The Delta Flyers - Sacred Ground

Episode Date: April 5, 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 Sacred Ground. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars.Sacred Ground:Kes is injured when she accidentally commits sacrilege on an alien planet; in order to save her life, Janeway must go through a mysterious ritual that challenges her faith in science.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, Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Matthew Gravens, Brian Barrow, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, Megan Hurwitt, James Zugg, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, William McEvoy, Holly Smith, Jesse Noriega, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, Lucas Shuck, PJ Tomas, Nicholaus Russell, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, and Elizabeth StantonAnd 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, Luz R, 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, 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, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Ming Xie, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Heather Choe, Justin Weir, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Kevin Hooker, Matthew Osborne-Graham, and Michelle Maroney Thank you for your support!Our Sponsors:* Check out Mint Mobile: https://mintmobile.com/TDFSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-delta-flyers/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Delta Flyers. I'm Garrett Wong, one of your host. And the other host is right next to me. Well, not really next to me. He's next to me in spirit. In spirit, I'm always next to you in kind of a creepy way, Garrett. I'm sort of always creeping next to you. Robbie, are you saying if you die before I die that your spirit will follow me and just you'll be my companion for life? Always. Oh, yeah. Kind of like in threshold, the lizards.

I didn't even get to say your name. Always with us. Robert Duncan McNeil. Ladies and gentlemen, Robert Duncan McNeil, the man with three names. Am I the only one with three names in our cast? I think so. Does anyone call you Duncan?

Anybody. No. I did go by Duncan. really when I first I had to join the union to do a soap opera back in the 80s I joined after at the time the soap opera

union and there was already a Robert McNeil and so they were like well you could use your middle name or you know I was like well maybe I'll go by Duncan McNeil sure I'll try that and I joined and for about three months all the credits on all my children in the soap opera say Duncan McNeil

his parents should not have named him that basically you should have been the only Robert McNeil I think so I think so Hey you have a story about one of our Patreon patrons I do here in our little status report our intro I wanted to give a shout out

one of our Patreon members Samantha she's been sharing photos of her young son Charlie every week on our Facebook page on the Delta Flyers Facebook page and she's been saying how Charlie loves to watch the Delta Flyers podcast, watch the video, and he just sits there and he stares and watches us,

and she thinks that he really feels like he knows you and me now. So first of all, I want to tell Samantha, please tell Charlie to start to call us Uncle Garrett and Uncle Robbie. I think that would be only appropriate at this point. Uncle Robbie and Uncle Garrett. And, you know, Charlie was born during the COVID times. He doesn't get a lot of interaction with the outside world. And so we just want to give a shout out to Charlie. Hey, Charlie. Hi, buddy.

We're going to do another episode. You are now famous with everyone who listens to the Delta Flyers. Yes. Do you remember that video? Charlie bit me. Charlie. Do you remember that YouTube video that was viral? What is that from?

There was a YouTube. video of a little boy in his like baby brother named Charlie and the little baby bit his finger and he was like, Charlie, Charlie bit me. Charlie! It was the cutest thing. Do you know why I'm laughing so hard? Why? Because you never do voices and I love when you do a voice and you just did a voice and you do this little, little British kid, right? It's a little English kid. But our little Charlie, you You know, Uncle Garrett and Uncle Robbie's Charlie. He's a dedicated Delta Flyers watcher. He doesn't bite anybody.

He doesn't. No, he's not a bite. He just bites into each episode of Voyager. Exactly. He takes a big bite out of Star Trek Voyager. All right, we got a big bite this week. This is Sacred Ground. Oh, my gosh.

Very special episode to me. I'm so excited. It was my first directing opportunity on Star Trek. First time I ever directed. a TV show. Yeah. So this was a big deal.

I just want to go watch it and we'll come back and we'll talk about all of that. There'll be lots to share, I'm sure. You ready to watch it? I am ready. I'm very excited.

Okay. We'll be right. Okay. We'll be right back. There we go. All right, guys. We are back. Robbie and I are back

from watching his very first directorial debut. Yeah. Sacred ground. Here's my haiku for sacred ground. Janeway needs some faith. Her science is meaningless. So Kess will be saved.

There you go. There's the high. I like it. Yes, we have very similar tastes in our poetry. I'm going to be using many. of the words that you used, even though yours is much shorter. So here we go. Here's my limerick. Sure leave ends with Kess knocked out. Janeway must save her. There is no doubt. A ritual long and arduous. Results are simply meaningless. In the end, only blind faith holds any clout.

Nice. Blind faith. I like it. Blind faith. Yes, that's it. Good. Story by Geo Cameron, teleplay by Lisa Klink, directed by none other than RDM himself, and a nervous RDM, as we talked about earlier. Yes, very nervous to start this episode. I have my binder from Sacred Ground. There's a lot of notes in here, a lot of plans and little sketches and storyboards. And, you know, in some ways, I overplanned a lot of things. and in other ways I didn't plan on some things.

But this binder is really interesting, and I'm going to use it during this recap because I think there's some interesting stuff as we go through that I'll just pop in some notes I wrote. I do have a question. You said that there are some things that you overly prepared for. What would that be?

