The Delta Flyers - Scorpion Part 1

Episode Date: August 16, 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 Scorpion Part 1. Garrett and Robbie recap and discuss the episode, and share their insight as series regulars. Scorpion Part 1:The ship remains on Red Alert after Janeway and the Borg Collective agree to fight the destructive Species Eight Four Seven Two.We want to thank everyone who makes this podcast possible, starting with our Executive producers Megan Elise and Rebecca McNeill, and our Post Producer Jessey Miller.And a special thanks to our Ambassadors, the guests who keep coming back, giving their time and energy into making this podcast better and better with their thoughts, input, and inside knowledge: Lisa Klink, Martha Hackett, Robert Picardo, Ethan Phillips, Robert Beltran, and Tim Russ.Additionally we could not make this podcast available without our Co- Executive Producers: Stephanie Baker, Philipp Havrilla, Kelton Rochelle, Liz Scott, Sab Ewell, Sarah A Gubbins, Jason M Okun, Luz R., Marie Burgoyne, Chris Knapp, Michelle Zamanian, Utopia Science Fiction Magazine, Courtney Lucas, Matthew Gravens, Elaine Ferguson, Brian Barrow, Captain Jeremiah Brown, Rich Gross, Mary Jac Greer, John Espinosa, James Zugg, Deike Hoffmann, Mike Gu, Anna Post, Shannyn Bourke, Vikki Williams, Lee Lisle, Mary Beth Lowe, William McEvoy, Sarah Thompson, Holly Smith, KMB, Dominic Burgess, Amber Eason, Lucas Shuck, Mary Burch, Nicholaus Russell, Darryl Cheng, Alex Mednis, Elizabeth Stanton, Kayla Knilans, Tim Beach, Ariana, Meg Johnson, Marcus Vanderzonbrouwer, Nathan Walker, Shambhavi Kadam, and Christopher ArzebergerAnd our Producers:Jim Guckin, Steph Dawe Holland, James Amey, Katherine Hedrick, Eleanor Lamb, Richard Banaski, Eve England, Ann Harding, Laura Swanson, Ann Marie Segal, Charity Ponton, Chloe E, Kathleen Baxter, Craig Sweaton, Nathanial Moon, Warren Stine, Mike Schaible, Kelley Smelser, AJ Provance, Captain Nancy Stout, Claire Deans, Matthew Cutler, Crystal Komenda, Maxine Soloway, Joshua L Phillips, Barbara Beck, Mary O'Neal, Aithne Loeblich, Heidi Mclellan, Dat Cao, Cody Crockett, Stephen Riegner, Debra Defelice, James Cottrell, Jenna Appleton, Cindy Ring, Andrei Dunca, Daniel Owen, Jason Wang, Gabriel Dominic Girgis, Amber Nighbor, Liz Lowe, Jamason Isenburg, Mark G Hamilton, Rob Johnson, Kevin Selman, Michael Bucklin, Lisa Klink, Justin Weir, Normandy Madden, Joseph Michael Kuhlmann, Mike Chow, Kevin Hooker, Michelle Maroney, Victor Ling, Scott J. Mark, John Mann, Michael "Klink" Klinckhardt, Megan Chowning, Rachel Shapiro, Eric Kau, Joseph Lanning, and Melissa A. NathanThank 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, everyone. Welcome to the Delta Flyers with Tom and Harry as we journey through episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Your two hosts along this journey are myself, Garrett Wong, and my co-host, Mr. Robert Duncan McNeil. Hello, sir. Hello. Happy day to you. Happy season three finale day. Oh my God. I can only think of a song by Europe. The final countdown. I am wearing our series finale hat in honor of the season three final episode because we talked about it, I think, last time. Yes. This is the Star Trek Voyager crew hat, which, let me pull it off. See my hathead. Where is my hathead?

Well, our listeners can't see your hathead, but for those of you who are listening, he's got hathead. I totally do. Could be bedhead. It could be, except I've been on a hike and I've been up and it's been a busy day. But this is our Star Trek Voyager season seven, and it says, fini on the back. And the cast made these for the crew. We were talking about it last week.

Are you sure you made them? You said that you made them. I didn't physically sew them. Well, I know. No, you didn't physically. I thought that I made them. But then in our conversation earlier, you said that you're the one to put the order in.

So maybe I don't know. I think I did. I think I put an order in through. I can't remember who. Somebody on the crew, maybe in the props department. Like, I don't know. Alan Sims or Charlie Russo or something,

they had made hats before. And I think I used their vend. Okay, okay. That makes sense. Well, can I ask you a question, please? Yes. Where have you stored that hat? It is so crunchy. It is. It's kind of crunched up over here. It's been moved around a lot. It's been 26 years. All right. So that's 26 years of storage and somehow, somewhere, it got a little crunchy. It's been crushed. Okay. But like I said, I think I remember finding a box. Yeah. On the last move, yeah. Random box of hats that were extras that we had gotten. Yes. you know in case people you know weren't on the list or whatever and so i've got to find that box of hats i don't uh and i too seem to recall a box of hats as well i know yeah so i need to i need to look for my box of hats maybe everybody has a box of hats maybe we give all the cast because we all the cast bought these hats for for the crew and stuff so maybe part of the deal was we got an extra box each or something i hope we remember that correctly i hope we can find them yes i i look

forward to looking for, I look forward for looking for. I look forward to looking forward to looking for. I'm a little discombobulated. I had three and a half hours at dental work yesterday. So I'm a little. Oh yeah. How's it looking? Yeah, it's okay. You know, it's a temporary right now. It's temporary though. It's still temporary. Well, they've got to make the, the crown. Yeah, the actual permanent crown has to be fabricated by a technician who is very, very good. This individual has been doing it for about 17 years. The technician was at the dentist yesterday to look at the coloring and everything of the other tooth that's still there.

Yes. His name is George. So I did a whole funny bit where I said, well, wouldn't be funny if I was a different Asian Star Trek actor that was here in the chair. And I happened to be George Taked. and I would be saying, George, I'm so happy to be trusting you, to be fabricating my crowd. And so I was saying a George to George message. I made the guy laugh.

Nice. It was good to make people laugh. It is. It is. And you know, when I was singing the final countdown earlier, that wasn't about the final countdown to the last episode of third season. That was the final countdown to the end of my limericks. That's what I'm trying to do.

That's why I. congratulated into that territory yes yes i can't yes you know what i may since this is scorpion part one i may extend myself to to number two or it'd be kind of cool to see how what you come up with sure number two right so i'm not you said number two uh-huh he said number two that makes me laugh okay i am 12 years old well let's stay on that 12 year old vibe and every time i talk about the episode that you filmed on tng yes i turned 12 as well first duty because it sounds so much like because i said duty you said duty yeah get the giggles okay all righty i like that character yes i like that kind of

I'm embarrassed as a kid character. Nick, Likarno, he's all about duty. Duty. Okay. Okay, in all seriousness. Yeah. So I have the option to do Scorpion Part 2 Limerick, but I'm not, I don't have to, you're not going to hold me to it, right?

I'm going to cover it. I got it. I got this. All right. Get to know. Good to know. Okay. So here we go.

Here we go. Here we go, guys. Let's go watch the finale from season three. Scorpion Part 1. Very excited. Hey, everyone, we are back from watching Scorpion. Yes, we are. Oh, my God.

That was a huge. Yeah. It was a huge episode. A lot going on. A lot going on. Okay, let's just jump right into it. Let's start with your haiku synopsis. Okay.

My haiku synopsis. And I don't think it's called, by the way, Scorpion Part 1. I think it's just called Scorpion. And then the next one is Scorpion Part 2. Oh. I think it's technically it's not titled Scorpion part. Oh. It's called titled Scorpion.

