. I didn't buy it. This was one moment where it's like, I get, I get that this is true that Vulcans have this superior strength, but to just sort of grab his fist and then hold him there while he grimaces. It felt cheesy to me. When I was in college, I went on a summer program with all. Chinese American students and we had to do a talent show. And so I wrote a skit and it was a cheesy

funny kung fu skit where I played an old kung fu master and someone tried to challenge my authority, just like this scene, they try to take a swing at me and I catch their fist in midair. And it's exactly the same thing. Yeah, it's a little like larger than life and a little, it's a little goofy. Definitely. You know, it would have been different if he had thrown the thing and Tuvac had just gone and knocked him down or something, like real fast. I would buy that, but just to hold it and then just keep holding it. Anyway, that was a goofy thing. We go back on the bridge and Paris calls in and says phone call only, no shots of him.

He said he's in the voice of Paris. That's right. He's in his third low altitude survey, no sign of our crew. And there's a big dust storm approaching. Yeah. And Harry says that it's, there's. there's now another asteroid coming and it is two hours. This one is huge, half a kilometer, faster than the others, and two hours still impact.

Hey, man, you didn't have to go to work. That's the good thing. You didn't have to come to work to shoot a shot inside of your shuttle. You just had to go to looping with your regular looping schedule and just throw that line in. So you actually had a little vacation. Give me a day off. It did. We go back to the lift to the carriage.

Neelix is sweating, which is always. was interesting to see sweat on a prosthetic rubber head. But I thought it worked. It actually, it was well done because sometimes it can look, that can look cheesy too. So the oxygen is thinning in this carriage. And Tuvok is going around giving people shots to oxygenate their blood.

Yeah. Because he's Vulcan again. He's able to handle the thin, you know, this atmosphere. Yeah. And somebody says, who is it that said,

is that a needle or something? was that squat no needle what yeah he says he's afraid of needles like he's is this hypospray going to hurt like he's afraid of the hypospray and two bucks like no no it's just subdermal it's your spine subdermal transfer i'm afraid of needles yeah and i love that little moment huh it was it was not necessary but it was just a fun little like that would happen yeah good yeah so everyone is suffering from the initial stages of carbon dioxide poisoning and so then all of a sudden dr vatum is trying to open the carriage door and he's mumbling something and he's going something about the roof have to go up there and he falls to

the ground and he goes into shock and he dies tuvac is scanning him and realize wait a minute he just didn't die of natural causes he was poisoned by the coolant by the coolant used in the tether couplings so they don't know who it is but then it becomes now this episode yeah now it becomes a who done it kind of a mystery right um so we don't know who it is and there really isn't time to deal with two bucks says we'll figure this out later and again han juan questions two bucks command um nilix comes up with this gut feeling moment that the carriage has to stop yeah we've got to stop we've got to go up on the roof yeah there's something up there and uh and it leads to a big argument with two vok in a really great scene by the really good scene yeah i thought um i thought um Ethan Johnny Phillips

did a amazing job with lots of big speeches here yes he did he said a bunch of good lines like uh he says to Tuvok at one moment he says you have no feelings for me you have he says something like exactly you have no feelings for me you only have feelings against me yes that was a great yes and then his line before that he says um that Tuvac you're filled with contempt and sarcasm and that you've been targeting all your hostility towards me so Neelix is letting everything out now because typically he's he's bit his tongue this entire time for the seasons one two and part of three. Neelix has not said a word and now it's all coming out coming out and he says at one point which I thought was really important and well delivered and written he says you know you don't

have any instincts too Vok you don't have any gut feelings and you don't really understand people and that's that that's really important because Neelix is having he goes off his gut all the time yeah and because he's the only one who can drive this thing yeah he's He insists that someone go on the roof. That's his gut feeling. Right. And that trumps Tuvok. There's nothing Tuvok can say to that because if they can't move, they're not going to escape.

They're going to die, basically, right? And what's interesting is they now they're talking about he's the only one that can pilot the vessel. So I thought it was a carriage, right? So now they call the carriage a vessel. So back and forth, it's sort of like, what? Is this a carriage? It's an elevator, basically. Yeah, but they're calling it almost like a ship in a way, right?

And which is interesting because, you know, Neelix has already admitted that he just did models. He didn't really fly these things. No, no. I don't know how qualified he is that, you know, maybe the other guys couldn't figure it out. But Tuvac agrees to go on the roof and he says as he's leaving. He says, somebody says, how do you know what to even look for? You didn't even know what you're looking for. And he turns back.

He goes, I'm looking for Mr. Neelix's instinct. Perhaps it will be marked. Best line of the episode. the first time we see Tuvok's sense of humor. There's something funny coming out of him, right? He's loosening up a little bit. And great line, though, great line. We go out on the roof, and this must have been a green screen.