Well, I think that, you know, just like this episode's theme in many ways about control and science and planning and predictability, like you know there's a certain level of planning and predictability when you're directing television that you can kind of make your plan and think you know how it's going to go but when you actually get out there it doesn't turn out the actors don't look exactly you know they may not stand exactly where you plan or what you thought all of a sudden you may learn something new when you're actually standing there in the set and it's lit and the actors are there so sometimes i think my plans were very specific like the actor will look this way and it will it will say this word and you know it was scary and I was like no just see what happens and and then I think in other ways like one thing that I realize I'm watching it and thinking about this is I remember when it got to the stunts because often as an actor when

you're doing stunts you sort of rely on everyone else to figure out how they're going to film it because obviously you can't do things that are dangerous in real life. You do a part of it maybe for one shot and then the stunt double does this part of it for the other shot. And even things as simple as Janeway picking Kess up and walking up steps and carrying her. That's a stunt. It doesn't look like a stunt to the viewer. You just think, oh, Janeway picked Kess up and walked her up. but Cape Mulgrew, it's not safe for her to pick up another adult human being and try to

carry them up steps when you can't see where you're walking and things. So she can't do that. So I think in some ways, as I looked at my plan, I was like, oh, I didn't calculate in all the variables of stunts like that, just walking up steps or carrying another adult human being or how cast sort of falls back. Anyway, there's a, yeah, it was interesting to look at and remind myself that I hadn't directed stunts yet. I had acted in them, but I hadn't thought of it from the directorial point of view. So I've definitely learned a lot since then.

There was another quality that I noticed in watching the episode of very slow pace, that things were paced very, just very slowly and methodically. and I think what probably that there is that's a result of me directing as an actor for the first time. I wanted the actors to have the moments to feel things because that was where I was coming from, right? Yeah. I've learned since then that pace and moving like say the words, move, keep things moving, keep the energy up, all that. But as an actor, it always feels good to feel the feelings and take your time. And I think I was sort of encouraging that, a lot of that with the actors. And so it's got, you know, if I were to do this again, I probably would have paced some of those scenes up a lot more than I did.

And push the pace and things like that. Okay. It didn't bother. I didn't think it was, I mean, when you just described that, you made it sound like molasses. And to me, it wasn't molasses. I do see your standpoint of coming from it. as an actor in that you did showcase the actors and you definitely let them, you know, you let them shine.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, there were definitely shots that when you had on Janeway that reminded me of shots that Rick Colby would do with Janeway, with Kate, just because he really wanted to showcase her, mainly because he was dating her at the time. So that was part of his plan was to showcase her in the best light and let her be an actress first and foremost. And so you did the same thing here.

But it really, it definitely wasn't distracting to me in any way, shape, or form. And I know that if you had to do this again, that you would, you know, you pump it up a little bit pacing-wise. Yeah, I think I would. I think I would. Yeah, that makes sense. And that's because you've been doing it for so long now. You know what needs to be done to make the show the best show it can be. You know what I'm saying?

And it really, it's the show that it's the story and it's the show that matters not each individual actor, right? I mean, they're just components of the overall process. Okay, so let's start off. We start off with an invitation from the Nekani for a few days short leave to learn about their culture. So this involves a tour of the sanctuary, the sanctuary that honors their ancestral spirits. On this tour, we find our main players of Torres, Kim, Neelix, and Kess are the four that are taking this tour. Of course, while we're taking the tour, guess who wanders off from the tour? Good old Kess and Neelix.

And Neelix has wandered off before. remember they they wanted off in basics part one and two didn't or cast this is our classic cave set so we had adapted this with some light fixtures and some so we're in cave sets we were very familiar with and we had shot a lot in but i did notice it was very dark in there yes like it was really dark and i remember you know we filmed on film back then so it's not like nowadays where you have uh digital cameras that you can see on the monitor, the exposure levels and the light levels and things like that. So I was thinking, boy, it's really dark. Like sometimes it was hard to see faces make things out. And that big open area with the biogenic field and the steps leading up to that shrine, that was all added to our cave set on one side. So that was the new part of the set. But otherwise, it was the regular cave set. And I liked the, I liked how dark it was. Did you like it?

Whenever it's lit up more, then it just, to me, because I'm familiar with that stage, it's just me going, oh, it's the supplemental stage, sound stage again. We're on 16 again, and there's those damn rocks again. I mean, so they tend to look the same, and I can tell it's the same damn set. But because it was darker, I wasn't sure that if we were on 16. I thought, maybe we were at Bronson. Maybe we went somewhere else. I don't know.

So I think it worked for this episode. Oh, good. Yeah. And I thought about Harry Gruner as well. I was a big fan of Harry's. He was a big theater actor in New York when I was, had been younger and in New York. And I had seen him in a number of shows on Broadway and was very familiar with Harry as a, you know, a very talented theater actor. So I was just thrilled with this episode, the cast we got, starting with Harry Groner.