Okay. All right. Okay. So what is your haiku for Scorpion? Here's my haiku for Scorpion. Voyager meets Borg. 8472 are worse. Run, fight, watch part two.

There you go. I love it. It's so cryptic. Okay. I think we're on the same wavelength, because my limerick synopsis is kind of like that, too. Similar. Okay, yeah, similar. All right, here you go. My limerick for Scorpion, we're at the edge of Borg space, what to do.

But they're no match for 8472. A deal is proposed. Borg planet disposed. Will Voyager survive? We have no clue. Exactly. We're on the same page. We're on the same page.

We're totally on the same page. All right. Written by Brandon Braga and Joe Minoski, directed by David Livingston. Opening shot. Opening shot is huge because, you know, we see these two Borg cubes and we hear the Borg saying, you are about to be assimilated, blah, blah, blah, and then they are summarily destroyed both of them as if they were nothing. Yeah.

And so that sets up this whole episode. That's all you need to know right now. That's all you need to know. The Borg are not invincible. No. Off camera is scarier. Yes. Yes.

Yeah, it's one shot, one moment in space with the Borg cubes being defiant and getting destroyed. And we go to the credits. Yeah. So it's a very provocative opening for sure. It feels very different than a typical episode. Yeah. And that's a short teaser, though, right? You would say that's a really, compared to what we're used to seeing.

Oh, sometimes we'll go five. five minutes before the credits. Oh yeah, maybe it even longer. I've seen it, right? But this is like a little minute fraction of a teaser, right? But that's all you need. It says a lot. And you expect to come back from the credits and see what happened. And instead, we're in Leonardo da Vinci's workshop. Yes, we are. Which, by the way, I got to say, I loved that set. We didn't, you know, we didn't often do period sets. I mean, I guess we did for the romance novel and we've done sand dreams we've done a few but i just feel like this one was super cool and yeah i feel i feel like jane way doing a da vinci hollow holodeck program is so infinitely much better

romance novel like why didn't we do this way back when yeah have her going to da vinci for advice or inspiration or trying to figure out a problem or just for fun that would have been such a great ongoing holiday program. You know, maybe they wanted to do this earlier, but John Reese Davies wasn't available. Maybe they had in their head, hey, he's going to be great for it, which he was. He was absolutely

wonderful. He was great, but I got to say in the beginning of this scene, he's speaking with this Italian accent, and it was hard for me to understand what he was saying. Really? I made a note of that. I'm like, I can't know his words. It got better. Once he got into the dialogue back and forth

with Janeway, it was much easier. but when he had his opening monologue, I was like, what is he saying? I didn't have that problem. I, it was pretty clear to me. But then again, maybe because I speak multiple languages, I can kind of hear that better than you can. Takes through the accent.

Yeah. Huh, all right. Good to know. Good to know. But you do agree with his casting, though, right? You do like the casting. Okay. He's great.

Yeah. And she asked if she can work with him in the workshop. Can she have a little space just to hang out? And he's like, nope. So, like my solitude, nope, can't stay. And then he shows off this robot arm, which I thought was a cool prop. Yeah. I wonder if we built that prop or a lot of times these kind of props are rented from like rental houses in town.

And I wonder if they just said, oh, let's have him working on something and go tell us what we can rent because it would be expensive to build this. What can we rent? And then we'll write that. So they found a robot arm. I bet that's how that happened. that makes sense right find the prop first and then right around it which is the easier way to do it it's not that important what he's doing he's just got to be doing something cool and ahead of his time and yeah he works on that and then Janeway kind of wanders off and sees uh by the way he's working

on the robot arm and it breaks yeah put it apart and he's like I got to fix any he's working like wooden wooden cogs like it's all wood that's right the robot arm Yeah. But she's wandering around and sees these wings hanging up high. Mm-hmm. And she has this moment where she's like, oh, that looks like you've designed it after a bat or... A sparrow, was the arrow or a bat. She said, what about a, what was it, a hawk? Yes. What if you base your flying machine on a hawk?

On a hawk. And all of a sudden, he's inspired. Mm-hmm. He's like, yes, I get it. So now, once she suggests this hawk, he likes, it so he invites her to stay because now she's got good ideas so yeah she can she can have her corner but he has to pay he goes you have to pay me 10 whatever the amount uh the denomination and she goes seven so she's negotiating already you know her her monthly rent is going to only get to be seven so yeah he agrees he agrees yeah and she gets a call from chokote she's needed a bridge and uh we head up

on the bridge and balana says that the probe that they sent ahead of them to scan the space that we're heading into has stopped responding. Stop transmitting, yeah. Stop transmitting, yeah, there's no more signal from this probe, and it's very strange. And this was two months ago. That's what they said. It's a long-range probe.

So two months ago, it was sent out, or longer than that, excuse me, it was two months ago, it stopped transmitting. That's what it was. And so then we know that from that little graphic, we see a little tiny slither of, video footage of from the probe, which shows, guess what, one of our Borg drones kind of investigating it. So now we know we're entering into Borg space. Yeah. And David Livingston, I made a note, he did a nice 180 that pushes into a Janeway close up there. Oh, yeah. And I did

notice in this episode that that David Livingston was directing a little differently than he normally does it wasn't just these like static still you know wide lenses on people's faces but he was moving people around a little more you know i think it was he was he was definitely stepping out of his comfort zone which i thought was really interesting to see yeah but uh we go into the briefing room next and janeway says we're in borg space right we're right here everyone get ready and then And she's essentially just, we're talking about a corridor that has zero Borg activity, which Chiquotay calls. Yeah, Chikote calls it the Northwest Passage.

And he gets up and starts to say, so you see a little teamwork here with Janeway and Chiquet, which I thought was nice. Like here's the bad news, Janeway says, but Chocote is going to tell you the good news. So clearly they've talked about this a little bit. Yeah. And yeah, there's this one weird, like, section of space right. in the middle of all surrounded by Borg, but this one clear area that seems totally clear. And if we can navigate this, we should be able to go through Borg space without ever encountering

them, which would be incredible. Yeah. And the reason why it's clear, or at least what we think the reason is, is it's Tores that says it's filled with intense gravimetric distortions. So that's why the Borg Cues aren't traveling there. But later we learn that's because that's where the. singularities are opening up basically. So that's, that is not the reason why the Borg are not going there. They're being destroyed. But we don't know that yet.

We don't know that yet. And Janeway gives a great pep talk. She gives a great pep talk. By the way, when Chacote says, he calls it the Northwest Passage. Yeah. And Paris has a line where I say, better to ride the rapids than face the hive. Oh, yes. Look at your big line there. I paused that for a minute. And I was like, what? I don't get that I don't think I even got it when I acted that line like it just doesn't make any sense

better to ride the rapids than face the hive I guess Yeah they're saying Ravim metric distortions in this path And it's going to be a rough ride That's right

But the hive is like the Borg I don't know it was a weird The hive is the Borg collective So it was weird I didn't like that one Well that made sense to me So I'm going to be the Contrary an opinion there.

That was fine to me. It didn't seem out of the blue. I mean, it makes sense. It's just a weird. It's a weird phrase, right? It's a weird phrase. Yeah. Okay.

It was one of the classic, like, oh, let's give Paris, like a down-to-earth response. You know, he's going to plain speak this moment. He's going to 20th century speak this moment. Yeah, exactly. Like, nah, that was not a great 20th century. Yeah. No, right. Noted.

Yeah. Noted. But they check with all the department. They check with Harry about engines and the warp engines and stuff. They check with Tuvok about weapons. Yeah. They check with a doctor about the Borg autopsy. But yes, but before that happens, there is, after the pep talk, we go into the montage.