I could see that, you know, they're blowing the wind. And this was shot on a set piece, but with a big green screen behind it, so the clouds and things are all back there. Right. Up on the roof, he finds a panel. opens it up and finds this data storage device that doesn't match the rest of the technology and he calls Nelix and says he's found this alien

tech up on the roof and we see Sklar goes up onto the roof through the open hatch and has a quick fight with Tuvok surprises him and throws Tuvok over the edge of this ship and yes you forgot his phaser Tuvok loses a phaser and he goes over the edge of the ship and we do see at the end of the scene that he's hanging on. He's grabbed a piece of the vessel on the side. He's hanging on.

So he's still still there but very, very precarious. And don't forget what he did before that. He kicked Neelix off of the ladder to knock him into like a concussion basically, right? Yeah, threw him off of a 10 foot ladder, you know. Neelix goes flying through the air. Right. And the data. storage device, it has information about an alien starship. So that is another piece of information that the audience gets at this point. But what I found so crazy is that when Sklar is on the roof fighting Tuvok. Yeah. It's like, another weak fight. Well, no, it bothers me because Tuvok is so strong as a Vulcan. We already know that, that he's able to catch the big worker guy's

hand and overpower him. Right, the minor guy. But yet the nerdy exogeologist who clearly has never been in the gym, he takes him out like he's nothing. Tuvac is literally a child and he can just throw him off like that. And that really bothered me. It was like how to the inconsistency. The fights in this episode, the fights in some of the physicality was very inconsistent. It didn't all add up.

I agree it was not a great fight. Yeah. But they go back down and he tries to wake Neelix up and Neelix is out. And he's like, all right, we got to fly this. themselves. And then we go to the bridge. And they realize that they pull up on screen what they thought was the big asteroid that was coming in much faster. Yeah. But it's not an asteroid. It's a starship. It's a starship. Weapons are ready. And they must have, I think Chakotay says they must have remodulated their shields to fool our sensors. That's right. They were pretending

to be an asteroid. Right. So they're hailed by the alien captain. And I wrote down. He says that we are from the Italian order. But as I wrote Italian, it auto-corrected to Iranian. So it says- It's funny. Mine is autocorrected to Arabian. I did the same thing. Yeah, you have the Arabian order. I have the Iranian order. Yes. The Pilevi Iranian order. So the Italian order claims this territory. They claim this territory. You must withdraw, right? Jane was like, He says, no, this is the Nizu planet. Yep. And they have five colonies here, and they are friends.

Right. But the aliens are like, nope, we claim it. And they threaten Voyager. They're like, oh, you know, you're not Nizu. And these are friends you're willing to die for. Yes. You're going to die for your friends. And they disappear.

And 10 minutes till they'll be there, we realize. And Janeway says battle stations. Mm-hmm. Bum-b-bom. Dun-tun-d-da. Back in the character. We go, Neelix wakes up, and he's got red blood. And I got a question about that. Did he always have red blood? I made the same note. I'm like, wait a minute. Is it Talaxian? I thought he had a different color blood before. I thought he did too. Yes. Or green or something. Oh, no. I have a question mark. Yeah, he has red blood. Oh, and the thing is, make note that there's a fight going on, a verbal fight between Sklar and the other two Nizu. Right? There was a lot of like off-camera dialogue. tons of off-camera dialogue right yeah but that's the only reason arguing going on yeah that's the

setup for for neelix to be to be able to wake up and be unnoticed you know they don't see it yeah they're busy arguing uh he looks at the window he sees he sees too vok out the window and while they're arguing he opens that door right and it leads to with a wide open door and uh you know the wind and the atmosphere and all that and no oxygen they have a big giant fight and this is where I was like, I just didn't buy the physicality of it. I didn't buy like the, you know, the air pressure would be sucking everybody out at this point. Where did the data storage device go? It's still inside the carriage, right?

Because remember, it got sucked out of the guy's hand, right? And then it's just, when I saw Tuvok outside the window, I kept thinking about William Shatner in the Twilight Zone when he's on the plane and he's looking at the window and sees the gargoyle, right? and no one believes him. And so that came to my mind. But, yeah, so that fight was ridiculous because... The fight was pretty goofy. Just watching that, and I don't know what they were doing,

that the final scene where Sclar falls to his death, it sort of, was that on, was that a, I don't even know, it almost looked like he was CGI. Like he was a, Splar got CGIed, right? Yeah, he was CGIed. All right. It wasn't great, it wasn't great Viz effects on that, I guess. Yeah, it almost looked like stop animation,

photography, kind of like old school. Ray Harry Halson kind of, yeah, it was like, huh? Yeah, there's no, there's no movement to him or anything. It was just static. Yeah, and even when Tim, when Tuvac comes in out of the outside, when he stumbles in, that's also CGI Tuvac, I think. It's very, wasn't he very like, no? Yeah, no, that wasn't the CGI, but it was not great physicality.