Yeah. Becky Baker, who comes in shortly as the guide. She's great. Married to Dylan Baker, both of them, phenomenal actors. Again, New York theater people that I knew. I had known so thrilled to get them. Our spirit guides, the three people waiting in the train car, whatever you thought it was, the three people there,

Parley Bear, who was a legendary Hollywood actor having done so many movies, and I think he was in the Andy Griffith Show or something. I can't remember. he's the grumpy guy or the the less grumpy one he's the grumpy guy he's the grumpy that's parley bear he had done a thousand been around forever um king curtis played the balding you know kind of quiet or not not the good cop he was the good cop he was the good cop right king curtis another phenomenal new york theater actor i'd seen him on micaj on broadway i'd seen him do shakespeare in the park king curtis just an amazing actor

Again, I was just so honored to be directing with such great actors. Estelle Harris, again, like super familiar. I think she went on to be on one of the sitcoms that became very well known. Well, you lucked out to have such talent, and they lucked out to have, but they lucked out to have you because you knew of their career. I knew all of their careers very well. Exactly, exactly, because you're an actor first and foremost at that point. At that point, I was thrilled.

Yeah. Okay. Now let's get, let's get on with the story. Kess and Neelig's wander off. When Kess walks up to the entrance of that shrine and she gets shocked, my first reaction was, I said, that is the stunt double walking up to the shrine as well as the stump double getting shocked. Am I right to have assumed that? It is both, okay, because I knew right off the bat. That wasn't Jennifer's walk. Because, well, it's not her walk and it's not her body shape either. Like that woman had, she had more hips than Jennifer does. Right. Jennifer was 19 at the time. So, you know, not so much in the hip department, right? And so I saw that. I was like, wait a minute. And I thought, hmm, is that truly, and this comes back to what you said about what we, what most people, outsiders don't realize is a stunt. Janeway picking up Kess is a stunt. But that, but Kess walking up those stairs can also be a stunt in a way, right? Because it's precarious in a way. And also. So maybe because you were thinking, where we're going to show her to get zapped from behind,

we might as well use her to walk up just to establish that. Is that kind of the thinking that you did in terms of why you used to stomp? I think we did that as one take, you know, with her walking up and then taking the fall and rolling back. And falling back. The other thing to note about that energy field up at the top of the steps, there was no set beyond it. I remember Marvin Rush when we got into there and he was like, what are we going to do? We can't look at this big archway because there's nothing behind it.

So that's why the light, he was like, how can we look at this set when there's, if you look beyond it, there's nothing there. You just see, I think they had put like a black curtain or something, but he goes, there's just nothing there. So that's why it's filled with that bright, bright light and the smoke to sort of diffuse it because there was no set behind the archway. There was nothing there. Was that a big problem? Do you recall that being a big problem? Well, I remember the solution. We didn't have a solution initially.

We were like, well, what are we going to do about that? And then the lighting and the smoke and all of that diffusion became the answer. Like when we look over there, we've got to have the stage full of smoke and big bright lights so that you just can't see beyond the arch. Yeah. I'm curious to see if you remember, what was the first scene that was shot for this episode? You know, I've got the shooting schedule right here. I'm really curious, because, you know, you talk about this issue with, like, looking beyond the gate and there's nothing there. And I'm wondering, was that the first scene? Typically, we would start filming on the ship, on our standing sets, and give them time to build the sets that are not normal. Okay. So it would have been a bridge set or it would have been in sick bay or it would have been in Chiquet's court. Okay. The very first scene, I'm looking at the shooting schedule. That's the shooting schedule, guys. There it is. Right there. There it is, the shooting station.

And it says the very first scene that I ever directed as a professional director was in Sick Bay. Yes. With just the doctor. And that's it. It must have been a phone call or something. Oh, yeah. Janeway's life sign. So it must have been.

Okay. It says scene 17 part and 18 part and just the doctor. And then the second scene was with Neelik's. Kess and the doctor. It was seen 37. Keep talking to her is how it's described. Right. That scene that you filmed to the doctor, that's the doctor notifying Janeway while she's in the transporter room with myself and Tuvok. And the doctor comes on screen and says that he has, you know, put this subdermal implant in her, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So I think that's the scene that you shot first. Yeah, that was it, right?

The doctor. Wow. Bob Picardo was the very first person. Wow. And let's just take a little skip-de-do here. Yeah. It wasn't until day, Chocote's office we were in on day three, which that was an interesting set. You know, Chocote's sitting at his desk.

We didn't go in there. No, very rarely. And I made light of that. I made a note of that in the prior episode. I don't know which episode we just recorded, but that was the first. first time I recall seeing his set was a couple episodes ago so his office that is sorry we did on day three the end of day three we filmed the rocky shore precipice where Janeway talks to with the guide the guide is sort of you know interpreting for the spirits yeah um so we filmed kind of the end of the

show before she had gone through any of her um you know any of her her her vision quest we filmed that scene on the on the precipice see that's what that's what makes it so difficult yeah in terms of television slash film acting yeah because you've got to keep that she just she's filming the stuff it's like wait a minute you you typically have to go through the journey and then you film you know the ending scene or the the uh the climax and it's like opposite and it's difficult because you've got to track that within your own head as an artist as an actor you have to realize okay where are we in this script in this episode oh we're at the end okay well i've already had enlightenment did i have enlightenment i don't know you know there's all these questions

so that's difficult awesome i also in my notes here i noticed my little checklist i have throughout the script for different scenes in this very first scene i made a note the land of oz is what I wrote down, that I was thinking of these caves and Kess and Neelix wandering off, you know, when they go over in Wizard of Oz, they go over and they pull the curtain back and they see the wizard back there. Yeah, yeah. That was a note to myself. So you would make shorthand notes like that on your script to just sort of give you references to what you, what I was thinking, what you were thinking of, your idea for that scene, right? Yeah. The action of that scene. Perfect. after she gets shocked

basically Torres and Kim Torres and Kim run in to find Kess on the ground and Elix is already freaking out I ran in really weird did you notice that? I had a very weird