And if the montage jumps between engineering, the corridor, the bridge, engineering, the montage of preparation. Then we land in sickbay. And then you're about to say, yes, the doctor. Yeah. Yeah. So the doctor is now, and by the way, in that montage, Sue Henley had a line. Did you notice that? No, she didn't.

What? And in Sue Henley, when they're walking in the hallway, she had a line. I forget what the line was. But I was like, yay, she's got a line. Really? Yeah. Is that her second line? Or is that her?

Yeah, because she was in a corridor or a turbo lift before. Turbo lift. Yeah. And, oh, the darkling. That's when he was the evil doctor and in the back. Okay. Yeah. And she had a little line in this.

Is she, you know, something, she was talking to somebody about is this ready or something? Oh, good for Sue. Good for Sue. Yeah. So in Sick Bay, the doc is dissecting this Borg and he talks about these tubules are the first step in assimilation is how he starts, you know, to describe. He's coming up with solutions of how to stop or combat this Borg assimilation process, right? And in the midst of this, that's when Kess has this crazy vision. of mangled Borg bodies.

That's the first time her mental skills. Would you call them skills? Telepathy or, yeah. Her mental properties or whatever, her telepathic properties. Pick up, yes, this vision of mangled. Well, this is the first time we see it. But later on, I'll come back to that

because later on she talks about it again. This is the first time, though, we see it. And she drops a tray and she has this telepathic flash of the deadborg. The trays later. The tray's when Harry gets about to get hit. Then she drops the tray. Oh, is that when that happens?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Because that's when she's like, she's like, doctor, Harry, about the tray in that one. Yeah, she's not going to drop a tray if no one's going to die on Voyager. But when, you know, when Harry's in trouble,

that's what she drops it. Okay. Yeah. But she starts having these flashes. Okay, so we go to the bridge. Mm-hmm. And Tuvok is telling Janeway that she's having these telepathic flashes

of dead Borg. She's been having them for a couple hours, these visions. And she has now seen the destruction of Voyager. Yes. It's one of the visions she had. Yes, that is interrupted by Harry, detecting trans-warp signatures. And then we go to engineering, where we realize we have dropped out of warp due to an inability to maintain a stable warp field for some reason. There is all type of interference.

So then we jump back to the bridge. And by the way, before we jump back to the bridge, We're in engineering, and then there's a big shake. Yeah. And Balana gives a big shake. Yeah. And then we come back to the bridge and there's more shaking happening, but it doesn't match Roxanne Dawson's shake.

We're not shaking on the bridge. And I just thought when I saw this, I'm like, oh, yeah, this happens now and then. Like when we shoot scenes cutting back and forth that have shakes in one set and another set, you do them on different days. sometimes you forget to match exactly the shaking. And that was a moment where I was like, oh, we probably shot the bridge on one day and engineering in another day. And they just went bigger on the engineering side,

but they should have matched it because that bump for me. Huh. Yeah, that is a good observation. But you could also justify it saying that cutting to engineering, her big shake is the actual moment that the warp field destabilizes and pulls us out of war. So you can, yeah, and then we're kind of less shaky when we come back to the bridge. That's possible.

Yes, but now Harry's has that big line. You know the line that Beltran has always made fun of me for many, many years. No, which one? Where he goes, Captain. Oh, yes. I'm reading one more, one board cube, two, that was the one? But this is it. But if you listen to me, I don't even say it that way.

I say, Captain, like that, I don't go, Captain. Yeah, I don't draw it out at all. signatures and they're coming in fast and they're doing this and it's going to get bad and no i didn't do any of that that's how that's that's that's that's that's that's that's beltrans impersonation he does this sort of like it's always going up it goes oh yeah yeah it's just it's so comical and it's so funny but it's and if this is indeed what he was making fun of that's not even close to how i said it i'm so about business that's part of the bit of making fun of people is i i take a little teeny something and you're you just extrapolate on that. Okay, I get it. But this may not be the moment, but I kind of feel

like it, because maybe it could have happened in the final episode when we're dealing with the board. Who knows? I don't know. In this one, I'm pretty normal. It's the one where you say, I see a board cube approaching one, two, three, 15 vessels. Yes. Well, this is where it is. I think this is it. That's funny. So we get scanned by the final board. board cube. The 15th board cube stops. They fly past us. And then the last, the guy in the back stops to scan us for a second. Yeah, and we has that great line, think good thoughts. And we're like, oh, God, you know, which is pretty funny, you know, that she's going to say that during the scan when we're about to die, basically. But of course, the board cube doesn't do anything. It's just like,

okay, good, later, and leaves. So, you know, we survive. There is a shot in space of Voyager from the side with the Borg cubes flying past. And it's one of those times where, you know, I know this was like the mid-90s and C.G was not as good as it is now. Not as cheap. Not as cheap. Not as cheap. It was much more expensive and not as good.

Yes. And the TVs that most people watched on were not HD TVs. They weren't high-deaf standard definition. There was no 4K or 8K, whatever they're up to now, whatever. resolution but that side that one shot of the ship looked pretty bad to me when it when it when it the board cube kind of moves out of the way you yeah you didn't like it so much yeah no okay and it was mixed in because they did use some of the ship shots the space shots of a voyager that had that were filmed on a model a physical model mm-hmm what they used to do with the ship models yeah and

those were big models by the way yeah the model of the model of voyager was like I'm sure there's fans that know better than me, but I feel like it was like 10 feet long. Yeah, pretty big. It was big. Yeah, I agree. But when they did the CG version of the ship, I just thought the resolution wasn't quite there yet. So. But for 1997 or 98, not bad. It was good for them. Yeah, it was good for them. But it's funny to look at it now and you kind of go, all right. Janeway's ready room. So Janeway has been studying the personal log entries of all the captains who have ever encountered the Borg. And out of all those people that she's talking about, I just, I found the most, what was most interesting when she quotes Captain Amosov. And I'm thinking,

this has got to be a tribute to the sci-fi writer, Isaac Asimov. It has to be. Like, Amosov, Asimov. It's too close to Isaac Asimov, the renowned sci-fi writer. And they just switched a couple of words. They toggled it around. They said, Captain Amos. That didn't occur to me at all. Not to you. This is stuff. That's why we do this show together. So I can pull stuff out and you can find stuff out.

Did you notice when Chikote walked in the ready room and he said, we're running a censor sweep? Yes. He said censor like Tuvok says censor. I reacted to that in my video reaction. I go, oh my God, here's another person who speaks like Tuvod. Instead of censor, it's censor. Like S-O-R-E. I have a sore on my arm.

Yes. And every time that Tuvok. says that, or now Chocote's saying that, I think about a sore, a physical sore on somebody's part of their body, and it kind of pulls me out. It's kind of a censor. It's a sensitive topic to talk about censors. Yes. But Chacote says the Northwest Passage looks pretty clear of Borg. That looks like a good solution. And she reads Picard's quotes and Amazon's quotes. And Chocote says something like, oh, you sounded kind of like. them like he laughs and she's like what are you laughing at what are you smiling at he's like

what you sounded like amazov there yeah and you sounded like picard and then and then he says ensign hickman and astrophysics does a pretty good jane way and she's like really yeah i'll have to have a talk with him yeah so i was just thinking about you thought about me impersonations you do i'm sure they wrote the impersonation thing in because you were always doing your Janeway imitation. Probably so. Yes. And my video reaction also deals with that. So I knew talk about that. We're on the same page. We are on the same page. Um, so Janeway then talks about how she feels like she's alone. J. C. says she's not. They're going to face everything together. And then for all the J.C. shippers, good Lord, that final line from Janeway, three years ago,

I didn't even know your name. Today, I can't imagine a day without you. I mean, that to me, They're like nose to nose and she puts her hand on his heart. Yes. Like and leans in and puts, I mean, come on, writers. You know what you were doing. They sure were. They were going there again. They're just teasing all the Jamie Chikote fans.