I think that they should have, you know, he should have been by the side and grabbing, I don't know, I would have done that differently with really playing the airpress. pressure and the wind and all of those elements. It just felt like it was very... Awkward. Awkward. Yeah. Okay. Tuvok tries to help Nelix here. He says you do have a concussion, but I'm not familiar with Tlaxian, you know, medical stuff.

And so I can't help you. Mm-hmm. But Tuvok says, we need you. To operate the carriage. You're the only one that can do it. Yeah. And Nelix very heroically, you know, he's not sure. And Tuvok says, do it for Elyxia. She would be proud of you. And after he says that, Neelix is like, okay, that works. That gets him up.

He can do it. He gets him up. We go back to the bridge and there's a battle going on. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. Lots of the... We're losing. We're losing. Our shields are going lower and lower and our weapons are doing nothing to this alien starship.

At this point, the Maglev carriage actually rises above the ionosphere. Now Nelix has to put the brakes on. So he stabilizes the carriage by engaging the induct. dampers. And then they were able to see a CG shot out in space. We saw a CG shot of the tether and the carriage. And it just, it didn't look good. Again, I just felt like it looked kind of like animation. It didn't look. Well, I like that shot better than Sclar falling out of the carriage. Yeah. I mean, I thought both those shots were a bit compromised just by the technology that we had at the time

Yeah, that's true. They just weren't. They were okay. Yeah. But yeah, they make it. And Neelix and Lillia's hug, which was very sweet. She's smiling. And then Tuvac gets a hug from, is it, Hanjuwon.

Hanjuwon. Yeah. Yes, which I thought was very funny. So the two hugs happen. They've made it into range that they can be transported. And so we cut back to the bridge and Tuvok is now stepping onto the bridge. and he said the data the data pad has all the info they need about their weapon systems right all of that and so they uh they input that data they take that data and use it to beat the ship

and they defeat these these bad guys okay did it bother you that there's no evasive maneuvers whatsoever in this battle both starships are just stationary just firing at each other it's like Hey, this 1850, is this the Spanish Armada versus the English fleet? This is really kind of bizarre. There's no movement whatsoever. It was pretty simplistic. Yeah. I think they just wanted to get through the back, get to the point where we get the data we need to be able to, you know, tie everything up.

Right. We go to Mess Hall now, right? Yes. Okay. And it's the conversation between Lilius and Nelix. And Nelix is explaining everything to Lilius, explaining how. explaining how Sklar was basically an agent

for the Italian Empire Order or whatever, right? And the way that they invade, the way that these bad guys, the Athenian order invades different places, is unique. They create this false natural disaster, like this asteroid shower. And after the people have evacuated the planet

or the settlement or the colony where they're at, then the Attenian order, shows up and they it's easy because now everybody's left because they thought it was this natural disaster when it wasn't it's all manmade exactly and that's when yes tuvac enters and he tells lilius that they found her sister and she's very really and what was her name i can't remember hala oh and what is chala in the in the world of judaism it's bread is what it's the egg bread that you eat on Shabbat dinner on

okay there you go so the hala the egg bread has been found and so basically Tuvac then tells Nelix that he's

filed his report and he's given Neelix a special commendation for his endurance and bravery which is huge for Nelix because you know the whole first two and a half almost you know three seasons

worth of episodes there's there's no there's no commendation or praise for anything that Neelix does it's always been very salty salty type of interactions and dismissive just like uh this is huge yeah huge turnaround and but they can't leave it at that because then then you know Tuvok has to comment a little more and the neelix is like you know you always have to have the last word and tewok's like no I don't have to have the last word and neelix is like there see what I mean you do and then he walks around the corner and he pops out and and uh and it's very funny because we end on on two bucks sort of yelling around the corner no I do not yeah and uh that's the end of our uh adventure of rise

yeah it was fun it was fun there was a lot of fun stuff in it what was your well here's my theme yeah my theme my takeaway my lesson for this episode is to to always remember don't underestimate people. Don't underestimate people. People are capable of more than we give them credit for. And I think that's a, that's the lesson I learned from Neelix in this episode was, you know, no, no one really thought the doctor didn't think he was there to do any work. Tuvon didn't think he was there to do anything. Even with his lack of experience and maybe stretching his credentials a bit, he still was the one that became very heroic and solved problems. And he was underestimated every step of the way, but he came through. So don't underestimate people.

Okay. I'm going to say my lesson is that Vulcan logic has its merits, but you really need to trust your gut or your instinct, gut slash instinct. You need to listen to that because your gut can tell you things that your head can't figure out so that's one thing but I also felt like so Tuvac has this great line he says it is illogical to dwell on situations beyond your control it will only serve to heighten your anxiety and this this lesson is for all the worry warts out there there's so many people that think about future possibilities right like oh my gosh this might happened to me. So I need to freak out now. And it's sort of like, wait a minute, you're freaking about, freaking out about a potential reality that may not come true? I mean, this is crazy.