I was very disappointed and I kept thinking there's only one reason for that that ground was unstable that had to be one reason the one why I was probably like dirt or you know

yes loose dirt over solid plywood is kind of slippery, you know what I'm saying? It's not, it's not going to be the easiest stuff to run in and stop on. And plus the shoes that we're wearing, Robbie, they're like dress shoes. Like we didn't have like, you know, a grip on the bottom like an athletic shoe sole. It was the soul of a dress shoe practically. So I think that that was what was going on. That might have been in a little slippery. So now we're in the sick bay. We're in sick bay and Janeway and the doctor is there, and Nelix as well. Kess is in a comatose-like state,

and Nelix, very concerned, he asked to help Janeway, asked Nelix to find out scientific data on the energy field and sends him back down. Here is my little drawing for the blocking of this scene. And just where the actors might go, and here's some notes for those that are just listening to audio. Yeah, it's fascinating to look back at some of my directing planning.

Do you still do that now? Do you draw that out like that? I do sometimes and not always. You know, I got to be honest. Like now that I know I'm good with a lot of these kind of fundamental things, but I loved, this is something that I found. So I made this worksheet for myself that I created when I first started directing. And I still have something like this, but it's evolved over time.

And I haven't, this is the first one I ever made. I hadn't seen it until I just opened this binder up. And for those of you who are listening, it says, I'm going to read, it says director's checklist. Then it says central theme. So for this scene, I put the theme of the scene is it must be science and facts behind a belief. So that's the argument we're making in this scene. There's got to be science and there's got to be facts. It can't just be some religious thing.

A question I put down was look everywhere until you find an answer. I call this the ER scene or the triage scene. A lot of these things are obvious, but sometimes, you know, Kess has just arrived. This is a fact. She just arrived. So we need to remember, remind the actors that you've just gotten here. You're just beginning to assess this. As opposed to, oh, we've been here for an hour and, you know.

Character objectives I have for the doctor to assess the medical condition. Janeway's objective is, let's not waste any time, I put down. Neelix's objective is to be of some help, to be of some use. I put down one of the categories here is the point of view or the empathy position. I always feel like every scene has a character that is sort of experiencing that scene and the audience is experiencing it through that character's point of view. So for this scene, I felt like Janeway was the point of view. She's the one who's going to go on this vision quest.

So she's sort of experiencing what the doctor's saying. I have a physical and internal chronology. Where are we coming from? I wrote down categories like conflict, cinema language, meaning what kind of visual style? Am I handheld? Am I not handheld, but I want it to feel sort of energetic that way? Is there any other picturization?

put as a category composition support you did this for every scene you did this for every scene you've made out this little list here i would i would print out this thing and then i would fill it in i just randomly open another page here's scene 17 18 yeah central theme find the facts firsthand okay so you did it for every scene very detailed it's not every scene i i will say i remember when Roxanne Dawson directed and I looked at her notebook I felt like wow she was much more prepared than me like she I thought I was prepared

she's got posted notes and so much writing and so many words sometimes I would just write like you know simple things or simple graphics I'm sorry my first thought process Robbie about Roxanne's notebook is this is my comedic view of that is that she had stuff written down like ask Kate what she had for breakfast depending on what type of food it was it may make her look like she's retaining water if that's the case like Kate

differently you know like this is attention to detail that Roxanne had but he would have a lot a lot of attention to this is like how I would storyboard I would often draw my own little storyboards which are so fundamental and basic but um you know stuff like that. Yeah. And these are just basic drawings by hand that Robbie's made on paper, like a stick figure almost. Like a stick figure, exactly.

Yeah, of how, is this a medium shot? Is this a master? I mean, he's showing exactly the flow, the storyboard of what's happening in the story. Yeah, and there's storyboard artists that are much more detail than better. You know, they draw things. Of course, of course. For me, it was more a process of, oh, well,

if I go from a close-up to this shot or if they're moving this way, could that blocking, that staging bring me into a close-up? Bring you to the next, yes. Could I pan into this shot and things like that? I noticed in my notes that I would make notes about shots, like tilt from the doctor down to the biobed and focus on the blinkie. And I had forgotten. I used to call those things blinkies.

Blinkies. Like if there was like just medical or like science-y-seeing. stuff that was just like a prop that always had lights on him. I just go to the blinkies. And I have that note in my script all over the place. Like, you know, tight shot of the blinkies, pan off the blinkies over to here. Isn't it a blinkie like a pacifier or isn't that? I don't know. I called anything that had little lights on it that was just like a blinkies. A prop. Yeah. That's cute. Okay. So now we are, let's Let's see, Janeway gives Neelix his homework assignment to go down on the planet to find out exactly what's going on.

And she's, you know, she's stressing or she's really emphasizing. She needs scientific data. So here we are. We're having the first glimpses of this, the theme of science versus religion. Captain Janeway then pleads with the Nacani magistrate. They're currently in her ready room where she pleads with the magistrate to meet with the monks. of the Nekisti Council. The Nekisti are the ones that have devoted their lives to the religious aspect of this

culture, of this society. Hey, Garrett, have you been traveling this summer? Oh, my gosh, so much already. I don't always travel, but this summer's been insane, trip after trip. You've been doing your impersonation of me. Yes. You know what doesn't belong in everyone's epic summer plans, though? What?