They are teasing them. Okay, so we're back on the bridge. Yes, we are. Yes. And according to Tuvok, power signatures of the board, vessels have terminated. And now the audience is thinking, what the heck? What's going on? We head over there to the location of the cubes, the last location.

And sure enough, the Borg cubes have been absolutely decimated. And Harry suggests, Harry's very happy about this. He's like, oh my gosh, we may have found our way through Borg space via an ally. You know, Janeway's like, hold your horses, Harry. You know, that's not necessarily the, you know, we've got to figure out what's going on first. And that's when Harry detects some bio readings coming from the hull of one of the Borg cubes. and it's some kind of ship or something, but there's no response to Hale. There's two weapons signatures, they say.

That's right. Yeah. And one of them's unknown. You pick up the bio reading. We magnify that on the view screen. And there's this cylindrical-looking ship. Yeah, something. We don't even know if it's an alien, like a giant alien, or if it's a ship or a weapon.

We don't know anything. What it is. Yeah. No response to Hales. Can't be able. It's a bio-signature. It's not a ship. It's not reading as technology of any kind.

Correct. It's writing as biological. is biological, correct. So we can't beam it aboard. We can't tractor beam it. So it's impervious to everything. And Janeway now has the bright idea to ask Chacote to head down to the cube, take a team so that he can have a short range scan of this biomass. And of course, he takes Tuvok and Kim. Kim doesn't really want to go. Kim wants to stay on the bridge. But Kim goes. Kim goes. Kim goes. Kim goes yes they go and I had the same thing I was like really Katie not again not again another decision like this anyway we're on the cube yeah way I noticed it was

unusually dark on the bridge when we were in red alert I really Kate's face sometimes really for me it just felt unusually dark and then when we come on the board queue I felt the same way. I felt like, I don't know if the light meter was off or something. Oh, wow. It looked dark to me. Can I ask you, could you have been your TV? Because when I was watching the Borg Cube scenes, I thought this is way too bright. I thought they could make this darker. Yes, because I kind of felt like, you know, if these Borg Cues have been decimated, there should be little or no light source, you know, that it should have been our, because remember, all of us are wearing our Sims beacons. And I kept thinking, why are we wearing Sims beacons?

You can see everything so clearly. So maybe it's your TV. Maybe I'll look at that. Yeah, check everybody check your TVs if you think it's too dark. It might be that or it might just be that it's too dark. Yeah, maybe, maybe. But it's not as dark as like a Game of Thrones final episode dark like that. No, no.

Very creepy inside here. Do you remember this set, by the way? I do remember this set. Or a small set? It was a medium-sized set. what I did not agree with after I watched it compared to after reading the script is when the part when Harry sees the mangled board bodies like he sees the actual going through the halls there are Borg still working yeah yeah yeah don't I think Tuvok or Chucote or

somebody says Tuvok Tuvok says you know don't draw your weapons and we won't be a threat and they'll leave us alone so the Borg are trying to repair their ship and their robots are walking around and yeah we just kind of walk right by the zombies and it's it is very creepy it feels like a haunted house but yeah they come around a corner and then harry finds this stack of borg bodies right that's very it was very cool right well let me just talk about this i remember very clearly reading this script and and in the script it says harry sees a mountain of borg corpses oh no in this yeah that we come into this large like cargo Bay Area. And mountain meaning, remember, in a prior episode, when all those Borg from the

cube were net down on the planet, we registered 80,000, the episode you directed, we registered 80,000 life forms, right? So you're talking about 80,000 Borg on one cube. And in this room, there was supposed to be like a thousand Borg stacked up into this huge mountain. This looks like no, this looks like, yes, 12, right, whatever, a small, yeah, tops. And so I just felt, that didn't correlate with the script. I thought, yes, that would have been so much more scarier if Harry, because Harry's sort of taken aback, my reaction is like, like, you know, I'm shocked.

And I'm not going to be shocked by seeing 12 mangled borg bodies. I'm going to be shocked by seeing 1,000, 5,000 bodies stacked like a mountain where I'm looking up at it like, oh, my God. And that's what it was written. That's how it was written in the script. But then when visual effects got a hold of it, it changed. It clearly was just this little tiny mold. It was probably too expensive to do a visual effect shot.

that and they clearly built built a prop yes you know just had yeah wardrobe or makeup or whatever you know create a stack of yeah right whatever it was but hugely disappointing yeah i'm sure it came down yeah it had to have been a money on yeah it had to have been a money issue and it bummed me out because i when i saw the final product and even when we were filming i was talking to david i was like david so my eye line is kind of i'm just looking dead ahead but in the script i'm really looking at a mountain of borg he's like and he says yeah but because of where we're shooting like I think he made some justification for it. So I changed my eye line when we were filming.

And the end result is not as effective as if I saw thousands of them, you know, stacked on top of each other. Then you're really going to go, oh, my gosh, you know, it adds to, because this whole beginning of this episode, every scene is really to set up how powerful these aliens are compared to the Borg, right? And when you see six to 12 stacked up bodies, that's not that, you know, it's not that big of a deal, right? So, do you remember, I noticed in this, in the hallways here, there was a ton of liquid nitrogen,

the smoke that comes through. Yes. Do you remember, because I know when, when I was on sets like that, you'd walk through the liquid nitrogen and it was freezing cold. Yeah. Do you remember it being, this looked especially cold. Yeah, they had tons of it. Oh, my gosh.

They had tons of liquid nitrogen. They had smoke. They had a, you name it. It was all over the place. I don't specifically remember walking through it and freezing. my butt off, but I'm sure, I'm sure that that did happen for, yeah. Well, it's also, when you're walking, you know, through the liquid nitrogen, you can't see what's on the other side. It's like a cloud and so, you know, it's like a curtain. It's a curtain of liquid nitrogen. Can't see. Yeah. I always felt

a little nervous, you know, walking through those things, you know, especially if there's debris and things you could trip on or, you know, extras. I also remember when we did, we were shooting this stuff. This was a big Borg build for the makeup department. And I remember they brought in like extra makeup artists and there was a lot of a lot of hubb of around all the Borg makeup that had to be done and getting everybody ready. That was hard scheduling because it took hours to get the people, you know, everybody in Borg stuff. And if you had, I don't know how many extras we have, but let's say we had 10, Borg or 12 or whatever. You need probably, yeah, you need another 10 to 20 more makeup artist really working on these guys.

Yeah, and timing it so that everybody's ready when you need them is very hard. Very difficult. I do remember there was a lot more manpower working to get all these board people ready. Yes, you're right about that. So after passing the mountain of board corpses, we detect this biomass that it's basically dissolved through the... Yeah, it's dissolved through the hall. Yeah.

And a drone is trying to assimilate it, but it's not working. another scene to show the power of these aliens because earlier from the doctor said that those Borg tubules can go through anything, any energy field, any type of metal, nothing can stop it. But clearly, this is not working for the Borg drone. The tubules are not even doing anything to it. They're bouncing off, basically. Chacote then detects a high concentration of antimatter particles. So he realizes there's some type of warp propulsion system beyond the point where he's standing at. And Harry asked, it's a ship. Tuvok says, well, Starfleet has encountered species that use organic-based vessels, like the Breen, for example. And then it made me think

of Voyager. We kind of have, you know, we have bio-neural jailpack. So we have organic-based elements to our ship. And then there's other sci-fi series like Farscape. The Farscape ship is completely, it's organic as well. So there's a lot of usage of this organic idea. Yeah, and it's funny on Resident Alien, the ship is organic and kind of connected to the Allentuda character, the alien and Harry. There you go. It's connected. It appears and disappears. And it's all connected to on the Resident Alien, the idea that octopus that live in water are aliens.