So, and that was when Sclar was saying, well, we're going to suffocate, you know, inside this carriage. We're not going to have enough oxygen. Right. And so that was one of the, that was one of the lessons that I also got from this episode. And then the final lesson, one other lesson was just how Neelix dealt with Lilius. Lillius came at Neelix with violence. Neelix responded not with violence, but with empathy, with love, with collaboration, with peacefulness, with calmness.

And that is what this world needs. You know what I'm saying? Like if you're, if it's constantly going to be, we do this to you and now, okay, and then they do this back to us and then we do this to them, it'll never end. It'll never end. Conflict, world conflict can end if everyone takes this lesson from Neelix and responds to violence with love. That's a good point.

That's a really good point. Well, that was a fun episode to recap. Yes, it was. It was a lot of fun for you and I, even though we didn't have very much to do. But I do know a couple of people who had a lot to do in this episode. Yeah. Huh? I think we should maybe talk to them and get some of their memories and thoughts about it. Well, basically, guys, we have a special treat for you.

We have both Tim Russ and John Ethan Phillips here to talk about their participation in this episode, Rise. All right, guys, guess who we have with us? Tuvok and Neelix, Tim Russ and John Ethan Phillips are here. And we have two thirds of the Voyager boys dinner right here. Oh, yeah, we're missing, okay, and we're missing Picardo. So we're missing Ricardo and Beltran. But we have two thirds of the Voyager men's dinner, which we had every month, practically, gentlemen, for 12, 13 years, I think. We had a lot of dinners.

Oh, so much fun, so much fun. And what do we do at dinner? We ate good food. We drank good beverages. and we laughed our butts off, which is what we've already been doing before we started recording this. So welcome, Tim and John Ethan.

Thank you so much, guys, for joining us. It's great to be here. Yeah. Okay, Bryce. Both of you watched the episode, I take it, yes? Yeah, I didn't watch it recently. I watched it not too long though, actually. Okay.

Yeah, same here, yeah. About it was six months ago. Yeah, it was a fun episode. It was a fun episode. Still, actually, one of the ones that I like, Out of the ones, out of all the ones we did. I actually liked that one a lot. Oh, good.

Yeah. Why did you like it so much? I liked it because, number one, it's like a murder mystery. And I dig the heck out of that as far as the concept goes. And the fact that we were doing this sort of maglev thing that was going into space, this elevator thing we're all on. And it's like a pressure cooker that episode. And my being able to work with Johnny in that capacity,

the way our characters interact with each other was totally different than anything we had done on any other episode. You know, it's always been, most of the episodes you know, was he's doing something and I just get mildly annoyed with him. And that, we were nose to nose. Yeah, it was a real, I think, important character

development, a show from Tim and I, for Tup and Nielackson. We had a real standoff, but I think we came to an understanding each other. Oh, I think you had a breakthrough. I think your characters had a breakthrough. It was a breakthrough episode for you guys. You're absolutely right. Every Tuvac Neelix interaction up until this point are just appetizers. And now this episode, this is

the entree. This is finally the entree. You get to see something of, you know, of some weight here, no? Yeah, yeah. And it's a, that one scene where we're just, you know, it's a standoff between the two of it. And none of us, neither one of us are giving ground, you know. No, no. still very in and my character actually gives ground which he does because he understands that i was i felt disrespected yeah you know and then you're able to acknowledge that and admit it which is powerful moment that's very powerful moment um oh that was very cool it was another weird thing i remember about that episode is correct me if it wrong was there a character called sclar yes yes yes that's when i started riffing about how they come up with names for these aliens you know and you know

squar clonic black feet pretty soon you know they're going to just throw something on the ground they're going to call them but finally they're going to round our names we're going to have aliens named kevin you know and this is larry from the the bikigian galaxy you know they had sclar they had the nisus the nizu they had han juan which is the minor guy which sounds It sounds Korean to me, Hanjoin. Right, right, yeah. Lilius, that was the only kind of known the name, female. Well, one of my favorite was the one on the first one you directed, the Trayb.

The Trabe. I think what they do is they just go to a map and throw a dart, and whatever country that is, they just go there and bring up Google, what names are in their country, and then they just take their names and see them up there going through phone books from Singapore, you know. Yeah. Some of the stuff I loved about. about, like, speaking of names is Neelix talks about his sister and his family in this episode. And he talks about, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He names the carriage after his sister, who he tells some stories when he was a young kid, how his sister would take him on these adventures. And he thinks of her as she represents adventure to him. So let's name it, Elyxia. That's her name, Elyxia. Right. You know, the thing was is Jerry Taylor. She, you know, she wrote a book about the origins of, about Kate.