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So this year, skip breaking a sweat and breaking the bank. get this new customer offer and your three-month unlimited wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash TDF. That's mintmobile.com slash TDF. Up front payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See MintMobile for details. And so right off the bat, we see that there's the separation not only between science and religion, but there's a separation between state and religion. The Nacani magistrate's like, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, I'm just a politician. I don't know anything when it comes to,

yeah, that's the monks business, right? And Janeway is still pushing him for more scientific data. Give me as much as much science as possible, please. And he can't. So then we go to the sick bay where we find out that the biogenic field can be entered or can be passed through by the monks without any harm. So then that gives Janeway some hope. She's thinking, okay, there is something that can happen here. There has to be. And she has more hope when Neelix comes back

with the story about King Nevid. King Nevid is someone from Nakani history, ancient history, whose son, the prince, had the same thing happen to him that happened to Kess. and he went into that comatose-like state and the king basically requested to seek an audience with the spirits and he went through a ritual to seek an audience with the spirits

and essentially he requested that his son be brought back to consciousness and because he went through that whole ritual and because he was the king and he acknowledged the fact that as a king and a father he had responsibility for this prince they did give him his son back or the consciousness of his son back.

Then we flash over to Chakotay's office. We have Janeway and Chiquotay. Chichote suggests that the doctor should probably monitor the captain's physical condition and also have some way to call out for an emergency beam out. These are the precautions that Chocote is taking or trying to take with Janeway to make sure that she's safe, as safe as possible,

because she's decided that she is going to embark upon this same type of ritual, if at all possible. And that is when the Akani magistrate calls and says that Janeway's request to go through this ritual has been granted. There is interest from the council, the religious council, that she even wants to do this. And it's so funny because Janeway, she's like, well, you know, there's a scientific basis for most religious doctrine, right? This is something that she says to Chakotay.

And this entire time, Robbie, she's, um, you directed her so that she's very smug about this whole, about this ritual. She was like, well, you know, I've already studied all these tribes. It's going to be some type of like thing where it's going to be physical and there's going to be endurance involved. And the way she talks about it, it's like it's going to be a walk in the park. It's the way she's talking. It's like, no problem.

I'm going to be able to take this on and it's going to be easy. I do remember in that scene that I think this was the audition scene that the guide had, that Becky Baker had had. Now that I think about it, when we got to filming it, it was in a very tight space and there wasn't much room to move the camera. And I remember feeling like, oh, no, my plan is going to be very hard. Now that I'm physically here, you know, this is a tight, it's a little corner where we're putting this,

where she's working on this light and it's tricky to get the cameras in there. That's one thing I remember. But no, I just, I thought it was. great working with Becky and Kate, just such great actors. I do remember that they wanted to, you know, kind of encourage her to be kind of fun and funny and not at all a spiritual kind of guide. Like they didn't want her to seem like a guide at all. They didn't want her to seem like she was trying to be deep or profound. So I remember that was a lot of fun to do. direct and sort of push Becky and remind her of like, how can we do things that just aren't going to feel like, you know, some deep spiritual guide. But that's interesting. Kami, you know. Now, whose note was that though? Whose note was that? I don't remember. I just remember it coming up in the prep. Like, let's make sure that this character is not at all, you know, deeper profound. Well, it's great because it was so different from me.

everything that we're used to seeing or hearing on Voyager. And I made that note. I said, wow, her delivery is more contemporary and less stylized than any other guest star or any series regular on this show, the way she was talking. And I was thinking, when I first saw her Becky Baker speak, I thought, okay, this reminds me of, and I don't know if you've watched, I think you said you haven't watched Discovery, correct? You haven't watched. I've seen some of it, yeah.

Okay. So what Becky Baker reminded me of. A combination between comedian Tignitaro's character, the chief engineer, Jet Reno, and Mary Wiseman's character, Tilly, mixed with, mixed with Liz, your actor friend that was your witness at your wedding. Those three, what was Liz's characters on, live? Yeah, what's Liz's character on Liv's character's name? No, her, Elizabeth is her real name. Oh, I'm sorry, Liv is her character as L-I-V. Okay, okay, so.

Deputy Liv. Right. So if you mix the characters of Jet Reno, Mary Watt, sorry, Jet Reno, Sylvia Tilly, and Liv from Resident Ali. Deputy Live, yeah, Deputy Live. You get Becky Baker's character on this, the guide, exactly. That's what I felt. And I just thought, my gosh, she's really speaking so modern and not what I'm used to.

So this is from a note you guys had. Yeah, it was the note. It's what we wanted. to do with the character was to make it not spiritual or religious at all. And I remember it was, it was fun to remind her of that and feel the freedom to sort of push her into a much more, you know, down-to-earth contemporary, almost sitcom-y kind of wise-cracking.