That's sort of where the alien is kind of based and connected to. and that somehow the Alentudic alien is connected to the octopus here on Earth. Yeah. And they go, their, their DNA is connected somehow. Right. So his spaceship is kind of like an octopus spaceship, you know, organic-based thing. Oh, yeah. Cool idea, though.

I love that. Very cool. So now, you know, Chacote then tells Harry that he's going to, well, he gets permission first from Janeway. Can I enter this biovessel? And she agrees. and then Chacote orders Harry to work on downloading the Borg tactical database, which we end up using later through a nearby Borg distribution node.

So once Chikote and Tuvok enter this alien vessel, what did it look like to you? That cockpit. Did it give you anything? I'm going to tell you what it did for me, but I'm going to see what you thought. All I have to say when they go in this organic vessel is this was a fail to me. Oh, wow. I felt like it looked like wood and paint and the cheesy spider webs with party lights. It felt like something from the original series to me.

I was like, really? Like, we're doing Borg and somebody even scarier than the Borg and you're putting party lights in behind some wood and plaster? This was a fail to me. I'm glad we didn't spend much time there because I was like, ew. okay what is it well no for me it didn't you know uh i sort of i i let it go i was like this is 1998 9798 it's fine i'm not going to get too pulled out by this but my immediate thought process because the the seat for the pilot it's huge right it's a big chair right because clearly eight four seven two is like 12 feet tall or whatever and so when i when i saw that interior all i can

think about it, where the various crashed alien vessels from the aliens film franchise, they show an alien that is massive, or at least a dead alien, you know, sitting in a chair or whatever, that's huge. And it's the same, it was the same feeling. I was like, oh, wow, this is kind of, I'm getting an alien vibe from this, the film franchise alien. Interesting. Yeah, that's what I got. I just feel like the execution of building the set materials used were so familiar to like Home Depot or just felt like the party lights pulled you out the party lights they pulled you out oh that's okay that's all right but we're only been there for seconds though you don't see that for that long right i get i get why they didn't want to say yeah yeah we do notice

there is damage on one wall from a borg disruptor beam that tuvac says it's actually regenerating itself which once again is another example of showing the audience how amazing these new aliens are like you can you can shoot them but they're going to self you know you can shoot their ships but they will basically repair themselves they don't even have to have a crew repairing them which you know who has that technology no one so very very very very interesting and then we cut out to the board distribution node where harry starts hearing some weird type of creature sounds yeah it's like yeah kind of like that first remember lost the tv series when in the very right now oh with a beginning season when they first hear that

that sound, it's the same kind of scary creature sound that you don't know what's going on. So you're watching it now? It's a classic. Yeah, I'm watching it. I never watched it originally. Wow. Like halfway through the series. So Harry's, here's this animal sound

over by the node, the data note or whatever. And it's a classic horror movie moment of like, oh, you've, the young guys wandered off all by himself and the scary haunted house. I was like, oh, this is classic. And now you start making your way around down the hall. And I got to give you props here. You were trying to make some tactical moves.

Like I saw you sort of turning and checking your back and using the light. And in fact, in a moment, you're going to rejoin Chakote and Tuvok moving down the halls. And you continue to make these tactical moves. Tactical moves. They're not doing it. They're just walking in front. And that's a moment where I was like, Dang, I wish we'd had a technical advisor.

Or you went, dang, Gary was the only one that was thinking about this that day. All right. So I get a gold star, basically. You get a gold star, yes. You're doing some tactical moves. This is where Kess drops the tray. Okay, so now she sees you scream. Yep.

She has a vision where she sees you scream. Yes, this is where she drops the tree. Yeah, the tray goes down. I have it right there. She drops the tray. This is the tray drop. The screaming flash and we go to the bridge. bridge, because, because Kess says, you know, Harry's in trouble, go to the bridge and the doctor

calls Janeway and says, you've got to get them out of there. Beam him out. Belana tries. She can't get a lock. Whatever is closing in on them is blocking their signal. Something, you know, whatever, the 8472, we don't know their name yet, but that's blocking the signal. And she keeps trying. You hear the transporter sound start, and then it switches to like, it's not working. Right. And then that's when she suggests a skeletal. lock, which nobody has ever done before in the history of Starfleet. There's a couple of, yeah, a couple of problems. She suggests a skeletal lock that she can target the minerals in their bone tissue.

I've never heard of bone called tissue, but that's cool. Okay. And then she says, I just came up with it. So first of all, the whole concept is so transformative that I just don't buy that like no one's ever thought of it. and she just happened to come up with it when we need it. And second of all, Roxanne's delivery of it is so casual. I'm like, you just change the nature of transporting people in the universe. And you're like, yeah, I just came up with it.

Hey, that's just how she is. She's a cool customer. She's pretty dang good, your future wife. It was a weird moment. I hear you. I hear you. so she does the lock does work and they're beaming out but that's not before harry gets struck by 8472 8472 8472 for the first time cg alien it's scary 12-foot alien and we see it and I'm

like meh it's okay it's like oh no it's the cg again the cg at that I I feel like less is more like if we just seen flashes of it by in front yeah you know I don't know I hear you So you wanted to see less of it, more in the shadow. I want to see less of it. Okay. All right. Let me talk about the filming of this particular scene when Harry gets struck. So the first moment you see 8472, 8472 actually burst into this chamber area and sees two Borg drones and knocks them out of the way.

So when the, when 8472 shows up, he kind of burst through, it looks like he burst through a bulkhead or something because a bunch of debris comes out. Okay. And that was, they put all that debris into. to that cannon, that big, that big round cannon that they use on set and they just shoot all this stuff out with with high velocity. And it's kind of dangerous, I think. So I remember filming with that cannon and they would have to shoot that thing off. And to do a second take, they had to reload the cannon with all the same debris that was shot out before and reshoot it out. And I remember thinking, man, I just don't want to be anywhere in line with the line of fire of that

cannon because it came out with such velocity. I was a little surprised by it. I'm like, holy moly. And then, you know, as 8472 knocks down the drones and then turns towards me. And then, of course, I'm not seeing 8472. And really it was up to my imagination to sort of visualize what this thing was. And, you know, we got a few tips of like, okay, it's about this tall, kind of looks like this. But I don't think they had really completely fleshed out the CDI of it. Yeah, no. And at that point, they hadn't had it done yet.

So it was really up to my imagination. And my image was different from what you finally see in the end product. I had a different image of 8472, definitely, than what they had. I had it actually taller than what they had represented, you know. But then being hit by it and getting knocked down and then I scream. It just reminded me of that scream from the pilot episode when we're getting that needle going into a cavity chest. I'm like, oh my gosh, did they just reuse that footage? So here's what I wondered when it busts through and knocks down the board and then and then knocks you down and hits you and you know injures you. Yeah. I'm thinking why doesn't have a weapon or anything? Like it has nothing. It's it's like hand-to-hand combat. Yeah. In a way that I mean, I guess because they're invincible. Yeah, they don't even need a weapon. They're that amazing. So yeah, there was something about it that I was just like, oh, it seems like they would have weapon or it's just. It's just.

literally a naked, unclothed, alien, without a weapon, no technology, no clothing, no... I hear you. For as advanced as they are, you would think, number one, they would have clothing, right? They wouldn't just be naked, which they are. And number two, wouldn't they have, since they're at battle, wouldn't they maybe have some type of, you know, some protective gear as well? But I guess if they're that powerful, they don't need it. And weapons, if they're that powerful they don't need it that's what that's probably what it is i guess that was the

concept but something about seeing this beast fighting hand-to-hand just felt very primitive to me i hear you no it makes sense yeah it's sort of combining and so it's it's a bit of an uncanny valley thing for you where you're seeing a very primitive beast but yet he comes from a very advanced race yeah so it's like whoa, it's a weird combination of elements, for sure. By the way, just before the alien buss in, I think Chikote says, five meters in closing or something like that. And then you say, you step in front of them, from where? Yeah.