I forget what it was called, but she wanted to have Neelix's backstory. So she used some of my own, you know, because I have five sisters. So she gave Neelix like five sisters. And that's how that got in there. She decided to use that from my background. Yeah. I was wondering about that. When I was listening to your performance in that speech,

I wondered if you had had conversations with the writers about your family. Could you talk so authentically about your feelings about your sister? in, you know, Neelix did. It was just such a great performance and very moving, oh, thanks, Robbie, thank you. Emotional and authentic and vulnerable. It was great. It was a number of those moments, John, that I think with this guest

star who played Lilius, you were really, you know, she grabs you with a knife. She grabs Neelix with a knife in the beginning, and you calm her down by just saying, I get it. Like, you're very empathetic and you're very, everything combative that she said to you, you turned into understanding and connection? Well, when they wrote towards those aspects of Nelix,

it was nice to play. When they did things like jealousy and think, I thought it kind of went against his character, but I mean, not that we can't all have different aspects of ourselves, but when they wrote towards his empathetic nature, it was fun to play that, you know, because it was meatier than just plain whatever, anger or something like that, you know. How many times did they ever have characters talking about,

their families on this show. It wasn't too often. Not often, no. You didn't you, Robbie? You talked about it a little. I talked about my dad about my dad a little bit. Yeah. Right.

That came up a few times. I had a wife and kids and I almost never ever mentioned that. Topel, right? Isn't Topel your wife? Yeah. I had two people and I never really mentioned that. No, you didn't. Then I made this weird connection, Johnny, that, you know,

you're talking about Alexia, your sister being the one that brought you that always took you to explore, all right? And then I thought, huh, in a way, like Janeway is, is the new Elyxia, because she, Janeway is taking Neelix around to explore, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then, then I brought up the fact that you have mentioned to us that whenever you played scenes with Janeway, you always played it as if Neelix was in love with Janeway, you know, that has this love for her like that, a deep love.

And that deep love for your sister is kind of transferred onto Kate in a way or Janeway. So that's, that's something that I pull out of that. Yeah, that's interesting. That's true, Gary. You're right. Yeah. It was some lovely stuff in there. Yeah. Can I just show you? What season is that? I'm just curious. What season three? Season three. Second, second half of season three. Okay. Back half. And what I just, what I just love so much about Neelix is that you, you had the freedom to really, to really just pump it up in terms of how you decided to deliver

a line, whereas us human characters were relegated to being very militaristic. I remember the first season, you know, the first time he was handed something. to eat. He's somebody who gave him some potatoes, mashed potatoes. And I just started eating with my tongue. I said, what are you doing? That's how to Axians eat, you know? But they said, no. And then that's what I explained to me. He's just a guy with rubber base. He's a humanoid. Yeah. Do you guys remember the director, Robert Scherer? Do you remember? We don't. I do. I do. Tell us what you remember of Robert Scherer. I just remember the name. I don't remember I don't remember his personality.

Was Shear the one that had the Australian sort of hat? One of them wore almost like a base, not a cowboy kind of hat, but it was a leather or something. Was that shit? No, that's, that's Cliff Ball. Cliff Ball, yeah. I remember Shearer mainly because he was very quiet and very, he was not a conversationalist.

He was kind of not aloof or anything. He was friendly and everything, but he was a quiet dude. And I remember he didn't give very little direction. he was very happy with everything that's done and very efficient but i think we only used him once or twice if i'm correct i remember the name that's all i don't know yeah it's funny it's but it's interesting you say he was quiet johnny because that makes sense to me because i don't remember him at all garrett doesn't remember him the name is familiar to him like you said to me but but if he were that quiet and kind of you know uh the the personalities i remember people like cliff bowl

he had a big personality or Rick Colby you know Rick Colby Alan Craigor Hesius Trevino was that his name I really

I liked him a lot he was sweet guy and you know and Robbie brought up during the recap because both of us couldn't remember even what Robert Scherer

looked like and he said he was probably not very outspoken he was probably more quiet and he was just guessing that and he was right because you remember that Johnny this guy didn't give a lot of direction right

so he was almost like a fly on the wall which is rare. Like, we're used to people saying like, come on, Robbie, you're the one that wants to go home. Now, who was the guy who said that? Who is the director who said that? That was Jim Conway.

Jim Conway. Come on, Robbie. You're the one with a flannel lunchbox. Yeah. I remember we used to just, we did that big for months. You would make up so many random, other fill in the blank reasons. Like, come on, Robbie.

Here are the one that wants to buy Girl Scout cookies. You would just make up random stuff. Come on, Robbie. You're the one in love with nursing bras. Let's go. You know, whatever the hell we could come to their head, you know. Who was the older guy, sort of short with glasses, his horn rim glass, black horn rim glasses,

and he had, you know, his basic gray hair, and he would just sort of, and he had like you'd have a fanny pack or whatever and walk around. God damn, what was his name? Alex. Alex Singer? He might have been Singer. Was it Singer?