Very sitcom, yeah. It was fun. Becky Baker takes her to the next room where all these attendants show up and start taking Janeway's clothing off. Well, at least Janeway's in the beginning was like, What? You know, wait, wait, wait. And then Becky Baker says you need to just trust this. This is a ritual. Go with it. And she then allows all the attendance to disrupt her. And I do not remember the scene at all of Janeway practically naked. I'm like, what? I actually pitched this scene. This was the one thing. I think in the original script, she met the guide. And then you cut to her wearing the robe already wearing the robe

and I was like wait a minute there's an opportunity if we're going to play this theme of like shedding technology and science and she's letting go of all of these things and we're going to go on this vision quest you have an opportunity to have her very vulnerable and to see her

like Picard had an episode I think where he he was naked or something a prisoner or something and yeah I don't don't even remember that episode of TNG, but I do remember the image of Picard being very vulnerable and naked and not in his space suit and his captain's uniform. And I just said, let's make sure we have a moment like that to start this vision quest with Janeway, where we could go through

like a cleansing, you know, a bathing kind of thing. And she has to shed her uniform. And I talk to Kate about it first because they said, well, that's a great idea, but I don't know if Kate will do it. you know, if you can talk her into it, sure, we'll put it in the script. So I went to Kate, and I was like, I think this would be a great moment. And she agreed, clearly, yeah. Right? Yeah. And again, this is your wonderful relationship with her being your trailer neighbor, your next door neighbor, and you had that ability to ask her that. But I have a question for you. Did you find it a little bit, it was interesting that she's playing so coy and she's covering up

because I would think as a captain, she'd be very secure in her body. You know what I'm saying? And especially in front of, these aren't even male attendants. You know, these are female attendants. I was thinking that maybe as it was a little uncharacteristic of captain to be a little like covering up. And I understand covering up for television. Like we can't show nudity.

We can't show topless. We can't show breasts. I get that. But obviously she could have had her hands down and it could have been shot from the back where you didn't see the breast as well. Was there any discussion between you and came? on that where she felt like hey yeah there was i mean i i think in my mind i had i had an image when i was pitching it to her of more of what you're describing of this sort of okay i'm going to be

vulnerable and i'm going to be and i think when kate got there you know she said look i feel like i would be be very uncomfortable the captain would feel like what are you doing you're taking you know reluctant that she would be reluctant to do this sort of primitive kind of behavior and take her clothes off in front of strangers so i think that's kind of where we landed was sort of that in-between, sort of discomfort, I guess, yeah. Then she's led to the train car room. The waiting room. The waiting room.

Janeway is just so impatient. And the theme in this scene is literally, you've got three elderly, wise people saying, wait, wait. And Janeway is like, must go, must go, was her objective. must leave this room and not realizing that this is the room that this is the ritual you need to stay in this room but she doesn't she knocks on the door the guide opens it we see becky again and janeway makes reference to i'm not sure if i've done what i need to do in this room but i'm ready to move on and she's like okay well then you can move on so she's she then begins to hold the stone

she's holding the stone and holding the stone we flash back to the sick bay the doctor detects the strain of Janeway holding the stone for so long. Then we flash back to the sanctuary. She's drawing on a wall and she's climbing up a face of a cliff. Now, is this all in her mind, Robbie, or is this actually things that she's doing? No, because she's there for three days, right? They say that she's been there for three days doing these different things, but she's also kind of, it's unclear what how much of this is, I think, reality and, and and sort of hallucinations start to become one in this room, this room of rituals.

I do remember that I wanted to make use of the steady cam in this chamber. That I wanted the camera to be moving a lot, that I wanted them to be walking around, that I wanted her to start to go on a bit of an acid trip and sort of be like, wait, what's what's right, what's left, what's up, what's down, the snake bid and the painting and all of it. Kind of like your version of the thaw of Marvin's episode in a way.

Yeah. Sort of weird, surreal, like, you know, environment, right? Yeah, and it's funny because I remember struggling in this set a bit and the scenes. We pulled the Steadicam out. We did a number of shots with the Steadicam. But because of the way the set was designed and how Marvin had to light, we couldn't really do a 360 and turn all the way around. and that was a great lesson in sort of maybe involving the DP into the planning ahead of time

because once we got there and I was like okay Marv here's what I'm thinking in the steady camp even though I had the tools I didn't have all the information so it was sort of a compromise version of what I initially really wanted to do in that room but I was happy with how it turned out but right it definitely didn't have the kind of sweep and the the the constant circling that I was looking for, we couldn't do that type of, those type of moves in there because of where the lights had to sit because of the way the set and the ceiling and all was designed. Okay, okay.

But if you had talked to Marvin earlier, you think maybe a solution could have come up? We might have been able to come up with a solution of hanging some lights ahead of time, rigging those lights earlier, things like that, which I just didn't have enough experience to know, you know. But I was happy with how it turned out. We still got a lot of movement in that room and still got a lot of different. looks. When Janeway's climbing up the cliff, that's just stage 16? Yeah. With the, it was or green, some green screen action going on there. Yeah. Yeah. From there, we move to Sick Bay. The doctor actually

displays empathy for Neelix. He feels bad. He touches his shoulder. Did you direct? Did you direct Bob to touch John Ethan's shoulder? I don't know if I did. Or if that was Bob, I don't remember okay okay um the script clearly probably did say that he's showing some type of empathy obviously right for nilis um and that's that may have been bob's decision to touch him maybe yours we don't know now we go back to the sanctuary the inner sanctum we learn of this creature oh god i wish we could have seen what this thing looked like the nesit the nesit the neset nesit okay i think so the nesit can travel from this world to the spirit realm um the spirit realm, the nesit serve as the gatekeepers to the spirit realm. And now the guide