I'm like, why did you step out? Because that's what, that's what Livingston made me do. I'm sure. It makes no sense. I don't want to step out. I didn't want to step out. I was like, no, I would have stayed exactly where I was. and I would have, I would have shouldered my, my, my, my, my, my phaser rifle at that point.

I've been ready for the, for the danger, right? I'm not going to go towards the danger. I mean, what am I doing? But for that shot to work, I was directed to step out. And I was like, okay, you know. Yeah, I hear you. Okay, so now we're beamed back. And now the bioship is powering up weapons.

Okay, so Tom is the one that detects that the bioship is powering up weapons. Janeway's like, get us out of here. and it shoots twice the first time the energy the energy pulse misses and the second time yes it shoots twice they shoot us with a lightning bolt yes look like a lightning bolt yes first lightning bolt goes past us right and then they shoot us with another lightning bolt right and that hits it hits the shield and it kind of just kind of flops us over is what it does right the ship flop the ship starts tumbling it's like rolling yes by the way so when we cut to the bridge and that's happening the lightning bolt hit us and now we're rolling yeah and they have all these angles that

are sure they're cool but i feel like we should have had something where the ship is upside down where people are flying through the air like we should have had some stunt people dropping or airborne like because that's what should have happened it just didn't feel it felt like we were doing our normal ship shakes just extreme version but if they're going to show the ship literally tumbling like this and we've you know and people are flying around then we've lost gravimetric control we should be airborne you know what I mean but not only that if you recall the opening scene with the two board cubes the same lightning bolt just a limit just destroys their cube right right so really that lightning bolt should have went through our stupid shields easily oh yeah like butter like we

should have lost half of our ship off of that hit. If these guys are as powerful as they say, our Starfleet shields shouldn't have been anything to that, that lightning bolt. Okay, so that was a big question mark. But what was cool from that scene is Tom is actually on the floor as he punches in commands to go to warp. I thought, look at that. Tom is, Tom's crawling and he's barely like, and then we kind of level off and shoot away. Yeah, from the floor, he reaches up and saves the whole ship. the whole ship with one-handed. That's how good he is. I just want to thank you for saving us.

You're welcome. Okay, even though I'm not, I'm, I'm in bad shape, but I'm still happy and thankful, even though I'm in bad shape. Yeah, you're in bad shape. We'll get to that in a minute. Yeah. Kess can hear the thoughts. Yeah.

He has another flash. She said, I could you hear the alien pilot's thoughts? By the way, she says here, she says, yes, I've been having these premonitions for a while. I was like, what? Why don't you share that with us? like maybe you should have shared that before you decided the the board body pile was the first time you were going to share that's what I was talking about before like the first time we see her it's the board pile of bodies but she's been having these thoughts hearing voices like

maybe you should have shared that anyway she says to Janeway by the way she says it's not the board that you should be afraid of it's them that they said The week will perish. Yeah. Yeah. And that's how we go out. Are you sure that's what they said? The week will perish.

Are you sure they didn't say the week will Paris? Maybe. Well, Paris did just save the ship. We come back from the commercial break, even though there's no commercials when we watch it. But we come back and we're in sick bay. and it's Harry on the surgical bed in sickbay and Harry as you see him the shot of him you see that he's got lots of mustard on his face is what it looks like it looks like he's got a bunch of mustard that was part CGI not all CGI okay so the part that's going into my mouth and the one coming out of my nose are actual pieces that the makeup department kind of glued on those tendrils right and i actually kept those well after this episode i stuck them onto the mirror in my trailer

oh come now you got a couple of oh yeah i hold it i i have one tiny tendril you have two complete starfleet uniforms uh i'll gladly trade you for that but yes so those were real okay coming out and i just love the doctor's line after he says he says the infection is spreading and he says mr kim is being eaten alive That line to me was really, it made me laugh quite a bit. Redding, got mustard all over your face. Yes. Let me ask you this.

I feel like you've mentioned this before. Were you on the chopping block? Harry was a possible, like, do you think they put you in this jeopardy because Harry, like they were going to get rid of somebody to bring seven of nine on? Did you feel in jeopardy or are you aware? Never did it. No, no, no. Nope. And that's, that's, that's on the internet everywhere that, you know, oh, it was going to be either Harry or Kess. Those are the, you know, one of those characters is going to be, is going to be eliminated, you know. And no, Harry was never, ever on the chopping block. Um, except, you know, I had my issues with, with tardiness and what happened to me, you know, being late. And so, and I was given a time to kind of correct that. So never once was I ever afraid of being on the chopping. No, not at all.

But what we learn about the alien cells, they are so dense. Each cell contains 100 times the DNA of a human cell, and it would take the doctor eons to figure out how to really, you know, years, right? Years to decode this. Right, but he does figure out a plan. He says, you know, these things, this DNA, this 8472, this alien DNA is so strong that resistance in this case is far from futile. Fudal, yes, that's right.

did they give him all the cool lines? He gets all the cool lines. He does. They always give the doctor the cool lines. But he does say here, these Borg nanoprobes may be the solution. Yeah. Autopsy he was doing and dissecting. And he's got this DNA from the mustard on Harry's face. And so he's putting them together kind of going, all right, maybe we can modify the Borg nanoprobes to work. Yeah. And the modification, it's a lot of science, but it makes total sense. because anything that that kind of enters into this 8472 cell gets eliminated immediately. Like there's nothing that,

because the doctor already tried to give me something a sedative, all that stuff to calm me down or to at least stop my pain. But he can't because everything has been, every time he tries a different thing to help me, it's automatically stopped dead in its tracks by these, by this incredibly dense cells of the 8472. But then he realizes if he can take these Borg nanoprobes and reprogram the probe to admit the same electrochemical signature as an alien 8472 cell, now once these nanoprobes are introduced into Harry's system, the alien cells will recognize them as their own. So they're not going to mess with them. So that is that is the way that the nanoprobes will then. latch on to each cell and then win the battle because it'll be too late for that cell to defend

itself because it thinks that other, that nanoprobe is one of its fellow cells. So really, really cool science here, makes sense. And Janeway then says in a whispered tone, fight it Harry. That's an order. It was very sweet. Yes. And her line there and just the situation. I thought was really, really sweet. And did you see my single tier? Did you see my single tier? No, I did. What? Did you have a single? Yes. People have asked me at conventions if that was CGI.