Yeah, yeah. Older dude. Did he talk like this? Did he say, Tim? Your old cat. It's kind of short. I remember Alex Singer. I think that's Alex.

I think that's Alex had quite a bit of a career, I believe. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, huge, yeah. I think it was Alex. Still alive now, too. Really? Yeah. Shear passed away in 2018, so he left.

He was going to three years ago. Colby died years ago. Who's the other director that passed away? Bull, right? Cliff Ball passed away. He passed away. He was a young, I guess, he seemed young.

I remember he was getting out of the business when he directed one of those shows. He stood up my last. He was about to leave the business, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Tim, when you're thrown off of the carriage and you're hanging off the,

side of it, right? Well, we think you're dead, but you're not. You're still, you're still alive. Shot on stage 16, green screen, everything. It was on 16. Yeah, they had to build it because they built the whole carriage set. Yeah. And, and yeah, we're hanging off the side of that thing to do it. Yeah, that was all, it was all very cool stuff, man. Again, I, I really enjoyed that episode because we got to do some really interesting things, some cool stuff. You don't get a chance to do that often at all. Right. Right. Yeah. And, yeah. And, I, I really enjoyed that. I really enjoyed that episode, because we got to do some really. And, Those are rare, rare opportunities.

How often do you think you watched episodes? I can tell you right now, I've seen about 15 of them. 15 and that's it? I have to agree with Johnny. I think maybe I've seen 15 or 20. Wow. At the most. Robbie, before you started doing this podcast, how many had you seen?

Would you guess? Three. Would you say three? No, but maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Honestly, I bet I could count on two hands how many I saw. Yeah.

Okay, yeah. Well, I made up for all of you guys. I think of the ones, let's say we did 172, whatever the number is. I think I saw 169 of the episode when they aired, yes. I made it a point. I said, I'm going to watch it in my, if I was working, I would watch it as it aired live in my trailer. I would watch it. Oh, yeah. When we were making them, we were so busy. The hours and days were so long and we were so immersed in making it. Yeah. And we were watching each other do that. the scenes, and we read the script, to me, it seemed, you know, modological to then sit down and watch it. I got to say, you know, I hadn't watched a lot of episodes before Garrett and I started doing this kind of rewatch thing a little over a year ago, and now we're in halfway through season three. Right. And I got to say, like, I have really been impressed with each and every one of us in different

episodes. I've been impressed with the series as a whole. I mean, yeah. there's definitely some episodes that I think are duds and we talk about it and I'll give my thoughts or opinions on that when I feel it. But I've been surprised at how many have really moved me. Many have really made me think and how impressed I am with each of our castmates and some of the great work they did. And it's a good show. Like, we made it. Is it a popular show? I mean, in terms of, you know, the history of the franchise, his Voyager

considered to be Voyager is probably right up there at the top it is top two or three because because we had a show

that our concept of our show went back to the original series. We were exploring uncharted space. We could do

anything we wanted for our episodes. We weren't tied into the lore and the characters that are already been established and all these

and things and the politics and we weren't tied into any of that. We could do anything we wanted. So we could come up with really, you know, it's almost like a serial, in a sense, because each one of the stories could be, was completely different.

I mean, entirely different civilizations and circumstances every week almost. And I think that my reaction, the people that talked to me about it said, yeah, they really like ours compared to DS9 or something else because of just the fact that we could do anything we wanted. And our circumstance was one of, it was a desperate circumstance. I mean, it was basically being marooned in a part of the galaxy that no one's ever been to before. So it was fascinating. I think some stats came out, Johnny, where they said that Netflix, UK, they were talking about of all the Star Trek that's been streamed episodes,

that the top five of the top five Star Trek episodes streamed on Netflix in England, three or four of the top five are Voyager episodes. Really? Yeah, over original series, over TNG, over DS9. And Enterprise, it's like, my God, Voyager. Ours is really up there out of all. That's nice to hear. That's nice to know, you know. It's just the concept.

They really, their concept of putting it in that part of the galaxy where nothing else is there but us. And we're in a lifeboat, man. And we have to rely on each other to survive without any help, no tether to the, to the home base, no nothing. And we're on our own. And that's, and that's right there, you're driving a lot of. a lot of drama just in that concept alone yeah yeah yeah i think you're right tim that um you know when you talk about the serialized quality and the you know kind of wide open possibilities of plots and stories that's absolutely true i wonder if you know one thing about this episode that was

so interesting is how your relationship is with with two vok and neelix had a breakthrough and that only feels like a breakthrough in the context of three seasons so far you know what I mean, like, they've built up a certain pattern, and now they're going to break through into a new place. Right. So it's not really a standalone moment. It's, it's, it only is valuable in the context of that journey. Yes. How did you guys feel about like the writing of the show where your characters, this episode had a quality of kind of breaking through a pattern in the series?