encourages janeway to stick her hand in the container that is containing the very vicious sounding Neset. Janeway sticks her arm in and she goes in for a minute. Sorry, I guess I get stuck on your question. The doctor stands by the bedside a moment looking down at his patient. Then he reaches out and touches neelix on the shoulder. On the shoulder. Okay. It was written in. All right. Yeah. So Lisa, Lisa directed that one. Lisa did. Lisa put it in there. Yeah. Lisa clank. Okay. Uh, which is rare, though, because let's face it, the doctor has always been quite ornery and doesn't really care that much about anybody. Right. And so now we see another side of the doctor. Um, so now she gets bitten by the Nesset. And, and this is, I, it was so difficult to watch Janeway struggle from that bite. Because up and this point, you really haven't seen that type of, you haven't seen Janeway go through that kind

of a painful, you know, experience, except maybe when the caretaker has the needle in her cavity chest from, you know, the first episode. But other than that, to see Janeway's just talking about her chest constricting, being tight and then just literally just passing out, was tough to watch. We're not used to seeing the captain put in, in these dire circumstances. Yeah. But I guess, you know, it must be dire because it's the ritual that she has she must go through so now we jump back to sick bay and we have chakote debating with the doctor um tuvac is the one who finally convinces chukotay to let janeway complete the ritual but up until that point um the doctor and chukotay are just kind of going back and forth jacote is very concerned about the welfare of janeway but tuvac says look i know janeway well

she would want to complete the ritual. So let her stay in this state that she's in. Did you notice, by the way, that Chukotay is like, I am not leaving this monitor until she returns. It's like, dude, let it go. I am not leaving this monitor. I am not. I will not eat.

I will fast to protest the Janeway predicament. So now Janeway's at the ocean. And is that just a stock? shot of the ocean like what yeah i think it was i don't think we had anything to look at it was a green screen i think we shot over her shoulder to a green screen or something okay got you yeah um she makes her request to save kess and this is when she is told by the guide that she already has everything that she needs to save kess within her um we go back to the sanctuary inner sanctum and the guide gives janeway's clothing back she goes

back to the ship. The doctor formulates a treatment for Cass based on the toxin that Jane was exposed to. Yes, the doctor's very confident in his science. Oh, my gosh. Come up with a hypothesis and run some tests. And then it doesn't work. No, it doesn't work. It doesn't kill her. Yes, it almost kills her.

It's quite scary. We end up back in the sanctuary entrance where Janeway is now talking to the guide. Well, he says at the end of the scene, at the end of the scene, doctor says, you know, Captain, I'm sorry, but, you know, everything you, you know, my test are wrong and everything you went through is meaningless. And she goes, right. Oh, that was the key. Yes. Somebody else says that. I'll be right back. Yeah. Because that's what the guide had said. Exactly. Yeah, the guide had said. It's all meaningless. That could have been the, that could have been the title of this episode too.

meaningless. It could have been the title. It's in my haiku. It is. It's in my limerick. We've got meaningless twice there. It's a very important word. So she goes back to the guide who then informs her. Everything that you went through was meaningless, just like you just told me. So there is that interaction. Now we go back to the train car scene and the train car set. And there's a discussion of science and faith. And I just love the lines from, not the ornery old man but the nicer one the good cop he says most of the challenges in life

are the ones we create for ourselves very wise then he also says if you can explain everything what's left to believe in yeah I remember that line and then another wonderful line if you believe you're ready then you are there's no more to it than that I mean, super wise words, loved all those lines.

And then ornery, ornery elderly, sage, that's almost like a tongue twister. That's good. You're making it harder at yourself. I am. The ornery sage says, but if you go in with any doubt, with any hesitation, then you're both dead. And I love the whole, you know, when Jamie's like saying, so what do I do? Well, you're not going to want to hear it. You've got to kill her.

You've got, you know, she has to basically go through that thing. Yeah, you got to kill her again. you got to take her through the field one more time. Janeway then calls Chocote to bring Kess down to the sanctuary, and they beam down Nelix, Chikote, Kess, plus a bed, which looks nothing like the bio bed that she was laying on. No, I don't know where that bed. What that, where's that bed come from, Rob?

I don't know, I've never seen it before or after. And have we ever, excuse me, have we ever beamed furniture down? I don't think we've ever, it's always people, right? I mean, this is the first time on Voyager. that a piece of furniture was beamed down and a bed that no one's ever seen before in their life. And then, of course, this is when Chikote really tries to convince Janeway that she needs to rethink of her plan to walk into the biogenic field with Kess. And even Nelix is sitting there pleading saying, look, I understand what Kess is going through, but I don't want you to die also, right? and of course

she walks through and everything's okay and I do find Robbie everything in this episode the only thing that kind of made me go hmm was the reaction

to Kess being revived I was just looking I was trying to look in my script because it says the golden burst of light flashes from the walls Jane Wake feels it we hold tight her. She looks down at Kess and herself and she sees Kess's eyes open off Janeway. It doesn't say

in the script that Nielix reacts or Chukote. So I think what happened was I probably shot it thinking, okay, Neelix and Chukotay just need to look. And then we go to Janeway's tight, close up, seeing Kess, and that's it. Now I'm a little wiser to know, hey, we should get the reactions, make sure that, you know, even though in the script, it doesn't say Neelix is relieved or Neelix, you know, there's no reference to him reacting because it's really the way the script reads is we don't even go back to Neelix. And so that's probably why I shot it that way, but they decided to use their close-ups and then they don't, we didn't have a reaction, but they used it anyway. Okay. Well, that makes sense. And she was very far away from them. Like, Janeway was, you know, 30, 40, feet up on the stairs, looking down at Kess. They couldn't have seen Kess's eyes open there.