I was like, no. I was like, that was really, that was my one tier because Janeway's talking to me and I have no, you know, I have no way to talk back to her. And as an actor, I kept thinking, what am I going to do in this situation? I have no lines. You know, she's going to say this. They're going to cut to me. And that's going to be the last image of this particular scene is, is her POV.

of me lying on that bio bed and I thought, you know what, I'm going to, I'm going to go through this gamut of emotions of like, you know, embarrassment of having, having to be on this biobed and now not being able to do my job, you know, because, you know, being on a, being on a starship and you're the main crew, you're part of a team. And now that I'm not there, the person taking my place is not going to be as proficient as I am or as knowledgeable as I am. So now the team has a vulnerability or a weakness. So again, so I'm using these thoughts while I'm lying on this biobed bed like I'm letting her down you know and then her saying fight it Harry that's an order just pushes me over the edge and the tear you know I get emotional basically on that bio bed

so I need you to watch that I can't believe you didn't see my tear God here that's huge I was so overwhelmed with the moment and just the whole totality of it that I missed I missed the tear no yeah because it's literally she's looking at me my eyes are open and she says fight it Harry that's an order and that's when I just closed my eyes and just like, oh, God. And that one tear just falls out. Beautiful. Yeah. So it's a really touching moment, I think.

Awesome. And you missed it. But you're going to watch it later. I'm going to watch it. Thank you. The bridge, we go, we actually. Engineering, engineering. Yeah, we go to engineering from there.

Torres has analyzed the Borg tactical database that Harry basically gave his life for. And the Borg referred to the aliens of species 8472. And in 12 or so attacks, the Borg have been just defeated quickly. You know, there hasn't been much resistance to 8472. Resistance is not futile. And we learned that they come from a quantum singularity and that they are traveling through the Northwest Passage as nicknamed by Chakotay. There are over 130 of these 8472 vessels that are detected and more are coming

through this quantum singularity. Kess can hear them. They intend on destroying everything. She said all I can hear is malevolence and hatred. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And they're so angry. I want to destroy everything.

Basically, they're just like, screw this. We're going to come in and just destroy, going to come through these little anomalies or whatever. Right. And we're going to just destroy everything. Right. And at this point, we have no clue where they're from. We're like, okay, they're coming through this quantum singularity,

but where? Beta quadrant, gamma quadrant, elsewhere in the delta quadrant, or someplace not even in one of the quadrants, right? So we don't know what's going on. Are we in Janeway's ready room next? Yeah, we go to the ready room. And Janeway and Chikote basically discuss options.

So, you know, Janeway is like, should we keep going? Should we move forward and maybe certain deaths? Should we just give up and turn around? And Chikote basically says, look, you're exhausted. You haven't slept in days. And there's a shot of them in the scene where she's, like, I just don't know what to do. And she sort of leans on the rail. Yeah. Comes up behind her and sort of leans on the rail right next to her real close. Oh,

wow. He says, you know, you should rest. You really should. I didn't notice that. Oh, yeah. It was a rail moment. It was a, it was a Kuchumoya moment. There really was. There's a lot of that. Does Shikote give good rail? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. there's a lot of what it's romantic it's yeah it's romantic okay yeah it's a romantic yeah so she you know he says rest and he leaves and then we just cut to this we cut to the shot of the ship and then we go to Janeway again maybe it's my TV but it seemed dark she's lying in bed for a second and she pops up and we don't know what she's just thought of and then the next thing we see she's on the

holodex she's gone to see da Vinci again that's right that's right and he's staring at the wall he's staring and he's like what do you see and she says a wall yeah it's like yeah so wall but what else and he's looking at the shadow and he can see a lot of things oh he sees everything he lists like yeah yeah a bunch of things boom boom yeah yeah blacksmith or this or that I can't remember birds in the trees yeah those or something starlings I think he says um and he basically is and he talks about watching watching water hit a rock yeah he could just get lost in water hitting a rock. He can get lost basically in his imagination and find inspiration if he just kind of lets his mind open up a little more. So she poses this question to him about going forward

into certain death. What should I do? Should I go forward where I'm going to die and everybody's going to die? Or do I retreat and give up and save my people? I don't know what to do. And he's like, maybe you should pray maybe you know what i do sometimes is i pray and i have to take this manuscript he says to the monks why don't you come with me and you know we can talk to the abbot and you can we can pray together and ask you know make a deal with god basically he says we can appeal to god and then in that moment she's like wait a minute or i could make a deal with a devil appeal to the devil yes so we know that she's thought of an idea and in this case the devil is probably the board that's right and then we go to the briefing room and everybody's standing up in the briefing room

by the way yeah and i feel like this staging was inspired by the alan craker run that we had you know alan craker came on this season and marvin rush loved working with alan and i have a feeling that this was inspired because it's got some of that Janeway you know Paris comes over with the first line hands off to a two shot with Janeway then she walks around and hands off to another line and then there's one cut back on on Balana I think yeah and then Janeway walks around again so there's a lot of efficiency and movement I agree and I don't think it was Marvin I think it was David watching Allen's episode

and thinking, yeah, I think he saw the episode. Yeah, I'm going to do my version of that. He was like, hey, why didn't I think of that? I'm supposed to be the cutting edge director here, so why don't I? So I think that's what, you know, kind of happened. Yeah, I do. Because, you know, I mean, David's a big nerd himself. He likes sci-fi. So I think he watched every episode

just to watch it, right? I'm sure he did. Yeah. But Janeway basically is saying in this cool scene, we're talking about how he shot it. But in the scene itself, she's like, let's make a deal with a Borg and Doc, we're going to store all of all of this information about these nanoproves and what we can give. The deal we're going to make is we'll give the Borg away to defeat these guys. If the Borg let us go through their space so we can get away from all this mess. And if they try to pull any funny business, then we will delete your program where we've stored. It runs right past that a bit. Well, did you look at Picardo's face when you said

that. I mean, he's just, he's like, he played it really well. It was subtle, but it was like, oh, crap. It was the old crap look like, delete me. Like he, you could see that he registered that. She lays that out, dismisses everybody. And then it's just her and Chikote. And so far in this episode, we've seen like, you know, a lot of foreplay and love lovey-doveiness and all kinds of stuff with them. But in this scene, Chakotay's like, I don't. agree. Yeah. I don't like your decision.

It's too risky. It's too risky. And he tells this long story about the fox and the scorpion, which is basically, Scorpion needs to get across the water and give me a ride. And the fox is like, you're going to bite me. And the scorpion's like,

no, I won't bite you. And then scorpion gets a ride, bites him halfway over. And the fox is like, why did you do that? Because it's in my nature. Yeah. Because what, this is what I do. This is what I do.

I'm a scorpion. I do what scorpions do. And hence the name of the episode. exactly i just felt like honestly that that fable that um yeah fairytale or whatever fable it's so familiar i wish i wish that they had shortened it like i feel like i told it in about 10 12 seconds and i feel like chakote's version goes on for like two and a half minutes and i'm just like i know where this is going just like finish your story yeah for an english speaking audience but for people that are watching in other countries maybe not you know what i'm saying and

this is a worldwide people we have fans worldwide it's not just u.s and ukay you know they get this right something about the storytelling and i love robert and often you know almost always i'm amazed with what he does but this is one where i was like i feel like this story pick it up yeah yeah it's get through the story i was surprised that they've spent that much time on it i'm like my goodness yeah wandering around and all that. I do want to bring one thing up before he goes into this story when everyone is still in the room, Janeway says lay in a course for the closest board cube

so we can go make this deal. And that's when you say, yes, ma'am. But it's the most serious yes ma'am of all that's ever been uttered from Tom Parris's mouth. It's usually very, yes, ma'am. But this time because we're up against the board and also crazy 8472, you're like, yes, ma'am. Like you're concerned, yes, ma'am.

came out, which we never hear. Nice. Okay, I just want to throw that out there. You're welcome. Thank you. It was a very, you know, you can't just throw away a yes, ma'am. No, you did, you did the right yes ma'am for this moment. Every yes man has a purpose and a meaning.