Did you feel like the writers, you know, kind of tracked your growth and change, or do you feel like it was just? Yeah. I think they knew that we, we had a, uh, an antagonistic dynamic going on, and they just pumped it up, pumped up the volume, and then finally gave it, like you said, a breakthrough moment. I thought they did a good job, yeah.

Yeah, because that's the, I mean, one thing, you know, talking about in terms of being a serial content, the only thing that's not a serial in terms of all the episodes is the relationship between all the characters on the ship. That you have to, you can't just tune in it, you know, middle, midway through the series. series and figure out what's going on when those relationships have already been established. The only thing you're getting on those serial sort of sense is what the story's about on that

particular episode. Right. Yeah. Honoring the this alien race or that alien race. But yes, the relationships are in a tether. They're in a long sort of threat that you have to, you have to kind of catch up on or we have to be aware of how things are working. So if somebody just changed into the one episode of rise, there is something they can get out of it simply because the two of us are debating and discussing, you know, certain things, decisions we have to make on this, in this circumstance that might save our lives or solve the problem. And at the same time, you know, the contentious

aspect of it comes out. So if somebody sees that, I think they could get something out of it without having too much of a backstory just because of what we're talking about. But if you've been watching the show all the way up to that point, it's more impactful, yeah. Then it changes dramatically because, man, we, I mean, we just go nose to nose. again in that one moment about I think you you watch at the same time I did Tim because I remember I think I told you I said you got to check this out because I had never seen it and somebody told me they had seen there or something in about six months ago or something I watched it I think I texted you I said listen buddy this is a great show for you and I let's watch

you should watch it I think that's what prompted you I might have prompted you I'm not sure yeah it's one of the it's one I said I only seen a few episodes of Voyager that's one of the ones that I had actually seen before. That's one of the ones I watched before because I really just I just loved the circumstance. I loved the fact that we were on this thing and that we were trying to solve this issue. There was a criminal amongst us and I and yeah solved the problem at the same time you know our lives are in danger and and and you and I you and I have had this moment and we haven't had that moment anywhere else on any other episode like that. No, but it caught And it, you know, and then they followed through with it to my, the penultimate episode where I leave and you and I have that incredible moment.

But I look back on it when I see a show like, I'm amazed at, I mean, I couldn't do that stuff now at my age. I couldn't wear that makeup for 16 hours a day. I literally couldn't physically do it. I did a big makeup job about 10 years ago, some sci-fi show where I played an alien and I had, it was a five-hour makeup job. And it was an exquisite looking makeup, but I couldn't wear it more than, I had to get out of it after five hours. It was, it was so suffocating. Wow.

And, you know, to deal with that kind of, those prosthetics, I think you have to be young and you can't be a spry old guy and do it. It's too hard. Yeah. The hours, it's the hours we were there for so. So, I agree with you, Johnny. And, you know, if somebody offered me a role that it required all that, I would probably, I might very well decline it just yeah i'm just not sitting in that chair for three and a half four hours

whatever it's hard and and they're using a lot of to my understanding using a lot of silicone now which i've also used in an episode of a book called caveman i remember caveman it was oh yeah yeah i played a character in that and that was a three or four hour makeup and with silicone they they glue the face and they glue the prosthetic and the removal is really complicated but it has has the advantage of looking exactly like flesh and moving like flesh and being lit like flesh. So it's a much more effective makeup. But again, it's too timely, two timelines. It's just, oof. Yeah. You guys recall anything with the guest stars in this particular episode that played Lilius, Han Jouan and Scalar? Any interesting moments or funny things that

happened? Anything? Those guys were actually very good. I remember that. They were very good. It They were very professional. I remember they were nice people. Did what was, I wonder what the, I wonder how RISE rated amongst fans. Because I heard conflicting things about that episode, that people, not the fans weren't all at that jazzed about that episode. I'm not sure.

Tim, at least they don't hate it as much as threshold. You know, no matter what, no one's episode. is going to get hated more than the one that Tom Harris did when Threshold when he turned into a lizard. That is the most hated episode. And had babies with Janeway Lizard. And had babies with Janeway Lizard. And I got to say, like, I felt about Threshold, I had so much fun doing that episode, acting in it. I got to do things that I never get to do as an actor in terms of like character work and size and getting big and dramatic and chewing scenery. it was a blast you know is it a good episode probably not not because not because like it's the

story in the writing so uh i think that was that is the problem that's what people you know i don't feel like what i did in the episode was oh it's it's i think yeah i'm not i'm blaming at writers but um you're gonna have you're gonna have man you're gonna have duds you have every series i don't care where it is or what it is. They're going to have dogs. You're going to have head stretchers and dogs, you know. Right. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Every single series, forgettable. Yeah. Why do they bother to do that episodes, you know? And then you can have series where every episode's a dog and you wonder, why did they do this series? And then you have to wonder, why are you watching every episode of it? And then you have to wonder, why are you even here? I mean, you have to wonder, why am I wondering about all these things?