They wouldn't have been able to see it. Yeah. So in reality, Rob, yeah, they, in reality, it should have been the reaction literally, just Janeway, really, just Janeway's reaction. Which is how it's scripted. They shouldn't have cut, yeah, they shouldn't have cut to John it. Editorially, I think that was a choice they made to use those reactions that there really was. And it was a wrong choice. I'm going to say right now, it was the wrong. choice because it makes like it looks like neelix is very uncaring of his love yeah you know to me so all right well good to know that that's cleared up um thank you for explaining that because i i thought why would robbie not know that i mean he would know this but unless kess stood up and looked back at them

and then she doesn't no she's still jacote or neelix wouldn't even wouldn't have been even able to see her eyes open no you see what i'm saying right because she doesn't make a move if you look at that cut it's just Kess lying there opening her eyes up and she doesn't go like she doesn't move at all she just opens her eyes and looks at Janeway period end of you know end of her her coverage so yeah at the very end so the last scene is the doctor seems to have a scientific explanation for what happened and and it's not magic it's not spiritual anything it's he's got he's got another explanation even though he had an explanation before and it didn't work right this time he's got an explanation he thinks is right.

Correct. And she says, that's a perfectly sound explanation, doctor. Very scientific. And it says in the script here, it says she holds a look with him for a moment. Is that the only explanation? So she's waiting for maybe more or maybe thinking that there's more to this, but she doesn't say it. And then it says she moves out of the office, leaving the doctor and Kess a bit nonplussed. on Janeway as she heads out of sick bay unsettled still not quite sure how to make sense of this experience fade out the end so I think we got that I think we got that moment as scripted you know you did get you did get the moment yeah definitely got the moment she's very um she's very pensive she's a million miles away and she's literally questioning like everything that she knows you know what I'm saying I mean she's always been about science yeah and at the end she's just sitting there going hmm

it's not always about science it's not always about science yeah it's also about things that i can't explain to you yeah in a concrete fashion yeah yeah i noticed a couple times in my notes i made reference to the x files which was still very popular back in the 90s it was kind of winding down a bit but that show had been a game changer in the sci-fi world and you know kind of television landscape. And the thing about X-Files that was so interesting is they would never end the episode with a clear answer whether that paranormal situation had a scientific explanation or a paranormal explanation. On the X-Files, it kind of ended with they both could be true, this scientific explanation or this crazy paranormal explanation. Yeah. And I wrote down X-files in my script a number of

times going, I want to make sure that we end this episode with the same kind of possibilities that X-Files sort of ends with. It felt very X-Filesy to me this episode. You X-Filed it. You definitely ex-filed at the ending. Nice, baby. Yes. All right. Yeah. So what's your theme, buddy? We didn't talk about our life lesson. What is my theme? We put our faith in the things that we choose to put our faith in. meaning I can put my faith in science if I choose that or I can put my faith in other things that like in this story Janeway's experience just fulfilled her expectations and in the end it didn't mean anything you know all the snake bite and the cliff and the rock and all those things were just like cliches of what a spiritual vision quest should be and that was really

Janeway created it. for me come from the from the old sages really in this episode and that and those lines that I read out earlier. I mean, most of the challenges in life are the ones we create for ourselves. Most of the challenges in life are the ones we create for ourselves. I mean, that's that's a big lesson right there. I think so many people when things happen are always saying, oh, that person did this to me. That person is the reason why this happened to me. There's a lot of blaming going on. There's not a lot of like accountability and realizing, wait a minute, things are really tough, is it, let's look at myself and why I'm in this situation. It's not always someone outside of you that's causing

this or a situation outside of yourself that's causing it. It's really, it starts with you, right? And also just, you know, the whole concept of belief, just believing and having faith in something and having faith to the to the point of there is no doubt you can because you have doubt or hesitation and this can be in this can be in anything really whether you're playing sports or whether you're doing you know choosing to buy an investment property or something this is these are life decisions that literally you have to have the belief and trust that you are doing something that is going to benefit you right and so if you have you have that belief, that 100% faith that you are making the right move and no hesitation,

that's usually when you succeed, I find, you know, or you make the right move. Thank you for listening to this recap for our patrons. Stay tuned. We've got Lisa Klink, who wrote this episode, is going to join us for some of our bonus material for our patrons. It was great to revisit my directing debut and such a great episode written by Lisa Klink, beautifully acted by Kate Mulgrew and our guest stars were phenomenal. It was really fun. It was really fun to revisit this one.

So thanks. Stay tuned, everybody. Next week, Robbie and I will be reviewing Futures End Part 1. See you next week, guys. Thanks.