Sure does. Okay, we're on the bridge now. By the way, at the end of this Fox and the Scorpion story, go ahead. They get into an argument. Oh, that's right. And he's like, at one point he goes, it's wrong. And he yells at her. And I was like, whoa, you guys were just having romance rail.

and now, you know, and lovey-dovey touching hearts and, oh, they're fighting, sad to see. It feels like, it feels like this is the end of their, from a writer's point of view, like they have a breakdown and a disagreement in a way that it does feel like it's the end of their relationship. And she even has a line where she says, I wrote it down, where she says, well, he says, sorry, first he says, sometimes you don't know when to take a step back after he's yelled at her. don't know when yeah and uh she says the time for debate is over i've decided yeah like she's she's she's the captain she's decided and uh they're going to do it and he walks off and uh at the very

end of the scene she says i guess i am alone after all which is um what he had promised you're not alone earlier right but i felt like there was not just this story breakdown going on you know of the fight but i felt like in a weird way they'd revisited this romance in a couple of scenes, but she does realize in the end that she's got to stay solo. That she cannot romantically or in any way team up, hook up, romance up with anybody.

And I feel like it'll be interesting as we get into season four episodes to see if they revisit this at all or if this was really the end for Janeway in her head. I'm done. I am alone. I got to stay alone. I got to stay a captain. That's what it felt like. Yeah, she looked like she was about to shed a tear.

You know, there was a bit of emotional, there's emotional vulnerability at that very end. And it does seem like the end of something, you know, at least. Let's jump to the bridge. We see this board vessel. They put a tractor lot. They scan us, by the way, with that green light, which I don't know if that was real green light or if it was like a Viz effect or something.

I don't know. It isn't scanned across. I don't know. Yeah. It was hard to tell it. If it was Vizifax, I thought that was really good, actually, because it looked very 3D. That's a hard thing to physically accomplish with a laser rider.

It might have been on set, though. It might have been, yeah. I think that that's cool. If Marvin and David Livingston could have come up with a way to do that. I thought it played really cool. It did. It did. And then the board vessel then puts a tractor beam on us.

Tractor lock. And she's like, hey, I want to make a deal. They're basically like, nah, we don't make deals. Yeah, deals are irrelevant because it's true. If we're going to simulate you, we're going to know what you know, so it doesn't matter, right? Yeah, deals are irrelevant. Exactly. That's what they say. And she's like, send them over a sample of the data that, you know, the doctor's research on these, you know, nano probes. Yeah. And she sends it over. She's in the middle of laying out what her terms of the deals are going to be. And then she starts to beam over, she beam off the bridge. They beam her into the cube. They beam her right in the middle of the cube. And I got to say, this was a fail for me this green screen of Janeway in this board this giant board cube

I get what they were trying to do yeah but I felt like the angles and and I'm surprised David Livingston usually pushes for very unconventional dynamic angles I felt like it was the most down the middle version of it's just a wide shot with her in the Viz effect shot where she's tiny. And then her close-up, it's like we had been dark for so much of this episode, dark and dramatic and theatrical. And then we get in the most dramatic and theatrical set, this giant board cube where she's beamed into. It's like a bright white light on her. It's almost like my ring light. You know, it was like her face was too bright for the space. It was just a close-up like this. I feel like it should have been moving. There should have been some drama. There should

have been multiple angles instead of just one sort of medium down the middle close up. I just felt like this failed for me. She's in the middle. Our captain is in the middle of a bridge in this giant board cube. It just didn't feel as dynamic as it should have been, honestly. Budget. Budget concerns again, right? Restraints. Budget restraints. It's the last episode of the season. So if we had been over budget for any of the episodes earlier, I'm sure the studio was saying, you've got to finish this episode on budget for the season and if you know we we may have spent all our money in earlier episodes because this one didn't see crazy maybe we spent it all on threshold you know maybe it's all threshold exactly okay but um that with anyway she's in the board cube it's cool

her performance is cool and i love the idea of the collective sort of talking to her on this cube as she stands in this very cool spot but she's um yeah so she's She's talking about what the deal could be. And it feels like the Borg are about to agree to this. Like it feels like she's succeeding. And then there's suddenly a violent shake. Yep. And she does the classic Cape Montreux, swing at the hips and flop back up.

It was a, it was a funny, everybody's got their own shake technique. It was a classic cake shake technique on that one. I don't think Kim Friedman would have given that a 10.0. I think she would have gotten that a low number. That would have been a lower number. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, she did her shake on the Borgube and came back up, and the Bioships are attacking.

There's one that attacks that Borgube, and then it goes past it, right? And then more Bioships show up. And they form this, like, Starburst thing. Oh, yes. They form into that crazy, that circular formation where all of their energy goes together and then shoots out as one. Yes, very cool. I love that. That was very cool.

And that blows up, the whole planet is blown up. Destroy the planet. Yeah. All the board cubes in the vicinity are also destroyed. Yeah. Except for the one that's holding on to Janeway and Voyager. And Voyager, right. The shockwave kind of pushes, pushes that cube away, right?

And that's what we see the end of that episode is, bye-bye. We see the cube flying out into space. and it's still holding Voyager on with its tractor beam. So we know, captain's inside the cube, that Borg ship took off, and it's got Voyager with it. So great cliffhanger, you know. Great cliffhanger. Voyager meets Borg, 8472 are worse.

Run, fight, watch part two. That's the haiku. Wow, you bookended this recap and discussion with your haiku. That's wonderful. What's your thing? Oh, gosh, I was going to ask you the same thing. Oh, we're the same page. Twinsies. Yeah, we're twinsis. You go for my thing. You're my elder, so I'll let you go first. You're funny. My theme is it's in the realm of making a deal with the devil. Like, what will it take for someone to make a deal with the devil? And all of us have to face that question sometimes. I think that's,

That's the lesson is like, what would you be willing to make a deal with the devil to do? Like, how far, how bad would things have to be? And in this case, things got to that place for Janeway. She was willing to make a deal with a devil. So I guess that's sort of the theme. I think I can relate to that. Well, my lesson is going to be more of a funny lesson. And that is when told to go on an away mission to a board cube,

immediately say that you have a stomach ache or that you have the runs, something like that and you cannot go. That's the lesson. Yes. I think that's a good lesson. That's better than mine. Okay.

Don't go on aboard Cube. Don't go to board Q. Just have a stomach ache. Okay. Oh, my goodness. All right. That was good. That was fun.

That was a good episode. I can't believe it. We made it to the end of season three. Congratulations. Unbelievable. Congratulations, sir. All right, guys. Stay tuned next week when Robbie and I will complete the Scorpion, not even a trilogy,

the Scorpion saga with the Part 2 version of Scorpion. We'll be reviewing part two and figuring out if Harry Kim makes it through and if Voyager is okay. So join us next week when we do that. Thanks a lot, guys, for tuning in for this week. Thanks, guys. So, you know, B.

B. B. B. Bhopal, B, Bhopal, B, Bhop,

B, Bhop, B, B, B, B, B, B,

Tom. Hey, Harry, what's up, buddy? I just came to, I came to visit you. You know, I had to ask you. I'd ask you a really important question. What? Yeah. I can barely hear you, but okay.

Anyway, what's that on your face, by the way? Mustard. Oh. And relish. Yeah. Linguini. You really, you really looked like a mess. Did the Neelix?

a plate of like a barbecue, you know, lunch at your face? Did you get a fight with Neelich or something? Yeah, so funny. I can't even laugh. Am I making you hungry? Yeah, you actually are. I think I'm going to go to Mess Hall and grab a hot dog with some, all the fixings. Okay. All right. I'll see you later. Feel better there, buddy. You wash your face. Thank you. Thank you.