Why I'm watching those. Hey, Johnny, one thing that Robbie and I brought up when we were doing our recap was when we first see you when you come into sickbay, you've not too long ago broken up with Kess, and there almost seems like there is no tracking of what's going on between those two characters. That was an absolute afterthought. You know, we did do a scene where we both acknowledged

that we're not a couple anymore. We shot it in the science lab, which was a set we didn't use often. Okay. And Kess and I had a closure conversation where I said, you know, and we said, we want to be friends now and blah, blah, blah. And it was quite a nice tag to the relationship. They never aired it. No way. And that was part of the other prior episode?

Yeah, but probably, I mean, I don't know, but it definitely was in season three. Yeah. I don't care remember what episode it was, but it was a very good scene. And it was as easily a six or seven-page scene where we track what happened to us and what we think might have caused the split, but that we want to stay friends and blah, blah, blah, blah. It was really closure, but it was real nice closure. Yeah, it's too bad. But omitting, yeah, omitting that is such a disservice to the Nelix and Kess fans out there, right? Because they want to know what happened.

And they just completely brushed that off and not even. show that that interaction and they filmed it a six pager so annoying and it was and it was a beautifully written scene i have to tell you did you find out why they omitted it did you ever ask a question about that never found out i guess they uh i mean i'm even why they didn't maybe use it in another episode yeah yeah you know because it was a standalone scene sure um but i guess they just they just moved on seven pages likely it was just time they cut it for time and yeah and they cut it for time Definitely. And they probably couldn't have, they could have, you know,

I don't even know if they had time to maybe, we're able to edit it down, you know, just getting down and editing just to get to the meat of it and get out. Yeah. Probably not time to do that, you know. Also, I don't think that the producers and showrunners of our show, valued those kind of relationship stories. They really wanted, like, stand-alone, sci-fi concepts,

let them play out. They didn't want to deal with long-term relationship, consistency or continuity. There was very, very little of it. I mean, I guess Tom and Bolana got a little bit of that in later seasons. But, you know, Garrett and I've even talked about the Chakote Janeway relationship and how, you know. Yeah, that pitted out. It whiplash, too. It's like one episode, they have a relationship.

Then the next episode, they don't. Then they do again. Then they don't. Then they do. You're like, which is it? It's just, but I think what it was was, it was, if it was convenient to play that quality in an episode, they would do it. If it wasn't, they wouldn't. And I think that's probably what happened with the Kess and Neil's thing. They were just like, that's not a high value to us. There was a lot of ambiguity about that relationship to begin with. Was it platonic? Was it romantic? And it was shaky, you know, just the, the optics, you know, I'm an older guy and here's this very young girl who's ostensibly two years old in her race. And, and it was shaky. And And I don't think the whole, I think they didn't, they weren't sure how to handle it so much. And so I think maybe they ended, let's just move on and maybe they'll forget about it.

Yeah. Yeah, it felt strange in this episode because there was only one cross, one little scene, and there was no acknowledgement of it. Yeah, yeah. Of it, you know, there was no reference to it or anything like that. Tim, you asked, what do the fans think of this episode? I got a couple of things on Wikipedia gets a 7.3 out of 10, 7.3 out of 10. Is that good? That's good, right?

That's good, right? Yeah. Good. Yeah. On IMDB, it looks like we've got a 6.8 out of 10. Excellent. On Jammer's reviews, this has a 1.5 out of five. Oh, that's not as strong.

Wow. When this episode, I'm just kind of looking at the headlines. Okay. When this episode aired, it had 4.6 million viewers, seven share of the network viewers at the time. that's a huge number. Like these days, there are shows that run for years that get less than a million views, a million, you know, first three days.

Wow. We had almost five million people watch this episode. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're so happy to have had the two aliens that mean the most to us. We're so happy that they joined us. So thanks again, Tim Russ. Thank you guys so much.

Thank you very to see you guys. Bye bye. and some time soon. Take care, everybody. See you later, you guys. See you guys. Love you. Bye, bye-bye.

Well, that was absolutely a blast having our two coworkers join us. So thank you so much, guys, for tuning in this week. Tune in next week when Robbie and I discuss favorite son, the big Ensign Kim episode. Oh, I didn't. Yeah. That's going to be fun. Oh, boy. All right. And for all of our Patreon patrons, please stay tuned for all of your bonus material. Thanks, guys. Thanks.